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You're Not A Fraud: Overcoming Imposter Syndrome · This Jungian Life Podcast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to This Jungian Life. Three good friends and Jungian analysts,
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Lisa Marciano, Deborah Stewart, and Joseph Lee, invite you to
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: join them for an intimate and honest conversation that brings
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: a psychological perspective to important issues of the day.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: I'm Lisa Marciano, and I'm a Jungian analyst in Philadelphia.
• 0:22
  Speaker 3: I'm Joseph Lee, and I'm a Jungian analyst in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
• 0:27
  Speaker 4: I'm Deborah Stewart, a Jungian analyst in Cape Cod.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: This week on the podcast, we wanted to talk about
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: imposter syndrome, which is a term that has gained currency
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: in the culture. Lots of people can relate to that term.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: And we've been kicking it around a little bit this morning.
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: And it's something that we have some experience with both
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: maybe personally, but also in terms of our clinical practice.
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: It was a term that was first coined by two psychologists,
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: Clance and Imes, two female psychologists in 1978. They wrote
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: a paper called The Imposter Phenomenon. And they noticed it
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: initially in these high achieving women. And then the term
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: kind of picked up steam a little bit in the
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: culture and became referred to as imposter phenomenon. But I
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: think it's worth pointing out that these two psychologists who
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: originated the term weren't so comfortable with calling it a
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: phenomenon because it makes it sound like it's something negative,
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: excuse me, calling it a syndrome, because it makes it
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: sound like it's something negative and also something permanent. We
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: are not sure that it's either, so we'll agree with
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: the kind of framing of it being a phenomenon. And
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: we're going to try to put it into a psychological
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: lens today.
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: And before we jump in to the imposter syndrome, I
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: just wanted to remind everybody that we have a Patreon
• 2:06
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• 2:13
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• 2:16
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• 2:19
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• 2:24
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• 2:31
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• 2:36
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• 2:43
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• 2:48
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• 2:53
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• 2:57
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• 3:01
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• 3:07
  Speaker 4: You know, I have a feeling that as we were discussing,
• 3:12
  Speaker 4: this is just part of being human, you know, that
• 3:16
  Speaker 4: all of us at times feel like we're inadequate, you know,
• 3:21
  Speaker 4: not really on our game, not quite measuring up. that
• 3:26
  Speaker 4: expression in the culture of fake it till you make it,
• 3:30
  Speaker 4: that we put our game face on, so to speak,
• 3:33
  Speaker 4: and charge into the fray to do what we have
• 3:37
  Speaker 4: to do, even when we're feeling a little shaky inside.
• 3:41
  Speaker 4: So I think it's a pretty universal feeling. It can
• 3:47
  Speaker 4: get to be a pretty constant or undergirding feeling for
• 3:53
  Speaker 4: a lot of people. And I think that's what we
• 3:55
  Speaker 4: mean by imposter syndrome, when it's kind of a constant.
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: I think, as you said, any of us can find
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: ourselves in a circumstance where we don't feel like we
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: know as much as we think we should know.
• 4:09
  Speaker 4: Exactly.
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: And in some ways, this is relevant to Jung and
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: his ideas, because our ego is situated on an inner landscape.
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: and it is in dialogue with various inner figures and
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: internal structures. Sometimes, on that inner landscape, we have idealized figures,
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: figures that seem supernaturally wise, and perhaps we've even projected
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: these onto our professors, onto our parents, onto our co-workers,
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: particularly if we're in an industry that we've longed to
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: take part in. You've been in medical school and you're
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: looking at the heads of the departments and they seem
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: just so extraordinary. These are also internal projections that we've carried.
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: Archetypes of the wise one, the artisan, any number of
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: those really extraordinarily skilled archetypal forces. And when the ego
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: compares itself, To any of these figures, it finds itself lacking, nervous, unsure, dishonest,
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: and less than. Although people who are actually evaluating our
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: work might say, you look great. You're doing exactly what
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: we hoped you would do. But there's this dance between
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: the ego and these other figures inside of us that
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: seems to interrupt our confidence.
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: I'm so glad that you brought that up, Joseph. I
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: think that's really just brilliant, that kind of bringing the
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: archetypal part here. Because I had a very similar thought.
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: You know, it's very common among doctors, imposter syndrome, apparently,
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: if you just do a little bit of research, very
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: common among doctors. And I thought, oh, of course, because
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: to become a physician, you have to be willing to
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: carry the projection of healer. step into your authority in
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: any field, you have to be willing to carry the
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: projection of expert or wise old man or wise old woman.
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: And that it's a big burden. It's a big burden
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: to carry a projection. And it is actually necessary in
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: some instances, like for example, when we're an expert, when
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: we're a CEO, when we're, you know, a film star,
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: when we're a doctor, that we are clothing ourselves with
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: a kind of archetypal cape. And you're right, the tension
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: between what our ego knows and the energies that we're
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: kind of calling down, that can be kind of crushing.
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: The interesting thing is that the alternative to feeling like
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: an imposter is to become identified with these archetypal energies.
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: And then you're dealing with inflation, which is dangerous enough
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: in its own way. So in some sense, Deb, I
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: agree with you. Maybe this is just part of being human.
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: And it could be that if it's held correctly, it's
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: more adaptive to doubt yourself than to identify with the
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: archetypal projection and think, well, yeah, I'm a great healer.
• 7:41
  Speaker 4: It's a really interesting tension that we're lifting up here
• 7:49
  Speaker 4: as if the choices are to really try to measure
• 7:53
  Speaker 4: up to some sort of archetypal ideal, which is impossible,
• 7:59
  Speaker 4: and as a consequence feel less than or inadequate, versus
• 8:05
  Speaker 4: sort of shrink back because we can't make it, of
• 8:09
  Speaker 4: where is that place where we can carry the projection,
• 8:14
  Speaker 4: if that is what is expected or needed, If that
• 8:17
  Speaker 4: is what people put on us, then so be it.
• 8:20
  Speaker 4: But not identify with it and simply accept our own humanity,
• 8:26
  Speaker 4: that I am a person doing my very best in
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  Speaker 4: whatever field of leadership or knowledge or expertise is required
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  Speaker 4: of me. I get the projection. I'm aware that I'm
• 8:41
  Speaker 4: only human. I do my best, and therefore that imposter
• 8:48
  Speaker 4: syndrome would recede.
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: You know, I think that there can also be a
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: similar kind of tension between the conscious personality and the
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: intimation of who we're meant to be and the destiny
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: that we're carrying. So I know, for example, I worked
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: with a young woman who was very talented and very
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: capable and had a lot of great capabilities. And she
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: felt so small and so incompetent. And I could really see,
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: you know, we kind of named this as this imposter
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: syndrome or imposter phenomenon. But I think that she was
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: experiencing this kind of crushing discrepancy between who she was
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: in the moment, which is a young woman who had
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: not yet finished college, and the kernel of her own destiny,
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: which is sort of born by our daimon or carried forward,
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: unfolded by the self in another way of thinking about it.
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: And that awareness of that discrepancy to feel, for example,
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: that you have the potential or maybe even the calling
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: to become, let's say, an artist, but to feel so
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: inadequate in terms of your development of that can engender
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: a feeling of imposter syndrome as well.
• 10:25
  Speaker 4: I'm thinking about, you know, these ideals, the archetypal ideal
• 10:32
  Speaker 4: of what I should know to be perfect. And if
• 10:37
  Speaker 4: we're measuring ourselves against an external standard, you know, what
• 10:42
  Speaker 4: does it take to get ourselves like this for this
• 10:45
  Speaker 4: young woman to say, you know, I'm, I'm enough. I
• 10:49
  Speaker 4: can be an artist today and next week. And in
• 10:54
  Speaker 4: 10 years, I'll be, you know, no doubt more of
• 10:58
  Speaker 4: an artist because we learn and grow. But that place
• 11:01
  Speaker 4: of self-acceptance that who I am today is okay. And
• 11:07
  Speaker 4: I'm not measuring myself against some sort of ideal of
• 11:13
  Speaker 4: perfection or stellar kinds of qualities. What does it take
• 11:20
  Speaker 4: to get to that place of who I am and
• 11:23
  Speaker 4: how I am is adequate. It's good enough. And I
• 11:28
  Speaker 4: think it's an internal measure of I love to do art.
