A Guide to Authentic Self-Esteem, with Dr. Joy

(metal swishing) (mouse clicking) (mellow music) Headspace Studios. Hey y'all, I'm Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, your guest host for the week. Welcome to Radio Headspace and to Wednesday. Being a psychologist for over a decade, I've gained some tips and tricks on mental health, and this week I'm sharing those with you all. A concept that constantly resurfaces in my work is imposter syndrome. It might seem like the latest new buzzword floating around on your LinkedIn homepage, but imposter syndrome isn't a new thing. So today I wanna talk a bit about imposter syndrome, its origins, and how to ensure it doesn't have a crippling effect on our self-esteem. Imposter syndrome is something that I have definitely dealt with in my own life, and I have found that, for every new level it feels like I unlock in my professional career, there is also a new bout of imposter syndrome. So when Therapy for Black Girls started to get lots of press and I started to have, like, lots of speaking engagements, it definitely felt like, oh my gosh, like, are people going to think that I am credible? Am I really someone who should be talking about these kinds of things? And then most recently, as I was wrapping up writing my first book, "Sisterhood Heals", there was definitely lots and lots of imposter syndrome about whether I knew enough to actually fill a book. And it was really only working with my therapist many, many weeks was I really able to get rid of some of that imposter syndrome and to pay attention to all of the things that I did have to add to the conversation and why I was actually a worthy person to be able to write the book. So imposter syndrome isn't something that we just see in professional spaces, it can also show up in our personal lives. So this idea that you are dating someone and you feel like they're too beautiful to be with you, or even in parenting. So I've worked with lots of women who struggle with this idea of like not knowing what they need to be doing to raise a child. And of course we know there's no manual that comes with parenting, but this idea that you are not enough or that you know you're a fraud in some way for either being in a certain relationship or being a caregiver. So one of the things that I typically encourage people to do when they are experiencing these feelings of imposter syndrome is to actually let people know how they're feeling. And sometimes people feel a little weird about this because they see it as like a fishing for compliments kind of thing. But I think it really is an opportunity to do some reality testing, right? So if there are people in your life who will be honest with you about what you bring to the table, I think that's an opportunity for you to...