Feb. 29, 2024

How to embody self-confidence

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Cass explains why 'mindset' approaches to overcoming self-doubt and imposter syndrome are limited and won't achieve a lasting transformation and what you need to do instead. She shares how imposter syndrome is an activation of your body's threat response triggered by a fear of judgement and rejection.She also explains that self-criticism can perpetuate imposter syndrome by keeping you stuck in a threat response, and the importance of self-acceptance and forgiveness, allowing you to return to a state of emotional safety.
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Transcript

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This is Crappita Happy and I am your host, Cas Dunn.

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I'm a clinical and coaching psychologist. I'm mindfulness meditation teacher

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and of course author of the Crappita Happy books. In

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this show, I bring you conversations with interesting, inspiring, intelligent

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people who are experts in their field and who have

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something of value to share that will help you feel

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less crappy and more happy. Hello and welcome to another

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solo episode of Crappy to Happy. This week, I am

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back talking about imposter syndrome and why it is more

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than just a mindset problem. Obviously, I'm talking about this

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because it's what I'm super passionate about. Also, I will

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be opening my Beyond Confident program very soon. If you

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have struggled with a lack of self confidence, if you

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experience imposter syndrome, and if this is a problem that

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you feel like you've really tried hard to shake, and

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no amount of effort or trying to think your way

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out of it, or no amount of success that you achieve,

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has helped you to overcome these feelings of somehow not

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being good enough, questioning whether you belong in the position

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that you're in, whether it's in your work or in

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your studies, or whatever it might be. Then really I

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want to share with you today why I think so

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many solutions that are offered out there and the advice

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out there is so limited, and where I think you

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should go instead, whether it's with me or with somebody else,

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or work that you do on your own, give you

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some tools, give you some help to understand why you've

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had so much trouble overcoming this problem, and what you

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perhaps need to look at doing instead. So imposter syndrome,

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for clarification, is a persistent feeling of inadequacy despite external

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evidence to the contrary. It's a persistent and evasive feeling

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that you are not as smart or talented or skilled

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as other people think you are, even when you're getting

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results in the external world, when you are doing well

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at your job, you're succeeding at university, you're getting promoted.

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Everybody looks at you and sees that what you're doing

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is a success. But on the inside, you feel like

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somehow or other you're fooling them. And the reason for

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that is because you have a difficulty internalizing your achievements. Therefore,

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what you do instead is when you are successful and

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you can see that you're successful. You've got the piece

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of baby, you've got the job, you've got the credential.

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The story that you tell is that you just got lucky.

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You're in the right place at the right time. Somebody

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took a shine to you. Upper management just liked you,

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and they've given you a leg up. You knew somebody

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who gave you a foot in the door. Or you

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work really, really hard. You tell yourself that the reason

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that you have achieved what you have is because you

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work so much harder than other people to be able

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to do what you do. So you have a sense

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that for other people this comes easily. They are the

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people who are naturally talented or gifted, intelligent, capable, They

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just can make sense of things, whereas you feel like

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that's a real effort, and therefore you don't consider yourself

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to be in that same kind of league as those

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other people. So there's this constant comparison and coming up

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short in your own mind. But it is very much

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an internal experience because, like I said, other people looking

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at you, they don't see any problem. They just see

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you doing well, kicking goals, unless, of course, your imposter

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syndrome is so great that it has actually held you

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back from achieving things that you would like to achieve,

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from applying for jobs, from going for promotions, from applying

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for the course that you might want to do at university,

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because you who have actually it's so big a problem

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that you've actually told yourself that that wouldn't be possible.

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So you've protected yourself from what you considered would be

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an absolute failure and disaster by just not putting yourself

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out there at all. But most of the time when

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we see imposter syndrome, we're seeing it in people who

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are very successful, outwardly successful and at the highest levels

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of organizations corporations, in their own business, making lots of money,

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you know, doing all of the things. And I guess

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the other key characteristic about imposter syndrome is that it

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doesn't necessarily go away the more successful you become. In fact,

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when you are unable to internalize your achievements to the

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point that you dismissed, deny bad a way, tell yourself

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it was just a fluke, it was a mistake. You

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just got lucky. Then when you can't internalize your achievements,

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then the higher you climb, the more successful you become.

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Then the greater the visibility, the greater the exposure, and

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the greater the fear that at any moment it could

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all fall apart and people will actually realize that you

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aren't as smart as they think you are. It can actually,

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for some people, get worse the more successful you become,

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because the stakes get higher and the more you feel

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like you've been faking it. Then the more scary it

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is that you could potentially be exposed and that could

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all come tumbling down. So that's imposter syndrome. I know

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I've talked about it before, but if you knew here,

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or if you've missed that episode, then there you go.

