My Story: Coming Back to Myself

There’s a version of me you might recognise. The one who had it together. Always smiling. Always “fine.” The one who could move through life without making things complicated. For a long time, I thought that was just who I was. But underneath it, there was a quiet disconnection. A feeling I couldn’t quite explain — like I was slightly outside my own life, watching myself be who I thought I needed to be, rather than who I really was. I grew up between two worlds that never quite met. At home, there were rules, expectations, a certain way of being. Outside, there was a different kind of pressure — to fit in, to belong — but never fully feeling like I did. So I learned to adapt. To read the room before I even spoke. To adjust myself depending on where I was. To stay safe by staying contained. And I became very good at it. When I was twelve, my best friend was murdered. I didn’t fall apart. I didn’t question it. I carried on, because that’s what I knew how to do. There was no space for anything else, so I buried it and kept going. But things we bury don’t disappear. They stay with us — in the body, in the nervous system, in the quiet ways we move through the world. Years later, when I became a mother, something shifted. Watching my daughter move so freely, so naturally herself, it stopped me. She wasn’t holding back. She wasn’t trying to be anything. She just was. And in that, I saw how much of my own life had been spent doing the opposite. Holding in. Holding back. Holding everything together. That realisation didn’t change everything overnight. But it opened something. It was the beginning of coming back to myself. Slowly learning how to feel again. Not just the comfortable emotions, but all of it. Learning how to soften, how to sit with what was there, how to actually be with myself without needing to control or suppress it. That journey led me to cacao. Not just as a drink, but as a practice — a way to slow down, open the heart, and create space to feel, release, and reconnect. And over time, it became something I began to share. The work I now hold — through cacao ceremonies, 1-2-1 coaching, retreats, and a monthly membership space — comes from that place. It’s not about fixing or changing people, but about creating a space where they can pause, breathe, and reconnect with themselves in a way many of us were never shown. Because so many of us have learned how to keep going. But very few of us have learned how to truly come back to ourselves. Amani Edyvane @amaniedyvane www.amanitheshift.com MY STORY: COMING BACK TO M YSELF