Unpopular Opinion: Life's a mirror.

What do I mean by “Life is a mirror?”

I can only share my perspective through the experiences I’ve had. With that being said here we go...

You all know the infamous part in The Matrix when Neo is given the choice to take the red pill or blue pill, right? It’s a lot like that. I have personally chosen to take full responsibility for my life and everything that is manifested in it (The Red Pill). I no longer could live to be blind to what I was creating in my life through my choices, actions, and hidden subconscious agendas. I wanted to see the truth of who I was and my part within the whole. I couldn’t live anymore lacking responsibility and not holding myself accountable to the hurt, I was first and foremost causing myself and others along the way. I was leaving a trail of deep suffering behind and it caught up to me, in one defining moment. That moment was the moment I put my hands around my ex-girlfriend’s throat in a fight about seven years ago and landed in a Miami Federal Prison.

Sitting in a Miami state prison I was forced with two choices.

The Red Pill - Look at what I have done, take responsibility and do whatever I can to make sure I never end up back here in prison. Make the changes needed so that I can be the best version of myself and see the truth of who became and what I did that led me to that cell.

Blue Pill - I get out and fall right back into what I was doing, feeding my ego and a grand sense of self, leaving a deeper trail of destruction behind until I either ended up dead or back in the same place.

Growing up my stepfather was HUGE on taking responsibility for one’s choices and being held accountable for those choices. He was and still is a cop, just like his father. That was a message passed down from his father onto me, accept for him it was beaten into him physically, mentally and emotionally. My father ironically in my eyes lacks the very thing that he preached about growing up. Funny how that works right? The exact things we need for ourselves to grow and become better we project onto others, rejecting what’s being reflected to us for us. (The Mirror.)

I lived my life being forced into Christianity, going to a private Christian school, told what to wear, how to act and what to do all in the name of holding up a family image of, “We are good people, doing the right thing.” I don’t blame my parents, any more. But growing up I rebelled to the fullest. I hated my parents growing up, but back then I didn’t understand exactly what was taking place or why I hated them. I only reacted to what was put onto me, a lack of freedom to find oneself with loving guidance and not through fear. After taking The Red Pill I soon began I needed to make peace with my family and most of all learn to forgive myself for all the years lacking to take responsibility for my life. I know now in this very moment upon writing this that my parents back then did the best, in that given moment they knew how to. I can’t hate someone for doing that, it’s almost the same as yelling at a mentally handicapped person urinating right in front of you. What are you going to do? Yell at that person doing the best they knew-how, or be compassionate and understanding and do what you can to help the situation?

Sitting in my eight by ten cell in an orange jumpsuit throwing an eaten apple core against the wall, catching it in a cup I contemplated my life. “How did I get here? I have to change, something has got to stop! God, please help me! I need help! I do not belong here, PLEASE HELP ME!” I was in that cell for 3 nights and 4 days. It was eye-opening and when I was released I was on a mission to heal what was broken. After getting out I started to take inventory of my life and what I had done to arrive at this place where everything I had built and everything my girlfriend and I had built was gone, so quickly. A quote a friend told me after we broke up comes to mind, “Things that start fast, end fast.”

Everything happened so fast, Yess and I met through some mutual friends we had in common through a theatre group called “The Front Yard Theatre Collective.” We fell in love with each other, but there was a moment at the beginning that I will never forget. We were sitting Yess’s car outside of my apartment building, it was time for our first kiss. Lost in those beautiful big brown eyes I heard a voice, “You are going to pay for all your karma through her.” Now, I don’t know why I didn’t pay attention to that voice and stop right there, maybe I was too focused on sleeping with her or just caught up in the moment, but that thought didn’t stop me from going in for the kill. We kissed, and that was it.

At this point, we were full-on business partners in a matter of days who created a non-profit sponsored by other local nonprofits. I moved out of my apartment without hesitation to move into her place behind her mother’s house. It was a Cuban style home with another home in the back they leased to others including Yess. The logic at that time behind me moving in with her was for the convenience of working together and less traveling. Yess’s mom had no idea about the real relationship her daughter was in, it was hidden from her. Something that after a while really started to hurt and bother me, it left me feeling as though I wasn’t good enough to be with her, oozing out deep anger and rage.

You and I are Love was the name of our arts coordination company that worked with local emerging artists giving them spaces to show their work and someone who truly advocated for them. We also worked with at-risk youth kids in Miami offering art programs to keep them off the streets collaborating with our sponsor Art Studio Miami. Dozens of events created, tens of thousands of dollars made all given to the artists, working with a top tier curator such as Bernice Steinbaum, curating a gallery in Wynwood for local artists. We were a hit and everyone loved me, or us. My ego had become HUGE, my sense of self was full-blown. On a hot summer August day, I asked Yess to make her special Mac N’ Cheese. It was something she loved to make and I loved to eat it, it was also a comfort food for us, a go-to in times when things were rough. It was a subconscious reaction to stressful times, to eat comfort food. She stood over the stove stirring the elbow mac and it was so though she wasn’t really there, she had checked out. We had been fighting a lot up till that moment, arguments, yelling, fighting and being physical were becoming more and more a staple in our relationship.

