To Be Or Not To Be (And Imposter Syndrome Is An Imposter)

As the date of my Refreshment comes closer and closer, I’ve been thinking about belonging and identity. Over the years, certain individuals have opined that I don’t belong because of various types of not-ness, even when these same individuals are not qualified and not relevant  (if this resonates with your experience, you know). So all these assertions about who, what, when, why and how I’m not, became a way to interpret the world, and I adopted that way of defining myself.

I have never felt like or been a fraud, so as tempting as it might be to call it so, imposter syndrome isn’t it. Long side note, I’ve been sitting with this idea that imposter syndrome/phenomenon is itself an imposter, a disguise for what is actually three separate things. People can grow to believe they are imposters because they have been marginalized and treated as less-than. That’s internalized oppression. People can feel shame about something, and are scared that they will be found out. That sounds a lot like trauma.  And some people have been treated better and given titles and corner offices for their potential and personality, so on some level they actually are imposters. The term for that is privilege. It's a kind of whitewashing, really, to sweep internalized oppression, trauma and dismantling privilege into a single category like that. I get it that it’s messier, but like all whitewashing, it obscures understanding.

Instead, what I was was a rebel with a cause. Up until literally this writing, I used the language of disqualification as the primary way to describe myself  ~  I’m not a cis-white-het male, not a traditional academic, not a complete fit for any one culture, not this, that and the other thing. All true, but wow, it’s been a solitary road of imitating erasure and exclusion, instead of claiming where I belong.

The bigger truth is, you belong, and I belong, in every space we are.

So I’m deciding to shift. It’s nuts that this is a brand new thought and completely novel experience for me. I’m going to add in the ability to rest comfortably in similarity and belonging. Like, I’m just like a lot of dog moms and people who’d like to lose some weight. Very soon, I’ll join the club of Refreshees. I am a physician, similar to thousands of second-generation Asian Americans. I belong with all professional coaches, helping people find new momentum. They belong with me. And when I really think about it, even if the balance of experience is very tilted, all people want to be seen, to be heard, to thrive. This doesn’t mean all people are the same and kumbaya and all that. It just means that my experience of identity will include a delicious new feeling of tribal solidarity.