What do you do when the whole country is under the slave chain? How do you escape? Then you find out the whole world is under the same chain.

Where do you fly to? Where do you get the wings?

When some will not and cannot rest until all nature is in captivity. Day and night, they walk around looking for even the slightest movement.

Any sign of life. Killed.

What do you do?

How do you avoid in getting caught up in saving the world? How do you not save the world when your very freedom depends on it?

What is that even?

What does freedom taste like? What does autonomy smell like? How do you spell independence?

What do you do when your very smile is a submission to death? When you are part of a contract you never signed, who do you call?

What do you do?

When death is all that surrounds you? How do you know life when you no longer see it?

When you realise the only comfort for other is when that chain finally strangles you and kill you ..

What? Do? You? Do?

Where? Do? You? Go?

Who? Do? You? Tell?

Being poor means a disconnect between an individual and what they really want. You can only be disappointed so many times.

Without the means, desire is nothing but pain.

The distance between what I want and myself keeps stretching. Stretching so far, I can’t reach it no more.

Also, who cares about desire when survival is still being negotiated? There’s only one desire: I hope I can make it through this.

There’s also a whole lot of delayed gratification. Postponed pleasure. ‘If I can just make it through this then I’ll focus on me’

Everyday then becomes a disappointment. Poverty is not created to be escaped. If that was the case, you wouldn’t have only a handful holding all the wealth. It’s not created to be escaped, the more you fight to get out, the more it hurts.

No one has a timeline, so each day is another disappointment.

The best bet, is looking at what’s offered and convince myself with all I have that I like it, I just don’t know it yet. If I can just learn to love it, I’ll buy myself a moment of joy.

I did that with dating.

Never would I ask myself if I liked a boy. I was just grateful that he saw me. Don’t let him buy me a meal, he’s the king now.

Consent

‘beggars can’t be choosers’

You take what you’re given as a standard. A rich person is allowed to be rude, have high standards and more. In fact, if he’s (yeah it’s a he) even the slightest kind, he is worshipped for how kind he is even though he has money.

Poor: don’t have standards, show your full set of teeth at all times.

.. and then I wonder why I have so many sexual assault/harassment cases .. some I’ve just started admitting they were such. I convinced myself I wanted it.

Moving on from sex:

Then there’ll be a ‘friend’ that gets me out of a sticky situation. Immediately they take over. Now they own my time. Sometimes even showing signs of owning me. They’d get upset if I don’t run a decision by them. ‘surely if I was fit enough to make decisions, I wouldn’t have gotten myself into a that sticky situation a while ago’

Poor equivalent to child.

Told what and when to eat. Told where to live. Told what to purchase. Told who to marry. In the disguise of ‘well, that’s all you can afford’ or ‘live within your means’.

.. and that’s that ..

Thembeka

A long time ago, I knew.

I knew as an innocent 14yr old. I knew it. I girded up, to go into a world I knew had zero protection and 100 percent danger.

I knew one way to fight and that was to face death head on each time. That was to be less fearful of death.

Girding up would be the only way I could fight back. No system wanted me alive, so why would they hand me a saving rope.

A system that wanted me at the very least non existent.

It couldn’t, even if it wanted to. It couldn’t help.

Today I know not to be scared of these doors anymore. Nothing has changed. There’s no help. Yet I am different. I cannot, even if I wanted, be 14yrs old.

Cannot.

This is the part of the month where I sell you my skills and hope you buy. If that’s not your thing, see you next week for the regular writing.

—

I divorced the world of self help/coaching/therapy about 2yrs ago. I think we have much bigger problems in a world we live in now, that taking a breath or stretching simply won’t cut it.

We need real solutions to deal with real problems.

That being said, there are specific times in our lives where a little help is much needed.

For me, it was around a time when I was leaving an unhappy marriage and a cult, same year. I needed all self help books on my night stand. I needed my therapist on speed dial. I spent most of my money getting all that kind of help.

Some were a waste of my money, some were life savers. I meditated, did yoga, learned breathing exercises. Any emotional ‘weakness’ at that point would have sent me right back to a cult I struggled for years to leave.

This re-set I offer is exactly for a time when one is going through a tough transition.

It’s a reset. A detox. A cleanse. For your emotions. For a time when you cannot afford even a second of emotional weakness.

I’ve compressed it to three days. Yes, that short. Waiting a whole year to see results, is demotivating. On this reset, you’ll feel changes as early as the first day.

