We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Neha Ewell. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Neha below.

Alright, Neha thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?

One of the biggest risks I’ve taken was stepping back from my corporate and agency career, where hustle culture was the norm and often felt like an expectation. For years, I said yes to everyone and everything, working around the clock through cycles of burnout. Though I had the honor of partnering with remarkable brands and accomplishing phenomenal work, I still felt disconnected from my authenticity, the full scope of my creativity, my emotions, and the things that truly lit me up inside. I decided to take a 6-month career break to deepen my relationship with myself and reconnect with my purpose. While it has been an incredibly empowering and enriching experience, I also acknowledge my privilege, planning for and taking this time. I have the support of my incredible husband and family on this journey and for that, I am forever grateful.

In speaking with other women in my community, it’s becoming apparent to me that once we climb the first rung of the corporate ladder, we often get stuck believing that’s the only path to success. This can lead to us losing touch with our inner voice and the expansive potential that is available to us. I think it’s so easy to forget that our worth isn’t tied to our output, title, or salary. The longer we spend on the dopamine and cortisol train, the more we numb ourselves to what true fulfillment and inner validation really look and feel like—at least, that’s been my experience.

Choosing to step out of that mindset was a significant risk—it meant giving up a steady paycheck and walking away from the particular career I had built in advertising. However, as with most scary things, stepping into the unknown has been deeply enriching and transformative. This time has allowed me to discover and fully embrace my authentic self-expression, joy, pleasure, and creativity while deepening my connection to my inner wisdom and intuition. We can’t go wrong when we’re in touch with our inner compass.

Taking a career break and pivoting from the way I was working has given me the courage to keep evolving, explore new passions, and showcase my talents without feeling boxed in. I’m showing up in an embodied way, utilizing my diverse skills, pivoting when necessary, and cherishing the lessons I’ve gained from my setbacks. Many of us feel pressured to choose one career or identity, but that mindset can also stifle our natural creativity and dynamism. I now have the freedom to approach each project with intentionality and potency—whether I’m producing, working one-on-one with clients, collaborating on experiential installations, facilitating a women’s circle, or guiding a somatic or meditative session. This approach has allowed me to align my work with my authenticity and engage in projects that resonate with me and with teams that reflect my values.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

Thanks for asking! I’m Neha—a passionate creator who has worn many hats throughout my journey, from award-winning music supervisor, musician, and producer to meditation teacher, somatic practitioner, and intuitive guide.

I’m a Third Culture Kid who grew up in Australasia and Italy before making my way to NYC in 2010 to study jazz. As luck would have it, I ended up falling into Brooklyn’s underground electronic music scene instead. It was here that my artistic practices were shaped by the intersection of space, culture, emotion, embodiment, synthesis, and sound.

In my professional life, I was doing what all perfectionist, adrenaline-fueled NYC millennial women do: diving headfirst into the fast-paced, competitive landscapes of production, media, tech, and advertising, working with some of the biggest brands in the world and quickly climbing up the ranks.

On the other hand, another journey was unfolding within me as I repeatedly ignored my personal limits and boundaries in pursuit of “success.” As Bessel Van Der Kolk puts it, my body was indeed keeping the score. I knew I was under immense physical and emotional stress, but nothing I tried moved the needle on the patterns of anxiety, reactivity, and fatigue I was stuck in, all while wearing a facade of ultra-high productivity. This took a toll on my health, relationships, creative practice, and my ability to show up in the world with a steady sense of joy or true presence.

So, I did what any New Yorker would do: I decided to go on an 8-day silent meditation retreat in the Berkshires. This was a whole week without my phone, outside contact (not even with my husband), no reading, journaling, or speaking to anyone, filled with long periods of Vipassana meditation each day. Over those 8 days, my entire inner landscape began to shift. Although I wasn’t relationally available to anyone during that time, I still felt a profound sense of community and connection—more so than I had after 13 years of living, creating, and working in the city. I was also deeply moved by the immense sense of relief that came over me as I set down my countless obligations and external burdens— including my phone— for the first time in my adult life.

The first thing I realized on this retreat was how disconnected I was. I was completely disembodied; I couldn’t identify sensations within my body, and there was an overall sense of numbness and dissociation that I couldn’t escape through the dopamine pings of social media or the cortisol rush of emails and work requests. In this environment of gentle holding, I began to come back into my body, experiencing a level of presence, opening, and awareness that felt like coming home. My relationship with myself and my entire world transformed almost overnight!

