07 230802 Imposter Syndrome - Is It Real Or Is It Hegemony

11:24PM Sep 20, 2023

Speakers:

Meredith Holley

Megan Goering Mellin

Keywords:

belonging

impostor syndrome

feel

workplace

imposter

experience

people

space

learning

syndrome

imposter syndrome

fear

fail

environment

women

safe

love

outcome

person

spoke

This week we are discussing impostor syndrome, a hot topic in the workplace. Is it real? Or is it hegemony aka intrusive thinking? We are going to talk about that today, discuss some of our experiences and then ask you yours. So as we get started on this topic of imposter syndrome, I think it's kind of nice to ask ourselves, What even is imposter syndrome? Meredith, do you want to take a crack at how you think of impostor syndrome?

Yeah, I think that imposter syndrome is, so I'm gonna look at it from two different angles. But one is, it's a set of beliefs that we've identified that somehow we don't belong in a space, sometimes it's a workspace, sometimes it's a political space, or like a platform space. But it's, it's a set of beliefs that say, we don't belong, we're sneaking in, we're not qualified enough. And, and so I think that that's sort of the traditional set of what impostor syndrome is. But I also want to think about it and kind of look at it from a different angle. And that is that it's a common human experience when you're in a new space, to feel fear, to understand that you don't know everything. And that's just true that you're you're learning and that's why you're in a new space, you're challenging yourself to do something hard.

And looking for belonging. Right, you're

like, right,

you're just checking out that you're like, is it safe here? Are these friends or foes? How does the social structure work? That's very normal.

Right? Like, I think we've talked about in the past, like, your body seeks safety, right? Even like your your, your sympathetic system is just like looking for is this safe? Is it not safe, and that's just a normal human experience. And there's a documented research based trend that when women go into a space, it's common to pathologize their experience of that space. So when if you have a man and a woman going into a new workplace, we're more likely to say that the woman's experience of fear is imposter syndrome. We're saying it's like a disease. Whereas the man's experience of fear, we say, Oh, you'll you'll get over it, bro. Like, that's interesting. Like, that's normal. You everyone, like

weird? What was your onboarding experience? Like? Like, shouldn't they have greeted you properly? Because you could triage to someone's like, you know, I felt really good at work today. Somebody might also be like, is this the right is the right role for you? Are you not being well supported? Through the experience of getting set up to that for this new job that you have to do?

Right? And so we do tend to say, like, people who have characteristics that are marginalized in culture, when they experience fear in a new situation, that's imposter syndrome. We must be doing it to themselves or something, or they have a disease, right? Like they have some kind of diagnosis diagnoseable experience. So I think we can say impostor syndrome is this set of beliefs that says, I'm not qualified enough, I don't belong. I somehow sneaked in here and people don't realize it yet. I don't like I should be gone. And we can also say, okay, that set of thinking is fairly typical for everyone in a new experience, and you're challenging yourself, and you're having the normal experience of doing something hard. And where is that useful? Or where is it not useful? And I think a lot of times you see, for some folks, like they are having an intense experience of fear around learning something new and challenging themselves to something new. And then somebody comes to them, and they say, Oh, this is imposter syndrome. And that can feel like a relief. Because now you found your group of people where you do belong, you've found out that it is common for other women to have impostor syndrome, that it's common for people of color to have imposter syndrome to for people with disabilities for whatever these classes of people that we build, and say these people have this syndrome. And so then you kind of feel like, reassured, like, I'm not the only one experiencing this. And then at the same time, we use that pathologizing that syndrome to say, all these people are not normal in the workplace somehow, like, gather them together as the ones with a syndrome versus just saying everybody feels fear when they do a new thing. Like that just is how that feels. It makes

me kind of think this is a silly example that kind of makes me think of mom's drinking wine. So like If I'm a mom, and like, I'm good with drinking wine, like I think it's a nice thing. Haven't really wanted to as much since COVID. That's a whole part of my life. We can talk about an episode if we ever want one exactly about that. But it's like mom's drinking wine. That's a thing. And sometimes we're like, oh, you know, like mom's drinking wine. You know, like, there'll be enough about it, where there'll be like a kitschy sign that you see on Instagram ads or something. Oh, monster, un. And like, it can be fine. Actually, it can be great. It can be a way to get together, it can be an excuse. Sometimes I've had wine tastings with new moms and half the group is nursing. And so actually, it's called mom's drinking wine and no one's drinking wine. So like, it's not about the wind, right? Like there are those environments, where it's like, yeah, we need an excuse to get together. Yes, working for us. I don't think we're saying like, Stop doing that. I don't think that's a problem.

