kofipod

[kofipod]

Pod 5: Masks

“I am no longer the influenced child of innocence

But the undecided prophet of the future,

Unsure of decisions but certain of their existence.

Loving and learning; turning and yearning,

I am searching for my caged soul.

The innocence of society sickens yet heals this undecided mind.

Tactfully in influences, yet bluntly it cuts.

I am sad yet with a flash of an eyelid

My tears wash back happiness and joy.

So, unprevented and naïve my life is ruled

And the only individuality I have

Are my socially perverted thoughts of freedom.”

– Nina Peycke

I wrote this in Std 8 or 9 (Grade 10 or 11). Brimming with angst. My English teacher at the time, Mrs Young, gave me 8/10 and commented something like “Well done. This proves that behind your façade lurks a sensitive being.” (or something like that) I remember feeling entirely exposed and deeply violated. Something incredibly raw had bled from my soul and she had seen a part of me that had slipped past the guards. What had I done? What could she see? Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck. I wanted to crawl under my desk, I felt like a transparent being with exposed raw nerve endings. Vulnerability was dangerous. It wasn’t cute. It wasn’t brave. It was a dead ass liability.

I had worked so hard at curating my persona by then, that kickass, confident, funny, loudmouthed, slightly unhinged kid. My own glittery fortress of “cool” – well, as cool as I was going to be without being mates with the “in” crowd. Strutting in confidence (mostly bolstered by substances throughout my 20’s and 30’s) and bouncing through the world like I was untouchable, unbreakable. It wasn’t confidence, it was camouflaged survival. Re-reading that poem now, I can’t but laugh at myself. So desperately wanting to be authentic, but absolutely revering the mask I had, in this case unsuccessfully created, as a protection to the world that had inadvertently shaped me. But safety that requires performance is not safety. And love that depends on pretending isn’t love.

Keep in mind, I come from the generation that was raised by “I’ll give you something to cry about”.  This is not a dig at our parents, we are all formed by the generation that raised us. That’s just how it is. Our parents come from a generation where there was value in productivity. The generation of “What will the neighbours think” – not “how do you feel”. You didn’t feel, you did. “Children are meant to be seen, not heard” (I know, right???)

The year after I left school, one of my friends was killed in a horrific car accident. It really shook me. It was the first time I was confronted by the idea that I was mortal. A few days after hearing the news I was at a shopping centre, when something triggered me and ashamedly I started getting teary.

My mother seeing this said “What are you crying about?”

Me: “My friend died Mom”.

Her: “She is in a better place! You are only crying because you are feeling sorry for yourself, that you won’t get to be friends with her. This isn’t about her, this is about YOU!”

This conversation is still so jarring to me.  I remember many of these and it was entirely the reason I believed it wasn’t safe being sensitive. I didn’t want to be seen, I just wanted to be loved – even if just for the character I played. My experience was that currency of love was compliance. It reinforced my belief that emotion wasn’t safe. Sadness made other people uncomfortable, and I needed to edit myself to be acceptable.

So, I kept smiling. Kept laughing. Kept bouncing off the walls like a feral firework. And that’s what masks do. Masks are brilliant. They have to be. They are your armour. Your smile that says “you’re fine” when you are dying inside. You nonchalant bravado that says “whatever” when the rejection burns. Your sarcasm that says you’re tough when you are terrified. You’ve got a mask for every occasion, and you’ve worn them so long, they feel like skin. That twisted sense of humour because the horror of reality, would hurt too much.

But here’s the thing. Masks are prisons. The more you wear them the more you forget who’s underneath. You perform. You please. You perfect. But you never truly show up as yourself. You built them to fit in. And then, this in turn creates the feedback loop – “I can’t be myself, it’s not safe. I am not enough” that quiet brutal lie, you have started to believe. Masks don’t just hide you from the world, they hide you from you.

