My #1 tip for you as I sign off and unplug in preparation for the new year

Love

Hello,
It's Sunita here.

Last night as I was finishing up with my last patient of the year, I felt all the fatigue and wear that I had stubbornly refused to acknowledge, as I kept a super busy schedule for the past several weeks. December is always a busy month at work and things are no different at home. School recitals, holiday entertaining, shopping, sending out Christmas cards (Sending out holiday cards- A source of stress for you or an act of Self Love? 11/30/2018 blog)  and the other many end of the year tasks clog the calendar and take up any free time that may normally be available to me.

As much as all of these commitments and activities are blessings, they take a toll on my body and mind. Rushing from one project to another taxes my patience. The multiple decisions that need to be made all day long makes me constantly feel charged. And that results in a crash.

In all of this, let me be honest about the increased amount of sugar intake I have in December. I can't even blame anyone else for that. I bake for the holidays and I eat what I bake. The sweets don't help in the way I feel physically.

I wouldn't change much of anything but I do know what I will be doing to recharge as I head into some time off before 2019 starts.

I will practice more self love self care first.
I will spend more time with myself and my family .
I will unplug from all social media.
I will write.
I will think about my year and it's blessings.
I will read.

I will love.

But most importantly, I will sleep more.

Sleep is the best investment we can make in our lives to be able to not only avoid disease but to also maximize and leverage all our natural abilities and talents.

So my #1 tip for you as you end the year and prepare for 2019 is to
focus on regulating your bedtime and awake time to be consistent. 

Even if you are on vacation, it is best to stick to this routine. There are many temptations that can take you away from that but try to stay true to this commitment the best you can. It will pay off many fold- physically, mentally and in your relational life. You can learn more by visiting
https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/files/docs/public/sleep/healthy_sleep.pdf

It has been an incredible year for me and I am excited to continue to share with you what I have learnt in my journey as a trauma survivor and to promote self love self care first. Thank you for tuning in and supporting my blog. Please subscribe to it if you enjoy it and share it with others that may as well.

Having intimately known incredible dark and lonely places, I celebrate every sunny day and moments of connection with myself and others. 

And I celebrate love!

I share my poem Nightfall from my book Stripping, My Fight to Find Me in closing this year.

NIGHTFALL

At the end of the day,
All I get to keep
Is
The love
I gave away

# 61 in the collection

Be well, Do well, Live well

Sunita

#selloveselfcarefirst  #jointhemovement

Our Presence is the best Present we have to offer

Hello,
It's Sunita here.

I was chatting with my patient Jazmyn as I was treating her this week. I asked her how her holiday preparations were going. She told me that she was stressed out because she still had to buy a gift for her sister, which was tough as she was in the middle of finals.

Now having known Jazmyn for a while , I have learnt how caring, thoughtful and creative she is. She is a ambitious college student who also works part time. She comes to her appointments with such positive energy that it's always a pleasure to take care of her.

I reassured Jazmyn that her sister would not want her to be worrying about buying a gift for her during her exams and that she would most likely be happiest spending time with her during the holidays.

I reminded her that our presence is the best and most valuable present that we have to offer anyone.

I can't deny that there was a time that I too stressed about buying gifts during the holiday's. It really took away the joy of the season. And it created a time burden that was impossible to remain calm under.

It was only after I received the gift of someone's entire presence that I truly understood how valuable it was. Fully focusing our attention on someone is saying to them- I have nothing else in this world right now that is more important than you. I want to hear what you have to say and I am thoroughly enjoying being in your company.

Being present with another person requires that we genuinely be interested in them and not allow distractions to interrupt us. It's the conversation, the activity, the shared experience that creates a memory that is imprinted on our mind and soul.

That memory is the gift! Both to us, and the other person.

Of course, it's practically impossible to be with all our friends and family members during the holidays. So for those that are far away, I try to be present with them when I buy a gift for them. The thought that goes into their gift is actually my gift to them. The item is just a token of that process.