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There's a recap. So this has been the focus of

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a lot of my work for the last couple of years.

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The reason that I really clocked onto this and wanted

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to do something about it was because when I noticed

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it in well, I've noticed it in myself, and I

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noticed it in other people. Then I got to googling.

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I got to looking at what's what's the evidence based

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treatment or intervention for this? Like what do we do

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with this? Number One, there is no evidence based treatment

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or intervention because this is not a disorder or a

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condition that you would find in the DSM like this

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is a form of anxiety. Really, it's a term that

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was coined back in the nineteen eighty, but it's not

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actually something that you can see a doctor and be

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diagnosed with. Everybody sort of knows what it means, but

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there has not been necessarily a lot of research into

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what you can do to overcome it. A quick look

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on the internet and what people who are so called

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experts in the field will tell you is that this

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is a thinking problem. That the story that you're telling

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yourself is untrue, the fact that you're convincing yourself that

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you are not skilled and capable when you actually are.

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You just need to change the story. Now, this is

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old cognitive therapy. This is the cognitive approach to treating

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any kind of psychological struggle or mental health issue. Change

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the way you think, you will change the way you feel,

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and you will change the way you behave This is valid,

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This is true. We can change our feelings by changing

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the way we think. We think a lot of unhappy thoughts,

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We're going to feel a lot of unhappy feelings and

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that's going to impact the actions that we take in

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our life. Unfortunately though, that is very limited and many

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many people have tried that and they still are struggling

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with this issue. So in my audible original which I

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wrote called The Imposter Solution, I discussed that we need

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to be looking at somatic approaches body based approaches. We

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need to be looking at how you regulate your nervous system.

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I wanted to go into a bit more detail today

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to explain that to you and to talk about a

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few different levels. I guess that we need to address

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if we want to get a lasting solution, a lasting result,

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and while it may still crop up from time to

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time we're all human, but something that will actually truly

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transform your experience so that this is no longer an

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issue for you. So what do I mean when I

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talk about somatic or body based treatments or interventions. This

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is key. We need to be talking about the role

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that your nervous system plays in your thoughts, your feelings,

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and your behaviors. If we're just talking about, oh, I'm

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telling myself this story. If I tell myself a different story,

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then I won't feel as anxious or I won't feel

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as scared, and then I'll be more likely to take

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the step apply for the job that can work. It's

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quite simplistic, and what you will probably know, and what

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I know, is that you can't always change the thoughts

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that you think. This is why I'm such a fan

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of mindfulness and mindfulness as an approach to managing thoughts,

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because it doesn't require us to change your dispute or

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challenge our thoughts. It teaches us that we can simply

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observe the story that we're telling ourselves and we don't

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have to buy into it and were therefore, we don't

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have to get so hooked on that story being true.

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We can see it for what it is, which is

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just some passing mental phenomenon, and kind of unhook and

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let it go. And I find that to be a

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more effective approach for dealing with unhelpful thoughts than actually

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disputing and challenging thoughts, because you literally can't help what

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you think. You will have habitual thoughts that will pop

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up in your head all of the time, but regardless

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even with mindfulness, even with observing the thought, unhooking from

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the thought, observing the emotion that you're experiencing, the resistance

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or the hesitation that you're feeling, the fear that you

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might be experiencing. Having strategies to calm that down. You

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might sort of find that this is a very and

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that's all very helpful. This is quite a persistent and

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pervasive problem until you start to understand the role of

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the nervous system. So let's just talk about that really briefly.

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Your autonomic nervous system is what keeps you alive. It

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keeps your heart beating, it keeps you breathing, It keeps

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blood pumping through your body, all of your cells oxygenated,

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and it is responsible for things like blinking and swallowing

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and things that you have no conscious awareness of. This

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is the key, right You don't have any conscious awareness

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of all of these things happening. They're just happening in

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the background. Like the operating system of your computer, this

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is the operating system of your body. Now here's what's

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really key to understand. We are wired for connection from birth.

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We are biologically wide to connect to another human being

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required otherwise we would not literally survive. Human babies don't

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survive with another person. So we have an in built

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connection system where we turn towards another person to keep

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us safe. This is true for every single human being.

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On the planet. So we are seeking through gestures and

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noises and eye contact, and we're looking for somebody to

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return to us with a queue of safety. Somebody is

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going to respond to our needs. This is also the

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basis of attachment theory, which we've talked about a lot

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on this podcast, and it's all actually connected. It's all

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really relevant and connected, as you will soon see. So

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our nervous system, our autonomic nervous system, is like this

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inner surveillance system that is constantly scanning for queues of safety.

