What if Your Imposter 🎭 was your ally?
What if Your Imposter 🎭 was your ally?
Reimagining Your Story and Relationship with Power
Who would you be without the weight of history telling you that if you gain power, you are a fake? Explore these reflections to find out!
In this month’s InPower Women’s Mastermind, we’re reimagining the story of our Imposter mindset, asking ourselves the question we explored in the last newsletter:
If you proactively invited your Imposter to help you overcome your fears instead of subjecting you to them, who might you become?
Listen to this intro:
In last week’s newsletter we looked deeply into the Imposter Syndrome to reset our understanding that it is not actually a “syndrome” at all. Nothing about the Imposter is built into your genetic code or cell structures. It’s a mindset, internalized from the cultural environment around you, that tries to tell you it’s not safe to be yourself, especially if the real you is powerful.
Looking back as far as Eve and further, I’ve realized that the Imposter has actually been our historical ally, helping us keep ourselves and those we loved from becoming targets for violence and abuse of all kinds.
Some of these safety concerns remain today, but most of us have internalized a lot more danger than we need to from history. Sure, for safety’s sake if you’re in an abusive relationship, you should get out of it before you assert all your power and trigger violence, but in the average relationship and situation–personal and professional–giving way to the Imposter is holding you back more than it’s helping you.
The truth is that men suffer from the Imposter, too, but they have better emotional and mental tools to manage it, thanks to that same cultural narrative that tells them they’re in less danger than women when they acquire and wield power.
So let’s learn something from our male colleagues and use this opportunity to authentically reset our ideas about the Imposter, to turn it into a true ally, helping us see where we’re giving our power away so we can STOP giving our power away and start integrating it into our authentic feminine identity.
When befriended the Imposter, we’ve taken an important step and included the power to overcome self-doubt in our authentic identity. This makes our presence is more powerful and feels to the outside world like “confidence.” When we exude more self-confidence in a world full of uncertainty, we’re more likely to gain the trust of others that we can wield power in the world for better results.
Use the following REFLECTION PROMPTS (text, audio, or both!) to reimagine who you can be without the weight of history trying to hold you back. Bring your reflection or journaling insights and questions to the member chat online and monthly Zoom call on October 16th.
What can we learn from men and their easy relationship with their Imposter? What insights can this give us to reframe and retell the story first given to Eve, passed down through human history to plague us with feelings of inadequacy and self-doubt the closer we get to self-authoring and influence in the world?
All humans, including men, have self-doubt and feelings of faking it when encountering unfamiliar situations, especially high-stakes situations. This is called our STRETCH ZONE.
Men/boys get messages early on that “you’ve got this,” which draws them past self-doubt and more often gives them evidence for an identity that includes I am someone who overcomes self-doubt. Women/girls are more likely to get messages like “be careful,” which reinforces self-doubt and builds an identity that includes I am someone who is not always safe and should doubt herself and her surroundings.
As a result, men/boys typically gain more experience learning to become comfortable in their discomfort zone; they more often use self-doubt to signal themselves that they need to learn how to navigate past it to gain and wield power. Women/girls are more likely to let their self-doubt channel them into less risky and less rewarding behaviors, which don’t typically wield as much power.
Use the exercise below to befriend your Imposter!
