Episode 4: Help! I Have Imposter Syndrome!

Think imposter syndrome doesn't apply to you? Think again. In this episode of Firing and Wiring, host Jena Mahne talks with Dr. Bethany Ranes and Dr. Norah Kennedy to unpack one of the most misunderstood psychological phenomena in the workplace (and why the people who feel it most acutely are often the highest performers in the room).

How do you start to notice imposter syndrome when it doesn't look like the textbook definition? What does it mean to "collect evidence" against a false belief? Why does asking "What am I doing here?" at the wrong moment literally kill your flow? And what does a Pac-Man ghost have to do with any of this??

Whether you're managing a team, finishing a degree, or just trying to take a compliment without deflecting, this episode will help you name the patterns of imposter syndrome so you can start recalibrating.

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Transcript

Speaker 1 0:00

Most people can hold seven plus or minus two things in their working memory, Norah can hold 36 plus or minus 45.

Speaker 0:11

Welcome to Firing and Wiring, a show dedicated to the neuroscience of how you think and how to optimize your mind.

Speaker 3 0:25

Welcome to Firing and Wiring. This is the podcast where your friendly neighborhood scientists bring neuroscience to you. I'm Jena, and today I am joined by Interocept Labs's CEO, COO, and CPO. Spoiler, that's Dr. Ranes, me, and Dr. Kennedy. Today's topic, we will be discussing imposter syndrome, which is something that many of us experience. And so, Dr.

Speaker 1 0:58

Ranes, what say you? I say that you gave us really fancy titles, and it was probably very apt for this episode because it made my palms sweaty. Um, yeah, I, you know, from a neuroscience lens, I think this is one of those really interesting ones where you really can't point to a really solid domain. This is a very complex issue. And so um I think one thing that's really valuable here is to take that step of like neuroscience is not just, you know, the biology of your brain. It's not just the biology of your body. Like it is that interconnection of how your body feels, what's going on around you, and the people around you. And a very, I would say this is probably one of the topics that's maybe even the most complex in those three domains happening here. Um, I also think it's something everybody has felt at some point. This is a big one to me, I think, where the metacognitive aspect starts to come in really clutch, where you notice the thought about I am less than, you know, these people are gonna find out that I don't know what the hell I'm talking about. And you see that thought, and it just it really that is a deep and scary thought. And I think that one takes a really long time. And as I got older, um, I was finally able to really like see that. And that's an imposter syndrome thought. That is not true life. So yeah, it's something that I I definitely struggled with for a lot of my career, and I feel like only just recently. I I really appreciate that sense of distance of like, I had this thought, but I don't believe this thought. I don't have to believe this thought.