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Are we safe, are we welcome? We are we okay?

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Are we warmed? We have everything that we need? Is

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there a person here who is attending to my needs?

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And so when we pick up on queues of safety

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in the environment with other people, in terms of even

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in our own body, then our connection system is on.

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When we move out of connection, when our nervous system

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senses danger or threat, when somebody is not responsive to

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our needs, or when we pick up any queue in

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the environment that signals to us that maybe we're not safe,

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then we move out of connection into protection. We have

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a connection system and a protection system operating all of

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the time. These are survival systems. In our body. And

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this starts from infancy, but these patterns develop over time.

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So then you grow up and you go to school,

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and you make friends, and you have relationships, and all

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sorts of things happen in your life, and the whole time,

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your nervous system is responding to the environment around you,

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what's happening in the world. It's responding to relationships that

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are happening, the people that are around you, and it's

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responding also to just even what's happening within you, within

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your own body. So your heart racing a little bit,

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is your mouth dry, So even those sorts of physiological

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changes in your body, your nervous system is picking up

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on all of that and interpreting all of that, and

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it's making adjustments. It's either revving up your energy, it's

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slowing down your energy. It's constantly making these little tweaks

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and adjustments in your body in response to whether it

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perceives that you are their accues of safety or cues

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of danger in your world. When you go into the

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protection system, there's two different ways that this can go.

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You can either move into what we know as fight

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or flight. This is where you become elevated hyper aroused.

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This is where you experience anxiety, maybe irritation, anger. You know,

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this is an upward, upward regulating kind of response. This

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is when you're moving upwards. If you think about the

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window of tolerance, which I've talked about on this show

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before as well, this is when you're moving up into

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hyper arousal. And that is one protection response that we

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have available to us. The other protection response we have

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available to us, it was when we go the opposite

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way and we go into shutdown. I withdraw, I disconnect,

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I disengage from people. I go into avoidance. I go

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into what is called collapse. This is hypo arousal. And

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this is what you would be on the bottom of

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the window of tolerance. If you want to go back

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to attachment theory, you might call that anxious and avoidance.

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They all tie together. So what is important to understand

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is these are survival patterns and what will happen is

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over time, through your experiences, your personal history, the relationships

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you have with your caregivers, the relationships that you have

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at school, or whether you were bullied, or what happened

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in you, you know, with important figures in your life

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or in your external environment. The environment that you grew

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up in, how safe or unsafe it was. Then you

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will naturally kind of lean towards one or the other

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of these. You will either go to this agitated fight

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flight response, or you will have a tendency to default

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towards a disconnected withdrawn state. But what happens from there

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is you have the capacity to come back into safety.

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Safety is regulated, safety is calm, Safety is inside your

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window of tolerance. So these become our natural kind of

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habits of responding to any queue, no matter how subtle,

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no matter how rational or not rational, any sense in

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our nervous system, that we might be at risk, that

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there might be some threat. Now, remember that we're not

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at threat of being muled by a tiger, where most

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of us are not at risk of losing our home.

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We are not in physical danger. So when I talk

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about accues of threat, what we're often talking about is

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that somebody might not be happy with us, That we

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might be judged negatively, that we might embarrass ourselves or

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do something that's kind of humiliating, that we might be rejected,

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that we might be disappointed. Often, our safety or not

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is in terms of our psychological and our emotional safety.

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So this is what's important to understand. Your nervous system

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operating in the background surveillance system. You're going through your day,

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you're going through your life. You've got all sorts of

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stuff that is programmed into your nervous system, into your

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operating system based on your own personal history, your past experiences,

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things that have happened in your life. They're all stored

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away there. So the most subtle things, the most subtle

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cues in your environment can be the thing that trigger

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without you even being conscious of it. Can be something

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that triggers you into a out of safety and out

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of connection into a protection kind of phase, and you

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will normally kind of default to either fight, flight, agitated, aroused, anxious, angry,

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irritated kind of response, or like I said, withdrawn and

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shut down. You will know yourself, You probably know yourself

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which one that you likely tend towards. Now, if you

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are not consciously aware of this, what can happen is

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you have a reaction in a moment to something like

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you will have a thought and a feeling and a behavior,

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and you don't necessarily know where that came from because

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you're only consciously aware of I've got a thought. It

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creates a feeling I've got a thought, I'm a failure,

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I've stuffed it up, I've done something wrong, creates a

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feeling of shame, humiliation, embarrassment, fear, And therefore I behave

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in a particular way. I either go into hyper over thinking,

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over working, over preparing, trying to fix things, seeking reassurance,

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opinion hopping, you know, all of those sorts of things

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that we do, or we're going to shut down, pull