Reassuring Jazmyn this week became an opportunity for me to remind myself of the value of our presence as a present. So thank you for our conversation Jazmyn. And thank you for giving me your permission to share this story. I hope you have a wonderful time at Christmas with your family.

Keeping things simple keeps the stress down at this hectic time of the year.
Keeping the focus on the most important things in life keeps the spirit of the holidays alive.
Keeping our awareness of our essence and sharing our presence with our loved ones helps us keep our connection with them.
And since we are wired for connection, that is an act of supreme self love and self care.

Wishing you many presents of presence this holiday season,
Be well Do well Live well,
Sunita

#selfloveselfcarefirst  #jointhemovement

Celebrating our Heart Bliss is not optional if we want to choose to live with joy

 Celebrating our Heart Bliss must be a Practice 

Hello,
It's Sunita here.

If you've read even a few poems from my book Stripping, My Fight to Find Me, you know how depression, anxiety and feelings of hopelessness can take over the reality of life.

Having had a long history of living with the darkness of trauma, I know that joy can become not only elusive, but absent.

Further more, anyone who has suffered from mental illness or is caring for a loved one who is mentally ill may feel extreme guilt when feelings of happiness and joy knock at their mind's doorstep. So they do not open the door and remain sequestered with despair and loneliness.

What is bliss?
Well, it's a noun that means perfect happiness ; great joy.
Some synonyms for bliss are joy; happiness; pleasure; delight; ecstasy; elation; rapture; euphoria
Bliss is also a verb; to reach a state of perfect happiness so as to be oblivious of everything else

What brings you to a state of bliss? That is a very important question because it can help you counteract the hold that depression may have on you in addition to increasing the joy in your life.

What lights up the pleasure zones of your brain and brings you to a state of ecstasy where everything else around you and inside you becomes irrelevant at that moment of time?

I am a firm believer of writing things down as they come to you. So I actually have a running Bliss List on my phone. This way I remember what made me feel happy. And then, I plan to reproduce that feeling of pleasure and joy by doing what's on my list.

The operative word here is plan!

Especially if I am feeling blue. So instead of staying put on the quicksand of anxiety, I refer to my Bliss List and pick something that appeals to me and is readily available at that moment. And this changes the direction of the tide flow of my mood.

It is a conscious decision that is made with emotional precision. Because I have practiced making this choice thousands of times, and continue to practice choosing joy. At times, it is neither easy nor convenient. Going back to deeply embedded patterns of helplessness is still, despite my healing, never an option that is unavailable to me but suffering from the pain of that world has become unacceptable to me.

(Here I would like to clearly state that for some, major depression and mental illness could make it very hard, if not impossible to make such choices for a while. At that time, medical attention from a caring, competent and qualified professional/medication or both may very well be indicated. Please seek that care for yourself or a loved one and don't go at it alone)

The picture above is the inspiration for today's blog.

I took it to attach it with a note of  thanks to a dear friend who had sent me these flowers and this beautiful card. When I looked at this photograph, I felt my heart expanding in a special way, which I recognized to be Heart Bliss. So I stopped to think about what caused me to feel that joy.

Well, the picture has 3 things from the Top 10 of my Heart Bliss List.

Books- I'm always reading at least 3-5 books and can't imagine a life without books
Flowers- I'm in love with every flower I've ever seen
Friendship card- I couldn't live without the deep connection I feel for those I love


So there it is!

I hope you will consider keeping a Bliss List tab.
I hope you will choose joy and hope over despair.
I hope you will remember the most important point of this blog.
That we must PRACTICE choosing bliss.

Every day, every hour and every moment...

Wishing you a blissful week,
Be well Do well Live well,
Sunita

#selloveselfcarefirst  #jointhemovement

Sending out holiday cards- A source of stress for you or an act of Self Love?

Artist credit:Amy Payne of minted.marketplace.com

Hello,
It's Sunita here.

