Today, I was listening to a podcast about social media. Interestingly, the podcast spoke about how some people show a different version of themselves on social media than in person. This struck me in that moment, and I thought how real that was even outside of social media. We, in reality, show different versions of ourselves every day, even multiple times a day. There is a version of me that cries in exam rooms with postpartum moms. There is a version of me that holds firm, explaining how viral illnesses do not need antibiotics. There is a version of me that is soft, open, easily moved. And there is a version of me that is more guarded and careful, while being insecure. Now, none of these versions are fake. And none of them are the whole picture about me, either.

Every single person I interact with gets a different me. That may not be only because of the hat I am wearing in that moment, but also because of the bias the other person comes into our encounter with. How they interacted with me in the past and how that conversation was taken on their end. And then, they leave carrying an impression of me like it’s the full story. In life, every encounter will have someone receiving and perceiving us differently.

For instance, on any given clinic shift, I am allotted two patient rooms to use. In the first is a new mom, postpartum and wrecked. Breastfeeding not going the way anyone told her. Sleep-deprived and overwhelmed by a chorus of opinions coming at her from every direction. In that room, I sit with her, I let her breathe, I even cry a little with her too about how lonely she is feeling in this time. She left, I hope, feeling less alone.

And then, right next door is another exhausted parent who was up all night with a toddler in pain. Same sleep deprivation, a different phase of life. They are coming in hoping for antibiotics, and leaving the visit without them because the ears were clear and the illness was viral. And I explained all of this, but perhaps because I didn’t pause long enough to let them feel that I knew that, not the way I had, just minutes earlier, next door. They also were just as sleep-deprived, just as desperate for relief. I let them down, not because I held firm on not needing antibiotics. More because of not giving the same compassion. I see the truth after the fact, and I also see how those two parents walked away with very different impressions of me. One probably felt heard, the other probably felt dismissed. Back to back rooms, by the same physician, on the same day.

Every encounter on this earth leaves a mark, shifting something, and adding on a layer. We are not the same person from one room to the next, one conversation to the next, one year to the next. We are constantly being shaped by what we just lived through. We are constantly evolving, and we need to understand that and participate in this evolution. And the people on the receiving end of us don’t get to know the work that we are putting in to ourselves after. They just get the version that showed up for them, in that moment, shaped by everything that came before it.

That is why every moment matters. Because that moment will stay with someone else. The experiences we give people continue on long after we do. They carry those moments with them. And so do we really, although we may not realize it.

Now, this reality about ourselves doesn’t stop in our professional lives. Thinking about this, I’ve had the same honest conversation about the realities of life with two different people and watched them walk away with completely different reads on who I am. One heard openness, while the other heard something that made them pause about me. And I’ve had to sit with the fact that the variable in that equation was actually me. That is because of the truth of human relationships. We go into conversations or experiences with others with their past perceptions or misconceptions about us. And that alters how conversations go. Not only on how I am received, but also how I portray myself. In one conversation, I can be myself fully, and in another conversation about the same topic, I am insecure and holding back. I may not choose which version of me arrives in that moment. Sometimes the insecure one beats me there.

I don’t think the answer is to perform consistency on a daily basis. That is exhausting to sand myself down on every edge until everyone gets the same flat, curated version of me. And that is dishonest. But I do think there’s something worth exploring how the people who feel the worst version of me don’t know how it’s not the whole story. They just know how they felt when they left me in that moment.

So maybe the practice isn’t about becoming one perfectly balanced person. Maybe it’s about noticing in that moment about which version of me is walking into a conversation. And remembering that this moment, right now, is going to matter to someone later after leaving. That it will become part of how they carry me with them. And that knowledge is how I can have the truest version of me show up more for those around me, the kind version of myself, the one that has a lot to give, and the one who actually has started reflecting on what I feel on the inside.

As I am typing this, my phone just notified me of the daily Calm app mantra- “The work you do on yourself is your gift to everyone else”. What a perfect reframe on how the hard work at therapy and self-awareness isn’t just for me. Every bit of inner work I do is what makes my impact on others. This reflection is what makes it possible for that version of me, who I will feel proud of, to walk through the door for the people who deserve the best of me.

We need to embrace every moment, to allow every moment a chance to be the real one of ourselves.