But anyone who thinks they're experiencing impostor syndrome is doing something aggressive or bad or anything like that. Yeah.

Your life like like me underneath the signs of your choosing? Yeah. Many of us moms are not have been in those situations, where it starts to actually get a little bit hollow, weird and uncomfortable, or someone's like, yeah, no, why didn't 9am Am I right? And you're like, I mean, you might be right for you. This is not right for me. And you can't like the whole, like, we're all drinking wine together becomes like coping, it can become ignoring, it could become like disempowering. And you're like, Oh, my God, I'm not sure what to go here anymore, or even

just something that you don't like I did. I'm involved in this project in Oregon, called the Oregon mediation diversity project. And I get to be the president this year, yay. And last year, we did a training, which was my favorite thing I've ever done as a lawyer. It was so fun. And it was just this amazing group of wonderful people. And one of the judges talked to us about impostor syndrome. And he he sort of said, I mean, a terribly paraphrase it. Because he was very eloquent, obviously, when he said it, but he sort of said, like, do we want to be calling ourselves imposters and really embracing that as a title? Like, if you're saying you're an impostor over and over again? Are you telling yourself you are like a spy? Like, are you? And is your culture telling you that like,

to discredit you kind of, I mean, that's kind of what it seems to speak to is like, Oh, if we were having, we're having fun with the wine thing. That's okay. But then at some point, does it start to be like, Oh, my God, maybe I actually am an impostor or couldn't get outside of that. Because it's something about me, or how I am, I think about like, I think one of the things you were kind of speaking to earlier, or that was like, implicit is like, part of it is also this idea, like, I we have to mask or will be found out, right, which can be really alienating. And also, if we internalize that, like, to the point of the judge, like if we start repeating that enough, and then we forget that it started out as a joke, or it started out as a metaphor, right? It's because it's not actually a medical diagnosis, right? This is like, kind of poetic term that people are trying to use to, like, find affinity and work through this, right. But if we start to believe, like, Oh, my God, there are actually people who should belong here. And be and if I don't act like them and assimilate, I have no safety, no standing, no credibility with them. And then it starts to become I have no credibility with me. I think that's where we need to just be like, Okay, let's take a deep breath and assess. Would we like to be under the banner called Team imposters? Or would we maybe like to go a different direction and be

under the banner of team I did something really hard? And I failed sometimes. And that's a normal part of doing something hard. Like the entrance

team brave entrance. That's what we're,

yeah, yeah. No, I think I think I and again, I think it can be different for different people. I think for some people, just knowing that there's a group of other people feeling fear while you're in a group of people pretending to never feel fear. Yeah, can be reassuring. And so it's not to criticize anybody who has really found reassurance under that title. But also to question Does that continue to serve you ongoing? Or does it continue to say, even subtly, there's something wrong with this group of people that I'm in? And I also think, you know, we've talked about this, like when this term is majority or only applied to people who are not straight says white men, able bodied, mentally healthy men, then it it does become something that becomes isolating and, and stigmatizing. Yeah,

I think that this leads me to a desire to locate this in the workplace conversation in terms of how, so we're not, we're not going after impostor syndrome, we're neutral. Like, we're family. It's okay. It's all good. But I think it is useful to hone in on. When it goes awry. Like when we want to get over it, we're like, alright, yeah, there's something about this, I would not like to relate this way anymore. So this is kind of who we're calling to hear. So if you're like, I love this, that helps me great. drink your wine, I'm here for you.

But like, if you're like me, I'm a wine enthusiast.

And it's not great, you know, but it felt like, hey, you know, actually, this is getting a little happy for me to do about it, I would love to, I would love for us to get to be inside of Veritas experiences around where this can show up in the workplace. So what I scribbled out as we're talking here is like, maybe what we mean by impostor syndrome are like, what's actually going on there, when we're using those words, is an isolating experience of fear, and non belonging, that may seem to require some kind of masking, or self censoring or self diminishing in order to retain your job. Like, that's kind of the thing or like in order to pass or something like that. Maybe there's code switching involved, you have the can't be you, you got to learn to do this other thing and act like a sports bro, or whatever your thing is. I want to find out like, when, when does that kind of isolating experience of fear and non belonging? Where does that go against us? Where does that stop us from claiming power that we could claim to get the work done to grow workplaces that work for everybody?

