A Unassailable Soul Who is An Inspiration To All
Known as Activepanda, Lavinia Palanite was born and raised in Romania; this beauty queen is from a little town called Câmpina. Her initial years were full of struggles since she came from a poor household where her father abused her. Her parents divorced when she was a toddler, with her custody remaining with her father till she was 19, even restricting her from meeting her mother.
Lavinia was not into fitness earlier on, and until her 21st birthday, she was a very lazy person with little interest in sports. But a heartbreak ignited her spirit to move towards the fitness path, and she eventually started going to the gym and hired a personal trainer. Within 6 months, she was on her way to becoming a certified personal trainer and got enamoured with this sport. She says, “I fell in love with this sport because it was the only place to take all my anger out. Yes, being a very volcanic person before this part of my life.”
Later, she decided to move to America and pursue the bodybuilding side of the sport while beginning an inclination towards healing by reading Osho. The most interesting chapter of her life began in 2017; regarding this, she says, “I met a soul who ended up being the biggest love of my life and also the biggest lesson and mistake.” As a person devoid of love in her childhood due to her father, a guy came into her life like a shining beacon of hope who provided her with confidence and a winning mentality.
She did her first regional show in 2018, and in 2020, she did a big show called Miss Fashion Global, held in Florida. During this time, she got engaged and started building a house while climbing the stairs to success. She was also placed the 2nd runner-up in the prestigious Miss Bikini US in 2021. Lavinia says, “My career was climbing fast, getting recognition and starting to model for fashion shows like Milan, Paris, Dubai, and many magazine covers, but deep inside, I was dead.” During this time, her partner cheated on her, and this mental shock led to her miscarriage.
With a busy and hectic professional schedule and the division of things she shared with her ex-partner, Lavinia didn’t even have the time to process the hard-hitting emotions. In 2022, she got her Pro Card in the World Championship in Miami, which she also won. Still, her emotional well-being was in a state of turmoil; she recalls, “Right after the wining I came back to Romania, and instead of being happy that I was a winner and brought that title home, I got depressed for the first time in my life, my body, mind and soul were finally processing all the emotions. On top of that, I also got an eating disorder and ended up being bulimic plus the diagnostic of athletes amenorrhea with 60% infertility risk.”
She decided not to compete and started an upward journey towards healing by going into therapy and prioritising her mental health. She also started processing her emotions that had been neglected since childhood; she remarks, “I wanted to understand that you don’t need to rely on somebody else’s love to be strong, brave and the best version of yourself.”
In retrospect, Lavinia feels that her journey, even if it was filled with hurdles, she would not change anything since it has made her who she is today. The lessons made her discover her true self, that finally enabled her to learn to love herself. She proudly states, “I don’t need to keep searching desperately for that love I didn’t have as a child and for a man to protect and validate me! I finally realised that I am enough the way I am and choose to be authentic!”
