Goes Without Saying - imposter syndrome: ceo of debilitating anxiety

Episode Date: April 5, 2021

feeling like a fraud? in this stunning episode of Goes Without Saying, sephy & wing are here to remind you that you're the authority in your own life. from performing perfection to dealing with anxiety, we're learning how to silence our inner critics and claim our space. we've said it before and we'll say it again: "nobody's coming harry".join the conversation every monday. speak your mind on our instagram! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Sorry. No, no, it's just awful. are fucking awful these episodes are awful this podcast is fucking awful hey everyone and welcome back to goes without saying i'm sephie and i'm way i want to do that all again i'm doing it all over again i despise oh now there's someone at my door but we're just gonna go. Doorbell? Okay are you sure? Yeah we're gonna go. Okay. Hello everyone and welcome back to Goes Without Saying. I'm Sefi. And I'm Wing. Goes Without Saying. Although it doesn't because you do get us confused. It really doesn't go without saying. And today we're talking about imposter syndrome. It's a weird fucking episode. We didn't know we were recording this today but turns out we are so thank you so much to everyone that wrote in kind of last minute this is a fun episode i'm

really happy with this episode me too you'll hear the drums that we had janie mack did we have drums but it was worthwhile in the end yeah this is seffy and wing and jim carrey's podcast on imposter syndrome this is kind of an impromptu episode from us yeah i mean we're right on schedule we do need to record an episode and you will hear it on monday like everything from the outside is completely fine like going along with the format but we are just bringing a lot of chaos it's just internally chaos yeah um so shall we chat about that yeah so yesterday we sat down for hours it was a lovely sunny day and we sat down via facetime for hours and recorded a lovely episode for you that was expected on fomo feeling left out feeling all alone feeling like you're gonna miss out on

something you know what fomo is i'm not gonna get into it and we got to the very end of that episode and we just thought did we like that that was a fucking shit episode it wasn't shit it was just fine it was just so like you'd listen to that and just go yeah it wasn't their best yeah i'm not happy with that no we're not having that no no it's just not right it is the imposter syndrome kicking in yeah it is the perfectionism kicking in but it's not good enough for my king sorry we don't serve scraps and then we sat down today and we're like right okay let's re-record it's FOMO time we're talking again about FOMO we just thought fuck this yeah it just wasn't happening for us today we're talking about imposter syndrome because it's so topical for us right now i think well definitely for me

well we were just talking about it like before like and we're like wait why don't we just talk about imposter syndrome today clearly we have a lot of fire for this topic what we're talking about right now yeah we're kind of having our great conversation now and then as soon as we turn the microphone on we'll have a shit conversation no way about fomo which we don't the whole episode i think we will do another episode on FOMO but the whole way through the episode we're going personally we don't really experience FOMO yeah well we're gonna have to because everyone's really looking forward to it we've got loads of messages saying we will do it oh I can't wait now I'm like oh shit everyone's like

can't wait and I was like oh I can't wait for you to hear it and I was like yeah I really I can't wait for you to hear it but you might be waiting for a long time we could release the mediocre episode no no i don't want to never if we're doing one on fomo we'll re-record but today it's imposter syndrome times and we're having just i think this is one of our well this is by far our most spontaneous episode we've just put on the story quick quick everyone tell us quick guys and you really have come through yeah quick it really feels like you're sat right here with us so should we get into it yeah should we talk about um what we were just talking about about me let's talk about ourselves talk about us yeah take it away well we were just talking about like when we would feel imposter syndrome and why don't you say the bit about that we were

just talking about before that it's like it doesn't happen necessarily when you think it would happen yeah so you made a good so right let me go even back even further we've had we've had loads of conversations on imposter syndrome like so many and i kind of thought that we had done a dedicated episode on imposter syndrome but we hadn't no we haven't yet but now we are i guess i remember us being on the phone we were talking about your life as we do just talking about like your life and you said something along the lines of like I don't know what it is I just feel like right now like I'm just gonna get found out like I'm just like not it's just like obviously I'm not good enough for it like blah blah blah and it's like yeah imposter syndrome like you literally read out the google definition of imposter

syndrome looked up yeah you just googled imposter syndrome and read out the definition you fucking idiot and you were like oh yeah fuck yeah like i just kind of feel like i'm lying in this world like i just kind of feel like i'm like what's the word like an imposter fake a fake version of myself you're on theosaurus.com it's like you're an idiot and then recently i've been feeling like such an imposter which meant that i brought some bad vibes to the episode yesterday i brought the shaytan with me to the episode yesterday and just it just was it was just it's just the imposter times so we just asked on the stories and you lot just kill me because you're so fucking cute we just asked on the stories how your imposter syndrome makes

you feel and when you experience those feelings of unworthiness and all of those sorts of things so i think we're just going to have a really deep very real conversation which is the only thing we like to do anyway but we're going to take it exactly it's like fuck the fucking performance no yeah no we don't give that to you around here yeah no we're all here for a good time right i'm here for a good time sephi i am here for a spectacular time the best time and i know you're here for the best time listening so let's do it so what we were talking about before before we started recording was that when people talk about imposter syndrome there's almost this idea that you get it once you've achieved great success that it's kind of you get it once you are standing on a stage and it's suddenly do i deserve to be here after your ted talk you're thinking oh i don't know how i pulled that off that was such

