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You're finally tackling your spring home improvement projects. Hello, 2024 Dream Garden. Until you realize you're short three bags of mulch. And why didn't you get that pair of gloves you were looking at? Luckily, through Instacart, you don't have to stop my project to run to the Home Depot. You can get your missing gardening supplies, tools, and more delivered in as fast as 30 minutes. Have more time for your project and get the Home Depot delivered via Instacart. Visit instacart. Com to get free delivery on your first three orders. Offer valid for a limited time. Minimum order, $10. Additional terms apply. Hey, listeners, this is your host, Amanda. Before we get into today's episode, I have a very exciting announcement. I am going back on tour this summer. If you live in Chicago, Minneapolis, or Seattle, I would love if you would catch me on Booktour for the Age of Magical Overthinking. My Chicago event is on July 12th, mini is on July 13th, and Seattle is on July 29th. These events are so much fun. This is not your typical book tour. The Chicago and Minneapolis events are something called the Big Magical Cult Show, this ridiculous variety show involving drag burlesque performances, merch, custom drinks, a PowerPoint presentation about parasocial relationships, of course, books, book signing, meet and greet, the whole nine.

Seattle is going to be really, really fun, too. I so hope to see you there. Information and tickets are at the link in our show notes or at amandamontell. Com/events. Welcome to the Magical Overthinkers podcast, a show for thought spiralers. Exploring the subjects we can't stop overthinking about, from celebrity worship to burnout. If you can relate to the feeling that despite living in the information age, the world only seems to be making less sense. If you can connect to the idea that for some mysterious reason, it If this feels especially hard to exist as a human in the world right now, then you're in the right place. This podcast is here to soften the clash between our squishy human brains and the overwhelm of this time, to help us quiet the static in our heads for a bit, or even find a melody in it. I'm your host, Amanda Montell. Today, we're over thinking about imposter syndrome. When I was in my early 20s, I became obsessed with this documentary called The Imposter, about this Frenchman con artist, trickster, who fooled a family into thinking he was their missing son. Ever since then, I have been pretty transfixed by scammers and con artists, the genre generally labeled true con.

I'm obsessed with learning about the lives and psychology and motivation of grifters like Elizabeth Holmes, the billionaire health tech CEO turned convicted fraudster, the Theranos lady, or Simon Leviev, the dating app Ponzi Schemaer known as the Tinder swindler. I truly can't get enough of these stories. But when I stop to overanalyze my transfiction with true con, I start to get scared that I'm obsessed with these con artists because maybe some part of me actually admires them. American culture provides such confusing mixed messaging surrounding the notion of confidence. The phrase fake it till you make it is considered a wise proverb in this culture. You're supposed to flaunt your accomplishments, but don't be a narcissist. Be authentic, but also be perfect. I did a lot of community theater as a little kid and would hear the following sentiment all the time from my directors and acting teachers. They would say things like, If a casting director asks if you can skateboard or tap dance or ride a giraffe, just say you can do it. Say that you can do anything. Early in life, I learned that over-promising your capabilities and just crossing your fingers that it'll all work out was a praiseworthy talent.

I think a lot of us internalize that message. After all, that Theranos fraudster, Elizabeth Holmes, the CEO who swindled thousands of people and investors, she learned her overconfidence, not from Charles Ponzi, but from Steve Jobs, a celebrated genius. When does confidence go from aspirational to tacky and annoying to full-blown criminal? It's also occurred to me that perhaps the real reason why scammer stories enthrall me so much is because of this subconscious fear that I actually am my own con artist, that every time I step forward in my career, it's just evidence that I am indeed running a big Ponzi scheme. This fear that I'm either too confident or not confident enough is really a bit of a mindfuck, especially as a woman. I wish I knew how much confidence was the right amount to How much is enough to succeed professionally without being delusional or exasperating? It's a question that feels very much connected to the idea of imposter syndrome. The concept of imposter syndrome was first put forth in 1978. That's when the psychologists Pauline Rose-Klantz and Suzanne Imes published the very first study on what they then termed imposter phenomenon. This paper focused on high-achieving women.

Defining imposter phenomenon, Klantz and Imes wrote, Despite outstanding academic and professional accomplishments, women who experience the imposter phenomenon persist in believing that they are really not bright and have fooled everyone who thinks otherwise. Imposter phenomenon quickly involved to imposter syndrome, and it clearly struck a nerve. The study kicked off decades of frenzied discourse, programs, and even merch aimed at curing women of this syndrome. According to the Google Books NgramViewer, which depicts how often terms appear in a selected corpus of written texts, use of imposter syndrome continues to increase every single year and has yet to reach its peak. Female luminaries from Charlies Theron to Michelle Obama have admitted publicly to suffering from this phenomenon. Among the proposed pop psychology treatments include professional development conferences for women. I actually found one online specifically for women in trucking who experience imposter syndrome, self-help books like The imposter cure, and performing power poses. Actually, one of my very best friends from college now studies imposter syndrome. She is a school psychologist and a PhD candidate at Chapman University's Education School. She told me that people seem to really embrace imposter syndrome because it put a label and a framework to an experience that felt very personal, baffling, and isolating.

She said, I experience imposter syndrome a lot in my work. Despite having years of training and all these credentials, I show up to meetings feeling like a God. Even though she studies the phenomenon, she still experiences it. She described imposter syndrome as showing up not unlike a workplace-specific anxiety disorder involving cycles of negative thinking and self- mistrust. I can certainly relate. In fact, I asked Rachel Torres if she personally knew anyone who did not suffer from imposter syndrome, and she said no. When I first started hearing about imposter syndrome, I guess around the time when I was in college, it was framed as a a personal problem, something that you need to work on because of your irrational thoughts that you don't belong, even though there's copious evidence to suggest that you do. But Torres assured me that a lot of the most updated findings on imposter syndrome suggests that it's not actually a personal problem, that it's more a disease of the system. She told me that many now attribute imposter syndrome fully to societal and systemic causes. In the 1970s, imposter syndrome was born of this moment in the American workforce when the civil rights and second-wave feminism and a booming post-World War II economy ushered more marginalized workers than ever into a labor market that was constructed specifically for the success of white men.

