A Wise Mind Once Said
By: Chantal Cowie
Mental Health Columnist for The Stories We Need to Hear
I am always worried about being exposed as a fraud because I am at war with a voice in my head that does not believe in what others see in me. She says, “How did I get here? Why do you trust me? Who else is going to think my opinion matters?”
“I am floating in a sea of uncertainty, looking outward for someone to come and save me by deciding for me.”
The people in my life seem so confident in their identities, opinions, and taste. Meanwhile, I am floating in a sea of uncertainty, looking outward for someone to come and save me by deciding for me.
“Listen to your gut,” they say in an attempt to urge me forward in my decision-making process. Why is this so seemingly simple to others and not me? After talking with my therapist about exactly how to follow this abstract instruction, I realized my confusion began at understanding what is being said. What does it mean to ‘listen to your gut’? This saying is another way of suggesting someone listens to their ‘intuition,’ i.e., their ability to understand something immediately without the need for conscious reasoning.
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Even when I can finally catch a glimpse of how I feel, I don’t trust it.”
Well, let me tell you, my cup runneth over with conscious reasoning. My gut could say ‘you like the blue shorts’ or ‘you want sushi for dinner,’ but I can’t hear it through the constant stream of thoughts saying, “are the blue shorts stylish? Will other people like them? Are you sure you like those? What if everyone I’m with doesn’t want sushi? Will they be annoyed if I make this suggestion? You probably should just get whatever they want.” It makes sense why it is so difficult for me to isolate my true feelings about something. Even when I can finally catch a glimpse of how I feel, I don’t trust it.
I don’t trust the thoughts in my head because that second voice of fear is always responding, criticizing, and challenging me. The voice of fear is a constant reminder of the potential for failure in everything that I do. She tells me that I am not good, smart, or cool enough, and one day, everyone else will make that realization when I fail. I am paralyzed in the decision-making process for many things because of this deep-seated fear of accidentally exposing myself as less than through my choices.
“The voice of fear is a constant reminder of the potential for failure in everything that I do.”
I am learning that Fear is a powerful emotion with the function of aiding in our physical survival. It is a good thing to have fear in our toolbelt. However, it becomes maladaptive when it crosses over into guiding the decision-making process around non-life-threatening situations.
Fear is a part of the emotional mind. The emotional mind controls our thinking and behavior with, you guessed it, emotions! This way of thinking is in contrast to the reasonable mind. The reasonable mind only pays attention to what can be observed, measured, and counted, taking the emotion out of the equation and focusing on what is empirical.
“My emotional mind says I am worried about buying blue shorts because I fear that my friends will think they are ugly. My reasonable mind says I am buying blue shorts.”
I feel like an imposter because my emotional mind fears social, professional, and personal failure. I set unrealistic definitions of success in these spaces and place a tremendous amount of pressure on myself to fulfill them because that fear of failure is poignant. I have to remind myself to use my reasonable mind to look at the facts. My life is not actually in imminent danger from failing to meet my definition of success in these spaces. It may feel like it is and that feeling is valid. Holding space for these two truths uses the wise mind. The wise mind thinks of what is concrete without putting measurements on it and recognizes and respects the feelings a thought evokes.
Focusing on what is tangible in a situation is one mechanism I’ve learned in therapy for coping with imposter syndrome. When I feel that fear of failure starts to creep in, I write down the thought from my emotional mind, cross out anything that is not objective, and leave space to validate the genuine emotions that thought evokes. I remind myself of the reality of the situation through the facts left from my initial thought on the paper in front of me.
The second coping mechanism I’ve learned is asking the question, “What is the worst possible outcome, and can I physically survive it?” Every time these feelings of insecurity arise over my ability to meet what I think people’s expectations are of me, I ask this question. The answer is always yes. I lose my best friends? Yes. I lose my job? Yes. I lose my apartment? Yes. I can physically survive every one of these things, and as long as I am alive, I can try again.
“The final mechanism I’ve learned through therapy is to separate my experiences from my identity.”
The final mechanism I’ve learned through therapy is to separate my experiences from my identity. Experiencing failure does not mean I am a failure. If I do not meet people’s expectations of me, I am not a fraud. I am simply a human trying my hardest, living through a moment that will pass. The fear of failure is something that permeates my life because I am afraid of being a failure. What I am coming to understand is that one does not equal the other. Even if my worst fears come to fruition and I do fail, I am not defined by that outcome. Failure is not a part of my identity; it is just a bump on the road in my journey through life.
