There is nothing soft nor passive about reclaiming your life force — especially when the world has tried to extract it, systemically and intimately, at every level.

I come from ancient lineages that carry a wisdom most institutions don’t know how to hold. I’ve survived elite academic spaces that praised my intellect or tenacity while quietly eroding my voice. I’ve been the token, the translator, the afterthought, and the one who made it work anyway — despite the odds — even under the weight of silence, dismissal, and betrayal.

In undergrad and grad school, I learned what it means to be brilliant in a room that didn’t learn how to see me. I also learned what it means to have my femininity seen as a liability, my softness mistaken for weakness/naiveté, my resultant anger seen as hostility, and my clarity met with condescension. And yet — I stayed. Feeling quite battered, certainly not feeling up to par, and having lost a great deal of self-trust. I did my research to the best of my (dysregulated) abilities. I wrote my dissertation and came out the other side. In fact, I flung myself over to the other side, not knowing how much distance I truly needed to start over.

I don’t quite know why I stayed. Maybe to learn deep lessons around my self-worth and the power of my intuition; to put an end to old patterns. Maybe so that you, the reader, who’s going through your own dark night of the soul can know that I went through multiple dark nights of the soul too. Or maybe I stayed because I felt too stuck and unworthy to move, and thought that completing the PhD would suddenly make me feel worthy. Worthy of what? I don’t know. Maybe I stayed because I kept hoping it would get better if I just got better/smarter.

Maybe I worried I was playing the victim, and staying felt like my way of holding myself accountable. After all, I can’t call it a toxic dynamic without admitting there were parts of me that kept it alive. So maybe to that end, I was just too comfortable with feeling unsafe, unseen, and dysregulated to know this isn’t what it’s supposed to feel like.

Hell, maybe even on some level, I was still too in love with the Universe and her story to just let her go — maybe her pull had greater power over me than the weird, sexist, white privileged vibes of academia. Maybe I knew there was a room somewhere where the vibes weren’t weird, and I just needed to find that room.

Or maybe, on a more soulful and subconscious level, I knew I needed to stay because I wouldn’t get to be the woman I am today. A woman I so deeply love, cherish, and choose every day. A woman I am profoundly proud to be. Someone who rests. Who, in just 1 year, has made beautiful progress disentangling her sense of self from her productivity levels. And in doing so, has made immense strides in her workplace and lab environment while keeping her peace intact. Someone creative, who looks ahead with excitement for her career — but, most importantly, someone curious about the full force of her life to come.

To be frank, after a while, I stopped asking why — because whether I stayed for you, past me, future me, or some combination of all 3, I am just so immensely happy and grateful I made it to the other side. Yes, happy. Not a feeling I was convinced I’d feel again. Maybe you resonate with that.

So here’s what I feel now in my bones: survival is not the same as sovereignty. I’m not here to simply “survive” systems that were not built with women like me in mind. My presence is not a negotiation. Neither is my mental, emotional, and physical safety.

I’m here to be a whole woman — one who can hold a single data point of information and the vastness of the cosmos in the same breath. Who moves with ancestral memory and intellectual privilege.

My legacy will not be edited for someone else’s comfort. I’m here to help change the narrative of what’s possible in academia — through the eyes and actions of a healthy, regulated, embodied woman of color. I hail from a lineage of fiercely loving women and men. What you call boundaries or impossibilities against change, I lovingly see as a lack of imagination and creativity.

I don’t just belong in the room — I expand it. And so do you.

I have yet to meet an artist, musician, teacher, athlete, doctor, analyst, writer, scientist — anyone — who claims that the work they do alone is what holds (or “wholes”) them together. The titles and projects may sound glamorous but it loses meaning without connection to the people you work with and the people you work for. I made it through some of the hardest times in grad school because of the people who made my days a little lighter. Yes, I am still deeply invested in learning the Universe’s story — but I won’t ever get to hear it by pursuing her alone. Past experience has taught me that when you feel alone, her story also fades into the background. You lose investment, because you lose yourself.

No project, no initiative, no grand scheme moves forward authentically without true community. The people you work with — and the people you work for — matter. How you make each other feel, every single day, matters. It matters the most.

For me, physics can only feel so beautiful when equally beautiful and grounded people are moving the needle forward together. To me, if you devalue the notion of togetherness (mutual care, respect, humanity, community), then whatever you’re moving forward (deadlines, deliverables, accolades) is simply aimless motion devoid of meaning. To each their own, but that isn’t what I signed up for in my life.

So to anyone listening: if the truth of your experience feels like a disruption — then you are onto something, something powerful. Chances are, you are carrying it alone.

My hope is that this message finds its way to you: to remind you that you are not the first to feel alone in speaking your disruptive truth. But hopefully, you are the last. Keep going. I see you.

(And…it will get better.)