Expert on My Own Lived Experience

Imposter Syndrome Mantra: Expert on My Own Lived Experience

As I’m reading the book Hope in the Mail by Wendelin Van Draanen, the very first few chapters already touch on Imposter Syndrome. Imposter Syndrome refers to feeling of inadequacy, incompetency when comparing yourself to others, and I believe it is not a fair comparison given one’s own unique experience in life.

A doubt a writer often faces is authority. Who are you to be able to write about such topic? Why should people listen to you? What is special for people to listen to you? And honestly, there is no other person who can answer that aside from you!

As a wise person told me this a lot, YOU are the EXPERT of your LIVED EXPERIENCE! No one gets to define your own narratives but YOU! Brene Brown would urge you to ask the question “What is the story you’re telling yourself?”. I believe sometimes the story you’re telling yourself are not even of your own voices. Those doubts and seeds are sometimes fed to you unconsciously by your parents, by your community, by your societies.

Like how females are born to be a wife and a mother.

Like how engineering is not a field for females.

Like how love only comes in a certain shape and form - male/ female and monogamy.

We are the new generations that want our voice to be heard. We want our stories to be told the way we own our narratives. And sometimes, that process requires lifelong practices of addressing the lies and values that we previously believe in.

I’ve had so many doubts about what credentials I own to be able to advice people. But as I participate in many mentoring relationships, we are all here to feel connected, to be understood.

You do not have to be a female engineer to experience what it’s like to be left out.

You do not need to have a PhD to understand grief.

We are all connected to each other, because we all share the same capacity to feel love and want to receive love. At the end of the day, all we need is each other, to be able to survive in this crazy planet that we all call home.

So practice saying affirmations to yourself and believe you can do it. Because it is your own narrative, and you get to tell the story.

So, what story are you going to tell?