Turn on Self View

I recently realized that I needed to see myself as part of the group I was meeting with.

I do a lot of work using videoconferencing (Zoom, specifically). I am not an expert at this technology, but I am pretty good at navigating the frequent updates. One thing I have learned to do is to “hide self view” so that I am not distracted by myself. 

When I view myself onscreen with whatever individuals or groups I’m meeting with, I find myself endlessly sneaking a peak at myself to see if I just messed up my hair or how is my posture or can you tell that I just scratched my face. “Hide self view” allows me to be more fully present to the people on the other end of our internet connection. 

I had an experience recently, though, when I realized that I needed to see myself as part of the group. I needed to change the video setting and to see myself literally on screen as one of the parts of this group that was meeting. In this situation, by not seeing myself on the screen, I was experiencing two things that I know aren’t true. The first was a big dose of imposter syndrome – that sense of ‘the cool kids have let me sit here and I just need to be quiet and not blow it’. The second was that I was hiding. I actually had opinions and ideas that were stirring, and I was a little afraid to share them. 

The more I have thought about this, the more I think this might be true in off-screen settings as well. We all have our ways of not being seen. Some of us show up as helpers, some of us show up as observers, some of us show up as comics – all ways of blending together the lines between who we are and what our true contributions might be. Even a leader of a group might be hiding in plain sight.  

Sometimes playing a role serves. And sometimes, hopefully, we get the chance to turn on self view – to show both to others and ourselves, what we think and who we (really) are.