Who Am I? A Journey Beyond the Labels

I’ve written many iterations of this introduction, and it’s only recently that it became clear to me how I want to answer that question.

In earlier versions, I found myself cataloging my life, listing degrees, jobs, cities lived in, people loved and lost- as if by assembling all the parts, I might somehow present a coherent whole. 

But the truth is, none of those things quite get to the heart of me. 

To know me, I have to BE ME- real, raw, unapologetic. 

Not curated. 

Not condensed.

So, who am I?

I am a woman who has been through some shit.

And that’s not just a throwaway line meant to sound edgy or evocative. It’s a full-bodied truth. It carries the weight of surgeries, grief, heartache, reinventions, and the quiet unravelings that no one sees. It also carries the grit of showing up again, and again, even when I didn’t want to. Especially then.

After years of visualizing and trying to crystalize some version of who I thought I should be, I’ve finally stopped asking who I need to become and started paying attention to who’s already here.

And that woman? She’s contradictory, complex, and constantly unfolding.

I have a science degree in Sports Medicine because I’ve always been in awe of the body- its intelligence, its precision, its capacity to hold both trauma and healing. 

But I’m also deeply spiritual. 

I believe in the unseen, the subtle, the sacred.

I believe in the soft language of intuition and the teachings of Mother Nature. 

I pray with my feet on the earth and my hands on my heart.

I’ve lived a mostly healthy life, but I’ve also faced my share of physical challenges-surgeries, hormonal disruptions, the betrayals of a body I thought I could control. 

Through it all, I’ve learned that healing is not a destination but a relationship. 

A conversation. 

A listening.

I spent over two decades in corporate boardrooms, negotiating deals, building client relationships, plugged into a system I no longer wanted to be a part of. 

I wore the heels and the armor. 

I did the thing. 

And I did it well.

But I was also unraveling.

There was always a quieter part of me waiting in the wings, longing to breathe, to feel, to move differently in the world. That part didn’t care about KPIs. It cared about meaning. About integrity. About living in rhythm with something more truthful.

So I pivoted.

Now, I teach yoga. I guide breathwork. I hold space for women in midlife who are, like me, trying to make sense of the wreckage and the rebirth. I talk about the nervous system and anatomy, about energy and the moon, about ancestral and collective grief, about rituals and practices, about what it means to come home to your body. But more importantly, I live these things. I’m both the teacher and the student, the wound and the wisdom.

My journey has been anything but linear. I’ve walked through two divorces. I’ve said goodbye to people I wasn’t ready to lose. I’ve sat in the mess of not knowing who I am or where I belong. I’ve done Vipassana retreats and danced barefoot in the desert. I’ve trained in NLP, EFT, somatic therapy, and grief coaching. I’ve worked with plant medicines and psychedelics. I’ve cried on the bathroom floor. I’ve found clarity in unexpected places- like at the bottom of a breath, or in the eyes of a stranger who really sees me.

Through all of this, identity stopped feeling like something to define, and started feeling like something to witness. To feel. To shed and rediscover. Again and again.

Because identity, I’ve learned, isn’t fixed. It’s not a neatly labeled folder in the filing cabinet of our lives. It’s not our job title or our relationship status or the number of followers we have. It’s not even our trauma, though that too has shaped us.

Identity is more like a river…sometimes calm, sometimes raging, always moving. It carries sediment from everything we’ve lived through. Sometimes it floods. Sometimes it recedes. But it’s never stagnant. And trying to pin it down feels, frankly, like missing the point.

When I ask myself now, “Who am I?”, I no longer rush to answer.

I let the question hang in the air, like smoke from my incense. 

I breathe into it. 

I let it touch the places that are still sore. 

I let it surprise me.

And some days, the answer looks like this:

I am a woman in her midlife who no longer apologizes for her power, or her sensitivity.

I am a daughter of the earth who is learning how to soften without collapsing.

I am a body, a breath, a beating heart…and that is enough.

I am healing. I am whole. I am still becoming.

This isn’t a post about finally figuring it out. It’s a post about honoring the mystery. About loosening the grip on needing to be anything other than what I am, right now.

If you’ve ever felt like you don’t quite fit the mold you were given, if you’re in the midst of your own shedding, or if you’re just tired of performing a version of yourself for others…welcome. 

You’re not alone.

This space is for us.

For the women who’ve lived many lives in one.

For the ones who are reclaiming their stories.

For the ones who are no longer interested in shrinking to be palatable.

Let’s keep asking the question, not to find a final answer, but to keep coming home to ourselves, over and over.

Not who we were told to be. 

Not who we once were.

But who we are, underneath it all