A journalist named Shamat Udin, who covers the intersection of Desi Identity and Queerness, wrote in an op-ed on workplace sexism that, The 40-hour work week was built to allow white men to succeed at work while their wives would care for all of the family's child and home responsibilities. I come to every interview, job shift, meeting 20 minutes early because I know that I have to fight the expectation of brown tardiness. I know that I need to work twice as hard to prove that I belong here. Another reason why imposter syndrome was coined and took off at the time that it did is because of how our relationship between self-worth and work changed around the 1970s and 1980s. The 1980s saw rises in entrepreneurship and the dawn of things like career counseling. That's really when our successes and our profound life purpose became inextricable. This completion, combined with the deeply embedded meritocracy myth, created a situation where, of course, the majority of the population would feel like, if we're not professionally thriving, then we must be worthless, and if we are thriving, then we must be frauds. Those early writings on imposter syndrome, they focused on white women, but newer studies have found that the phenomenon affects people across genders, ages, and ethnic groups.

A 2017 study that I'll link in our show notes titled All Imposters Aren't Alike, suggested that some people who don't experience imposter syndrome actually feel compelled to fake it. So-called strategic impostors deliberately self-present as having imposter syndrome in order to, quote, appear more modest and to keep others' expectations concerning one's abilities as low as possible. So even people who don't have imposter syndrome still have imposter syndrome. In the age of social media, there is more interest in syndrome than ever in this time when we are all extremely encouraged to present our most filtered, perfect selves, our imposter selves. The other piece of imposter syndrome that I find fascinating is the fact that it came to be known as a syndrome rather than a phenomenon. It has this clinical name, even though it's not a recognized psychiatric disorder. What the latest literature on imposter syndrome is actually finding is that the phenomenon is not a naturally occurring syndrome, but rather a reaction to the increasingly impossible standards of workplace culture. The intersectional feminist activists Ruchika Tulsian and Jody Ann Burry wrote a piece that went absolutely viral in the Harvard Business Review in 2021 about imposter syndrome, where they said, imposter syndrome directs our view toward fixing women at work instead of fixing the places where women work.

They argued, as I've mentioned, that this is really a systemic syndrome, not a human one, and thus it should be labeled and treated as such. And yet this term is going nowhere. It is still resonating with people who are experiencing a serious lack of belonging, not only at work, but in so many arenas of life, even in their social circles, or just feeling like they don't belong as a human on Earth in general. No matter the context, these feelings of imposter syndrome are significantly associated with mental unwellness. And according to a number of studies, including one titled A Cultural Imposter, Native American Experiences of Imposter Syndrome in STEM, these negative effects may very well be more prevalent among marginalized workers, which may be why it can seem like imposter syndrome only affects people of marginalized identities, even though it seems to affect everyone of varying degrees, which has very much to do with the systems that affect each of us differently. After all, a white queer high schooler won't have the same experiences of imposter syndrome as, say, a Black woman at a law firm. So many of us are thought spiraling about these ideas, and I personally have not been doing a very good job of taking steps to heal the effects of my imposter syndrome and thought spirals about confidence, which is why I knew I would need to talk to an expert.

With that, I am pleased to introduce today's guest, Dr. Pooja Lachman is a board-certified psychiatrist, New York Times contributor, and author of the book, Real Self Care. She mostly works with women, many of whom experience imposter syndrome, and our conversation brought me so much the nation. I feel extremely healed from our conversation, honestly, and I really hope you enjoy it. So that said, please welcome Dr. Lachman. Hi. Hello. Welcome to Magical Overthinkers.

I am so excited to be here. Thank you for having me, Amanda.

You're finally tackling your spring home improvement projects. Hello, 2024 Dreamgarden. Until you realize you're short three bags of mulch. And why didn't you get that pair of gloves you were looking at? Luckily, through Instacart, you don't have to stop my project to run to the Home Depot. You can get your missing gardening supplies, tools, and more delivered in as fast as 30 minutes. Have more time for your project and get the Home Depot delivered via Instacart. Visit instacart. Com to get free delivery on your first three orders. Offer valid for a limited time. Minimum order, $10. Additional terms apply. Worried about letting someone else pick out the Perfect avocado for your perfect impressed them on the third date guacamole?

Well, good thing Instacart shoppers are as picky as you are. They find ripe avocados like it's their guac on the line.

They are milk expiration date detectives. They bag eggs like the 12 precious pieces of cargo they are.

So let Instacart shoppers overthink your groceries so that you can overthink what you wear on that third date. Download the Instacart app to get free delivery on your first three orders while supplies last. Minimum $10 per order, additional term supply. I am Dr. Puja Lachman. I am a board-certified psychiatrist and the author of the book, Real Self Care: Crystals, Cleances, and Bubble Bats, Not Included. I still practice clinically. I have a private practice, and I take care of women who are struggling with things like depression, anxiety, ADHD, but also a lot of perfectionism, burnout, things like that. I am a Clinical Assistant Professor at GW, and I also write a newsletter called Real Self Care. A lot of different hats, but mostly here to help inform the conversation about mental health because there's a lot of noise.

I love your work. You're such a refreshing voice on social media as well. Just to start out, this is a show about thought spiraling in the digital age. And on that note, I would just love to begin with the question that starts out all my magical overthinkers interviews. It's just, what is an irrational thought spiral that's been living rent-free in your head lately?

