We’ve all been there: We shared from the depths of our souls. Our fears. Our worries. Our hopes. Our dreams.

In the sharing, you were effusive, euphoric, unbridled, and even — dare I say it? — emotional. Because, I mean, it felt so good in that moment.

And then you felt the surge of heat in your cheeks. The room started to spin and you had to make a hasty retreat from the conversation. Or worse... you left feeling euphoric, only to wake up in a puddle of your insecurities the next day.

"Oh hell! Why did I share that?” “What was I thinking?” And, worse, “What must THEY be thinking now about ME?”

You think you said too much.

You think you were too much.

You, my friend, are eyeballs deep into what has been called the “vulnerability hangover.”

[A term coined by the Queen Bee of Vulnerability, Dr. Brené Brown.]

Friend? I’ve totally been there.

As a chronic hugger of strangers, the first one to say I love you, an over-sharer by nature, and a woman living inside a desire to live so fully that most of her filters have been removed, I get it.

Brown posits that if you don’t feel any vulnerability hangover, then maybe you didn’t go far enough.

If we’re going to use vulnerability hangovers as a metric of courage, here’s a super quick survival guide.

First of all, you will survive this.

You will absolutely survive your vulnerability hangover. Anyone who has stepped out and risked sharing what was true has experienced this and (you guessed it) survived.

Next, hydrate.

Simple. Just hydrate. No tricks. Just drink water.

(You aren’t drinking enough, you know.)

Third, compassion-ate

As in, fire compassion beams on yourself. Be kind. Be gentle.

You shared because you had a full tank of thoughts and feelings and sadness and joy and despair and whatever else you had and were looking to connect with someone. Maybe with several someones. You needed that. We all need that. So beating yourself up is counter-productive.

Find the same compassion for yourself that you would give a sweet little girl who told her crush that their eyes were nice and now feels awash in shame for her confession.

Last, calibrate

Recognize that the impulse beneath the sharing was connection (it was, trust me). Where else can you get this need met in a way that will not send you to bed dizzy and wanting to hide because you are flushed with hot panic? What’s another way forward? Who can you surround yourself with?

Because what I worry about is this: if you endure one too many vulnerability hangovers, you just may stop showing up.

And, honey? We cannot have that.

Listen. We are living in a messed up time.

It is time to say what needs to be said. Now more than ever.

We can’t have you in bed not saying what needs to be said because you are afraid of the repercussions of a vulnerability hangover.

I’m scared. I know you are too.

Above all:

Please don’t apologize for feeling the depths of your experience.

Don’t apologize for expressing the depths of your experience.

And don’t stop sharing what needs to be shared.

It’s time for humanity. Not immunity. And certainly not silence.

I repeat: we’ve got work to do.

But what do you do when you’re not certain how to do that work?

What do you do when you’ve drunk your water and felt deep into that self-compassion (and possibly even read Dr. Brown’s books) — but you’re not sure how to calibrate and realign or decide on your next move?

What do you do when you’re pre- hangover — but you’re procrastinating speaking up because you dread the crash that will follow?

When you know you have things to say, a bigger role to fill, a bigger impact to make — but you can’t quite figure out how to do the next right thing to get there.

That’s where I come in.

Over the years of studying and working with the Imposter Complex, I’ve developed a toolbox of strategies that can help guide you through the squidgy places (the vulnerability hangovers, the habits of procrastination or diminishment or comparison) to help you uncover and create Your Impeccable Impact.

And if you’re wondering how you will know when you’re ready to make such a move?

Searching for how to survive your vulnerability hangover tells me you’re making bold moves (or you wouldn’t be dealing with a hangover in the first place!). And if you’ve read this far, that tells me you’re considering a few more.

 That’s thrilling stuff. Let’s talk about it and find out if I can support you on your journey to get where you want to go.

---

*A note about coaching. With ANYONE.

I’m always amazed when a new client apologizes for being emotional in a session. Worrying about what I’ll think. It’s chronic — worrying about how we’ll react to each other.

People… I’m a professional.

THIS is what I do. This is what ALL coaches do. All that deep-listening and ideation and strategy and compassion are God-given gifts that I nurture and tend to. No doubt. SELF-MANAGEMENT is the skill I paid tens of thousands of dollars for and spent thousands of hours mastering.

So bring it. Bring the mess. Bring the tears. Bring what you think is a shit show.

I’ve got it all. I’ve got you. That’s my job. That’s ALL coaches' jobs.

We’ll find your way forward. Because we are going to need your voice, at top level. We’re going to need your arms, your heart, your soul and all that you have got if we’re going to turn this thing around.

---

Check out my free training on the 5 ICONIC Shifts Leaders Use to Overcome the Imposter Complex and Grow their Income and their Impact

Where I pull back the curtain on five shifts to start raising voices, rates, and hands all while being the kind, congruent, and authentic leader I know you to be.

It’s hard not to notice something of a worrying trend on social media lately.

Lots of memes, funny videos, t-shirts, and more talking about how “Mommy needs her wine…”

That sort of mommy culture, a shorthand that mothers can use to connect with one another and relate.

And on the one hand — funny!  Sure...I get it. Maybe you’ve been there. It wasn’t that long ago for me when the thought of a glass of wine after putting the kid(s) to bed kept us going through the witching hour.

But when is it just good fun, and when does it become… something else?

Ever since I landed the plane on understanding that the Imposter Complex (you may have heard of Imposter Syndrome, but here is why I use “Imposter Complex” instead) has three main objectives — it wants to keep us out of action, alone and isolated, and doubting our capacity — I’ve been thinking about what OTHER factors play out the same way.

And when I hear folks talk about alcohol misuse — welp, it sure sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

So I had to ask myself, when is the Imposter Complex to blame, and when is it alcohol misuse?

(For clarity, we will use the terms alcohol abuse and misuse interchangeably here, though they may have different connotations in different settings, especially in clinical definitions.)

To dig deeper into this discernment, I knew I wanted to speak to my friend, bestselling author and coach, Andrea Owen.

I was in a mastermind with Andrea when she stopped drinking.

From the outside, even as I was on the inside, it seemed like it was a non-event. A decision made, like starting a running regimen. She had a relatively “high bottom” as she describes it in our podcast interview, so there was no public drama to wonder about. I had no idea what was actually going on for her and likely lacked the skills, tools, and maturity to ask. I was fiercely proud of her, celebrated her and that was about it.

If I’m being truly honest, I suspect I had no idea because I didn’t want to look deeper.

Looking deeper in her process may have asked me to look deeper at my own relationship to alcohol.

But now I’m ready enough to look deeper and start to tease out the nuances and intersections between the Imposter Complex and alcohol abuse.

Alcohol and feminism

“The giant elephant in the room,” Andrea said in our podcast conversation, is that “women are marketed to, in terms of alcohol, differently than men are. Especially mothers.

“Just pay attention when you are out and about. The jokes for instance. I think the one that really chaps my hide and makes me mad is the mug that says ‘there might be wine in this.’ Because that was me, that was me wanting to drink wine at 2, 3 o'clock in the afternoon.

“It's ‘rosé all day,’ and there's a lot of — I'm going to say it — there are a lot of white men sitting in board rooms, who are making a lot of money off of women numbing out, and losing themselves.”

That has everything to do with feminism.

And the Imposter Complex is also directly related to the patriarchy. It’s trying to keep us out of action.

Both are trying to keep women and gender non-binary folks small and quiet, doubting themselves, out of action.

And facing either head-on is a revolutionary act.

It works until it doesn’t

As Andrea explains it on the podcast, alcohol abuse is part of a much larger cycle:

“Someone who engages in perfectionism and people-pleasing, there are feelings around that. We want to fit in, we feel lonely, we feel like crap because we're essentially going against our values. You can have a value around giving back and being of service, but it crosses the line into leaky boundaries, and just getting taken advantage of and feeling like a doormat and feeling resentful.

You have all these feelings. Not very many of us are well versed in actually processing those feelings, or reaching out for help, or even naming them. We don't even know what they are. We didn't come from families, and this is not to blame and shame our parents, it's just not what was taught.

And then, in order to feel relief from that — I'm so stressed out, I'm so overwhelmed, not really being able to pinpoint, oh that's perfectionism, and all of these things — I just need a drink. I need to ‘take the edge off.’

What I've always said, what dawned on me several years ago was, maybe I need to actually turn my head towards that edge. What is this "edge" that I keep talking about, that I need to keep taking off, what is that?

Maybe that is the root of the problem. So, if I looked at that with open eyes and open heart and open mind, instead of pouring wine all over it, maybe that might solve the problem. Or at least make me feel better and have more awareness, so I can get to the woman that I really, truly want to be.”

It’s a common refrain of 12 step programs that “it works until it doesn’t” — and that could refer to alcohol or any of the behaviours of the Imposter Complex.  

It works… until it doesn’t.

And when it doesn’t, that’s when we start to wonder if we can “turn our head toward the edge” as Andrea so brilliantly puts it, and feel those feelings, get curious about the root causes, and actually make some progress instead of staying stuck and numb.

Speaking your shame

Lie #5 of the Imposter Complex is “You must not tell anyone about this.” That Imposter Complex pays you hush money to keep you quiet about whatever it is, keep you alone and isolated.

Andrea is not playing that game when it comes to recovery.

“The misuse of alcohol and drugs is still so stigmatized that we're taught to stay quiet about it, even if we are people in long term recovery. And I personally will not stand for that. That's why I've always been: this is what an alcoholic looks like. And people were surprised by that.”

There’s power in speaking the shame that’s held us back, and Andrea is leaning into that power, trying to take some of the anonymity out of recovery.

“For so long, Alcoholics Anonymous has been the gold standard for recovery and there's anonymity in that, and I can understand that, yes. But, his whole point is, if you take the 20 plus million people, just in the United States, who are in long term recovery, ask them to speak out about this and normalize addiction, then we can change this problem that we have.”

The same thing is true about the Imposter Complex; many if not all of its lies don’t stand up when you shine a bright light on them. They thrive in darkness, in silence, and in shame. And, like recovery, we can be stronger together when we speak our shame, share our struggles, and demonstrate that we have survived and come out the other side.

“Do I have a problem?”

So finally, we come to the crux of the issue: when does alcohol become a problem?

“If you're asking the question, how do people know if it's Imposter Complex, or alcohol? I feel like it doesn't matter,” Andrea says. “Don't let that stop you. It's called over identification, the psychological term is called over identification. I have clients that do this — love them! — but they just want to get out their label makers and say, this is perfectionism, this is this, that is that.

It's like, at the end of the day, it doesn't fucking matter. If it feels like crap and it's keeping you small, and it's keeping you from setting boundaries, and it's keeping you quiet, then we need to identify what's underneath it. That's where your work comes in.”

If you’re wondering if you might have an alcohol problem, Andrea encourages you to Google the term “gray area drinking;” it will point you to other podcasts, articles, and resources for people who may not self-identify as an alcoholic, but who find their own relationship to alcohol problematic.

To hear my entire conversation with Andrea — which is well worth a listen — click here or subscribe to the Ready Enough podcast wherever you like to listen.

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Check out my free training on the 5 ICONIC Shifts Leaders Use to Overcome the Imposter Complex and Grow their Income and their Impact

Where I pull back the curtain on five shifts to start raising voices, rates, and hands all while being the kind, congruent, and authentic leader I know you to be.

(This is my annual birthday love letter to our daughter. Regularly scheduled articles about the Impostor Complex and your Unshakeable Confidence will crank back up next week. Promise.)

Beloved L.

Today’s your fifteenth birthday.

FIFTEEN.

I just...can’t even.

So can we take a pause here to let me catch my breath and scan where we’ve been.

On your eighth birthday, I made some wishes. They continue to hold strong and true.

On your ninth, I shared some wisdom from truth-sayers intended to light your way.

On your tenth, I called in some reinforcements to remind you of the wonder that you are.

On your eleventh, I invited you to trust your body, your knowing.

On your twelfth, I made an apology and some promises I’ll never break. Namely, this: “I will never withdraw my love. I will always be your soft place to land. You will never go wrong if you are always yourself.”

On your thirteenth, I shared a story that I will never forget.

On your fourteenth, I tried to do the near impossible. To reflect back to you the light that I see.

---

Okay.

I’m ready.

Remember when I used to drive you to Theatre Day Camp? In particular, it was the summer of Taylor Swift. Ly had turned you onto her, yeah? “Romeo and Juliet” was the gateway.

You’ll not be the least bit surprised to know that I used to watch you in the rearview mirror as we sang along to “Fifteen”. You had just turned seven. The fact that you would one day be that freshman girl who discovers the only way one can truly learn about heartbreak took my breath away. Knowing all too well the next eight years would go by in a flash.

I was right. (And you KNOW how I like to be right.)

The first line of the song was:

“You take a deep breath”

So I did. Every time in the car. I would watch you with your head thrown back as you belted it out with full heart and voice. I would smile and also wonder at what age I would need to address how problematic the lyrics were. But for the moment, just feeling it all. And breathing deeply.

Which is what I’ve been doing for the past eight years.

Your grace taking my breath away, and me needing to take a deep breath.

Grounding into the now that we have. Every time.

This year has been one of massive transitions. Again. As you have navigated the newness of high school and tricky terrains and social dynamics and expectations swollen with your potential and projections from those who mean well but place the weight of the world on your sunny shoulders...because you cheer everyone up.

And your grace takes my breath away.
And so I take a deep breath.

I want you to know it’s okay to feel down, and to stay down just as long as you need to.

That you don’t have to be the good girl.

That I love singing with you as much as I love our spirited conversations about problematic lyrics that presume cis-het relationships and suggest the value of a girl’s worth being inextricably linked to her virginity.

That there are no limits to our love. Nor on your capacity for greatness.

That you get to choose.

But what I want you to know is that the shift that has happened in this last year has taken my breath away above all else.

No longer do I feel the need to show you the world.

Now I only want to see the world through your big — and yes — beautiful hazel, knowing, questioning, challenging, just, loving, kind, empathetic, and sparkling eyes.

Because you see the all.

Believe me.
But above all, believe YOU.

I love you with every breath I have.
Mama

---

Check out my free training on the 5 ICONIC Shifts Leaders Use to Overcome the Imposter Complex and Grow their Income and their Impact

Where I pull back the curtain on five shifts to start raising voices, rates, and hands all while being the kind, congruent, and authentic leader I know you to be.

Those of us in the self-development space mean well. (I reckon that’s the first time I’ve ever said I’m in the self-development space, but y’all know I’m writing a book and if there’s one thing Big Publishing loves, it’s titles… but I digress.)

We really do. Or at least, I operate under the assumption that those of us in the self-development space mean well.

And in that meaning well, we can do harm. You know I’m talking about that chasm between impact and intent.

I am certain I have done harm when I have said things approximately (or quite literally) like:

Believe in yourself!
Take up more space!
Shine up!
Be bolder!
Step into your Starring Role!

I believe in those things. I want those things for you. Truly and deeply I do. And… they are insufficient.

If you’ve been around for any amount of time, you know as a Libran Leadership Coach, I am a little more than preoccupied with seeing the both AND of things. That life is not happening in the extremes, but rather in the spaces in between. I tend to see and dream in nuance. Frustratingly, I speak in nuance too. What others may perceive as wishy-washy, I assert to be discernment.

But maybe that doesn’t always come through. Because “ALWAYS,” I mean...isn’t that one more extreme? (See what I did there?) Even last week’s article: The answer is almost always: bring more of you, the “almost” in the title was an intentional linchpin word.

And here’s what I want you to know.

The Imposter Complex (which is what we’re really speaking of when you might think we’re talking about Imposter Syndrome) is highly concerned with you belonging. Or not belonging. Which is a fundamental need. Refresher: Maslow’s hierarchy* of needs goes like:

1. Physiological needs

2. Safety needs

3. Belonging

4. Esteem

5. Self-actualization

*(I’ve come to understand that the basis of Maslow’s “hierarchy of needs” concept was built off of the Blackfoot people’s knowledge.)

So it follows that you need to feel safe before you can feel you belong. And you can’t feel the fullness of your esteem and confidence until you feel you belong.

So… we can see how unhelpful it is when we see and say:

Believe in yourself!
Take up more space!
Shine up!
Be bolder!
Step into your Starring Role!

...in response to a crisis of the Imposter Complex variety.

Out of context — and it’s all about context — these are not simply incomplete directives because they don’t offer up a HOW. They are incomplete directives because they belie the reality that for some, it may simply not be safe to do so. Or it hasn’t been safe to do so up until now. And maybe it still isn’t.

In this instance, these confidence hacks are insufficient. This is not simply about shifting your mindset. There are real structural and systemic forces at play here.

So here’s what I want to offer up. Another lens.

It’s true that when I see diminishment and/or comparison and/or perfectionism and/or procrastination and/or leaky boundaries and/or people-pleasing running the show, I suspect that the Imposter Complex is in the house and I want to make sure you’re not hiding out in those coping mechanisms.

But/AND the ORIGIN STORY of those behavioural traits… may be that they come from your second most basic need: safety.

Diminishment is an entirely appropriate response if you have ever been targeted.

Comparison meant you always knew how you were stacking up. And how to modulate accordingly.

Getting it perfect may have meant you were spared some kind of punishment.

Procrastination meant you delayed getting it wrong.

Leaky boundaries meant you could shape-shift to fit into hostile environments.

Pleasing the people who hold power over you is just deeper wisdom keeping you safe.

See why these are such hard(wired) habits to break?

I sure do.

Let’s pause here and breathe together.

I see you.

And I am sorry.

I am sorry for every time you have endured a reductionist rah-rah quote that didn’t attend to the complexity of your lived experience and the emotions you endure.

Truly, I am sorry.

And I want to offer a little tenderness to those painful places.

What if…

Diminishment meant you valued humility.

Comparison meant you valued connection.

Perfectionism meant you valued excellence.

Procrastination meant you valued discernment.

Leaky Boundaries meant you valued generosity.

People-pleasing meant you valued inclusivity.

What then? What if these glorious aspects of you were not something to be fixed but rather to be calibrated… and then, maybe even, with time and care, to be celebrated?

What then indeed.

Maybe they only become a PROBLEM when we allow them to shut us down. To stay out of action. To doubt our capacity. To stay alone and isolated. And THAT’S when I’m a hard NO on your behalf to these behaviours.

When those behavioural traits are getting in the way of your good work. Your leadership. Your art. Your movement. Your activation. We need to call them out. That’s just true.

When those behavioural traits have been speed bumps on the road of your expansion, we need to know how to circumnavigate them.

But maybe we don’t need to eradicate them. Because they are PART of you. The discernment is in knowing when they are born of a good place and when they are getting in the way.

So I just want you to know why they’re here and for you to adjust your route — knowing why and where and WHEN they tend to show up. (Psst… usually on the precipice of your desires.)

And when the whole world wants to trivialize just how remarkable you truly are and you are prepared to buy into it, I will indeed remind you that you are made of stardust… you are literally the stuff of stars.

That much, I am certain I am right about. Without exception and without apology.

---

Check out my free training on the 5 ICONIC Shifts Leaders Use to Overcome the Imposter Complex and Grow their Income and their Impact

Where I pull back the curtain on five shifts to start raising voices, rates, and hands all while being the kind, congruent, and authentic leader I know you to be.

From the moment I landed the plane on the language that I currently use around my process: “Step into your Starring Role,” I have had to defend it.

Most people hate it.

“I don’t want the spotlight!”
“I don’t want the stage.”
“Stars are egomaniacs… why would I want anything to do with that?”

And yet, yet, there is something to it.

Because folks stick around. They stick around and they read my words and they work with me and I am forever and truly and deeply grateful that they do.

And I’m stubborn, it’s true. But given how vociferously folks argue with me about the language, I’ve always wondered why I haven’t let it go for the ten years I’ve been using it.

It wasn’t until last week when I invited Nicole Lewis-Keeber to teach inside my program and she had us consider what our younger selves wanted that I remembered.

Settle in for story time…

When I was six, I was in the church Christmas pageant. I wanted to be the Angel. Not Mary, but the Angel. She, to me, was the Star of the show. The Knower and the Wayshower. Instead, I kind of called it in for the audition, shelved the fullness of my passion and was given the role of a Shepherd. I loved the staff my father handcrafted and stained for me and I really loved getting to wear a colourful terry cloth bathrobe to Church, but for all my brave face, I was miserable that I didn’t get to be the Angel. It was made worse by the fact that my arch-nemesis got the role instead.

You know how these kinds of pageants go. There are few lines and even fewer directions. So the directions that are given are sacrosanct.

The Angel decided to breach protocol and step out in front of Mary and Joseph. Her act of defiance was more than my little six-year-old jealous heart could bear and I was apoplectic.

“SHE’S NOT SUPPOSED TO GO IN FRONT OF MARY AND JOSEPH,” I proclaimed to the congregation, pointing the sinner out with my awesome staff.

The audience did not join me in my righteous indignation. In fact, they started to laugh. And so, I responded — as one does — and started to pee right there on stage. My Sunday School teacher came to carry me off… mid-stream. I remember being in her arms as she made a lighthearted joke about wishing she knew how much the staging of the Angel mattered to me… she would have given me the Role.

Truth of the matter is, I have made peace with this 41-year-old story. I have loved up that wee one and given her plenty of care for the shame she felt. I have forgiven her for her temper and she has forgiven me for making light of that story for all these years.

But the idea of not having had the chance to Step into my Starring Role then? Because I didn’t bring the fullness of myself to the audition?

Well… I see it now. I see why and how deeply it matters to me. For me. And for you.

You see, we all know the truth of it:

We offer others the thing we most want for ourselves.

Love.
Care.
Permission.
Amplification.
Kindness.
Generosity.

And for me, I see in others what I wished I had seen in my six-year-old self. The Star she was.

So, I get to see the Star in you.

In fact, I don’t just see the Star… I see the Moon. I see the Universe. I see the ALL.

And I want you to see it too.
So that’s what I do.
That’s why I offer breakthrough calls.
That’s why I defend the language.

The answer is almost always: bring more of you.

I want you to change the game.

How?

The answer is almost always: bring more of you.

That’s what’s on my heart.

That’s what’s on my mind.

Bring more of you.
And that thing you give so freely of yourself?
Give it to yourself…too.

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Check out my free training on the 5 ICONIC Shifts Leaders Use to Overcome the Imposter Complex and Grow their Income and their Impact

Where I pull back the curtain on five shifts to start raising voices, rates, and hands all while being the kind, congruent, and authentic leader I know you to be.