Last night I was in bed thinking about the MMP. Stressed is not even the right word to describe how I've been feeling for the past month. I can't find my third interviewee.
Earlier this week, I managed to speak to a Millennial expert who was interested in taking part. We agreed to have the interview yesterday but she didn't show up. Time is ticking and I haven't gotten as far as editing most of the doc. When a puzzle piece is missing, it makes the whole process a lot more difficult. If you remember, in one of my last post I talked about the situation I found myself in when I produced the documentary about drinking. This year, it seems like I'm being unlucky again (or so it feels like it)
Anyway, I decided to put the anger aside and trust the process.
Not being able to sleep most of the night, I ended up on YouTube and stumbled across a guy I used to follow. The title of his video was ' 5 Insecurities I've Been Waiting To Tell You.'
Intrigued, I clicked the video and watched until the end. His message? "When you look in the mirror tomorrow morning, instead of pointing out all the things you want gone, point out the things that you’re gonna miss."
And then I had a revelation. Through all my worrying thoughts, one in particular kept sticking out.
I think I've started to love and accept myself a little more.
Now, you might be asking yourself, what does this have to do with the MMP?
A lot actually.
When I was a younger, I remember myself as a happy, confident kid. I never gave a crap about how I looked or what people thought of me. I was free.
As soon as I went to secondary school, things changed. As a result of bullying, I became very self conscious about how I looked and acted. I started to hate parts of me that were perfectly normal but saw them as imperfect. Social media played a big part in this as well.
And so throughout the years, I've ingrained into my head that I wasn't enough or looked a certain way.
I would sometimes chose a mantra to say to myself whenever I looked in the mirror like ' I am beautiful today, I am enough but I never felt it from deep within me. It was futile.
Since I'm doing a presenter led documentary, my face appears in most of it. I'm having to constantly go back to the footage, look at it, edit it etc.
Yesterday, going through the two interviews with Lucy and James, I looked at myself and realized, I'm beautiful. This time I felt it, I MEANT IT!
I saw everything I wanted to change about myself, but for once, I accepted those 'flaws' and thought they were beautiful. They make me, me. We get so used to ourselves that we forget how special, unique and worthy we actually are.
I didn't have to go to a therapist or take some online course, I just saw myself through a camera's lens like never before. I'm not 100% there- I'm still figuring it out but, If it wasn't for this project, maybe I would have carried this burden on for longer.
This documentary might not be some BBC production but it's definitely starting to mean something more than just an MMP to me. Hopefully, it will enlighten you too :)
“The reason we struggle with insecurity is because we compare our behind-the-scenes with everyone else’s highlight reel.”- Steve Furtick