Yeah, yeah, I think I understand what you're asking. And so I guess the way that I think about it is that if we are either in a space where the external punishments or the internal punishments for failure are so severe, that we can't try new things, that I think when it becomes or try hard things or have difficult conversations, or share difficult perspectives, that's I think, when it becomes a sort of like, jokey, laughy way to silence ourselves or silence other people. So for example, if you go into a workplace, and you're a brand new, I mean, this is sort of me and my story, like I was a brand new, bright eyed, very enthusiastic, wanted to learn everything lawyer, like I just baby lawyer could not believe that I got the opportunity that I had. And I was learning things that I couldn't even understand the concept of like, I was in so far over my head that I didn't even know how to explain what I didn't understand. And I would have client, I had clients, and they would ask me questions. And I'd be like, Well, the first thing I need to do is find out if that's actually a question, or if that's not relevant to this topic, like I didn't even know, what was the question and what was not a question. I was so overwhelmed. And then I was seeing abuses happen in the workplace. And because I was so overwhelmed, and already felt like, like, in over my head in so many ways, and so much fear and so little allowance for myself to fail. I also really absorbed this idea that it was me and that I was the one who was acting outside of the norm, or, or because I saw things that other people didn't acknowledge. That was my problem, that it wasn't the work environments problem. And honestly, one of the things that I did, that was the most helpful for me that I think we've also talked about is making it acceptable to fail, and intentionally deciding to fail. So I decided I wanted to fail. This is a Ramin CT thing. I decided I wanted to fail five times every month. And I would make a list of whether I had done it or not, because that would mean that I was really embracing my experience, and what I came at, but I but failure is defined as get, like trying the hardest you can to get an outcome and getting a different outcome, right. Failure is not feeling fear. Failure is not like feeling discouraged. It's not feeling overwhelmed, and it's not having someone else feel uncomfortable. It's trying for an outcome and getting a different outcome. So what I realized in really have using that metric is that a lot of times I felt like I was failing, because my boss was having uncomfortable feelings. But I actually wasn't feeling I was getting the outcomes that I needed to get. And he was just having an emotional experience because

ultimately you did choose to speak about the abuses, yes, yeah, even though you still were learning and like new jobs, guess what it's at least in tech, we always say like, it takes 18 months, like before you get your whereabouts, but it's gonna be a long time. So if you're gonna wait, if we're gonna wait and be like, well, once we complete our 18 months of learning all the technical information, then it will get to matter when we are seeing human rights errors in our human rights law firm like no, you already have lived experience about that. That's something you are an expert on is like what the impact of the environment is on your body and your ability to focus like you don't that you've been training on that your whole life. So you don't need to wait. You said something early, did you wait because you thought I'm too new, I don't know what I'm doing.

At first I did. And then I started taking my own advice and documenting what was happening. And once I started documenting, I was sort of like, pardon my language, but like, holy shit. If this is my friend, I would be like, you need to do something about this. That is not okay. And, but then I was still very fearful. And I also was sort of learning to be strategic. And I had a lot of resistance to, like a lot of older lawyers encouraged me to be diplomatic in the workplace. And I had a lot of resistance to that, because that felt like lying or being fake to me. And so I was navigating, like the sort of dissonance that I had about not saying anything, versus saying something in a way that might be received and make change, and how to do that. Honestly, when I was dealing with impostor syndrome thing and the instances that I was thinking about, where I was like, Did I fail? Or did my boss just have uncomfortable feelings, those were just in regular work product, things were like, the decision needed to be made. And my boss wasn't ready to make the decision. And so I sort of said, we need to make this decision. And he was uncomfortable. And then I sort of was like, Oh, I did something wrong. But it really wasn't just literally wasn't, it just was me doing my job. And him having discomfort around me doing my job. But in terms of what I see with my clients, a lot of times and what was true for me in terms of talking about workplace abuses. I think I, at one point, I realized that the feeling of belonging is one of my favorite feelings, just that feeling of being tucked into the place where you know, you're in the right place. And ideas like, like concepts like impostor syndrome, I think do perpetuate the idea that there is belonging errs, and non bloggers in a workplace. So I decided to practice and use kind of, like, early a model that I was trained on early, that's like the impact model, but a little bit different. And I decided to say, Okay, if I want to feel belonging, and I know, I just deserve to feel belonging for myself, as a feeling experience for myself, what is a thought I can try on and test out that might be believable, that makes me feel belonging. And so I just did this in every space, like I would have intense. We had these really intense meetings at the office that I was in, I'd be in this meeting. And I'd sort of try on how could I feel belonging right now what is a thought that might make me feel belonging right now and in all these different spaces I tried it on. And ultimately, the thought that was the most useful for me is it's a good thing. I'm here, because otherwise no one else would have my perspective. And to me that was very accessible in these spaces were, in part, like this concept of I don't belong, and all the umbrella of thinking that falls under impostor syndrome was coming up for me, then I could say, you know, I am the only person here who's willing to talk about this and who sees this, and that is why I belong here.

