I stood there, clutching the fake microphone. The words dripped out of my mouth like cold honey. I could not heat them up, no matter how much I tried. All of the energy I had left pooled in my feet, anchoring me down to sleepy depths.
To try to muster some energy, I started pacing, but the lights in the room reflected upon the words on my pages, making me feel that I couldn’t even see what I was supposed to be talking about. And the longer the cold honey dripped out of my mouth, my throat started to resist speaking. It starting to close like a flower at sunset, closing up shop. I coughed. And soldiered on.Â
Then, out of nowhere, an all-too familiar voice started to chime in my head “You are sucking up this practice, Heidi. Why can’t you just get it moving and make it sound as good as normal? You’re not gonna be as good as anybody else. Why can’t you suck it up like everyone else? This is embarrassing. How can you show up with no energy when taking care of yourself is the cornerstone of your business? Maybe you should just quit this little storytelling hobby while you’re ahead.”
My inner critic. She was alive and BOOMing in my brain. To be honest, I hadn’t heard her in awhile, so the passive-aggressive words were like a slap in the face outta nowhere. I felt the prick of tears waiting for me at the corners of my eyes, as soon as I could get some privacy.
A softer voice chimed in, “You’re doing great, sweetheart. I am proud of you for showing up. Just a couple more pages and then we’ll go to the bathroom and sort this out.” My inner resilient soul.
A few minutes later, I closed a bathroom stall, sat down on the seat, and broke down crying. I could barely envision driving home, let alone sitting through 2more hours of storytelling practice.
I was 1000% out of gas.
I dried my tears, went back in the room, and grabbed a Diet Coke – an old emotional repression crutch. Actually, I didn’t go back to my seat, I went to the back of the room – trying to hide from everyone in case I broke down again.
But, my friends called me over to my seat when the next person was done with their story. One of my friends took one look at me and asked, “Heidi, are you okay?”
I shook my head No. And that’s when the tears really started coming out. Think full-on emotional yard sale.
Soon, a group of loving and accepting women circled themselves around me. I gratefully packed up my stuff, went home, curled up with my dog and teddy bear, and fell fast asleep.
The next day, I woke up, still exhausted from working three full days, bulldozing right into mom-mode for 24 hours, THEN trying to bring big energy into a 4-hour storytelling practice. I realized that, when I’m exhausted, when I’m not taking care of myself, my inner critic (read: impostor syndrome) loves to show her pretty-little-50s-housewife-perfectionistic face.
And then I spent the next three days loving myself out of exhaustion and Impostor Syndrome and back into my big brave, authentic self.
Three days after that, I shared my story in front of 1000 people, no cold-honey in sight.
This wasn’t my first run-in with Impostor Syndrome, and it won’t be my last. Watch how I break it down and work with it with Professional Life Coach and Self-Compassion Expert Jennifer Erwin on Joyfully Ever After.
