A Note of Dedication
This practice and website are dedicated to my daughter. She is only four, but she has already been my greatest teacher—showing me in real-time what I've known in my bones but couldn't quite articulate since I was a little one myself.
The path to her was long and uncertain. Years of waiting, hoping, and learning to trust timing that felt impossible to understand. In that journey, I began to glimpse something about patience, about honoring natural rhythms, about the difference between forcing and allowing. But it wasn't until she arrived—and began showing me her own profound self-knowledge—that these understandings deepened into something I could name and share.
The frameworks and approaches you'll find here aren't just professionally informed—they're lived. They emerge from years of learning to trust that impossible timing, from those rare people who offered the profound gift of true presence—meeting me exactly where I was, and from choosing to center the inner work that is often skipped over in a world where external achievements have been the priority. Thich Nhat Hanh's teaching about cultivating true love through deep listening became a lifeline, showing me what it means to truly be here for someone. But it was watching my daughter navigate the world with such innate wisdom that stopped me in my tracks and crystallized everything, making me reconsider what I thought I knew about development and trust—the very things I'd spent my working life believing I understood.
From the daily lessons in honoring authentic needs over external expectations to the way she moves through transitions with such self-knowledge, she has been the quiet architect of much of this work. At four, she's shown me that the most profound wisdom often comes not from pushing forward, but from the capacity to observe both what's happening within yourself and what's unfolding in the relationships around you—and to trust the connection between the two.
This poem maps the relational networks that supported her self-discovery, showing how her teachers' awareness of their own positioning as guides rather than controllers created space for her inner knowing to lead the way:
Knowing Herself
She knew herself.
Small hands reaching,
mouth seeking what it needed—
not what we thought she should need.
Two years of insistence,
two years of trust
in the wisdom of her own becoming.
Then: a room full of others,
small faces like hers but different.
Watching. Learning.
Her teachers saw too—
not a problem to solve,
not a habit to break,
but a child in transition.
They held space
between what was and what would be,
never pulling her forward,
always walking beside.
A few weeks of bridging,
comfort in one pocket,
curiosity in the other,
while gentle eyes watched over both.
Until the morning
she left her soothie behind,
not because we said so,
not because time said so,
not because they pushed,
but because she said so.
The letting go
as natural as breathing,
as necessary as the holding on
had been.
Some things cannot be taught.
Some wisdom lives
in the space between
what is needed
and what is ready
to be released—
held safe by those
who know the difference
between helping
and hurrying.
She knew herself.
Her teachers knew her.
She always knew herself.
To my daughter: thank you for being my teacher, my inspiration, and my reminder that wisdom often comes in the smallest packages with the biggest trust in their own knowing.
And to all of her PreK teachers, and to all teachers who do the invisible work that allows children to thrive: thank you for truly seeing my child, for your steady presence during her transitions, and for demonstrating what it looks like to hold professional wisdom and genuine care together.
Everything here is because of everything you are.
Sarika S. Gupta, Ph.D.