Masks are a way of outsourcing. We put on a mask, pretend to be someone else to be loved.  Why? Because we need approval, external approval. Outsourcing the validation we so desperately crave when all the while we are discounting the most important opinion in the world: our own. The more we perform, the more we betray ourselves with inauthenticity. How can we approve of ourselves if we are fake? And I guess that’s what happened to me.

After decades of trying to be who I thought the world needed me to be, I had a break down. I found myself on a remote farm, alone and stripped of all I knew. It took about 9 months of catatonia followed by the process of getting to know myself, the real me. I had denied myself the privilege of being authentic for so long, it literally got down to barebones business of: who am I? What does love look like for me? What does it feel like? What do I like doing? What makes me happy? Just like the Emperor’s New Clothes story – except, I was the Emperor- parading around, convinced I was clothed in the finest fabric of charisma, confidence, and charm. The emperor was only stripped of the lie because someone dared to say “But you are naked”. And the person to call out me… was me. It started with the simple question of: Who are you when you aren’t twisting yourself into palatable shapes? When you aren’t auditioning for love? Who are you when nobody is watching? Because out there in the middle of nowhere, on that farm, no one really was watching.

You hear all these gurus and pop spiritual folks say “you need to love yourself”- I had no idea what that meant. How could I love what I didn’t know? This isn’t about ripping your masks off all at once – that’s just another performance. It’s about noticing them. Questioning them. Daring to take them off, even just for a moment, even with just one person. Masks may feel protective, but they steal your right to be known. If no one knows the real you, then no one can love the real you either.  And even if they do say they love you, it won’t feel like love. (Can you say “I-M-P-O-S-T-E-R  S-Y-N-D-R-O-M-E?)

But then slowly the shift happens. Ever so slightly, your existence is no longer torn between the terror or “What if they see me?!” but more the intriguing possibility of “what if they see me…and they stay?” What if my mess is actually the magnet? What if sharing my path is the permission slip someone else needs to unlock their own cage?

I am still unmasking. Still learning to sit with the twitchy discomfort of being real. Still learning to trust my voice. Still catch myself responding to something and thinking: “wait, is that really me?” My eternal soul now knows I will be fine no matter what.  And for the first time: I want to be loved for what’s under the mask, not despite it.  Because masks may be pretty: but my face – my real, wrinkly, scarred, wildly feeling, unedited face – that’s fucking gorgeous.

And I love that I am a feral firework.

(and yes, Mrs Young, I am still writing)

[kofipod]

Pod 5: Masks - The lies we wear.

Pod 5: Masks “I am no longer the influenced child of innocence But the undecided prophet of the future, Unsure of decisions but certain of their existence. Loving and learning; turning and yearning, I am searching for my caged soul. The innocence of society sickens yet heals this undecided mind. Tactfully in influences, yet bluntly it cuts. I am sad yet with a flash of an eyelid My tears…

[kofipod]

Pod 4 – Projection – The Optical Illusion of the Psyche (this one has been really hard to write!)

Pod 4 – Projection – The Optical Illusion of the Psyche (this one has been really hard to write!) There’s a fucked-up little game your subconscious loves to play. It’s like a magician pulling coins from your ear — except those coins are your unresolved trauma. And the stage for this tragicomedy? Every single person you meet. This is projection. Projection is your mind’s twisted survival tactic.…

[kofipod]

Pod 3: Trigger-nometry — Mapping the Shitstorm

You were somewhere else. Sarcasm flew out of your mouth. You screamed the harsh words. You shut your partner out. You shut yourself down. You disappeared into silence, or you lit the whole room on fire. And then you told yourself some lie about why (“Y”).

But let’s be honest. It was bullshit. It happens more than you care to admit. And then when you gaze across your life, you see the damage. That was activation. That was your nervous system lighting up like a Christmas tree at 3 a.m., screaming a story it memorized before you even had words for it.