Well, I love this question because there are many I think the current most prominent one is that my son is going to be two in two weeks now. I'm 40, and I had him, obviously, two years ago. So I came to motherhood on the older side. I'm totally thought spiraling about his birthday party because kid birthday parties are a whole thing. I, being somebody who has really focused a good deal of my energy in life on my career, I have a lot of imposter syndrome about motherhood. Wow. So I'm currently trying to decide. I mean, we're having a small little backyard thing. It's not a big thing, but I'm like, I want to get a nice cake. I want to have somebody make a little cake. He's really into trucks. But then I'm like, Is it okay? I don't cook. I don't bake. I'm not going to bake him a cake because that would not be anything anyone wants to eat.

Right. I definitely get thought spirally when I think about motherhood and procreation and specifically the language surrounding it. But what I'm hearing is that this birthday party is almost an opportunity to prove that you really are a good mother who prioritizes raises her children over her career. That is stressful.

Yes. And also the heightened not wanting to make it Pinterest or Instagram, that's totally not into that scene. But there still is this way that you can thought-spiral. You can feel this sense of self judgment, no matter where you are in these different dialogs. Because if you are a woman, if you're a woman of color, if you are any type of marginalized group, it's there. It's in the air.

It is in the air, as Phil Collins once wisely said. Okay, so we're here to talk about imposter syndrome. The people that I've been telling that I'm doing this episode today are like, Oh, my God, this is so sorely needed because I found in the bit of research that I've done into this topic that almost no one is spared of this condition, which, as I understand, it isn't even really a condition at all. Before we get on into it, could you first explain the purpose that the term and concept of imposter syndrome was originally supposed to serve? What did its coiners have in mind when they came up with this phrase?

Yeah. So the term in the research world first came about in the 1970s, and there were two women in particular that were both psychologists. They had identified it through observation in looking at women in high-achieving professional settings who said that they felt essentially like frauds. So it's this feeling like you are achieving something, you're doing something great, but you feel like you don't deserve it. Or there is a version of you that people see and are applauding, but somehow someone will find out that that is not the real version of you, and there's actually another separate real version of you that is worse, that is bad, that is terrible, that is faking. Really, at least my understanding, is that it didn't take off into the zeitgeist until social media became a thing. And that's when people started to say imposter syndrome. But like what you pointed to, Amanda, it's not actually a clinical diagnosis. I'm a psychiatrist. We don't learn about it. You don't learn about it in training. It's not something that we use clinically or at professional meetings or things like that. It's very much a colloquial phrase that actually is just describing an experience.

We're talking about some of the problems with the conventional wisdom surrounding imposter syndrome already. You mentioned that the early research or writings about the phenomenon were more observational. Could you talk about maybe some of the issues with the original research on the phenomenon? What was it lacking or what did it leave to be desired?

At least my understanding of the way that the term came about was that it wasn't a randomized control trial. It was more just asking people how they felt. This was the 1970s, 1980s. So they weren't really talking about things like racism or gender identity or even the structural constraints that were constantly zeroing in now in 2024. So it didn't really account for race. It didn't account for identity and how that impacted the different groups that they were studying and the types of workplaces they were studying. I do want to be gracious, too, of the women that were doing this work in the fact that this was like 50 years ago. It was a very different time. So I almost want to say, I think our conversation about imposter syndrome is evolving.

Yeah.

I think that in that context, they were already putting something that was quite radical in the academic world out there for psychology and psychiatry as somebody who comes from that world. This is a conservative place. And I think that that's important, too, as a context for how we're framing the conversation. And the reason that I say that is because I know we're going to be talking more about the limitations and how we want to shift the conversation. And you are somebody that studies words. It is useful to have those two words. I I have patients all the time, even though it's not a clinical thing. And even though I'm always saying, no, this isn't your fault. You're literally the only person on your team who's a woman and you work in finance, and the field is 98 % male. This isn't you. But still, there's a reason that I dedicated my book. I dedicated real self-care to all of the women who wonder if they're getting it right, if they're asking for too much, because that's just our experience. So I do think, even though it's evolving and we can talk about that, I do think it's still useful in some to have that entry into the conversation.

Completely. I appreciate you saying that it's important to express gratitude and have grace for the original coiners of this term or the folks who put forth this idea, because I feel the same exact way about the pioneers of the field of feminist sociolinguistics, which informed the themes of my first book, Word Slut, because feminist sociolinguistics is only a field that's existed since the 1970s. A lot of the ideas that were put forth during that time, which were super radical, are now, of course, being problematized and reworked to account for more identities and the complex human experience that could not have been acknowledged on the first go. We never get it right on the first go. And yet it was still worthwhile work that laid the groundwork for the rest of the future of the field. And you're absolutely right. The linguist Deborah Cameron said that it's no good petitioning the king, the struggle for meaning is a grassroots campaign. If the culture has embraced the imposter syndrome, there is no use telling us that that's wrong or we shouldn't use it. Obviously, it is fulfilling some lexical gap or some cultural need. On that note, I would love to ask you, this term imposter syndrome, it instantly seemed to strike a nerve.

Why do you think that was? Why do you think the term became so popular so quickly? And what does that say about us?

So the way that I think about this is I think of two lineages, one being social and the way in which our performance of self has become something that we think about more, that we even talk about because of social media. The other line of thinking I think that's important is capitalism. Actually, and what you were saying earlier, Amanda. So on the first side, I think because we live in a society now and in a culture where you're spending hours and hours a day on your phone, on social media, we have this constant sense of, who is the person that is showing up on the screen versus who is the person that is actually on the inside? And we know, we understand so much more that there's a disconnect between the two. I think that that gives us a heightened sense of questioning and asking ourselves, what is true to me and what am I putting out there? I think that the other side of it, which is that we live in a society where in order to get by, in order to make a living, in order to survive, especially as a woman, you are often putting yourself in and in experiences that you might not feel like you belong.

