Steven Pressfield's personal story unsettles me—not because he committed terrible acts, but because of his lifelong habit of sabotaging himself through what he calls Resistance. I only recently read his book The War of Art. As soon as I saw clips about it online, I bought it without hesitation.

However, I found myself resisting the urge to devour it in one sitting. I didn’t understand why until today: it was fear. I feared running out of excuses for putting off what I knew I needed to do. I feared becoming someone different from who my family, friends, and society expect me to be. I feared the loneliness of standing in the void. Most of all, I feared the obstacles, the rejections, and the pain of proving what truly lies within me. Resistance, I realized, is simply fear in disguise.

Self-doubt and fear are intertwined. For most of my life, I believed the negative inner voice inside my head. Instead of facing inevitable truths, I used this voice to rationalize the uncomfortable, to dodge accountability, and to channel anger outward. We, as humans, cannot easily overcome beliefs buried deep within our subconscious. We will go to great lengths to protect those beliefs. The question is: what is surrounded by these beliefs? What sustains and nourishes them?

"For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction."– Newton's Third Law of Motion

These beliefs are the direct result of how our inner self interacts with the world. They are shaped by the interplay of action and reaction, yet they act as lenses or mirrors projecting images of our inner selves. Unfortunately, these projections are rarely pure or undistorted. Often, they are inverted, discolored, or disproportionate—far from the truth. This distorted image is the counterfeit self.

A clear mind can allow the light of true inner self to shine directly outward, without distortion or filtering. The brighter the projected image, the greater the energy of the source. However, this brilliance often requires you to reinterpret the projected image. The louder the self-doubt or the stronger the fear, the more it suggests that you are looking in the right direction.

Rebuilding or fine-tuning these lenses and prisms is an overwhelming task. Sometimes, you have to shatter them completely to uncover the unrecognizable distortions they create. But breaking them comes with a price: the shattered glass can cut deeply and leave you bleeding. That pain, however, is the cost of breaking free.