Martina knew it in theory for years - I am not my thoughts & I am not my emotions. But Vietnam is where it finally dropped from her head into her body. This is what it actually took to get there.

Hello & welcome back! Martina here.

Sooo we recorded this podcast five days after the biggest breakthrough of my 34-year-old life. FIVE DAYS. I was still shaking, still trying to find words for something that just... CRACKED me WIDE open.

But we hit record anyway because that's us. And that rawness is probably why it hit so hard.

So this is what six months in Vietnam actually did FOR US and the biggest lesson it brought US.

Spoiler: it wasn't all Pho Bos and sunsets... It was VERY far from it.

The Prison I Didn't Know I Was In

For 34 years I believed every single thought my mind threw at me.

"You do everything wrong. You're the problem. You're not enough."

I thought those voices WERE me -like, literally me talking to myself, cuz it sounded like me, right?

Plot twist: THEY WEREN'T.

Here's the sneaky part: your ego sounds EXACTLY like you. It knows your deepest fears, your childhood wounds, every insecurity you've ever had. It's like the world's best FBI negotiator living rent-free in your head, always knowing exactly which button to push to keep you frozen:)

I didn't even know I was trapped... the walls were made of my own thoughts.

My previous mentors, coaches and teachers kept telling me this for YEARS:

"You are not your thoughts. You are not your emotions." And of course I repeated it in meditations over and over again, I wrote it in my journal every day, I said it out loud.

AND ALSO didn't believe a single word. I simply didn't FEEL IT'S TRUE.

Until five days ago.

What Vietnam Actually Looked Like For Us (The Unfiltered Version)

Here's what you don't see on Instagram:

We landed in Vietnam after 1.5 years back home in Slovakia.

Week ONE, our business tanked.
After the Christmas and Valentine's rush, March went silent, and instead of just being a business thing, it became EVERYTHING: new country, no friends, no family, no stability, and zero ground under our feet.

The fear got LOUD.

And then.. we kept making it "worse".

We moved to Danang (a city everyone loves but was totally wrong for us — no parks, no grass for Buchta, just concrete).
Sixteen-hour car ride to get there.
Moved again.
And again.
Motorbike accidents.
Kidney pain.
Money stress.
Fights.
Me projecting every unhealed part of myself onto Tomash....again.

Because here's what happens in real, conscious relationships: your unhealed stuff doesn't stay quiet, it SCREAMS. Your partner becomes the mirror. And if you're not ready to see what's reflected back, you fight the mirror instead.

I fought that mirror hard in Vietnam.

The Voice That Ran My Life

The specific voice I took as my own from my mom that controlled me for 34 years said:

"You do everything wrong. You ARE the problem."

I learned it as a kid because when things went wrong, my brain decided it must be MY fault. Because if it's my fault, at least I have some control, right? That's how kids survive chaos — they make it about them.

At first, your brain does this to protect you. But then, the protection becomes the prison.

I knew this in theory and for YEARS I tried to "fix" this: with healing sessions, 5am meditations, all the courses, coaches, therapists, mentors...


Yet it was all coming from the same exhausting place: something is wrong with me and I need to fix it.

Which just proved the belief right! Every. Single. Time.

You can't heal something you're using as proof you're broken.

The Couch Moment

Four days before recording this, everything changed.

We were mid-argument with the usual loop — me projecting, Tomash shutting down, me reading it as rejection, spiral complete.

But this time I did something new.

So I went to the balcony and stayed still. And something in me just... STOPPED.

I said out loud: "I don't want to do this anymore. I CHOOSE DIFFERENTLY. I choose LOVE."

Then I walked back inside.

Tomash came out of the bathroom and I told him, "Can we try again?" He said yes. And he sat me down on the couch.

He didn't yell, didn't lecture, didn't try to fix me.

He just looked at me and told me — clearly, quietly, completely — what he'd always seen in me. The TRUTH of who I actually am. The version he'd been patiently waiting for me to see for six entire years. The joyful Martina full of light & LIFE, the one that gets excited about every little thing, the one that dances, the one that makes everyone laugh, the amazing, powerful leader that I kept forgeting I was becoming, because I kept getting lost inside of my own thougts, and fearing my body's sensations = emotions.

Not a healer.
Not a course.
Not a $3,000 retreat.

One person seing another person with pure, patient, unconditional love.

That's when EVERYTHING BROKE OPEN FOR ME.

What "I Am Not My Thoughts" Actually Feels Like

Knowing something in your head vs. FEELING it in your body are 2 completely different universes.

I knew the concept, said the words, understood the theory.. And it meant absolutely NOTHING in the moments that mattered — the 2am spirals, the fights, the days I was convinced I ruined everything.

Then that moment on the balcony, something dropped: Not in my head. In my BODY.

I was mid-thought and I recognized it: "Waittttt! This is the old voice. This isn't ME!"

And there was a gap.
A tiny space between me and the thought.

And in that space, I could CHOOSE.

That's it.
That's the whole thing.

Not silence, not the voice disappearing - just the ability to see it for what it is and choose differently.

THAT'S what 34 years, six months in Vietnam, one business crisis, one man who never stopped believing in me, and one moment on a balcony created.

The thing is though, you can't force this.
You can't hustle your way there.

Evolution opens when it opens.

Your job is just to keep living, staying with the discomfort, and KEEP GOING — fully, messily, really — until it does.

Why This Is About Our Bracelets Too

When Tomash wrapped me in that kind of love on the couch — the "I see you even when you can't see yourself" kind — I once again understood what we actually created with Magnetic Couples Bracelets and that we are the walking proof of what is on the other side of staying.

They are not just a cute matching jewelry.

They are your physical reminder of exactly THAT moment:

The click of the magnet when your hands meet, the pull that brings your True Selves back. Back to this person. Back to this unconditional love. Back to the TRUTH and deeper WHY of why your souls chose each other — not for the Instagram moments, but for the transformational ones. The days you forget who you are. The days the voice gets loud & the days you need someone to hold the mirror steady while you find your way back.

That's what wearing these bracelets actually does.

Every click = I choose you. I choose us. I choose love.

Living this is what got us through Vietnam, through six years of breaking down and breaking open and through every moment I forgot myself and needed him to remember FOR ME.

This is what's on the other side of wearing our bracelets: a love that doesn't quit. The support that pushes you to your greatest, most powerfully expressed self. A connection that holds you through your evolution. Two people choosing each other, again and again and again.

We're the walking proof.

👉 Get your Magnetic Couples Bracelets here and wear the reminder that love is the choice that changes everything so that you never forget again.

Listen to the Full Episode

Recorded on our last week in Vietnam: Buchta walking herself nearby, Tomash half asleep & me trying to sum up the most important six months of my life.

If you've been doing inner work for years wondering why nothing's shifting — this is for you.

If you've heard "you are not your thoughts" but never actually FELT it — this is for you.

If you've ever fought the mirror instead of looking at what it shows you — oh honey, ESPECIALLY for you.

🎧 Listen to Episode 14 of What Is Life here: (insert link)
📸 Follow us: https://www.instagram.com/martinaandtomash/

And If This Resonated With You:

We have a community called The Fuck It Club for exactly this. Weekly calls with me & Tomash, weekly private podcast and people who are done waiting to feel ready and start LIVING.

Because you are not your thoughts. You never were.

👉 Join us: https://www.skool.com/new-earth-couples-1744/about

This is life.
Breaking down, breaking open, leaving reborn. 🎢

— Martina & Tomash