September 29, 2024|כ"ו אלול ה' אלפים תשפ"ד Imposter Syndrome and the Real You
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Have you ever felt like a fraud?
Ever experience that sentiment that you’re a fake, that you are making this up as you go and, eventually will be found out and exposed? It could be in your professional life, your private life, your religious life, or really anything. If you have felt this way, you are not alone. Studies have shown that 40% of successful people do not believe they deserve success. As many as 70% of people have felt like an imposter at some time or other. But we aren’t the first to struggle with this phenomenon, some of our greatest leaders did too.
When it is time for Aharon to approach the Mishkan, Opening Day of this house for Hashem, he hesitates and demurs. Moshe says, don’t worry, come, come, you are in charge, you got this. Why was he resisting, why did Aharon keep his distance? Rashi, quoting Chazal, explains that Aharon felt like a fraud, he was ashamed and fearful to approach. Moshe knew that feeling, he was familiar with that sensation. When Hashem had tried to recruit him to lead he replied, לא איש דברים אנכי, I am not a speaker, not a leader, this isn’t for me. Hashem said, you got this, I know you better than you know yourself. And so having been there himself, Moshe turns to Aharon and says “למה אתה בוש לכך נבחרת, why are you embarrassed, you were born for this role.”
There is a name for what Aharon, and earlier Moshe, was feeling. It is called imposter syndrome, coined in 1978 by two clinical psychologists, Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes. People who suffer from it feel that they don’t deserve success. They attribute any success not to their effort and ability but to luck, or timing, or to the fact that they have deceived others into thinking they are better than they actually are. Those who suffer from imposter syndrome feel like they are making it up as they go, in contrast to everyone around them who really know what they are doing. Husbands and wives feel it, mothers and fathers feel it, accountants, lawyers, businesspeople, doctors and yes, rabbis feel it. A feeling of faking it on the outside while imprisoned by a gnawing feeling of unworthiness on the inside.
On Rosh Hashana, the birthday of humanity, we remember the truth and the truth is that Hashem knows us, loves us, believes in us, and needs us. The truth is when we are successful in our relationships with Hashem, those around us and ourselves, we aren’t imposters or fakers. That is our reality. It is when we come up short, give up or give in, fail to fulfill who we are meant to be, slip and indulge an urge to say, watch or do the wrong thing—that is when we are frauds, that is when we are fakers, because that isn’t the real us.
We aren’t defined by our worst moments, or our worst thoughts, actions or attitudes. The truth is that Hashem sees the best in us, holds on to our best moments, our glimpses of greatness. We mistakenly think the real us is the one who loses our cool with our spouse or children, the one who looks at the wrong things when nobody is looking or indulges the urge to say the wrong thing to curry favor with the listener. We also mistakenly think that when we show up despite our shortcomings that this makes us imposters. But that thinking is wrong, it simply isn’t the emes! The emes is that when we are able to stay calm and be patient with those we love, when we have the discipline to do the right thing despite being tempted to follow our urge, that is who we really are, this is in fact the true us.
“לצופה נסתרות ביום דין”, we usually translate as “He looks for and sees the hidden on judgment day” but Rav Avraham Zvi Kluger understands it as, “He longs, looks, digs up our purest intentions.” Similarly, in Zichronos we say: כִּי אֵין שִׁכְחָה לִפְנֵי כִסֵּא כְבודֶךָ וְאֵין נִסְתָּר מִנֶּגֶד עֵינֶיךָ. We usually understand these words to mean that we can’t hide things from Hashem, for He remembers all that we have conveniently chosen to forget. But Rav Kluger says we are misreading, misunderstanding, and misrepresenting what Rosh Hashana is about. The Torah doesn’t call Rosh Hashana Yom Hadin, it calls it Yom Zikaron, not only a day to remember there is a Hashem, but it is a day for us to remember who we are and who we could be, to recognize we aren’t imposters but are leading lives filled those good moments that represent who we truly are.
We may feel like imposters, we may sometimes feel useless or invisible, we may look back and see mistakes and have regret but, ein shichecha lifnei kisei kevodecha, from Hashem’s vantage point we are each unique, inimitable, we are each here for a reason and our best moment as a man or woman, as an eved Hashem, as a mother or father, as a son or daughter, as a davener, learner, chesed doer or charity giver, and that is the real us, that is who we can be, that is the emes. We are defined by our strength not our weaknesses, we are our best moments, not our worst. While we have to take ownership and responsibility for our failures, we deserve the success and achievements we have earned.
In Oros HaTeshuva, Rav Kook writes: “The primary role of Teshuva…is for the person to return to their true selves, to the root of their soul. Then we will at once return to Hashem, to the Soul of all souls.”
In 1977, Laura Schultz, 63, was in the kitchen of her home in Tallahassee, Florida, when she heard her 6-year-old grandson screaming from the driveway outside. Schultz ran to the door to find her grandson pinned beneath the rear tire of a full-size Buick. Giving no consideration to limitations or barriers, Schultz ran to the car, used one hand to lift the rear of the vehicle and used the other hand to drag her grandson to safety.
For years, Schultz refused to speak about the incident. After finally agreeing to an interview with peak performance coach Dr. Charles Garfield, Schultz was asked why she had remained silent about her miracle. Schultz revealed that the incident had actually scared her and reminded her that she'd wasted most of her life living far beneath her true potential. If she had that strength inside her all along, why hadn’t see realized it or utilized it more often or more fully?
With a little coaching from Garfield, Schultz returned to college, earned her degree and went on, at nearly 70 years of age, to fulfill her long-held dream of becoming a college professor.
Like Schultz, we often deny our strengths, we think the rare moments where we shined, we thrived, we excelled as parents, spouses and in our relationship with Hashem, they are aberrations, they aren’t true, we shouldn’t speak about them.
But we are wrong! See in yourself what Hashem sees, know who you are and what you are capable of. Don’t ignore the strength that is inside you. Your best moment as a mother or father, as a husband or wife, as an eved Hashem, that is the real you. Believe it, embrace it, nurture it, and grow it.
Whatever you may now be telling yourself that you can't do, do it! It's never too late to summon forth the full extents of your God-given potential. Your best moment, your strongest moment is the real you, your real potential, the gift that you are to the world.