Why meditation can't cure imposter syndrome

In 1986, my mother was worried that I’d joined a cult.

Less dramatically, I’d been on a weekend course to learn meditation, advertised as a tool to reduce stress. 

Back in those olden times, meditation was firmly in the realm of the weird, hippy or cultish here in the UK.

These days meditation is a power tool for peak performance used by CEOs and executives throughout the world.

There are meditation courses galore, teachers everywhere, and of course, there’s an app for that.

So what happened to convince people that meditating is a seriously good idea?

Science happened.

Thousands of studies on the effects of meditation on the physical body looked at heart rate, blood pressure, respiration, relaxation.

More studies about its impact on the brain using EEG and fMRI scans.

Long term studies of meditators vs non-meditators.

And even more studies on the effects of chronic stress on the body.

Results published and popularised in many books, all telling us that meditation is good for you.

In 2012 the ESADE Business School in Spain published a study on ‘neuro-regulation’ – the ability to regulate your nervous system so that you stay calm under stress.

They determined that the most effective, transformational leaders are those who have the best neuro-regulation.

And so meditation is now officially ‘in.’

Eight years before my initiation into meditation, imposter syndrome had just been identified.

Imposter syndrome is the secret feeling of being a fraud when you’re not.

Self-doubt even though you’re successful, and a fear of being ‘found out’.

It’s characterised by behaviours like deflecting praise, perfectionism, comparing, procrastination, over-preparing and feeling like you’re not *quite* good enough despite your evident success.

It affects 70% of high-achievers, men and women equally.

And this negative, self-critical thinking creates massive, chronic stress.

People experience anxiety, frustration, isolation or overwhelm, and it can lead to burnout or people quitting their careers.

You might wonder whether regular meditation could bring enough calm that imposter syndrome goes away.

It certainly sounds plausible.

If stress was the cause of imposter syndrome, we’d be onto a winner with meditation.

Unfortunately, it’s the other way round.

The imposter syndrome creates the stress.

The cause of imposter syndrome is a belief that most people hold unconsciously.

A belief that our worth is conditional depending on what we do.

That is, if we do something good, we are good. If we do something bad, we are bad.

If it doesn’t resonate, well that’s because it’s an unconscious belief, and we’re not aware of it in our day-to-day thinking.

This (false) belief in conditional worth was identified back in the 1950s by Dr Carl Rogers.

But he determined this from his work with thousands of people.

He had no explanation only observation.

In this century, research on the nervous system explains why a belief about our worth can cause stress.

It also causes imposter syndrome and drives the patterns of behaviour I mentioned earlier.

A part of our brain, the amygdala, filters all information coming into the brain from your external senses, internal sensing and your thoughts.

The amygdala is looking out for dangers, just like a virus checker scans your email for potential threats.

When the amygdala detects a threat it triggers your nervous system into ‘emergency mode’ and we go into fight, flight or freeze states.

This is called an amygdala hijack, because this emergency mode is preparing your body to respond to life-threatening dangers by taking over your nervous system.

When this happens, the blood flow in your muscles, digestive system and brain changes so you have the ability to respond to the threat and survive.

It’s an automatic, ancient, primal reaction to a perceived threat.

It’s the body doing exactly the right thing in response to a perceived threat.

The problem for us modern humans is what the amygdala determines what is a threat.

Automatically and without your awareness or agreement.

The belief in our conditional worth is stored in the amygdala as an identified threat.

In ancient, tribal society to be found unworthy of care and unacceptable could lead to rejection and expulsion from the tribe.

Almost certainly a death sentence, according to your amygdala.

So times when we feel not good enough, when imposter syndrome strikes, your amygdala can trip your nervous system into fight/flight/freeze states.

Over time, the repetition creates chronic worry, stress, anxiety and overwhelm.

All from a false belief that we hold at a deep level of identity, i.e. who we think we are.

So what can meditation do about imposter syndrome?

Well, stress is cumulative, as we know from many more research studies.

So meditation can bleed off some of the stress in general and that caused by imposter syndrome.

It can help, which is why it’s so popular with people in high-pressure positions.

It’s healthier than other coping mechanisms such as alcohol and smoking to relax.

And it’s something you need to do every day.

However to get rid of imposter syndrome completely, you need to change the false belief that triggers the amygdala in the first place.

Changing this belief using meditation is not possible for most people (unless you’re a Buddha, but that’s another discussion).

This means that meditation will not get rid of imposter syndrome.

Happily modern neuroscience research has pointed the way for an effective process to change this identity-level belief.

Once that happens, your calm comes from the amygdala not being triggered.

It’s a permanent change that doesn’t need daily upkeep.

Of course, once you’ve changed that belief you can still do meditation if you want to.

I certainly enjoy it (although my mother still thinks it’s a bit weird)!