At 44, Sunisa is in the prime of her life: wild, womanly and rebellious. Her mantra is, “All is well” though she acknowledges at times she might have to wait a while for this to be true once again. Sunisa has had a lifelong relationship with Hua Hin since she has been visiting for as long as she can remember, from the multigenerational home she shared just outside Bangkok with her mother’s parents.  However, it was only in September 2023 that Sunisa and her third-generation Italian American husband Vincent decided to make Hua Hin a more permanent home. Sunisa loves Hua Hin for what she labels its “shanti”: its peace, the breeze, the food and the friendliness of the local people.  The one addition she would like to see made to Hua Hin is increased options for families with teenage children, as she feels her girls, who are “world-schooled” could have a hard time forming appropriate social connections, as most other foreigners their age are tourists rather than residents.

Sunisa was born in Bangkok, and recalls her father, a movie director, moving in and out of the family home regularly.  He struggled to gain acceptance in the family, since his darker colouring marked him as not Western, but not Thai either and resulted in him being branded with a rather insulting name. The family breakdown became official and obvious to young Sunisa at the age of ten when her mother remarried, a Thai this time. Sunisa’s mother bonded with her new husband over their shared love of pistol shooting, where her mother was a Thai champion.  Sunisa was the eldest child, having a biological younger sister, then a half-brother from her mother’s second marriage and also a half-sister from her father’s new marriage.  Although she has good relationships with her siblings, Sunisa considers herself quite different from all of them.  She has embraced a different lifestyle, leaving home early to establish herself independently, and becoming a vegetarian. Sunisa became the trailblazer of the family, keen to spread her wings.  She loved her travel adventures across Thailand with her maternal grandmother, who packed a van full of items for donation and travelled far and wide to visit poor temples with offerings. It is this wonderful lady who became the inspiration for Sunisa’s personal brand of spirituality and her love of meditation and silent retreats.

Whenever Sunisa’s father had time with his daughters, he showered them with quality Dad-time, Sunisa having very fond recollections of amusement park visit, horse-riding and hours spent playing in the pool.  But these were never enough to make up for his absence from her daily life. Sunisa didn’t enjoy her school years, enduring bullying for her different looks and the Persian name she used at the time.  She excelled in English, however, always having spoken to her father in English, so it came easily to her, without concerted effort or application. After graduating from high school, Sunisa continued her education in Bangkok with a degree from Mahidol University International College in Travel Industry and Hospitality Management.  This was not her first choice, as Sunisa would much have preferred to attend film school, an idea not acceptable to her grandfather, one of Thailand’s first school principals, who was paying her tuition. Her other siblings had the opportunity to travel abroad to attend international schools, an option never made available to Sunisa. 

So, although her educational expenses were funded, Sunisa still had to find ways to support herself.  These included modelling and acting from the age of only 15-years-old, with appearances in Thai movies and TV series as well as many commercials.  She has a face familiar to many Thai people who probably couldn’t explain exactly why or how. Sunisa used the good money she earned to allow her to travel, during university holidays, with her boyfriend, to England, then on to Italy and France, her first but by no means last, taste of international work (as a waitress in London) and travel.

Sunisa is eternally optimistic and makes a deliberate choice to focus on the positive in all she sees.  She is pleased that the world is becoming a more conscious place, with people feeling more comfortable in speaking their truth on a wide range of issues, less fearful of negative consequences.  A continuing source of optimism for Sunisa is her motherhood and watching her children grow, learn and thrive.  Watching Stella, a self-taught pianist play, is enough to give Sunisa goosebumps, while Sequoia has inherited her talents as singer and artist from her father. As she has blossomed into the fullness of her own womanhood, Sunisa has become fiercely fearless, and has tried hard to conquer her fears of rejection, abandonment and being judged to sustain her positivity, motivation, curiosity and connectedness with others.  Sunisa is now at her vibrant best, though she does fondly recall her years from 17 to 22 as a golden age, with increasing freedom and few restrictions and responsibilities.

During university and in the years immediately after, Sunisa held a number of interesting jobs, which she changed relatively frequently. She used her understanding of English to good effect, as an English tutor and worked for The Nation newspaper, hosting a program which taught English in schools through games. After graduating, Sunisa initially worked in a public relations position for the club, Ministry of Sound, despite avoiding the well-known culture of drug-taking that accompanied this electronic music phenomenon. Sunisa continued to use the money she made from modelling jobs to travel and even held a plum job with MTV Thailand.

One way that Sunisa now empowers women is by sharing her own life journey and supporting women to make their own choices, based on their personal circumstances.  Sunisa will speak her personal truth openly.  Although she has two living daughters, she tells people she has four children.  She chose to terminate two pregnancies, one chemically and one in a medical abortion, because circumstances were not right for her to become a mother.  Sunisa believes for the sake of the whole family, it is essential that this be open knowledge, and shared the details with her daughters some time ago now.  Stella knows she is not the first child, and the girls both know that their mother conceived a further child while still nursing Sequoia, and chose not to continue the pregnancy. 