You don’t need more homework when going through a tough transition. I’ve made it easy, straight to the point and quick results.

You don’t have to change any of your plans during the three days of the emotional detox. It’s designed to fit right in your ordinary day.

I’ve added a novella as part of the package because I believe in the power of stories. That moving away from your own story, even just for a little while, gives perspective.

Don’t hesitate to email me if you’d like to know more about the program.

Happy Sunday.

A link below to purchase.

All the things I was denied, whoever offered some version of it (real or imagined) would find themselves king.

It was like being offered water in a dessert.

Little did I know. The one offering and the one denying were the same person. How else would they get access to so much power? How else would they press me to the corner?

Thief pretending to bring back what they stole. Me on my knees, offering my very life because I’m so grateful.

A part of me knows the offer is a lie yet I believe if I give everything, they’d keep their word. They never do.

I keep handing over the little that I have. Just a little more and this time would be it. Just a little, until I’m left with only bones to give.

When does it stop?

I cannot fathom being denied. I ignore it and pretend I’m doing just fine. I pretend I never needed what is being denied anyway. I keep upbeat as I convince myself, no harm was caused.

Protecting myself and the denier.

What would I have to do if I admitted they denied me what was rightfully mine? What happens then?

Why does hurting them hurt?

Maybe because hurting them doesn’t fix the fact that they didn’t care enough to give what was mine. They didn’t care enough to not steal.

That eats at my very identity.

It becomes all about me. At least that way, I get to handle it. It becomes all about me and what I might be missing. A drug I’ve been taking since I was a child.

Spot the missing parts. I get better at that game each day. Because, because .. it hurts more to be perfect. It hurts more to be loveable. It hurts more to be cared for.

It’s excruciating to look at what I’m good at.

Maybe because in a short space of time I’d be proven so wrong, I’d have to go back and hide in a hole.

Thembeka

Money as a highly controlled commodity.

Water is controlled. Land is controlled. So control is pretty common. What is defeating about money is not only controlled but invented too. No results easier to manipulate than one’s manipulator came up with.

I’m less frightened by the idea of natural commodities being controlled than them being captivated and made into something totally opposite to what they are originally.

A very selfish concern, of course.

Back to money …

The amount of time I’ve spent learning what it is, how to make it, how to NOT spend it and hopefully how to keep it with me forever so I never have to suffer ..

.. now learning ..

I don’t get money according to my hard work. I don’t save it according to my spending habits (I dropped those to zero and I got broker, all the way to the ground)

What hurts isn’t just the fact that I have zero say on what I use daily and what truly decides how free I am, what hurts is the number of times I dragged myself down. If only I did that course somebody suggested at 20. If only I skipped ordering desert last night. If only I bought a house 20yrs ago ..

.. it wouldn’t have mattered …

Money never liked me. It didn’t like my true family. I knew this as a three year old. It has always found me ugly and tasteless.

It never stayed. Not once. I’ve never had it sit in my account for months and just watch it grow. No. That hasn’t been my experience. I’m lucky if I see it for two days.

I remember following the advice we’ve all heard. Save. I’d put it on an interest account, rub my hands together and get ready to watch it grow ..

In less than three weeks I’d receive a call ‘so and so is unwell and they need exactly what’s on the account to not die’ (spoiler: they died anyway) or car is now broken and what I have in emergency funds won’t cover it .. just like that .. gone ..

.. don’t get me started on spending ..

Checking my receipts after every shopping trip because it certainly feels like I was overcharged. I wasn’t. It’s gone.

.. don’t get me started on shame ..

How I’d steal from my uncle’s shop as a little girl just to get by. (Well, I was working there for free) Either way, it leaves a certain stench on one’s being.

Money hates me so much I have to steal.

Money hates me so much I end up without a home

Money hates me so much I suppress desires to avoid disappointment

.. and that’s that ..

Thembeka

Every time I wrote one of these, things got worse. But still, it needs to be told.

You can check out previous letters on this, here.

As I write this letter right now, I have been living on the side of the road for over a month now, right in the middle of winter. I can barely afford food.

Now, I’ll give you a little bit about me just in case you haven’t picked it up on my writings.

I have sober habits. I work at least 12hrs per shift. In my team, I am the only one without a car nor a place to live. Every one of my teammates owns a car and owns some kind of an apartment. Owns.

Not only am I good at what I do, I’ve created systems that are used by the company till this day.

