Impostor syndrome is not real. Your life is about to get a whole lot easier. 99.9% of what you’ve been told about life is wrong.
When you see how simple life really is, you will ask: Why wasn’t I taught this in Kindergarten?
Impostor Syndrome is Not Real
Most people harbor a dark secret. They don’t think they are enough – good enough, smart enough, lovable enough, successful enough, talented enough. This shows up as Impostor Syndrome with some anxiety, stress and depression appearing.
Impostor syndrome shows up when a person has actually achieved a new level of success. This is our biggest clue that it is a lie, an illusion.
You probably think that your problem is impostor syndrome, anxiety, or depression. Nope. Your problem is that you have forgotten who you truly are. I will explain. And when you get this understanding in your bones, anxiety, depression, and even impostor syndrome melt away.
Where Impostor Syndrome Comes From
We have been conditioned to believe that we are separate things that must fight to survive in a cold, uncaring world. Newtonian physics told us that the only thing that exists is physical matter. When we think that we are a separate person fighting for survival, we experience the illusory impostor syndrome.
Quantum mechanics has shown that, at the sub-atomic level, there is no matter. Just waves of possibility waiting for an observer to turn them into particles. Energy is all that there is. It cannot be divided into separate things.
It’s not just energy, life is intelligent energy. It turns out the the universe is one divine thought.
Your mind, because it is appearing in the illusion of time and space, tricks you into perceiving a world outside of yourself. You believe that there is a past and a future because you have memories in this moment and can anticipate a future in this moment.
This moment is all that there is. You are the impersonal awareness in which all sensations, feelings, and thoughts arise. There is no “you” to improve. You cannot possibly be an impostor. Impostor syndrome is all made up.
This understanding transcends all concepts and religions. So you don’t need to put your religion aside to understand them.
You are Alive
You are made of aliveness, intelligent energy, life itself. Everyone has access to this intelligence. Not just the affluent or lucky.
What makes you different and unique is your spirit, authenticity, and wisdom. Because this intelligent energy flows through you in a different way than everyone else and connects to your unique gifts and talents.
You are Aware
You are conscious. At your essence, you are pure, impersonal awareness. Within this space of awareness sensations, thoughts, and feelings arise and disappear.
Your thoughts are not personal to you. People have the same universal thoughts because they have been conditioned by society – I’m not good enough, smart enough, talented enough. Or – the world is dangerous, unfriendly, unkind.
Experience Arises
Thoughts, emotions, sensations, and perceptions arise within the space that you are. You are the screen on which experience is projected.
When you understand that you are pure awareness, you can be aware of a person that thinks it’s insecure, but you are not that person.
Stop Personalizing Your Experience!
When we understand that we are not our thinking, feelings, or sensations, we are the space in which they all arises, we are free. We don’t need to personalize our experience. This allows space for life to guide us gently forth by providing fresh insights when we need them.
It may be difficult to believe that you have a spiritual operating system since you have been trained to believe the opposite. Please do not believe my words. Investigate these ideas directly. Explore how you experience life.
We have all been trained to believe that we live in the experience of what is happening around us. Events and other people make us feel certain ways.
For example, if someone is upset, we immediately ask them, “What happened?” This perpetuates the mistaken belief that outside experiences create our internal feeling state.
At What Level Do You Operate?
There are 4 levels where you can focus your attention. Depending upon where you focus, you appear differently.
LEVEL 1. The illusion that “I” am the body and the mind within the body. I focus on the objects of experience: thoughts, feelings, sensations, perceptions, activities, and relationships.
This is where we have been trained to focus. We have been told that these objects make up the “outside world” and our “inner world” reacts to this separate reality. We are so enmeshed in the movie of our life that we don’t know we are the screen on which the movie is appearing.
At this level, our experience of life depends on what we focus our attention on. By placing our attention on something, we notice it. Our thinking makes the experience a reality to us. If we don’t notice it or think about it, we do not experience it. Usually we are so entranced by our thinking and the narration of our experience, we don’t even notice life.
We don’t see life the way it is, we see it they way we think it is. Often our thinking-sensing-feeling happens so quickly that it is invisible to us. We feel the sensations in our body and label these sensations with words of emotion (sad, angry, upset). We then project our thinking, feeling, and sensations onto something in the outside world — an experience, situation or person.
