Through the looking glass of truth
See your life as it is, not how you wish it to be
See yourself clearly
Truth is uncomfortable.
It doesn’t flatter
It doesn’t bend
It doesn’t entertain your excuses
But it does something more powerful than all of that — it sets you free.
Truth, real truth, isn’t just about facts. It’s about seeing yourself and your life without the filters, stories, and masks you’ve picked up over the years.
This article isn’t here to tell you what your truth is, it’s here to help you find it. Because once you look through the clear lens of truth…
You stop playing small
You stop chasing illusions
You start living with clarity, courage, and purpose.
Let’s walk through the mirror together and live more deeply.
Truth matters more than ever
We live in a world obsessed with appearances.
Perfect lives
Curated feeds
Highlight reels of success, love, and laughter.
But beneath the surface, most people are lost in noise. They say they want clarity and peace, but they avoid the one thing that gives them both:
Radical self-honesty.
“The unexamined life is not worth living.” — Socrates
To examine your life is to ask:
Who am I… really?
What have I been avoiding?
What beliefs are keeping me stuck?
Facing the truth doesn’t destroy you.
It dissolves the lies that have been holding you hostage.
🧨 Take off the mask
We all wear masks.
At work, you wear the competent professional mask. With friends, maybe you’re the funny one. With family, you might be the responsible child or the peacemaker.
Over time, we forget we’re even wearing them.
But behind the performance is a real person, a version of you that’s scared, curious, hopeful, angry, lost.
All of it.
Taking off the mask means:
You admit when something isn’t working.
You stop pretending you have it all together.
You stop forcing yourself to fit someone else’s definition of “success.”
What mask do you wear most often? Why? Your answer might hurt.
That’s good. That’s truth knocking.
🧨 Investigate your beliefs
Most people aren’t trapped by reality. They’re trapped by their perception of it.
If you believe:
“I’m not creative”
“I’m not good with money”
“I’ll always be alone”
“I’m not the kind of person who succeeds”
…then you’ll act in ways that prove those beliefs true—even if they aren’t.
These beliefs were usually formed during:
Childhood experiences
Past failures
Trauma or repeated rejection
But they’re not you. They’re programs you’ve absorbed and repeated. To rewrite them, you first have to see them.
Now write down 3 areas of your life where you feel stuck. Next to each one, write the story you’re telling yourself about why it’s not working.
That story? That’s the belief keeping you in place.
🧨 Feel the discomfort
The truth doesn’t always feel good. But that doesn’t mean it’s bad. In fact, growth often starts where comfort ends.
Sometimes, truth looks like:
Realizing your relationship is draining you
Admitting you’ve outgrown your current career
Owning the fact that you have been the one holding yourself back
It’s easier to blame circumstances. Easier to scroll and numb out. Easier to delay decisions “until the timing is right”.
But easy rarely leads to deep.
Truth asks you to stop avoiding, stop blaming, and start feeling what you’ve buried. It’s in that discomfort that the seeds of change are planted.
🧨 Redefine what’s real for you
Once you see the truth, you get to create from it.
No more borrowed goals
No more chasing success defined by someone else
No more pretending you're someone you're not
You ask:
What kind of life do I actually want?
Who do I want to be, not just look like?
What does success mean to me—not Instagram?
This is where self-improvement becomes soulful.
It’s not about becoming “better”, it’s about becoming more you. You move from surviving to self-authoring.
Real-life truth in action
Take a moment and rewind the tape of your life—10, 20, even 30 years back.
Forget the roles you’ve played or the milestones you’ve hit. Look deeper. Beneath the surface of your achievements, failures, and phases, there’s always been a common thread running through it all. A belief. A value. A truth you couldn’t shake off even if you tried.
Maybe it’s the need to be free
Maybe it’s a relentless hunger to prove your worth
Maybe it’s love, justice, loyalty, or the refusal to quit
Whatever it is, it’s shaped your choices in ways you may not even realize.
This truth doesn’t always show up in dramatic fashion. Sometimes it’s subtle, a quiet tug when you’re at a crossroads. A feeling in your gut when something doesn’t align. It might’ve guided you out of toxic relationships, inspired bold career shifts, or driven you to stand up for someone even when it cost you something.
And no matter how lost or stuck you’ve felt in certain seasons of life, this inner compass always finds a way to pull you back on track.
The real question is, have you been listening to it? Or have you been drowning it out with what the world wants you to be?
The truth of your life isn’t found in grand declarations, but in repeated actions.
In patterns
In pain
In passion
Look closely. That thread you find is not just who you’ve been, it’s a mirror to who you’re meant to become. The more you honor it, the clearer your path becomes—not just in theory, but in real, aligned action.
The cost of avoiding truth
Avoiding the truth doesn’t make it go away. It just makes the consequences worse.
It might cost you:
Wasted years in the wrong career or relationship
Deep dissatisfaction masked by busyness
A constant feeling of “something’s missing”
When you look away from the mirror, you end up walking through life blindfolded.
But when you face it?
You reclaim your life.
Truth is a superpower
When you live through the looking glass of truth:
you make decisions faster
you stop overthinking everything
you connect more deeply with others
you trust yourself more
You stop seeking validation.
You stop performing.
You start living.
Truth isn’t the enemy. It’s the gateway.
Start living in truth
The looking glass of truth doesn’t distort.
It reveals. What you see may be hard, but what you build from it will be strong. So the question isn’t whether you want to face the truth, rather it’s whether you can afford not to.
The mirror is waiting.
Look in. Step through. And start becoming who you were always meant to be.
Truth won’t always feel good. But it will lead you somewhere better.
Dare to fail so you can dare to win - Moon Arica
Expand your comfort zone here, tell me your thoughts:
Are you afraid of facing truths?
Does truth sometimes harm more than heal?
Recently:
Thanks for reading.
All of your material is great, but this piece is superb. What a wonderful read!
This is beautiful. Masking presents in so many different ways in all our lives. Radical self-acceptance is needed to unmask and show/tell the truth to our loved ones and ourselves. Thank you for this. I'm saving to read again and again. Love, Virg