And that is externally constructed. So for myself, going through medical school in which the professors, the people at the top were mostly male, were mostly white. I was the first woman on my mother's side to work professionally outside the home, the first one to hold a postgraduate degree. And when you don't see those models outside of you, when everyone else on the outside in your field doesn't look like you, then you're constantly trying to code switch. So the masking and the code switching and how that disconnect cognitively where you're asking yourself, wait, who is the person that's here and who is the person that's performing? That's just, if I'm allowed, it's like a mind fuck.

Yes. Oh, my God. I'm so glad that you brought that up, especially the two lines of thinking, one being more capitalistic, American dream, et cetera, and one being the social media of it all, because I, in publishing, have often felt like I do not belong. And earlier in my career, I felt like social media was a way that I could create a presence in the literary community in a more grassroots way. And in both contexts, I really felt like I was truly an imposter, because on social media, everyone's an imposter. It does encourage you only to post highlight reels. My social media presence is a persona at the very least. And so it's like, how could I not feel like an imposter when I either am made to feel I don't belong or I truly am putting forth a masked persona? And it's a mind fuck also in the way that, fake it till you make it is considered conventional wisdom in this society. But when does that go too far where you start to feel crushing imposter syndrome or it goes so far that you actually are some imposter?

Yeah. So if you're asking yourself that question, that's a good indicator that you are not manic or a toxic narcissist. We all have a little bit of narcissism in us. People who write books have maybe a little bit more narcissism than others. I include myself there.

Yeah. It's like, how dare we privilege our points of view?

Exactly. Well, when you can make fun of yourself, That is a sign of health. And so I think we're constantly living in this paradoxical situation where places like Silicon Valley are constantly praising the folks who are overshooting and making them billionaires, only then to drag them down when it that they swindled the investors, not when they swindled the people, but when they swindled the investors. So I think if you're somebody who's having this ongoing conversation with yourself of who am I really? What am I presenting to the world? You can rest relatively assured that you're not going too far onto the self- congratulatory side. You might just be neurotic.

Oh, that's for sure. That's for damn sure.

Because in those contexts where you actually don't belong, you're doing it to survive. You're doing it to fit in and to not be cast out. So back to your original question, though, what is the state of imposter syndrome? I think there was this really great piece that you included in your notes, and I was so excited to see that you had included it, the HBR piece from Harvard Business Review by Rushika Tostian and Jody Ann Burry, who are fantastic. And the piece was like, Stop telling women that they have imposter syndrome. So far, what I'm seeing is most of the newest thinking and assessment of imposter syndrome is actually coming more out of the business world and less out of the clinical world. So we live in a world where Black women have to work for 19 months to make the same amount of money that a White man makes in 12 months. And I think the 2023 data for Fortune 500 companies was out of 500 companies, there's 50 female CEOs. So I think the conversation has shifted away from what are women doing wrong and evolved to how are our organizations and our social structures not setting women up to succeed?

And what can we be doing on that side to make it more equitable at the top? And I think that's the natural evolution of this conversation. But also, to be fair, there's so far to go.

Yeah. I mean, truly. And I keep coming back to this question that I certainly don't think we'll find an answer to today. But it's like, will feelings of imposter syndrome truly ever be quelled in a society where your sense of belonging and your corporate work life or your professional success in whatever context, are all bound together. That is just so unnatural and so new as a concept. And it's like my white cis male partner experiences imposter syndrome. I will say not in the same way as myself. It shows up differently for him, but nonetheless, he still experiences it. I think even some narcissists probably experience the worst imposter syndrome of all in a sense. I don't know if there are really that many people who are spared, and how could they be, no matter what their identity, no matter what their background, no matter what their field, when we are inundated with messages from very early in life, you need to have a dream job and you need to fulfill that dream. And yet, as soon as you start to, you feel like, Oh, my God, I'm a fraud because who really fundamentally belongs at work at all?

Yeah. I mean, and I think another way to think about it, too, is that when you're talking about capitalism, the unit of scale is productivity. And in order to be efficient in productivity, you have to focus on one thing. You have to make yourself smaller to be able to move up and to be able to be effective and productive. And imposter syndrome, if anything, it is a way of taking away someone's humanness, right? Because we all are so many things. The actual real truth of being human is that there's so many different threads that make up one person. And there will be times in your life where you're faking it until you're making it. And then there will be other times where you're super earnest, and there will be other times, right? It's all of the things. But the higher you go on the scale, the more you are masking to fit into the box that you need to to fit the mold of the person that is above you who's more likely to be a white male. Wow. And so it's a way of making yourself small and thinking of other people as smaller than they are.

It's also a way that we pull away our own humanity by flattening our identities and our experiences.

Well, I can really relate to what you're saying, because in times in my life when I am hyper fixated on work and achievement, I do feel less human and I do feel smaller, which is counterintuitive. You would think from the outsider from Instagram or whatever, it probably looks really big. But exactly what you're saying, I feel like this pointy being as opposed to a gooey nebulous cloud of being. We've been talking about this a little bit, but how can conversations around imposter syndrome move forward in a way that's more inclusive and healing?

I, as a Brown woman, who is of South Asian origin, my parents are immigrants, I think I'm always straddling these different spaces and trying to think about, I guess, how do we bring the most people into the conversation? And I do think that terms like imposter syndrome, even though they are lacking and there are so many ways in which they're problematic, I do think that just because of how well known they are, they can be entry points to talking about things like implicit bias and talking things like code switching and talking about things like who's at the table, who belongs at the table, who's missing at the table, who do we want to bring to the table. I know that there's a lot, even with real self-care, I talk about how Audre Lord, self-care is self-preservation. I understand also that the table is completely broken, I guess is what I want to say.