a fluke everyone's gonna i can't believe they actually listened to me blah blah blah but that's not the case that's not what happens more often than not i don't know personally i experience imposter syndrome kind of on the bus kind of at the salons breeze self-jack out yeah yeah you know what i think is a big one at the gym yeah big time it's like oh everyone here knows what they're doing apart from me and at the airport actually oh it's just embarrassing it's kind of like god why have i've got no good reason to be here let me see myself out on that conveyor belt thing on at the airport everyone else here is like definitely going to business meetings like shit i should not have brought my bombs with me i don't have no place here yeah yeah it's not so much oh i'm standing on the stage or i'm going into the big man meeting and i'm the only woman in the room and I'm gonna you know

stand my ground here it's not then it's I think it is also then or do you not think it's then it's totally then it's totally then yeah it's not then it's totally then but it's also I think that simplifies it so it's like oh it's when you you're achieving great success and it comes in then it's like no it can be in your very very small bitty life it's like also going on a walk at the fucking hairdressers it's suddenly like oh sorry i've got everything wrong here but you actually had a dream like that last night i had a dream yeah thanks you just outed me yeah i had a weird dream that i was getting my hair cut all of it cut off at the hairdressers last night i wasn't at the hairdressers last night i was it was in my dream at the hairdressers last

night the hairdresser's last night yeah the hairdresser woman said to me like can you just spray your hair like with this thing like till it's wet or whatever and i was spraying it and i was like sorry i know i'm being really annoying but like is this wet enough like is that okay she was like yeah it's fine and then i was spraying it i was spraying my hair and it was like the spray was like spraying some girl behind me and i was like oh my god i'm so sorry like god i'm just god what am i like i'm just crazy it's like i'm so sorry for my own existence in my own dream yeah i shouldn't be here i'm taking up too much space in here i'm taking up too much space in this kind of metaphysical astral realm fictional dreamscape yeah so strange but i think that is the truth of imposter syndrome

that it whilst it does happen yes in these huge um sort of performing arenas that are just huge it's like yeah okay jennifer lawrence tripping at the oscars definitely felt god what the fuck am i doing here but also the people taking jennifer lawrence's photo felt god how did i even get here like it's not just yeah a moment it's not the big moments in your life you also do get it in the day-to-day fucking walking into a shop and think sorry i shouldn't really be here do you can we i haven't i have not spit it out go and ask me the big question it's gonna be a trap it's gonna be great well i have not thought about this at all it kind of just crossed my mind but do you think there was a thing with imposter syndrome in like quarantine and those sorts of situations oh that's so interesting kind of the vision of what you think you do in a pandemic

or like i feel like people who were enjoying the first lockdown back in march april 2020 were like didn't want to you know that was a bad thing to admit or whatever yeah so it's like you it's i think it's kind of the discomfort in your feelings but it's like if you're enjoying it that's not right you're basically your feelings are valid if you're enjoying it that's not good and if you're having a terrible time well that's not good enough because everyone else is dealing with it and it can't be that bad and blah blah blah yeah i definitely think i i personally didn't experience it that much in lockdown but i'm experiencing it more now coming out of lockdown it's like fuck fuck fuck like let's get that performance back on but yeah i definitely think there was an idea that if you enjoyed that first one which i know that both

of us love absolutely relish that time out looking back on it now holy shit what a dream what i would do to be watching tiger king for the first time with the banana bread in my hand it was a desperate time for me like i was really i had a lot there was a lot going on like obviously in life i don't know if you noticed we were in a pandemic there's obviously a lot going on chaos but i think the day-to-day of it yeah there was there was something really quite peaceful about the mundane like finding the mundane in the chaos i think it was the stopping yeah it was kind of there was a whole narrative of it's okay if all you did was brush your teeth today and it's like oh i'm always doing well then i am always thriving if there's anything i like it's people tapping me on the back for being mediocre yeah i could always do with a bit more

of that in my life so it's like if i have a shower it feels like god i'm really on top of this whole pandemic thing right now good on you yeah even though it goes without saying that it was a horrific time i do think there is we've spoken about it before that weird nostalgia for that that summer almost like that march april it's like oh they weren't yeah there was a safety in that even though physically terrifying you're scared for the people you love and you're scared for the state of the fucking world but there's something about returning that return to the domestic sphere as we say as we say that felt very comforting it's like oh right i don't have to talk to fucking bob in accounts ever again maybe maybe i do but for now i don't fucking have to

what you think he's gonna die of covid i've just been furloughed bitch i've just been fucking furloughed and i've got a podcast to start let's go that's the thing as well as i think that's where a lot of the i think i've agree with you I've definitely got imposter syndrome coming out of lockdowns and situations like that because I kind of think I know for us Sefi and I we like feel like different people I'm sure you listening probably in loads of ways feel like you're a different person than you were a whole pandemic ago it's quite scary to think i'm what i'm reintroducing myself to the world now it's like the last time i was out in the open i was a different part like i'm very different now i have a different life now and

i don't know what my life looks like not in a pandemic before we went into pandemic times i think i was convinced i spent a lot of time trying to convince myself that i was compatible with capitalism and the world and now that i know i am just not compatible with society in a lot of ways i don't thrive in the way that society is set up and i don't think many people do but now i've lost that performance i literally have lost the care for that it's almost like what i'm not going to go back to trying to lie to myself and tell myself no i i really think nine to five really just suits my structure no it fucking doesn't no no way it doesn't it doesn't suit anyone's or it might be you know yeah what are the chances that you were born with the exact mindset that suits this weird world the thing that also suits fucking elon musk no no yeah kind of your future husband in your mind yeah i don't know if i've spoken