• 11:32
  Speaker 4: I love to draw or paint or whatever it is.
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  Speaker 4: And that's what I bring to it is myself rather
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  Speaker 4: than what other people will deem worthy.
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  Speaker 3: But I think that imposter syndrome is inherently Between the
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: individual and the environment. Instead of, as you'll often say, Deb,
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: between myself and myself. So while somebody might feel a
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: great love of making art alone and for themselves and
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  Speaker 3: as an expression of an inner image, as soon as
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  Speaker 3: that art is subject to other people's scrutiny, then it
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  Speaker 3: sets off a whole other imaginal process in the artist
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  Speaker 3: or in the physician or in the psychoanalyst for that
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  Speaker 3: matter and it has so much to do with historically
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  Speaker 3: how we've been given feedback our sense of ourselves and
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  Speaker 3: whether or not I think our identity is clear and
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: known to ourselves and I think actually our capacities as
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: well so When I think about the many different ways
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  Speaker 3: in which parents, for instance, communicate their expectations to children,
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: because we do want our kids to achieve a potential,
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: we do want to give them an accurate feedback process.
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  Speaker 3: We hope that the institutions, the schools and training that
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: they receive actually provide information for them to know how
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: well or not they're doing. That can become internalized and
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: also move into a kind of alliance with our survival dynamics.
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  Speaker 3: So for instance, if we have a kid that doesn't
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: do well on a math test, and they're horrified, horrified
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  Speaker 3: to come home and have a parent see that they
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: got a D on the test, and that the consequences
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  Speaker 3: for the child feel catastrophic. That will inherently ignite several
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: defenses in the child. One is the trickster. How can
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: we hide a lack of competency to avoid an ego-annihilating reaction? Now,
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: that might happen just by making your report card disappear miraculously.
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: I've had plenty of friends do that. Or meticulously erasing
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: and carefully pixelating the D into a B on the
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: report card.
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  Speaker 4: Joseph, do you have experience with this?
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: I was too terrified of my parents to get caught
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: doing that.
• 14:34
  Speaker 4: Oh, to get caught.
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: There was much dialogue about how we might handle that.
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: But when we feel like the environment is putting us
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: at risk because of our struggle to achieve and grow,
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: then we do have to, in a sense, become imposters.
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: We do have to shroud ourselves. We have to pretend
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: that we have more than we may feel like we
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: have just in order to be safe. Now, we might
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: outgrow that situation and find that in college, we're amazing.
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: We understand everything. We're kind of acing all the tests.
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: But we can still have that child inside that fears
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: that if somebody were to look deeply enough, they would
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: find out that we're just skating the surface, that we're
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: just making shit up and hoping that nobody sees it
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: so that we can get the grade, get the position.
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: So I think family expectations can really influence this to
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: some degree.
• 15:42
  Speaker 4: So I wonder if you're talking about shame. of the
• 15:47
  Speaker 4: kid who would be, to use your example, who'd be
• 15:50
  Speaker 4: shamed to bring home a bad grade on a test
• 15:54
  Speaker 4: or a report card, an internalized sense of inadequacy that
• 16:00
  Speaker 4: then gets carried over to how others in the external
• 16:06
  Speaker 4: world evaluate him or her.
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: Could be shame, although I think if we listen to
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: some of our clients, it wasn't just shame that happened
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: to them if they disappointed their parents. Sometimes it was
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: more frightening than that. A good talking to or being
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: embarrassed definitely can create a sense that one wants to
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: hide or misrepresent one's growing edge.
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: You know, you've both been talking about this negotiation between
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: the person and the outer world, but I want to
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: go back for a second to a different version. And perhaps,
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think this is really interesting where we
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: are right now because I think we're or perhaps describing
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: kind of different kinds of imposter syndrome, if we're going
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: to use that word, or imposter phenomenon based upon maybe
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: a different etiology. Because I can absolutely see what you're describing, Joseph,
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: and I've seen that in my clinical practice. And I
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: also want to see if I can kind of go
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: back and elucidate a little bit further on this idea
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: about a discrepancy between who we experience ourselves now and
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: who we know on a deep level we might become
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: and how that discrepancy can bring up feelings of inadequacy
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: and imposter. And so maybe I'll just offer a couple
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: of personal examples. So I remember when I was working
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: for the relief agency in Croatia, we had this Evening,
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: we're in some fairly high-ranking officials from a UN agency
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: came into town, and myself and a colleague took them
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: out to dinner. And I was a little bit in
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: awe of this person because he was sort of a
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: mucky muck.
• 17:57
  Speaker 5: Mm-hmm.
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: And I probably had like one too many glasses of
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: wine at that dinner, and my tongue got a little loose,
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: and I was talking to him. I don't even remember
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: about what.
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: But I was talking to him something about the situation
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: or something. And I was sort of in the moment
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: could feel myself becoming more and more ashamed that I
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: said so much and allowed myself to kind of engage
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: this person sort of as an equal. And by the
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: end of the evening, I just felt like I was,
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: you know, a slime mold on the bottom of somebody's shoe.
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: And I remember kind of talking with my colleague and
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: I was like, oh, my God, I'm so I just,
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: you know, I just so ashamed. She's like, why? You
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: were amazing. And he really enjoyed talking to you. And
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: I just couldn't even take that in. And another maybe
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: more pointed example is when when I applied for analytic training.
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: So I had to go through a whole process here
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: in Philadelphia with the Philadelphia seminar. And then the final
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: interview was out in Boulder. And I got to the
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: Denver airport, you know, probably like my flight landed at
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: like 11 o'clock at night. And then I had to
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: take the shuttle to Boulder. And I still remember the hotel.
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: The shuttle drops me off. It's late at night. I
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: go in and I see signs for, you know, the
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: Interregional Society of Union Analysts. And my stomach just dropped.
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: I was like, what am I doing here? Who do
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: I think I am? And I just thought if I
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: had been able to just turn around and leave at
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: that moment, I think I would have. I was like,
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: I have made a huge mistake. I don't belong here.
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: And I think that that's a form of imposter syndrome.
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: There this like rub between like, you know, who I
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: am in the moment and my, my inborn sense of
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: destiny that, you know, maybe I could do this, but
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: I feel so, I feel such deep humility as I
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: approach this and I'm not sure I'm up to the task.
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: You know, there's a couple of, um, There's a couple
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: of fairy tale motifs that I think are relevant here.
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: First of all, the issue with imposter syndrome, I think,
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: is not that we feel it, but that it stops
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: us from doing something. So it's sort of like when
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: you feel it, feel it, acknowledge it, and then keep going.
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: And this brings to mind all of these fairy tales,
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: a motif in fairy tales is sort of the unlikely hero.
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: So I'm thinking of the fairy tale, The Little Tailor.
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: who is sewing away and he kills seven flies with
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: one swat. And he's so proud of himself. He makes
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: himself a sign that says, you know, I killed seven
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: at one blow. And he later winds up in a
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: contest with a giant, you know, so he's just a
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: lowly tailor, but he, you know, sort of David and
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: Goliath fashion is willing to put himself forward in spite
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: of the fact that he seems to be very humble.
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: The other thing, motif that comes up for me is
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: the motif that I would call the humble gift. So
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: the best known one is the little drummer boy that
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: we know from the Christmas special. But it's like, as
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: you approach the Holy of Holies, what do you have
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: to offer? The little drummer boy just had his drumming ability.
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: But of course, that was received by the Christ child.
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: So as we approach our destiny, we may feel like
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: we have very little to offer, but if we, if
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: we move toward it and sort of with an open
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: heart and with good faith, we often find that our
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: gifts are received and then we can over time internalize
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: our achievements to the point where this doesn't hold us
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: back as much.
• 21:57
  Speaker 4: You know, I'm thinking about my experience when I, had
• 22:04
  Speaker 4: gotten through a school of social work and I'm on
• 22:08
  Speaker 4: my internship and I'm about to meet my first client.
