Making Sense of Anxiety, Self-Doubt & Imposter Syndrome
Practical, compassionate articles for capable people who overthink, second-guess themselves, and feel like frauds despite the evidence. Drawing on CBT, ACT, CFT and EMDR, these posts will help you make sense of what your mind is doing, understand the patterns that keep you stuck, and learn to trust your own experience.
I want to admit to something I got wrong for a long time. For years I did not value the importance and benefit of breathwork. My training had taught me to be sceptical of it, that the use of breathing exercises could actually operate as a safety-seeking behaviour which would slow down the treatment rather […]
It is Sunday evening and the working week has not even started, yet your mind is already three meetings ahead. You are rehearsing the difficult conversation, drafting the reply you have not been asked for yet, quietly scanning the week for the thing most likely to go wrong. If someone asked what you were doing, […]
You wake before the alarm with your chest already tight and your heart going, though nothing has actually happened yet. Or you are sitting in a meeting when your mind empties, your face goes hot, and your body seems to brace as if for impact. Later you wonder what is wrong with you, why you […]
It’s late, the room is dark, and you’re deep in a debate with your own mind. It says something will go wrong. You marshal the evidence for why it won’t. It comes back with a new worry. You answer that one too. An hour passes and you’re no closer to winning, only more awake. If […]
You’ve learned, without ever quite deciding to, that some of your feelings are welcome and others are a nuisance. The trouble is that the ones you’ve filed under nuisance are often the ones with the most to tell you. Think about a relationship, romantic or otherwise, that mattered to you. Alongside the love and the […]
“If I can just think this through one more time, I’ll feel ready.” That’s the promise worry makes, and for a lot of capable people it’s a promise they’ve been chasing for years. You know the loop. Something that matters is coming up, a decision, a conversation, a piece of work you’ll be judged on, […]
You know the feeling. You’re about to send the message, make the call, put yourself forward, and a voice pipes up: are you sure? What if you’re wrong? What if you’re not up to this? For a lot of capable people, that voice is a near-constant companion, and its favourite trick is to sound like […]
Perfectionism has the best public image of any psychological pattern I know. Say it in a job interview and it counts as a strength. “I’m a bit of a perfectionist” is the humble-brag we’re all allowed. And often there’s something real behind it: many perfectionists genuinely care about their work and hold themselves to a […]
Your heart is pounding, your breathing has quickened, there’s adrenaline moving through you and a slight tremor in your hands. Are you about to give a presentation you’re dreading, or are you three sets into a workout you love? From the neck down, there is almost no way to tell. This is one of the […]
You’ve got the presentation next week, so you start preparing. Sensible enough. But somewhere along the way, preparing tips into something else. You rehearse it again. You rewrite the slides a fourth time. You script the answers to questions nobody may ask. And the odd thing is that the more you prepare, the less ready […]