She plopped the Mac N’ Cheese down and with no thanks given I started to inhale the meal. Halfway done I asked, “Hey what’s up with the mac and cheese, it tastes off?” An eerie silence appeared...and...That was it, she picked up the bowl and threw it against the wall leaving a symbol of our emotions oozing down the wall. Bowl smashing to the ground and we square off in each other’s faces. Yelling, pointing, poking, screams escalating with no sight of finishing. Something came over me and I walked out. Grabbing her keys I walked towards the door and unlocked the gate. Demanding for the keys back I give them to her, only to then slap them out of her hands like a little kid playing a messed up game with her. Lividly walking down the street with no direction in mind I was furious. Stopping in my tracks I started to take inventory of all the things I blamed her for, I grew more and angry by the thoughts and moments crossing my mind’s eye. At that moment I was doing everything I could to blame her for it all, lacking any responsibility for the reality that I had created, projecting it all on her.

Walking back to the house I was a ticking time bomb ready to explode. Finding my target, I fire off. Yelling and screaming as if I was the 17-year-old boy yelling at his mother in the driveway calling her a crazy bitch and how I wish she would just die. “YOU ARE JUST LIKE YOUR FATHER!” And that was it, I lost it, I saw red. Throwing her on the bed she sprung back to only poke me in the chest and further taunt me… I grabbed her by the throat and put her up against the wall. When I snapped back to reality I saw those same beautiful brown eyes I fell in love with filled with fear for her life.

“MA LLAMA POLICIA, LLAMA POLICIA! (Mom call the police). Her short stalky Cuban mother comes out of the front house yelling and screaming at me as I attempt to run, “SIENTATE AHI!! SIENTATE AHI!” Grabbing my shirt and throwing me to the chair she was pointing at. I have done some pretty horrible things and my life and this was the worst. How could I have just put my hands on the one woman I never cheated on, the one woman I truly felt I loved, the one I allowed myself to truly fall for? Moments later the police show up and haul me off to the Miami Federal prison. Looking through the window as the officers get in to take me away Yess is standing there, the backseat window cracked open, “So this is it I guess huh?” I ask her. Standing idle, sorrow and sadness in her eyes she shook her head yes.

There was a deeply rooted anger in me that I hadn’t ever faced and through this situation, I was now opening up to take responsibility and become free. I believe life is a symbol for our psyche, individually and collectively. It’s no coincidence that the prison I found myself in was a symbol for the prison I had created in my own mind and being.

Ask great questions get great answers.

While throwing that apple against the wall and contemplating how I got there and what I needed to do so that I would never return back I asked a great question and the universe heard my cry for help. Our words are powerful and if we ask for help in times of crisis we will get help, it may not be how we think it should come but it will come and you have to be able to see it, from the heart. Getting out was challenging, I was ashamed of what I did, I was filled with guilt and embarrassment. I knew my community would soon find out what I had done and then what? Run? Hide? No, I kept my head up and did what I had to do. I would see people from the community and would have to share my story, and work through it, deal with how people judged me, labeled me, talked behind my back, I was so defeated because the people who validated me now were nowhere in sight.

If you have ever been to Wynwood Miami you know the coffee joint called Panther Coffee, it’s a staple there and that was my spot for years. Everyone knew me, would always get free coffee it was a home away from home. I was there to meet a few friends of mine for a coffee and walk around to look at some murals. While sitting there with my friends I was sharing my story honestly and openly, total vulnerability. One of the ladies mentioned to me that I should work with Ayahuasca and that what I was going through was exactly what it helped with, finding the truth, healing trauma and seeing the mirror that connects us all. I had never heard of Ayahuasca at that time but I was familiar with San Pedro, a fellow plant medicine that Yess and I did together a few months prior to our break up. Right before we broke up she introduced me to a very sacred part of her friends and circle that I never knew she had. This group would become the main source of healing, support and helping me see the mirror more clearly during the early stages of healing. The intention of the ceremony we attended was to heal our relationship and If you’re familiar with plant medicine ceremonies the intention is everything, and it’s always reflected back at you for you to see.

