I created this blog post along with my co-author
Caroline Souza and it was a fun collaboration!
In the previous blog we wrote about the types of impostor syndrome. In this one,
you will understand how to calm down the internal voice that says you’re a fraud.
There are three pillars:
self-criticism, self-compassion and vulnerability, that together can help you to deal with the impostor syndrome. We will bring you some tips and exercises about them to practice this new way of dealing with impostor syndrome.
Self-Criticism
Self-criticism refers to how people relate to themselves in situations of failure, error, and personal disappointment. When people criticize themselves, they adopt a tough, intolerant, punitive and negative self-evaluation posture.
The studies show three types of self-criticism:
Self-inadequate: related to feelings of inadequacy about failures and defeats when the individual feels that they deserve criticism.
Ex. When something goes wrong, and you punish yourself for that because you think you deserve the punishment.
Self-loathed: have feelings of self-hatred, the individual may be physically and emotionally assaulted.
For example: For a long time, I fought with my body and went to the gym to get thin
When I managed to change the key to health instead of getting thin, I could change the whole perspective about my body and started to take good care.
Self-reassuring: focusing on the person's positive aspects and encouraging themselves for the future.
We can flow between these three types.
We all have self-criticism, the idea is that with care we can adopt healthier styles of self-criticism, such as the reassuring self.
Time to practice:
Send a message to a friend, colleague or someone that cares about you asking the following questions “If you had to sum up my best qualities in one sentence, what would you say?”
You will be surprised about the qualities that others can see in yourself, but you can’t. If you feel comfortable, comment below about the feedback you received!
Self-Compassion
Self-compassion promotes emotional intelligence, happiness, wisdom, optimism, curiosity, exploration, and conscientiousness, in addition to increasing the likelihood of using functional strategies to deal with negative situations, as well as decreasing the symptoms of depression.
We all have a critical voice. This voice can be called an Internal Executioner. But in addition to that harsh voice, we also have a gentle voice. Think of all the times that you have welcomed someone else.
The good news is you already have this tool inside you, you just need to use it more.
Time to practice:
Think about a situation where one of your friends told you about an inconvenient situation they may have been experiencing. What tone would you use with this friend? What language did you use? What gesture did you use?
The next time you experience an inconvenient situation try to use this kind of voice with yourself.
Mindfulness
Another tool that we can use to increase our self-compassion is Mindfulness.
Mindfulness is to remain attentive and aware of our experiences. We remain connected, curious, and honest about what we live and what we feel. It means doing things in an attention way and not in the automatic way as we used to do, with this practice we tend to be more aware of your emotions and feelings and this can help us to change your mindset when we are feeling down.
Time to practice:
Choose a moment of your day to take 3 deep breaths and notice everything you are feeling in your body, your mind, your emotions. After a few minutes write down everything you noticed. Use this practice to gain more awareness of what is going on in your daily life.
Vulnerability
Do not deny feelings and emotions, they can only be crossed and transformed if they have space to be lived, understood, and elaborated.
Brené Brown have a good definition of vulnerability: “Embracing our vulnerabilities is risky, but not as dangerous as giving up love, belonging and joy - the experiences that make us more vulnerable”.
If you judge yourself in an excessively critical way or feel light-headed about yourself, sometimes the greatest thing to do is being vulnerable and talk to someone that you trust so that you remember that making mistakes, as well as suffering in tough times, is not exclusive to you, it is part of life experience by every human being.
Time to practice:
Watch this short video about Vulnerability.
We hope you liked this content,
please let us know in the comments below if you have another way to deal with the impostor syndrome.