about this publicly about my theory i do have a theory i don't like this theory i do have a theory that i will marry elon musk well now that i think we're opening it out it's not gonna happen you know like you're you're kind of now that you say it it's kind of changed the narrative it won't happen well i don't want it to happen i don't want it to happen i know i don't want it to happen but i do think i don't want it to happen when i meet elon musk and when we meet each other it is over for grimes which is is that a date you've got in the calendar i find i meet elon musk on friday next week honestly at two o'clock friday i'm meeting elon musk and i'm so sorry grimes but i don't know what's gonna happen like poor x5 ash whatever is gonna be a baby from a split home

you're a homewrecker i just don't know like i don't want to marry him because there's that weird thing that he marries brunette women and then they all come out the end with blonde hair i'm not gonna suit blonde hair but i just know that i'm gonna marry elon musk it's just a weird theory you're gonna have to do it i know i will suck it up whatever Elon wants he's an absolute cunt I hate him I love that you could marry Elon Musk and the biggest fear in your mind would be dyeing your hair blonde I don't want it um so imposter syndrome hey when do you think you experience the most imposter syndrome in life I do think it's in my like in work situations so i just everything you just said i'm gonna take a big shit on it like i think with i do think

having a podcast inside like i'd be lying if i said it's really normal that i can put on this story put a story on an account that stephanie and i share on instagram saying quick give us like your experiences oh my god and loads of you come back with instant like that that isn't normal like i kind of want to dm each and every one of you and say why on earth are you messaging little old us like you've got the wrong end of the stick like just scrolling through do you know what i mean i think part i think it is like i'm not saying we're kylie jenner but just i think i don't know just a weird thing isn't it it is weird but then also i go through fate i go through phases with that anyway of sometimes

feeling like yeah like i feel really on top of this space and i feel really on top of in some ways the performance of it and in some ways the complete authenticity of it because it is very authentic but also i think every single thing in life is wrapped in performance sometimes i feel really on top of it but then also i do think it it slips in or fuck can we talk about how people think that if something's not a performance it means that it's ugly so interesting yeah like you could still be performing something that isn't like quote-unquote attractive for example do you know what i mean yeah i don't know if we've spoken about this but that there's and i think especially around social media and stuff there's definitely a kind of narrative of if you're showing like stretch mark or like yeah um a real conversation about mental health then that's not a performance and that's super authentic yeah but it's not necessarily

no not at all this is the thing with almost relatability is this sort of currency now that not only is beauty a currency and thinness is a currency and whiteness is a currency. It's this idea that if you can show your belly a little bit with like two little rolls in

or like some stretch marks, that is now you're relatable and people should love you for that. Which I think I fucking love those posts like i fucking love it so much but it doesn't mean that you it doesn't mean it's authentic yeah and it doesn't mean you're an authority on body image either i think that's one of the things it's it means that you have seen that and you're performing that in some ways and it also means you're celebrating your body which is the fucking most stunning thing in the world you fucking know

i could cry at that but stunning it is something that you've seen before and it is a performance of course it is everything is instagram is a performance how can people not you can't deny that that's why i think imposter syndrome is such a thing because so much of everything is in performance it's kind of um like do i have a podcast or am i performing what it's like to be a podcast like how far is this a real authentic conversation between us and how much is it just us performing recording an episode well this is like when i met those people the other day so i had a zoom call with some people the other day i'm gonna be super vague with hollywood in hollywood i maybe i should just fucking tell that story it's so funny i think you can yeah you should tell this story it's funny um

but then i can't tell the second bit of the story oh okay I'm just gonna tell one of the one of the spits of the story this is a funny bit yeah so this doesn't relate to imposter syndrome now but this is just fucking funny um so I had like a little zoom sort of interview to be like writing about films for a zine stunning makes perfect sense makes perfect sense so stunning can't fucking wait and I said to my housemates oh I'm I've got like this like sort of thing to be a film writer I'm just gonna like go do the interview now it's like some girls in LA um went into my room off I go blah blah blah I was like right okay it's cool I'm just gonna go um it's like in california blah blah blah i came out like sort of 10 minutes later it was super quick and my housemate was like how

did it go kind of pale as a ghost how did it go i was like wait what are you okay like what why are you so nervous it was fine and he was like so what you're gonna be are you moving like are you moving to hollywood to be a film writer what do you think you're going to be writing films no you are wrong in la he thought it was an interview with kind of an interview with hollywood he kind of he thinks you're on the phone with harvey weinstein he was literally like was quentin tarantino there like did you come off well margot robbie was there but she didn't have any lines just her feet she had her feet on the thing it was literally like it's just that it has nothing to do with imposter syndrome

but it's so funny or maybe i can just say the fucking bit i think you do say yeah can i i think i think we can i think we can say that actually we thought it was funny we thought that story was hilarious but also that came up because zoom meetings all meetings really everyone's just performing what you think happens in a meeting you're just performing the bureaucracy of a zine like you're just performing going for an interview i think i saw what we used to do in you saw us answering our own question boxes i'm sorry literally because i think when you first start a podcast like we started a podcast with no one there and of course when you're there and you're like fuck we need some answers we used to 100% fucking write in

our own shit love you girls and don't lie that if you had fucking 10 followers you're no way are people writing in and that i think is fine yeah it's part of the it's part of the fun i think it's part of the growth because you have to you have to show up like it's a thing otherwise you're gonna quit exactly and now of course many many many months ago it got to the point where we realized we didn't have to do that anymore and it was like fuck okay like we're actually a fucking i promise you these are real yeah and now it's like i can't fucking move for messages and the last thing i want to do is add any more but i think let's not fucking lie that you do need to delude yourself you do need to feel like an imposter at the beginning if you're making um sort of artwork you need to fucking believe in

