I think imposter syndrome is extremely common – among women. This rarely seems to affect men – even when they don’t have a massive confidence, they still almost never question themselves the way women do.
The way I see it, it’s connected to being the Good Girl and having too high demands on yourself. Perfectionism is a part of that, because perfectionism is all about fear of failure and not being allowed to make a single mistake. Men do mansplaining – something that a woman would never do, because women question themselves even when they know far more than the man. The man, on the other hand, thinks it’s absolutely fine to have an opinion about things he knows nothing about, and still sound like he’s an expert, and they both believe that he knows more than her.
This stems for all the centuries or even millennia when women have been constantly questioned and not had a say. It stems from all the times women were burnt as witches because of their secret knowledge, which has both left scars in our subconscious and in our DNA. In my healing work I see this over and over.
Imposter syndrome means that YOU think you’re not good enough and that you will be exposed. It’s not about what others think. So the remedy is to strengthen the self-worth, and to get a lot of experience that proves how good you are. The remedy is to understand that this is mind-chatter and not true. That it’s a story you’re telling yourself. And to heal all those subconscious fears about being exposed.
What usually adds to the story, is that we often grow up in families who enforce these beliefs by putting pressure on us and teaching us that we’re never good enough. I always had top grades, but it still wasn’t enough – my dad wasn’t happy that I had made one mistake on the math test. Crazy huh?
But this is the reality for sooo many women I meet. We need to take our power back and look at the brilliance of the things we do. And last, but not least, we need to stop over-identifying with what we do, and instead learn to love ourselves for who we are.
Meditation is important for that to happen, to turn off the mind-chatter for at least a few minutes every day. Grounding yourself by taking a walk, doing some gardening or dancing in the living room to get down into your body, will take you out of your head and down into your body.
Because part of the problem is that we end up too much in our heads because it hasn’t been safe to be in our bodies when we grew up, so we become very intellectual to stay safe. Sometimes that can also be connected to being decapitated in a past life – that creates a disconnect between head and body, quite literally, which we carry with us into our next life until we release the trauma.
The sad thing is, that people who suffer from imposter syndrome are usually extremely good at what they do, because they constantly try to better themselves…
Talk to yourself in the mirror every day and say “I love you. You are more than good enough. You are my hero.”.
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