Once the Thanksgiving leftovers are all eaten and the turkey platter has been put back in the china closet, I look forward to receiving my friend Tracey's holiday card. She is always the first to mail her cards and opening her envelope and seeing her beautiful girls picture officially starts the season for me.

I don't know about you, but years ago, I used to get very stressed around November. Either my cards had not been ordered or bought, or my mailing list was outdated, or my time was stretched in a million different directions by then. Whatever the reason, I would feel very overwhelmed by this 'task'. It would cause heart palpitations and frankly some resentment at 'having' to send out Christmas cards.

Until I changed how I was approaching my life.

I decided to be truthful about my feelings.

And that included my feelings about those that were on my list. That released the obligation part of the process and allowed me to focus on the 'why' of sending out our family's greetings at this wonderful time of the year.

I looked carefully at our list and recognized names of friends and family that had not only never reciprocated with a card, but had never even acknowledged receiving our holiday card and note. Nor had they contacted us any other time during the year to catch up and make an effort to include us in their life.

They were crossed off the list.

Next were those that I knew were on the list only because they sent us a card or had been on the list for years. Kind of like being grandfathered in. I felt it was disingenuous of me to do the same, when I did not necessarily feel like making the effort to mail them a card. I realized the insincerity of me  doing that. I must admit that crossing them off took a lot more courage than I thought it would. I felt 'not nice'.  But after some honest conversation with myself I realized that that feeling was in response to my perceived expectations of others.

So I crossed out those names from my list.

After this editing process, I consciously decided how I wanted to be guided in this tradition of ours. I wanted to feel happy inside and smile every time I addressed an envelope. I wanted to be able to visualize the faces of those whose names I was writing on the cards and feel a desire to enclose a warm hug or a genuinely interested 'how are you guys doing' along with our greeting. I wanted this tradition to be a reflection of a conscious and authentic choice that I was making to connect with the people that are a significant part of our life.

I wanted to find joy in this ritual of connecting with those that add meaning to our life and use it as an opportunity to express that sentiment to them.

I must say that the list gets edited every year because life is dynamic and that is reflected in the edits. I still use the yardsticks mentioned above to keep my list manageable but it's sad for me to cross off names because people have passed on. When that raw emotion hits me, I take that moment to sit and think about them and reflect on how they enriched my life. I also make sure that we add names to the list of those that have joined our life in beautiful ways that year.

And then I move on to the next name...

So you see how sending out our Holiday Card become a beautiful opportunity for me (the person who writes the cards and mails them) and us as a family (we design our cards and work on the list together) to enjoy and cherish our relationships. The celebration of our loved ones through this communication connects us to them.

And that makes it an act of Self Love Self Care First.

We haven't got the list down to a science because that would be impossible. It is a work in progress. Just like we are. And just like our relationships are.

If someone is not on our Holiday List that does not mean that they are not important to us. It's just that we had to scale things down to the point where we could eliminate the stress and instead enjoy the process and add meaning to it.

That made all the difference.

So here's to a magical hot cocoa or hot toddy evening of writing cards, while you listen to your favorite music and visit your list,
Be well Do well Live well,
Sunita

#selfloveselfcarefirst  #jointhemovement


What Amy Payne says about herself
I am a loving wife and mother of four cute kids. I am a lifetime resident of Pacific Northwest. Before falling in love with stationery design, I studied and worked as a food scientist making ice cream and yogurt favors! My designs are typically inspired by my beautiful surroundings in Washington. I love cool greens, blues, and grays and always gravitate towards simplicity.

I hope you will take a moment to visit Amy's page 
https://www.minted.com/store/amypayne?feature=artist_store&event=click&domain=pdp_header&t_api=1

Thanksgiving Dinner, Penn Station, Self Love and Self Care

Hello,
It's Sunita here.

A few weeks ago, my husband and I had planned to go into Manhattan to see family who were visiting from Texas. The weather decided to turn on the 'Monsoon' station and put a wrench in those plans. It was dark, cold, windy and raining cats and dogs. Meeting up with my brother-in-law and his wife, despite both being favorites of mine, suddenly lost its excitement . Walking long city blocks in that weather after a work day and a train and subway ride to get there did not appeal to me. However, some creative thinking solved the problem. We decided to meet up at Penn Station. This way, we could all travel underground and no one would have to brave the elements, so we could still catch up and visit as we had wanted to.