I think that is so powerful. And I think it also like when you have a colleague who is doing that in an environment where you, when we have one, where we do have barriers to feeling like we can be ourselves and someone is willing to speak from that base expectation, and say, I know I'm the only one here who feels this way. And so that's why I think it's really important for me to say it right now. And then they say it, it is impossible that no one else in a room is actually experiencing that in some way. But it creates this license immediately for everyone else to be like, Oh, what am I the only one who thinks and they're like, Oh crap, I'm not she's not the only one because I also think that I'm just withholding that for political and fear based reasons right now. And but it's already out there and so then it really can reshape it. I think that that is so power are full. And I also think that I just want to underscore, you basically said, belonging was what was feeling sketchy. You said like, there's bloggers and non bloggers. And I've heard there's a diversity educator I really love called Noah, prince who does a lot of work with white men. He's worked for this firm called white men, it's full diversity partners, which is basically having white men and workplaces really get like, what is the diversity conversation? And how can it be owned from inside the portion of the culture that is white men driven love now a deep thinker, and he's like, yeah, a lot of these dynamics come from inside or outside or power dynamics. And not all cultures are like, Oh, the outsider is worse off. But sometimes we enter a workplace culture that has a really, really strong dignity differential between the new people and the old people, I grew up in the Midwest, and like, if somebody's new to your church, it either could be very conspicuous, or it could be not, or maybe they're new, and you like them, but then they're like, not new anymore, and you don't like them, like what happens to the new entrance and like the social standing power, it is different based on environment. So I just love that you found yourself in an environment where you noticed that insider outsider power or dignity, imbalance, like you were detecting it as I don't belong. But you also saw belong or as non bloggers, and then you said, Look, belonging is important to me. How can I? How can I safeguard my experience of belonging? Not pretending as though the environment was a happy sappy, right, like, no, no, this is a weird, potentially hostile vibe right now. And I am going to look at whatever I can do to create the lived experience of belonging for me. And then any colleague who does what you do, also can create a space around themselves where other people can belong. And then, and then people kind of get to choose, they're like, oh, wow, maybe belonging the ship has sailed. Maybe we couldn't do belonging, maybe that feels different. Now, over time, did you stay at that firm forever? No, no, you run your own firm.

For a while, and honestly, it became a place that I felt more empowered to use my voice and make the difference that I wanted to make. And I didn't leave on a bad note as far as I'm concerned. And I I felt like it was a meaningful experience for me and an experience that I'm grateful for not just for the legal training, which I also am was very grateful for, but also for that experience of just coming into the fact that I was allowed to feel belonging inside of my body, even in an adversarial adverse in some ways not okay, situation. Hmm.

And then you also one of the things you gave up, I always look love looking for what? What can I give up? That will make this easier? Sometimes we are tried to I try and add Yeah, it sounds like one of the things that you gave up to lighten the load is, is this kind of unseeded job of being sure that you were not making your, your manager uncomfortable? Or like yeah, avoiding saying anything that might make your manager uncomfortable or, to which your manager might respond with uncomfortable feelings? Does

that whole make everything else safe so that he never experienced anything uncomfortable, right? Because we

wouldn't want that. We're like No, like this actually is pulling against this is not aligned with what I need in this situation. You honored yourself as you created your own belonging, you honored yourself as somebody who could be the only one that would have that perspective. And that is important for you to say it. I think that that divesting from the unstated job of keeping someone comfortable is really important. And I just wanted to draw out I think it's also different than like being willing to say what is true, even though it might make someone uncomfortable, is different from well, I'm just making people uncomfortable. Like I'm okay making people uncomfortable at work. You are trying to make your boss uncomfortable. You were trying to do you were saying what needed to be said knowing that if discomfort emerged that was not your intention. And you weren't taking it on I do you see what I'm asking. I feel like there's like a three bit in there.

