Imposter syndrome (not what you think)

When I would doubt myself in dance, feeling like I couldn’t be what the job/choreography/style needed me to be, people would often tell me to just own it.

They would tell me that my movement was decent, I just needed to be more confident in the ownership of the movement.

I worked harrrd to do that for many years.
And I did get better.

But I think there’s a flaw in that advice, and that way of thinking altogether.

And that is - if I felt like an imposter to the style of dance... maybe I was?

Maybe that’s because that dance, that embodiment of music, culture, rhythm, and movement wasn’t a part of me.

Maybe it’s because it wasn’t mine. I literally didn’t own it.

And maybe me feeling that, and doubting my ownership over it, was actually my system saying, “this isn’t ours.”

And maybe telling people, and ourselves, to fake it til you make it, and force ownership over something that doesn’t feel true to us...is leading to cultural appropriation.

And not only does this inevitably result in people getting good at stealing...which kinda sucks...

But it also trains us to NOT listen to the gage inside of us that tells when something doesn’t feel right.

It trains us to override our insides that are trying to tell us to find our own calling, not get good at pretending to be in someone else’s.

Now, that doesn’t mean there aren’t times where we feel like an imposter, but we aren’t, and we need to work on our confidence!

But often, even in those cases, the feeling of imposter is a sign that there is some part of you that isn’t comfortable, and instead of overriding it, perhaps it can be tended to. ♥️

In what situations do you feel like an imposter? I’d love to hear in what cases you overcame it and it felt honest and powerful, and in what cases you listened to your doubts and shifted into something different.