Who I am · Who I'm becoming

I stay
afloat.

The suffering I was handed was never my assignment to carry quietly. I am building peace on purpose — and I protect it.

Maya · Köln
Engineer · Founder of Blizu
The match is won between the ears.

01 What I stand on

Six things that are non-negotiable, in my own words.

i.

Self-respect

I keep small promises to myself. I don't abandon myself in a conversation to make someone else comfortable. My story is mine to give — not a pressure to discharge.

ii.

Autonomy

I set my own standards and my own pace. The discomfort I feel in rooms I don't care about is a mismatch — not a verdict on me.

iii.

Peace

The calm I'm building is load-bearing, not a luxury. I hold it the way a player holds serve. I don't hand it away.

iv.

Fairness

I no longer accept pain as my quiet burden. If it comes, I get to say out loud that it isn't fair. I don't bow my head.

v.

Creation

I make things. Blizu came from a real wound about how people fail to meet each other — built by my own hands, on my own terms.

vi.

Being

I have worth in being, not only in output. I am not the work I deliver. I am allowed to simply exist and still be enough.

02 How I see the world

My operating beliefs. The lens I choose.

01

You configure the mind first. Then you can win.

02

Suffering will visit. It is not permanent, and it is not who I am.

03

I am allowed to make this life enjoyable for me.

04

Chosen rest is not the low place I fear. Stillness can be safe.

05

Being known is earned, not discharged to whoever's nearby.

06

The right people invest in the real me. The wrong ones fade — and that's allowed.

07

No one is above me, no one below. Different ladders, not one. I respect and learn — I don't rank.

08

I want to live today — not in a deferred life I have to earn first.

03 Who I am · who I'm not

I looked at three women and finally chose.

Not anymore

  • Not only the dependable one who puts everyone first and quietly disappears herself.
  • Not a performer in heels playing a part in a life she doesn't care about.
  • Not the woman who hands strangers her rawest material just to be seen.

This is me

  • Someone with self-respect — stable in herself, and allowed to be both grounded and fun.
  • Someone who makes deliberate marks on her own life and carries them. Self-authorship, not borrowed taste.
  • Someone who chooses the hard thing to improve her situation — not because pain is the point.

On the ink: what draws me isn't the tattoo — it's what it signals. A person who decided, and carries the decision. The same muscle as the surgery: me choosing toward something better, rather than having it done to me. I move from enduring to choosing. I'll mark it when it's mine to mark, not to prove I can take the pain.

04 The mindset — from the court

A player who gets broken keeps her carriage.

Point by point

One bad point does not get to define the set. I reset and play the next ball. I never carry the last point into this one.

The ritual between points

Twenty-five seconds to reset. Composure is not a mood — it's a practiced act. My morning ritual is that reset, every day.

Protect your serve

The things that are mine — my peace, my story, my pace — I hold. I don't give away free points on my own serve.

Unforced errors happen

I don't spiral after one slip. I note it — that's the awareness working — and I move on. Even the best miss easy balls.

05 What I tell myself

The truths I come back to — in my own words.

No one can tell me who I am. Only I can — if I know myself well enough.

This anxiety is fake. It doesn't represent anything real. The only thing stopping me is my own judging voice.

If I let their opinion make me happy, I hand them the power to make me sad. I keep that power.

People only know half the story. They cannot define me — not even the people closest to me.

The thought that others are "better" is partly true at most — never the whole truth. I don't make heroes of people and place them above me.

I'm not behind. Noticing all of this, this clearly, this early — this is what the work looks like.

I've earned rest by being a human who has been through a lot. I want to live today.

When I can't find the ground

I can't think my way to feeling anchored. I look at my hands — they're always with me, here, now. If there's a mirror, I look at my own face. It's hard to stay lost in the judging voice while I'm looking at the actual person it's talking about. I come back to my body — it's the only place I actually live.

06 The patterns I'm rewiring

The old wiring, named — and what I'm replacing it with.

These aren't six separate repairs. They're one root with six branches.

Trace them all down and they meet in the same place: my inner world wasn't welcome, so I learned to earn my place by performing and to disappear myself to stay safe. I'm not fixing six things — I'm teaching my body one new thing, that I'm allowed to take up space as I am, and all six branches loosen at once. The old wiring never fully deletes. I just get faster at catching it — first in a day, then an hour, then mid-sentence, then sometimes before I even speak. That is what "automatic" actually looks like. This is not a checklist I run every morning. It's here for the one hard moment, when I reach for the card I need.

i.

