To the one who is trying to believe again

Letter 007 of Take What You Need

There’s a difference between feeling capable and actually believing in yourself.

I learned that the hard way.

Sometimes betting on yourself looks like this.

When I first decided to pursue filmmaking, I felt confident in a very “I’ll figure it out eventually” kind of way.

The type of confidence that looks sturdy from the outside but disappears the second things get quiet. I knew I could learn. I knew I could adapt.

What I didn’t yet know was whether I trusted myself enough to see it through.

Belief, it turns out, doesn’t arrive fully formed. It builds through repetition. Through showing up when it would be much easier to disappear. Through sharpening your metaphorical knife. Through putting your work into the world while quietly wondering if you’ve completely lost the plot.

Somewhere along the way, my film was selected by two festivals. Which sounds very validating, and it was, but it wasn’t the thing that changed everything. The real shift happened earlier, in much smaller moments. In ch…