Yet, I wake up outside and most days hungry. The only furniture I have is a bed. My apartment was fully empty, in fact I always recorded Substack videos by the wardrobe to hide how empty the apartment was, when I had it.

Couldn’t afford furniture, on the same salary as my peers. Now, my story isn’t special. It’s not one of victimhood, either.

Africa as rich as it is in resources, is still one of the poorest continent in the world.

I work twice as hard as my peers and yet I’m the poorest of them all. Below the poverty line.

Again, I have sober habits.

Thembeka

As a writer you miss out on the privilege of holding your creations by hand. Our words live in hearts and minds. I watch visionary artists with so much envy.

Whether it’s a painting or an embroidery.. there’s something about touching your own work.

I might be biased but writing must be one of the loneliest art forms out there. I’m not just talking about the fact that usually we are alone when we write but also the loneliness of not being surrounded by your products.

I know what you’re thinking ..

Books.

It’s not the same. And you know it.

Writing is also not an art form that can be performed. I don’t get booked by crowds to watch me write nor do they book me to read my work to them.

It’s as if the audience also wants to enter the same loneliness I was in when I wrote. They want to read privately, at their own pace and voice. They want to be left alone.

My last qualm, I promise ..

Writing is not popular. Crowds aren’t stepping on each other to get their hands on the latest book. They do that with celebrity make up products. Writers aren’t being stopped everywhere they go by paparazzi. People aren’t fainting at a reading concert because it’s that effective. Basically, writer is the black sheep of the art family.

It might be what writes like, who knows?

Now don’t get me started on the money subject. I’m yet to meet a billionaire writer that made their money on selling books. I’m certainly not one of them. I’ve made a total of 30$ on my writing.

So why we keep at it?

I wonder,

Thembeka

When you’ve been hurt, popularity is a very important factor because you believe that someone hurt you because they hated you that much.

It is what we teach each other:

I do nice things towards you because I love you

I do unpleasant things to you because I hate you

.. and so the pop race begins ..

I didn’t care to be popular, I had to be popular, a matter of survival. I took the route of obedience. If I followed the rules, if I went with the flow .. surely you’d have no choice but to love me.

It worked with parents ..

If I do as I’m told, I received more love as I was making life easier in the household.

In the real world, it didn’t quite work. I just got sick from pushing myself aside.

Add to the wound, money. Even if I convince myself that I didn’t need to be popular that it’s not important.

I don’t get the job if I don’t impress the interview

I don’t get the client if I don’t smile and I’m pleasant

I don’t get the deal if I’m not liked

Heck,

I don’t even get Substack likes/followers, if they don’t like me.

So it’s pull and push of knowing logically that I don’t like entering the popularity contest and then very fast being reminded of my outstanding bills.

I don’t necessarily believe wanting to be liked is evil, I just think it’s a disservice to someone that’s already injured.

How would they know where to draw the line?

I think of all the times that I wanted some man to like me, many times he already did but I’d still offer sex as a bargain. The injury makes it hard to know when to stop or even if it’s necessary.

I think of all the times I offered free coaching consultations. I went to school for it. I have years of experience, yet even now I might pay for a client to work with me. I’m that desperate. Maybe if I offer a free service they’ll validate me, maybe even like me.

I’m not to be trusted in the contest of being liked.

Then of course I read a self help book and it convinces me that I’m enough and I’m value-able and I grow wings and ready to fly ..

Money laughs at me with that evil laugh ..

Who do I think I am?

It’s not your fault 
You’ve never seen a woman before

I wonder what she’d say, I wonder what he’d say 
I’d tell it like it was a tale 

I’d tell about all the times it rained
I’d tell about the stink

I’d tell about how it all turned into a dessert 
I’d speak about how rats walked around like they were elephants

But then again, they’d ask what would have happened to the elephants 

I’d finally let the tears drop, all answers would be written there.

Where do I begin to explain?

Thembeka

Guilt as a way to take back control. Because if I’m the one in the wrong, the apology I so badly need, I’ll get.

The encounter with the actual guilty one taught me they’ll never say sorry.

Taking on guilt, is a cry for comfort.

I’ll make it better.

Guilt also as a way to face the scary act. If I did it to myself, then I can face it.

Guilt as a way to distance myself from the guilty one. If they are not responsible, I never have to see their face again. I never have to stand across them in court and see that smirk again.

Guilt makes it my business and my business only. I’ll deal with it the best way I know how. I’m both the perpetrator and the victim. I’ll get the correct medicine according to how painful it is.

