Imposter Syndrome Root Causes and Healing Through Emotional Mastery

[00:00:00]imposter syndrome is created in childhood when our parents deny our authentic self they do this by shaming us and shaming that authentic self because they're trying to control us into becoming what they want now all parenting even the best parents use shame because all of us are uneducated as to how to parent Without Shame but even more so even if we were educated we're all human we're limited we're Perfectly Imperfect and even the best parents who are completely trained will make mistakes and they will shame us because of their own unhealed pain they will control us and try and mold us into what they want to soften their unhealed pain inside of them now in response to this control mechanism and this shame that we experience all of us develop a false Persona an adapted self we do this as a survival skill because we need attachment to survive so we have to become whatever it is our parents want so we can fit into the family system create that attachment since attachment is necessary for survival so this is usually done in one of three ways we either become good and perfect we become bad and rebellious or a combination of both so basically when a person is experiencing imposter syndrome they're having a massive shame attack we're experiencing what is called carried shame when our parents had those moments where they controlled us and and crushed our authentic self they were having their own shame attack and so because they felt so powerless and inadequate from what was done to them in their childhood in that moment they transfer that unhealed chain into us and therefore they squash our authentic self and they get us to carry that shame through the use of trying to control us and mold us into what they want so that they can down regulate and not feel so chaotic from their own shame so what's happening to you as an adult when you're experiencing imposterone syndrome is it's being triggered because in that moment you're reliving unhealed pain that came from wanting to pursue your authentic self it's basically an unhealed attachment wound so now I'm going to give you two stories to show how this plays out one comes from a client of mine this video it's just this week in our session we got talking about imposter syndrome here's a man who's incredibly successful he's created an incredible business and he's gifted at what he does he's been doing this career for 30 some years and he knows an incredible amount about it but because it's such a big business and he has so many projects going he was talking about how at times he's dealing with a client and he doesn't have all the answers and he gets filled with this sense of I'm an imposter and that he should know everything and that he it's not okay if he doesn't have the answers and his business is so complex there's so many moving parts he doesn't always remember all the moving parts and so you know in those moments he's talking about how he feels like an imposter and my response to him was remember what you told me about your childhood and he kind of looked at me and I said tell me again what happened in your childhood well his parents controlled everything he did he wanted to ride motorcycles they said no he wanted to play instruments they said no like they controlled almost every aspect of his life and so what did he do he became bad and rebellious every time his parents said notice something he broke the rule he did it anyway he stuffed it in their face and so in that moment where a person now he's an adult someone asks him a question just like a child he's being triggered I have to be good and perfect I have to have the answer if I don't I'm going to get controlled and so he's reliving that transferred carried shame as an adult all right and it gets brought in those same moments from childhood and that's what we're working on is healing all of that and getting present to that and learning how to forgive himself and give the pain back to his parents which I'll get to here in a minute the process of recovering from this now for me my life story is kind of the opposite I became good and perfect um I noticed you know other family members get in trouble and I was like no way and I also realized my dad was very angry and very controlling and so I tried to become super nice I completely gave away my authentic self and I became an emotional caretaker for both of my parents I sacrificed my life to try and keep my mom sober that was the role I chose and so I still struggle like look there's so many screw-ups in my videos like I won recently I have a narcissism video that's just exploding and I said in it I don't know that anyone besides me has ever talked about this so I had a massive in the middle of a video I had a massive shame attack I elevated myself I went falsely empowered as though I'm the only person in the world with an answer knowing full well that they're countless teachers who talk about you know decided of the narcissism Dynamic I was talking about in that video but in that moment it just came out the Imposter syndrome of I have to have the answer to everything because the overriding message that sent me into shame as a child was I'm stupid couldn't be stupid like I'll never forget the day I found my mom passed out naked on the toilets when I found out she was an alcoholic and I remember being on the couch with my dad and I'm just bawling and I remember saying to him or asking him how long has this been going on and he said Kenny this has been going on for years and that was my first memory of experiencing shame and my immediate replied to him I just lost it even more I went oh my God this is the first time I'm experiencing this and you've been dealing it with with this for years I felt my dad wasn't trying to shame me but in the way he phrased it and his tone of voice what I heard what he did is my dad had tremendous shame that he didn't know how to handle an alcoholic wife that he didn't go learn and become an expert in healing his own trauma why he picked an alcohol all of these things and so in his tone in his language all of his shame got dumped right into me in that moment and so I felt stupid I felt selfish and so you'll see that in many of my videos where I go falsely empowered or disempowered they're all shame attacks and you know I also realized um I didn't I picked it up recently that most of my thumbnails especially my older videos they don't match the content of what's inside my video and so what I didn't realize is that was a covert way for me to hide so I don't get noticed and then I don't get no one notices I'm an imposter and I'm not an imposter I'm perfectly imperfect I'm human I'm limited I forget things there's so much that I've learned and I've forgotten more than I remember plus there's so much information on all of these topics there's no way you could remember all of it in Click of a finger or doing a video and so to stop every video and go oh I screwed that one up I gotta redo it again I'd never get a video done because there's so many mistakes in all my videos well that's why I leave them in on purpose even though people will point out how wrong I was because what