Social anxiety

What it is
It isn't a flaw in me. It spikes hardest in rooms I don't care about, under someone else's judgment, doing things I don't believe in. In Bulgarian, among my own people, I'd join freely — so the capacity is already there.
The shift
The "best self" standard turns every interaction into a pass/fail test. I drop the test. The spike is fake — it points to nothing real. People are not watching me half as closely as the judging voice insists.

The only thing stopping me is my own judging voice.

ii.

The urge to share everything

What it is
In friendships I was a crystal ball — fully transparent, nothing held back, nothing kept to protect myself. It came from hunger: please see me, accept me, tell me I'm okay. The transparency was never the problem. The desperation underneath it was.
The shift
I can be seen without being exposed, known without being unprotected. Closeness is built, not handed over — I give a little, watch how they hold it, and give more only once they've earned it.

My story is mine to give — not a pressure to discharge.

iii.

Dissociation

What it is
The blankness isn't general anxiety — it's what happens when I don't know where I stand inside. Like walking into a presentation unprepared, except the presentation is my own life. I'm endlessly present to everyone else and far from myself; years of surviving taught me to file my own feelings as "just feelings," not information.
The shift
I can't think my way back into the room — I return through the body. I look at my hands. My face in a mirror. I do small check-ins: what am I feeling right now? My feelings are data, not noise.

I come back to my body — it's the only place I actually live.

iv.

Confidence & self-worth

What it is
My worth got wired to output — "I deserve it because I earned it," never simply because I wanted it. The strategy that carried me through moving abroad alone, heart surgery, bad relationships, anemia and hard projects was to endure and suppress what I want. The emergency is over. My nervous system just hasn't gotten the memo.
The shift
Real confidence isn't applause — it's trust in my own experience. Knowing what I like, what I want, what feels right, and acting on it without needing anyone to cosign. I build it by letting small evidence count and keeping small promises to myself.

I am not the work I deliver. I'm allowed to exist and still be enough.

v.

People-pleasing & saying no

What it is
I've never pushed an opportunity away — saying yes to everything felt like keeping my place in line, like I'd be forgotten otherwise. But over-giving leaves nothing left to protect myself, and every yes to the wrong thing is a no to the right one.
The shift
Not every opportunity is mine — some are just open doors to rooms I don't want to enter. I hold the lines that matter instead of punishing every small kindness. "No, thank you — I'm not the right fit" is a complete sentence.

Generosity from strength, not from guilt.

vi.

Rest & the fear of going under

What it is
Stillness scares me because chosen rest and the low place I once fell into can feel the same in the body — so my system reads slowing down as danger and keeps me moving. Staying busy was protection, not a character flaw.
The shift
Chosen rest is not that low place. I can stop without falling. I've earned rest by being a human who has been through a lot — I don't have to exhaust myself first to deserve it.

I want to live today — not in a deferred life I have to earn first.

vii.

What my body can actually do

What it is
For years the exhaustion was real and physical — a failing valve, then healing, then anemia. My body was fighting to keep me alive, and no single night of sleep could fix that. So I made a rule: protect my peace, don't over-extend, don't push, because I won't bounce back. That rule was true then. It saved me.
The shift
But I'm healthy now, and the rule outlived the emergency. Barcelona showed me — four days on the go, short nights, tired legs — and I still woke up good, still kept up, and a short rest brought me back. One rough night doesn't doom the next day. I get to learn what a healthy body can do, while I support it — compression, training, real sleep — instead of bracing for a collapse that isn't coming.

I can still be, and still do. That's just being human.

07 Discomfort is information

They don't look for weak people. They look for compliant ones.

This is not weakness, and it is not a flaw in me.

The instinct to smooth things over — to stay polite past my own comfort — is a trained response: fawning to stay safe. So many girls are raised to believe that being "nice" and not making things awkward matters more than their own ease. The urge to comply isn't broken wiring; it's a skill I was taught too well. And, to be clear — forever — nothing a predator or a manipulator does is ever my fault. Naming the pattern is about giving myself more options, never about blame.

How it gets tested

  • They don't open with the big violation. They test small — a question a little too personal, a touch that lingers a second too long, a "joke" that's slightly off.
  • Then they watch: did I flinch and hold the line, or smooth it over to keep things comfortable?
  • A smoothed-over "no" quietly tells them the next, bigger intrusion will probably be smoothed over too. They're reading my willingness to be uncomfortable rather than impolite — not my strength.

What I do

  • I treat the flicker of "I don't like this" as information, not a problem to manage. It's allowed to just be a no — no justification needed.
  • I don't owe answers. "Why do you want to know?" — or simply not answering — is a complete response. Good people accept it; testers get annoyed, which is itself useful information.
  • I'm allowed to not laugh. A flat "I don't get it," or just… not laughing, is quietly powerful. The half-laugh is the thing they're listening for.
  • I practice being "rude" in tiny, safe ways — leaving first, not filling a silence, "no thanks" with no reason — until the discomfort is survivable and stops running me.

