This morning I received a personal message form Amanda from @highimpactcoaching, encouraging me to keep on going sharing my thoughts and inspiring others. Her call reached me in the middle of self-doubt. The joy when reading her message was directly covered with my blanket of thought “Oh, she just wants to be nice, but…”! Gee – welcome back little imposter syndrome of mine 😊. Well, I guess everybody has surfed those waves of crippling experiences of always being terrified that we are found out to be a fraud. Or on the other side of this continuum has made the experience of wondering if we really have anything important to say. When chewing on this thought, surprisingly, my experience of learning surfing came to my mind. So, I thought, let’s use it as an imagery for what is happening with our mind-body when we enter the imposter dilemma.

The feeling of being found out as fraud, is comparable with the moment when we are whirled back and forth between the bottom of the sea and the surface of the water. We find ourselves ungrounded and other powers have taken over. We are in a survival state. The experience of wondering, “if I really have anything important to say,” compares with sitting undecided on our surfboard. This is the time, when we are distracted by the surfers around us and when our human nature of comparison is kicking in. In this moment we can still decide, whether we are joyfully taking the next waves, or if we just watch the others and never take-off or if we exhaust ourselves in painful trials.

If we get caught in comparison and lose focus of our intention to learn, to have fun, to become one with the sea, we move quickly out of connection into competition and into what we call either an upward or a downward comparison. In a downward comparison we feel that “I’ am better than everybody else”. In the upward comparison, “I feel that that everybody else is better than me”. Once we allow the comparison to take over, we have left the regulated state of our body and are no longer able to compare with curiosity. We have entered the fight flight mobilization. In the downward mobilization we think: “I have to put extraordinary effort into my practice, as I am only worthy if I stay ahead of the others” and in the upward mobilization we think: “I’ll never measure up as everybody is better, so it’s better to vanish”.  Only if we can stay in that space, where the comparison experience brings curiosity and deep connection with others, we can see differences without danger. 

For many people, who suffer from the belief they’re not enough, not worthy of good things, not deserving success or who have taken over a sense of not belonging to the social system, they are stuck in this deregulated mode of effortful exhaustion or not daring to use their potentials. Self-doubt is an adaptive survival response. It’s been enacted by a nervous system response to individual cues of danger that outweigh the cues of safety. Even though the perceived danger is not real, the feeling is really real!  

If we understand the underlying quality of that response and begin to understand why our system is responding in this way, we are more likely to discover our authentic potential by realistic appraisal. Only if we are grounded with an unbiased sense of self, we are enabled to grow and to do things, which we have never done before with ease. Then our imposter syndrome turns into a human being growing syndrome – which in case of learning to surf, can still be painful – but full of nurturing joy and connection to others and the nature. The same way as Amanda nudged me in my personal discomfort of being seen (Thank you Amanda!!!!), I would like you to inspire to see your next challenge as your personal „surfing take off“ – a curious and joyful self-encounter.