Speaker 2 2:32

Yeah, that's a tough act to follow, but no, I I I like what you like brought in there. Like I wasn't even in thinking about worst CPO ever, wasn't even thinking about it in terms of our triple S model, right? But when you do, like the overlap between self-study and social is so clutch with imposter syndrome. I think a lot of times we think of it as just a self-problem, right? Um, but it covers all three of those. But I'm a definitions person, so I am always like, okay, what is imposter syndrome? What are we even talking about? Right. And it's like when you boil it down to what is imposter syndrome, by definition, it is what B said, these core beliefs that you are a fraud, you're not worthy, you're not qualified, in some way you are a fake, a fraud, right? And that's where the psychology side likes to tease it apart. And like B was saying, with those beliefs, but to be aware of and challenged, because the only way that we would even have a thought like that is when our expectations aren't matching with reality, right? Our expectations of ourself, who we think we should be, how we should perform, what that should look like aren't matching the reality of what we're actually seeing. And the problem's not like, oh, work harder, change the reality. The problem is like, no, no, no, where are these expectations coming from? Right. If it, if it the problem is unrealistic or unsustainable expectations, then we ought to ask ourselves where are those expectations coming from? And in general, they're they're internalized beliefs, so they're coming from the self, part of our triple S, but they can also be from external pressure, right? The pressure that others put on us. And sometimes that's pressure that's put on us from a long time ago. Like as a kid, our parents put pressure on us to be that master piano player, be that Major League Baseball star, be that doctor, right? So sometimes it's like very, very long ago, long-ingrained pressure that no one's even said to us in 20 years, but we internalized it. Sometimes we put the pressure on ourselves a long time ago, right? We're like, well, school comes easy and most problems I can solve pretty easily. And then it becomes a hang on, if this is hard, there's something wrong with me. Like up to this point, I've been good enough, I've been able to problem solve, I've been able to do it. So I think sometimes, as B was saying, where where people get stuck with imposter syndrome or maybe think it doesn't quite apply, is because we think of it with the outcomes too much. Well, someone with imposter syndrome looks really anxious, and unfortunately, that gets often generalized to women, right? Someone with imposter syndrome has depression. Sometimes it looks like very much like a mental health diagnosis, but sometimes it's more the functional impact. We're putting off work, we're self-sabotaging, we have a lot of undue stress for projects. Like maybe we don't need that much anxiety for them. I think there's research that also shows imposter syndrome is correlated to like less job satisfaction, higher rates of burnout. So all these like functional impacts of one little term that can be very easy to think, oh, I don't have that. I mean, that's that's that's not in the picture, right? But it could be just so many different dynamics of it, I think. So many different ways in which this can kind of get embodied for us and look for us, that it's not always just the classic, I don't feel like I'm good enough or I don't deserve to be here. Sometimes it's like, oh, people think I'm an expert. I think an expert knows everything about a topic. Well, therefore I'm not an expert because I don't know everything about the topic, right? Um, or everything must come easy, or I must be perfect at things, right? So sometimes it's more like those things. Sometimes it's even like I shouldn't be bothered by this, right? Like I should know how to solve this problem. I shouldn't even be bothered by this. So, like these beliefs I feel like can span such a wide ongoing list we can make forever, but they all create this same problem where like functionally it impacts our work, impacts how we interact with other people, and it's like bi-directional. Other people also impact how we kind of internalize these beliefs too.

Speaker 1 6:45

So, yeah, you brought up some really interesting stuff that I'm really glad you did, because one of the things that I think you did are just a really excellent job of explaining too, that I think is probably part of the confusion people might have here has to do with the word syndrome. You know, and a lot of, you know, ever most people have heard the word syndrome and they think, oh, illness or sickness or disorder or whatever. But it's actually a pretty specific term in in health, you know, practice and health research. And a syndrome is uniquely like this kind of buckshot collection of symptoms. And um, so it's not like a super clear disease or disorder where it's like, oh, X causes Y and Y causes Z. Um imposter syndrome or any syndrome is like, okay, well, people have this kind of general collection of symptoms that we kind of see, but you might not have all of them, or you might have some that aren't here. And I think you did a really nice job of like capturing that. And it's it's right there in the name for any nerds out there who are like excited to know, like, oh, syndrome. I you touched on a couple of things that like really hit home. And just for me, social, the social aspect of this and other people. Um, I have always kind of had my career in a in a very male-dominated space. And when I first started out, I was in law enforcement, which is like uber uber male-dominated. And, you know, unfortunately, in the situation I was in, not generalizing to all of them, but I was in a place where there was also a lot of kind of subtle and sort of indirect misogyny, where it was not necessarily that I was like overtly targeted or disrespected, but this idea that like women were softer, women were weaker, women had these big emotions, women might not be, you know, unless you're a special kind of woman, you're probably not well tuned to this kind of work or this kind of environment, right? That that belief was there, men and women alike, right? In in the space. And I, for me, it really drove a very long professional um kind of imposter syndrome issue that wasn't even around necessarily the classic, I'm not good enough, I don't know enough, but I can't feel right now. Like there were these times where I kind of felt like if I was having an emotion or any kind of an emotional response to something while I was working, that that was a sign that I was less than or weak or not cut out for my work. Um, and I think that I'm really glad you kind of brought that up because I think in what you were saying, a lot of people might not think of that as the same thing as imposter syndrome, and it absolutely is, and um, is coming from that social place. And then I also ran into a lot of setting-based things that faced those kind of uh internalized expectations, you know, around was I good enough? You know, I was a first-generation college kid. I'm from Central California, which is not the most glamorous part of the state, although represent San Joaquin. Um, and so going through school, I was just kind of like doing a lot of things by feel. I had very supportive parents, but they didn't have that experience themselves. And when I got older and got into grad school and started to do things that were a bit harder and more competitive, a lot of people took me at face value in like a lot of tools, a lot of environments. There was a lot of these assumptions about like, oh, this valley kid, she's not, you know, she's less than, she didn't come from the Ivy League or she didn't come from, you know, good stock kind of a thing. And I it wasn't so much social. That one felt like institutional and like settings-based. And it was, you know, uh luckily I'm I'm spunky and I it put more of a chip on my shoulder than like completely extinguished my fire. But I was always kind of in this place where I was like, I have to prove myself, I can't just be as good as everyone else in this room. I have to be better than everyone else in this room right now. And that came up again and again and again, like fellowships, trainings, jobs, internships. This idea that I was coming in with some black marks on my record because I didn't have a more elite set of you know characteristics, and that I was that level of high expectation came from a very different place than you know, my my parents want me to be a doctor, or I want even I want to be a doctor. It was like I have to be the best to prove to these people that I'm not, you know, below them. So I think both of those still fall into that imposter syndrome window. But to your point, Norah, I think they might be like tropical flavors, you know, like they're not they're not the conventional flavors people are used to. And I think it's really important to acknowledge that those things are there too.

