The Mask and the Self.

Most teenagers have already learned, often without ever choosing to, which version of themselves earns approval in which room: the sharpened, strategic self at school; the looser, funnier self with friends; the agreeable self at home. This module opens with that quiet, nearly universal experience and turns it into the beginning of real self-knowledge. Rather than asking a teen to perform less, it invites them to become curious about the performing itself, treating it as information about what feels safe and what feels seen, rather than as something to feel caught out by.

• How the performed self develops as a reasonable response to belonging and safety, not as a form of dishonesty.
• The physical and emotional cues that signal the moment they've drifted from their own sense of self.
• A first working vocabulary for naming the distance between how they're showing up and how they actually feel.
• A grounded, repeatable way of checking in with themselves as they move between different settings and people.