Since I started to train martial arts 16 years ago, I knew this art of living will shape my life forever — and accompany me in every step I take. I am eternally grateful to all my masters for teaching me the art of living — through the practice of martial arts.

These are the 7lessons I learned from practising martial arts — all have the potential to change your life:

Discipline

Discipline is something that many of us are lacking — we might have a morning routine, steady working hours and a well-planned schedule we follow, but that has, in…

When it first happened, I was scared. I felt anxious, frustrated and a bit insecure.

I need it in my life! What will I do without it? How will I even exist?

Now, does that sound a bit dramatic to you over a broken phone? Actually, it is the cruel reality that most of us face in 2021. We are addicted to being connected every single second of our day. We need to know what is going on (or at least what this little tech device tells us) or we feel removed from society.

We are Controlled by a Machine

What happened to my phone was…

I arrived without a clue
thinking this was so much less
then what it turned out to be.
I arrived as a body — with hidden pains and judgemental thoughts
blessed with the numbness of ignorance,
stuck in this world of people
trying to find what’s already there.

I know you also have been longing,
longing for that which can’t be grasped,
crying many tears into a never-ending void.
Chasing happiness like this was all we know
when really, it is so much more than a shot of joy.

Then, I followed a distant call and on a wondrous hill…

Growing up in a western culture, the word death causes fear and discomfort.

Death is like a dark shadow following you until your last day has come.

Death brings with it sadness, grief and suffering. But it doesn’t need to be like that. Travelling the world, I was fortunate enough to come into contact with ancient cultures and traditions which have a very different approach to death.

When I was visiting Sulawesi, one of more than 17,500 islands that make Indonesia, I was confronted directly with death. The island is inhabited by the Torajan people, a tribe thousands of years…

I am a being of different angles. I cannot put my essence into words.

All my life I tried to identify myself with adjectives, skills, a career, things I like and don’t like, my family and friends, knowledge or opinions. My experiences make me who I am now, a soul in constant transformation. But in the past, I was running away from my true self.

I was covering myself up with false makeup, wrong clothes, stolen stories and fake smiles.

I travelled the world thinking I would find myself on the way. And yes, I did discover hidden parts of…

The feeling started when I was really young.

I felt like something was missing. Like there was more to life than what everyone wanted to make me believe. Do not get me wrong I had a beautiful childhood and everything a child needs, but that was exactly the problem. I felt a void in that perfection. It made me question this perfectly pre-shaped future, it made me question all the answers they had, it made me question the whole system.

“What you know you can’t explain, but you feel it. You’ve felt it your entire life, that there’s something wrong…

Bright colours, the best food ever (ramen), cuteness overload, temples full of ancient histories, weird robots, very expressive costumes, mysterious geishas, the kindest people I’ve ever met — I love Japan. Really. And I want to share with you why.

On my backpacking trip through Asia, Japan was undoubtedly my favourite country. Why? Because it has been my dream to visit Japan since I was 11 years old. When I was little, I was a huge fan of mangas and anime, I trained in karate and even took some Japanese lessons beside school. My favourite movie was (of course) “Memoirs…

Living in Colombia, I really enjoy celebrating the traditional festivities and learning about the culture and people of this beautiful country. This year I celebrated the Christmas season to the fullest with my Colombian family — and I want to share with you 6 very Colombian Christmas traditions — some beautiful, some funny and some really weird. Many of those experiences were totally new to me, coming from Europe. To sum it up, Colombian Christmas is all about celebration — because Colombians like their rumba (Spanish for “celebration”).

Dia de las Velitas (Spanish for “Day of the little candles”)

Colombians start the Christmas season on the 7th of December — when…