Speaker 2 11:32

Yeah, and like you're saying, even with the setting side of it, is sometimes we think that it's gonna be like the really obvious stuff of like, oh, you're in a room full of engineers and you only see men or something, right? And like it can be, absolutely. And sometimes it's like the the less obvious stuff of setting can subconsciously like spur on this imposter syndrome, right? Of like, oh, I'm in a place where um there's more bathrooms for one gender than the other. Oh, things are set up a certain way. Um, the language of these templates is a certain way, right? I mean, I like to joke as a fun one, like because I'm left-handed, a lot of things in the world are set up for right-handed people. Like, well, if I was trying to be a right-handed person, I'd probably have imposter syndrome because I'd be very bad at it. And I'd be like, I don't belong here, right? Like me as a lefty. I don't, the scissors don't cut, the doors, everything doesn't work. Um, right, but like I think sometimes we don't realize, like, oh, there are just subtle cues in different settings or workplace environments, too, that sometimes not bad intentions, but unintentionally kind of like foster and build somebody's even like work uniforms, right? Like, how many jobs have I worked where there's like this default like male boxy uniform? And I'm just kind of like, oh, like my type doesn't fit into this well, right? Like this isn't quite this isn't quite tailored to me. Okay, do I fit here? Do I belong? Um, so no, and I I like your point too that the sometimes the those internalized beliefs, those expectations, or that external pressure might not necessarily come from a bad place. I mean, sometimes, right, we have that external pressure that's like, hey, you must do better, you have to work harder, out outwork, outprove someone else. But unfortunately, sometimes it can come from like that sweet middle school teacher who just said, You're gonna do great things with your life, like, wow, you're perfect at this. And and you know, like as a little kid, we just oh, okay, right, hack that away in my set of core beliefs as a human. Um, but then how we kind of use and and take that belief and run with it, unfortunately, sometimes can swing us over into this imposter syndrome where it's like, well, now I've set up my expectations based on this feedback I got, and these not might not be realistic, or just because I did it once and I could pull this off, it doesn't mean it's like a sustainable thing. So I shouldn't kind of base my expectations on that. Um, and that can be hard too, can feel like I'm a failure because in grad school I could pull all nighters, but I can't do it now. What's wrong with me? Right? Things things as simple as that can feed into this too.