I'm my goal is two things one to give myself permission to be human and limited and Perfectly Imperfect and number two to give you permission it's okay we all screw up like I know nobody likes to hear that all of these dynamics that I talk about go back to childhood each parent feels tremendous shame and inadequacy and they feel I'm assaulting them or whether or they want to defend their parents or they want to defend their own parenting I get it my goal is is never and my message is never that parents are to blame but people feel blamed because of their own unhealed carried shame what they don't pick up unless they're further along in recovery is I'm actually promoting reconciliation I'm actually promoting connection between parents and their children because what I'm teaching is truth and personal responsibility again we're humid we're Limited we're Perfectly Imperfect every parent shames a child every parent hurts a child all I'm advocating is each parent be truthful about that take responsibility and have discussions with their kids and go yeah tell me all the ways I screwed up oh my God I forgot about that one ah I'm so glad you brought that up wow that must have been terrible and the child's like oh my God I finally get heard my authentic self now gets validated because Mom and Dad are open to being perfectly imperfect and accepting that they're limited and that you see that's reconciliation so the people that see me as blaming that's all they're carried shame they're still defending because remember we need attachment to survive and so people that accuse me of blaming what they're really doing is they're holding on to their parents shame because that was the only way they could create connection and so they're fearful if they let that shame go they'll have nothing with their parents it's not true when you do the full recovery process even if your parents never change and never have these discussions you heal all of that and you feel closer to them than you ever did but you but that person doesn't know it they haven't completed the healing Journey but that's what happens and so that that's why I talk about all of this and that's why I share my story is I'm not only giving permission to myself for all the ways I screwed up my kids um and permission to forgive myself and love myself and accept that I'm human and limited but also to model and demonstrate it's okay it's a safe thing to do we can all do this and if we choose to do it we get the relationship with our parents we always wanted and because we're living in truth and taking responsibility Okay so here's what I suggest you do think back to all the ways your parents controlled you and made you do what they wanted now I'm not talking about basic parenting skills that keeps you safe like grabbing you from running across the street you know there are many ways parents control us that are perfectly normal perfectly healthy but all of us and I'm you I'm choosing that word on purpose this is a black or white issue all of us have been controlled by our parents in some way and so what I'm talking about are the philosophical ways that they molded you into what they wanted and what and that's what is really at the heart of this and so as an adult when you're having those imposter syndromes like that happens to me all the time you know like I said I realized I've been hiding a lot of my content hasn't been exposed because I've been hiding because I was putting thumbnails and doing things that I just wasn't aware of I was still protecting my father's shame from that moment as a child this stuff takes decades I've been working on myself for 30 years I it just sometimes you're just not ready to see it but that's the value of continuing and so all of a sudden my YouTube channel is you know everything's getting seen because I'm facing more and more deeper layers of that carried shame giving myself permission to be seen as hurt damaged broken imperfect funny arrogant falsely empowered disempowered kind like all of it that's my goal is to try and live in every aspect of The Human Experience not good and perfect which is what I chose but to accept all the ways I'm not good and perfect all the ways I'm bad and rebellious other ways I'm perfectly imperfect okay so think back through that not the ways you know that we're simple controlling things but the philosophical ways that your parents molded you into what they wanted you to become to protect their own unhealed shame that's what you're experiencing in that moment you're looking for did you become the black sheep and the rebellious one or did you become good and perfect what did you do to appease your parents to keep them happy at the expense of your authentic self that's what you're experiencing when you have a shame attack which is imposter syndrome okay so how do you heal from all of this well I've created a download for you on my website just go to kennywise.net go to resources scroll down about halfway and you'll see codependence giving the pain back and it's a 10-step process I'm not getting this video it's too long I've done it in other videos where I've walked through this whole healing process I'm just going to give you the 10 steps step number one what am I feeling step number two where my body do I feel it step number three what's my first memory of having this feeling step number four what are the mantras the freezes I created to suppress repress minimize and condone to fit in the family system to drop my authentic self and become what my parents needed so I could create attachment the next step is grieve the sadness and the loss of your authentic self next step is Express empathy not only for yourself but for your parents and their perfect imperfections and the shame that they experienced that they didn't heal that's been passed on to you not because they're bad parents the because as a society we're just starting to teach about this stuff all right the next step is to hold them accountable and what that means is truth and responsibility and again I walk you through all of that in the download next step is anger work then you move on to self-forgiveness and it's self-forgiveness for the part we played how in that moment as a child just as children do we made a calculated decision based on immature knowledge and a lack of development of the brain and emotions and therefore we made a choice to suppress ourselves not because we were a bad kid but we had no other choice it was a survival Choice it was a beautiful incredibly gifted choice brilliant think of it my becoming good and perfect my client becoming bad and rebellious was a way to create attachment that is something to forgive yourself for not shame yourself for for how we played a part in it to fit into the family that's a survival technique that's nothing to be ashamed about final step number 10 is feelization this is where you learn how to shift that feeling out of Shame into self-forgiveness and self-love again that's a 10-step process that's on my website kennywise.net resources codependence recovery giving the pain back it's a free download that you can access and use so that you can navigate the carried shame that is creating your imposter syndrome