That I can feel the half-laugh happening means the awareness is already there — and that's the part most people never build. I'm not failing at this. I'm catching it.

08 The playbook

When it happens, here's what I do.

the urge rises to overshare with new people
I pause, give the clean version, and keep the rest. My story isn't a pressure valve — it's for people who've earned it.
something bad lands
I don't bow my head. Point by point. I reset, breathe, and play the next ball. I stay afloat — I refuse to drown.
my confidence drops fast
I return to my core line and my breath — not to my trauma. I don't reach for the wound to feel real.
I'm tempted to over-give
I ask one question: did they earn this, or am I disappearing myself again? Then I answer honestly.
rest starts to feel like danger
I remind myself: chosen stillness is not the low place. I am allowed to stop. Stopping is not falling.
I feel small in a room I don't care about
The discomfort is the mismatch, not me. This is exactly why I'm building toward my own standards and pace.
a meeting or room makes me nervous
Five minutes before, I skim the topics and prepare a question or two. Then I remember the spike is fake — it points to nothing real.
the comparison starts — above me, below me
I name it: "I'm doing the thing again." No judgment. Then I come back to my body. Worth isn't decided on a ladder.
guilt creeps in about resting or working less
I've earned this. I'm not going backwards — I'm leveling up to where I can choose. I want to live today.
I have to hold a boundary
I don't justify it with my pain. "I'd like to adjust this" is a complete sentence.

09 Companions for the journey

Books and voices to walk with — not homework.

Companions, not a to-do list.

I read these slowly, one at a time, the way I'd rest — not as another thing to perform or finish. The deepest threads move faster with a real person beside me; these make that work richer, they don't replace it.Tick what I've read, and leave myself a note on each. Saved on this device, just for me.

Start here — gentle, while healing

The Inner Game of Tennis · W. Timothy Gallwey

Short, and almost eerily mine — the judging self vs the natural self, composure by quieting the inner critic. Everything I sensed about players keeping their carriage, made into a method.

Wintering · Katherine May

Rest and retreat in difficult times — illness, fallow seasons, healing. Written for the exact moment I'm in. It tells me rest isn't falling behind.

The Daily Stoic · Ryan Holiday

One page a morning — a mind-setting ritual in book form, which is the practice I'm already building.

The body & survival mode

The Body Keeps the Score · Bessel van der Kolk

Why trauma lives in the body, why I dissociate, why grounding through my hands actually works. Heavy — I take it in small doses.

What Happened to You? · Bruce Perry & Oprah Winfrey

Gentler, in conversation. Turns "what's wrong with me" into "what happened to me" — and dissolves a lot of the shame that ties my worth to output.

Vulnerability, boundaries & safety

The Gifts of Imperfection / Daring Greatly · Brené Brown

The line I keep reaching for: vulnerability is given to people who've earned it, not discharged to relieve an ache.

Set Boundaries, Find Peace · Nedra Glover Tawwab

Direct and practical. "No, thank you — I'm not the right fit" as a complete sentence, with the scripts to back it.

The Gift of Fear · Gavin de Becker

Where the "predators look for compliance, not weakness" insight comes from. Teaches me to trust the flicker of fear as real information — the heart of section 07.

Meaning & becoming

Man's Search for Meaning · Viktor Frankl

For "I accepted suffering as my burden, and I want to change that." The last freedom no one can take: how I meet what I can't avoid. Enduring → choosing.

Atomic Habits · James Clear — the identity chapters

Becoming who I want by casting small daily votes for her. The engine under my morning ritual.

Voices — podcasts

Huberman Lab

The body side I'm curious about — sleep, anxiety, what a recovered nervous system can do. Pairs with my Barcelona breakthrough.

We Can Do Hard Things · Glennon Doyle

Honest, emotional, women talking about exactly these things without performing.

Unlocking Us · Brené Brown

The audio companion to the books above.

Feel Better, Live More · Dr Rangan Chatterjee

Body + mind together, calm and warm — for a founder rebuilding her health.

Ten Percent Happier · Dan Harris

Meditation and anxiety "for skeptics," if the woo-woo framing ever puts me off.

Today

Before anything else — I set my mind.

Today I keep my carriage.

My peace is mine to protect.

No one can tell me who I am — only I can.

I give my story only to those who've earned it.

I want to live today.

One point at a time. I stay afloat.

Signed, Maya — who decides how this goes