I think that you're saying like I wasn't being a jerk and yeah, trying to like DC power

battle or unsettle them or not caring about their feelings as a person. How is that different?

I mean, so in some ways, I don't think it necessarily is different because I think that some people are here to destabilize things and and some people will be perceived as aggressive when they show up as their full selves. And that's not fair. And that is based in like internalized whiteness, a lot of times and weaponized whiteness, like For example, I, a lot of times have black women clients, and they definitely are perceived as more aggressive than I'm perceived as doing the same thing making the same statements. And that is absolutely unfair and is not them being aggressive, and is not them doing something to other themselves they are experiencing, like aggression from somebody else by, like the misperception of, of how they're showing up. So I do think that there is that component of it. But I also think there is a component of it kind of like when we're talking an earlier episode about boundaries, where a lot of people think of boundaries as the space that I control in my entire environment. And so you might fall under this base I control and then I can tell you what to do and control you. And that's not what boundaries really are, because it doesn't preserve your like humaneness. It doesn't preserve your autonomy and your ability to make decisions about yourself. So there can be if we're showing up in a space trying to make change, you know, there can be ways to communicate that work better than other ways to communicate. And so one of the things that I had to do honestly was learn how to listen first, for the outcomes that the people around me were looking for, validate the outcomes that they were looking for, and show them how being less sexist might contribute to those outcomes. Honestly, for myself, I, I don't like to be super qualified and how I talk about those things. If I don't literally have to be for safety. I mean, I guess sometimes you have to be a little quieter, just for safety. But I tended to in in that space when I when I really owned that I was allowed to fail, but also that other people were allowed to be uncomfortable around me. Like if my one boss, I remember there was one day that my boss kind of made some kind of racist joke using like a, like a fake Asian type accent. And I was like, Whoa, racist. Is that what we want to do here? You want to be racist right now. And he was pretty mad that I said that. But he all he actually was embarrassed. And he like, came back later and was like, Thank you for calling me out about that. I see what you're saying. You know, like, in the moment, he had some feelings about it. But I don't regret saying that to him at all. Because sometimes I think we can say something direct. And I also didn't say, I hate you. And I'm never talking to you again. Like because I didn't feel that way. I felt like I can correct this. And you need to learn not to be racist, because that's dangerous. And I didn't feel like I needed to be like, Oh, hey, excuse me, I need to maybe make a comment, you know, like, very qualified, but that's me, and everybody communicates in their own way. And I think when we say my perspective is valid, I can show up in this space valid, and I can contribute to more fairness in the space, then I think we can be effective. But I think your point was more like, for example, if I'm the person in power, and I've decided, like, Oh, I really need to belong here. I sometimes we can use our power and weaponize it against other people. And that's not what this is intended for. But also somebody with a lot of power in the workplace. With the exception I think of white women usually aren't like those people with a lot of power usually aren't the people who are like who imposter syndrome is attributed to, but I do think white women fall into a space where you can be on either side, and you can weaponize your whiteness, while you're also feeling victimized about your imposter syndrome.

Yeah, so being I think being aware of the power climate, the different different dynamics in the group in the room is really important. I think what I get clear about hearing this, and I think it's so helpful to actually hear people's stories let us know also after this episode, like how do you feel this hurts? I think the stories are so illuminating, because we don't talk about this stuff so often. But one of the things that clear. So impostor syndrome, am I Pro? Am I anti? I don't know which one I am. But one of the things I realized is when we say impostor, the image it actually gives me is like, Oh, if I'm actually an imposter at the grocery store, it's like I need to tiptoe. That's the word. That's the s and somewhat I don't do what I don't want for us to be trapped by. And I need

to make sure nobody finds out who I am. But yeah, as opposed to

Yeah, which is I need, no one can know, you know who I really am? Yeah, it's very different than saying what was your new belief that you invented, it's a good thing, I'm

