Soft Power, Hard Truths: Why I Left the Matrix of Performing Wellness
Let’s not pretend I always knew who I was. Let’s not pretend I didn’t play the game, too.
But to understand why I eventually had to burn it all down— you have to know where I started.
I grew up in a 22-room Victorian house in Weehawken, New Jersey. Not a mansion, but a hand-painted cathedral of color and love—renovated by my parents, Janet and Eugene Tava, both fine artists who didn’t just teach me how to create, but how to feel.
Our home was a cultural sanctuary.
We were the house everyone came to after school, for holiday parties, for summer dips in the pool, for spontaneous dinners and long talks around big tables. There was always art on the walls, incense in the air, and room for more at the table.
I was allowed to be soft.
To feel deeply.
To think differently.
I went to a private school with ten kids per class. I wasn’t bullied for being “too much.” I was celebrated for it.
I learned to love every culture, every story, every face that crossed our threshold. I learned that being sensitive wasn’t a weakness—it was a superpower.
But here’s what else shaped me:
I was also raised by a Hudson County, New Jersey Italian mother. A no-nonsense, tough-love powerhouse who taught me how to get back up when I fall— and to never let them see me cry.
So I learned the balance early:
Be kind—but don’t be stupid.
Be generous—but don’t be naive.
Be open—but never without armor.
And that worked—until it didn’t.
Because as an adult, I didn’t know where the armor ended and I began. I didn’t know how to let myself really cry.
So when I finally did, I couldn’t stop.
I held keys between my knuckles while walking home after DJ sets. Because I’d been jumped more than once.
And I also stood on a United Nations floor—leading guided meditations for diplomats. That polarity? That contradiction? That range?
That’s real.
That’s not “inconsistency”—that’s what the New Earth looks like. It’s what the so-called “woo-woo” community has been trying to explain for years: that we are here to break the binary.
The Matrix doesn’t like that.
But that’s not my problem.
You want a name for it?
The Matrix calls it delusion.
The New Earth calls it awakening. I call it integration.
But here’s the part that’s harder to say:
What if what’s happening to me isn’t just “bad luck”? What if this is the next chapter in an age-old pattern of persecution?
First it was witches.
Then it was suffragettes.
Then it was civil rights activists.
Now?
What if the next target is those of us who feel everything—and still dare to love?
What if we’re being dismissed, discredited, and gaslit not because we’re broken— but because we’re the first wave of a new consciousness?
We talk about climate change.
Empathy.
Equality.
The divine feminine.
Energy.
Love as a force—not a weakness.
Imagine that.
Imagine believing in healing the planet and being ridiculed for it.
Imagine believing in peace and being treated like a threat.
I’ve been publicly minimized.
Spiritually harassed.
Mentally and financially stalked.
Told I’m too emotional, too dramatic, too “out there.”
But here’s what people forget:
I’ve already outsmarted systems built to erase me.
You think I’m not smart because I feel deeply? You think softness means stupidity?
Please.
How do you think I made it this far?
How do you think I’ve disrupted what I’ve disrupted?
I’ve studied the Matrix inside and out.
I’ve played the role.
I’ve used my smile as a shield.
I’ve cried in private while coaching in public.
I’ve taught breathwork while my own breath was shallow from trauma.
And now, I’m done pretending.
Leaving the Matrix of Performing Wellness isn’t about rage.
It’s about clarity. (Thank you, Coach Jean from Brandon Burchard’s High Performance Academy).
It’s about seeing how deeply we’ve been programmed to distrust the very things that could heal us:
Emotion.
Intuition.
Rest.
Connection.
Creativity.
Love.
And that programming is enforced through every subtle dig, every spiritual bypass, every assumption that people like me—women like me—aren’t smart enough to be the threat we are.
But we are.
And we’re not going anywhere.
So this is a brief history of my bullshit.
Of what I once believed I had to be.
Of the rules I followed just long enough to rewrite them.
If you’re feeling misunderstood—
Too emotional.
Too loving.
Too “out there.”
You’re not broken.
You’re ahead of schedule.
The world just hasn’t caught up yet.
But it will.
And when it does, I’ll still be here.
Not performing wellness.
Embodied in it.
Walking free.
Not hiding anymore.
And not asking permission.
Ever again.