An immediate effect of this beautiful opening was that I began to thaw layers of emotion that had been frozen beneath the surface of all my ‘activity’ for years. This marked the beginning of a transformative journey of embodiment and nervous system healing, as I uncovered and processed repressed emotions I had locked away in survival mode throughout my life. I came to realize how deeply our bodies and minds are intertwined, and how essential it is to cultivate safety, resources, and presence within our bodies in order to break free from cycles of anxiety, depression, and reactivity. For years, I had been reading books, taking classes, and going to therapy focused on top-down approaches—leaving the body out of the equation. But the biggest turning point for me came when I realized I could keep looping the same stories in my mind forever unless I brought my focus to what my body was holding, reconnecting with my emotions through a bottom-up approach. As women, we’re often conditioned to disconnect from our bodies, our natural rhythms, and our deeper emotions due to societal narratives. Yet, we forget that our bodies carry so much valuable information and profound wisdom. Learning to speak that language has opened me up to much more pleasure, joy, inspiration, and creativity, enabling me to engage more fully with life, work, community, and relationships.

Through embodiment, I also learned how to establish real boundaries and stand firmly behind them. I became attuned to what a ‘no’ feels like in my body, as well as what a ‘yes’ feels like, regardless of the stories or confusion my mind might have been spinning. I learned how to advocate for myself professionally and cultivate unwavering inner support and fierce compassion in the face of challenges. Most importantly, I discovered how to be truly present in relationships and avoid being swept away by reactivity or defensive narratives.

This journey has been so life-changing and liberating that I am currently training as a Family and Systemic Constellations Facilitator with Luisa Muhr—a deeply transformational modality for healing intergenerational trauma and systemic conflicts—and as a Focalizing Practitioner with Nick Werber (The Focalizing Institute), a powerful somatic modality for dissolving limiting beliefs and internal barriers that keep us stuck in maladaptive patterns. I am also a trauma-informed meditation teacher with a regular retreat practice and I’m passionate about bringing nervous system healing and resilience to our adrenaline-fueled systems. I incorporate this work as an artist through audiovisual installations and experiential art that immerses the audience in regulating sensory environments that foster embodiment and invite deep rest.

I feel deeply called to support women on their transformative journeys of self-discovery, healing, and resilience through a holistic approach that incorporates the body, mind, and creative spirit. I’m dedicated to holding embodied space and sharing the insights, resources, and practices that have profoundly changed my life. My goal is to guide women out of anxiety, limiting narratives, and burnout, enabling them to reconnect with themselves and their intuition, experience greater freedom, and cultivate inner ease, regardless of their industry or environment.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

I’ve had to unlearn what “success” truly is. And through that unlearning, I now realize it’s not about productivity and perfectionism, as so many of us are led to believe. For a long time, I measured my worth by how much I could handle and my ability to say yes—definitely mindsets shaped by societal pressures, especially for women. This led to burnout and a nagging sense of inadequacy, creating a never-ending cycle of self-abandonment. Over time, I’ve unlearned these beliefs, discovering the value of taking care of myself, setting boundaries, listening to the cycles of my body, and nurturing its needs. I’ve unveiled a deeper sense of self-worth that doesn’t come from what I accomplish and now when I engage in any project or collaboration from this grounded place, my work is significantly more impactful.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

I would love to share a bit about what I’ve learned about resilience on my journey. For me, resilience isn’t about relentless struggle or just overcoming challenges. I used to think it meant fighting against obstacles and rising above them. Now, I see resilience as a fluid and flexible dance—meeting life where it is, flowing with its rhythms, and adapting in the moment. It’s about showing up with energy when needed and knowing when to step back and nurture yourself. My resilience enables me to embrace life’s ups and downs with grace and openness rather than resistance. This reframe has been so liberating, and allows me to navigate the world with more enthusiasm, curiosity, and an open heart. I am currently working on a series of offerings that incorporate these teachings in an accessible way, so keep an eye out in 2025! If my journey resonates with readers in any way, I would love to hear from you and hear your stories.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://nehaewell.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/neha.ewell/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nehaewell/

Image Credits
Miles Dean Ewell