The Double C’s: Breaking Free from Contortion & the Chase
Last week, I caught myself mid-conversation, my voice climbing an octave higher than natural, my face frozen in a smile that had nothing to do with joy. I was performing again—shapeshifting in real time to fit whatever space I thought the room needed me to occupy. In that moment, I recognized the familiar ache of the double C’s: contort and chase.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve excelled at both. Our community often encourages us not to shrink, to take up space boldly. Yet the world simultaneously demands we contort ourselves for survival—a contradiction that leaves many of us twisted into unrecognizable shapes, chasing validation that always seems just out of reach.
The Art of Survival Shapeshifting
Even when I hold presence in a room, I still contort. My raspy voice becomes unnaturally high-pitched. My resting expression transforms into a mask of peaceful compliance. Neither reflects my natural state—they’re survival mechanisms, refined through years of reading rooms and adjusting accordingly. This is a different kind of shapeshifting, one I wrestle with daily.
When I think of contortion, two images come to mind: the breathtaking beauty of Cirque du Soleil performers and the horrific reality captured in “Strange Fruit.” Both involve manipulation of the body, but one represents artistry chosen freely, while the other reflects violence imposed by force. This distinction—voluntary versus coerced contortion—has become central to understanding my own patterns.
The contortion I practice daily falls somewhere between these extremes. It’s chosen, yes, but not freely. It’s survival, not art.
The Relentless Pursuit
I can attribute much of my career success to mastering the art of the chase. I’ve chased money, prestige, and that peculiar fiction we call the American Dream. I’ve chased love—or at least what I thought love was supposed to look like when packaged and sold back to me through media narratives.
The programming that encourages chasing is everywhere: “The thrill of the hunt,” “Playing hard to get,” “The art of seduction.” We’re taught that romance requires a chase, that desire must be performed through calculated unavailability. I’ve played this game—phone literally in my hand while pretending to be unreachable, feigning aloofness when genuinely captivated by someone’s presence.
This silent programming wires us to live on a hamster wheel of perpetual pursuit, always reaching for something shiny and deliberately kept just beyond our grasp. All I can think of is Gollum, eyes glistening with obsession, whispering “my precious” to something that’s slowly destroying him. That’s programmed addiction—and like Gollum, we’re often chasing the very things most dangerous to our wellbeing.
The Cost of Performance
The combination of contortion and chasing has led me to believe less about myself, even while surrounded by people who simultaneously celebrate my abilities and secretly hope for my failure. This toxic dynamic taught me to buy into systems I don’t actually believe in—to chase labels and external markers of worth that feel hollow once attained.
Don’t get me wrong—I still love a good pair of Banana Republic work pants (long legs require specific accommodations), but I’m talking about the deeper labels. The ones that promise belonging but deliver isolation. The ones that require you to gaslight yourself into continuing despite every authentic part of you slowly dying.
This is what I mean by the difference between voluntary contortion and brute force. Sometimes we bend ourselves willingly, thinking we’re making strategic choices, only to realize we’ve been coerced by systems so pervasive we mistake them for our own desires.
The Awakening
I’ve realized that the very things I held dear were working to my detriment. How many of us thought we had “arrived” only to discover we wanted to run from the dumpster fire that is the American Nightmare? Success, as it was sold to us, often turns out to be another form of imprisonment.
The unlearning process has been both painful and liberating. It’s meant recognizing that holding space doesn’t require contorting myself into palatability. It’s meant understanding that real love—romantic, platonic, or self-directed—doesn’t require a chase because it’s not running away.
Finding Peace Beyond Performance
On this gloomy yet strikingly beautiful Monday in Chicago, I find myself striving less and enjoying more. The shift feels radical in its simplicity. Instead of scanning rooms to determine who I should become, I practice staying rooted in who I am. Instead of engineering chase dynamics, I’m learning to recognize and receive genuine connection when it appears naturally.
This doesn’t mean abandoning ambition or becoming passive. It means distinguishing between authentic desire and programmed pursuit, between strategic adaptation and soul-crushing contortion.
The promise of peace isn’t just personal—it’s collective. Every person who steps off the hamster wheel of performance and pursuit creates space for others to do the same. In a world that profits from our exhaustion, choosing presence over performance becomes a quiet revolution.
My lovelies, we deserve more than survival. We deserve the radical act of existing as ourselves, unchased and uncontorted, in all our magnificent, messy humanity.
Unlearning with love,
Ja’Nohn