Meet Deepshikha Sairam

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Deepshikha Sairam. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Deepshikha, really happy you were able to join us today and we’re looking forward to sharing your story and insights with our readers. Let’s start with the heart of it all – purpose. How did you find your purpose?

You know the saying “you don’t find your purpose, your purpose finds you?” It is only partly correct. Your purpose can find you and most definitely will, but you have to be willing to look at it and most importantly have the courage to follow it. It is not the “finding” that is the problem, it is having the courage and determination to follow through, no matter what.

When I was 9 years old, I stole a copy of The Alice in Wonderland from my sister. I was home from school due to a terrible ear infection and despite my mom’s plea, I could not get myself to sleep because of the intense ear pain.

I don’t remember anything else about that day – what I ate for lunch, who was home after my mom left for work – but I distinctly remember being completely mesmerized by Alice’s adventures. So much so that I forgot all about my ear pain.

Later in the night, I sneaked a flashlight under the covers to continue my reading. I thought to myself, “can words and stories do this? Can they make people forget where they are, and the pain they are in, and transport them to an entirely different world?”

That day my love for the written word was born.

My purpose had found me that day, but it would take me another 30 years to really start taking it seriously.

I always knew I had a book in me. Maybe even several. I always knew that Writing was the love of my life. But I followed the path that was laid in front of me, a more “acceptable” path. One that many women had taken before me.

This is how it went. School, college, a decent ‘9-to-5 job’, marriage, kids and then the cycle of daily chores and the mundane of everyday continues. My mom did this, my aunts did this, my sister did this. Hell, even my friends did this.

I tried to break this pattern many times in between. 15 years ago, I even quit my well paying job at a leading American bank to….you guessed it…write a book. But then I got pregnant with my first child and a few years later with my second and my words, my story, my characters were forgotten.

3 years ago, in the middle of the pandemic, I found myself burnt out, depressed and completely out of steam. I decided to take a sabbatical from a business I was running at the time (and yeah, I was actually running it full steam ahead, pun intended there!). I took a lot of time to focus on me. What do I want, what do I like. I started to, for the first time in my life, put myself first.

I started meditating, started resting when tired and I got myself into therapy. I took care of my body, my mind and my soul. Those days, in the moments of stillness, when I asked myself “What is my purpose?” The answer was always the same. The image of a wide eyed 9-year-old, fascinated by Alice’s adventures.

I want to write books. Plural. That was it. That was what my soul had been trying to tell me since I was 9.

I turned 40 this year and only now I can say that I have completely given myself the permission to follow my purpose. So yeah, my purpose did find me long time ago but then I lost it and I lost it again and again. It never left me though. It was always there in the background, gently nudging me through various stages of life.

Today as I am close to the finish line of writing the first draft of a Memoir, I can say with absolute certainty that not only did I find my purpose, I also found the courage to follow it.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

Writing (any kind) is a creative journey. Just like any other art form, it is a gift from the Divine. The common belief is that there are people who can write and there are those who can’t. This is a blatant lie. Anyone can write. Everyone can write. What I love the most about writing is that it has the capacity to hold so much from us. Writing is a somatic experience, it can connect our mind and body and help us heal. We can write about our trauma, we can write about our struggles, we can write about our problems, we can write about our dreams. It hold all of it, and helps us integrate and heal and process all these different and complicated layers of emotions we humans are bestowed with.

One of the things that I learned in my journey is that it wasn’t that my life wasn’t interesting or my trauma wasn’t deep enough to write about, or I didn’t have enough stories or that I didn’t have enough time to write {you can replace these with anything that stops you from writing or writing more}. It was that I didn’t have the safety in my body to write about some of the hard things and because my nervous system was always dysregulated (flight, fight or freeze), I couldn’t find those longer moments of being in the path of pure inspiration.

Learning how to regulate my nervous system as I write my Memoir and being in a safe and social state has been key for my writing to flow and grow.

I am in the process of creating a community of writers where we can learn the tools to write, tap into our creative flow and feel safe while doing it. So if you’re a writer of any level or you would like to write more (even if it is journal writing), watch out for our upcoming Writing Workshops. I’d love to have you!

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

Resilience, Courage and the deep desire to grow and evolve. I have failed a lot and had a lot of Dark Nights of the Soul, but I have never given up on myself. There is a quote from Jen Sincero’s book, You Are a Badass Everyday. “This is your one and only life we are talking about here. Stay the course.”

I have this written on a post-it and tucked inside my wallet.

Stay the Course. Fail fast. Have the courage to get up.

Thanks so much for sharing all these insights with us today. Before we go, is there a book that’s played in important role in your development?

So many books have played a role in my development. I’ll talk about a recent one I read. It’s called Hidden Potential by Adam Grant.

Here are my top lessons from this book:

1. When opportunity doesn’t knock, look for ways to build a door or climb through a window.

2. Start before you’re ready

3. Seek discomfort

4. Set a mistake budget. To encourage trial and error, set a goal for the minimum number of mistakes you want to make per day or per week.

5. Seek out new knowledge, skills and perspectives (become a sponge) to fuel your growth – not your ego. Focus on quality not on quantity

6. Ask for advice, not for feedback – what’s one thing I can do better next time

7. Strive for excellence, not perfection – practice the Japanese method of Wabi Sabi, the art of honoring beauty in imperfection. Questions to ask – did you make yourself better today? Did you make someone else better today?

8. Before you send something out in the world, asses if it represents you well? If this was the only work people saw, would you be proud of it?

9. Mental time travel – consider how your past self would view your current achievements?

10. When you are stuck, back up to move forward. Find a compass, not a map and seek multiple guides aka ask for help (not just once and not just from one person)

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.deepshikhasairam.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/deepshikhasairam/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/deepshikhasairam
• Other: ttps://deepshikhasairam.substack.com/