If you have ever been in Penn Station you know that it is one of the world's best place to people watch. As we sat at one of the many restaurants that make up this underground world, I noticed that almost everyone (if not everyone) that was by them self was on their cell phone or some another device. Heads down, intent on texting, reacting to scrolls of pictures popping up on their screens, playing a game or listening to music. Daily commuting is draining, boring and unpredictable with schedule changes and train issues that pop up so I understand the want to escape from the craziness that can set in.

But what was really disturbing to me that evening was observing what unfolded at the table next to us.

A young couple sat across from each other after greeting each other with a quick kiss. They both looked like they were possibly in their mid to late 20's. She had a sparkling diamond ring on her engagement finger that suggested that they were engaged to each other. They both had a rolling suitcase with them so maybe they were on their way out of town. They sat there for a period of about half an hour eating pizza and sipping on a soda.

During this entire time they were on their phones. They only occasional communication they had with each other was when they stopped to share an Instagram photo with the other and maybe say a few words at that time. I watched them as they both lifted their pizza slices to their mouths without even looking at their food. Their eyes remained glued to their screens. They mindlessly chewed and then sipped their drinks through their straws, again without detaching from their engagement with their devices. When I looked carefully at them, they looked stressed, were overweight, and had the appearance of being overwhelmed.

Now you could make a strong argument of me not knowing what is going on in their lives and jumping to conclusions about them being in a place that is less than optimal living. And you would be absolutely right. You could tell me that it is none of my business to judge them. And again, you would be right. You may even suggest that I should have been engrossed enough in my own company to not have time to make to these observations. And once again, you may be right.

The fact, though, is that we as a society have adopted behaviors and habits that are detrimental to our mental health and well being. We are wired for connection, so every time we neglect to nurture that need, we suffer. We get disconnected with those we love and need to feel connected to in order to live vitally and vibrantly.

And worst of all, we get disconnected from our self. That causes us to feel depressed and despondent. It may just start out as sadness and feeling 'blue'.

But it is a hole that is endlessly deep and dangerous.

So I am choosing to speak out about the harm of behaviors that are now embedded in our ways of life. Not from a place of judgement but a place of grave concern and with the hope that it will spark an honest conversation.

The unconscious habit of grabbing our devices and feeling like we are 'connected' to our Facebook "friends" or are part of a celebrity's life is deceptive and an escape from the realities of our own lives.

How is it that the person right in front of us does not get our attention and presence but a fantasy friend does? How does broadcasting a 'connecting moment' happening in real life on one's social media, in real time help us to connect to the emotion of that moment?

It doesn't...

And we are seeing the ravages of this disconnect all around us. The anxiety, depression and uncertainty felt by millions is no longer a secret.

We cannot ignore it any longer.

We publicly make  a big fuss of Thanksgiving Day being an occasion for us to get together with those whom we love and to be thankful for all our blessings. I wonder if the scene at that table in Penn Station was a theme that repeated itself in any shape or form in homes across the country yesterday, even on the smallest of scales.

I hope not.

Thanksgiving is a beautiful day when friends, family, food and traditions come together to create lasting memories of love and connection in our brains. It is such occasions that create a history of positive emotions and memories in our brains that help us build the resilience that is critical for us to survive harsh events and challenges in our life.

So I hope your device was tucked away yesterday - somewhere you were not responding to every notification, but you could periodically check it, on your terms, for loving messages of those that could not join you but wanted to reach out and let you know that they were thinking of you, and are grateful that you are a part of their life. That way you could be present for them while not neglecting your guests and being distracted all day. It would be a win-win situation.

