In this video I’m going to offer you a new take on imposter syndrome through the lens of spiritual alignment.
I define spiritual alignment as when our thoughts, our feelings, and our actions are congruent with the truth of who we are. And as it turns out, through the lens of neurobiology, we’ve learned that the nervous system feels really safe in the presence of congruence, non-judgment, and familiarity.
So we’re going to dive into that a little bit more. But before we do, I want to let you know that I wrote a book for you, Align: Living and Loving from the True Self, is a comprehensive map of how to come back home to the truth of who you are and how to live. From this deeply sacred place, and how to stay, connected and honor your true self as you relate with the people in your life. I’ve also created these self-guided alignment cards, and there are 48 cards in a deck. There are 4 themes in those 48 cards, and each theme has a wisdom teaching and a sentence stem to offer you tools to live in love from your true self. There is the true self theme, the shadow, alignment, and the inner young one.
I want to share a story with you about when I was first becoming a psychotherapist. I was so completely overwhelmed with imposter syndrome, and I also have a lot of experience of becoming so overwhelmed with imposter syndrome when I give a talk or teach a class or a workshop that my whole nervous system will shake and tremble. And I’ve learned over the years to really honor the wisdom of my nervous system, and to turn towards my experience with deep curiosity and love and acceptance.
What I’ve learned in that practice of welcoming my fear and my impostor syndrome is that there really, truly is deep wisdom in imposter syndrome. So if you consider that when imposter syndrome emerges, it’s when we’re taking on something new. And so the task at hand is unfamiliar, and we don’t know yet that we actually have the capacity to meet that task at hand. We’re not sure that we are congruent with what it is that we’re doing, and when we have any sense or an inkling that we might be incongruent, the nervous system starts to feel the fear of that in congruence. And so the newness of the situation, the potential and unknown of the incongruents. Are we embodying the message that we teach? Are we capable of doing what we said, that we’re capable of doing. Those 2 things, combined with the potential judgment, if we are incapable, can overwhelm the nervous system, and the impulse is actually to recoil, and when we recoil we start looping in thoughts of imposter syndrome. I’m not enough. I can’t do this, and the mind starts to sort of talk us off of that growing edge talks us away from the potential of learning. Can we actually step over this threshold, expand ourselves in such a way to meet the task at hand.
The other piece of this is that when the nervous system is overwhelmed and beginning to be activated, the mind starts looking to the world around us for our sense of safety, and we forget our True Self. We forget our spiritual alignment, and we forget even the transmission, or the inspiration, or the intuition that caused us to want to move forward in this new direction. I see this all the time with new therapists, and I also see this all the time when people are learning to give a new talk or offer a new offering in their business. The impulse to withdraw and go away can be so challenging to, not just overcome, but learn from and honor, and be with in a really tender, loving way.
The other piece of this that I’ll share with you is actually something that I recognized when I published my first book. My first book is a self-help memoir, and it’s called Reveal: Embody the True Self Beyond Trauma and Conditioning. And when I was going on speaking events to launch my book around the country. I was hijacked with fear. I didn’t want anybody to read the book, because it was so vulnerable. I thought I would be judged there was so much unknown involved, and I wasn’t sure that I was fully embodying the message that I was writing about and in my practice of being with that impostor, syndrome fear. What I began to do was, I began to turn towards a younger aspect of myself. On the level of spiritual time. My inner young one lives within me right now, just like your inner young one lives within you right now. and I would turn towards my inner young one, and I remembered the first time I had imposter syndrome. I was probably about somewhere between 5 and 7 years old. My mom was having a party, and I had told her that I wanted to sing the “Dumb Dog” song from Annie at this party, and I was so excited. And then she said, Of course, and then all the people started to arrive, and they were all these giant adults, and I was so little. And I changed my mind, and I didn’t want to. My mom was trying to encourage me, trying to empower me from the kindness of her heart. She said, No, it’s time. Come on. It’s time, and kind of pushed me up there lovingly and gently, and I froze and I felt so much shame, and I started to withdraw and go away, and I went back into my room to play with my dolls.
That version of myself was the part of me that really needed attention. When I was overcome with imposter syndrome. I needed to let her know. We’ve learned some things since then. We have more capacity. Now we people want to hear what you have to say, and I want to hear what you have to say, and I will always listen to you, and I will always hold you, and I would be with myself in such a way that I would come back home to myself. So it wasn’t about the people out there pleasing them, getting them to like me fear of their judgment. It was really about being with myself in this really loving way. And so through the lens of spiritual alignment.
Imposter syndrome has all of these facets embedded within it the neurobiology, the inner young one, and the alignment with the source that beats our heart. Remembering to meet the task at hand from our our home base, the core of our being and to move forward from contact with ourselves.
And so with that, I want to let you know that I have many courses available on my website. Some are for therapists and coaches, and some are for everyone. And so if you want to learn how to live your alignment and love from your alignment. or if you want to learn how to facilitate alignment, please come, check out my website. thespirituallyaligned.com and leave a comment here. If you have any questions.
