Back and Down: The Loop We Break to Become Ourselves

A return to the truth I left behind

The Journey Between Performance and Presence

I’ve been sitting with performance. I watch people perform every day, in small and subtle ways. The masks we wear—to protect, to hide, to belong—are everywhere.

I grew up in a home that protected me to my core. I see now how the structure was designed to keep me safe. But those layers of protection slowly pulled me back and down. It took years to name the pattern: collapsing into earlier versions of myself just to feel secure. What protects can also restrict.

There is a fire in my soul that moves me. It has been in constant battle with the layers I was taught to wear for protection. For every five steps forward, I would collapse back at least one.

I never recognized the collapse as growth. It felt more like death. I was dying over and over again breaking through each protective layer to be reborn into the next version of myself.

At the point of collapse, I had a choice: repeat the pattern—or release the layer.

Ego death is a cycle. It continues, if allowed, pattern by pattern, until awareness returns across all four bodies: physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual.

One of the most ingrained protective layers I carried was detachment—hiding from my emotions to protect my heart. That pattern lived at my root. I see now that I had to walk through all four bodies to reach my emotional one.

My mental body is complex. We often move unconsciously until presence reveals what we’ve created. By reflecting on our choices—our whys, our actions, and our results—we learn from the versions of ourselves that came before.

My mind eventually landed on this truth: I AM safe. Once safety was rooted, I arrived at: I AM grateful for my healthy body. In believing those affirmations and embodying presence over performance, I released over 120 pounds across six years—and kept it off.

6 years between these photos. What changed wasn't just my body—it was my relationship with presence, safety, and self.

People asked how. I said: “By doing the work. Eating protein. Drinking water.”

My spiritual body has always led the way. My foundation includes practices rooted in Buddhism and Hinduism—chanting specific mantras to anchor my being.
But the most essential practice was learning how to be here now. Feet flat on the floor. Detaching from past and future. Sitting in the quiet peace of presence.

From that still point, I began to walk into rooms and relationships awake—embodying: I AM grounded. I AM present. I AM calm.

My physical body moves. And it is a gift to witness that.

I watched my mom live with Temporal Lobe Dementia for over twenty years.
In the final eight months, she lost mobility entirely. Before that decline, I began chanting: I AM grateful for my mobility.

Watching my mother—a dancer—lose every physical expression of her joy taught me surrender. Taught me reverence. Taught me the sacredness of pulling back the covers, sitting up, and standing on my own two feet.

My emotional body was the most difficult to reach. That’s where I found the deepest imprint of protection. I was taught to abandon myself, again and again, to fit someone else’s view of who I was supposed to be. I did it instinctively.

“I am this.”
“No you aren’t. Now stop that and get back there.”

“I believe this.”
“No you don’t. Stop that and get back there.”

“I feel this.”
“No you don’t. Stop that and get back there.”

I see now:
“Get back there” was the programming. The loop of emotional abandonment. The command to collapse. Every step of the way.

This is Heartbreak Hill. Between mile 20 and 21. The moment you decide whether to collapse—or rise.

I lived in Boston for nine years. Every April, the city shuts down for the Boston Marathon. Between mile 20 and 21 is Heartbreak Hill. Four miles from the finish line, it asks everything of the runners.

I’ve lived my own version of Heartbreak Hill. I’ve reached mile 20 more times than I can count—pushing past the fatigue, detaching from thought, ignoring emotion, and praying I had enough left in the tank to succeed.

And I have succeeded.
Over and over again.
But that kind of success?
It was performance.
Not presence.

Pushing through pain while ignoring your body, silencing your thoughts, and overriding your emotions is not sustainable. It fragments us from the very guidance system that is designed to lead us home.

How many times have we heard “push through the pain,” only to tear a muscle?

Or “just one bite,” only to spiral?

How often have we quieted our truth in the name of keeping the peace?

We perform.
We perform when we say we’re okay while our bodies are crying out.
We perform when we say “sure, let’s go,” when all we want is to stay home. We perform when we smile and say, “I’m fine,” while our hearts whisper otherwise.

And for a long time, I did the same.

Deep beneath the performance, something within me started to wake. A pull. A longing. A hunger to live life differently. A call to wake up. To stop dreaming.

This is where I begin.

I offer what I’ve lived as an invitation into presence. This space is a sanctuary—for the parts of us that are tired of performing, and ready to feel. To breathe. To be.

I write from the quiet center. Where honesty lives. Where nothing needs to be earned.
Where everything is welcome.

If you’ve found your way here, I hope you feel the ease of arriving.

Welcome.