My friends shared stories of their healing with plants and what it did for her husband and his journey of healing through drug addiction. I was convinced this was exactly what I needed to do. I had to break away from the meeting as it was time for me to be at Sweat Lodge. I had befriended the people that Yess introduced to me and they had sweat lodges twice a week and I was there every week, like church, committed to healing and praying. I arrived at the house an hour and a half early before sweat which was something I never did. They decided they were going to cancel the sweat, I was truly bummed. The host mentioned to me that there was a ceremony happening that same night and it was 100$ and that he thought it would be good if I went, that it was time. Reaching into my pocket I pulled out the last 100$ I had to my name and was ready to go. “But how will I get there, its almost a 2 hr drive,” I asked the host. “Don’t worry someone is coming by to grab blankets and stuff and they said they would give you a ride.” Butterflies swirling around in my stomach I anxiously awaited my ride to my first ayahuasca ceremony.

There was something special about Panther Coffee when I look back and see numerous life-changing connections made and moments that changed my life and others. How did that person, my friend, know that I needed Ayahuasca? How is it that hours after she said it that I would be on my way to one? The universe reflected back at me exactly what I asked for, HELP.

After my first ceremony, my world was rocked and nothing would ever be the same. We sat with an indigenous man from the Cofan Tribe in Colombia and one of the first things I learned was about breathing. The shaman after our first cup and an hour of silence started to play this incredible amazonian mouth instrument, as if he was summoning some sort of energy and started to speak in Spanish, the translator translating. “If you feel the medicine wants to come up or out, connect to your breath. Go deep inside and connect to it and focus on it.” For those of you that don’t know Ayahuasca induces deep purging, I don’t like to say vomiting because it’s not exactly that, its something much much deeper. It will sometimes come out from both ends, however, I took his advice to heart. I was terrified, worried I was going to die, and part of me did that night. I had no idea what to expect and I had no expectations as I told not to have. This was something so unknown, but I knew I needed it. That night was the only night I had received a vision until way further down the road with Ayahuasca. I was focused on my breath intensely and then out of nowhere I see myself being wrapped by two three-headed serpents, they start pulling me towards this tiny spec of white light in a vast space of pitch back nothingness. I was terrified and freaking out, the shaman and his helpers had to come to calm me down as I was uncontrollably freaking out and disturbing others and their inner work. Reminding me to come back to my breath I finally calm down and go back to silence. When I woke up that next morning I had felt as though my body had been hit by a bus, but I felt lighter and something in me shifted.

After that night for months of ayahuasca ceremonies doing dozens, I never moved from my sleeping bag like a caterpillar in a cocoon waiting to transform. The breath is everything, and from that first time sitting onwards I became very aware of my breath and the importance of the breath when it comes to facing the unknown. You see, Ayahuasca plays out whats going on in your life in a very condensed way, symbolically manifesting your subconscious right in front of you to see what you lack, need to work on, need to face and what no longer serves you. It doesn’t just happen in that night session, there is a deep integration of what was given to you that must take place after, in real life, the application.

I always circled back to Panther Coffee, it was a sort of meeting place for like minds seeking a greater truth. The way I see it is that this place was mirroring back exactly what was going on inside me. I was seeking answers desperately and the conversations with others were always around the same seeking and healing; The Mirror. Still to this day, this follows me. I met the woman who has single-handedly help me through understanding that this life is a mirror.

I had no idea walking into Panther coffee that day that I would meet my spiritual guide who would work with me without ever asking for a penny for 3 years. She would always be at the same table where we met whenever I was going through something internally and struggling and I needed someone to talk to. It was weeks before I even got her phone number, her name or anything about who she was. She would just listen to me and held space for me to talk. Today I am proud to say that I am still working with her and that we have gone so deep together in this inner work. When I look back and see just how perfectly everything was placed in my life to get me to where I am today, I can’t help but see that this reality is a canvas for our thoughts, intentions, hidden agendas, and the collective. Most people run away from responsibility, most people don’t see their partner as a mirror, but I do and it’s been the greatest gift I could have ever asked for. It was my answer from God crying in that cell helpless and willing to face myself.

I encourage you to take a minute and contemplate on this, see what thoughts come up when you think about life is a mirror of all you are, all you choose not to be, all the things you have owned and disowned, yours or not, judged and ridiculed. Where it gets tricky for people is that they struggle to see they’re part of the whole, that the way the world is right now is just as much my responsibility as the next. Your choices impact me and vice versa. Learning to forgive myself and all I had done in my life has enabled me to be less judgemental, apply more compassion and empathy to a world when it desperately needs it. Our fellow brothers and sisters in this world are hurting, nowhere to go, no one to talk to, so I say let’s pick up the mirror and reflect back the love they lost and show them just how important they are to this world. But first, you must see you and give all that yourself so you can reflect back the truth of what life really is, PURE LOVE.