Release the Imposter! How to Conquer the Imposter - Part 4

In the earlier posts we’ve seen that imposter syndrome is nothing more than a mental pattern that’s playing on continuous loop in your head. And we’ve seen that you can interrupt that pattern and begin to reset your thoughts so you control them instead of them controlling you.

In this post you’re going to learn how you can experience what it feels like to be completely fearless and free from any self-doubt. It’s going to feel so good that you’ll want to lock in that mental state permanently.

Since it was your mental activities that first brought imposter syndrome to you and it’s your ongoing mental habits that keep it hanging around, it only makes sense that you can let it go through a different set of mental activities.

Visualization is a way of creating a detailed mental image of an object, a place, or a situation that you find desirable. If you want to reduce stress, you can visualize an attractive and peaceful setting and your body will respond by relaxing. Or, if you want to inspire yourself to action, visualizing an outcome that you’re working towards keeps your mind focused on the goal and motivates you when the going gets tough. Here we’re going to use visualization to release the imposter syndrome that’s getting in your way.

Let’s get to it.

• Find a calm and quiet space and sit comfortably with your eyes closed, back comfortably straight, and your feet on the ground. Your hands can rest gently in your lap.
• Take a few slow and deep breaths and focus on feeling the inhalation and exhalation while consciously allowing your body to relax.
• Shift your attention to the area in which you feel like an imposter. Let yourself ponder it and feel it begin to occupy your mind. Our emotions also always show up in our bodies, so let yourself feel it in your body, too.
• Now focus on the physical feeling of the imposter syndrome in your body. Where is it showing up? Tension in your muscles? A feeling of heat? A vibration of some sort?
• Identify and isolate the physical sensation of the imposter syndrome in your body. Is it in your neck? Shoulders? Jaw? Your abdominal area or buttocks? Feel the very specific location of this sensation in your body and focus on that for a few moments.
• Think about how you might describe the sensation. If it’s in your neck and shoulders, does it reach fully from one shoulder tip to the other? Is it just between your shoulder blades? Is it a tight, focused knot or is it more generalized?
• Begin to imagine the sensation as a physical object and picture it. What shape is it? Is it round? Oblong? Square? How tall is it? Is it smooth or rough? What color is it?
• Once you’re familiar with this worry-object, use your imagination to begin manipulating it. Imagine it getting bigger and bigger until it reaches the limits of your body. Then shrink it. Watch as it gets smaller and smaller, back to its original size and then continue to shrink it until it’s almost too small to see. Now bring it back to its original size.
• Using your imagination still, move it around inside your body. Move it up to your shoulder and then down your arm. Feel it moving past your elbow, down to your wrist and then into your hand. Let it rest there for a few moments.
• Bring it back up to your shoulder, then down across your chest and abdomen to your hip. Then down your leg, past your knee, to your foot.
• Play with this worry-object, moving it around inside your body, bouncing it back and forth like a ball. Have fun as you move it around, spinning, expanding, and then shrinking it at will.
• Take it back up to the shoulder of your dominant hand then move it down to your hand. Let it come out and rest in the palm of your hand. Wrap your fingers around it, feeling its texture and temperature. Feel the weight of it in your hand and bounce it up and down like a baseball.
• Reach down and set it on the floor beside you. Use your mind’s eye to see it on the floor beside you.
• Now pick it back up and hold it in your hand again.
• As you hold it in your hand watch as this object slowly becomes less and less solid. Let it become vaporous, as if it’s dissolving. It increasingly looks as if it’s made of dust or smoke.
• When it has dissolved to the point that you can almost see through it, pause and just look at this thin, wispy, vaporous thing in your hand. It’s weightless and has no substance.
• Now take a deep breath and blow on it, like you’d blow out a whole cake full of birthday candles.
• Watch as this now ghost-like object blows away like dust in the wind and disappears into nothingness.
• Now, return your attention to your breathing. Feel the soft inhale and exhale and the gentle rise and fall of your chest.
• When you’re ready, begin to gently stretch – first your fingers and toes, then your arms and legs, becoming slowly aware, once again, of being in your body on your chair. Slowly open your eyes and gently come back into the room.

After you’ve reoriented yourself, think about how you feel. Go back to that place in your body where you felt the imposter syndrome. How does it feel now? Is it still there? If it is, how intense is it compared to before?

Now, try to experience the imposter syndrome again. Are you even able to? Do you feel a greater sense of confidence? If you can still feel some remnants of the anxiety, is it in charge of you? Or are you in charge of it?

Now who is controlling what?

In the next installment, we’ll talk about how to lock in this new feeling of confidence so that it can become a permanent state of mind for you.