Yeah.

And we need to rebuild it. I think that it's still useful. Again, the reason that I say that is because as a clinician, when my patients come to me and we talk about imposter syndrome, I'm able to then say, Hey, look, wait, no. You feel this way because of bias. You feel this way because the system wasn't made for you. You feel this way because you never had any role models and you were constantly having to code switch in mass. And I don't know that I would have been able to have those conversations unless somebody started talking about imposter syndrome in an article they just saw.

Totally, yes. It is this shorthand where someone invokes the phrase, We can all get on the same page, and then we can get more specific with our language about what we're talking about. Are you talking about anxiety surrounding this or that certain experience that you had? But I think, yeah, imposter syndrome is a good way to open up a conversation that then gets a little more granular and surgical.

I will say people at the top feel this, too. Yeah. Oh, my God. I imagine so. There's a way that sometimes some of this language can help unify the experience of folks who might be from very different socioeconomic positions, very different level of resources. And sometimes it can be helpful to know like, Hey, yeah, my boss feels this, too.

Ceos, they're just like us. They hate themselves. Honestly, though. I have just one more follow-up question that pertains to what we're discussing, that imposter syndrome was maybe not really a syndrome, but it's still a useful term. I was wondering if you could contextualize this phrase within the online culture of therapy speak and over self-diagnosis. There was just a piece that came out in The New Yorker. It was about mental health diagnosis as identity, and people are really embracing certain, oftentimes self diagnosis that they've gleaned from TikTok or other social media platforms, and they've embraced them as an identity like being a Capricorn or being from Chicago. I'm wondering if you could speak to how impossible Muster syndrome might be misinterpreted as a mental health diagnosis or even an identity or both. Yeah.

I have mixed feelings about this because it's so both and. On one hand, we are in a time where going to therapy is something that nobody blinks an eye at. Of course, actually, it's a huge privilege because who can actually afford to go to therapy? But we are in a time where our ability to talk about these things is so much more acceptable and just really casual than it was even just one generation ago. And at the same time, I do think that there is a way where because of all of the socioeconomic distress and the ways in which our society has become more and more haves versus have nots, the further along that you get in that divide, the more that people are struggling internally, and the more you look for boxes to put yourself in. Yeah, I am a Sagittarius, so therefore I am going to constantly be over-ambitious. Or I am a Leo, and so I always want to be the center of attention. Whatever it is, you pick something that then can explain why you feel the way that you do. And it's a shorthand then for communicating to your family, to your friends, to your coworkers, this is why I'm like this.

And then therefore, this is how you should treat me.

Right. I can totally see a scenario in this culture of therapy speak where someone would be on Slack with one of their coworkers one day and would be like, My imposter syndrome is raging today. I think I need a few extra hours to collect myself before turning in those documents or something like that. I can totally see that. Totally.

And then the manager, the boss, having to be like, Oh, well, let me accommodate for this, right? Because I want to be somebody who that is generous and cares about mental health. And then we get into a debate around what's the line. And I think that the answer is to hold all these things a little bit more lightly.

It's like you are still having a worthwhile experience, even if it's not a diagnosis.

Yes. And it's not the only thing about you, that there's many other things about you. And this is one thing. But you also are somebody who is from Chicago and loves the cubs. And is that the right team for Chicago? I think so.

The wrong person has.

Sounds like it. And is a mom and likes art. I think we get into trouble when it's taken to an extreme and it's only one thing, then it defines you, and then it can become self-sabotaging.

Right. Yeah. Oh, gosh. Yes. When you become too pointy, it's a set up for suffering because we are so many things and we are constantly changing. And what I've been learning doing this podcast already just for a few months is we are such a product of our time, our social conditioning, the movies that we watch. We are fluid beings, and we are impressionable, and we are complicated, and we are mystical. And just because I am feeling, say, imposter syndrome today and really confident tomorrow, doesn't mean that today I'm a diagnosed imposter, and tomorrow I'm a diagnosed badass.

Yes. Well, and I like what you said there because you said, I am feeling imposter syndrome today versus I have imposter syndrome. There's a difference there. Yes.

Hello. Jamida Jamil here. You may know me from my role in The Good Place or from SheHulk or from social media and my activism. I Way basically started as a social movement, and my podcast is one of my truly greatest achievements. It's a podcast against shame and a place for us to have really honest and truly inclusive conversations. I love connecting with people. I love learning. I have a lot to learn, and I'm inviting you along with me. On I Way with Jamila Jamil, I have friends, activists, specialists, and absolute heroes join me to teach me from their experience and expertise. People like Conan O'Brien, Jane Fonda, Roxanne Gay, Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Bayer, Aloke, Kelly Rowland, and more. I Way with Jamida Jamil has new episodes out every Tuesday, and you can find the show on earwulf. Com or wherever you listen to your podcast. Bad on Paper is a chat show hosted by Becker Freeman and Olivia Mentor. New episodes drop every Wednesday. Both hosts are big readers and talk about what they're reading every episode. The show also hosts a monthly Book Club. The Book Club pick is announced at the beginning of the month and discussed in the last episode of the month.

Recent pics have included Good Material by Dolly Alderton, Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros, and Exploration Dates by Rebecca Sewell. Listeners say the show feels like having a glass of wine with your best friends. Topics range from social media habits to Taylor Swift fashion Easter eggs to notes app hacks. Occasionally, they're joined by guests, often authors like Carly Fortune, Kate Kennedy, Tia Williams, and more. Both hosts are also authors, so it's really interesting to follow their updates on the process of writing and publishing, if that's something interesting to you. Even though there's a big back catalog, you can truly jump in anywhere. The episodes really require no context, and you'll get to know the hosts as soon as you listen. Okay, I'm curious, are there generational differences in terms of imposter syndrome experiences? How would you say, if at all, Gen Z might experience imposter syndrome differently than millennials? I've seen on TikTok that there is this tension between a lot of anxiety and then also a counter narrative about being Delulu is the only Solulu to make your dreams come true-lulu. It's like if you're feeling absolute shit, imposter syndrome is out, hyper confidence and capricious head in the clouds vibes are in.

