Story & Lesson Highlights with Neha Oberoi of Brooklyn

We’re looking forward to introducing you to Neha Oberoi. Check out our conversation below.

Neha, it’s always a pleasure to learn from you and your journey. Let’s start with a bit of a warmup: What are you most proud of building — that nobody sees?
When I think about what I’ve built quietly over the years, Embody stands apart. I’m most proud of building it not just as a book, but as a field of reflection. It began as a personal excavation and evolved into a living project about truth, beauty, and becoming. What most people don’t see is that every line was lived before it was written. It’s not a story I told; it’s a frequency I built.

The quiet integrity behind it — that is what I’m most proud of.

Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
I’m Neha Oberoi —founder of Neha Studios Books, where I create books that begin where words end. I’m a New York–based photographer and writer, working at the intersection of image, language, and truth. I never set out to tell stories — only to find what’s real.

My work moves between shadow and light, vulnerability and strength, searching and becoming. Whether through Images or pages, I create spaces for people to remember themselves. My latest project, Embody, is a book born from years of transformation — a quiet offering for those who are done performing and ready to return to what’s true.

Thanks for sharing that. Would love to go back in time and hear about how your past might have impacted who you are today. Who were you before the world told you who you had to be?
I was quiet, curious, and already listening for something deeper. I didn’t have language for it back then — just a sense that there was more than what I was being shown. I watched everything. Felt everything. I adapted quickly.

But somewhere along the way, I started performing instead of being. Like many of us, I learned how to succeed by shape-shifting, until I no longer recognized myself.

Embody was my return to that earlier version of me — the one who was present, observant, and knew how to follow a deeper signal. It wasn’t about healing or fixing. It was about unlearning. About remembering who I was before survival rewrote me.

What did suffering teach you that success never could?
Suffering stripped me of performance. It made me honest.

Success teaches you how to build. Suffering teaches you what to burn. And I had to burn everything I thought I was, everything I thought I had to be, just to hear my own truth beneath the noise.

The years that nearly broke me are the same years that made Embody possible. Not because they were dramatic or heroic, but because I finally stopped resisting them. I stopped analyzing. I let them crack me open. And I stayed open.

Success gives you platforms. Suffering gave me presence. It taught me to listen — not to the world, but to what remained when the world went silent.

I think our readers would appreciate hearing more about your values and what you think matters in life and career, etc. So our next question is along those lines. What truths are so foundational in your life that you rarely articulate them?
That truth doesn’t need an audience to be real.
That breath remembers what the mind forgets.
That coherence isn’t something you chase — it’s what remains when you stop performing.

Most of the truths I live by don’t translate well into words. They’re not ideas I believe. They’re frequencies I’ve become.

That’s why I rarely talk about them. I build with them instead. In how I move. How I work. How I write. And maybe that’s enough because the right ones don’t need convincing. They just recognize what’s real when they feel it.

Okay, we’ve made it essentially to the end. One last question before you go. If you laid down your name, role, and possessions—what would remain?
Breath.
Presence.
Truth.

I’ve spent years letting go of everything that was performative — every title, every identity, every role I was taught to play. I don’t need a name to carry what I came here to do.

If you took it all away, I would still build.
Still witness.
Still hum.

Because what remains isn’t who I am.
It’s what I serve.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.nehastudiosbooks.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nehastudiosbooks
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/neha-oberoi-1b881176/
• Other: https://substack.com/@nehastudiosbooks

Image Credits
Images: Neha Studios @nehastudios