By the time I turned 30, I had built the life everyone said would make me happy. On the outside, everything looked perfect: I held degrees from NYU and Harvard, worked on Wall Street and in Silicon Valley, and was in an 11-year relationship that seemed headed toward a picture-perfect future.

On the inside, I felt dead. My body was the first to fall apart. I experienced hair loss, severe insomnia, chronic inflammation and pain, and digestive issues. Mentally, I felt numb, dissociated, and completely disconnected from my body and myself.

Letting go wasn’t just scary, it was absolutely terrifying. That life had taken decades to build, and walking away felt like losing everything I had ever known. But what felt even scarier was continuing to live a life so out of alignment. So I did the most terrifying thing I could imagine: I quit my job, ended the relationship, and left the city I once called home. It felt like I jumped off a cliff without knowing where or if I would land.

For the first time, I allowed myself to feel what I had buried for so long: the grief of abandoning my culture, the rage of never feeling enough, the ache of constantly contorting myself to fit into places I didn’t belong. I dropped the mask and let it all break open.

And in the wreckage, something unexpected happened. I began to remember what it feels like to be alive. What looked like a breakdown was, in truth, the beginning of my breakthrough.