your artwork and kind of fucking pretend that you've got a million followers fucking fine do it like it's fine it's part of putting yourself out of your comfort zone because i think with imposter syndrome as we say it's it comes to you sooner than you're doing the TED Talk. It's even sooner than you've like got on the bus or you're in the Sainsbury's self-checkout. Imposter syndrome, I think, kicks in as a kid when you start to learn your place. You start to learn to be small and to be quiet

and to keep your standards low and to keep your expectations of your own life small. Yeah, yeah. And that you believe that you are worth nothing society thinks you should be worth which is nothing i.e nothing also aka nothing when you were a little kid your teacher said to you what do you want to be and it's like oh i want to be name any sort of job kind of basic basic job that's basically what you said any variation of these jobs not gonna name any i was gonna say we out you we say your job well it's kind of the i don't know it's like you just say what your parents did you say what you and it's like yeah of course we don't

say oh you say i don't know and they said well you have to think of something because when you get out there into the real world you're gonna need to make some money to live otherwise you're gonna be nothing and it's like no i'm still gonna be nothing i'm gonna be miserable because i did something that you told me to do like very young you say things like astronaut fucking um princess fucking knight in shiny armor i don't know yeah yeah prince charming through blistering winds and scorching deserts literally and then it gets to seven at age seven or eight it's funny how early it gets drilled into you know you shall be one of these jobs one of these very understandable very um attainable jobs the problem is they're not even that attainable like that's the best believe you will still get declined from starbucks like yeah yeah you're not like it's not fucking easy to

stroll into these quote unquote attainable jobs because the world is so fucked so one of the answers that someone wrote in with that just made me laugh was they feel imposter syndrome in the petrol station and i think there's a really specific feeling you get in a space that is kind of a quote-unquote masculine space that's kind of this is something very adult you're in fast and furious yeah suddenly bindi's or is it bindi's and that kind of is it the rock is it vin diesel i don't know um yeah it's kind of a place to get cackled i have got cackled quite a few times in the fucking petrol station and you always feel like an idiot you feel incompetent you feel like you're not supposed to be there like you're about to set something on fire or crash into the fucking newspaper stand it's like am i gonna light a cigarette in there and like blow the place to smithereens like yeah i don't know that i can just already tell everyone's thinking she definitely

smokes i actually don't smoke but you know it's that thing where it's like someone hears that and is like she's a heavy smoker now just fill in the gaps can saffy tell us more about how she got into smoking like you should really quit smoking by the way it's like i don't fucking smoke it was a joke that's not you listening by the way that's like we get weirdos on instagram yeah i just want to make that clear yeah yeah no that's not you that's not you it's like we get like we're all on the same page until we get like one random person who's they're just not in the gang guys don't worry about them it's fine but that makes me think we're all knocks and i'm like oh god i can't what do you mean when basically it's kind of someone's gonna someone's gonna send us a message saying so how does wing feel about her

addiction to smoking no you've really got the wrong end of the stick we just sometimes get some i think that is kind of an imposter syndrome thing or like it's someone misinterpreting your identity because we do when we get messages that's like i don't know just a really random thing of like so when you guys met when you worked at kind of wh smiths we never worked there like it would just be a really random thing it's weird yeah it's funny but i do love that it's the's funny. But I do love that. It's the best. It's hilarious. I do love it. ACAST powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend. Nature.

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ACAST.com Yeah. Well, you don't smoke anyway. You're completely clean. But yeah, I think there completely clean but yeah i think there are certain spaces i think there are certain spaces that enhance it because someone wrote in in predominantly white spaces like ie in their job at college in all academic spaces and institutional spaces so it's literally like yeah there are certain spaces that amplify these feelings yeah i i remember i said to you before about you know so for example if you didn't know this is a good bit of insight um a bit of sephian wing trivia

we used to live together at uni before we worked at wh smiths together and took up heavy smoking yeah i was gonna say i've said and i've said to you before that I, even though you would never have, never even crossed your mind, I felt the incremental differences of being in a house with, was there five of us? Yeah, four other white girls and knowing that it's a white space. My boyfriend went to a work event, this is years ago, this is like before COVID. It's actually, actually I don't know if it was with Galdem, maybe it's another event, but he was like the only white man in the room and he said it was a really good experience for him to it's like the first he was like over the age of 20 at that point it's like wow to go through your whole life it just shows doesn't it you've gone through your whole life and now you've

got a small little taste never feeling othered yeah and you feel oh shit okay this isn't my space you suddenly feel it yeah and you learn to shut up and so then you can understand all of the different ways that every you know everyone in their own different ways is told to shut up so no wonder we've all got imposter syndrome when whether we're at the petrol station or in a meeting surrounded by men trying to dominate the space etc it's kind of anything you're the only gay person in the room you're the only trans person in the room you just feel that you your experience is being inherently undermined or inherently undervalued because you're either a token on a panel or as kind of the other minority that's just there like do i have a voice here do

i have a place here and the answer is of course yes but the world tries to make you make it feel like you don't like no yeah it's fucked it is fucked great yeah it's completely fucked what's new hey what is new i reckon i get imposter syndrome these days pretty often if i was doing if i went to the doctors if i went to see my gp and he gave me on a scale of one to ten circle how often are your days negatively impacted by imposter syndrome oh i was gonna say that's a place to have imposter syndrome as soon as i walk through that door i'm not i'm not really sick i'm so sorry absolutely i'm so so sorry for taking up your time phoning in sick to work oh my god i've got some dodgy jobs in my life and i felt like a big fat fucking fraud calling in sick. Half the time I was a fraud, but still. And then you end up putting on a sick voice.

Yeah. You end up going, hi, I'm really sorry, but I can't come into work. You put on a fake fucking ill voice because you're trying to convince yourself. And they're fuming that you're not there to sell fucking curtains to middle-aged ladies today. It's like, sorry, no, I'm not doing it, Jackie.

