Many words have been written about imposter syndrome.
Many of those words read something like, “Everyone feels like an imposter at some point. Just keep going and start before you’re ready over and over.”
Sage advice but so often repeated it starts to lose meaning.
Which is why I loved when I saw how Ash Ambirge ripped out the definition of imposter syndrome and put it into an entirely new matte black frame in her book, The Middle Finger Project.
She writes,
“I’m convinced that imposter syndrome rears its head even when we’re good people and we’re good at what we do, because sometimes we are doing it in ways we don’t enjoy. And that chasm hurts. You feel it in your every sentence. It comes out in the way you do everything. You feel like a fraud because, hi, you are FAKING THE ENJOYMENT.”
Because we’re faking our enjoyment.
The words stick their landing like a vault gymnast going for gold.
Feeling like a fraud sucks, yet we all end up in situations where we’re faking our enjoyment to get along.
But when we fake our joy, we become less enjoyable to be around.
And then we become less magnetic because all of a sudden our internal flame of delight goes dark and we become dull versions of ourselves.
And then it’s no wonder we feel like a fraud because we know we’re not showing up as our best.
Keeping our internal pilot light on sometimes requires asking a new question.
If you allowed yourself to truly hate something, what would it be?
How would it feel pleasurable instead?
(I wrote the question in this order because personally, I love the freedom of being able to hate something. It makes it easier to get in touch with what I want instead).
Internal misalignment leads to internal dis-ease, and if you’re familiar with Bessel Van Der Kolk, you also know “the body keeps the score.”
Are you killing yourself faking your enjoyment?
What if you stopped?
xx,
Alyssa
