Modern culture means we spend so much of our time living in the external world of social media or societal influences and the daily exhaustion of our growing to-do lists that we have lost connection with our true selves. We often, without even knowing it, have hidden parts of who we truly are through holding shame, guilt, or embarrassment to fit into a societal box. How many of us are being true to ourselves, true to what we want and true to what we are doing on a daily basis?

Whether we are single, partnered, married, or separated, we can feel lost in some way when we do not feel empowered within ourselves. We can struggle to control our emotions, especially if we feel that we do not have a purpose or things are not in our control. It is common for us to become exhausted by keeping up the façade (that we subconsciously hold) and trying to believe the false truths we have told ourselves. We become tired of feeling like a fraud or feel that we are not good enough. This is the essence of what imposter syndrome is, the belittling belief we subconsciously tell ourselves that we are not enough or stops us from trying new things and keeps us in our comfort zones of the familiar – the opposite of self-empowerment. 

When we have feelings of unworthiness, lacking self-confidence or self-esteem, they feed our inner critic, the gremlin. Our gremlins can keep us in a place of pain and discomfort, a feeling of being trapped and that the familiar is ‘safe’ because we know it. However, it is important that we challenge our gremlins because they can keep us from moving forward, trying new things, or thriving because the unfamiliar is potentially dangerous to us and may hold failure. It is important for us to challenge and explore what we hold as true and safe in different areas of our lives so we can flourish and develop a deeper purpose for our lives.