You May Be Changing Someone Without Knowing It

Three silent lessons I learned just by watching my friends be themselves.

Some people change you without ever knowing they did.

Usually, they are not the people who sit you down and give you advice. They are the people you quietly watch.

And when you are highly sensitive, you probably notice more than people realize.

You remember how someone stayed calm and positive when everything seemed to be going wrong.
You notice how they say yes before they know exactly how to do it because they trust themselves to figure it out along the way.
You admire how easily they share an idea you would have rehearsed ten times before saying out loud.

But more than anything, you remember how they made you feel.

That is exactly how I learned from three friends I met while working in Barcelona.

They never tried to teach me anything. They were simply being themselves, and without realizing it, they were showing me new ways to trust myself too.

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Lesson 1: Start today. Don’t wait to feel confident.

This lesson is thanks to Carla. She is the kind of person who goes after what she wants. When she believes in something, she does not wait until she feels completely ready or until every fear disappears. She just goes for it, always with this incredibly positive attitude.

Today, she is an amazing mother and the founder of Posdata V, a beautiful shoe brand with so much personality.

I admired this so much about her because I was the complete opposite.

I could recognize talent in everyone around me and still convince myself there was nothing particularly special about mine. And once you believe that, you stop giving your ideas a chance before they even start.

I have kept so many ideas and projects to myself because I had already decided that someone more talented should be the one bringing them to life.

As a highly sensitive person, I feel everything deeply. I did not understand that my mind was processing more. I only saw myself getting tired, anxious, or afraid, and assumed that meant I was not capable.

I confused being overwhelmed with not being talented enough.

Carla never exactly told me to believe in myself or look at things more positively.

She simply kept betting on her ideas and facing every difficulty with the most positive attitude I had ever seen in someone.

Watching her made me realize how many ideas I had abandoned before giving them a real chance.

She never told me to stop doubting myself but she just simply made me wonder what my life could look like if I stopped walking away from everything I wanted before I had even tried.

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Lesson 2: Say yes before you know exactly how. You will figure it out.

Ker was my manager, but somewhere along the way, she became something like an older sister to me.

Of all the things she taught me, one of the most important was self-confidence.

At the agency, clients would sometimes ask us to do something completely outside our scope.

Ker would still say, “Of course. We can do it.”

And after the meeting, I would ask her, “Do you actually know how to do it?”

She would laugh and say, “No, but we will figure it out.”

I am not going to lie. This made me so nervous at the time. But Ker knew how to trust herself.

I was the complete opposite. I needed proof that I could do something before I could promise it.

But watching her made me realize how often I had been underestimating myself.

Every time she said yes to something she had never done before, she eventually found a way to make it happen.

Lately, I have been trying to do the same. I have started saying yes to things I was not completely sure I could do, and every time, I have found a way to figure them out and deliver.

And maybe you need to hear this too.

You do not need proof that you can do it before you begin. Let yourself feel terrified, and figure it out anyway.

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Lesson 3: Stop being invisible and let yourself be seen.

Dayanna has always had a natural way of connecting with people.

She speaks her mind without being afraid of judgment, and she has no problem speaking to a camera for the whole world to see.

I admired that because I had always been afraid of being too visible.

Maybe being called “too shy” or “too sensitive” when I was younger made me believe it was safer to hide parts of myself.

I started thinking there was something wrong with my personality, so I learned to keep my emotions, my opinions, and so much of who I was to myself, just to avoid being rejected.

Dayanna did not teach me to stop caring about what people think. Honestly, I am not sure I ever will, and that is okay.

But she taught me that I could care and still speak. That fear did not have to stop me from sharing what I think or from letting people know who I am.

Because why should I keep making myself invisible?

I still overthink what I share. I still imagine how people might judge me.

But I no longer want fear to decide how much of me the world gets to know.

And maybe you are tired of hiding too.

Please use your voice.

Let it help someone feel seen and let it remind someone that they are not alone.

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This letter is for Carla, Ker, and Dayanna, three of my closest friends from Barcelona.

This is actually the first time I am telling them what I learned from each of them and how often those lessons still show up in my everyday life.

And as you finish reading this, maybe someone comes to mind. Someone who taught you something without ever knowing it.

Someone who has no idea that a part of the way you live today came from them.

Maybe it is time to tell them. And if you are not ready yet, you can tell me instead.

Who came to mind, and what did they teach you?

With love,

My Unsent Letters,
AB.