What would you say are some of the generational differences if they exist?

So I will say my answer is completely anecdotal and not research-based at all. I think that Gen X is probably the most anxious about it in that imposter syndrome wasn't as much even part of their vocabulary. So they have internalized a lot of this more so and have a lot more self doubt and are also less likely to speak out about it or to talk about it or to even go to therapy necessarily. Again, huge generalization, but I think that is the vibe. I would say millennials, and I'm an elder millennial, geriatric millennial, I guess. So I think that with millennials, we're peak imposter syndrome where it was part of our lexicon. And so I find that millennials are the ones who use it the most as a syndrome. And then I think Gen Z. I mean, Gen Z is like, they're just So they're like, no, this is capitalism. Like, literally, I'm never going to be able to afford to buy a house. Like, this is not a me problem.

Yes, totally. These are generalizations, as you've said a bunch of times. But I am noticing those patterns, too. I notice the differences in imposter syndrome, tamper, when I talk to the people that I work with who are my age versus people that I work with who are 22.

Take the path forward, obviously, again, holding lightly, finding balance, right? And recognizing that in different situations, all of these types of responses can be productive and useful. It doesn't have to be just one.

Yes. Okay. So I would love to talk about some remedies. If someone is experiencing imposter syndrome, feeling those feelings, what are some exercises that people can engage in to quell its negative effects?

Yes. Well, I'm so glad you asked, Amanda, because this is my favorite thing to talk about as a psychiatrist. Because yes, it's so hard and it's coming from the outside, and we do still need strategies to deal with it. Because when you're stuck in your head, even if it's because of the chaos of the outside world and the inequities of the outside world, you still do need to do something internally to try and get out of it. So in real self-care, a lot of my framework for real self-care is based on acceptance and commitment therapy, which I would assume, Amanda, you probably know about already.

I think that is one of the articles that I came across in which you'd been quoted about ways to heal from imposter syndrome. I found you quoted in an article about acceptance and commitment therapy.

Oh, well, good. I'm glad. So Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Act for Short, is one of the third wave psychotherapies, and it pulls from Buddhist and mindfulness teachings in that it says, in act, it's like, Okay, yes, life is suffering. Life is suffering. And the place that we have control is how we act, how we show up. And so you can't actually talk yourself out of the hard thoughts. You can't talk yourself out of the difficult feelings or the inner critical voice. Instead, you have to learn to accept it, but not to give it power. So in my practice, when I'm taking care of women, one of the things that often comes up is guilt, right? Feeling bad about XYZ thing. And I always say, guilt does not have to be your moral compass. It can just be a feeling that's there. Just because you feel guilty doesn't mean that you made the wrong choice. So there's one exercise in particular from Act. I didn't come up with this. It's from actually Russ Harris, who is a teacher of Act. It's called the Sushi Train exercise. And if it's okay, I'll just go through it. Please.

I'll say it's a little bit silly, but It's silly because especially for overthinkers, we have to come to these things a little bit indirectly. Otherwise, our brain is just going to overthink, and we're not going to be able to get out of it. Imagine that you are at one of those sushi restaurants where there's the conveyor belt and the plates of sushi are going around. And the chef, the sushi chef, he's in the middle. So in the metaphor, the chef is your brain. That is your mind, that's your brain. And all of the plates of sushi that are going around the belt, those are your thoughts. And your feelings and your ideas and your memories, everything that's floating around in your mind over the course of a day. And so you can imagine that there's sometimes going to be plates of sushi that look really advertising. So for me, that's like spicy tuna roll. I love it. And you want to just pick it up right away and grab it and gobble it down. There's going to be other plates that are gross. For me, I hate when the shrimp has its head on. I find that really disgusting.

And your natural tendency is you want to push it away. But if you think about being at one of those restaurants, you don't just You just grab something, you don't push it away. Instead, you talk to the chef, right? You ask, Oh, where did this fish come from? How did you cook this rice? What is this sauce? So with the imposter syndrome thoughts that are running through your mind, I'm a fraud. I don't belong here. I can't believe I said that. You're just curious, and you're just letting them pass by on the conveyor belt. You're not picking them up and fusing with them and treating them as if they're the truth. You're also not fighting with them and trying to push them away and turn them off. Because when you're fighting with them, you're actually just giving them all the power.

Oh, my God. This is me. And I know it's probably a lot of people listening, but sometimes I feel like the spicy tuna that I really like is actually a really negative thought. And I'm addicted to the negative thought because I feel like if I just think about it enough, I can solve it, I can fix it, and it will go away. But that's literally not how thoughts work.

That is not how thoughts work. That's not how feelings work. Exactly. And so when that happens, you want to just it pass by. You also want to go outside and touch grass.

Yeah, I know. I love that phrase. It's really caught on because there's such truth to it.

Well, and it's about just getting into your body, right? Just getting outside of your mind and into your body. But to do that, you have to separate from that thought. And when you're stuck in that phase of overthinking and thinking that your problem solving brain can solve it, that's when you know you've lost the plot.

Yeah, totally. And I often forget that my mind is my body and that doing something nice for my body will help my mind. Sometimes I just feel like I've already been uploaded to the cloud and I'm already dead and I have no body and I'm just a computer person. And it's like, I'm not. I'm an animal. I'm a mammal. And I got to do mammal things I got to go find someone to pet me. Okay. Thank you so much for that. That's super helpful. Now we're going to go into a lightning round. So I had my Magical Overthinkers Club community submit a bunch of thought spirals and questions on the topic of imposter syndrome, and I'm going to rattle them off and ask for your quicky reactions to them.

