Male Imposters: The Secret Shame and Fear Of Not Being Good Enough

Although Imposter Syndrome (IS) has traditionally been seen as a female phenomenon, there isn’t an awful lot of hard data to confirm that women actually do experience this more than men. The reason that it is seen as a female condition is simply that the phenomenon was first discovered using research on women and it is a stereotype that seems to have stuck.

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It’s a busy day at the office and your left eye has been twitching uncontrollably. So, out of curiosity and irritation you Google it.

As women started counting steps and walking to work wearing running shoes and fitness trackers, there was one work-related item that had to change: the briefcase.

We all know people who have suffered by trusting too much: scammed customers, jilted lovers, shunned friends.

A few years ago, I was privileged to hear a speech by Don Miguel Ruiz, author of The Four Agreements. He stressed repeatedly that the most important thing for us to watch in regard to our conversation is not so much what we say to others, but what we say to ourselves...

When I heard this story, I stopped in my tracks. What a powerful model for compassion in action! I pray that I might be so sensitive to support others in their sense of well-being and transform potentially painful situations with a stroke of kindness.

While a full night of deep sleep stabilizes emotions, a sleepless one can trigger up to a 30% rise in anxiety levels, a new study shows.

Here are some questions and answers about caretaking and speaking up with those we serve, from a cancer diagnosis to dementia and all stops in-between.

There’s something I don’t like about the ‘Golden Rule’, the admonition to do unto others as you would have others do unto you.

The saying that “whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” is simplistic, disingenuous, and potentially destructive.

The unquiet spirits, vampires and the omnipresent zombies that take over American streets every October 31 may think Halloween is all about spooky fun.

Workshops for elder care clinicians significantly improved their comfort and ability in identifying and helping address spiritual needs in their patients, research shows.

Freedom of thought stands at a critical crossroads. Technological and psychological advances could be used to promote free thought.

From swearing to insults, most of us have experienced rudeness in some form or another at work, out in public or online. Much of the research examining rudeness has focused on its negative effects and with good reason – there are plenty of them.

Have you ever thought about how your brain works when you study? Knowing this may improve your ability to retain and recall information.

The ancient Greeks spoke of two kinds of time, or two experiences of time: chronos and kairos. Chronos is what we now call clock time, objective time. In music, chronos is met­ronome time. Kairos is timeliness, the opportune moment that surges out from our experience, something that cannot happen at any time but only at this time. Educators call it the teachable moment.

A time comes in our personal development when we realize that we are not isolated, independent individuals, but rather that we are all interdependent. We then experience genuine care and concern for others, become more aware of the larger whole and feel a deep desire to share our riches, whatever they may be, with others.

Two-thirds of young people experience levels of exam stress that mental health organisation ReachOut describes as “worrying”.

As individuals, nations, and a planet, we have forgotten where we have come from, who we are, and where we are going. An honest look at the troubles we have created for ourselves reveals that we have painfully lost sight of the visions that once painted our future...

Women and men have incredible personal power yet often don't realize their own multifaceted power or know how to use it appropriately. The understanding of power is often limited to behaviors that involve being controlling, aggressive, or having influence over others. Personal power has nothing to do with these traits...

Do you ever think that you're not good enough to act compassionately? Not quite holy enough, so maybe you would rather leave that sort of behavior to the saints and sages, the ministers and priests. After all, aren't these the people who are in charge of communications with God?

For the Ancient Greeks, virtue wasn’t a goal in and of itself, but rather a route to a life well lived. By being honest and generous, embodying diligence and fortitude, showing restraint and kindness, a person would flourish

According to the NHS, as many as one in eight children aged five to 19 faces a mental health challenge. And a significant number of these cases are related to some form of anxiety.

Have you experienced some turbulence in these last months? It seems like these recent times have presented many folks with personal unexpected life-altering struggles. Our own trials and tribulations, in addition to the surreal political situation and what's happening throughout the world is taking a toll on our emotional, physical, psychological, and mental well-being.

Memory is the essence of our psychological functioning, essential for every move we make – getting dressed, having breakfast, driving to work, doing a crossword, making a cup of tea.