I hope your day was spent cooking, laughing, eating, watching the Macy's Day Parade and the countless (or so it seemed to me...) football games on TV, going for a walk with someone you enjoy, napping on the couch after feeling a food coma come upon you, visiting the never ending dessert table or indulging in any other family traditions of the day.

Most of all, I hope you truly connected with your company by being present.

We are blessed if we did.

Because our families, in whichever way you choose to define "family'" are our true wealth. They have the power to make us feel loved, safe and valuable. And that results in us feeling strong. And that helps build resilience in us. And that adds infinitely and consistently to our health, happiness and well being.

So you see, loving others IS an act of Self Love Self Care First.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours,
Be well Do well Live well,
Sunita

#selfloveselfcarefirst  #jointhemovement

Love is the Master says Rumi. Trauma disagrees...

Hello,

It's Sunita here.

My heart gets drenched in love when I visit with Rumi. This maybe the first blog post where I share his words but I promise it won't be the last.

I often dismissed, downplayed, ignored, and downright declined the invitation to love when I was suffering from trauma. Depression artfully convinces us that we are not good enough to be loved. It also successfully propagates the lie that no one loves us. We will delve into that in more detail at other visits. 

Today however, is all about Rumi and his words about love.

If you are suffering from depression and are anxious, he will remind you of the power of love. If you are feeling strong and connected, he reaffirms so beautifully what you already know about love.

Love is the Master 

Love is the One who masters all things;

I am mastered totally by Love.

By my passion of love for Love

I have ground sweet as sugar.

O furious Wind, I am only a straw before you;

How could I know where I will blown next?

Whoever claims to have made a pact with Destiny

Reveals himself a liar and a fool:

What is any of us but a straw in a storm?

How could anyone make a pact with a hurricane?

God is working everywhere his massive Resurrection;

How can we pretend to act on our own?

In the hand of Love I am like a cat in a sack;

Sometimes Love hoists me into the air,

Sometimes Love flings me to the ground.

Love swings me round and round His head;

I have no peace, in this world or any other.

The Lovers of God have fallen in a furious river;

They have surrendered themselves to Love's commands.

Like mill wheels they turn, day and night, day and night,

Constantly turning and turning, and crying out.

(translated by Andrew Harvey)

Wishing you a week full of love,

Be well Do well Live well,

Sunita

#selfloveselfcarefirst  #jointhemovement

Scheduling time for yourself to 'do nothing'

Our mind is a source of infinite wisdom, guidance and intuition

Hello,
It's Sunita here.

If you feel even a little overwhelmed thinking about the slew of activities, obligations, duties and chores that you 'must' accomplish before Monday morning hits again, then you belong to much of our society.

It may be that a lot of what we have on our 'to do list' is important to the process of moving our lives along but it's hard for me to accept that all of it is. Our priorities are strongly influenced by so many factors that are internal and external. I am often driven by the need to be a good ________.

You can fill in the blank here by all the roles you play in your life and you get the picture.

But I learnt that I did best when I had time to myself. Time that came without an agenda, a plan, interruptions, expectations or demands of myself. I call it my 'do nothing' time. I ended up finding myself in that time. From an unstructured place came great structure. From silence came great insights. From seclusion came connection- to me.

The single most often asked question I get is 'How do you find time to do everything that you do?

This 'do nothing' time is my secret weapon.

It gives me clarity, taps into my intuition, restores me and gifts me the ability to prioritize and channel my energy and efforts towards the things that matter the most to me.

And I am convinced that it will do the same for you.

However, I must tell you that it does take discipline to make yourself a priority and schedule time to 'do nothing' on a regular basis.

Yes, schedule time. Just like you do for everything else in your life. No matter how busy you are, you must commit to this time.

There is an additional benefit of making time to 'do nothing'. Just the act of doing so lifts my spirit and confirms my self-worth to me. In carving out time for myself with no outward 'label' (like driving my kids to activities, date night, working, having dinner with friends, etc...) I reaffirm my intrinsic value.

So, I ask you- are you ready to dive into the world of doing nothing?