This is what we call Trigger-nometry. The sacred, sweaty math of reactivity. It’s not woo. It’s not vibes. It’s a war map. It’s trauma trigonometry. Let’s solve for Y (Why?)

The Formula: T = P + R + S. Your trigger is a sum. A precise equation running the background programming the ‘sum’ of your reactions and your body.

P = the Past (the wound that never closed)

R = the Response (your chosen panic style: fawn, fight, flight, freeze)

S = the Story (the meaning you assign to the moment)

Your boss calls a surprise meeting. Past says: “You’re about to be ambushed.”

Response: Freeze. Fight. Numb. Story: “I must have messed up. I’m in trouble. I am going to get fired.” Your body didn’t react to your boss. It reacted to your pattern.

The trigger wasn’t about now. It was a flare sent up by a younger you who remembers everything.

Here’s an example: The Text That Took Too Long. Let’s get personal. This used to be my narrative in my friendships and early relationships. You send a text. Minutes pass. No reply. It’s been read. The person goes offline. You feel a tightening in your chest. A wave of hot shame behind your ribs. A quiet little voice whispers: “They’re ignoring me. I said too much. I’m too much.” Your brain tells you it’s no big deal. They’re probably driving. But your nervous system doesn’t care.

Your trigger math looks like this:

P (What happened in the past) = You were ignored as a kid. Maybe more than once. You were told to go to your room when you were “too much”.

R (Your learned response — what response best succeeded in the past) = Fawn. Apologize. Or spiral. Or go cold.

S (The story you are telling yourself) = “I am always too much. I should’ve known better. I misread this – we aren’t friends. And my internal dialogue begins – Why would they want to hang out with you or even talk to you? You are so needy. You are so stupid.”

Actual threat: zero. Emotional math: lethal. Because this isn’t just about a text. It’s about every time silence meant punishment. Every time love got withheld like air. And you learned to hold your breath.

Projection: The Subconscious Slide Projector

You ever hate someone fast? Like instant rage, instant repulsion —

and they haven’t even done anything yet? Someone once told me – if you meet someone and you really dislike them (for no apparent reason) instantly, pay attention: that’s the thing about yourself you refuse to accept. And I couldn’t get it. Everyone I met who I unreasonably did not like – my thoughts were “arrogant wanker.” But how could that be what I refused to accept about myself? Was I arrogant? I couldn’t see how this could possibly be true. I had to be drunk to say boo to a goose.. Only later did I realise – projections don’t have to be literal. No, I wasn’t an arrogant wanker – but there was the clue to what was an issue- I was jealous as fuck about anyone who has confidence, because I desire that. I want it so much. To feel like I can own my space because I never have. To feel like I can have a voice, which deserves to be heard.

That’s projection. That’s your shadow slapping their name tag on one of your own disowned traits. You’re not just annoyed. We will get more into Projection and how to spot it in Pod 4.

Emotional Geometry: Trace the Angles

Let’s get surgical. You’re in the car park crying and you don’t know why?

Cool. Trace it like a forensic pathologist.

This is your five-step Trigger Blueprint:

Sensory Input — what set you off.

Body Alarm — what physical alert went off.

Emotional Flashback — what it reminds you of.

Protective Response — what you did to survive.

Meaning-Making — what story filled the silence.

Map it. This isn’t a healing crystal. It’s a crime scene. Get your gloves on and start collecting data. There’s no cheat sheet to healing. No three-day challenge to ‘trigger-proof’ your soul. Healing is slow math. It’s unsexy. It’s work. It’s repetition. Sometimes it looks like rage-writing and ripping the page out. Sometimes it’s texting “I need a minute” instead of vanishing for three days. Sometimes it’s recognizing the moment you almost spiralled — and choosing not to. I once said to a friend of mine – You know what’s awful really. When you train for a marathon, it’s a long hard slog. Day in, day out training – even in shitty weather when you rather wouldn’t. But in the end, you cross the line and post a photo, and you get hundreds of Facebook likes etc. And there’s external validation. It’s really not the same with healing. It’s lonely and so personal. When you break a pattern, it’s a bigger win than finishing a marathon. And there will be no applause, no “likes,” no amazement at the feat of accomplishment. But that moment? It will change the trajectory of every decision you make. That’s mastery. That’s revolution. That’s the boring, beautiful backbone of healing.

