What I See in You Is What I Left in Me

Lately I’ve begun to feel invisible, still here but no longer seen. A disposable camera, once its film is developed, that is set aside and forgotten, even though it remains in plain sight.

This morning, for the first time, I asked myself if perhaps I’m the one doing something wrong. It’s as if a part of me, silenced for years, is now spilling out in a rush, releasing everything it has kept inside. Yet somewhere in that release I can feel something out of balance.

That question lingered until later in the day when I was speaking with my best friend. She told me that one of the most important practices for her is to ask,

“What am I judging?”

After a momentary pause, I realised I hadn’t asked myself that question in a very long time, perhaps ever. Then another question appeared:

Is this why I keep finding myself stuck in repeated patterns?

I once read that the things we judge in others are often reflections of what we see in ourselves. I wonder now, when we shape the way we see the world, can it ever truly be separate from the way we see ourselves?

Human experience is not neutral. Our brain does not simply take in the world; it reconstructs it. Even what what we see is shaped in the mind. Our vision is tinted, refracted, and sometimes smudged by the colours of our inner world. It draws on sensory input, past experiences and expectations, stitching them together with memories, emotions and beliefs. Before we meet a person as they are, we have already dressed them in the fabric of our memories, emotions, and beliefs. Our interpretation is coloured by our inner world, especially the parts we keep in shadow. We can drape them in admiration or wrap them in suspicion, but either way we’re never seeing the person exactly as they are. We are seeing a blend of them and us. Sometimes, when we think we are looking at another, we are really catching a reflection of ourselves.

Recently, I have been tracing my thought patterns and finding emotional blueprints etched into me over time. Some learned through experience, others have been there from the start. I cannot always tell where nature ends and nurture begins, but I know I have carried insecurities with me like unspoken companions.

Even so, I haven’t paused in a long time.

After my last relationship, there was a stretch where I found peace and solidarity within myself. I didn’t need validation because I had drawn strength from surviving one of the most miserable times in my life.

While processing the breakup, I discovered something I believe applies to most of us: the feelings of resilience, pride and strength are at their peak once grief loosens its grip and you dive into the core of your heartbreak.

The reality is, it is never about the other person. Every new relationship carries its cause, an invitation to be courageous enough to claim it and weave it into your life. Some people are meant to be nothing more than practice.

But lately I’ve been showing up to my practices tense and impatient, carrying my fatigue like extra weight. I step in already defensive, already irritated, as if expecting the game to be a fight before it’s even begun. And when you train like that, you stop learning. Every drill becomes about getting through it instead of getting better.

For the past couple of months, my life has felt like a season where I kept forcing myself onto the field without resting, reviewing, or tending to the parts of me that were sore or strained. I pushed forward as if momentum alone could carry me, ignoring the signs that certain roads needed to be closed for repairs. I crowned myself an Amazon warrior, convinced that none of the arrows had hit their mark. Somewhere along the way I forgot tenderness, and I became my disposable camera.

I only kept the parts of myself I thought I could still use, discarding the ones that were hurt because they no longer served a purpose.

Maybe what I kept judging in others was the very feeling of being disposable when in truth it was only a reflection of what I had already done.I was the one who cast aside the parts of myself I no longer thought I needed, letting them fade at the edges until they disappeared.

Yesterday was the day when Sirius aligned with the Earth in what many believe to be a gateway of courage, creativity and self-expression. Long before it was called the Lion’s Gate 88, this date held meaning. In ancient Egypt, the rising of Sirius marked the flooding of the Nile, a sign that new life was coming. It was the Earth’s way of saying: begin again.

So today I pause. I realign and I ask myself honestly:

What am I carrying forward? What am I leaving behind?