When I stopped seeing my own light

Photo by Molly Blackbird on Unsplash

Ever since I published my last personal essay, I’ve been thinking a lot about my younger self. The recent social media trend ‘I met my younger self for coffee’, inspired by Jenna Cecelia’s poem, only fueled this reflection.

The younger version of myself I keep revisiting is the one I was in my twenties, and before 2010 — the dancer, the dreamer, the traveler, the ambitious professional, eager to uncover her true potential. She was confident, unafraid to start new things, and excited by the unknown.

What would she think of me now? Would she recognize me? Have I failed her somehow?

Sorting through digital files a few months ago, I stumbled upon two recommendation letters from the managers I had at that time. Among other things, they mentioned my “tremendous personal leadership” and “buoyant personality.” Reading those words made me nostalgic — and sad. That person felt long gone.

And yet, as I went through some deep personal work these past few months, I realized she isn’t gone. I just don’t let her come out much anymore.

In a recent human design workshop with

Lauren Barber

, I learned that as a projector, self-recognition is the bedrock of everything. And I realized that’s where I still struggle. The truth is, I’ve been dimming my own light for a very long time — shutting down the brightest and boldest parts of myself, making myself small so no one notices me. Because deep down, I’m afraid to shine again.

I keep trying to pinpoint when that fear took hold. And every time, my mind takes me back to my years in Toulouse, in the southwest of France — the years that broke me into a thousand pieces and left me unable to see my own value.

At first, as I mentioned in my previous essay, moving to Toulouse felt exciting: a new job, a new city, a fresh start. But reality hit fast.

I had underestimated the impact of my father’s death on my mental and emotional health. I was fragile but pretending everything was fine. When my uncle — my father’s brother — passed away a year later, the grief I had tried to suppress came rushing back. But again, instead of getting help, I carried on as if I had everything under control.

On top of that, I quickly became aware that the job I had accepted wasn’t right for me. The environment felt foreign, and my manager was nothing like the supportive leaders I’d had before. Instead of managing one person, as I had been told in the interview, I was given a team — one with long-established dynamics and a complicated history with my predecessor. This was nothing like managing project teams in my previous roles. With no guidance, I floundered. I questioned my skills, my competence, and my worth. But I was too proud to ask for help, so I struggled silently.

The stress slowly took over. A growing pit in my stomach became my constant companion. I cried more and more often on my drive back home, feeling increasingly helpless and lost.

After over a year, I finally received managerial training, and things improved slightly — but by then, it was too late. My team had lost trust in me, and more importantly, I had lost trust in myself. No matter what changed externally, I remained stuck inside. I wasn’t showing up fully, wasn’t proving my worth like I once had, wasn’t trusting the insights and ideas I had, because I was no longer able to see my own value. The inevitable meeting with upper management came. They told me they couldn’t keep me.

Me — the high achiever, the “high potential” — was being asked to leave. Again.

The personal fallout was devastating, not to mention the financial toll. And even though I have since proven my worth and expertise many times over in different work experiences, I know I’m still carrying the emotional weight of those years — struggling to fully release the guilt and shame I’ve come to associate with them.

And yet, in some ways, leaving that job was a true relief — it had made me miserable.

In my previous essay, I wrote about how some failures are actually redirections — guiding us toward new opportunities and a truer path.

Looking back now, with the perspective of what I’ve learned about myself these past years, this failure makes complete sense. I was neither in the right environment nor with the right people. Success was impossible in that role because it wasn’t meant for me in the first place. And maybe, deep down, I already knew that. Maybe some part of me recognized this as an opportunity to close one door so another could open.

After this personal and professional failure, instead of searching for another similar job, I chose a different path. I pivoted. I turned toward a passion that had been quietly growing — wine.

By listening to my heart instead of my head, by getting out of my comfort zone to leap into the unknown, by letting go of others’ expectations and making room for something unexpected, for the first time in years, I started to breathe again and something new and more aligned began to take shape.

But that’s a story for another time — one of rediscovery, risk, and a different kind of success.

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This is the second personal essay in the memoir-like exploration of untold stories I’m working on via the 12 Chapters Club of Claire Venus (she/her) ✨.

If you missed the first one, you can read it below.

While not all of these essays will relate to Corsica, I want to share them with you as they form an integral part of the tapestry that has shaped my journey.