You don’t need to be less triggered. You need to be less unconscious. You don’t need to explain yourself to strangers. You need to understand your own fucking math. Because here’s the truth about triggers: They are precise. Surgical. Exact. They don’t stab you randomly.

They know where your wound is. So, it’s time to meet them with equal clarity. Map the system. Interrupt the pattern.

And for the love of your own future — stop solving for ghosts. You already have the numbers. Now, do the math.

Neen, out.

PS Pod 4 will be Projection – The Optical Illusion of the Psyche

[kofipod]

Pod # 2 Triggers are time travellers with dirty boots.

You ever had your whole world go sideways over a sentence? Not someone screaming at you? Not a slap. Just, a tone. Some perceived slight. A text that took too long? Some helpful advice from a friend that touched something that felt like a branding iron against your soul.

It’s second nature now. Hard to even spot. We live in automatic.

Whatever it was, it has you in a chokehold — and boom! You are triggered.

A trigger is a time traveller. It’s an old part of you showing up in dirty boots, stomping mud across the clean floors of your life. And you’ve got a battlefield full of them — planted by moments you didn’t know how to survive clean. Conversations you never got to finish. Tears you never got to cry. Shame you learned to swallow like battery acid. It’s something that didn’t heal the first time. Something you lived through – survived – but couldn’t make sense of.

And your body. It remembers. All of it.

So here you are, years later, being loud, getting drunk, finding a way to go numb. Rejecting someone who hit the exact same nerve you learned to guard with your life. Not because you’re crazy. Or have a temper. Or are a drama queen. Not because you are damaged, but because your system is doing exactly what it was trained to do: survive.

Survival doesn’t care if it ruins dinner. Or makes you cry in the office where you have curated your unbreakable facade. It also doesn’t care if it keeps replaying the mind movie of that one night you stopped being a kid. Your triggers are the ghosts in the machine — and they don’t just haunt — they hijack.

You think you’re annoyed that your partner didn’t listen. You think you’re just irritated by a text. You think you’re just snapping because you’re tired.

Behind that is the breadcrumb. Underneath that is the black box from the crash you never got to walk away from. The rules of old wars you thought you left behind.

Triggers aren’t proof that you are broken.

They’re muddy, weather-beaten markers, pointing straight to the places you abandoned just to survive.They are the wounded younger version of you, screaming from the blueprint of the past — the bruises that never got kissed better.

And if you’re willing to go there — if you’re brave enough to listen without fixing, numbing, or spiritual bypassing your way out of the hard parts — they’ll keep leading you back to where the hurt still lives.

Every dirty boot print leaves behind an invitation — not to armour up harder, not to beat yourself up or pretend you’re fine. The world isn’t out to hurt you. Triggers aren’t the enemy. They are the invitation.

Pause.

Breathe.

And ask yourself:

What am I trying to protect? What lie did I have to believe to survive back then — and am I still building my life around it? What am I feeling right now? Where have I felt this before? What story am I telling myself about what just happened?

That’s the work. Not the crystals. Not the sage. Not the “good vibes only” bullshit. We don’t do “live laugh love” posters here. We hang mirrors and we make you look.

So, if you spiralled today and don’t know why, if you over-explained, over-apologized, or burned it all down and are sitting in the smoke, come closer. You’re not broken. You’re still carrying stories that never got an ending. Your pain is not a prison — it’s your compass.

Welcome, you’ve made it to the reckoning.

Neen, out

PS: Next time we dive into – “Trigger-nometry”: finding the angles where your past still breaks into your present – the broken math of old wounds still trying to solve for safety.