• 22:13
  Speaker 4: And all I could think about was, I have no
• 22:17
  Speaker 4: idea what I'm doing. I don't know what I can
• 22:20
  Speaker 4: offer any of these people. I don't know how to
• 22:24
  Speaker 4: do this. And there was a certain sense of I
• 22:29
  Speaker 4: think the standard of perfection or an ideal is that
• 22:33
  Speaker 4: somehow I will be able to, you know, create the
• 22:37
  Speaker 4: miracle of healing or some such thing. But what I
• 22:41
  Speaker 4: did that is akin to your image of the little
• 22:44
  Speaker 4: drummer boy is I had an internal image of, you know,
• 22:49
  Speaker 4: that I would be serving food and I wish I
• 22:53
  Speaker 4: was Julia Child. I wish I could make you know,
• 22:58
  Speaker 4: gourmet French cooking and this client who comes in, I
• 23:01
  Speaker 4: could serve the most fabulous food. And I thought, but
• 23:06
  Speaker 4: you know what I do have to offer? A sandwich.
• 23:11
  Speaker 4: I have the ingredients for a ham and cheese sandwich,
• 23:15
  Speaker 4: a pickle, some chips.
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: And you're going to serve the best sandwich you can serve.
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 23:20
  Speaker 4: And that is what I have to offer. And it
• 23:26
  Speaker 4: It is lifting up this motif that I think you
• 23:31
  Speaker 4: were onto, Lisa, of the humility. I will do my best,
• 23:38
  Speaker 4: not against some elevated standard, but I will do my
• 23:42
  Speaker 4: best to be here and to be present and to
• 23:45
  Speaker 4: offer what I have to offer. And what's astonishing, of course,
• 23:51
  Speaker 4: is that that is enough. And ultimately, that's all we
• 23:56
  Speaker 4: really do have is what we have. I'm also thinking
• 24:00
  Speaker 4: about what does it take to get to that point
• 24:04
  Speaker 4: of that in some basic sense, I'm okay.
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: Right, because I mean, to restate what I said before,
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: this isn't a problem when you feel it. It's a
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: problem when it stops you from doing things.
• 24:16
  Speaker 4: Exactly. But what I'm thinking about along the fairy tale motif,
• 24:22
  Speaker 4: our modern American fairy tale, Of the Wizard of Oz.
• 24:26
  Speaker 4: And the wizard with all his sound and light and
• 24:31
  Speaker 4: the great Oz and the magical kingdom of Oz actually
• 24:34
  Speaker 4: is an imposter. And Dorothy's sidekicks, you know, the scarecrow
• 24:41
  Speaker 4: and the tin man. The scarecrow doesn't have a brain,
• 24:44
  Speaker 4: but of course he actually does have a brain. And
• 24:48
  Speaker 4: the tin man doesn't have a heart, but he's very
• 24:53
  Speaker 4: empathic and loving. But they are great examples of imposter
• 24:58
  Speaker 4: syndrome where you really do have the right stuff, but
• 25:02
  Speaker 4: they didn't know it until the end after going through
• 25:05
  Speaker 4: all the trials and travails. And the Tin Man is
• 25:09
  Speaker 4: presented with a heart and the Scarecrow gets a diploma
• 25:14
  Speaker 4: signifying his brain. What does it take to get to
• 25:19
  Speaker 4: that point that you had it all along?
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: But you didn't know it. Yes, you did. You had
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: it all along.
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: And I think that brings us back to the original meaning,
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: I think, of the imposter syndrome, that they were studying
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: people that really had been recognized for their professional excellence.
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: They had displayed the academic achievement, whether it's through degrees
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: or standardized testing or through attaining a particular position in
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: an organization. So these are not people who were just
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: starting out and wondering at their first session if they
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: had been trained adequately, but consistently demonstrated expertise over and
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: over again. And I think that goes to the Wizard
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: of Oz analogy, Deb, really nicely, that despite the demonstration
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: of courage, the demonstration of wisdom, the demonstration of love
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: in the three characters, they lacked an internal acknowledgement of
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: their accomplishments. And that's where the Wizard of Oz has
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: a kind of uncanny trickster wisdom that the acknowledgement and
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: the skill needed a bridging symbol.
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: Ooh, that's great.
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: And so the ticking heart clock is the symbol that
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: bridges the true demonstration of love with the internal acknowledgement
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: that the diploma or testimonial bridges the scarecrow's actual knowledge
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: with their capacity to acknowledge it. And there is something
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: about that. And maybe that's why we do have graduation
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: ceremonies and diplomas.
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: And other ways of.
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: To link the worlds together.
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: That's great.
• 27:27
  Speaker 4: I like that a lot. And that's straight out of Jung,
• 27:32
  Speaker 4: isn't it? That only the symbol heals. And also, I
• 27:38
  Speaker 4: think with the Wizard of Oz or the diploma, you've
• 27:43
  Speaker 4: gone through some number of years of study. You've done
• 27:46
  Speaker 4: the work. The characters in The Wizard of Oz go
• 27:49
  Speaker 4: down the yellow brick road and go through all the
• 27:52
  Speaker 4: adventures that they have. So there is some kind of
• 27:56
  Speaker 4: a process that the ego engages in to meet the world.
• 28:01
  Speaker 4: You know, Lisa, you know, obviously, you went through the
• 28:05
  Speaker 4: interviews at Interregional, you know, and I met my first clients,
• 28:11
  Speaker 4: and so it goes with all of us, is that
• 28:14
  Speaker 4: we do the thing. And then the symbol appears and
• 28:20
  Speaker 4: has meaning. You can't award a diploma to somebody who's
• 28:24
  Speaker 4: a freshman. There is some way that ego does its part,
• 28:30
  Speaker 4: and then, as you said, Joseph, that bridging symbol appears
• 28:36
  Speaker 4: and has meaning.
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Joseph, I love that phrase. It links the worlds,
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: which is really great. When I was doing my prep
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: for this episode, came across this concept that people with
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: imposter syndrome have not been able to internalize their achievements,
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: which I think is kind of a great way to
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: think about it. And like you're saying, symbols can help
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: us do that. And also, it's a ritual, right? When
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: we have graduation ceremonies, that's a ritual. Even in the
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: Wizard of Oz, this is kind of a ceremony where
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: they each get their tokens, you know? So the way
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: that that kind of speaks to the unconscious is a
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: ritual and can help us, uh, kind of break through
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: that barrier to internalize our achievements. And of course it's
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: interesting to think about what keeps us from internalizing achievements.
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: We could have a long conversation about that. That could
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: be a lot of sort of, nurture stuff, family of
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: origin issues. I do want to say that, you know,
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: there is a negativity bias, right? The human brain is
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: kind of wired to pay more attention to negativity. So,
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: friends I have who are in the theater, you know,
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: they're very careful about reading negative reviews because you could
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: read five positive reviews and one negative one and your
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: brain's going to kind of simmer around the negative one.
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: So you have to sometimes take action to combat that.
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: And I remember years ago, someone gave me some advice
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: that I practiced for a little while. The person said,
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: get yourself a notebook and in it, write down every
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: positive thing that someone says to you. You know, so
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: when someone says, wow, you, you know, that was a
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: really great job. I really enjoyed, you know, that presentation
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: that you gave, write that down. when a client says,
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: thank you so much, you've really helped me, write that down.
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: So that you're kind of curating the positive feedback, not
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: superficial feedback. I mean, this is different than garnering likes
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: on a social media post, but really heartfelt, substantive, nice
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: things that people say, compliments that people give you or
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: positive feedback so that you're kind of compensating for the
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: brain's natural proclivity to focus on, on the negative. And,
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: and I, you know, I do think that that can
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: be helpful in internalizing achievements. You can sort of go
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: back to it and say, well, yes, there's this, you know, I,
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: I may not be perfect, but there, but there's this, look,
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: look at this list I have, whether you actually do
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: that or you sort of metaphorically do that.
• 31:19
  Speaker 4: I think there's a huge value to doing something like that. And, and,
• 31:25
  Speaker 4: basically just using one's own cognition, one's own frontal cortex
• 31:33
  Speaker 4: to acquire data, objective, real-world data, and that then we
• 31:40
  Speaker 4: can think about how we think. I'm like, oh, gee whiz,
• 31:44
  Speaker 4: I'm not feeling confident. I'm feeling inadequate. I feel like
• 31:48
  Speaker 4: an imposter on this job. And, well, look at my
• 31:52
  Speaker 4: notebook where I have, 23 positive comments from people in
• 31:58
  Speaker 4: the past week. So that helps us, just from an
• 32:02
  Speaker 4: ego perspective, take a more objective stance, step back, go,
• 32:08
  Speaker 4: oh my gosh, there's a mismatch between how I'm feeling,
• 32:12
  Speaker 4: which is not okay, and what people are actually telling me,
• 32:18
  Speaker 4: which is positive. And that that can be a step forward.