Is that what you did? You sold curtains? I worked at Laura Ashley for a time. It was fucking dire. Oh, I see. But I did also have another really nice job in retail that i won't go into because it was actually really pleasant but for the sake of stories laura ashley is full of white women who want to kill you and they want to kill their husbands so i'm just navigating the world with so much misery and anger and it all comes back at you because apparently the sale's not on

not my problem bitch yeah when i used to prank cool people when i was younger i always used to pretend i worked in a curtain shop i was like hi this is me from this is like linda from curtains.com nice and what did they say great when will they be here i once did it for ages with it was weird we like we'd always it was like kind of our thing like me and my friends would be like hey this is curtains.com this is linda or whatever from curtains or carpets as well we did i would be i would be sarah from sofas direct which i don't know if it's a thing and i would put on a little northern accent why did we do why did we do such like normal jobs we're fucking dumb we're boring got nothing better to do aren't prank calls supposed to be a bit funny we were like actually trying to sell curtains curtains and sofas i remember once i did a prank call

of like an automated voice message so i was like you have won five million pounds press one to claim your prize press two to blah blah and the guy was like sorry what was what was point one and i was like press one and i like repeated it and he was like you idiot and i was like you absolute idiot he caught me out honestly caught out prank calls were fucking amazing i used to absolutely fucking love prank calls i couldn't hold my laughter no never did you do that one that was it was quite a thing on tiktok recently where you'd get two phones and put them together i mean you did you do that to me or you didn't did you i didn't do it to you but i did it to every i kind of i thought should i do it to mean you did you do that to me or you didn't did you i didn't do it to you but i did it to every i kind of i thought should i do it to you you said you were going to do it

to me without a friend that i fell out with just to try and make them friends again just like guys please make up and then i'm kind of there crying in the background like i would love if you were friends again i went for a phase i think that was first lockdown times oh how it was sweet where i'd go around prank calling everyone and everyone was at home and they were good they were loving it they love to receive a call i think yeah the crowd went wild they were begging for more encore encore sephie give us more but in reality they're like this fucking bitch like needs to stop fucking calling me every two seconds and being like hello i'm an old woman i'm a baby come pick me up hi this is linda from curtains and sofas.com which sofa of you would you like they're like go away which sofa would you like what a hilarious prank call they're like how do i. Which sofa would you like? What a hilarious prank call.

They're like, how do I see them? You had a point. No, you had a point. Did I? Oh yeah, I did. Great. Let's share the point that I had. It was, I really like this message that we got actually.

So on the story, we asked, how does imposter syndrome make you feel? Like what is your inner critic kind of screaming at you what are we dealing with here what's the situ and i like this one because i can relate they said that imposter syndrome makes them feel typically frozen and unmotivated and they don't see life as a full picture and i think both of those wow it's just like yeah relate everything yeah spot on for me anyway because you start to fragment your life a bit you're like this these areas i have covered these areas are a

mess i must work on these areas it's kind of dysmorphia yeah yeah you really lose your grip on reality which is hard enough anyway it's hard to have a grip on reality because can you it's just subjective anyway but what is reality yeah yeah exactly we're gonna go down that hole i know that that sounds wanky but like really what is reality if you think that a lot of things largely are just shaped by your perception or your mindset or your mood or your past experiences the reality of your day could look one way and just depending on what mindset you give it, it can very much change the day. Like I can think of days that like on paper shouldn't have been good. Like a science

lesson in year 10, double science on paper, that's awful. But it was fucking hilarious. And it was a great old time, right? Because the mindset is like, I'm having a laugh. So it's kind of like, yeah, sometimes things on paper. Well, the mindset is I don't take this shit seriously. So this is gonna be hilarious. Yeah, exactly. Yeah yeah and my science teacher used to sit at the back of the class eating paper what why moving on anyway it was fucking weird he used to dress up oh god this is a whole thing he used to his his girlfriend broke up with him and the next day he said that because he was so sad he dressed up a marrow in clothes and slept with it in his bed was he lost did he think he was at therapy why like did he what was it what just what what like

huh like you were our teacher a teacher at school a doctor no less oh he's trying to get some cheap laughs out of you guys like you can't be dead serious on his first lesson he tripped over and cut his knee and he just could never get us back after that no you can never recover from you just can't what year were you in you're not you're like 9 10 yeah no it's not happening mate you just you've lost it social suicide he tripped over fully and there was like blood going through his that's bad his jeep his like trousers that's bad that's bad and obviously that's so sad now but i mean as like a 14 year old you can't get them back after that you're lost poor guy

i think now he has a kid and he's happily married i've heard so i don't know he's happily married he's married she's not happily married that's for sure okay so frozen and unmotivated i also liked because it's true it can be really um like debilitating and i get this a lot with like perfectionism it's like if i can't do it perfectly then i just can't bring myself to attempt it at all because it's almost like if this won't be this won't represent my best work then why would it be my work at all yeah this will be nothing it goes in the bin a really liberating thing I learned, I don't know where I read this or where this came from, so I'll just take credit of it as my own, I guess.

