Embracing Vulnerability: Building Deeper Connections and Overcoming Imposter Syndrome
Do you feel ready for a shift in your life? Shake off the overwhelm and get rid of self-limiting beliefs? Embrace vulnerability, forge deeper connections, and stop feeling like a fraud?
Listen as Lauren provides valuable tools to help you live authentically and start living a life surrounded by meaningful connections. Learn actionable strategies to overcome imposter syndrome and combat fears holding you back from living your best life.
“Anytime you're feeling fear, 50% of that is to notice it. Once you notice it, congratulations. That is a huge, huge step to have noticed it. Take a breath and feel it.” - Lauren (04:35)
Discover how to manifest your vision, feel self-compassion, and attract your tribe by embracing vulnerability. This episode will leave you feeling inspired and equipped to embark on a path of genuine connection and personal growth.
“Virtual’s not the same as being online. No matter how deep I get with people and how connected I feel, it's not the same as hugging and being physically together.” - Lauren (11:50)
“If you've got something you wanna do, if there's an idea and it's come in your head more than once, it's probably in your head for a reason.” - Lauren (15:13)
Listen and embark on a journey of self-discovery, joy, and the unshakable belief that your time is now! If you're ready to break free from the shackles of self-doubt, step into your authenticity, and cultivate deeper, enriching connections in your life, this episode is an absolute must-listen!
“Don't forget to celebrate your progress and let people know when you've had wins. You need to celebrate yourself. It's important.” - Lauren (18:27)
it's time to step into your authentic self without fear and connect with others in a real and meaningful way. Nobody can do what you can do the way you can do it. Embracing your true self will naturally attract the right people into your life. The journey towards authenticity begins with self-honesty, grace, and trust – in yourself and in your process. You’ve got this. Have a listen.
In this Episode:
(01:06) - Life is about showing up!
(03:09) - Imposter syndrome and feeling like a fraud
(04:27) - The first step in overcoming your fear
(10:54) - Why it’s important for you to have a community
(12:19) - You need to start putting down that phone and connecting!
(13:27) - The importance of having an accountability partner
(14:23) - You can reframe anything you want
(15:13) - Your time is now!
(18:36) - Turning your limiting beliefs into unlimited beliefs
Resources and Links
52 Weeks of Hope
Episodes Mentioned
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Lauren Abrams [00:00:00] Are you a burnt-out overachiever buried in responsibilities? Do you miss laughing with your friends just laughing from the gut? Do you feel like life's passing you by? If you've been wishing for some kind of shift, you're in the right place.
Welcome to 52 Weeks of Hope, the show where we take you off the hamster wheel by ditching your to-do list for the to-don’t list. This is where you get to learn how to make that lonely ache vanish, learn self-compassion techniques and give yourself grace. I'm Lauren Abrams and I get to help you feel that magic again. Since going through my own dark night of the soul so you can learn from my experience and the mentors and experts I meet along the way. And today we're talking about forging deeper connections and how to stop feeling like a fraud. You get to live the life you dream about surrounded by people. Light up your soul, listen and learn tools to manifest your vision and stop feeling guilty. This is the only life you get right now to stop wishing for anyone else's life, how to love your own and find your tribe. You've not only got this, you're entitled to it. You've earned it. Now is your time. Get ready to step into your vision.