Speaker 1 14:08

I I shudder at the thought of trying to do an all-nighter at my current advanced age. I would not make it. But yeah, yeah. I so I as we're talking about it, yeah, it's it's very clear to me that um the expectations that drive imposter syndrome are very much fueled by the triple S, right? The the self-setting and social, um even just embodied cues, I'm realizing. Like, and and you probably know this better than I do, because you are an athlete. Um, but when you play a sport and you practice in kind of like a a lower level, you you master sort of a level and you get that muscle memory, you feel that embodied feeling, and then you have to take it to the next level, and it suddenly feels very different in your body. And that can be also sort of like an interesting sort of expectation. It's not a language expectation, it's an embodied expectation, but like really scary. And it kind of I think it's exactly what you just said. Like, I can't pull an all-nighter like I used to. I must be like not as good as I was. Even the body has cues of expectations that will drive imposter syndrome in in their own way, maybe even in a more intense way, uh, scarier way, because it doesn't have words.

Speaker 2 15:15

Yeah, right. I feel like anything where we've had some sense of mastery before, or maybe we've had sense of mastery across many different things. And when we're in a new situation, it can bring up the like, wait, was I ever actually good at those things? Or normally I'm good at those things, but now I'm not. So how do I interpret this? I mean, that can bring up that belief that we're a fraud, even if it's like also an existential crisis, or feeling a bit insecure of like I used to be really good at this, and now am I just old and washed up. But I think it also very much pull the imposter side of like maybe I was never good, or well, I can't think I was ever good at it because I'm not good at it now. I'd be a fraud to say, you know, call myself an athlete or call myself a certain term because I'm I'm not right now, or I'm not, or I can't, you know, right? It really starts to does start to go back to identity. I think especially with high performers, right? Whether like I've had some track record of, you know, of success, of of mastery, of accomplishing things, of like confidence and knowing where I stand compared to others. But if beneath where we stand is all these internalized beliefs, like doesn't even matter, ceases to matter where we stand when we're really caught up on, but I don't think I should be standing here, right?

Speaker 1 16:31

Yeah, I think that's the irony of all of this, is I think it affects high performers more than it affects anybody else. Those are the people with the high expectations. So ironically, it's these gold star people who are actually very good at what they do that probably feel the most acute imposter syndrome in their lives.

Speaker 3 16:48

Yeah, so if we kind of start to link imposter syndrome to this overarching umbrella of what we train folks for, which is performance in some way or another, um, what I'm hearing is that you know imposter syndrome has a functional impact. And it sounds like the go-to for that is that it holds you back, but on the flip side, it could also make you want to prove yourself if you are kind of being told or signaled from your environment that you're a fraud or you're less than, which also goes to show why it is important to see representation in all spaces, if possible, to kind of help us through the idea that we can't do something. Um, but so from that performance lens, I guess uh in the setting in the social and with the self, we're some places that we can start to help like folks work through imposter syndrome so they're not held back, or they don't feel like they have to overcompensate so they can perform better, move up to the next level, things like that.

Speaker 2 17:53

I just love what how Jena highlighted there that like the outcome of what imposter syndrome can look like can look like different opposites. So you can't really detect it based on what's showing above the surface, right? Because it could look like a lot of anxiety, but then using that to be really motivated and perform, or it could be like paralyzing anxiety, and then we're self-sabotaging and not getting things done. So it can look like a lot of different polar opposites, so it's not necessarily a good way to detect it. And also those things can actually be caused by other different underlying problems and things, right? So you can't just make, oh, you have anxiety, you must have imposter syndrome. And it's like this is not a one-for-one, this is not not that kind of relationship. So I think that makes it all the hard, all the all the more hard to detect. And I think the you know, if we had to create a model, okay, how do we help someone even know or detect if imposter syndrome is in the picture? I would say we've got to look for two things. It's one, that internal dialogue that makes it up that's based on those unrealistic beliefs. Have to come back to those two basics. It's made up of an internal dialogue of unrealistic beliefs. Okay, well, how do we become more consciously aware of our internal dialogue? I say write it down. If we write down our internal dialogue and then read it and look at it as if it's someone else saying it to us, then we can figure out how we'd actually respond to it. With our own internal dialogues, we just respond to them in however we want to. And sometimes we have double standards where we hold ourselves to higher standards than we do the next person. Um, right, a lot of different ways those unrealistic beliefs can manifest themselves. So I say, okay, if we're not even sure if imposter syndrome's in the picture, but we know that its definition is it's a core belief, feeling like we're a fraud, write down our interior dialogue, write down our beliefs, pretend it's someone else who's saying it to us, like a friend's coming to you, being like, This is what I say in my head all day. And then think about how would I respond to that friend. If you would tell them, hey, that's not true, hey, that's unrealistic, you're being too critical, that's act, you know, that's not true. You have some evidence against that, you've had all these accomplishments, right? Like, if you would dispute it to a friend, that's a good sign that we're dealing with some imposter syndrome ourselves.

