The Woman I Was Always Meant to Be

For most of my life, I was always moving.

On the outside, my life looked expansive and exciting. I was traveling the world solo, leading experiences, chasing depth, freedom, and intensity. I was “in my body” in many ways — practicing yoga, breathwork, movement — but if I’m honest, it was still surface-level. I knew how to do embodiment. I didn’t yet know how to stay with myself.

Everything was go, go, go.

Another country. Another experience. Another thrill.

What I didn’t know then was that I was rarely pausing long enough to actually feel.

I wasn’t sitting with my emotions.

I wasn’t listening to the quieter signals of my body.

I didn’t know what groundedness truly felt like — not in my nervous system, not in my relationships, not in my inner world.

Even my transformations were fast, intense, and driven. They looked powerful, but they didn’t land deeply. They didn’t settle. They didn’t soften me.

I was living from momentum, not presence.

The moment that best captures that “before” version of me is the way I lived my relationships and my life: constantly moving forward, craving the next thing, the next high, the next evolution — without ever fully staying with what was already here. I didn’t yet understand that depth isn’t found by moving faster, but by staying longer.

Everything changed when I met my husband.

Love became the disruption.

Meeting him mirrored something back to me that I couldn’t ignore anymore: the version of me that was powerful, wild, driven — but still avoiding certain layers of truth. Love didn’t ask me to become smaller. It asked me to become deeper. More honest. More real.

That was the moment I truly paused.

For the first time, I didn’t rush into the next chapter. I slowed down and turned inward. I began to face old wounds, patterns, and ways of protecting myself that had once been necessary, but were no longer serving me.

Emotionally, it was confronting. Practically, my life began to shift. I started to listen to myself — not just my ambitions, but my deeper desires. I recognized vulnerability not as a weakness, but as a superpower. I began to notice how different my relationships became when I stopped performing strength and started living truth.

This was also when I learned something essential: support is not optional. It’s necessary.

I surrounded myself with coaches, healers, and a circle of people who could truly see me — not for what I produced, but for who I was. People who could hold me when things felt confusing, tender, or painful. Support became my anchor.

But the path wasn’t linear.

At first, I went back to what I already knew: yoga, breathwork, familiar practices. They helped — but something was still missing. I needed something gentler. Slower. More raw. Something that didn’t push me forward, but allowed me to arrive.

One of my biggest struggles during this time was understanding femininity.

I had spent so much of my life leading from my masculine — action, drive, independence, momentum. Softness felt foreign. Staying with emotions felt uncomfortable. Even in my relationship, I noticed how often I stayed in “doing mode,” struggling to truly open and receive.

I went through a deep identity crisis. Who was I without constant movement? Without proving? Without chasing?

And interestingly, I now recognize this same threshold again in motherhood — matrescence asking for yet another layer of surrender, presence, and truth. Life keeps inviting me deeper.

There were moments I felt lost. Moments I wondered if I was losing myself by slowing down. My biggest fear was that softness would make me boring, less powerful, less me. I feared losing my fire, my wildness, my edge.

What I discovered instead was the opposite.

The turning point wasn’t one single moment — it was a series of embodied experiences. Gentle somatic practices. Raw, honest meditation. Deep one-on-one work inside containers that didn’t force me into anything, but met me exactly where I was.

What made me believe this path worked was subtle at first: a sense of safety in my body. A quiet confidence. The realization that I didn’t have to choose between strength and softness.

I could be all of it.

My first steps were simple but profound: pausing longer before reacting. Speaking my emotions honestly instead of saying “I’m fine.” Letting myself be seen. Choosing environments where my truth was welcome.

Then things began to open.

Externally, opportunities flowed: I received my green card, I taught retreats, my work evolved, and the women I attracted changed — deeper, more embodied, more aligned.

Internally, everything softened.

I felt full of myself — not in an egoic way, but in a grounded, integrated way. Strong and soft. Fun and still. Comfortable in silence. My body felt open and receptive. My nervous system settled. For the first time, I trusted myself completely.

The method that made this possible wasn’t about force. It was about container, pace, and integration. A way of working that honored the body’s timing. A balance of strength and softness. A flame that burns — but elegantly. Power without destruction.

Today, my life is radically different.

I am present with what surrounds me. I can feel where my body holds tension and where it feels free. I am calmer, more peaceful, less reactive. I slowed down — not because I lost power, but because I found a deeper one.

I can now pause before reacting. I can feel instead of armoring. I don’t need to prove. Physically, I move with grace and connection. Emotionally, I am open. I can cry. I can receive. I can feel.

The biggest lesson I learned is simple, but life-changing:

Ask for support. And trust the body more than the mind.

What I want other high-achieving women to know is this: when you move out of your head and into your body, an entirely new world opens. Your nervous system relaxes. You feel safer to feel. And transformation happens — not because you force it, but because you allow it.

The biggest mistake I see women make is choosing only from the mind. Ignoring the body’s signals. Moving fast instead of deep. Confidence doesn’t live in your thoughts, your achievements, or your words. It lives somatically — in how safe, grounded, and present you feel inside yourself.

I’m sharing this now because the world is moving faster than ever. More digital. More disconnected. And so many women are successful on paper but disembodied in their lives. Numb. Overstimulated. Never truly present.

Feelings are healing.

Emotions stored in the body — not the mind — are the gateway to real transformation.

And this work is an invitation to return.

To your body.

To your presence.

To yourself.