We end up trying to control our experiences so that we feel a certain way. If I have uncomfortable sensations, I might do lots of things to try and numb my sensations and feelings if I believe them to be mine. If we think that we have to live up to a false self-image, we can experience insecurity. Then we believe that we are insecure.
LEVEL 2. I notice that I am the witnessing presence of my experience. I shift the focus from the objects of my experience (thoughts, feelings, sensation, and perceptions) and focus on me as the witness. There is still separation between the objective experience and the subjective witness, but it gives me some breathing room and I stop being so reactive to the movie in front of me. I know that I am the screen on which all experience appears.
At this level, you make a distinction between the egoic self and the soul. Many attempts are made to subdue or squash the ego. The ego is still treated like something very real.
LEVEL 3. I notice that I am the impersonal space in which experience arises. Experience arises in my awareness/consciousness. There is no separation between the objects of my experience and my awareness. I am the blue sky across which experience flows like clouds. I am a wave on the ocean of consciousness.
Impostor syndrome cannot possibly be true. There is no “you” to secure.
LEVEL 4. I notice that all experience is made of consciousness. All thoughts, feelings, sensations, perceptions, are modulations or experience. They are channels of consciousness.
We can use focus our attention to make our existence heaven on earth or hell. Heaven is within you when you remember who you truly are.
How we innocently use our made up self-image against ourselves to create impostor syndrome
From the moment we begin to speak, we start crafting an image of who we are. As we grow up, people give us their opinions of who we are: smart, athletic, witty, shy, introverted, extroverted, etc. This is all made up. When you realize that you are far greater than any image or personality, you can let go of trying to prop up and defend an image of yourself.
You realize that sometimes you think you are awesome and sometimes you think you suck. In some situations, you are extroverted and animated. In other situations, you feel shy. None of this is who you are. You are the formless intelligence before all of these concepts of self. This is why I never do personality assessments with my clients. They are inherently limiting and set up up to believe that you can only behave in a certain way.
Our emotions are all okay
We all have free will – the ability to choose which thoughts we take seriously and invest our attention and energy into. We choose to respond to our thinking and what actions we take. Often times our thinking is invisible to us or happens so quickly we don’t notice it. Most of us are not zen masters, we get caught up in our heads.
The question is – where do you place your attention? Do you get caught up in the drama of human experience? Or do your remember who you truly are and watch the drama unfold without needing to react to it or identify with it?
The beautiful thing about our design is that we’ve been given an internal GPS – our feelings and sensations. When our mood dips or a negative feeling comes over us, it just means that we have bought into the movie that we are projecting onto the screen of life and forgotten that we are the screen.
How I got over Impostor Syndrome
Here are my personal insights so far…
- We are the intelligence of the universe.
- People are insecure because they have forgotten that they are the whole. They are infinite.
- From this root of insecurity, people behave in ways that hurt themselves and others.
- Behavior is an indication of where people are with their awareness and understanding, not who they truly are.
- Who I am has nothing to do with how other people behave towards me. Their behavior is a reaction to their thinking and beliefs. I cannot control what other people think.
- I don’t need to love myself unconditionally because I am already love, it is my essence.
- When I am in a low mood, it is because I have forgotten who I am and associated myself with the movie.
- I can trust my inner YES and NO. Yes feels light and expansive. No feels heavy and constricting. I feel it mainly in my chest. You can play with this to discover you own inner yes and no.
- The past doesn’t exist except as a memory in my own thinking. I don’t think about or dwell on the past because it steals the only thing that is real – this very moment.
- I am unbreakable. I am a whole being who has innate health and peace of mind.
- I am not insecure. Unless I think I am something that can be insecure.
Going Deeper
I highly recommend two parallel paths.
Path #1: The Direct Path. You cannot discover truth with your mind. You must go beyond the mind. Immerse yourself in the teachings of Rupert Spira, or Mooji – brilliant non-duality teachers. I also love the book, The Perfume of Silence by Francis Lucille, Rupert Spira’s teacher.
Path #2: Let Go of the Belief in Materialism. The second is to get a fresh view of life by debunking the myths of materialism. When you do this, you find that science proves that consciousness is primary and human thought is the most powerful creative force on the planet.
Want More Guidance and Support?
My intention in offering leadership coaching is to create the optimal conditions for you to have insights of your own. Nobody can teach wisdom and you cannot “figure out” how life works by analyzing it. You cannot think your way to well-being. You can gain a deeper understanding of how life works by engaging in loving coaching conversations. Curious? Schedule an introductory coaching session with me.