• 32:22
  Speaker 4: along the path like the Tin Man or the Scarecrow
• 32:27
  Speaker 4: to internalizing, maybe I really do have a brain and
• 32:32
  Speaker 4: I do have a heart.
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: You know, the sequel to the story about my arrival
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: for that interview is that I did get in. Yes,
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: you did. And then after I heard that I got in,
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: I became convinced that that was a mistake. They had
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: told me that I was in error. And it wasn't
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: until they asked me to take out my checkbook and
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: write them a check that I thought maybe I really
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: got in. Oh, that's really funny.
• 33:03
  Speaker 4: But I remember that too. The ritual of the checkbook
• 33:06
  Speaker 4: comes right up and then you know for sure it's real.
• 33:10
  Speaker 4: Once it turns into a monetary transaction.
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: Then we're suddenly in a different world.
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: I'd like to bring up another complicated question. dimension of
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: imposter syndrome that just really comes out of the research
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: which I'm still trying to sort through that individuals with
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: imposter syndrome often have feelings of guilt which then show
• 33:39
  Speaker 3: up as a fear of success and some of the
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: ways that the guilt shows up but they don't necessarily
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: go into why the guilt is there which is one
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: of the things that I think we can try to
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: take hold of. When the guilt is under the imposter syndrome,
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: it shows up like, I received a really good education,
• 34:04
  Speaker 3: but other people didn't have that opportunity, and therefore I
• 34:07
  Speaker 3: feel very guilty and an imposter. Being publicly acknowledged by
• 34:14
  Speaker 3: others for the success can induce feelings of guilt. feeling
• 34:22
  Speaker 3: that it's not right or fair to be in a
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: better situation than a friend or a loved one can
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: evoke guilt. And then interestingly, the way one has been
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: titled as a child, being the kid in the family
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: who's always the smart one. Oh, you know, Lisa, she's
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: the smart one. or the talented one, or the responsible one,
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: or the sensitive one, or the good one, or the favorite,
• 34:59
  Speaker 3: that being given a certain kind of exalted title in
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: the family system creates very complicated isolation from others. It
• 35:13
  Speaker 3: may be rightly said, maybe one of the kids really
• 35:17
  Speaker 3: does have an extraordinary talent. really does have a higher IQ,
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: but having that announced in the family system and the
• 35:29
  Speaker 3: tension that that creates in the family is then projected
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: later in life onto the work situation and onto the
• 35:39
  Speaker 3: adult social situation, that there's a cost that children bear
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: for being singled out even for their gifts. So I'm
• 35:51
  Speaker 3: curious about this idea of guilt that makes people feel
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: like they must be an imposter.
• 36:00
  Speaker 4: Well, I think there really is something, and there's something
• 36:05
  Speaker 4: in the reading that I did to bone up on
• 36:08
  Speaker 4: this about wanting to feel special. And if that has
• 36:14
  Speaker 4: been conferred upon you, and I think all parents have
• 36:18
  Speaker 4: a tendency to sort of assign roles or assign characteristics
• 36:23
  Speaker 4: to kids. This one is the athletic one, and that
• 36:28
  Speaker 4: one is the friendly, social one. She's always out having
• 36:31
  Speaker 4: a good time. That we want those paths on the
• 36:36
  Speaker 4: head from parents, from teachers, from our peers. And we
• 36:43
  Speaker 4: tend to take in, you know, that, oh, this is
• 36:46
  Speaker 4: my specialty here. This is what I'm good at. Before
• 36:54
  Speaker 4: we've really grown up enough to reflect and think about,
• 36:57
  Speaker 4: wait a minute, you know, is this really right? And
• 37:02
  Speaker 4: then I'm thinking about, you know, what you were talking about, Joseph,
• 37:06
  Speaker 4: of guilt. And I'm wondering if some of it is
• 37:10
  Speaker 4: related to survivor guilt, that I was pronounced the talented one,
• 37:16
  Speaker 4: the good one, the special one, the whatever. I was
• 37:21
  Speaker 4: the one that got to go to the special lessons,
• 37:24
  Speaker 4: or just by luck of the draw, I got a
• 37:28
  Speaker 4: scholarship to XYZ University, and maybe my siblings didn't.
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: I got out.
• 37:37
  Speaker 4: I got out, and I got ahead, and did I really, quote, deserve, unquote, it?
• 37:45
  Speaker 4: It's a little shaky there, the foundation of maybe... I
• 37:49
  Speaker 4: don't feel like I really earned it, especially if siblings
• 37:54
  Speaker 4: or others from one's hometown didn't have the same opportunities,
• 38:00
  Speaker 4: weren't as lucky, didn't have the same resources. You know
• 38:07
  Speaker 4: that knowing that we're all human, and then how do
• 38:12
  Speaker 4: we reconcile ourselves with different qualities of privilege and different inequities.
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: That's where I was going as we were talking, because
• 38:23
  Speaker 3: the word privilege is just a firestorm word in the
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: culture right now. And it's a very complicated idea that
• 38:36
  Speaker 3: to ask any number of people to assess privilege various
• 38:43
  Speaker 3: privileges that they may have had access to and other
• 38:48
  Speaker 3: people may have not does it then mean that their
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: achievements are invalid that they are fraudulent because of benefits
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: that they accrued because they could afford or could access
• 39:04
  Speaker 3: a very high level of education and I think that
• 39:09
  Speaker 3: accusation based on this research will foster a greater sense
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: of being an imposter not deserving to exist in the
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: realm of achievements that one has legitimately attained because somehow
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: it's been deemed illegitimate by virtue of the access by
• 39:36
  Speaker 3: virtue of the idea that only a small number of
• 39:39
  Speaker 3: people were able to be afforded the opportunity it creates
• 39:44
  Speaker 3: a tremendous Gordian knot there's It doesn't feel like there's
• 39:50
  Speaker 3: any way to escape that tension, at least in the
• 39:56
  Speaker 3: culture at the moment. And seeing the cultural backlash against
• 40:01
  Speaker 3: that as the shadow of the accusation of privilege makes
• 40:08
  Speaker 3: people feel that they want to defend against being turned
• 40:12
  Speaker 3: into an imposter by virtue of the privilege. It's an enormous...
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: complicated dynamic on so many different levels.
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: You know what comes up for me about this? When
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: I was thinking about this topic, the image that came
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: to my mind was a cat's whiskers. Now, I might
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: have this wrong. I don't pretend to be an expert
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: on cat physiology. But I remember learning at one point,
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: this may just be an old wives' tale, but I
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: just want it for a metaphor. So bear with me
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: if I get this wrong. that the cat's whiskers help
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: it know what space it can go into or not,
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: and that the whiskers are about as wide as the cat.
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: So it seems like there is this problem that human
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: beings have where we have to be able to assess
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: ourselves somewhat realistically. If we overestimate our abilities, we could,
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: I mean, sometimes that works really well for people, right?
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: That can kind of go along with narcissism and that
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: can often actually be engender a certain kind of success,
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: but it also can get you into hot water. If
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: you overestimate your abilities, you could wind up up on
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: the high wire with no net. If you underestimate your abilities,
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: that comes with a different kind of peril. And I
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: think obviously with imposter syndrome, that's what we're talking about.
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: We're talking about kind of underestimating ourselves. The cat's whiskers
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: apparently are exactly the right width to let the cat know,
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: I can go in this space and not get stuck.
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: So we all need to kind of have our whiskers.
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: If we're not able to kind of correctly assess ourselves,
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: because Joseph, of what you're talking about, that the something,
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: maybe the culture has encouraged us to disown ourselves from
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: our accomplishments in a way. I'm going to go back
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: to the Wizard of Oz, because one of the things
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: that happens with Dorothy is that she really has a
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: the first thing that happens is she lands in Oz
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: and everyone's like, oh my gosh, you're a really powerful witch.
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: And she's like, I'm not a witch. I'm just a
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: good little girl from Kansas. But she is really powerful
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: and she hasn't been able to reconcile herself to that power.
