ELIZABETH ELLAMES

Here’s something liberating and sobering: People don’t see me clearly. Nor do they see you clearly.

They see us through their own lens. Everyone has private memories, wounds, longings, fears, and beliefs. That inner world filters and colours their view of you.

So when someone judges you, misunderstands you, idealises you, diminishes you, projects onto you, or assigns a story to you, they are not actually describing who you are. They are describing themselves.

The Projection Field

I now see human interaction as a projection field, much like a movie screen that displays images created by the projector. In this case, people are projecting their inner experiences onto others, so what you meet in their perception is often a reflection of what’s unresolved within them.

If someone sees you as threatening, you touch their insecurity. If they see you as unworthy, it mirrors their own sense of unworthiness. If they see you as powerful, it may awaken an unclaimed power. If they see you as “too much,” perhaps they’ve spent their lives shrinking. None of this defines you.

Seeing this transformed me. Realising others’ views reflect only their inner world freed me from chasing respect or validation and turned my focus inward.

I Am Not Who You Think I Am

A truth I live by: I am not who you think. Your beliefs about me reveal your inner architecture.

Your nervous system, conditioning, emotional history, assumptions, and perceptions say much more about your inner world than they do about me.

I exist outside your story about me, as you do outside mine. In accepting this, I softened. I stopped taking projections personally and letting opinions define my worth.

Because I can only define myself.

The Cost of Outsourcing Your Worth

If you let others’ perceptions dictate your value, your sense of self shifts with opinion. Embedding your worth internally grounds you. That’s how you reclaim worth, beyond projections.

You no longer ask: “Do they see me?” The real question: Do I see myself?

Knowing Your Worth Is an Inside Job

Knowing your worth isn’t bravado, it’s not arrogance, and it’s not loud.

It’s quiet, a steady self-relationship, and a deep recognition: You are valuable by existing.

Not because of what you produce, your usefulness, popularity, or performance. You are worthy because you exist as a living, breathing expression of consciousness. Nothing more is required.

When you know this, opinions lose their pull. They may sting, but they don’t define you. They pass through, not take root.

The Maturity of Letting People Be Wrong About You

One of the most advanced spiritual and emotional skills I have cultivated is this:

Letting people be wrong about me. Not defensively, not resentfully, but peacefully. I don’t correct false narratives now. I stopped chasing misunderstood versions of myself. Why?

The people meant to know me will feel me. Others will hold a version that aligns with their inner world. Both are okay. This is maturity, sovereignty, self-trust.

You Are More Than Any Story Told About You

You are not the story someone told about you, not the label someone placed on you, nor the version of you that exists in another person’s unresolved pain. Imagine yourself as a vast, multi-dimensional landscape, always in a continual state of becoming.

You contain contradictions. You contain growth. You contain depth. You contain mystery. No perception alone captures your full reality, not even your own. Loosen your grip on who you think you have to be. Strengthen your relationship with who you are.

Summary

Others see you through fears and beliefs. Their view reflects their world—not your truth. Hold yourself with gentleness, stand in your truth, and know your worth.

Remember: I am not who you think I am. You are who you think I am.

I hope this knowledge frees and grounds you, and brings you home to your true self.

Heart to Heart, Elizabeth