Oh, gosh. I'm going to get in trouble here.

Dude, I am so bad at lightning rounds. I can't do them. So no pressure. Just treat these questions as a sushi conveyor belt. The first magical overthinker thought spiral is, Sometimes imposter syndrome feels like a healthy ego check. Do you think that's true?

It depends on the volume and depends on the intensity. If you were Elizabeth Holmes at Theranos, yes, I wish you would have had some imposter syndrome. But if it's something that you're constantly struggling with every single day and it's so sticky and gooey like peanut butter in your brain and you can't get away from it, then no, that's not good.

Wow. What an evocative visual. There are some peanut butter thoughts in my brain right now. Okay. One person says, I'm an introvert and I go out a lot. I feel like a fraud pretending to have fun when I want to be home?

So my first question is, is there alcohol involved and how much are you drinking? Actually, that's my first therapist question. Interesting. My next question would be, what parts of yourself are you not bringing out when you are with your friends out? And why are you hiding parts of yourself?

Actually, on that note, there were a couple of questions and thought spirals that have to do with imposter syndrome in social settings, or at least in settings that don't actually have to do with work. Another Other person said, As a chronically ill person, sometimes I feel like an imposter trying to be well.

That makes sense to me because if you are in social situations that don't make space and room, and when I say space in a room, I mean emotional and also literal, for your chronic illness, then you probably feel like it's not okay for you to talk about it or show it. So that makes sense. And then the hard part is figuring out, is it the people that you're with? And have you tried to make space for it or tried to ask? Are you asking for what you need in these settings? And then going from there.

Yeah. Gosh, it's so disappointing. My best friend is a cancer survivor. She was 21 when she was diagnosed with cancer. And she lost a lot of friends during that time because at 21, if you're lucky, you've not dealt with someone close to you having a serious illness. And a lot of people just totally disengaged. And I think she probably felt a lot of imposter syndrome, too. I just have to pretend to be a regular, fun, 21-year-old college student when really I'm going through something else. I'm sure a lot of people go through that experience, even if they don't have something as outwardly showing as cancer. Yes.

I think, too, the performance of the illness, too. Even if the group that you're with knows about it, it might just be like, Oh, how are you doing? How are your treatments going? And then you have to have a little bit and then then go back to the regular conversation. So there's this high degree of performing, I think.

Yes, because we're always trying to fulfill people's expectations. Oh, my God. I struggle with that hard core. That can make you lose yourself or lose your truth. There were a lot of questions about gender along the lines of, I've heard that women have imposter syndrome more. Is that stat just a self-fulfilling prophecy? Is imposter syndrome more common in women because social conditioning? Why is it worse in male-dominated fields? I like this. Everyone experiences it, but people only talk about women. Can you, I guess, overall thoughts about the relationship between imposter syndrome and gender?

Yeah. I mean, I think I like what we talked about earlier of thinking about how imposter syndrome flattens your experience. And so I think it would do us good to also think about imposter experiences as more of a spectrum, too. Like not all or nothing, but the more marginalized identities and perspectives that you hold in any given group, the harder it's going to be for you to show up as a fully nuanced human being and still feel like you belong. And since most careers that are hierarchical, more conservative, so I'm thinking about like, medicine, law, corporate America, media. It is more white people. It is more men. And so anytime you differ from that, you're going to have to make yourself smaller and smaller. So it's not that men don't feel this at all. They do. And they will, based on their own marginalized identities or experiences that are not held in the norm. A white man who grew up in rural America without money is probably going to feel it more. A man that was adopted and doesn't actually know his biological parents is going to feel it when he's interacting with his buddies on Wall Street that all have families with homes in the Hamptons, right?

I think we see a lot in the media about it being a gender thing because that is a space that really has been so impacted by #MeToo and just by all these different social justice movements. But you can apply it in different ways and in different scales to other groups, too.

I also think in terms of gender, I am really curious to hear your thoughts about this. Pardon if this comes across as a bit of a rant, but I have found in my own personal experience that women are more likely to actually be told that they don't belong or that they should be different or make yourself smaller. I'm a writer. I never wanted to go into academia, but I love social science, and that's become my beat. And earlier in my career, when I was less experienced and a less skilled reporter and had way less to say for myself, nobody took an issue with my work ever because I was smaller, I guess, in terms of professional success. When my first book came out, it had such a small readership, and it was so positive I write the books that I do in a tone that is colloquially, and some might even call it cute. I call myself a linguist because even though I really, really didn't want to in the beginning of my career, my publisher did and reporters did, and even a whole bunch of linguists were like, own it. I was like, fine.

And so now I own it begrudgingly. As the chef in my own sushi restaurant, I should just be closing my eyes and not even looking at the shrimp. But I have found that as I move forward in my career, some people are like, You are a fraud. It bothers bothers me so much. People call me all kinds of other things that don't bother me. People call me a cult leader because I talk about cultishness in everyday life that I find very meta and hilarious and ironic, and I lean into the bit, and that doesn't bug me whatsoever. This bugs me, and I try to make sense of it by thinking, Well, the system in the United States is so unbelievably inequitable that I can actually easily see that if someone gains any type of leg up within that very rigged game, they will start to seem scammy. So maybe that's what's going on. But then immediately, I think that's not really the whole explanation because I can't help but notice that my male contemporaries, they don't attract the same type of scrutiny or accusations of fraudulence. So then naturally, that brings me to misogyny. You, woman, should be over-decorated and quiet.