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: It physically exhibits itself by the ruby slippers. So it's
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: You know, it's so brilliant, that film, because here she is,
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: she's got pigtails, she's got this gingham dress, and then
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: these ruby slippers that look very incongruous with this very
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: kind of homespun look that she has. But really, it's
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: a perfect metaphor for her psychological situation, because she is
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: identified with the homespun. She thinks, I'm just a good
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: little girl from Kansas. She can't claim her power that
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: is symbolized by the ruby slippers and so she keeps
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: on you know trying to give them away the witch
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: wants them she's like oh here here take them you
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: know um and it's only at the end she's had
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: them all along but it's only at the end that
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: she understands their power but the thing is that when
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: we when we disown ourselves from our abilities we can
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: become the object of others envy and also uh they
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: can um They can manipulate us and they can take
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: advantage of us. Just like the witch kind of knows
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: that Dorothy doesn't understand the power of the shoes, the
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: Wicked Witch of the West. And she follows Dorothy all
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: around Oz trying to get the shoes off of her
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: because she thinks that Dorothy's going to be an easy
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: one to predate, as it were. And Deb, I know
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: you were raising this earlier.
• 43:51
  Speaker 4: You raised such an important point. that it does not
• 43:56
  Speaker 4: serve anyone to underestimate who you are, what you have,
• 44:03
  Speaker 4: and to be fully present for yourself in the world.
• 44:07
  Speaker 4: Because other people, like the witch and the Wizard of Oz,
• 44:11
  Speaker 4: recognize full well that Dorothy has the ruby slippers and
• 44:16
  Speaker 4: has the power and is out to get her. Other
• 44:21
  Speaker 4: people get it. and can manipulate and use and abuse you.
• 44:27
  Speaker 4: And I'm remembering way, way back when, in the years
• 44:32
  Speaker 4: that I was a special ed teacher and wanting to
• 44:37
  Speaker 4: be part of a team and wanting to do well
• 44:40
  Speaker 4: and so on and so forth, I got assigned a
• 44:43
  Speaker 4: lot of tasks that were extra by various people in
• 44:48
  Speaker 4: the school system. And that work was used by others
• 44:56
  Speaker 4: happily and to their great benefit.
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: And without credit.
• 45:02
  Speaker 4: I didn't know and wasn't able to acknowledge that I
• 45:08
  Speaker 4: was doing more and that I really had worth and
• 45:11
  Speaker 4: that I did belong, et cetera, et cetera. So it's
• 45:14
  Speaker 4: quite a task that we all have of how not
• 45:20
  Speaker 4: to overestimate posture, be inflated, arrogant, and domineering, and how
• 45:29
  Speaker 4: not to underestimate and put ourselves down or to be
• 45:34
  Speaker 4: afraid to enter the fray. I love your story, Lisa,
• 45:38
  Speaker 4: about interviewing at Interregional of, it's scary as hell and
• 45:44
  Speaker 4: I'm doing it anyway. I wonder if what we're circling
• 45:50
  Speaker 4: around or at least I'm circling around is do the work,
• 45:55
  Speaker 4: just do the work, go to the interview, see those
• 45:58
  Speaker 4: first clients, you know, for Dorothy, just keep going down
• 46:03
  Speaker 4: that yellow brick road, feel the feelings, feel the fear,
• 46:07
  Speaker 4: feel your inadequacy and do it anyway. Just keep going
• 46:12
  Speaker 4: and keep doing it because somehow the experience is of
• 46:18
  Speaker 4: confronting the tests, the challenges, et cetera, have a tendency
• 46:25
  Speaker 4: to accrue in the psyche. And then what you were
• 46:29
  Speaker 4: talking about, Joseph, the symbol, the linking symbol will appear.
• 46:35
  Speaker 3: Another dimension that I think we're moving through is attribution style,
• 46:42
  Speaker 3: which taps into the several things that each of you
• 46:46
  Speaker 3: was speaking to. that if we do not have a
• 46:52
  Speaker 3: correct attribution for our skills, that makes us feel that
• 46:59
  Speaker 3: they are invalid. And this is a problem that particularly
• 47:04
  Speaker 3: American culture, I think, needs to confront substantially. In our culture,
• 47:10
  Speaker 3: and I've said this on a number of podcasts, we
• 47:13
  Speaker 3: are so concerned with protecting and inflating the self-esteem of
• 47:18
  Speaker 3: our children, that we often do not attribute their successes
• 47:25
  Speaker 3: to the factors that allowed that to happen. And then therefore,
• 47:31
  Speaker 3: children are often left not knowing why they've achieved a
• 47:36
  Speaker 3: certain status or even if they deserve it. So later
• 47:40
  Speaker 3: on in life, when somebody is really talented, and achieving well,
• 47:48
  Speaker 3: those who suffer from imposter syndrome will often attribute it
• 47:53
  Speaker 3: to luck and not to the fact that they attained
• 47:56
  Speaker 3: three high-level degrees.
• 47:57
  Speaker 6: Or they'll attribute it to the fact that they were
• 48:01
  Speaker 6: able to get some people to like them and give
• 48:05
  Speaker 6: them a shot instead of the fact that they had
• 48:07
  Speaker 6: 15 years of high-level experience.
• 48:11
  Speaker 3: And particularly this trait of where people will feel that
• 48:16
  Speaker 3: they charmed themselves into a position, will often have them
• 48:22
  Speaker 3: leaving or left with this terrible feeling that they are
• 48:28
  Speaker 3: going to be found out and that something awful and
• 48:32
  Speaker 3: shameful is going to occur. So, a wonderful thing that
• 48:36
  Speaker 3: we can do for our children, but also do for ourselves,
• 48:41
  Speaker 3: is to look at either our Successes or failures, as
• 48:46
  Speaker 3: you were saying, and correctly attribute them to our own
• 48:51
  Speaker 3: action or lack of action. And this goes to the
• 48:54
  Speaker 3: reality principle and to simply negotiating with reality. I've somehow,
• 49:02
  Speaker 3: through nepotism, wound up in a position. I don't have
• 49:06
  Speaker 3: the right training. I've never done it before. And I
• 49:09
  Speaker 3: don't have a degree and I'm flying by the seat
• 49:11
  Speaker 3: of my pants. I might feel like an imposter, that
• 49:16
  Speaker 3: this is a trickster situation and the facts are supernatural.
• 49:20
  Speaker 3: that I either am going to find an incredible capacity
• 49:25
  Speaker 3: to learn at lightning speed, to collaborate and get what
• 49:30
  Speaker 3: needs to be done, even though it's brand new to me.
• 49:34
  Speaker 3: I mean, that's one way I suppose we could find
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: ourselves in a situation. but also to talk to ourselves accurately.
• 49:43
  Speaker 3: This is why these things occurred. It's not crazy. It's
• 49:48
  Speaker 3: not magical. It's not anyone giving us a favor. We
• 49:54
  Speaker 3: weren't like walking through the forest and tripped into a
• 49:57
  Speaker 3: hole under a bunch of leaves and we found ourselves
• 50:00
  Speaker 3: the CEO of a Fortune 500 company at the bottom
• 50:04
  Speaker 3: of the pit. You skillfully worked really hard and navigated
• 50:11
  Speaker 3: very complicated situations. And it's up to us to narrate
• 50:18
  Speaker 3: our own story accurately.
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: I want to just build on that for one second,
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: just to bring back in the point that you made
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: about guilt. Because if you didn't trip into being the
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: CEO of a Fortune 500 company, but you probably were
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: lucky along the way too.
• 50:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: And you worked hard, you had skills, you know, and
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: luck is in every situation, right? Sometimes we're lucky, sometimes
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: we're unlucky. This belief that that invalidates our success is
• 50:54
  Speaker 2: not really rational.
• 50:56
  Speaker 4: There are those elements of chance. And I wonder about that,
• 51:03
  Speaker 4: and I'm linking it with what you were talking about before, Joseph,
• 51:06
  Speaker 4: around privilege. It's a part of life. Some things fall
• 51:12
  Speaker 4: our way and some things don't. And then there is
• 51:17
  Speaker 4: also the reality principle of what you were talking about, Lisa,
• 51:22
  Speaker 4: of a notebook. Write the data down. Step back for
• 51:26
  Speaker 4: a second. Did I just trip into this? No, I
• 51:29
  Speaker 4: worked hard and I have these educational experiences. I have
• 51:35
  Speaker 4: this kind of work experience. this and that and the other,
• 51:38
  Speaker 4: so that there is an objective assessment between what you
• 51:45
  Speaker 4: actually have done and have learned and have experienced and
• 51:50
  Speaker 4: can bring. And if there's a difference between that and
• 51:54
  Speaker 4: how you feel, so be it. But there is a
• 51:58
  Speaker 4: way to accurately or fairly accurately assess using the reality principle.