Log onto Netflix, and you’ll be presented with a menu of nearly 6,000 titles. Create an OkCupid account, and you’ll have the chance to connect with 5 million other active users.

The scientific evidence for climate change is unequivocal: 97 per cent of actively publishing climate scientists agree that human activities are causing global warming.

I love this photo of our son-in-law Ryan and our almost three-year-old grandson Owen. Ryan is taking Owen for his first surfing lesson. Owen is holding his hand with complete trust. He knows that his father has great wisdom in this situation and will take care of him. 

UK-based healthcare group the Priory is well-known for treating gambling, sex, drug, alcohol and computing addictions – especially of the rich and famous. 

As I was reflecting the other day on love -- loving ourselves, loving our neighbor, loving the world itself -- it came to me that with all the "stigma" attached to the word love, sometimes we may be at a loss as to what it really means.

Call it lies, fake news, or just plain old bullshit - misinformation seems to flutter willfully around the modern world. The truth, meanwhile, can take tedious decades to establish.

Last spring an 18-year-old college freshman who got straight A’s in high school – but was now failing several courses – came to my office on the campus where I work as a psychologist.

The phrase “loving out loud” refers to a way to live openly and without regret. It’s moving from rapid-fire emoticons to thoughtfully emoting. It’s recognizing the power of a gentler, spoken word infused with a gener­ous spirit.

Motivation can be a hard thing to come by. Whether at home, at school or at work, most of us have been in a situation where we know exactly what to do but lack the mental power to do it.

The “retargeted” ads that follow us around online work, especially when they start popping up early, research finds.

Making choices that you probably otherwise wouldn’t make were you alone – probably happens more often than you think in a wide variety of settings...

According to TheNew Republic magazine in June this year: ‘You will have to make sacrifices to save the planet’, while the US newspaper Metro asks: ‘What would you give up to end climate change?’

Who said that if you lived consciously nothing bad or challenging would ever happen to you? Who told you would never get sick, have a lover leave you, have a loved one die, have a car accident, or make a bad choice, huh? Who ever said that walking the spiritual path would be a piece of cake, easy as pie?

We must understand our fears if we really want to move on because that understanding is the prerequisite to self-knowledge, which alone is the only requirement for a harmonious relationship – with ourselves. Constant fear prevents us from living our true purpose. We must learn that fear is the basis of all man’s problems...

Cognitive empathy is the ability to recognise what another person is thinking or feeling, and one way it can be assessed in the lab is by using the “reading the mind in the eyes test” – or “eyes test”, for short. 

Employers’ small gestures of kindness can have big impacts on employees’ health and work performance, researchers report.

If you "grew up on Bible stories", you learned the "eye for an eye" concept. How is that to be put into effect in a spiritual practice that focuses on inner peace, forgiveness, and peaceful interactions with "all our relations"? Can "an eye for an eye" be interpreted in any way other than anger and revenge?

Everyone is subject to the release of stress hormones and the resulting feelings of high arousal or alarm. Some of us have neural programming that activates automatically and calms us. We go from alarm to interest or curiosity about what the amygdala is reacting to. Those of us who don’t have that software stay alarmed until the stress hormones burn off.

Welcome to the world of the Imposter Syndrome. It is a secret world, inhabited by successful people from all walks of life who have one thing in common – they believe that they are not really good enough. They might be men or women, young or old. And imposter beliefs are not always related to work; I have met ‘imposters’ who feel they are not good enough parents, husbands, wives, friends or even not good enough human beings.

When we’re one part of a group meant to decide someone else’s punishment, our peers can sway us to punish more often than we would if deciding alone, a new study finds.

The greatest fear in the world is of the opinions of others. And the moment you are unafraid of the crowd you are no longer a sheep. A great roar arises in your heart, the roar of freedom. What people say does not matter. Your whole and sole judge is God. And God simply means the whole universe.

Nature is full of animals helping each other out. A classic example is meerkat cooperation.

Optimism could boost our chances of living 85 years or more by over 50%, according to a new study based on decades of research.

