Yesterday, I was given the great privilege of speaking at the Utah Bankers Association’s 21st Annual Women in Banking Conference.

The topic was given to me: Finding Peace In Chaos.

But as I sat with it, something in me gently pushed back.

Because the truth is—
the chaos we are trying to navigate “out there” is often deeply intertwined with what is happening within us.

And that is where I chose to begin.

Public speaking has never been something I naturally enjoy.

As someone who has lived with social anxiety, standing in front of a room full of people—being seen, being watched, being heard—has always carried a certain weight.

It’s interesting, because I do this almost daily in a yoga room.
But that feels different.
There, I’m simply sharing a practice that has held me. Offering words I often need to hear, myself.

This felt more exposed.
More personal.

And yet… as I prepared, I realized something quietly profound:

This was no different.

I wasn’t being asked to perform.
I was being asked to tell the truth.

There was another layer to the day that I couldn’t ignore.

The conference happened to fall on the ten-year anniversary of a moment that changed the trajectory of my life—my sexual assault.

While I had known it beforehand, I also noticed it quietly that morning, almost like a whisper moving through me before the day fully began. Not loud. Not overwhelming. Just… present.

A soft awareness that this moment—this room, this stage, this version of me—did not exist separate from that moment ten years ago.

A moment that unraveled me.
A moment that, over time, also became a catalyst.

Not in a clean or linear way.
Not in a way I would ever choose.

But in the slow, spiraling, often messy process of learning how to come back to myself.

And so when I wrote this talk, I didn’t just write it for the audience in the room.

I also wrote it for a version of me from 11–15 years ago.

The version who believed her worth was tied to how much she could carry.
How much she could produce.
How much she could hold together.

The version who kept saying yes long after her body had already said no.

We don’t always say this part out loud, especially in professional spaces.

But many of us have been quietly conditioned to live in a kind of internal chaos.

We are rewarded for speed.
For output.
For pushing through.

And over time, something subtle begins to happen:

We override.
We disconnect.
We keep going.

Not because we’re failing—
but because we’ve learned that this is what it takes to be enough.

Standing on that stage, I felt the familiar beginnings of it.

The room was full—tables of women, attentive, present (with a couple of brave men sprinkled in). The soft hum of the space settled as I began to speak. I could feel the ground beneath my feet, but my body hadn’t quite caught up yet.

My voice trembled slightly in those first few sentences.
A quiet echo of an old pattern.

But this time… something was different.

I noticed it.

And instead of pushing through, I paused.

I took a slow breath in—felt it expand through my chest—and then a longer exhale, like I was gently setting something down.

Not dramatically. Not visibly. Just enough.

And in that small, almost imperceptible moment…
my body responded.

My shoulders softened.
My breath steadied.
My feet felt more rooted beneath me.

I felt myself settle.

Grounded.
Present.
Calm in a way that didn’t come from control—but from connection.

As I looked out at the audience, making eye contact, something shifted even further.

I wasn’t speaking at them.

I was speaking to her.
To the version of me who needed these words before she knew how to listen.

And from that place… the words came.

Steady.
Clear.
Unshakable.

There was a moment in the talk where something in me landed with a kind of clarity I could feel in my body:

“You can’t change a pattern you’re not aware of.

But once you become aware… even for a moment…
you create space for a different choice.

And the shift doesn’t require you to leave the banking world like I did—or to overhaul your entire life.

It starts with something much smaller…

A pause.”

That is the work.

Not fixing everything.
Not removing chaos from our lives.

But learning how to stay.

To stay with the discomfort.
To stay with the signal.
To stay with ourselves.

Peace, I am learning, is not something we find once life finally settles down.

Because life doesn’t work that way.

There will always be uncertainty.
Pressure.
Moments that stretch us beyond what feels comfortable.

But peace becomes available in a different way when we stop abandoning ourselves in the middle of it.

When we learn to notice.
To breathe.
To create even the smallest space between reaction and response.

After the talk, more than one woman came up to me and said:

“You shared the exact words I needed to hear today.”

And I received those words with deep gratitude.

Because the truth is—
I needed to hear them too.

If there is anything I hope you carry with you, it is this:

Peace is not found when chaos disappears.
It is found when you remain with yourself in the middle of it.

Not perfectly.
Not all at once.

But moment by moment.

Breath by breath.

Choice by choice.

A gentle invitation:

The next time you feel overwhelmed…
before you push through…
before you override what your body is telling you…

Pause.

Just for a moment.

And ask yourself:

What is happening inside of me right now?
And what might it look like to stay?

I am incredibly grateful to have been given the opportunity to share this message.

And even more grateful for the long, winding path that has taught me how to live it.