Speaker 1 20:12

I I always I always love that reframe. Take your internal monologue and pretend you're saying it out loud to someone you love. Like, how likely are you to say that to someone you care about? Most of the time, well, maybe this is a lot about me, like most of the time, not at all. Um, I also like to tell people to um, if they struggle with like, because what we're telling ourselves is a story. It's a it's a it's a story sometimes we use, and it can sometimes manipulate how we're perceiving actual evidence. Um, one thing that I've kind of told people to try to get like more objective with evidence as opposed to a story is to pretend like a little ghost who knows nothing about you is following you around all day, every day. They don't know what you're thinking, they don't know what anybody else is thinking, they don't know who you are, where you've been, anything about you. What did that ghost see? What did that ghost see that day? What did he observe? What did people say? What did you say? You know, what was the actual objective thing? And sometimes it's kind of amazing when you do that, because you're like, oh wow, I was bringing a lot into that situation that wasn't actually there. Um I do also want to point out, because I must, uh, the neuroscience nerd aspect of this. I think when you when you say internal dialogue, I think there's a phrase that comes to mind for me, nor I'm sure there's so many, but one of them is, what am I doing here? Like that's a I feel like for me, that's a very common one. What am I doing here? Why am I here? I shouldn't be here. And I I want to draw a parallel to that because that phrase is also sort of a magic unlocking phrase for the prefrontal cortex of oh God, what am I doing here? It's that like snapback phrase or some version of it, is is, you know, and it tends to wake up your prefrontal cortex and you Start to become very hyper-vigilant because you're trying to figure out is something wrong? And I think we talked about this in a previous episode. And if the best way to really jack up your flow is to do that to yourself. Because your prefrontal cortex, that ain't where flow lives. It's a balance between that and that back end default mode network. And the second you say, What am I doing here? You have just like choked out your flow. And you're gonna have to get back into it all the way back into it again. And so anytime you think that phrase or something like it, you're ironically gonna totally jack up your performance if you were in any sort of flow as you were doing it. And that's a big one for like muscle memory style things, or playing an instrument or playing a sport or carrying out like a physical movement. But it's also the case with like giving a talk, focusing on something, writing a paper, something that just like really sucks you in there. And the minute you have that, so I it's unfortunate, but that specific type of dialogue, in addition to being harmful for your long-term story of how you kind of see yourself, it also just has that acute, crappy impact on your brain's performance.

Speaker 2 23:15

I cannot move past that ghost example you gave. Like I, you like picture a ghost, and this little red Pac-Man ghost just popped into my brain. I'm like, yes, B, I got a ghost. Now what? Okay, picture it following you around all day. I'm like, that sounds scary. It's trying to kill me. That's what Pac-Man ghosts do. Um, but I love that. I'm stealing that because you're right, that's like such a good way to get just like the factual observations of your day and get out of your head a little bit. Like, oh, what did I actually do? I think I'm a complete failure, but look at all these things that my little ghost told me that I did today.

