March 2019 – Liberation Therapy

I’m sitting here thinking about all the people who are going to find tomorrow hard, and my heart is aching for you.

For those who find Mothering Sunday hard, whether it’s because you aren’t one, don’t have one, wish you had a different one, or any of the other multitude of reasons, you’re in my thoughts.

To make tomorrow easier, please consider these ideas.

1. If you want to be a mother but aren’t for whatever awful reason

First of all, you are not alone. Talk about it. Talk about the pain mother’s day brings you. Talk about the mother you would have been, and talk about how much it hurts that you haven’t got that chance.

It can be helpful to plan a structured day doing things that children won’t be involved in or perhaps you want to be around children. The most important thing is that you put your needs first, and you understand that it’s okay to meet them. This is painful for you, and your pain needs to be acknowledged and allowed.

With that in mind, remember that you don’t have to suffer in silence. If it hurts too much to be around your own mother or mother in law, or any other person being celebrated tomorrow, you have every right to say no.

Ultimately, keep yourself safe.

2. If you have lost your own mother.

If you are grieving your own mother, tomorrow will highlight your loss, and may bring a depth to your grief you only experience on these difficult days.

It might be helpful to write your mother a card or letter, telling her how much you miss her. It might be helpful to do something that honours her and her memory, and the legacy she leaves.

Again, your pain is valid. Even if you have children of your own, your pain should be acknowledged and respected. You have the right to take some time to consider the loss you have experienced. It does not detract from the love you have for your own children, it is totally separate, and that’s okay.

3. If you don’t have the mother you deserve.

If you are someone whose mother was abusive, tomorrow may be a bitter pill for you. Even if you have kids of your own. When we don’t have the mother we ‘should’ have done, days like tomorrow are especially hard. You do not ‘have’ to acknowledge your mother. You do not have to suffer abuse because she gave birth to you. You do not have to keep other people happy, and you do not have to tolerate contact because it’s mother’s day.

Your pain is valid. Your experience is real. Just because someone else thinks you should tolerate abuse because someone gave birth to you doesn’t mean you should.

You are allowed to make tomorrow all about you and you do not even have to breathe in the direction of the person who shares your DNA.

If someone is attempting to force you to do so, may I suggest you ask them why they would wish you to suffer abuse to make them feel more comfortable?

4. If you’re a single mother and tomorrow won’t be any different to every other day of the year.

Tomorrow is about you more than any other mother. Tomorrow is about you fighting every battle parenting has thrown at you. Perhaps you are in contact with the other parent and perhaps not.

Either way, if you don’t have someone who takes the time to take your child to get you something, tomorrow may be tough because your single status seems bigger than ever.

Try to carve some time out for yourself if you can. Get a take away, put off the washing, cleaning, and any other weekend.

Love your babies and celebrate yourself. You’re amazing. You work hard to give the love of two people. Remember to celebrate yourself on Father’s Day.

And finally, if you have a wonderful relationship with your mother, I’m thrilled for you. I truly truly am. But I BEG you. Do not project that relationship onto others. Do not assume that other people can put the pain of abuse or loss aside in order to pay homage to an arbitrary date in a calendar where we are asked to revere those who gave life.

Motherhood is a privilege bestowed on many, respected by most, and longed for by more than you will ever know.

If you know someone who may find today hard. Please send them some love. As I am doing now.

Love to you all

Helen

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Imposter Syndrome: Your Friend

Imposter Syndrome.

Well, who am I to be telling you about this? It seems a lot of us suffer from the feeling that we don’t deserve what we’ve got, or that we’ve got to the place we are by luck, or that we’ve somehow tricked everyone into giving us the responsibility we have. It seems many of us are scared that we are eventually going to be ‘found out’, and exposed as a fraud.

If you can relate to those feelings, you may be suffering from imposter syndrome.

So what is it?

Well, it’s all those feelings. It’s a psychological pattern that means the sufferer believes they’ve somehow got the achievements and accolades they have by luck, chance, or tricking others into giving them those things. It ignores the effort, work and external evidence of competence and ability and dismisses the experience and intelligence that others recognise.

