Name: Sita

Social Media Handle/Username: mamasitaa__

Introduce Yourself/Tell About Yourself: I’m a 36 year old mother of two, living in the Lost Coast wonderland known as Humboldt County. I love peaceful adventure and accidental exercise, utilizing activities like scuba diving and roller skating to find comfort and excite my soul. When I’m not pouring my energy into making my space an oasis to nurture my homebody tendencies, you can find me exploring our beaches or redwoods. Currently struggling to overcome my long covid diagnosis and return to the energy and fitness levels I had before my acute infection.

What Inspires You Every day? : Beauty, happiness, and helping others are my biggest inspirations in life. Beauty is everywhere around us. It’s in our smiles that we cast at unsuspecting strangers, it’s in the intimacy shared giving nose kisses to my children, it’s in the sounds of the birds and chipmunks and wind playing in the redwood canopies. Happiness is found just beyond the sadness, happiness is found in little triumphs, in moments of remembrance, in the exact moment when you realize it’s not that serious. Beauty and happiness are the results of helping others. Smile, put someone else first, be happy on purpose.

What is some words of wisdom you live by?: I’ve also had a lust of words, finding comforts in the written thoughts of others. So many different quotes and pieces of advice have helped me carry me through the ups and downs in life, but the most relevant in my life as of late comes from Cheryl Strayed, “How wild it was, to let it be.” What an exceptional reminder for someone like me, whose natural tendency is to assert control, to simply allow life to be and follow the wild adventure that will certainly take me beyond what my control would have otherwise allowed. Although I first came across this quote while working through an exceptionally hard break up, it’s became a staple in my mind as I surrender to the circumstances of the last two years.

What is your ultimate goal in life? : My only goal in life is to leave it better than I found it. I believe we all are souls, essentially energy, fully connected, temporarily using these bodies. When we work on ourselves, when we view others with empathy and understanding that we’re all connected, when we strive to act through love and compassion, we position ourselves to be better, and to leave the world better. When we help others, even in the simplest of ways, we help ourselves. Connection is one thing we all have in common, and the minute we realize every action and thought we have creates a ripple through our world, we can harness that power to create positive changes. It sounds a lot easier than it is in practical application… especially when I’m behind the wheel of my vehicle. 😉

What are your thoughts on people who seek attention on social media, and what message would you like to give them? : This is a tired question, in my opinion, at this point in our collective timeline. Starting the third year of a worldwide pandemic, where the smartest of us are largely social distancing and seeking our interpersonal interactions through social media, I’d guess the majority of us are seeking all sorts of things from our social media channels: attention, connection, humor, drama, etc. Although it is undeniable that social media has a multitude of negative impacts, in the midst of a pandemic where the entirety of our world’s population (minus the rich who are getting richer) are facing struggles beyond what we could have ever prepared for, I don’t think its the time to focus on the negative impacts of our few social channels. My advice, give yourself grace. Understand it’s not that real, but also understand if it’s all you have right now, it’s okay. Do your best and remember to always love yourself outside of whatever impact social media makes on you. Behind the screen is a real human, sacred and learning, imperfect and wonderful.

What are your thoughts about people’s behavior from experience, and how would you help them.? : The older I get, the more I realize not a single person has it figured out. Each of us are fighting our own demons, each of us are on our own life’s path, complex and full obstacles created for our own soul’s growth. We can never truly understand another person’s experience, as each of us view life through our limited perspectives made up of our experiences, the people we’ve met along the way, our perception of events, and so much more. If you want to help others, seek compassion, and seek understanding yourself first. Compassion comes from love, and love is the basis of all things.

What qualities, traits or lifestyle you live makes you different from others in the world? : As complex is the truth that we are all deeply individual beings, it is just as true that we all share so much as well. An example: when our hearts get broken, we feel so alone and isolated, that no one can understand the pain deep within our hearts. However, each person reading and understanding that sentiment goes to show that we all experience the same thing, even though we feel incredibly isolated in those feelings. There’s layers to this, on an entirely different level, what may be normal to a collective group of people may feel so far removed from another social group. Another example, where I live in the US, cannabis is cash crop and our laws reflect a very relaxed approach to the plant. Most within my community work in capacity in the cannabis industry. However, if you travel a few states East, it becomes a whispered word, shrouded in fear of legal trouble and misunderstanding of it’s actual use in our wonderful world. So while my lifestyle might feel foreign to someone who lives in Mississippi, it is business as usual to other inhabitants of the Emerald Triangle.

What else would you like to tell others about you or your life?: The nuance of being human is that regardless of the confidence in which I spoke my perceptions in this interview, I struggle immensely with the translation to practical application. We can all speak a great game, project confidence, share only the highlights of our life, and exude the idea that we have it all figured out, but in reality, we’re all struggling with imposter syndrome, we’re all in the practice of fake it until you make it. The people who have gone far in life have done so through grit and pretending. None of us know exactly what we’re doing, but if we act confidently enough, we can make it appear that we do, or even better, even convince ourselves that we do. It’s all illusion. I struggle with this truth so much. I sometimes struggle with the illusion that others have it figured out, that other people have these magical lives that just flow effortlessly, but the truth is, we all struggle. Even those born with a silver spoon in their mouth. Even those who have everything handed to them. Life is is about struggle, and the quicker we embrace that and realize the purpose is to struggle and get better, the better off we’ll all be.