Guilt is my self care. Guilt is my retreat.

If I see where I went wrong, there’s a possibility of making sure it never happens again. I can prevent it this time. It’s also a promise I make to myself: ‘next time I’ll protect you’

Deep down I know it was my job to protect me and deep down I know I failed.

Now sitting in the corner, blaming myself, feels healing. The incident has taught me something new: I cannot trust the next person to protect me. In fact, I should be ready to be hurt by the next person at any point.

I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t prepared. I was definitely not smart or lucky enough to avoid it.

That is my fault.

I now fall into sleep, tomorrow I’ll decide on the punishment I deserve.

Thembeka

Today, it’s revealed and exposed. Where the tiredness comes from. Where the demotivation comes from.

It’s been a year. All types. They multiply like cockroaches. You see one you’ve seen them all. A thousand in a matter of seconds

Oh how sad, oh how unspeakable

The spread of filth, no matter what.

It’s so deadly that it kills the one who has eyes to see.

Oh what a world it’s become

The disgust is with me, yet you’re the one who pooped themselves. What a world, oh what madness.

A stink created just to watch my face frown. My smile was like a scorching fire. My smile was a threat. My smile was a huge bother.

Anything to turn it into a frown. Anything to see me experience the filth.

Oh how sad. Oh how unthinkable

It’s unthinkable because it’s unnatural. I’d have to fill my brain with poison before I could fathom it. I’d have destroy my very self first before I could analyse.

Those before me decided not to. They decided it was not worth it. I don’t have even the least energy to decide. Where do I begin?

For what results?

I’m back at stillness, not the kind that’s healthy. The kind that’s stagnant and rots over time. I’m frozen. As they watch, they imagine it’s out fear. It’s mostly out of utter shock. Shocked that earth is capable of hosting such, shocked that I’m capable of living with such.

Shocked that I’ve lived this long.

The collective meditation of my own demise is confusing. Humming each day in one accord, doing nothing else but humming. Humming until the hum influences me ..

and oh it does ..

There’s something about conceiving and the high of orgasm between two ideas and then there’s a pregnancy that’s so private, intimate and personal. You don’t want it to end and yet it has to end, at some point. Success is delivering the baby and letting the world enjoy it too.

It makes me think of my own ideas (although I hate calling ideas, babies. I find them to be equals rather)

I’ve been in pregnancy for so long. Wanting my words to be as protected as possible. I didn’t want to be told what’s considered good or not in writing (still don’t)

I’ve heard it for far too long. ‘This is the way to do it’, ‘This is what success looks like’

Didn’t want to hear it anymore.

Now I’ve been wondering how long to be pregnant for? What if I show you my babies (still cringe) and you bully them? What if you like them so much you want to own them?

Questions that keep me awake at night.

There’s no win. I’ll cry if my writing is hated, I’ll cry even harder if it’s loved.

Making me wonder. Why do I even bother? If there are so many fears tied to it, why continue?

I don’t know and maybe one day I’ll put the pen down.

I’ve never bothered to find out where writers go. They seem to be those hidden figures in the art world. The awkward ones that would rather be unknown. It’s the singers, actors, pop stars, painters .. that see the red carpets.

Writers hide.

So I follow suit, always searching for private spaces to express thoughts and yet feeling the hunger for them to be discussed publicly. But then I wonder, are they even that important for public consumption?

How would I know, when I’ve never dared to explore?

So I sit here with babies I’ve been hiding in the basement for decades. Now it’s even harder to show them. The basement has definitely made them weird.

We hide even more. It’s safer this way.

Thembeka

My go to has always been to distance myself from situations that I’m allergic to. This worked all the time because all I need to do is move myself and I have all the motivation to: with the allergy and all.

.. then there’s being an adult ..

Sometimes we grow by staying. By facing the dirt day in and day out. Maybe the stinky smell will be a gentle reminder of who I am and what I stand for.

There’s also the worry that if I sit long enough around dirt, I become one with it.

Wouldn’t that be the horror?

Smelling. Seeing. Hearing. Feeling. The filth.

I’d rather be surrounded by roses and their welcoming demeanour yet here I am. Life has called me here, in the midst of no flowers, only filth. Sometimes I watch and I truly believe it cannot get any filthier, and then it does and then I have a new problem: shock, disappointment, despair, hopelessness and maybe even anger.

Yet I know ..