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the blanket over our head, I don't want to talk

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to anybody, withdrawal from the world, disconnect. So we are

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aware of that level. We are aware of the level

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of I'm having a thought, this is how I'm feeling,

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and this is how I'm responding. What we're often not

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aware of is the fact that that was triggered by

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something in your nervous system that sent that message to

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your brain. The top down approach to coaching and therapy

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is let's look at the thought, let's look at the feeling,

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and then what did you do. If we change that thought,

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we can change that feeling and we can change the

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response the outcome. That's top down, that's looking at your

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brain and how your thoughts impact your feelings in your

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body and your body sensations, and oh, when I'm having

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a thought that I'm a loser, when I'm having a

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thought that I'm going to make an idiot of myself,

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that makes me feel kind of nauseous in my stomach.

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So I'm aware that I have the thought in my

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head and it creates a feeling in my body. That's

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top down. What's actually happening is is all these little

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things going on in your nervous system, picking up on

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cuesing your environment, sending those messages up to your brain,

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and then because your brain's job is to make meaning,

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then your brain layers the story over the top of it.

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So oftentimes it's not the fact that your brain is

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creating a response in your body. It's actually the fact

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that there is something happening in your body which is

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sending signals to your brain, and then your brain is

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making up the story in response. It's a thing called

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story follows state. The story in your mind follows the

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state of your nervous system. So if we are trying

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to address this at the thinking level, then we're missing

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the mark completely. We actually have to be responding to

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this at the state level, at the nervous system level,

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learning to tune in to what is happening in my

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body and how do I cultivate feelings of safety in

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my body so that I'm not going into these protection modes,

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these self protection modes, that I'm not having these anxious

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reactions or these shutdown responses because I can keep myself

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inside my window of tolerance. Now you might be wondering

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what has all this got to do with imposter syndrome

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and self confidence. Well, imposter syndrome is fear. It's fear

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of judgment. It's a fear I don't belong Remember I

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said that we are wired for connection. So any feeling

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that I don't belong here, that these people are going

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to reject me, these people are going to find me out.

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This is a fear that a connection is being threatened.

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That's that's like essential to survival. And so even though

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we perceive it as I shouldn't be doing this job

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or I'm going to make a fool of myself or

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going to be so embarrassing when they realize that I

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don't belong here, that's going to be humiliating. Like that's

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the story that we're telling ourselves in actual fact, what's

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happening is our nervous system is perceiving that our safety

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in connection and belonging is under threat, and so we're

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going into this survival state, this protection state, and we're

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going into patterns that are either like I said, perfectionism,

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over working, overthinking, over analyzing, this hyper aroused state, or

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we're going into avoidance, shut down, procrastination, withdrawal, hypo aroused.

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So we're seeing these outward behaviors, we're thinking, we know

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what is causing it an actual fact, it's all coming

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from our nervous system feeling unsafe. So we talk about

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somatic approaches and somatic responses. Then what we're talking about

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is using things like calm, deep breathing. We're using things

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like tuning into our body, checking in with where we're

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at in our nervous system, things like yoga, things like

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eft tapping, anything that kind of affects a change at

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the nervous system level, like calms and regulates your nervous

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system so that then you can have a different experience

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in your thoughts and feelings and behaviors instead of coming

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at this from the other way around. And as you know,

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if you put all of this together. You know, I've

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talked before about widening that window of tolerance so that

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you have increased capacity to be able to handle situations

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you might feel stressed and pressured and overwhelmed, like we're

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all going to feel that at times, We're all going

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to be in situations that feel uncomfortable. But the wider

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that window of tolerance, the wider that optimal zone of arousal,

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the more you can comfortably handle while maintaining that sense

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of safety. Safety in your nervous system, not safety as

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in physical safety, but nervous system safety. Safety and connection

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is hardwired into your biology. So it's not about never

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being stressed or never being out of your comfort zone,

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or never having difficulties or challenges, or having to have

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conversations that you don't want to have or do things

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that feel awkward and uncomfortable and scary. It is about

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being able to recognize what's happening in your nervous system,

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to have enough curiosity and compassion and kindness to be

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able to be with that, to be able to have

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tools to regulate that response, and still be able to

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do the thing that feels uncomfortable. When we have a

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nervous system response that takes us out of connection and

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into one of these adaptive protection systems. You know by

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now what I'm talking about. I'm talking about fight, flight,

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shut down, withdraw, disconnect, avoid, whatever. When we don't have

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thoughtful awareness of what's happening, we just see our response,

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and then we go into self judgment and self criticism.

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And this is the least helpful thing we can possibly do,

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because when we judge and criticize ourselves again, our nervous

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system responds as if it is another person attacking or

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