It might surprise some that Sunisa chooses to share these details of her private life, but it is part of her openness in her more professional capacity as well.  Sunisa has long been a student, and now teacher, of both yoga and Pilates.  She began practicing yoga during her final year of college, finding herself naturally more flexible than others.  After college, this interest in yoga was cemented through travel to India to explore its origins and history. At the age of only 23, Sunisa suffered a back injury that neither chiropractic or acupuncture treatments healed.  She then located Bangkok’s first Pilates Studio, undertook Pilates daily, found relief and at the behest of the owner eventually took training in teaching Pilates, though she has no intention in working in a studio herself. Pilates allowed Sunisa to feel mentally as well as physically stronger, and helped repair the damage to her self-esteem which had been caused by childhood bullying.

The thing that takes up the majority of Sunisa’s time is being a home-schooling mother, which she sees as her primary vocation.  As an educator, Sunisa is gifted in knowing what her students want and need from her.  So, as well as educating her own children, Sunisa has taken on the role of online teaching in yoga and Pilates, under her spiritual name, Aset, which is an alternate name for the Egyptian goddess Isis. She establishes strong interpersonal relationships with her clients, who are generally people looking for whole-being healing, by listening with her heart as well as her ears.

Sunisa embraces a further role as a “life doula” who can provide support and assistance to women at some of the most challenging times of their lives. Despite herself experiencing morning-sickness through her two full-term pregnancies, Sunisa chose not to have any medical intervention other than pregnancy-confirmation testing.  She trusted personal research to confirm that pregnancy is a natural female state which requires neither medical or pharmaceutical intervention, and chose to deliver both her children naturally at home, with the assistance of her husband.  While this might be a positive aim, Sunisa acknowledges that some pregnancies and deliveries are not always straightforward, though she encourages women to rely on their own intuition, believing the key to be in informed conscious choices in all aspects of motherhood, including childhood vaccination schedules. To each, her own.

Another life event a doula might assist with is the transition to death, where she can play a pivotal role in helping ensure the comfort of the dying individual. Sunisa sees herself as a devotee of the Earth Mother, who presents herself in a wide variety of forms across many cultures.  While she was living in New Mexico in America, Sunisa took part in a Moon Dance ceremony, part of ancient Toltec culture, where woman dance together is specific patterns under the moon for four consecutive nights and spend their mornings in sweat lodges, in a healing ritual.

Sunisa looks to many cultures for female empowerment.  A highly influential figure for her is Mātā Amritānandamayī, an Indian guru, known as Amma, the hugging mother, who has comforted 33 million people throughout the world over more than 30 years with her hugs.  People around the world will queue for hours to experience the healing of her hug.  Sunisa met Amma in Manhattan some 16 years ago now.  Broken-hearted at the ending of a relationship, and thinking to become a Nun, Sunisa queued for over seven hours next to a young man also keen for a healing hug. A week later Vincent proposed, and a month after that the pair were married.  Sunisa takes this as a firm sign that, in life, some things are just fated to be.

Sunisa’s work in the entertainment and fashion industries have gained her some notable friendships.  One woman that she particularly admires is Ali MacGraw, who she has met personally. Sunisa is impressed by Ali’s acting talent, particularly her performance in the 1970 movie Love Story.  Both women share a common interest in yoga, which Ali is credited with repopularising in America. Sunisa would like to emulate Ali’s beauty, gentleness, kindness and discipline in taking good care of her body into her 80s.  It seems that wherever she looks, Sunisa can find the spirit of the Earth Mother shining through to her.  She is still interested in learning more about yoga, which she describes as “an infinite lesson of self-discovery”.  Further travel is a definite item on Sunisa’s bucket list, and she flirts with the idea of inheriting a large amount of money and opening an orphanage with a child-centred curriculum where each individual’s unique skills and talents might be nurtured, much as she is doing for her lucky daughters. Surely she gives them the same advice she would give to her 15-year-old self, if able: “You are good enough, you are loved and beautiful.” Social media usage is a danger for self-esteem and Sunisa would like to protect her children, though she acknowledges that for her work, it is a necessary tool. 

This cheeky, provocative yet funny woman enjoys the ritual of her morning cup of matcha, prepared in her ceremonial ceramic pot, asking to again be connected to the Earth Mother. She relishes in fresh air, Thai papaya and the sound of her children playing their instruments and singing and harmonising together.  Sunisa is happiest anywhere in the world, in child pose, and feels that for her working and relaxing are interchangeable concepts. Sunisa is most thankful for her body, and being able to access clean air, food and water, knowing how privileged that makes her as an inhabitant of our world.  Having a roof over the family’s head is also a blessing, as she has made her home a special place for her family. Home and family are much more important to Sunisa that any material possession.  She has learnt that you can take nothing out of this world with you, in exactly the same way as you arrived, empty-handed.  The journey itself is everything.