here, it's a good thing. I'm

here, because I'm the only one that feels this way, and only one that sees it in this manner. It's just I think that is the crossroads. That is at least one crossroads. I want everybody in this conversation to get to choose from. And it doesn't, it doesn't mean it's necessarily going to be easy or straightforward. But I just think we need more of these kinds of stories, to have people say, you know, what, I have found myself, I have located myself in the imposter syndrome map, I am noticing myself experiencing that I need to tip toe. But then some of the roadmap here that you have walked is like, I chose to trust myself enough to begin documenting it. That was your safe, small, safe step. Yeah. You were like, oh, can imposters trust anything? You're like, No, I'm going to document it. Then another trick you used is you looked at the documentation as though your friend had sent it right as though we are our best friend. And you said, oh, excuse me, like we do not step over this, this is a big deal. This is impacting you. And then you looked at what was there for you and bringing that up, and it was the stuff around as your boss can fly off the handle. I know you've mentioned previously there kind of people around him that are trying to keep everybody stabilizing that one person. And so you took the risk in the end. But you didn't, you didn't push yourself into just doing it spontaneously, like off the cuff or something like that.

And I didn't choice fully available, I spoke to one safe person that I spoke to another person who might have been safe with the safe person involved. Then I spoke, when that didn't work, I spoke to that person, again, who might have had influence that still didn't work, then we went to another person who felt less safe. But who had more influence. I mean, it was a very step by step process of like, what is the next space that might make more of a difference to make this workplace safer. So I think that that can be available. And then sometimes they sometimes it's not available. And if it's not a safe work environment, if it is a physically unsafe work environment that somebody's in, I know people find reasons to stay in those. And that can be super fair. But it's also fair to listen to yourself and to leave. And it doesn't mean you were the imposter, it doesn't mean that you did something wrong, or that you were unusual, or that you're characteristic that people with dominance target is a bad characteristic. Like it doesn't mean any of those things, it just could mean that you've encountered some abusers, and you need to find the healthiest space, the healthiest way to leave. I think that there are a lot of ways in culture just to kind of like track back to how this is not an accident that this happens. I think there are a lot of ways in culture that we say, people with some kind of characteristic that we've identified as a problem are the problem. And I think that like one of the ways I see commonly in law is that we say, for example, this woman was targeted in her workplace because of her disability, right? We say this woman was targeted because of her sex. And even that language tends to say the disability is the problem, or the sex is the problem that people are not targeted because of their characteristics. People are targeted because of an abusers thoughts about those characteristics, right because of the programming that we have to perpetuate abuse. And a wonderful

mentor coach once who was a would so who we everyone in the room would have said is he was a brilliant black woman. But one of the most wonderful things she said she was like, I don't have anything about the cup of Color My Skin. I don't have anything about it. If people have something about it, that is something that they're bringing. And I hate that James Baldwin hero. I Am Not Your Negro. Yeah, it's like, no racism is the thing that white people invented. Yeah, it has nothing to do with me. I did not make it up. So if people are targeting me because of my race,

quote, unquote, using strong air quotes,

yes. You can see air quotes on the on the audio. Yeah. Sorry about bunny ears. It's basically like people are targeting me, because they have identified a reason to target me inside their own mindset. Yeah, I feel like there's a language shift here. That's like, when we notice impostor syndrome showing up because there's a resonance. I think there is a fork. Where do we say I am an imposter or is there a way of saying I'm feeling impostor grade now, like the we are the one that's being pushed to the margin, in a situation where we are paid to be, like part of the

team. Interesting because we were going to talk about this on a different episode. But we ended up not because we got like to talk about something else. But I always think about this related to the title of victim and the title of Survivor. So I see this a lot of times with my clients who have experienced sexual harassment, and they they go to their friends or, or even to other attorneys. And, and people are like, Oh, I'm sorry, I don't want to call you a victim. I'll call you a survivor instead. But a lot of times, they come back to me, and they're like, that feels just as weird to me. Like, do I want to be like, did I survive this? Like, I was not, I never thought I was going to die of it. But it's still a problem. Like, it doesn't have to be a death level event for it to be a problem that serious and needs to be solved. But I think that the thing is, that honestly, this is like the simplest thing and and so it's almost it's kind of silly, but I think it's because it's not person first language. I think in this space, like you're not an imposter, you're not a victim, you're not a survivor, you are a person who encountered an adverse event, you're a person who encountered somebody else's behavior, you're in a person who may be encountered abuse and abuse is just misuse of another person. It's AB use, like, wrong use. So you're a person who encountered someone else's behavior. But you are human, right? Like you're a human who's doing a hard thing. I think that that's what it comes down to.