Baby steps, perhaps? A half hour this weekend?

I would love to hear from you about your experience. And if you already are a do-nothing person, I invite you to share what you experience in that space and place.

Wishing you a week full of wisdom and intuition,
Be well Do well Live well,
Sunita

#selfloveselfcarefirst  #jointhemovement

photo credit gdtography

Forbidden Love

Just thinking of loving you

Seems so felonious

From Forbidden Love

#12 in the collection

Hello,

It's Sunita here.


Self Love Self Care First is a simple phrase that sounds earnestly good to me. When I hear it, I automatically connect to the common sense that goes along with this concept.

But it was decades before I realized how deeply ingrained and hidden to me my lack of self-love was. It was years of grappling with the devastating and damaging effects of developmental trauma that led to my discovery of the twisted relationship I had with myself.

It wasn't all bad though. I had always had a healthy and strong component to my being that helped me become the successful person that I was. But, there was a constant internal production of self-doubt and disapproval of me buried within my psyche that would never allow me to be completely happy. Whatever I achieved was not enough, whatever I accomplished was never good enough. It was a vicious cycle of dissatisfaction and discontent.

As I worked through the process of repair, I regained my sense of self and ultimately found out that I was good enough and worthy to be loved for who I am- not for what I do.

But that love for me needed to come from me. That is what built my resilience and healthy drive to fulfill my potential as a human being. Now anything I do comes from a place of self love- not from a need to fill an infinite hole.


As I got healthy and started to consistently play by the Self Love Self Care First rules, I started to notice how many others were suffering because of their dissociation from their highest self.


Brain damage and mental illness is just one of the ways we lose touch with our self. We are shaped and influenced by society's messaging, role definitions, family structures, cultural expectations, portrayal of beauty and images of success in advertising, gender politics, social media distortions, peer pressure and frankly, projected inadequacies of others on us.


From the time we are born, we absorb all of this. Consciously and even more dangerously, unconsciously.


If you feel that you want to break free of whatever it is that is preventing you from loving yourself as the divine being that you are, then this blog is for you.


I intimately understand the daunting challenges of stripping off the layers of negative messaging and unconscious drives to self sabotage. Or achieve empty success.


I now also intimately understand that Self Love Self Care First is the only way for us to live a life of joy, fulfill our potential and most importantly, selflessly serve others.


So, I hope you will continue to tune in here on Fridays and will invite your friends to join us as well. This is a complex and complicated issue that demands an honest conversation. And that is what I promise you. I will be talking about both the science and spirituality that must be accessed to get to the point of self love. And celebrating our successes as we go along!


What will be your act of Self Love Self Care First today? I am headed to the gym to get my groove for the day.


Be well Do well Live well,

Sunita


PS- To read the rest of Forbidden Love in Stripping: My Fight to Find Me or listen to me reading it to you on the Audio version of the book, please visit SunitaMerriman.com

Your struggle is not your identity- or is it?

Hello,

It's Sunita here.

Unfortunately, none of us are exempt from the challenges of daily life and the trials and tribulations of being human. Some of us get more than our fair share of obstacles thrown our way. We have no control over the circumstances that we inherit, nor do we control most of the life events that come our way.

So how do you think about your journey. What words come to mind when you picture your life?

That is important for you to know because it has a huge impact on your thoughts. And your thoughts are directing your actions. Especially your unconscious ones.

If the word struggle comes up a lot, then you may want to examine that. Have the difficulties and challenges you face become synonymous with a struggle? 

If so, then it is time to find different words to describe your response to whatever is happening in your life. 

That will make all the difference.

How do I know? 

Because for a large part of my life, I associated my journey with the word struggle. And those of you who have read my book Stripping, My Fight to Find Me know that I had every reason to feel that way. Adverse childhood experiences and trans-generational trauma caused toxic stress, depression, anxiety and whole bunch of other issues for me. 

But until I used the word fight, I was a victim. 

And victims can't take control of their life. Neither can they find the strength that they possess within themselves. They are looking for others to fix them. And that is impossible because only we can fix ourselves. 

