Imposterhood cuts us off from our wisdom

Suzanne Mercier - Friday, March 19, 2010

When we feel like imposters, we deny our qualities, our experience, our successes.  We may not see these qualities or achievements as valuable because if we have them or have accomplished them, they can't be that difficult or impressive.  When we come from that perspective, we have no hope of accessing our true and deep wisdom. 

Just think, for a minute, of a time when you felt not good enough.  Perhaps it was a mild, fleeting feeling; perhaps it had greater impact than that.  From the perspective of that feeling, were you able to see and tap into your talents?  No!  Your mind was most likely on a negative loop, running in that downward spiral, especially if it was a severe "attack".  When we feel not good enough, we are not resourceful.

On the other hand, when we recognise that feeling not good enough is just that - a feeling and not a reality - we can start to peel back the masks. 

Getting in touch with our authentic selves involves increasing our emotional intelligence - developing our understanding of who we really are - what we value, what we believe, how we view the world.  It involves developing an internal compass that helps us make decisions and interact with the world.  It involves shifting from judgement to curiosity about ourselves and others.  This gradual emergence of who we really are involves recognising that we are all "children of the universe", no better and no worse than anyone else (remember "Desiderata").  We all have our unique talents - the gifts we have been given to be of service in the world.  All of us have things we don't do so well.  That makes us the same, not different and certainly not a cause for shame and separation.  the question is what are you going to focus on? Back to wisdom which, simply put, is our ability to accurately assess people and situations and to consistently make the best decisions to achieve the best outcome.  To access our unique wisdom, we need to accept our wonderful gifts and talents.  We need to tap into our incredible intuition as well as our logical intelligence and we can only do that if we recognise that we have intuition we can trust and intelligence that we have demonstrated over and over again.

What do you think?  I'd love to hear
All the very best
Suzanne