I used to think I just didn’t like cameras.
I told myself the usual excuses.
“I’m awkward.”
“I never like how I look in photos.”
“I’m not confident enough yet.”
“I’ll start filming when I lose weight or look better or feel better.”
But none of those were true.
I discovered the truth on a random day that started like any other.
I needed to record a simple 30-second video for something small, nothing dramatic, nothing life-changing. Just a basic clip. I set up my phone, propped it against a stack of books, hit record…
…and froze.
My voice came out thin, apologetic.
My face tightened.
My posture shrunk.
I suddenly couldn’t make eye contact with my own lens.
I stopped the recording, frustrated.
Tried again.
Same thing.
By the fifth attempt, I felt tears pressing behind my eyes, the kind that come from somewhere deeper than embarrassment.
So I did something I never do when I’m trying to “be productive”:
I stopped.
I sat down.
I closed my eyes.
And I asked myself quietly:
“Why is this so hard?”
The answer rose instantly, not a thought, but a memory.
I was suddenly five years old again, standing in a living room full of adults who were telling me to smile for a photo. I felt their impatience. I felt their eyes. I felt the pressure to perform.
I wasn’t being captured.
I was being inspected.
I learned very early:
If you are visible,
you can be criticised.
If you are seen,
you can be laughed at.
If you take up attention,
you better be perfect.
Visibility didn’t feel like confidence.
Visibility felt like danger.
This is often where deeper patterns begin, which is why understanding your behaviour patterns can help you see what your body learned long before you had words for it.
So I grew up doing what many children with sensitive nervous systems do:
I made myself small.
I hid in plain sight.
I softened my voice.
I stayed out of the spotlight.
I became pleasant instead of present.
A lot of this makes more sense once you see the difference between the soul self and the survival self, and which one has been stepping forward when being seen feels unsafe.
The camera wasn’t the problem.
The lens was just a portal into the part of me I’d buried for decades.
Sitting there on my floor, phone still recording by accident, I whispered:
“You’re not scared of the camera.
You’re scared of being fully witnessed.”
My whole body went still.
Because that was the truth.
The truth I’d been avoiding.
The truth I’d been calling insecurity or perfectionism or “not ready yet.”
I wasn’t afraid people would judge me.
I was afraid the camera would capture the parts of me I’d spent my whole life trying to hide:
My softness.
My uncertainty.
My real voice.
My real expressions.
My real presence.
Being seen wasn’t about being watched.
It was about being known.
And I didn’t know myself well enough yet to feel safe in that.
That day changed everything, not because I suddenly loved cameras, and not because my fears vanished, but because the real wound was finally named.
I realised:
I kept thinking I needed to “believe in myself” to show up.
But the truth was:
I needed to stop abandoning myself when visibility touched the parts of me that were still healing.
So I tried again.
I hit record.
I didn’t fix my hair.
I didn’t change my voice.
I didn’t perform.
I just looked into the lens and stayed.
Stayed in my body.
Stayed in the discomfort.
Stayed long enough to feel the moment stretch into something new.
And for the first time in my life, I didn’t run.
I let myself be seen.
Not perfectly.
Not confidently.
But honestly.
This connects closely with why your real self feels too quiet, especially when your true voice has been buried under years of self-protection.
And that was the beginning, not of becoming a person who loves cameras,
but of becoming a person who no longer fears her own reflection.