Speaker 1 23:48

What I did today. What's totally insane is I 100% it's a Pac-Man ghost for me as well. So that's fantastic. Red one, he's he's the blue one for me, but that's okay. I think it's still pretty impressive that we both think of a Pac-Man ghost.

Speaker 2 24:04

Definitely not showing our age at all.

Speaker 3 24:09

Well, and I think that that's data or evidence or proof or however you want to think about it. And I know not everybody needs data to make decisions or believe things, but I think that is somewhat a part of it because it sounds a little bit like imposter syndrome can be an irrational belief that you have. And what are we kind of told to do at a very basic level when you have an irrational belief about yourself? Look in the mirror and say things like, I am strong, I'm capable, I'm smart. But even at the end of the day, you might not believe those things. And it's just kind of fueling the fact that you're like, I'm just a friggin' imposter in every part of my uh waking life. Um, I really like the the point about don't snap yourself out of flow by saying, What am I doing here? Don't question why you're here, but use that data or evidence to really reinforce I am here because X, Y, and Z, and I belong here. But I have another question. Do you think the fear of failure is a part of imposter syndrome as well? And um, why people feel like they're a fraud or that they're less than?

Speaker 1 25:11

I think fear is almost always the the reasoning behind anything that's sharp, you know, like anything that like has that sharp bite to it. And yeah, I think I think that's I'm gonna say something that might be profound and might be really dumb, and I'm gonna rely on Norah to tell me which one it is. I think it could be the fear of failure, but I also think it could be the fear of success. I think both of them will fuel imposter syndrome. Norah's like, dope.

Speaker 2 25:39

Well, I think that I think both are very real, and I think both have significant functional impact on people. I'm pausing to think, like, does fear of success, is that imposter syndrome, or is that like a nearby neighbor? Certainly still a huge like workplace performance issue, right? Like if there's any kind of fear of our own performance, like that's problematic. Like that needs that that's gonna create issues, right? Like whether it's meets our Norah's strict definition of imposter syndrome or what the actual experts on imposter syndrome, which there are people who research this day in and day out, and they are not me. Um, so they would probably be able to give us our actual answer. But either way, right? Like if fear is trickling into our workday, whether it shows up as fear or anxiety, or again, if it shows up more behaviorally as that self-sabotage, or you know, putting off work, procrastination, um, putting a ton of undue pressure on ourselves, or being like, oh, I have to like get in the mode and feel really stressed out to do this thing. Like all of that is showing us, like, hey, some of those underlying beliefs not working so well, right? Because we don't need to go through life feeling all this fear, anxiety, low esteem, any of that, right? Whatever, whatever it might be, you know, if we if we're starting to tell ourselves these narratives and not really stepping back to see what they are, not really, as B said, asking ourselves questions about them. I mean, that's when it's problematic for them to fly beneath the radar and for us to not engage that prefrontal cortex and say, Oh, I need to actually answer this question because if I'm kind of beating myself up because I should be able to do this and I should be able to solve my problem with imposter syndrome, but I'm not good enough to do that. Well, guess what? That's just gonna spile us down that rabbit hole of secondary and tertiary emotions, and that doesn't feel good.