There’s not much that can be done. I sit and watch. Because if I wasn’t here I’d be bothering roses asking them why filth exists? I’d be wanting them to tell me what it is, so I never have to smell it.

I guess part of growth is facing that which disgusts us the most.

The disgust invites it. We call it by giving it the time and energy to be disgusted. It comes in and damn does it over stay.

Thembeka

.. and then one day you forget ..

His whole plan depends on the forget ..

How could you not forget?

You needed just one day

One day when it didn’t matter

It is that day that becomes the last

Anyway what are days if only filled with sorrow

In middle of winter, I’d be naked trying to take the sexiest picture. After an hour of self-shooting, I’d send the pictures and he’d send back notes. Very difficult to please. John would ask I open my thighs a bit more. Look like I want it, more.

I knew something was off, yet I had just left a cult and wanted so badly to come off as free and sexy. Of course, I failed competing with the porn models.

Years before that, I’d had sex for the first time with my first boyfriend. Afterwards, he mumbled something about a cultivated garden, insinuating he wasn’t the first one to enter my vagina. A rush of shame overcame me. I felt desperate and told him about my sexual trauma. He shrugged his shoulders and kept moving.

.. there are so many rules (maybe even an obsession) around vaginas, as if it was so powerful it could start (or end) world war. I believed the rumours, I too possessed a war ending vagina. So I thought, until my one night stand wouldn’t pick up my calls. What happened? I had kept it locked because it’s the equivalent of gold, so I’d spend six months trying to convince him to sleep with me again, just so he could see what I’m talking about ..

What was the fuss about?

Back to me, John and my vagina. Alone in my couch on a winter day .. I’ve been posing for the past hour taking pictures.

It’s a Sunday afternoon. I’ve been alone since Friday night. I thought John would come rescue me from my loneliness, he didn’t. Instead, he said he didn’t want to force his desires on me.

“Do you even want me?” he’d ask

I’m now half naked, taking ‘sexy’ pictures. I’m checking this window behind me, my landlord likes to lurk around. He’s married. These blinds don’t quite close to the fullest. Maybe intentional. So I’m worried he’s watching me as I weirdly try to find a sexy pose. Strangely, I want the landlord to find me sexy too and I’m not even the slightest attracted to him. I just think the world would be safer if he thinks I’m sexy.

Back to me, John and my vagina ..

I might not be good at sexy but one thing I’m good at is editing a bad photo. He had asked me to send them to him unedited. Who made him the boss of me? I already feel the power of my vagina.

He’s sending me texts to ask what’s taking so long, where is the pictures. I’m always the one left on read, oh it feels good to know he’s staring at his phone waiting.

Till next time ..

Thembeka

Today I thought I’d let you in on my secret book club that has been going on since 2024. Don’t get excited, it’s a boring book club.

One of the requirements of being a life coach is reading tons of self help books. What usually happens is that out 500 pages of said book, 10pages are really awesome and could change your life.

So I decided I won’t suffer alone and opened up a book club where we all pretend to read a self help book.

It’s not a traditional book club in that, we don’t read a book per month. The book we are currently reading will take us about 6 months to get through. See? Boring.

What I hope to achieve with the book club, is to show that self improvement knowledge is never a waste and it can also be quick (contradictory, much?)

Another point to mention about this beloved book club is that it only has 4 wonderful members (I’m included in this number). It’s not a big deal for me, I’m just so grateful that I’m not there all by myself, calling it a book club.

There’s no participation required. I just send my notes each week and hoping others are making their notes as well. This is me trying to make this as chill as possible.

The reason I’m writing to you this morning, is to beg you to come join. The book club is boring for now but I promise it will get better. I’ll come up with exciting ideas in the future, maybe we’ll even do some online meet ups and more. In the meantime, please come through. It would be a pleasure to see you there.

You can DM ‘book club’ to me and I’ll send you the link. It’s totally free.

Now, about the book.

It’s called the Master Key. One of the earliest books on mindset (written in 1914), law of attraction and more. The reason I chose an old book is that it’s still raw and unfiltered in its ideas. It doesn’t make grandiose promises on ‘if you just think it then you have it’. It talks about the work that goes into knowing and getting what one wants.

The book is divided into 33 exercises and goes into much detail. We take each week for each exercise, which gives time to decide whether it works or not.

The book before this was ‘The Artist’s Way’. You get the gist of where we’re hoping to go with this.

See you soon.

Thembeka