Another day, another mass shooting. We grieve for Odessa, Tex., and we grieve for America. The aftermath of every mass shooting follows a now-routine pattern: Feverish coverage will be followed by politicians and pundits engaging in a predictable conversation about gun-safety legislation. All of which we know by now.

Take a minute to reflect on your ability or inability to tell your truth, particularly in the workplace. Notice how frequently you say things that are safe or politically correct and don't say the things that are true for you but are not necessarily as safe. It is important to recognize the cost of withholding our truth, both for ourselves and for...

Strictly Come Dancing, the TV show which pairs celebrities with professional dancers to compete in a ballroom dancing competition, has apparently been the cause of a number of divorces, break-ups, and scandals.

Society has become increasingly preoccupied with risk. So it’s unsurprising that as social scientists, we are constantly being asked to predict where harm is most likely to strike.

Ego does what is necessary to maintain its power. Guilt is one of the more blatant sub -personalities of ego. It performs two primary functions for ego: importance and responsibility. Both make you feel needed as described below....

We credit Socrates with the insight that ‘the unexamined life is not worth living' and that to ‘know thyself’ is the path to true wisdom.

For the Batek people of the Malaysian peninsula rainforest, laughter can be dangerous.

Unlike other icons who have appeared on the front of Life magazine, Ferdinand Waldo Demara was not famed as an astronaut, actor, hero or politician.

The mastery of sleep is to know what sleeping conditions you need and recognize the sacredness of those conditions. If you are protesting that you do not have time to recognize the sacredness of sleep right now, that’s okay. See and know that. Acknowledge that right now you may be prioritizing busyness over sacredness, 

What transforms an irksome situation or event into frustration? It's our expectations, our "shoulds" that cause aggravation. Your wife should have an awareness about her eating habits. Drivers should be considerate of other drivers' needs. Your son should learn how to develop tidy habits.

Satisfaction with your home can depend on its size compared to the homes of your neighbors, according to new research.

Life can be stressful. It can and does present challenges. It also brings pleasures and laughter, as well as sadness and tears. Some of these experiences we accept with joy, others we want to run from and hide, others just plain aggravate us or bore us 'to death'...

There is ongoing debate about whether eating disorders are more common in modern society.

I study emerging technologies and digital culture. In our field it’s well-established: major studies show no link between violent criminal action and violent video games.

Forgetting to do or to say things happens to all of us sometimes.

A commitment to an anger-free life involves signing up for a new journey. Deciding to actually enjoy this journey will make it much more pleasant. Learn to think of life as a process. If you focus only on goals, you are not going to be happy until you have achieved them.

In an actual war, to be attacked means to have our survival threatened. Thus, we might chose between surrender, withdrawal, or counterattack. When we feel attacked (criticized or judged) by others in conversation, we often move into that same...

Dehumanizing language often precedes genocide. One tragic example: Extreme dehumanizing language was a strong contributor to the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.

When we hear that a poor person scammed others out of money, we may attribute this behavior to their poverty, rationalizing that the person violated ethics and the law because they needed the money.

There is no more urgent question than this: How can I make peace real? How are we to meet violence with nonviolence, to meet war with peace, to meet fear with love, to meet hatred with compassion? How are we to dismantle the attitude of militarism and install the attitude of peace, within our own minds and within the very structure of society?

In all likelihood, poor mental health has blighted every age of human existence. Evolutionary psychologists suggest it may be an intrinsic, even necessary, condition for our species.

The biggest problem with a mistake that's not forgiven is that it becomes a piece of garbage cluttering up your mind. The longer you dwell on the mistake, the more it magnifies and distracts you. Our minds become a giant toxic dumpsite. It results in perpetual unhappiness.

Bike and scooter sharing is booming in cities all around the world. In the United States, the number of trips through either bike or scooter sharing — modes of transportation called “micromobility” — more than doubled over one year, from 35 million trips in 2017 to 84 million in 2018.

One innovative way to face hard truths is through imagery. Rumi’s words from the opening quote echo across the centuries and present evocative symbols. “Mount the stallion of love and do not fear the path…” Consider the imagery of this verse and zero in on two significant elements: the stallion and you.

