Caught in the Imposter Syndrome

I’ve been reflecting lately on how often I still get caught in the Imposter Syndrome. After more than 20 years of teaching and writing about TED* — The Empowerment Dynamic® — you would think I’d have this way of living down pat.

A moment of honest confession: Last week, I went completely reactive and forgot everything I’ve learned about living at choice. It was a relatively brief and simple annoyance, but the intensity of my reaction caught me by surprise. I paused, calmed down, and within an hour or so, I thought I was back to center. Then, before I knew it, my inner Persecutor took over.

Its voice didn’t whine, and it wasn’t overly harsh. It simply said, “People are going to find out. Sooner or later, the people who look to you for guidance are going to see that you are an imposter.”

I recognized it immediately as the voice of my Imposter Syndrome. No matter how deeply I practice TED*, I still go reactive from time to time. My egoic mind thinks I should be beyond this by now, given how much time and energy I’ve devoted to learning, teaching, and living this work.

I know I am not alone. After coaching many high-achieving people — individuals who are accomplished by almost any measure — I’ve come to see how many quietly live with some version of the Imposter Syndrome.

The term was first introduced in 1978 by psychologists Pauline Rose Clance and Suzanne Imes, who described it as “an internal experience of intellectual phoniness that appears most intensely among high-achieving individuals.” It is the persistent feeling of being a fraud despite evidence of your competence, experience, or contribution. It can show up as self-doubt, anxiety, or the quiet fear that somehow you’ll eventually be “found out.”

My egoic mind’s logic sounds something like this: If you truly understood this work, you would never slip. If you were the real thing, you would always be consistent. Your stumbling is not just a human moment — it’s evidence you’re a phony.

My inner Persecutor is holding me to a standard that no human being can meet — perfect, continuous embodiment of growth principles in every moment, without fail. It sounds rigorous because it is, and it is a trap.

The reasoning is that perfection becomes the ticket to worthiness or belonging. And the moment we fall short, the ego interprets it as proof that something is wrong with us, rather than evidence that we are human beings still learning and growing.

The imposter voice takes on the role of the Persecutor by judging, criticizing, and questioning. Another part of us drops into Victim, feeling inadequate or somehow flawed. And then, like many people, we move into Rescuer looking for distractions, numbing, overworking, or avoiding what we’re truly feeling.

It’s a trap that is impossible to get out of unless you have access to the truth of who you really are. You are not an impostor. You are a human being with patterns and a personality that is in a constant state of learning and evolving, including times of reactivity. If fact it is our reactivity that points us to our next level of learning if we don’t make ourselves a project to fix.

Instead of trying to get rid of that voice or override it with positive thinking, I am learning to relate to it differently. When it arises, I pause. I acknowledge it and on my best days, I thank it for its gift of helping me learn.

If I can observe myself, see the pattern, and give myself some grace, that same voice that once felt like a Persecutor begins to transform into a Challenger. Instead of saying, “You’re a fraud,” the question becomes, “What is this moment inviting me to see?”

The Challenger, as I’ve written about many times, tells the truth without blame or shame. It invites growth. It helps me get curious and discover that I am not a fraud — I’m a human being having another learning experience. As a good friend often says, “Thank goodness for all our learning opportunities!”

If you experience moments of Imposter Syndrome, you are not alone. In fact, it may be a present that is stretching you into a new level of learning. The invitation is not to eliminate that voice, but to shift your relationship to it. Can you begin to see it as a Challenger rather than a Persecutor?

The truth is your Creator essence — and living from the wholeness of TED* — is not something you earn by being perfect. It’s who you already are, even in the moments when you forget. And maybe especially then.

Until next time, here’s to the Creator in you,

Donna

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