The Strength Within: Grief, Parenting, and the Divine Pulse of Life

Grief, Reverence, and the Unseen Burden

I stepped into the temple, and something inside me broke open. It wasn’t gentle, and it wasn’t sudden. It was like standing before the ocean and feeling its pulse, each wave reaching deep into me, pulling something I wasn’t sure I was ready to release. My breath grew uneven, and tears began to fall, unbidden.

Grief rose within me, not sharp or piercing, but tidal, ancient, and vast. At first, it was the grief of becoming a parent, the weight of having carried life into the world while feeling abandoned in its aftermath. I thought of my pregnancy, how my community gathered around me with offerings of love and support, how my body was revered for the life it carried. Strangers would smile at my growing belly, their joy reflecting the miracle they saw in me. But when the life I carried came into the world, the reverence faded. The crowds thinned. The silence grew louder. It felt as though the world had taken its fill of the miracle and moved on, leaving me alone with the weight of it all.

I had borne not just a child but the expectation that I should carry on without complaint, without rest. The fatigue, the endless needs, the isolation, it was mine to manage. Society seemed to step back as if to say, “The baby has been born, now, please fade into the background.”

But the grief wasn’t only about becoming a parent. It was about the burden of being in a female body. It was about the endless expectations placed on us and the overwhelming exhaustion of trying to meet them. With each step I took drawing nearer to Maa Kamakhya, I couldn’t help but feel the contrast between my experience and the reverence offered to Ma Kamakhya. Thousands lined up daily to place flowers on a yoni, honoring her as the source of life, as sacred and whole.

And yet, for those of us living in these bodies, the story is so different. We are told to shrink, to smile when we’re tired, to serve without asking, to carry everything without complaint. We are told to do it all, perfectly and quietly, and if we falter, if we protest, if we get angry, we are dismissed as crazy, or difficult, or nagging.

Reclaiming My Strength: The Awakening Within

And yet, as I knelt on the cool stone floor, something began to shift. It wasn’t a lifting of the grief but a revealing of what it had been covering. I felt Ma Kamakhya, not as a distant deity, but as a presence within, an undeniable force that showed me what I hadn’t been able to see in myself.

She revealed the strength it has taken to be here. To keep going, even when I’ve felt broken. To carry the weight of being a parent and still find the courage to say, “No more.” To end unhealthy relationships, to set boundaries, to demand space where I once thought I had to give endlessly. To start asking for help, even when the world told me I shouldn’t need it.

Her presence showed me that I needed to choose to revere and honor myself. That I could not and cannot wait for someone else to do this. She is inside me.

Unbroken: Finding Strength in Surrender

I realized in that moment that I wasn’t broken. The exhaustion, the grief, the pain, they weren’t signs of failure. They were reminders of the strength it takes to live fully in this body, in this world, and still insist on truth, on boundaries, on care.

The ocean within me didn’t take away the struggle, but it revealed its purpose. It wasn’t here to defeat me—it was here to teach me what matters. To show me what endures. To guide me back to myself, to the strength that doesn’t waver, even in the face of life’s hardest tides.

What I hold onto is the knowing that strength is not in doing it all, not in carrying everything without complaint. Strength is in the willingness to let go of what isn’t mine to carry. It is in saying no when I am stretched too thin, in asking for help without shame, and in recognizing that I am worthy of care—not because I’ve earned it, but because I exist.

The Pulse of the Divine: Carrying Forward Her Strength

Stepping out of the temple, I carried with me the reality that I am not defined by exhaustion or the weight of expectations. What is real is the unshakable pulse of life within me, steady and enduring.

Ma Kamakhya, the source of life, lives within me. Her strength is my strength. The reverence offered to her is what I must offer to myself. This is a truth I will need to continue to remind myself of, again and again, especially when life feels overwhelming.

Grief and exhaustion are not failures but evidence of a life fully lived and the strength it takes to stand in its truth. I share this intimate experience in the hope that it serves as a reminder and upliftment for another—that you, too, carry this strength, even when it feels hidden. The pulse of the divine is within you it is steady, enduring, and always present. This is what will carry us forward.

Jai Maa Kamakhya ❤️