Here it goes, my podcast. It was something like you could be a genius, you could be amazing at what you do, but not everything you do is amazing work. You could be the best at something. You could be the best at something you could be the best but not everything you do has to be your best work literally that and it's true like you don't have to be the best every day you don't have to be looking fuckable every day you don't have to be loud every day you don't have to have all the right things to say every day me what i say to myself for the podcast

i think the consistency is more about just showing up and pushing yourself out of the comfort zone rather than being consistent with perfect things because that can that can only set you up for failure well you're just gonna burn yourself out yeah and you'll burn yourself out like an idiot if you're gonna keep up that act of perfection the performance of perfection really because there is no such thing every fucking day you're literally going to get to the end of that week i reckon it would last about a week and you're going to be a heap of crying mess kind of me because it's just going to not have worked out it's not going to work out for you because you're striving for something that isn't

you can never reach it as soon as you set the marker you reach it and then it just moves away yeah and also everyone else probably thinks that you are perfect like everyone else thinks that everything you're doing is perfect it's just really not that deep but we find the evidence for what you choose to believe i'll say in every episode like we can't get enough but it's so true like if you're looking to hate yourself or think that something's not good enough you're gonna find the evidence for that you'll find it bitch because it's also there's evidence for everything it's like and i think that is part of the imposter syndrome thing as well if you're feeling insecure and you're on your way to the meeting and you trip over you've

then found the evidence that you're gonna fuck up and that you're embarrassing and everyone saw it and it's awful but if you're feeling good you're about to go and you trip i mean we all trip every day and we just laugh it off it's fine it's nothing so you will find the evidence for what you choose to believe because you can choose how you respond to whatever happens to you something that i read recently was something along the lines of um just cut i just die the treasure is buried in the i die no something that i read recently was something like the majority of the work the crux of it the heart of the issue is just showing up yeah it's like the rest of it will come the rest of

it is fine you can deal with it later but it's like just pushing that boundary or getting yourself in the room or just getting that essay done and just doing it just kind of giving in and letting go and just doing it is kind of the hardest and letting go and just doing it is kind of the hardest thing but also the main achievement it's literally the only bit you can do yeah it reminds me of something that our boy jim carrey said that i also put in my nose is that three in a row from good old jim i think that's i think it could maybe be four in a row i hate to say i don't think it is but i think it's the gym it's't think it is. But I think it's the gym. It's Sephian, Wing and gym.

It's the gym effect. Honestly, it's the gym effect. So Jim said, Jim, if you don't know who Jim is, Jim Carrey. It's really embarrassing to say it's Jim Carrey. They're like, oh, cool. Who's Jim? Jim. Who's Jim?

Jim Carrey, actually. I don't know if you've heard of him. Pretty niche underground actor. The word you don't know if you've heard of him pretty niched underground actor the word you don't want to follow jim is carrie it's like oh god we are in our 50s i'm so sorry we're losers yeah go on but jim carrie said that something great i'm sure always great from him from jim something life-changing is that you kind of just want that to be jim from the office or like something else but it's it's one of any of any other gym is fine any other gym jim carrey's a bit much yeah because he's dressed like date mike no jim carrey's stuck in 2004 go on he said that it's not your like us

apparently go on it's not your job to figure out how it's going to happen for you. It's your job to show up, open up your mind. And when the doors open in life, just be there to walk through them. It's so stunning. It's so good. That was at the top of my head as well. I can tell. Not going to lie. Everyone knew.

Oh, I can tell. That was paraphrased. Everyone knew that that was memorised. But I think it's true. It's not your job to be in the room going, that person there's judging me because I just blinked a bit weirdly at them. That person there thinks that I'm a fucking loser

and my boyfriend doesn't like me anymore. And that person there doesn't like my skirt that I'm wearing and blah, blah, blah. It's kind of your Edward Cullen. Sex, sex, money money sex going around the room really embarrassing get out of people's heads you freak this is non-consensual do you know the worst bit of that scene where he's not hungry she has to eat her soup or something that makes me uncomfortable i don't like what she orders she orders mushroom ravioli sounds great for a little

vegan but i just think it's not hot to order on a date why did i think she was eating soup which is even worse she gets mushroom ravioli because she goes one mushroom ravioli and she's like are you sure you don't want to eat and he's like bitch if you haven't figured out i'm a vampire already yeah this confirms it no i don't want your stinking ravioli that's when he like stops and he stops the car that's when she's being followed by those scary men and she's like she's like doesn't he's like distract me so i don't turn around you don't even want to know what's in their head bella she's like you should put your seatbelt on or something he's like you should put your seatbelt on what the hell is going on here

are you guys bantering right now is this flirting you should really put your bed on it's like bella what are you talking about give it up babe and she touches his hand and she's like you're so cold ice cold ice baby jed would come in yeah i love it they do have a similar vibe edward and john and edward do they edward and jedward do you have a similar edward and jedward have a similar vibe i don't know what maybe it's just same era what's the vibe a bad vibe i think i did associate them for a bit i think it was just same era maybe just because they're called edward no same hair same hair oh okay fair enough kind of jimmy neutron hair that's the best of jim anyway yeah fair

enough okay let's go with that it's so true be ready to open the doors no be ready to walk through them be ready yeah it's not your job to open the doors jim says so it's not your job to figure out what everyone's thinking about you it's just your job to sit in the meeting be present be there be there with ideas be authentic and that's all you have to do you don't need to figure out after this are they all going to lunch together i'm not invited doesn't fucking matter none of your business none of your beeswax that does sting though yeah it does fucking sting but you don't know you're literally writing short stories it's not even true yeah but you don't know if everyone's going there you're just assuming it because there's some little voice in your head some little fucking evil

fucking chihuahua in the back of your head going uh did you know actually everyone thinks you're fucking fat in here actually yeah chili you're not invited to fucking lunch i think why that hits so different why that's so painful is because or why it's just so accurate from jim just bars from jim and what would we expect nothing less but i think it's so true in that for so many situations of my life i know now i look back and i think fuck like on paper this is what was going on in in the reality of the moment this was what happening a fun thing an exciting thing a sad thing even this was the reality of your life but the whole time you weren't there you were in your head and that's the worst fucking thing is like going like i go months on end and i think shit i

