Dear Saiyan:

You shared that during your preteen years, you were a high achiever in school. During your teenage years, your parents put pressure on you to continue to be a high achiever, and because of that pressure, you felt very badly (I am paraphrasing) when you failed to achieve high grades etc.: blaming yourself, being disappointed with yourself, fearing your mother’s reactions (“really scared of her, like what she’d say? She’d be disappointed“), and you developed a pattern of behavior you avoid and run away from difficulties. You are currently in a good position work-wise, doing your job well, but you feel like an imposter: “part of me thinks I don’t deserve or I’m (not) capable enough“.

“I’ve started doing mindfulness meditation but what other actionable steps I can take to resolve this?“- first, a bit more understanding: “it’s like a pattern whenever there’s something that I’m not able to understand or something hard, I try to avoid or run away from that instead of facing it and learn. It costed me dearly for lot of years“-

– when you avoid or run way from difficulties, what you are trying to avoid and run away from is the emotional pain involved in feeling not-good-enough, incapable, disappointing. What motivates us as humans is not the objective, external circumstances but our subjective emotions in regard to the external circumstances. Therefore, a person who as a child was made to feel okay about making mistakes, and encouraged to explore, mistakes or not- would be positively motivated to tackle a difficult situation; yet a person who was made to feel very badly about making mistakes, would be motivated to run away from a difficult situation.

I boldfaced and italicized emotional pain because there is no way to resolve your imposter syndrome without facing and addressing this pain. For as long as this pain feels too acute, you will avoid it and run away from it.. and remain, in your mind, an imposter. So, first thing to do is to lower the intensity of this emotional pain. One way to do so is to verbally express it, in writing (journaling), sharing about it here, and best, of course, would be to share it within the context of quality, in-person psychotherapy. You are welcome to share it here, and I will respond to you in a way that will not hurt you (empathetically and not judgmentally).

anita