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: You know, Jung said at one point that hard work
• 52:09
  Speaker 2: propitiates the unconscious. And I think that's really brilliant because,
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: and it goes to the stuff that we're talking about
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: and specifically that you were bringing up, Joseph, is that
• 52:20
  Speaker 2: if we feel like, oh, we're just lucky, we just
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: lucked into this, it's almost like the unconscious kind of
• 52:28
  Speaker 2: works against us. But if we do the work, if
• 52:32
  Speaker 2: we just do the work, then the unconscious kind of
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: becomes our friend.
• 52:38
  Speaker 4: Exactly. And I think that's a theme that we have
• 52:42
  Speaker 4: touched on in a number of ways in this conversation.
• 52:47
  Speaker 4: Just keep going and keep doing the work. It does
• 52:51
  Speaker 4: propitiate the unconscious. I'm thinking about the flip side, too,
• 52:57
  Speaker 4: for positive feedback. And that there's also seems to be
• 53:04
  Speaker 4: a movement afoot that a couple of people have related
• 53:07
  Speaker 4: of children being told that everybody gets an award. Everybody
• 53:14
  Speaker 4: gets a special thing. There are graduations now for graduating
• 53:20
  Speaker 4: from fifth grade and graduating from eighth grade and so on.
• 53:25
  Speaker 4: That I wonder if it feels to kids like simply
• 53:29
  Speaker 4: being there is enough. Or what are we really getting
• 53:33
  Speaker 4: an award for? A sports team where everybody gets an
• 53:39
  Speaker 4: award for having participated. And I wonder if that takes
• 53:43
  Speaker 4: kids away from being able to do the reality principle
• 53:47
  Speaker 4: of this is what I actually did. And I was
• 53:51
  Speaker 4: on the little league team and we didn't even make
• 53:55
  Speaker 4: the quarterfinals. And that's just the way it is. Or,
• 54:00
  Speaker 4: you know, everybody just, leaves fifth grade and goes on
• 54:04
  Speaker 4: to middle school versus I really achieved something. I did
• 54:08
  Speaker 4: the work. I put myself out. I was willing to
• 54:12
  Speaker 4: enter the fray, win or lose. It muddies that ability
• 54:19
  Speaker 4: to really know what I have done versus other people
• 54:25
  Speaker 4: telling me, congratulations, you graduated from fifth grade.
• 54:31
  Speaker 3: There is some additional research that a number of researchers
• 54:35
  Speaker 3: have extended from the initial 1978 studies and expanded it
• 54:41
  Speaker 3: and refined it and brought it into other categories that
• 54:44
  Speaker 3: might just be briefly interesting for us to touch on.
• 54:49
  Speaker 3: Our researcher, Dr. Valerie Young, had a very important impact,
• 54:55
  Speaker 3: and she helped define various aspects of imposter syndromes so
• 55:05
  Speaker 3: she provides I think about five of them the perfectionist
• 55:11
  Speaker 3: the super person the natural genius the soloist and the
• 55:18
  Speaker 3: expert and I haven't thought enough about this part of
• 55:23
  Speaker 3: me is wondering if this also has to do with
• 55:25
  Speaker 3: typology and introversion extroversion the way that we dance with
• 55:31
  Speaker 3: this compensation when we feel like we're an imposter. So
• 55:38
  Speaker 3: the perfectionist, for whatever reason, sets excessively high goals for
• 55:44
  Speaker 3: themselves and that in a sense they are colluding with
• 55:50
  Speaker 3: the part of themselves that is almost trying to prove
• 55:54
  Speaker 3: that they are an imposter because when they fail, to
• 56:00
  Speaker 3: reach sometimes an absurd high goal, it then self-reinforces that
• 56:07
  Speaker 3: they didn't do as well or as well as those
• 56:09
  Speaker 3: who really deserve to be here. So it's a very
• 56:15
  Speaker 3: complicated circular piece. And we know from a psychoanalytic standpoint
• 56:22
  Speaker 3: that perfectionism in all its forms is a defense.
• 56:26
  Speaker 4: Mm-hmm.
• 56:30
  Speaker 3: If I could only be perfect, then I would escape
• 56:35
  Speaker 3: these consequences that I have suffered in my life. It
• 56:39
  Speaker 3: is more driven by an attempt to evade than an
• 56:44
  Speaker 3: attempt to achieve. So there's kind of a pain vortex
• 56:50
  Speaker 3: that's always waving at the perfectionist. So that seems something
• 56:56
  Speaker 3: that I know I have seen a good bit of
• 57:00
  Speaker 3: The super person, like the super woman or the super man,
• 57:06
  Speaker 3: they push themselves to work harder than anyone else around them.
• 57:13
  Speaker 3: And by being the hardest working, they're proving to themselves
• 57:18
  Speaker 3: but also proving to the environment that they're not imposters.
• 57:22
  Speaker 3: Because if they were skating along, then they would be
• 57:26
  Speaker 3: somehow suspicious. So the need to succeed and display labor
• 57:36
  Speaker 3: at work, as a parent, as a spouse, and this
• 57:41
  Speaker 3: can become such a habit that they feel panicky when
• 57:46
  Speaker 3: they're not displaying their labor. And the labor is legitimate.
• 57:52
  Speaker 3: I mean, they're really hammering away at all kinds of
• 57:57
  Speaker 3: projects and often doing a remarkable job at it. But
• 58:04
  Speaker 3: it's still a reaction to the underlying sense that I'm
• 58:09
  Speaker 3: a fraud. So therefore I have to be super, supernatural.
• 58:17
  Speaker 3: Something that I have seen in my practice, this third category,
• 58:21
  Speaker 3: the natural genius. And these people believe That if they
• 58:27
  Speaker 3: have to struggle or work hard to accomplish something, it
• 58:32
  Speaker 3: also means that they are frauds. Because they're accustomed to
• 58:38
  Speaker 3: their skills coming easily. And when they actually have to
• 58:43
  Speaker 3: put effort in, then this alarm goes off in the
• 58:47
  Speaker 3: back of their heads. I guess because we're analysts and
• 58:51
  Speaker 3: maybe we appeal to other unicorns in the world, that Often,
• 58:58
  Speaker 3: people that are highly creative naturally and instinctively will find
• 59:04
  Speaker 3: their way into an analytic process. And they really do
• 59:10
  Speaker 3: have a sense that something is wrong if it was
• 59:15
  Speaker 3: not easy. The converse of this, which also kind of
• 59:20
  Speaker 3: drives me crazy, is, you know, I thought I was
• 59:23
  Speaker 3: going to become an analyst, but you know, Every time
• 59:28
  Speaker 3: I turned, it looked like the universe was just lined
• 59:31
  Speaker 3: up against me. So it must not be meant to be.
• 59:35
  Speaker 3: Something should be easy. Because if it's easy, then it's
• 59:39
  Speaker 3: sanctioned by the universe. And if it's sanctioned by the universe,
• 59:44
  Speaker 3: then it must be true. And it must be true
• 59:47
  Speaker 3: for me. And I have seen that many, many times.
• 59:52
  Speaker 3: I used to think that it was simply a fear
• 59:54
  Speaker 3: of struggle or a fear of failure. But I think
• 59:59
  Speaker 3: with this idea of, do I have a legitimate right
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 3: to inhabit a stance in the world, I put this
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 3: other interesting spin on it. The other categorization is the soloist,
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 3: and that the soloist feels that they have to accomplish
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 3: their tasks only by themselves, and if they need to
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 3: ask for help, That's proof that they're a fraud.
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 2: Delegitimizes things.
