Was It All In My Mind?

Dancing was a big part of my childhood, and I have many albums full of photographs of me in colourful costumes performing with my dance troupe. Almost always at the back, because of my height! Of all those photos, why is this black and white picture so special to me? Simply, because it records a significant moment in my life.

If someone looked at this photo without any back story, what would they see?

They would probably see a happy, young lady, posing somewhat too gracefully for the costume she's wearing, in front of a mirror in a large hall, for a staged photo. They'd see confidence, success and maybe some sort of leader.

They wouldn't see that she had been crying, that her shoes were borrowed just for the photo, because she didn't own those types of expensive shoes, and she had been asked to stand out of the previous photos. They wouldn't see that there's about 10 children from her class and their parents behind the camera, with arms crossed, wondering why her photo was getting taken, because they just had the troupe photo taken, without her included.

What would the photographer have seen? He would remember that he separated this girl from the rest of the group. He would also know he took a lovely photo of the rest of the girls and then asked this girl to pose for a photo, on her own. He would have then taken all photos back to his office and someone would have made the decision as to which photo made the newspaper.

Why was I crying just before the photo? Really? Because I had felt that I wasn't good enough, that I wasn't the same as the others, literally for years. Everything that day, leading up to that photo confirmed that my dance teacher, everyone in the room, including me, even the photographer knew that I was not going to make the cut.

But then, everything turned 180 degrees. He took my photo! My photo made it to the newspaper!

At the time I really didn't understand the significance of this event, but looking back it was one of the most important parts of the story that has made me who I am today.

We can be persuaded by those around us to see ourselves as they see us. We can even learn to behave or show up to reflect that conditioning. It then follows that once we understand this, we can work to learn a different mindset. We can change our attitude about who we believe we are and can learn behaviours that reflect a new confidence in ourselves.

Was who I thought I was, just in my mind?