Imposter Syndrome: An Update

Two months ago, I blogged in this space about my struggles with imposter syndrome – the sense that you’re faking it and everyone else is more capable than you.

Two weeks ago, I attended a conference that was kind of eye-opening, and kind of healing.

It wasn’t a writing conference. It was a gathering for organizers of English and American folk dance, my other current passion. I’ve been doing contra dance for about five years now, but hadn’t been involved in organizing until last fall, when a volunteer friend talked me into taking the tiniest step: helping out with the Facebook page. Then this conference came up, a five-hour drive away, and he talked me into going to that too.

I took a lot of convincing – not because of the distance, but because of imposter syndrome. I’m not really an organizer, I said. I don’t know the issues, let alone the solutions. I don’t know what our local community has done in the past; I’m not even sure I know much about what we’re doing now.

My friend finally convinced me that I didn’t have to know everything to deserve to be at the table. So I went.

(It does not escape me that I’m female and he’s male, and he did not express one single doubt about his own level of experience or deservedness. Of course men experience imposter syndrome too, but they seem to be better at getting over it.)

And then things changed.

Before I even got to the conference, I volunteered to be one of the official note-takers. I’m an introvert; I’m good at taking notes. This was a way, I thought, that I could contribute even if I never once opened my mouth.

I was sitting in the first seminar of the weekend when I realized that I had an Opinion. I put up my hand and I said something. Out loud. In public. My friend was floored. So was I.

It kept happening. I kept having opinions and voicing them. I talked in small-group brainstorming sessions, in large-group workshops. I made new friends and went out to dinner with them. I talked to experienced organizers and to beginning organizers. We had two evening dances and there were way too many people I couldn’t wait to grab a dance with. And yes, I took tons of notes.

(A lot of the credit goes to the community and the people who organized the conference. There were no “insiders”. Everyone acted like equals, no matter how long they’d been involved in dance. Many of the presentations even paired a young organizer with an older one, fostering the feeling that we were – and are – all in this together.)

On the way home I was exhausted, but brimming with thoughts and ideas. My local dance group held a debriefing meeting the next week. I kept talking.

It’s now two weeks later. My life hasn’t changed; I don’t feel any different, really. I still have fears and hang-ups. I’m still an introvert, still shy, and yes, still subject to imposter feelings.

But…my sense of myself, of what I can do, of the value I can bring, has expanded.

I’m going to hold onto and remember that feeling. To take it back to my writing. To look for other ways to say yes.

Yes.