Often times with others helping us. But we must be the ones desiring to make things better for ourselves. We must seek help from the right people and we must actively work for and direct our recovery.

So, you see, using the word struggle is not going to be of any use to you when you think of your life.

How does Fight sound instead?

Sending you my very best to you for a powerful week,

Be well Do well Live well,

Sunita

Hello, My name is Sunita

Hello,

My name is Sunita.

I am a writer, a wife, a mother, a doctor, a friend, a family member, and a survivor of developmental trauma.

My aspirations for this blog are to touch others and inspire them to design their life in a way that fulfills their potential, brings them meaning and makes the world a more loving place.

Through my journey and ferocious battle to unmask, understand and defeat the darkness that was the legacy of trauma from adverse childhood experiences, ACE’s and trans-generational wounds, I discovered that Self Love Self Care First was the only way for me to live a life of joy and fulfill my potential.

Loving myself first allowed me to begin to live an authentic, truthful and powerful life. It led me to find meaning and deep purpose. It gave me clarity of mind and spirit. It made me be a more present mother and wife and deepened my connection to everyone in my life.

I had many barriers to loving myself due to many reasons, but mostly due to the brain damage I suffered.

I quickly learnt that I wasn’t alone in having a very hard time putting myself first.

There are millions of us. 

I also found out, that without doing so, I was a shadow of who I was capable of being and frankly, of no use to anyone else.

I look forward to visiting with you on Friday afternoons with Self Love Self Care First as the common thread of what we talk about. 

I hope you will join me.

I wish you the most sacred of all loves, self- love.

Because you are worth it, you deserve it and you are entitled to it.

With my best,

Sunita

About the Author

In addition to being a poet, Dr. Sunita Merriman is a graduate of New York University, College of Dentistry, and a Diplomate of the American Board of Dental Sleep Medicine and the American Board of Craniofacial Sleep Medicine. She is the founder of the New Jersey Dental Sleep Medicine Center in Westfield, New Jersey and for over 25 years, has been dedicated to treating her patients with the belief that their mind, body and soul are connected.

Stripping- My fight to find Me is her first collection of poetry to be published. She is currently completing her second and third books, Permission- For Me to Fall in Love and Freedom- For Me to Just Be. Like her poetry in Stripping, they too translate the language and spirit of the unconscious.

These three collections of poetry will be offered as a “A Trilogy of Love”- A Story of Healing, Reclaiming and Awakening.

Sunita credits ISTDP, Intensive Short Term Dynamic Psychotherapy for treating the damage she suffered due to attachment, childhood and complex trauma. She is indebted to Dr. Habib Davanloo, who developed ISTDP, for not only his lifelong dedication to understanding, and teaching others how the human unconscious can be successfully, and predictably accessed for therapeutic relief but also for the generosity with which he offered his thoughts and insight about her poems in “Stripping".

Sunita is actively engaged in sharing her personal and professional insights of how ACEs and mental health impacts sleep and overall wellness with her colleagues in the medical community. Her goal is to promote trauma informed, interdisciplinary, and integrative care for patients that respects the mind-body connection.

In her journey back from darkness Sunita discovered that Self Love Self Care First® is the only way for us to fully realize our potential, live joyfully and serve others. It is her intention to share this powerful, and empowering discovery with others, and start a movement of Self Love Self Care First® She is a passionate advocate of those who suffer from ACE’s and mental illness and dedicated to promoting her belief in the infinite potential of the human spirit.

Sunita has been married to her husband Tim for 25 years and they are the parents of two wonderful daughters, Nina and Simrin. She lives in New Jersey, USA but is also a proud Canadian of Panjabi (Indian) descent.

Creating new realities, and expanding consciousness through poetry. 

Highlighting our relationships, connection, and sleep as the foundation of wellness and optimal living. Passionately advocating for those who suffer from ACEs and mental illness. 

Promoting Self Love Self Care First®

SunitaMerriman.com