Welcome to 52 weeks of Hope. So I've been saying yes to whatever comes my way even when my head says no. I mean, for that reason, of course. And also, I've been taught to suit up and show up for life anyway. Again, no matter what, just show up. Even if my head shows I don't want to do this show. Too much traffic.,I'm too busy. Just show up that you never know what's going to happen. 97% of life is about showing up, and that what I focus on growth. And I just read that if I tell myself I'm going to have a great time and I'm going to meet all these interesting people there and things like that, there's a better chance that I will. That's what will happen. There's a negativity bias that Marisa G. Franco Talks about in the episode on friendships. She's so good. I love that episode anyway, we remember the negative and if we're thinking, oh, I'm not going to have that good a time, whatever you tell yourself, you're right, okay. It's that kind of thing and it has to do with attitude. So going in with a better attitude and trying to go about things with a better attitude definitely makes a difference. There's a lot of science backing that up. So I'm trying to say, yes, I show up anyway, and that's the point of that kind of thing. So I want to talk first about imposter syndrome and feeling like a fraud because that ties so deeply into forging these deeper connections. And I really think there's a reason that authentic was the word of the year or however they said that was the big word of last year. And I'm sure there's no mistakes there's a reason why that was the word of the year, because we don't want to have I don't anyway. I'll just speak for myself. I don't want to talk about the weather or traffic. Those are my two things that just are such a waste of time. And I went to an event last night, and there's a woman there that I love seeing because we instantly have such deep, great conversations that it just kind of lights up my heart when I see her because I know we'll have good conversations. So anyway, imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome is when you feel like a fraud. Do you think, I'm going to get found out? Now they're going to find out I don't really know anything or I'm not. I can't do this job. Women have it more than men. I have a quiz on the website. I have articles I've written about it. I did a lot of research on it a few years ago. There's a lot of high performing women who openly talk about it, Sheryl Sandberg wrote in her book, talks about it. Maya Angelou used to talk about it. Michelle Obama talks about it. I know that after I'd been practicing law a good ten years, I was walking down the corridor of a courthouse and I thought I'd got these people fooled. They think I'm a lawyer and put myself through good schools. But it's that feeling like, oh, I'm going to get found out. When I started podcasting, I thought people were talking about me on Zooms, all the little boxes that people are saying, did you hear about Lauren did you hear she started a podcast? Nobody's talking about me. And who does she think she is starting a podcast? I found that so many podcasters felt like that when they started the podcast. And really, who did it? I think I was starting one, I didn't know anything about it and I was just talking to a group and Gem majors mastermind. She's so good. She's the Queen of manifestation. She's amazing. You can listen to her episode here too, and about starting a podcast and I warn them that imposter syndrome is going to rear its head any time we step out of our comfort zone and go into something new. And the important thing with that, or anytime you're feeling fear, 50% of that is to notice it. Oh, I'm feeling fear. Once you notice it, that's your 50 Congratulations! That is a huge, huge step to have noticed it. Take a breath and feel it. Feel the fear, tell someone is also a really like that's huge to to say I'm feeling scared. You have just dissipated so much of that fear. To tell somebody, and then close your eyes and feel where it is in your body because it's residing in your body someplace and breathe into it. For me, it's usually in my gut. Not always, but a lot of times it's in my gut. And it's a lot of you want to do this in a big Zoom call or anything else, or in some kind of a mastermind. We can get together in a group and we can do that. I'm happy to do that, and I can show you. But reading into it and it will actually, if you sit with it even five minutes, however long it takes, it's not like days or anything else, but just sit and breathe into it. It will actually leave your body and new neural pathways are born and new stuff will come up. It's all peeling the onion. This is a lifelong process. It's not like, oh, I never have fear again. But then you get to walk through it. And really, it's in the noticing that it's so important. I think a lot of times people don't act on their food. They think, oh, too many people are already doing that or I can't do it. I just interviewed such. I have so many good episodes coming up. So excited, Lynn Robinson, she's 35 years. She's been a psychic advisor giving motivational talks all over the world. She has seven books on how to tap into your intuition, and we had such good conversations about all of this, saying, I will easily come up with solutions to this problem instead of I can't figure this out, just the self-talk. And we talked about just noticing the stuff is so big. So noticing is such a big part of all of this. Anyway, the reason I wanted to talk about this is when I'm doing this mindfulness meditation, I'm in a two-year teacher training program. I've been meditating for a long time, but I'm in this and I was in my little mentor group and we're getting ready for our practicums and planning them. And and I was in class and the mentor was leading this beautiful meditation. My head was going the entire time, of course, because I mean that people say they can't meditate because their heads go like everybody else. That's part of the human condition. Listen to spring wash. She's amazing. I love her, but she's like, everybody's heads are going out of spring wash. I'm saying that she's practised for a month. I mean, she's amazing. She's been meditating for decades and decades. She teaches in Northern California and all over the world. But like, that's what heads do. They go. But anyway, I was in this class and my head