Editor’s Note: Members of the TSK Mental Health Taskforce: October Ivins; former SSP President (2008-2009), Ryan Reeh; Senior Digital Publishing Strategist (AAP), and Adrian Stanley; independent publishing consultant, had a fireside chat with Sarah Durrant; independent coach and transformational teacher.
In 2012 Sarah Durrant founded her consulting practice, Lead from Within, following a successful career in scholarly publishing. Initially her consultancy offered leadership coaching and later added further coaching, webinars and short courses on overcoming imposter syndrome. The fireside chat will be available in two posts which will each have two segments put together by our video expert Ryan Reeh the videos will have transcripts available for each segment.
This first post will contain Segment one: The problematic use of the term “Imposter Syndrome” (18 minutes) explaining its link to a person’s physical responses to stress or danger. Sarah explains imposter syndrome as a constellation of thoughts and emotions – physical, behavioral and existential. All “imposters have in common a distorted, unrealistic, unsustainable definition of competence.” (Valerie Young) How it correlates with anxiety, depression and low self-esteem; it is often characterized by the ‘Draining P’s’ – procrastination, perfectionism and and people pleasing’. This is linked to survival behaviors (fight, flight, freeze or fawn) and can build on early life trauma (small T).
Segment 2: The demographics of imposter syndrome and strategies to counter the shame or discomfort it can produce (25 minutes). Sarah reframes the term toxic masculinity as toxic invulnerability. In a culture where authenticity isn’t valued but invulnerability is, imposter syndrome thrives. Losing a degree of autonomy can create stress that triggers survival behavior. Think of imposter syndrome as one end of a spectrum that includes healthy self-doubt. Studies show that 70% of people experience imposter syndrome. If you don’t think you do have imposter syndrome, consider: do you have a harsh inner critic? Do you second guess yourself or feel you’re not good enough? Ways to address this include some advocated by Brene Brown, such as ‘ABC – Awareness Brings Choice’. Instead of feeling isolated (“it’s just me”) change that to “me too”, which brings empathy for yourself and others. You don’t need to squash your inner critic, instead meet it with unconditional positive regard and love. Neurologically, this allows the prefrontal cortex to come back online with generative and resourceful energies such as curiosity, calmness, creativity and the ability to connect with other people. However, a cognitive approach may not work when childhood experiences are encoded. In those instances it could be better to change your orientation – look around to see that you are safe. Visualize past successes and how that felt.
Be sure to check out the second part of the conversation in tomorrow’s post. We hope you enjoy the conversation as much as we did and find useful advice for yourself, others and your organization. Please leave comments (open or anonymous) on the post, let us know what resonated the most with you.