Interestingly, when research first started, it focused on the prevalence among high achieving women, although it has now been recognised that men suffer it just as much. Equality rules!

Imposter syndrome is one of those things that nags at us like a little gremlin on our shoulder. The pervasive feeling that taints and stains every promotion, qualification, achievement or win of any kind is hard to ignore. Whilst everyone around you congratulates you, offers admiration, praise and acknowledgment, the gremlin sits, and whispers that you don’t deserve all that is bestowed on you.

And that whisper can be louder than any other noise in the room.

So why does it happen? Why do we dismiss our own achievements? Why do we minimise all our effort, blood, sweat and tears? Why do we sit waiting for someone to catch us out? Waiting for someone to see through this elaborate plan we’ve created to get us to the position we are in. Waiting for someone to say ‘wait a minute, you don’t belong here!’ at the top of their voice in a room full of other people waiting to agree.

Well, as ever there are a number of reasons, but largely as always in my school of thinking, it’s based in childhood. Our perception of what we are able or capable of doing is based in the messages we have received as a child. So for example, if you did well in a test, were you praised, or were you asked why you didn’t do better? Was your achievement revered as a stand-alone result of your hard work, or were you asked how everyone else in the class did? Were you told to study harder and harder or were you told you have worked hard enough, and it’s time for a break?

Essentially, what we are talking about is the knowledge that however good you are, however hard you’ve worked, it is GOOD ENOUGH.

People who struggle with imposter syndrome generally have low self-esteem and self-confidence. They may have grown up around messages such as that they aren’t trying hard enough, they aren’t doing well enough, just generally that they aren’t ‘enough’. It’s a horrible horrible feeling, and often this sense of fraudulence is something that holds people back from achieving their hopes and dreams, or even just trying for a promotion or pay rise at work, which is why it’s so important to challenge it. Imposter syndrome stops us from achieving our potential and leads to a lifetime of regret.

So how do we stop it happening? Obviously, my first thought is going to be therapy therapy therapy! If you can’t get to therapy, then you can start by challenging the thoughts associated with the feelings.

I’m going to break a boundary and share something personal with you. I wouldn’t normally do this, but I think it’s pertinent and relevant, and likely helpful.

When I got the email confirming the award of Master of Arts, my immediate response was ‘I’ve tricked them’.

My second response was ‘you’re not that clever’.

I don’t mean not clever enough to do a Masters (that battle had been beaten for me by a wonderful and supportive tutor), but clever enough to trick the two markers, and the full university exam board.

I started to reflect on everything I had done to get to that moment. I challenged thoughts that were saying ‘you couldn’t possibly have done this, you don’t deserve this’.

I looked for evidence. And that’s what I’m going to ask you to do when you’re feeling like you don’t deserve what you’ve achieved. Reflect on everything you’ve done to get there. Look at all the late nights and early mornings, the studying, the sacrifices. Look at why someone else might look at you and think ‘yeah, they deserve this’. Ask yourself how you would react if a friend spoke to you that way. Ask yourself if you would speak to anyone else that way.

And then tell that nasty little gremlin something that might surprise you to hear….

‘I know you’re there, and it’s okay. I’m sorry you feel like we don’t deserve this, but I promise we do. We worked hard to be here. We know what we’re doing. We didn’t hurt or sacrifice anyone else to get here, we belong here.’

Because you’re gremlin is scared. Scared of not being enough, of being caught out, and he’s trying to protect you. And in that way, he’s actually a little bit helpful.

Here’s the thing. That niggling feeling, that horrid squirmy, disconnected, ‘it’s not meant to be me’ feeling, is actually pretty helpful.

And here’s why:

It keeps you in check. It keeps you grounded. It keeps you working. It keeps you striving. It stops you from becoming complacent, arrogant, thoughtless, careless.

It helps you.

It’s a funny thing when you start to realise that once we’ve started building a relationship with our gremlin, once we get him into a proportional place, we can start using him to our advantage. Once we decide to talk back to him, he becomes our friend, and pushes us further than we ever thought we could go.

Thanks for waiting for this,

Helen Villiers LLB PG Cert., PG Dip., MA 😉

(no awards for drawing though 😉 )