was going and I felt like such a fraud. Who am I to think I can be a meditation teacher? I've taught plenty of meditations, but here I was, sitting in the class with my mentor, thinking I was such a fraud. Who did I think I was to be teaching meditation and going on and on and on? And there it is again, the imposter syndrome and everything else. And they've just been teaching us so much. I thought I needed post-it notes everywhere. And how do you show up for a class with Post-it notes? And anyway, and I talked about it and everybody's laughing because everybody feels like that. And talking about it dissipates a lot of it. So I know I noticed it happened within five days, three times. Imposter syndrome popped up in major areas of my life with meditation, teaching, and meditation. And then the second one, it was a Sunday. A friend of mine had an open house, and she sells high-end real estate and just had an open house where she had an art installation up, and somebody was doing permanent jewelry, and I was so not cool. I didn't know what permanent jewellery was. I thought it was tats, but it's actually if you're watching on video, it's I'm showing you because, of course, I got some. Isn't that pretty? It means it's jewelry without a clasp. It's not a tat anyway, so on the way there, I was listening. I was prepping for Stacy, whose episodes coming up. She's amazing. So I was listening to one of her podcasts where she was interviewing somebody about his two-hour cocktail party. They were talking about this two-hour cocktail party where you invite people and they invite one person each, and everyone wears nametags and you have these icebreakers. And it just sounded so fun. By the time I got to my friend's open house, I was telling these two really cute girls about the two-hour cocktail party and they said, we want to do it. And we became friends and we were on a text exchange, the three of us, and we planned the two-hour cocktail party and we did one. But when I started sending the invitations, all these people who said they were coming, that all these were okay, it was, see, that's it. Like not all these a couple of people got Covid and couldn't come. And I thought, who might as well go to our cocktail party? Nobody likes me. This is my head, who am I? I should cancel this, which I was even doing it alone. I was doing it with these two girls and the imposter syndrome came up. I am like who do I think I am, I shouldn't do. Throw this party. I'm not this first. I mean, it was ridiculous. And I could laugh at myself, actually, because it was ridiculous. Just throw it anyway. It's just the show up anyway despite my head. Do the thing anyway and don't listen to my head. So I did it. It was so fun. Weird. Can't wait to do another one. And I interviewed Nick gray, his episodes coming up too, and the three of us are going to do another. I'm actually going to do an episode with them because we want to talk about it and how connections are formed, and that's a good segue. I was a guest on an episode, and this one was talking about how you get connection through being online with others, and it's not true. And I couldn't just go along with what she said, even though I was a guest on her podcast, because it's not the same. Even doing this two-hour cocktail party we were hugging each other and just being with each other, that's community. You don't have to have hundreds and hundreds of people together to have community. You can have 20 or whatever it is you can have however many makes it community to you. It's really important. And that's why this two hour cocktail party was so amazing. Because the ice breakers it is lame everything seems. It was an amazing experience because the icebreakers weren't anything that personal. But we got to know each other and everyone was like, when are we doing this again? And I did a girls only. That was just because my husband was away on the date I picked and I was like, fine, we'll do it. Was it girls only? And it was really fun. And we went around the circle and everybody talked about different things. And we just bonded and connected and it was an amazing experience. And it's not the same at all as being online, even. No matter how deep I get with people and how connected I feel, it's not the same as hugging and being physically together. The number one message I've received from all the interviews, from the messages of Hope, from the 52 Weeks of Hope community. We need to physically be together, as well as from the older demographic to their messages of hope we need to be together. You young people need to put down your phones and be together. That's what I was told. And in the blue zones where people live the longest, the happiest and the healthiest, it's to be together. I was at a podcast conference and somebody who had created a very big, this techie guy and everything. I go, there's no internet here because I wanted some help with his app, he said, I guess we're supposed to just be with each other. And that was a techie guy. And I was like, okay, I guess so. Hopefully, you'll be available. Like when we're all back in our lives to help me with your app. He will. That's just it's a service. Our vibe attracts our tribe. And so when you're vibrating at a higher frequency, you're going to attract people that are too. And when you're your authentic self and living an authentic life, again, there's okay, the word of the year. Sure. That's just what happens. So when I talk about so here I am feeling like an imposter with the party and with being at mindfulness meditation teacher, and then also with the next thing that came up with the friendship it was has to do with community and the importance of it. And I'm writing a book with I had an accountability partner, but she kind of build accountability. Partners are so huge. That's why I told this group of podcasters are want to be podcasters if they want to meet up once a month, just get together because it makes you accountable. And also you're not so alone thinking nobody else is going through this. I'm struggling here. You find out everyone's struggling in some area, and it just really helps to have that kind of community. I offer to do that. So if anybody wants to start a podcast, we're going to be doing a group of new podcasters and we're just going to meet once a month to help each other. So if you want to do that, all you have to do is let