haven't been here the whole time i've been in my head yeah i've been worrying about next month i've been worrying about next year for months i think there was a real time for us when we realized this what i realized it and it was a time when i was very intensely with you there was a time in brighton when we had we'd graduated and we were just living in brighton it was there was kind of a week where it was just me and wing but it felt like kind of we were there together for like 10 years or something for a lifetime but it was literally like 10 days and it just felt like it was going on forever in the best way it's been 84 years and we'd kind of get up in the morning and go to the beach eat ice cream come back and like watch Game of Thrones for like 10 hours and then just like rinse and repeat for like days it really was a

great old life we'd set up for ourself in our joint life literally but i think that time was one of the first times that i felt so intentional and being present we were waking up every day and being like i am so fucking grateful for this like i am so this will pass and before we know it we're going to be in the stress of fucking life again you know what it was it was august sipped away like a bottle of wine oh don't don't because it was never mine oh my god it really was so but it's so that thing we really were so present because we knew it wasn't gonna last forever why does that sound so like deep it was really like quite emotional kind of we really did have an affair like your boyfriend's listening to this like what happened in those 10 days there's something you're not saying i see us

twisted in bed sheets all good slipped away like a bottle of wine but i think that was one of the first times for me where it was like well not one of the first times but one of the most memorable times where it was like a standout moment where it's like look we lived that time and we didn't live it in our heads of fear of like what's gonna happen what if we were alive in that time in brighton summer 2019 yeah but i but i think before you know it you're back to everything has got to be perfect again it's like things aren't ever going to be perfect to be perfect for my dadly special day and you're kind of crying your eyes out like oh i'm still getting ready but i'm hot and sweaty i'm calling my eyelashes oh my god

like it's like jesus christ calm down i can't tell you the amount of times i've been getting ready and my like getting dressed and i'm sweating i can't do it i can't do it it's like you're a mess look at you fucking state pull yourself together and my boyfriend's looking at me thinking jesus christ i did not sign up for this it's awful that's when the performance of perfection slips slightly the male gaze is like wait what that's when the imposter syndrome kicks in of like so why is everyone messaging us saying you guys are so great blah blah when the reality is i'm getting ready to record going zipping up my trousers i can't do it please don't make me do this god if there is a god out there

please my eyeliner the chaos it's like pure like toddler tantrum moments and just so in your head and by the end of it your bedroom is like covered in clothes like you're like i didn't like that i'll find that one didn't like that one you're just going through my look fucking disgusting but it's like actually just fucking take in your life like those it's so true though like what would jim say if jim could just look at you he'd go stop oh if jim could see me in that moment he'd go you are attached to identity right now you're attached to the story you're telling yourself if edward collin was reading my mind in that moment oh my god it's sex sex money cat i don't even know i don't know what's

going on with that one yeah i don't even know how to begin to describe what that girl's doing money money Bella's eating her little mushroom ravioli like go on Edward say it what's she thinking he's like I don't know Bella that is fucking weird fucking hell he's like I don't know but I think we should leave it's not safe for you whatever you do don't talk to that girl a message that i really liked and i think would be quite interesting to discuss they said they get imposter syndrome around their anxiety they said my anxiety explanation mark i feel those explanation marks i'm on medication and my brain still goes now you're definitely making this up which I just thought was really interesting because and it's kind of what I keep

saying about your feelings are valid but we're told to minimize so much that like even in something so real something like medical and I think we get that quite a lot especially like women in medicine and I'd say especially black women is that you're not believed you have to fight for like fucking years and years and years and years and years and then get diagnosed with endometriosis like 10 years late it's not coincidence is it i feel that in the sense of what i was saying the other day about i feel like i get imposter syndrome if i'm annoyed at someone i think that's really what is in you feel that you're not valid to feel annoyed yeah i feel like i don't have the right to be like upset with anybody or i don't have the right to be annoyed with anyone wow do you get what i mean because it's kind of like well

you're just like lucky that they could be you almost would convince yourself yeah yeah you deserve it i guess yeah not you one would convince themselves that it's like no i must somehow be in the wrong here yeah i must somehow have like misread or something like that i think i definitely convinced myself that i've misread things quite a lot yeah usually because i sometimes have yeah usually because you misread things like all the time yeah yeah but kind of my thing it's kind of my whole thing guys but it's true yeah it's kind of your um yeah i think with arguments in particular because emotions are so high kind of your rational thinking goes out the window a little bit so you can't really see what is really happening because you're so like hurt yourself like i'm angry i'm blah blah blah so you almost even not

in the argument oh interesting it's like i wouldn't even have an argument like but when you're triggered yeah growing up i would be upset at someone and not it's like okay are you not confrontational fine or are you not confrontational fine or are you just a massive people pleaser who doesn't allow their emotions to be valid because you're so concerned with making sure that everyone else is okay and everyone else likes you you don't want to bring a problem to anybody it's like no actually you can be annoyed at people and you can confront people on their shit which i have obviously learned loads i think it's healthy too oh it's so healthy too it's needed yeah it's needed but i think it's healthy too. Oh, it's so healthy too. It's needed.

Yeah, it's needed. But I think it's taken me like a long time to learn that. And I still get those moments of like, oh, come on. No, you're probably just being ridiculous. Blah, blah, blah, blah. That's the thing. I think things don't need to come up as, ah, when you said that thing, it made me...