[kofipod]

The Day You Learned to Lie – to Yourself

Welcome to the crack where the light gets in.

There wasn’t a ceremony. No parade. The first time you lied to yourself, it was quiet.

Like swallowing a needle and calling it breakfast. It didn’t sound like betrayal, but it was. It sounded like: “I’m okay.” You weren’t. But that’s the trick, isn’t it? The most dangerous lies are the ones you say with a smile. Like swallowing your voice and calling it breakfast.

Back then—maybe you were five, maybe fifteen—you learned that love had rules. Shifting ones. Connection came with conditions. That your safety depended on your softness, your tone, your timing. You became fluent in facial expressions that didn’t belong to you. You read the weather in other people’s moods, not clouds. And so, you didn’t fight. Didn’t run. Didn’t freeze. You fawned.

That’s the fourth trauma response they don’t write on the poster in the therapist’s office. The one that says: Maybe if I’m useful enough, sweet enough, small enough—you won’t hurt me. You might even love me.

You didn’t call it survival. You called it being “a good kid.” “Easy. ”No trouble.”

And goddammit, weren’t you good at it? You could read a room like it was written in subtitles. You knew how to turn yourself into a bandage for other people’s bruises. you turned yourself into background noise. You let the punches land, proverbial and otherwise. Your yes became automatic. Your smile? Performance art. Your needs? You learned early they weren’t welcome. You didn’t just believe the lie—you built a life around it. Fast-forward to your 30’s, 40’s or maybe just now.

Now you’re the fixer. The holder. The default emergency contact for everyone else’s meltdown. People say you’re strong. Dependable. But no one asks when you last ate. Or screamed. Or said “no” without guilt hitching a ride in your throat.

You’re the peacekeeper. The vibe manager. The emotional janitor with a dustpan full of everyone else’s chaos. And then… one day, everything inside you starts rattling.

You look around at your life—you should-be-fine life—and all you can think is:

What the actual fuck is this? Why am I exhausted from a life I built to be liveable?

Something breaks. Or maybe it un-breaks. You find yourself in a quiet room—with a therapist, or by candlelight in the bath, or just your own reflection you haven’t faced in too long—and the truth claws its way up.

A whisper.

“I lied.”

I lied when I said I was fine. I lied when I said it didn’t matter. I lied when I said I didn’t need anything. I lied when I said I could hold it all.

And just like that, the dam breaks. For me, it changed everything.

This pod? This blog? This whatever-the-fuck-you-call-it? For now, it’s pretty much me exploring how I made it through. It’s a little woo-woo. It’s a little random.

And it’s a little bit of how you can figure it all out too. It’s not about healing. I hate that word. It’s not about floating off on some incense-scented cloud whispering affirmations. It’s me sharing so that maybe I can help with digging your existence out from under everyone else’s expectations. It’s me giving you permission to give the middle finger to the shame you have carried for wanting to be you. It’s about remembering who you were before you started shapeshifting to survive. Before you confused safety with self-abandonment. It’s about becoming who you were before the world taught you that your authenticity was a liability. Before you started trading truth for approval.

It’s about calling your soul back from the places you abandoned it— the rooms where you stayed too long, the silence you swallowed to keep the peace, the versions of yourself you carved to be lovable. Acceptable.

It’s about tuning back into your own damn frequency after a lifetime of static.

It’s about asking the hard questions: Why do I do this? Why does it keep happening?

Who planted this story in me? And why the fuck am I still living like its gospel?

So, if today is the day that whisper inside you says enough—

Welcome. You’ve made it to the dark side.

We have coffee. And fire. And truth. And it’s going to be okay -Maybe even beautiful. Not because it’s easy. But because, for the first time, you’re not lying to yourself.

You’re not broken. You’re just arriving at the part where your truth gets loud.

Neen, out. (Homework done, C)

PS: Next time, I will be getting into triggers and how they are the time travellers with dirty boots.