I Did Not Change — I Remembered Myself

There are moments in life when your soul refuses to whisper anymore.

When the truth you've been carrying beneath your skin rises like fire in your throat and demands to be spoken.

This letter is born from that fire — from the collapse of old identities, old roles, old expectations, and the quiet woman I was trained to be.

If you've known me in another chapter, prepare to meet me again — not as the version shaped by indoctrination and palatable spirituality, but as the woman I've always been beneath it all.

This "change" you perceived is my remembrance. My rupture. My return.

There comes a moment in every woman's life when the mask she once wore begins to suffocate her.

A moment when the soft tone she used to protect others' comfort becomes too heavy for her throat.

A moment when the truth she has swallowed for decades rises like a tide that can no longer be pushed back.

For me, that moment was Palestine.

Not because the genocide began in 2023 — but because the world's silence revealed something ancient inside me.

Something my ancestors refused to die with.

Something I had been taught to tame, dilute, or decorate with spiritual glitter.

I didn't wake up one day and choose to be louder, braver, fiercer.

I simply stopped pretending.

And ever since, I've watched people who once loved me — or the version of me they preferred — reach for the familiar shape of who I used to be.

Confused, startled, unsettled.

Some tried to guide me back.

Some tried to correct me.

Some tried to re-spiritualize my awakening, which was in fact a remembrance.

Some tried to soften the fire that refused to go out.

But my beloveds…

You cannot guide someone back into a cage she already burned down.

The truth is simple: You never met the whole me.

You met the woman I survived as.

The colonized daughter.

The appeasing coach, even when it was raw

The spiritually sanitized mentor.

The "positive energy" keeper who swallowed her rage to keep the room peaceful.

The assimilation-trained woman who learned early that being palatable was safer than being profound.

You met the version of me that belonged to everyone but myself.

And when I finally peeled back the layers —

the indoctrination, the guilt, the "be nice," the "be neutral," the "be careful," the "don't offend," the love-and-light performance —

I found a truth that had been waiting for generations:

I was never meant to be quiet.

I was meant to be whole.

Standing with Palestine didn't radicalize me.

 It initiated me.

 It stripped me down to the bone and asked,

"Do you want to live in your soul or in your performance?"

And I chose my soul.

I chose humanity over spiritual bypassing.

 I chose truth over the safety of silence.

 I chose my ancestors over the institutions that asked me to betray them.

 I chose my fire over the comfort of those who benefited from my dimming.

And yes — some relationships collapsed.

Not because I became "radical", as if wanting children, women, and men to live is radical-

but because I became undeniable.

Because neutrality is a luxury.

Silence is a weapon.

And "love and light" has been used far too often to justify looking away from the suffering of real people, communities, and nations stripped of their sovereignty, my own country of birth has inflicted on them.

For some, my "awakening" felt like an insult.

For others, like a loss of control.

For a few, it was a betrayal of the woman they once relied on to soothe their discomfort.

But for me, it felt like home.

I am not returning to the version of myself that made everyone else comfortable.

I am not returning to the fractured self who spiritualized harm to appear enlightened.

 I am not returning to the coach who swallowed her truth to protect a brand.

 I am not returning to the daughter trained to abandon herself to keep the peace.

That woman deserved love, belonging, and freedom —

 but she does not deserve resurrection.

I am the woman beneath all of that.

Unmasked.

 Uncolonized.

 Unapologetically awake.

 Full of fire that does not burn — it clarifies.

 Rage that is not violent — it is holy.

 Compassion that is not passive — it is active, sharp, raw, and honest.

If you do not recognize me now,

it's because you met me before I remembered myself.

If you fear this version of me,

 it's because this version does not center your comfort.

And if you feel me more deeply than ever —

 It's because you're awakening too.

I am not here to be digestible.

 I am not here to perform peace.

 I am not here to be the spiritual mascot of neutrality and apathy.

I am not here to profit from ancestral rituals, traditions, and ceremonies that stripped them of their indigenous roots and communities.

I am here to be a whole human being

 in a world that keeps insisting we amputate our empathy to survive.

This is my declaration.

 My shedding.

 My remembrance.

 My rebirth.

I did not change.

I came home to myself.

And if you ever meet me again —

you will meet the woman I've always been

beneath the conditioning,

beneath the silence,

beneath the mask,

beneath the colonization

that tried so hard to tame her.

I am here.

Fully.

Finally.

And I am not leaving myself ever again.

This coming December Solstice arrives as it always has —

a turning of light, a sacred pause between endings and beginnings.

This one is different.

This one calls the awakened, the remembering, the no-longer-performing.

So if something in you has been stirring while reading these words —

 if you, too, feel the suffocating weight of an old mask,

 if your voice trembles not from fear but from readiness —

 then this is your invitation.

Let this Solstice not be a ritual of wishing,

but an initiation of remembering.

Remember the woman beneath the conditioning.

The one your mother silenced and your lineage protected.

The one who still hums in your blood when you dream of freedom.

On December 21 st, 2025, when the sun stands still,

stand with it.

Light a candle, breathe into your belly,

and whisper to yourself:

I am not returning to sleep.

I am not performing peace.

I am the fire that clarifies.

I remember who I am.

This Solstice is the threshold.

Step through it as the world exhales.

Let the mask fall, let the truth rise, let the body remember.

I’ll be there too — in spirit, in ceremony, in silence,

welcoming every woman who chooses to return to herself.

This is our collective remembrance.

Our solstice of truth.

Our rebirth.

With love, fire and truth— Dayanna