It's you gaslight yourself. It's that situation. So fucking true. So fucking true so fucking true because i think you made a good really a really good point in the sexual assault episode where you say that you gaslight yourself the way that society would gaslight you and you say yeah no it's probably nothing you read it wrong whatever get over it yeah like why he's a nice guy why would that ever happen to me but i think it's the same it definitely is the same with arguments you're

right or like feeling triggered or upset and kind of anxiety or just all things just any kind of feeling you convince yourself that it's not valid i brought you here today to tell you that your feelings are valid it's like oh i'm just tired today it's mercury retrograde like we're in a pandemic like of course i'm feeling like this it's like no no like maybe it's not kind of of course i've just got a trigger around that maybe they did act like a fucking dick yeah and that's fucking fine you're allowed to be angry at them yeah you're the authority in your own life you have the right to be here i think that's the whole um the crux of the issue with imposter syndrome is you're you're apparently an imposter but no you're not at all you're completely the authority in your life if not then who is you're not britney spears

it's not you're not under like the warranty of your dad that's not it it's you are the authority in your own life and that's i mean i think there are some days where it's like you fucking need to hear that like you are the authority in your own life yeah let that sink in let that sink in open that door wide open bring that bathroom set in bring in that porcelain sink babe you are the authority in your own life there is no one there's no fucking person making decisions for you or there's no fucking person going like you actually made all those wrong decisions there nobody's coming harry nobody's coming harry nobody's coming harry nobody's coming harry nobody's coming harry nobody's coming you fucking loser do something i'm talking to myself nobody's coming, Harry. Nobody's coming, Harry. Nobody's coming, you fucking loser. Do something. I'm talking to myself.

Nobody's coming, Sarah. Nobody's coming, Emma. Let's go for names. Nobody's coming, Emily. Oh, wow. No one's coming, Jasmine. We're going through names here. Nice.

But you're like, say my name. Sorry, that was four names. Kind of the classic thing growing up, never finding your name on the... Oh my God. Well, there's no chance of finding Persephone. There's not a chance. Exactly, yeah. It was actually really shit. Anyway shit anyway are we done are we done here or no i think we're done when we start talking about weird magnets that have names on i think we're done exactly yeah

kind but they were very like spongy like cups or something it was a very do you know what i'm talking about they were like bright pink and purple i know the exact material because it was the same as my brownies badge brownies badge when you're in brownies and rainbows and guides and i went all the way up to rangers real loser real loser here we go maybe you don't deserve this podcast maybe you are an imposter here someone that did rangers is not allowed to have a podcast that's for absolute certain but it was quite cool like we would i definitely felt that we felt quite cool we're definitely the cool kids of rangers not that that's hard also you were in a small like kind of village it was a very cutesy moment i think i think that's a fun time it was an absolute blast i've got to do so much i've got to do so

much yeah you kind of got these badges and they were the same material as those oh got you got you i was thinking of the badges that go on the sash so it's like a like a sewn thing oh no no those are like your awards badges like if you got like um kind of a performance badge you would say that a camping badge that's more of a brownies vibe right oh you Oh, you're too old for that. I get it. You're too mature. That's fine. I'm not sewing on badges. Well, I mean, basically, if you're feeling like the imposter, don't. Hope that helps. Bye. Don't at all.

Yeah, no, literally don't. Well, it's also like, think of Jim. What would Jim fucking say to you? You're putting on your makeup. You're sweating buckets and you're stressed, stressed, stressed. You're going to the big meeting. You're about to open that laptop to go on the Zoom zoom call just think jim's there that's quite nerve wracking jim's there he's going i got the power he's actually assaulting everyone he sees he's

lifting up your skirts for the power of god i'm quite nervous if i'm looking if i'm getting ready for a zoom and i have my laptop and i see in the back of the frame jim carrey's standing behind me he's been watching me the whole time i'm shuttingitting myself I'm more nervous than I was to begin with same kind of I'm like who's that behind you yeah it's kind of worst case scenario it's Jim and it's a man it's like it's a tall man it's the worst case scenario but then it's then you see the face it's Jim and you just feel instantly secure it's so true you feel instantly like jim i've needed this hug my whole life since i saw you sexually assault that woman and jennifer anderson didn't want to hear it but i did i knew i needed your validation in my life at seven years old but i as a victim of the

patriarchy knew that i needed to be cast at seven years old knew that i would one day aspire to play hot girl one in brutal mighty stunning should we talk about how we can be doing the work yeah we haven't done a doing the work in fucking years yonks because i haven't been doing the work i've been a hot fucking mess the work has not been done the hair work hasn't been done i think the work this week is do you think you can get yourself in a situation letting you know like kind of get yourself into a call that you're a bit nervous about or like i'm doing a scary thing this very late afternoon oh you are well do you want to tell us about it no because they might be listening so podcast over no come

on really well you're going on a date they don't know when you recorded this well there we go she said anyway i'm going on a date this afternoon quite not nervy but i definitely would rather not go you definitely uh how do i put this don't want to go i definitely would rather do anything else than go. Yeah. But. I was going to say feedback on that. And then I thought, don't even say it because she won't. No, I can feedback, I guess. Whatever.

We take what we can get from you. And we appreciate that. Yeah. Yeah. We're lucky to even hear your voice. You are. And remember that every fucking time you open this podcast. Remember, you're fucking lucky.

Remember. Don't you dare take her for granted you're fucking lucky to hear a bit of weird shit about jim carrey for free for free 99 yeah free 99 right what are you gonna do though i want to know your little thing i'll have to think of something okay fun oh we feed it we'll feed back in the next ep i guess that's so fun feedback in the next episode, I guess. That's so fun. Feed back in the next episode. See you there. See you there, guys. Hopefully we won't have to re-record that one like ten times.

I can't, I can't.