My Essay on HelloGiggles: “How a Recurring Dream Helped Me Overcome Impostor Syndrome”

We’ve talked about recurring dreams a few times on the blog and I’ve been plagued with some dozy dream reruns in my day — some involving hospitals and others involving my father. Pretty heavy stuff, huh? Why can’t I ever dream about gentlemen-ly pool boys over and over? That would be the stuff dreams are made of…

But I digress. I had one dream in particular, though, that started playing itself on a never-ending loop. It was the same scenario, with the same feelings, with the same, “what-the-heck-is-going-on?” vibe even after I’d wake up. And it wasn’t until I actually sat down and wrote about it — all of it — that I finally started putting the crazy puzzle pieces together. I finally saw the whole picture for what it was…

Impostor Syndrome.

Even better? The essay How a Recurring Dream Helped Me Overcome Impostor Syndrome was published on HelloGiggles today! It details the recurring dream I had about finding out that I technically never had enough credits to graduate college — yikes! If I wanted to get my degree, I’d have to go back and finish. ASAP. Looking back now, it’s obvious what the dream was all about, but at the time, everything was just one big ball of confusion.

Here’s an excerpt of the essay, and something tells me I’m not alone in my dream dilemmas…

I hated to admit it, but maybe I was suffering from a case of Impostor Syndrome, that phenomenon that fills our heads with all kinds of anxiety and doubts about our abilities.

The insecurities grow increasingly palpable until we’re questioning our very worth.

The more I thought about it, the more I couldn’t deny that my insecurities were getting the best of me. I felt like a complete fraud as I saw other writers getting published in the same magazines I’d been trying to break into for years; they made it look so easy. What was I doing wrong? Maybe I really didn’t have any idea what I was doing — but the scarier thought? Maybe I didn’t have what it takes to be a writer.

Our minds have a strange way of showing us the light during the darkest hours of the night. It’ll show us things we can’t see in the morning, and, maybe more importantly, it’ll show us those deep fears that we can’t admit — both to other people and to ourselves.

You can read the full essay here and I’d love to hear your thoughts. Feel free to email me anytime at mellow1422@aol.com and let’s chat! And of course, feel free to share my essay on Facebook, Twitter or even your local refrigerator. If you share on Twitter, be sure to tag me @melissablake so we can connect! I can’t wait to hear from you! Love you all… xoxo