Suzanne Mercier - Monday, March 15, 2010
When we feel like an Imposter, our motivation is to protect ourselves from discovery. Our behaviour is fear-based and we defend ourselves from perceived attacks. Our defenses are like walls that clearly separate ourselves from others. These defenses make it for anyone to get close to us because the last thing we want is for them to see us as "not good enough" - the way we see ourselves. Defenses also make it challenging for us to receive feedback because we perceive it as an attack - a statement about our unworthiness or incompetence which hits home because that’s what we secretly fear.
Defenses are very different from healthy boundaries which can be defined as the physical, emotional and mental limits that define us individually as separate from other people. It means accepting that - at one level - we are separate individuals with our own emotions, needs, attitudes and values and that the people in our lives, including our children, are also separate individuals. They have no right to control us and we have no right to control them. When we have a solid sense of who we are, we have more choice and greater flexibility around our behaviour. Our self-awareness and comfort with who we really are enables us to take feedback, to continue the earlier example, as information to be considered and learned from rather than a personal attack.
Of course, at another level we aren't separate at all. We are completely linked in to each other, physically, energetically, spiritually. That's for another time though.
What do you think? I'd love to hear
All the very best
Suzanne
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