Inside the brain, a group of cells known as nociceptin neurons get very active before mice give up on reaching hard-to-get rewards, researchers report.

On May 22 2017, my home city of Manchester suffered a terrorist attack killing 22 people and injuring several hundred. But in the midst of the senseless savagery of the attack, there were many stories of heroism and selflessness.

You might think there are some people who never worry. But that’s not true. We all worry but at different times and about different things. A bit of worrying is normal and healthy.

Moral grandstanding is a vanity project that sabotages public discourse says moral philosopher Brandon Warmke

We live in a society obsessed with performance. For both young and old, competitions, awards and rankings are an inescapable feature of life.

Guilt plays a role in whether admitting to a lapse in self-control helps us resist temptation in the future or makes us more likely to give in again, according to new research.

To be 'in service' in today's world is regarded as demeaning no matter whether the service is given freely, or for hire and reward. A misconception exists that by the very act of serving someone you are placing yourself in a position of subservience to the person that is being served. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Society desperately needs the tempering and respectful energy of feminine strength. The Chi­nese proverb “When sleeping women wake, mountains move” is being affirmed by societal shifts throughout the world. We are awake and deeply aware that our strength, wisdom, and compassion are needed.

In 2008, author Rebecca Solnit’s now famous essay, Men Explain Things to Me, set off a firestorm.

Smoking kills one in two regular smokers, but quitting at any point in life leads to big improvements in health, increased life expectancy and savings in healthcare costs.

Over the past two years, I’ve started working with people on applying what I know in the human world of work. And what I see in most of the workplaces I visit – everywhere from corporate office towers to government departments and blue-collar work sites – is strikingly similar to the behaviour of addicted lab rats.

Our behaviour is largely tied to how well we control, organise and carry out movements in the correct order.

We can get side-tracked by our ego that wants to be right at any price. It doesn't care about lost friendships, or uncomfortable work relations, or families torn apart by pride -- it only cares about being right. How often do we let "being right" step into the way of peace...

Over recent years, “body dissatisfaction” – or shame about one’s appearance – has been on the rise in men. 

More than 1.6m people in the UK alone are estimated to have an eating disorder such as anorexia or bulimia.

Expect emotional warfare where there are high-conflict people. High-conflict people dominate by sowing division, at all levels of society — from school boards to state governments.

Many of us are trying to fit into existing roles that aren't specially crafted for us, and, as a result, we don't fit perfectly in them. This causes us a lot of stress and anxiety.

If you’ve suffered from anxiety, depression or relationship problems, a psychological theory called “attachment theory” can help you get to the root cause of your difficulties and give you a greater understanding of what’s going on.

When should you censor yourself, and when should you speak up? Emily Chamlee-Wright explains moral philosopher Adam Smith's 'impartial spectator'.

A few years ago, I reflected on years of doctoral field-notes documenting the homes of tinkerers — people with an extraordinary commitment to DIY living.

All our fears are unique and different, born out of different experiences and often maintained through subconscious pro­gramming throughout life. Conquering such origins of fear once and for all, ultimately will allow you to meet with your life’s goals and purpose. Because at the end of the day, the only thing holding any of us back is ourselves and how we process, manifest and deal with fear.

People living in colder regions with less sunlight drink more alcohol than their warm-weather counterparts, research shows.

Why do we often neglect big problems, like the financial crisis and climate change, until it's too late?

Honesty is one of the traits we value most in others. We often assume it is a rather rare quality, making it important for us to find out who we can actually trust in this selfish world.

In order to experience fearlessness, it is necessary to experience fear. In order to experience fearlessness, it is necessary to experience fear. True fearlessness is not the reduction of fear; but going beyond fear...

Have you ever found yourself wanting to 'fix' people? You know... when you can clearly see everything that's wrong with them and want to reorganize them and their life? It seems so easy for us to look at someone else and see everything that they need to do to improve themselves. It seems so easy to 'fix' someone else...

To gain insight into the psychology of radicalization and terrorist violence, researchers scanned the brains of men who support a terrorist organization associated with Al Qaeda.

Long-time “Jeopardy!” host Alex Trebek announced in March that he had been diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer.