Episode #16: Social Change Roles and the Imposter Complex with Deepa Iyer

ReadyEnough_ep16_deepaiyer.jpg

Amidst the complex emotions that of course, I’m experiencing and certainly bearing witness to while navigating the realities of the current uncertainty precipitated by COVID 19, one of the most common threads I can discern is a well-intended but despair-filled sense of, “but what can I DO?” “I’m not DOING enough.”

And this DOING, and this enoughness, that need for identity has been one that has caused a lot of struggle and confusion and inefficiency. Comparison too. 

So when my friend and former Ready Enough Podcast guest, Staci Jordan, shared a Medium post on Facebook called “Mapping our Social Change Roles in Times of Crisis,” it rang a LOT of bells and ticked a LOT of boxes.

I found myself bringing into my coaching conversations, and into my group program called Your Impeccable Impact. It’s been so helpful to guide people into an understanding of where they, you, I are best suited to serve in THIS current situation, context, and season. And once we see where we are best suited, we can dive on in and not feel the need to wear all the hats or capes. But we MUST fill our role as best we can. We are all needed. That’s my rallying cry.

So in this episode of Ready Enough, I am joined by the author of this amazing article, Deepa Iyer. Deepa is a Senior Advisor at Building Movement Project and Director of Solidarity Is, a project that provides trainings, narratives, and resources on building deep and lasting multiracial solidarity and sustainability of social change ecosystems. Iyer is a South Asian American writer, lawyer, strategist, facilitator, and activist whose areas of expertise include the post 9/11 America experiences of South Asian, Muslim, Arab and Sikh immigrants, immigration and civil rights policies, and racial equity and solidarity practices. Iyer has worked at various national and local organizations with a focus on immigrant and racial justice. She served as executive director of South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT) for a decade, and has also held positions at Race Forward, the US Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, the Asian Pacific American Legal Resource Center, and the Asian American Justice Center.

Iyer’s first book, We Too Sing America: South Asian, Arab, Muslim and Sikh Immigrants Shape Our Multiracial Future (The New Press 2015), received a 2016 American Book Award. She hosts a podcast called Solidarity Is This to explore solidarity practices around the country. Iyer has received fellowships from Open Society Foundations and the Social Change Initiative, and in 2019, she received an honorary doctoral degree from the Chicago School of Professional Psychology. Iyer serves on the Advisory Council of the Emergent Fund, which resources grassroots organizing and power building in communities of color who are facing injustice based on racial, ethnic, religious, and other forms of discrimination.

An immigrant who moved to Kentucky from India when she was twelve, Iyer graduated from the University of Notre Dame Law School and Vanderbilt University.

And so in this episode, we dig into her framework from the “Mapping our Social Change Roles in Times of Crisis” article, how the Imposter Complex shows up when we’re navigating these roles, how the Imposter Complex shows up for Deepa, and what went into her writing her book, We Too Sing America.

“While you may not be a front-line responder in this particular moment, there are others who are in your ecosystem, and there’s a lot of comfort in knowing that we’re interconnected."

-Deepa Iyer

CHECK OUT MY FREE TRAINING ON THE 5 SHIFTS OUR CLIENTS 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.

Tanya Geisler