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 3: Delegitimizes. And so if the underlying assumption is I'm a fraud,
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 3: then being the soloist, again, is a defense against either
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 3: concluding that it's true that I'm a fraud or demonstrating
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 3: that to anybody else that I'm a fraud. And the
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 3: final category, which I think is also so important, is
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 3: the expert. And the expert measures their competence based on
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 3: what or how much they know or can know. And
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 3: for them, being the know-it-all is a defense against feeling
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 3: like a fraud. Because if they don't know something, then
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 3: they'll be exposed as inferior people. So being a perfectionist,
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 3: a super person, a natural genius, a soloist, an expert
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 3: are interesting ways that we find to protect ourselves from
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 3: the underlying wound that I don't have a right to
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 3: inhabit my own creative successes and to lay claim to
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 3: them as the natural products of my own good work
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 3: in the world.
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 2: There's been a lot of interesting research on this phenomenon
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 2: in recent years, including some that I found that said that, hey, look,
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 2: people who tend to feel imposter feelings are better team players.
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 2: They're more interpersonally effective. And I've also seen research that
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 2: indicates that the people who wind up suffering from imposter
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 2: syndrome are usually exactly the people that are highly competent
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 2: and accomplished. So if you're feeling these feelings, I think
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 2: our recommendation to you would be to maybe label them,
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 2: notice them, and then just let them go. And Deb,
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 2: as you've been saying, kind of keep doing.
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 4: Work And the thing I might add, we've touched on
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 4: so many of the components, is we haven't directly addressed
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 4: the fear of failure. And I think it was implicit
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 4: in a lot of the personal examples that we gave.
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 4: But there is how we attribute meaning to failure that, oh,
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 4: I I interviewed for this position and I didn't get it.
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 4: I wasn't admitted to the program. Or the person stormed
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 4: out of my office and said this was a ridiculous
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 4: kind of session or whatever it is. If we attribute
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 4: that to, oh my gosh, I was inadequate. I just
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 4: didn't have the right stuff. That is a false attribution
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 4: of I might not have been prepared. I might not
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 4: have known enough. It might have been a difficult situation.
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 4: There are a hundred things. What can you learn from that?
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 4: And a wise person said that to me years ago.
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 4: He said, what have you learned from that? And it
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 4: was like a little light went off. It was sort
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 4: of like, oh, my God, I never thought of it
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 4: that way. Well, I think what I learned was that
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 4: I went into it with my lights blazing and my
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 4: hopes held high and various other things. And what I've
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 4: learned is maybe to settle down a little more. Maybe
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 4: I needed to have prepared a little differently. But it
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 4: reframed the whole thing of that's all it was. I
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 4: needed to learn something that I didn't know, and now
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 4: I can learn it.
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 3: So.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 4: Failure is a part of life. Of course it is.
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 4: It does not define us at all. And I think
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 4: we've touched on so many of these things that we
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 4: can talk to ourselves about and be real.
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 2: And so maybe this is a good time to switch
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 2: to a dream. And before Joseph reads today's dream, I
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 2: just want to remind everyone about Dream School. So Jung
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 2: said that one of the points of analysis was to
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 2: teach people how to work with their own dreams. It
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 2: is hard to work with your own dreams. It's hard
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 2: for me to work with my dreams, but there are
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 2: tools that you can learn that can help you approach
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 2: your dreams from a symbolic standpoint and really take aboard
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 2: their wisdom, the process of self-change, gets speeded up when
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 2: we do dream work dreams are beautiful and inspiring but
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 2: more than anything they really do help us change and
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 2: grow into the person that we were meant to be
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 2: so we invite you to join dream school it's a
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 2: 12-month online program that you do at your own pace
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 2: uh there are um you know, recorded lectures, there are
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 2: written materials, there are suggested readings, there's a really great community,
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 2: there are dream groups, there's the dreamatorium, and there are
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 2: live events every month with me, Deb, and Joseph. So
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 2: you get to kind of be with us intimately and
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 2: learn to work with your dreams. So check out our website, thesinganyinlife.com,
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 2: and you'll see a button right there to check out
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 2: Dream School.
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 3: Today, we're going to read the dream of a 17-year-old
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 3: male who submitted his dream through our website. He works
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 3: at a mobile vehicle washing business, and he titles his dream,
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 3: My Ex-Girlfriend Texting Another Ex-Girlfriend. And here's his dream. I'm
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 3: sitting on the benches around the top middle row at
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 3: a high school football game. People were around, but it
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 3: was not crowded, so I had a good view. I
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 3: was standing next to my ex-friend, a girl. She and
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 3: I had sort of a relationship about 10 or 11
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 3: months ago. It didn't work out, and we don't talk anymore.
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 3: She was standing near me on my right, one row below,
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 3: so I was a couple of inches above her. In
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 3: a group chat, she was texting something about her friends,
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 3: and I saw my other ex-girlfriend on her phone. All
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 3: I saw was her social media profile. I was feeling
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 3: confused and shocked. Why was my ex-friend in a group
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 3: chat with my other ex? They're two completely different people
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 3: and go to different schools. Then I fell back asleep.
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 3: I'm now on the ground floor, beside the tall benches.
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 3: In my peripheral vision, I see the football players come out.
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 3: They were all running to the field like any normal
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 3: football game. But I was running beside them on the left,
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 3: going in the opposite direction. They're going to the field,
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 3: and I'm heading toward the school, holding an energy drink.
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 3: Then I had flashbacks of running on the benches themselves.
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 3: And he gives us a bit more significant information. I
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 3: recently went to a juvenile detention center where I was
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 3: reminiscing about my ex-friends and the females that I loved
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 3: and used to talk to. I came home last night
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 3: around midnight and had this dream when I woke up
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 3: at about 10 or 11 a.m. The main feelings in
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 3: the dream were confusion, feeling shocked, and surprised. And he
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 3: gives us a little bit of extra information The school
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 3: is the one I go to, not currently in school
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 3: till next month. The two females were two people I
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 3: had true feelings for and a deep connection at the
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 3: same time about a year and a half ago. I
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 3: didn't stop talking to the one that I said was
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 3: right next to me in my dream till about ten
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 3: months ago or so. She goes to a different school.
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 3: The other on the phone in the group chat goes
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 3: to the same school as me.
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 2: Well, I'll just maybe start off by saying how touched
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 2: I was when I saw this in our pile this morning.
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 2: And I think that it really shows dreams are for everyone.
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 2: This is a very young person submitting a dream. But
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 2: dreams are there to guide us, and they come in
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 2: the interest of healing and wholeness, no matter where we
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 2: are in life. And maybe I'll just start by saying
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 2: it's interesting because this dream sort of has these two
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 2: major parts to it. One is up in the bleachers,
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 2: and the other is, I think, down on the field
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 2: as I read it. And there's the realm of the feminine,
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 2: maybe up in the bleachers, and then the realm of
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 2: the masculine down on the field.
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 3: Well, the thing that strikes me is that there are
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 3: two anima figures, and there's some investment in that the
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 3: dream ego has in keeping them separate. It's one in
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 3: one school, one in the other school. Both of these
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 3: people are interesting to the dream ego. He's had, perhaps
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 3: wants to have, relationships with both of them, but there's
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 3: a secretive quality to it. There's some concern that if
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 3: all of this were to come together, somehow that would
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 3: be frightening. confusing, shocking. So it's not uncommon, I think,
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 3: for young men particularly to have different versions of the
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 3: anima because they're still experimenting with what fits them, what
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 3: makes sense to them, what's a right kind of person
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 3: to spend time with. But Jung said, over time, The
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 3: various versions of the anima need to come together into
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 3: a singular figure. Now, if we think about the anima
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 3: as the image of a part of the young man
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 3: that would complete him in some way, that would help
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 3: him actualize aspects of his personality which at this point
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 3: are unconscious, it's reasonable to think all of us when
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 3: we're quite young, that there's a lot of qualities that
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 3: we don't know about ourselves yet. There's a lot of
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 3: features and feelings and capacities that are in the unconscious.
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 3: And so it makes sense that there might be different
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 3: ways of conceptualizing it. But when that plays out in
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 3: the social sphere, it feels like we're chasing down all
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 3: kinds of different people in order to have different aspects
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 3: of the experience. And that, of course, can be very
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 3: stressful and confusing.
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 2: You know, Jung had a split anima, which he attributed
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 2: to the fact that his mother was one person, and
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 2: then he had this female caregiver who was very different
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 2: from his mother and had a real impact on him.
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 2: So there were these kind of two templates for what
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 2: the feminine should look like in his life. If we
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 2: had this dreamer here, I'd be really interested to know
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 2: who are these two girls? How are they similar? How
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 2: are they different? He has strong feelings for both of them.