Speaker 1 27:30

I think, too, one of the things, so you ask kind of like when we're training somebody, like, where are we going with this? Because it's again, it's common in high performers. And I think it gets back to something I said the very beginning of the episode, and what Norah's talking about is kind of like thinking about these things, getting your prefrontal cortex involved in a way that's like becoming aware of what's going on. Um, and just really getting to that place, you have to build enough evidence, a strong enough evidence base that you can confidently identify it as an incorrect thought, which we have all the time. Like our brain is constantly firing through thoughts, depending on where you live on the caffeine slash attention deficit spectrum, more so than others, but they're not all true or real at all, you know, or relevant. And so that metacognitive aspect, and I think it gets to something you said, Jena, you know, that not everybody might feel like they need data for their decision making. And everyone needs data, whether you you know it or not, and you're collecting it all the time, and you're categorizing it and classifying it, even though you're not always aware of it. Your brain is nothing but a data collection machine. Like that's just what's happening. And your nervous system is all about data collection and like you know, creating these little heavy and learning connections, the fires together, wires together, right? And what goes with what? And so over time, you have to have enough perception that is contrary to these beliefs, which means you have to be paying attention and you have to reflect on them. And then you kind of have to have that prefrontal ability to like notice when you have the thought and go, that's that's just imposter syndrome. That's wrong. And for some people, it takes a long time. It took me a pretty long time, I think. Um, because I I I don't know that I did a great job of actively working on this for myself until I was a little bit older in my career and really started to allow myself to take a compliment. That was a big thing for me. Like I really struggled with taking compliments and um, you know, to accept that I did a good job on things. That was like a personality thing, and I know that's very common with a lot of people. And so that's data you are recasting, you know, you're miscategorizing. You know, that should be uh evidence of your of your talent, and you're now refiling it into evidence of your mediocrity whenever you don't take a compliment or you like brush it away. So there's that kind of stuff, right? So you have to just, I think what really helped me and what I really focus on when I'm training people is understanding that data collection process as a calibration process and just kind of building on it. You know, Norah's done a nice job of talking about, like, you know, um, I don't always like to, some people love to journal. And I go through phases where I love to journal, don't love to journal, but just capture data in a way that makes sense to you. And sometimes you really need to do that externally when you first start, just because otherwise it's kind of like in and out. But taking the time to study that, think on it, reflect on it, and you will see the difference. And you will start to have less of that fear, that amygdala response, that like intensity of feeling around those thoughts. And it'll start to just be like, huh, what's up, imposter syndrome? Like an old friend, like a bad roommate, you know. Um, and it just it loses its power pretty quickly when you get really intentional about recalibrating your data and your your hypotheses around the data.

Speaker 2 30:59

Yeah, like be said, whatever it takes to make this come into conscious awareness, right? Because think of the past we talked a little bit about system one, system two. We don't need to dive into that now, but like it's very okay for a lot of our our thinking and responding to happen in the in the subconscious, and we're not all making decisions and thinking of like how am I gonna move my hand or swallow this water or whatever I'm doing. So, like plenty can fly beneath the radar. We don't need to be aware of it, be super overwhelming. But when there's a problem, we need to be aware, otherwise, we can't figure out what's going on, we can't fix it, we can't change things. So, exactly the same here. We gotta do something to bring it up to awareness. Is it journaling? Is it keeping track of it? All those ideas be mentioned, right? Something to bring it up to that awareness so we can decide. Do I need to challenge this? Do I need to change how I'm thinking? Or do I need to just say, all right, there's my old friend imposter. I've named who you are. You're the little ghost in the corner, right? Like, okay, I can coexist with you. I don't have to feel enmeshed that you are me, right? Um, it's a very, very therapy cliche, but like we are not our thoughts gets said a lot, right? And it's very true when we talk about imposter syndrome. We are not our thoughts, we can think about anything, as B mentioned before. And in fact, if I tell you, think about a pink elephant, no wait, don't, you're like, I'm already thinking about I can't not think about it now. And you say, Don't, I couldn't, I couldn't resist, right? Like, we can't our thoughts, we can come up with things we can think about unicorns and things that don't even exist. Our thoughts are really cool and powerful in that way. However, we got to make sure we're using that to our advantage and not having the cool powerfulness of our thoughts backfire and then driving us down a path in life. It's really, really not fitting where we want to go. So if that needs to just be here's my little imposter syndrome hanging out over here, but I want to go over here. All right, that's some noise, but I'm gonna keep doing what's important for me. It's not gonna sidetrack me.

Speaker 3 33:04

I was just going to say, I think that's always a good reminder too, Norah, that imposter syndrome is only going to rear its head when you really want something, not over things that don't matter to you that much.