I think it's so good. And I think it's the perfect place where we can choose if we'd like to, to back it out and find the person first language for ourselves and do the journaling exercise or just the inventory and the documentation part that's called okay, if I'm feeling not belonging, if I'm feeling impostor syndrome, I'm resonate with impostor syndrome. I am a person who is encountering what, what am I encountering here? What is that? And there's is a Matt, I want us to have that permission slip, that we just are literally making it through words right now. It's like, please write your own permission slips to the lay, I want us to all have that permission of like, Wait, what am I encountering here to say at least to ourselves, what am I encountering? And then I have another thing that is probably a terrible idea that we should not stick with, because that is basically around. Like, when you talked about your process and then beginning to speak about it. You said I started with one safe person, you know when Okay, and talk to another person. Okay, you know, a couple steps here and there wasn't all perfect. But you I wrote a scribble down from imposter to Apostle, not like a Christian and Google it. Because I'm like, what is an apostle? Is this fundamentalist in a way that is not necessarily like what we're trying to like guide here, but it was like, it's basically like a first successful Christian missionary in a country to people. So we're not I'm not I'm not really, totally not. Absolutely not. And also doctrine discovery, like there's a lot, there's a lot on this that we're not doing. Okay. But the process Yeah, so we're not missionaries. So surprise me, right. We have to recycle this one. This is a compost bin one. But what? Good luck. But do you see what I'm saying? What I love about the journey that you created, is you took yourself gradually and safely out of internalized self isolation. And then you started D isolating yourself, D unblocking yourself in the environment, person by person. Yeah, person time. And so then instead of I have to mask because if anybody sees my true self, it's gonna be a nightmare. No, no, you went like a person at a time. You had the internal creation of belonging, but then you brought that to those relationships

with one person at a time. Yeah, so I think, yeah, by the end, if your boss

flies off the handle, it's still a power building and belonging, building and community building and authenticity building process. So the process has empowerment in it. Even if you get to the boss at the end that big Koopa and you fail, right? Southie style, you get a different outcome there. You still walk this whole path?

Yeah. I think the way that I think about that is the building allies process. So when we talk about essential functions of communication, there's a boundary enforcing communication, and that is like, I do not tolerate this behavior in my presence, right? So it sort of pushes out. But ally building communication invites in but you don't want to invite in people who are in violating your boundaries, right. So I think that there's the process and communication generally, when we're doing the Empowered communication and we we want to identify, is this a boundary enforcing moment? Or is this an ally building moment? And what is the safest thing? And what do I need right now? So when I was talking to the one safe person, I was building allies in that process, but they are really different forms of communication, I think. And I think that we're trained to you to use them opposite of what is effective. And so I think like, it takes a pause, I think it takes some journaling and some real like, thoughtful awareness about what is the safest communication in the moment? Definitely. I think that the ally building part of it was a huge component. This podcast does not endorse any particular religion.

It was just a metaphor, my friends don't get stuck on

my, my young Christian missionaries self would have definitely

a different lifetime, a different quantum state. That was the title of the podcast. Yeah, but there's a journey, you know, there's a journey, and there's an embracing of, there's a choice that we shouldn't ever have, I wish no one ever had to make. Yeah, sometimes when we cut, we arrive in an environment that seems neutral or gleeful about us learning to discredit ourselves. I think, reversing that and just saying, Nope, I'm gonna get I'm going to just the southern light in me is gonna just be like, cool. So like, what's the belonging path gonna look like? And even if you choose to leave, even if it's not for you, giving yourself that in your private journey, even if you decide, actually, it's not worth it based on my colleagues, I think we want that private journey for people to be an option so that if and when people leave, we're doing it, you know, we have access to the greatest extent possible to just be like, we are not going to leave with negative messages about ourselves, we do we decline to make this our fault, our failure and like, you know, kind of a Shamy sense of the term. Yeah. I love it. And the last thing I want to kind of leave us on or like pull out from this conversation that I thought was really powerful is you spoke about that experience that you had a feeling five times a month. And you could I think you quoted Ramit Sethi saying that failure is trying the hardest you can to get an outcome and getting a different outcome. I think that permission to try the hardest you can. And just the joy of that for like the eager beaver us that shows up to new places. Like, I think that is one of the things that I want for us. I think that is good for environments, it is good for people's mutual goals out in the future, if you can align those objectives, kind of how you spoke to earlier. And so if there's if there is somebody out there who's listening, who was like, well, but like, what should I do about the imposter syndrome thing? I would just be like, can we give you permission to try,