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 2: But it is, Joseph, to your point, it's really interesting
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 2: that they're both there. And he seems very shocked that
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 2: somehow they know each other. This is deeply unsettling to him.
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 2: So it's almost like something in the unconscious wants to
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 2: integrate with but that feels a little threatening.
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 4: What I'm aware of in both of these dreams or
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 4: parts of the same dream is that the dream ego
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 4: is distant from and separate from the other dream figures.
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 4: So the first part of the dream, he's up in
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 4: probably the bleachers, and the two ex-girlfriends know each other
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 4: and are texting each other to his surprise. Then he's
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 4: down on the field where the game is played, but
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 4: he is not part of the football team. He's running
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 4: in the other direction. The players are coming out and
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 4: he's going in the opposite direction, holding an energy drink.
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 4: So I'm wondering if there is something here with our
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 4: dream ego that of feeling separate, feeling distant, trying to
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 4: energize himself while being with but not part of what's
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 4: happening with the other dream figures. There's a way that
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 4: he doesn't belong.
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 2: It's interesting to me that there's a, we could imagine
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 2: there's kind of a when-then. It's sort of when he
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 2: realizes the two ex-girlfriends know each other, then he's down
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 2: on the field. I am really curious about the scene
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 2: on the field because that would seem to me to
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 2: possibly be a positive development. He's no longer just observing.
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 2: He's down on the field. But of course, as I
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 2: read it, he's running in the opposite direction. Yes, exactly.
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 2: He's running back toward the school.
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 3: He's retreating from the field or from where the action
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 3: or conflict might be.
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 4: I often, it's funny, this dream comes up because I
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 4: have an image that I use a lot, which is
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 4: the difference between an objective and a subjective experience. And
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 4: I liken it to the difference between being up in
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 4: the skybox at a football game, or we could say
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 4: on the bleachers. You're observing and you're looking down at
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 4: the field where you can see it all versus being
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 4: on the field. and being one of the players, and
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 4: that that's your subjective experience. And it's not that one
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 4: point of view is better than the other. They're both valid.
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 4: But here, it seems that neither viewpoint is working well
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 4: for the dream ego. When he's up on the bleachers,
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 4: the two ex-girlfriends are communicating, but he is not communicating
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 4: with them. And when he's down on the field, where
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 4: one might expect he would be in the game somehow
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 4: or part of at least running in the same direction,
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 4: instead he's running in another direction. He's going in the
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 4: opposite way. So neither the objective nor the subjective viewpoint
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 4: seems to be yielding a feeling of connection.
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 2: Well, I would also say that for someone at this age, right,
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 2: he's 17 years old, in some sense, especially for young men,
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 2: the task of life is to get down to the field.
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 2: And so it does seem like there is something positive
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 2: about him being on the field. And maybe the energy
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 2: drink is also a positive symbol. Like you said, Deb,
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 2: he's kind of trying to energize. That he's running the
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 2: wrong way. And I would, you know, if I had
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 2: him here, I'd say, well, where do you think you're
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 2: running the wrong way in your life?
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 3: At the moment, we submitted this, I think, in a
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 3: juvenile detention center. When people are sent off the field,
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 3: there's a sense that they've been extracted from the game.
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 3: I think that part of the psyche is also symbolizing
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 3: and trying to process being taken out of the social environment,
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 3: out of the natural high school ethos. and being set
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 3: aside and detained ostensibly for some kind of a conflict,
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 3: some kind of a problem.
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 4: I am wondering about the personal comment that he shares of,
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 4: I recently went to juvenile detention center and came home
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 4: last night around midnight. Was he visiting? Was he detained there?
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 4: juvenile detention centers are for young people who have been
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 4: deemed fairly or unfairly, not abiding by overall societal norms.
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 4: And I'm wondering if this has some reflection in the
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 4: dream of not connecting with the two ex-girlfriends and not
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 4: going in the same direction as the football players running
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 4: out to the field to get into the game. And
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 4: we would say into the game of life as a
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 4: dream image.
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 2: And yes. And I also want to say, you know,
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 2: I was really moved that the dreamer said that he
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 2: had deep feelings for both of these girls. And here
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 2: is a 17-year-old writing down his dreams. So, you know,
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 2: this is a soulful person who maybe is running the
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 2: wrong way. But there is that potential for connection. that
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 2: potential for the connection with himself, which is symbolized apart
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 2: by being, you know, he's not, he's, you're right, Deb,
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 2: he's not in relationship in the dream with these two women,
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 2: but he's close by. Yeah. And again, there's this mysterious
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 2: integration happen because these two Anima figures are kind of
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 2: in secret identity with one another. And then that helps
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 2: him get onto the field, maybe.
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 2: But it's not quite the right thing. But there is,
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 2: you can really see the actions of the self in
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 2: this dream, I think. And also, you know, in spite
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 2: of the fact that it seems like just a little
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 2: dream and in some sense has these kind of quotidian imagery,
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 2: it's really very archetypal because we have this kind of
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 2: the realm of the gladiatorial conflict with the football field.
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 2: And pining for the relationship with the anima. I mean,
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 2: it calls to mind the courtly love images where knight
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 2: errants would wear the token of their loved one as
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 2: they went into battle or they went to joust. So
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 2: the connection with the anima being the precursor to taking
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 2: on the manly role and getting in the field, getting
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 2: on the field. So there's a lot there.
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 3: I also think there's something interesting in the beginning of
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 3: the setting. And again, this may have something to do
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 3: with the containment in the detention center because it makes
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 3: our world smaller. It gives us time to think about
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 3: the circumstances we're in. So the dream opens and the
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 3: dream maker puts him in a position where he can
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 3: silently observe the secret life of the anima and gain
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 3: information about the way the anima creates relationships. Because the
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 3: anima is the connecting force. And even in the symbol
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 3: of having the phone and the group chat, and even
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 3: chats beyond what he might have imagined, it's displaying its
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 3: relational power. And the male ego is just given this
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 3: little secret glimpse from a little bit above and to
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 3: the side and a few inches down. And part of
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 3: the revelation is, oh, that's what's going on here.
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 5: Behind my back, I had no idea that the unconscious
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 5: is communicating out through the ethers.
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 3: It's through these fantastical cell signals. messages are flying through
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 3: the air, and parts of himself or parts of his
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 3: life are in this dance of communication, which he just
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 3: was shocked to understand that. So I think as you
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 3: were leaning into, it's a bit of an initiation. As
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 3: small and perhaps as conventional as the symbols are, they
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 3: still carry all of those valences. And that it's going
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 3: to take some time for him to realize, I don't
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 3: live in a vacuum. Like there's so much interrelatedness throughout
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 3: his psyche and throughout his social environment.
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 2: And of course, we don't know much about what's happening
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 2: on the field. I'd be so curious to know if
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 2: this kid played football or We don't know much about
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 2: the feeling on the scene on the field. So I'm
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 2: sort of reading into it, you know, voluminously. But again,
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 2: I'm just struck by the image of the sort of
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 2: the field of battle as it were. And I would
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 2: like to just read a little bit from the famous
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 2: Roosevelt speech, which is sometimes known as the man on
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 2: the arena. And he says in this speech, it is
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 2: not the critic who counts, not the man who points
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 2: out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 2: of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 2: to the man who is actually in the arena, whose
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 2: face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 2: strives valiantly, who errs, who comes short again and again
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 2: because there is no effort without error and shortcoming. but
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 2: who does actually strive to do the deeds, who knows
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 2: great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 2: worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 2: the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst,
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 2: if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 2: that his place shall never be with those cold and
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 2: timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. In my imagination,
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 2: I'm cheering the streamer on as he tries to get
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 2: into the arena. And I'm really curious about the fact
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 2: that he's running the wrong way and would invite him
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 2: to reflect on that.
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 1: You've been listening to This Jungian Life. From our website, thisjungianlife.com,
• 1:25:07
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• 1:25:10
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• 1:25:14
  Speaker 1: and submit your dreams for possible interpretation on another episode.
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 1: We'd like to thank our listener who shared a dream
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 1: for today's show and hope you'll let us know what
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 1: topics you'd enjoy hearing more about. Until next time, keep
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 1: living this Jungian life.
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 2: Thank you.