In alignment with SAMHIN’s mission to foster open dialogue about mental health within the South Asian community and highlight the meaningful contributions of those advancing this work, we invited Mahashree Portonovo — Lifestyle Design Coach and Certified Health & Life Coach, on her reflections to simplify life.
Two Mornings, One Mountain
Every day, I step out for a brisk one hour walk through my neighborhood, a place surrounded by mountains that feel like steady companions. The images above were taken on two different mornings. One day, the sky was alive with fiery color. On another, the clouds hung low and gentle, wrapping the mountain in a soft gray veil.
Same mountain. Completely different expression.
Those morning views became the starting point for a lesson that has shaped the way I now understand resilience, identity, and inner steadiness.
What These Mountains Revealed
As I watched these daily shifts, something clicked. The mountain itself never changes. It stays solid, grounded, and unmoved. But the way we see it shifts dramatically based on light, weather, and season.
On bright days, it glows.
On cloudy days, it softens.
After rain, it darkens and settles into quiet strength.
The mountain doesn’t try to adjust itself to match the sky. It doesn’t question its worth because of the way the light hits it. It simply stays itself while the world around it moves.
And we never look at the mountain and think it needs to be different.
A Mirror for Being Human
As a Lifestyle Design Coach, I started seeing how beautifully this mirrors our lives. Everything we experience is temporary. Our circumstances color our days, our emotions rise and fall, and new challenges or victories come and go. But at our core, we remain who we are.
The weather of life changes constantly.
The self does not.
A joyful moment doesn’t make you more worthy.
A painful moment doesn’t make you less whole.
When we forget this, we start believing that we need to constantly change ourselves to meet every situation. But when we remember the mountain within us, we realize that our job is not to become someone else. It is to remain rooted while life plays out around us.
A Truth Tested Over 58 Years
At 58, I can say with clarity that life brings cycles of success and loss, connection and conflict, clarity and confusion. None of it defines us. It only moves around us.
When we stay anchored in our inner steadiness, the emotional swings become easier to regulate. We respond instead of react. We pause instead of spiral. We choose instead of collapse into old habits.
The mountain doesn’t break in the storm. It simply waits for the sky to clear.
And we can too.
By Shree Portonovo
Lifestyle Design Coach
Certified Health & Life Coach
SAMHIN volunteer
~ I help people simplify their life by teaching them how to lead from alignment rather than fear.
Share your Thoughts
What helps you remember to pause when life shifts around you? Let me know in the comments.
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