me know, get on the email list or DM me. And if you're not sure what it is you want to start. Accountability partners are huge, so we can just get in a group and everybody can start that. If you want to write a book, we can get an accountability group once a month for that. It just it's really big. So I started feeling like a fraud for a third time. Right now I'm not remembering what the third thing is, but I remember it was really big. I just felt like such a fraud. And I thought, if I am having imposter syndrome three times in a matter of five days, then I just reframed it, I reframed, I go, I must be on the verge of such great gestures. Something really big must be happening for me. If it's happening. Yes, many times in a one week period. So I reframed it. You can reframe anything you want, just remember that. So that was my reframe. I was very proud of myself that I must be on the precipice of something great because I like. A first thing is to notice. You have to notice that it's happened. And you can reframe anything. And I also can laugh at myself that I just can't take myself that seriously anymore. When imposter syndrome and I start feeling like a fraud and who I think I am to even attempt these kinds of things. If you've got something you want to do, if there's an idea and it's coming in your head more than once, it's probably in your head for a reason. And your time is now. This life's in session. Nobody can do it the way you can do it. Nobody has your voice. Nobody can put the message out the way you can do it. And what ever it is, nobody can do it the way you can. And this is your time. It is now. And everyone's. Everyone wants an authentic voice. Nobody wants like nobody wants it generated from AI. First of all, they want to hear it from you. And nobody can do it the way you can. So whatever it is that stopping you have a feeling. It's probably fear in some form or another. So pulling out energy of some, taking some small step. God doesn't drive parked cars. You can't sit in the corner and hope that the universe is just going to find you and hand it to you, just some kind of energy. Make that call you're afraid to make. Do a couple of actions. Write on a piece of paper. Why aren't I doing this? And then just freehand, right, doing things like that, that's energy. And then and take an action, some kind of an action. And let's now talk about connecting to others. It's like go big or go home. Everything's raw, real and authentic. Like I said, there's a reason authentic is a big word from last year. What is keeping you afraid from being you? I mean, the real you. And take a look at that, I mean it if you're afraid of being the real you. Why? If you listen to Valerie and the episode, she has very easy journaling book. I've interviewed her with less AJ about good journaling prompts, but you could just write what am I afraid of? And then just write because you're great. If you're drawn to listen to this, you're great and there's something you're wanting to do, or you wouldn't be listening to this right now. You are here for a reason. And if you were drawn to this episode, there's something you're wanting to do and you're wanting to heal in some way, and you're wanting to move forward and you're wanting a shift, and you deserve it. You're great and licensed session. Your time is now. Isolations over, the more well you get, the better quality people that you're going to attract. And accountability partners are huge. I can't say it enough. This podcast would not have gotten out as soon as I had an account accountability partner for my writing, I started writing again. She kind of is hibernating with her writing, so mine stopped a rocket of light. So I'll get another one because I just said so out loud. I believe in these things, so stop the analysis paralysis. There's no reason to start analyzing. You don't need another coaching program. You don't need any of that. You can close your eyes and think, what brings me joy? What do I really want? You want those deep connections. You want that? And that you know what it is you don't need to know. Wanted different coaching programs that you're not going to finish or all these online things. You can just join up with us and start. Can start. Your time is now. Don't forget to celebrate your progress. And so let people know when you've had wins. You need to celebrate yourself. It's important. Get rid of any self-limiting beliefs and make them unlimited believes. One other thing. When I was at the US podcasting conference, I learned that the first word in a podcast title is really important. That's what search the most. And 52 is not a big search. And if the word is in your podcast title, get rid of it. So I had to add a word in front of 52 weeks ago. So if you've seen Manifesting Balance, that's why it's now manifesting balance 52 weeks hope. I was told to check on the SEO of that on March 1st, so if you see that change, I'm not changing anything else. But if you happen to see that and wonder why that is there, that's the explanation. So that's why if you see manifesting balance, it has to do with SEO. That's the explanation for that.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this week's episode and take with you the messages of self, honesty, grace and trust. Trust in the process and in yourself. You've got the messages there inside you, take a breath. You know your answers. Such great messages to take it to your week ahead. Be sure to tune in next week for another empowering episode all about how to live authentically, abundantly and how to simply feel better. Your vibe does attract your tribe. Be sure to share this episode with your friends and to rate and review the podcast so more people feel less alone in the overwhelm. And remember the pause answers emerge in the pause, and instead of adding to your to do list, how about a to-don’t list?
This show is for burnt-out over achiever unlike other shows for burnt-out overachievers only, we take you off the hamster wheel by ditching your to-do list for the to-don’t list. Until next week I'm Lauren Abrams, thanks for listening. And by the way, reading and reviewing the podcast gives a lot of social proof, so I really would appreciate it if you could rate and review it. There's a link on the website. If you're not sure how to do that too, just go ahead and rate and review the podcast. Thanks for listening.
