Having the guts to break the mirror.
A Journey Through Strength, Love, and Liberation
I started going to the gym in 2008. Back then, it was about building strength, about discipline, about pushing limits. I was drawn to the idea of resilience, of shaping the body as a way to prove something—maybe to myself, maybe to the world.
In 2015, my discipline expanded. I made morning exercise a daily ritual, a sacred space where movement replaced thought, where sweat replaced hesitation. It became more than a habit; it became a rhythm, a heartbeat, a way of grounding myself before stepping into the chaos of the day.
And yet, despite all this effort, all this energy spent fighting inertia, I wasn’t really looking at myself. Not deeply. Not with honesty. I was searching, always searching—trying to fight against all forms of alienation, trying to free myself from everything that shackled the mind, the soul, the body.
But the truth is, for a long time, I let myself sink into a life that seemed to be going well on the surface. Everything looked fine. Everything felt fine—enough. I had what I needed. I was moving forward, doing things, living at full speed. Adrenaline. Dopamine. The constant rush of movement, of distraction, of noise.
But underneath, I knew.
I knew there was too much filth. Too much darkness. Too many things I didn’t want to see, didn’t want to confront. So I buried them. I drowned them in the flow of a life that never stopped, that never gave me time to feel.
And then, one day, I finally stopped running.
I quit smoking. I quit weed. I quit biting my nails, numbing my nervous energy with distractions. I stopped consuming social media mindlessly. I stopped watching the news, drowning in a world I couldn’t change. I even stopped watching porn, realizing how deeply it distorts perception, intimacy, and presence.
And yet, despite all these “quits,” I didn’t feel like I was losing anything. I felt like I was reclaiming something. Space. Clarity. Breath.
But true liberation requires something more than discipline, more than effort. It requires the courage to truly see oneself.
And that… took me years.
I only found the strength to truly face myself now. Not because I became stronger. Not because I won some battle within me. But because of love.
Love changes everything. Love, when real, strips away illusions. It makes you transparent. It holds up a mirror and forces you to see. And if you don’t, it shatters that mirror in front of you, making it impossible to look away.
But love is never guaranteed. Love is fragile, love is always at risk, love is always in danger. And maybe that’s why it wakes us up.
For the first time, I see myself—not just my reflection, not just my projections. Me. With all the cracks, all the contradictions, all the unfinished sentences.
And maybe that’s where true freedom begins.