Speaker 1 33:18

Yeah, that actually is a really good reminder. I like that. That's a really good thought of like this is only popping up because you and that kind of comes into some of the stuff we've said about um when people have performance anxiety, right? Common. Again, another very common and kind of a neighbor to what we're talking about here. Um and I I always tell people to re it's a it's a reframing, but you get excited when you're gonna perform. That is a natural evolutionary, an evolutionary benefit, but we so frequently will misread those bodily feelings as anxiousness, nervousness, because there's we pretty much have an up knob and a down knob. We don't have a whole lot of great side to side. So there's good up, there's bad up, there's good down, there's bad down, and you can miss, you know, understand like, oh, everything's up, it must be bad. Or, you know, so I always call excited nervous. Are you excited nervous? Um where it's like, okay, I think I'm nervous, but hey, I'm like well prepared for this. I think I can handle this. I'm right, I'm just turned on, I'm ready to go. I'm excited. And so yeah, this is like kind of one of those where take the time and and recognize when you're excited versus nervous or a little excited, nervous. Um, but I was also just gonna piggyback off of something Norah said, the system one and system two thinking, if it sounds like a lot of work to do that from a system one, a prefrontal, conscious, like intentional place, also know that there is a lot of stuff going on underwater. Most of our thoughts are really kind of more in that what you know, what we would call system two thinking, that like unconscious flow of automatic thoughts. When you've practiced something enough that you've reinforced it well in your mind, it will then become a system two. So they are cyclical, it's not like one or the other. And so when Norah says, like, oh hey, grab it out of there and kind of make it system one, be intentional about it. That's not a forever thing. Like you do that long enough, you build those new relationships, and it goes right back under the water. And now you've got it automatic where it's helping you. And that's that's what we're doing all the time. I mean, you could argue that's what therapy is. You know, it's like grabbing stuff out of the unconscious, you know, subconscious, cleaning it up a little bit, making it more helpful, and putting it back in the system.

Speaker 3 35:31

Didn't you also say that excitement and nervousness shows up in the same way inside your brain? Yeah.

Speaker 1 35:37

Oh, yeah. I mean, so um, we always kind of talk about how um in in cognitive neuroscience, when we talk about like psychophysiology, we usually have two axes that most people sort of kind of use to describe a feeling when you're kind of looking at emotions. Um, and the one of the axes is arousal, and then one of them is valence. So arousal is how excited you are. I mean, there is or there isn't. Your heart rate is high or it's low, it is what it is. Your blood pressure is high or it's low, your pupils are dilated or they're not, right? Like we just we have these arousal responses, and they happen when your body needs to do something. They're they're all evolutionarily developed over time to help us act. The valence is positive or negative, and that is fully cognitive, and that comes from your perception. So, yes, your brain notices my my arousal is high. You, through context clues from all your other senses and the other parts of your cortices and things that are going on around you, you put the labels on what the valence things are. And a lot of that comes from expectation. You're not always doing a great job of doing that in the moment. You have to act fast. And so, what you tend to do is you make shortcuts around that. So, whenever my valence is kind of here and my arousal is kind of here, this is a bucket, and I call this joy. And when it's here, this is a bucket, and I call it sadness. And that's where our emotional labels come from. And they're not always the same, and they're not the same for each person, they're not the same in each instance, but we have to kind of put those labels and put those things on there after the fact. But yes, the the actual physiological responses, there's no valence to them naturally. That's all how we perceive them. It's all a matter of framing.

Speaker 3 37:25

So when it comes to your performance, if you're letting imposter syndrome creep in, it could be the difference of meets versus exceeds expectations. So don't let imposter syndrome hold you back. Us here at Interocept Labs, we can help support you if that is something that you feel is becoming an issue in your overall performance. Also, if you know someone who might be suffering from imposter syndrome, feel free to share this podcast with them. And hopefully it brings them some encouragement and makes them feel validated.

Speaker 37:56

If you have a question or a topic that you'd like to present to Firing and Wiring, be sure to email us at support at interceptlabs.com. Firing and Wiring is produced by Interocept Labs and is hosted by Jena Mahne, Norah Kennedy, and Bethany Ranes. Our theme music is graciously provided by Anxiety Society because all the cool kids support Minneapolis music.