Impostor Syndrome...Revisited

 Impostor syndrome is not something foreign to many people these days.  That nagging feeling or fear that you are not able to fully participate or show up and do/say/act a certain way because you have not fully demonstrated your worth in that capacity, or proven yourself to be capable, leading to the inner fear of being found out to be a "fraud" by others.  The judge and jury on this is usually some self-imposed ideal of accomplishment or success looks like and that is often based upon what we have seen from others or perceive to be considered "good enough".  

In my life I have had this crop up professionally, physically (as in someone calls me an athlete and I very quickly provide many reasons why that is not the case), and especially when it comes to appearance or what I believe others think when they look at me (""not X enough - with X being a multitude of attributes from pretty to thin to interesting...the list goes on).  Fortunately through reflection, self re-education and time I have managed to recognize when this is cropping up, find the trigger and defuse the shame bomb pretty quickly.  It is much easier said than done and often will take a few days of sitting with these thoughts before I realize what is going on and am then able to go to work to regain my balance.

Where this has come up for me lately, and rather unexpectedly is with my coming out as a gay woman.   Coming out in itself is probably one of the most vulnerable things I have ever done in my life...actually let me rephrase that...coming out IS the most vulnerable thing that I have ever done in my life.  It is like taking your most sensitive secret, the one that you are scared to share out of fear of judgement and rejection and then basically repeating it over and over again to people in your life, every time hoping that you are not forever changing the dynamic of your relationship with the person you are sharing with.  I have found that the act of coming out has started to become easier for me, but the anxious feelings have not gone away.  So where does impostor syndrome fit into this?  I identify as a gay woman, yet until coming out to myself earlier this year, lived my life as a hetero woman and have only been in relationships with men.  As a matter of fact, I have never even kissed a woman as of yet!  So what I have noticed is that I at times question my identity and how can I be so sure of this and what if others are thinking the same thing?  And trust me, I know that I do not need to prove anything to anyone...I know myself and despite the fact that I haven't had a queer relationship (yet) it does not change who I am at my core.  What I have found interesting is how the doubts can creep in and how impostor syndrome can infiltrate even the deepest roots of ourselves and can attempt to weaken our foundation of inner wisdom and self knowledge.  

My motivation to share this revelation with you was to really serve as a reminder in your life to watch for those moments of self doubt and uncertainty as they can attach themselves to so many facets of who we are.  And that is the final thought that I came to as I was pondering all of this today.  I identify as so many "things" these days - a mom, daughter, sister, friend, colleague, leader, athlete, budding musician, gay woman...and across all of these labels there is one unifying truth - they are all me and I am all of them.  So instead of focusing on these as individual titles or roles I am going to start to look at them as a lovely composite mixture, bleeding their colours all over each other.  My hope is that by doing that I will no longer feel the need to qualify or quantify my ability as any ONE of these as I am the sum parts of of ALL of these.  

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