go fail,

I leave with yourself, go see where it's safe, create those small, sweet steps and Trier gets to actually just enjoy trying on the small safe steps and know that it could build somewhere because so much alienated in your own office, the

big places like just go permission to fail permission, try permission also that when you're doing a new thing, fear is a normal part of it. You're not there's not You're not having a syndrome. If you're afraid when you're trying a new thing, like you're having a human experience. I think there I've been seeing all these lately, references about these different ways not imposter syndrome, but in other ways that we pass Allah Gize the normal human experience of someone who's not in the dominant role in culture. And like one of them that I saw recently that I thought was really interesting is that I think it's in the DSM now that we've that there's like a list or it's at least being proposed to have generational slavery, trauma. And I, the person I was watching was on Tiktok was saying that, like, wow, I think it is important to recognize generational trauma that does tend to us stigmatize the experience of black Americans versus the experience of white Americans being an oppressor like generational oppressor syndrome syndrome, right? And how and it's all if

anybody's listening, I would like to interview me for the DSM of the costs of being

generational pressures and driving oppression

normalized in your environment. I'm not like, worse than not at all, but I'm just like, No like

it like we learn from our, from our families from our aunts. Esther's and then like the other, there was a really everyone should watch this really great commencement ceremony at Smith College this year. And it was, the woman who gave its name is Rashmi sow Gianni. And she was saying that she had done all this research on imposter syndrome. And when she was doing it, a lot of the, the early researchers who use the syndrome were men. And, and she said, historically, when women break into a space, often, their experience of that space is pathologized. And she said that I've just this is just a funny example. So I think it's worth mentioning. But in the early 20th century, when bicycles were invented in a way that women could physically use with a dress, women started using bicycles, and they started going places and like going to the store on their own. And that's obviously caused great chaos and culture. And so they developed like male medical professionals developed, like syndrome called bicycle face, which, and she like, said the symptoms, she reads the symptoms, everybody should watch it, but she reads the symptoms of it. And it's like, a flushed face and disheveled hair, and sweat on your brow. And it's just all the normal things that happen to everyone using a bicycle. And so this is not the first time that this has happened. It's not really an unintentional, it's at least people know what they're doing when they do

we're sweating to yes, we're also sweating.

Yeah. And then the same is true in the workplace, like men experience fear in the workplace. And I think it doesn't benefit men to have this stigma against acknowledging that it's scary to do a new thing, either.

It is like it is kind of like, did you ever read that children's book The Velveteen? Rabbit? Yes. Like beginning with all the teen rabbits all, like new in the box men condition with tags, Beanie Baby style. And then at the end, it's like, oh, no, it's little stuffing is poking out right here. And they're like, Yeah, because you became real. Yeah, that's what it's like to be real. Yeah. So and that real is not a problem. Real is where reality is. And that is where we are able to make a really grounded and like a big impact on the stuff that we are working on. And I

think there are a lot of subtle ways that we reinforce this pathologizing of normal experiences. And some of the subtle ways are like if we have friends, and they're having a hard time encouraging them to quit, and it can be healthy to quit. But I think we really need to check in with each person and say, Are you doing something hard and challenging that you want to do I believe that you can do it, you are capable of this, and you're allowed to fail. Instead of saying you need to quit before you fail. You need to not make waves you need to say things and use different tone when you say this, and it'll come across better. Like if you just are fancy enough, everyone will like you if you wear the right clothes, if you have the right voice, like let people be who they are. And I think that we can do a lot to include different perspectives than our own,

that ask people what ask our friends what they want, rather than just feeling like we have to advise and know the answer, and sometimes it's not it. Meredith, thank you so much for this conversation. If you are also in this mix of imposter syndrome, what do we think or you have your own stories or experiences of imposter syndrome? We would love to hear from you. If you have a hot take or spicy meatball to offer us about the content of this conversation. We would love to hear from you. Because we're big fans of nuance and we love learning alongside people who are in this conversation with us. So Meredith, how can people write to us if they would like to share our story?

They can go to Aris resolution er ay s resolution.com/story.

I love it. Thank you so much for this conversation. Thank you all for joining and we will see you next time on empowered communication