Again, so sorry for this rant, but I just struggle with it so, so much And I was wondering if people who are moving forward in their career, particularly women and women of more marginalized identities than myself, probably experience this way more. But what can we do to keep going? Because it makes me want to be small and quiet and go away. But I don't want to let that have power when I know that it isn't true. So what can I do? What can we do?

So I have an answer for you, and it's very un-PC, so I'm just going to just give that disclaimer. So my answer is, and this is my therapist's answer, it's absolutely It's absolutely true that it's misogynistic. It is an industry that is very male and white and rich and coming from a certain pedigree. You talked in the beginning about how you don't have that pedigree. It's coming from that pedigree being like, Amanda, you don't fit here. Who do you think you are to be writing New York Times best sellers? That can't be possible. And that is absolutely the classist aspect. And maybe you could even say, to some extent, the imperialist aspect of how you probably know a lot more about American publishing than I do. I've only had one book so far, and from what I've seen, it's... Oh, boy.

I know. I think some people from the outside, if I've done a good enough job with my Blazers, I think I want to seem fancy. You know what I mean? Like, of course I do. Like, there's pressure to seem like you belong. And so I wear my thick glasses and I'm trying to dress up for the part, only to be called a fraud for not even the reasons why I feel like one. You know what I mean?

God. And And I would say the other thing is, and forgive me if this is too personal for you. Again, you can cut it. I do think that when something hits our own insecurity, like you said, people calling you côtler, you're like, whatever. It's not peanut butter. It just slides off because you don't believe it. You don't care. Whereas with this, I think that there must be some internal something, some of your own insecurity that is making it stick. And I saw that your mom is a biologist, did amazing, intense, iconic research curing cancer. Yes. As a therapist, I think there might be something there about having a mom with that type of academic career. Daughters have some feelings.

Yeah, that actually makes a lot of sense.

I'm sure your mom doesn't think that, right?

Oh, no. The people in my life, none of them make me feel this way. I mean, I guess maybe, yeah, some childhood shit. And my My brother is really fucking smart. He's the smartest person alive. I joke all the time. I'm like the family idiot by far. And so, yeah, maybe I feel like I'm faking.

But that, I think, also comes back to your work is it's very much in, like you said, cute. It's not cute. It's actually very substantive. But I think you put cute on it maybe as a way to feminize it or something.

I don't think it's cute. I actually, deep down in my bones, I don't think it's cute.

And also because I think that's what the culture puts on it.

Yeah, I think some people think I'm not deep enough, but I'm just like, if it's not your cup of tea, that's fine, but it doesn't make me a fraud.

No, but the culture puts that on it because it's threatening to them. It's true. It's threatening because you are a young woman who's accomplished and is influential and impacts others in a way that they are not able to. And that's scary.

I'm going to cry in the middle of the studio right now.

Let me say this. Success is complicated. As a woman.

Okay, let's move on to some other thought spirals submitted by some other people. So someone says, I often think that the people who actually should have imposter syndrome don't arrogant phoneies.

That reminds me of the meme of have the confidence of a mediocre white male.

Yes. Oh, my God. I know. Someone says, I often thought, Spiral, that we can't all have imposter syndrome, so I must actually be unqualified.

For this type of thing, I do think it's helpful to keep a note in your phone, in your notes app, of the times that you have gotten genuine praise or genuine feedback that's positive initiative that really was meaningful for you. So I don't mean just every little thing, but the things that felt really impactful.

I love that idea. This next question is a bit more specific. How does imposter syndrome factor into setting pricing as a woman's small business owner?

Gosh, I hope somebody writes a book about that, where people, sociologists, specifically, talk about how money is a measure of the energy and your perceived worth. So I think it is. That sounds fair to me that when you're feeling this imposter experience, you are more likely to undervalue yourself in the marketplace.

Right. But then I also remember a There's a study that I quoted in my new book saying how we have this inherent win-win denial where studies have shown that people often perceive sellers of goods as inherently scamier than buyers, even though people almost never pay more for a good than they really want to. But there is just a general sense of suspicion and skepticism and confusion surrounding worth in our society right now. Next thought spiral. Someone says, Titles. Even if I wrote a book, I'd never feel comfortable calling myself a writer. Yeah. Can you speak to the imposter syndrome surrounding titles?

It's funny for me because when I wrote Real Self Care, I had to decide what I wanted on the cover, like Dr. Puja Lachman, Puja Lachman, MD. And I had such a thought spiral of, But wait, I'm Dr. Lachman to my patients, but I'm just Puja. I'm just Puja to people that I'm talking to and to my readers. But then I was But wait, I'm a woman of color, and I have this degree. Am I not giving myself enough credit if I don't call myself Dr. Lachman or Dr. Puja or something like that? And then finally I was like, No, I'm just Puja. It's fine. I'm Puja. So maybe this is not reassuring to your listener who thought that there would be an answer. So again, I think we feel this way more when we are in positions where we don't have models and we are historically underrepresented, so we second guess ourselves. I do think that it matters. I I think that owning it, the answer is different for everybody, but there will come a point if you say it long enough, I'm a writer, I'm an author, I wrote a book, whatever it is, that you will start to internalize it.

Yes, that's definitely true. The power of repetition to make something feel true, especially when it is true. Yes. This next thought spiral says, imposter syndrome increases with marginalization, but I'm not marginalized enough, so must just be rubbish. And who am I to think this? And it's so embarrassing over and over and over.

I guess my overall take is that I don't know how helpful it is to diminish our own suffering. If you live in the United States right now compared to so many other places in the world, we are just vastly, vastly, vastly privileged. And by saying, I shouldn't feel bad because so many other people have it worse, that doesn't actually make you feel less bad. That makes you feel more bad because then you're just putting judgment on top of your bad feelings. So this person, I think you need to find a way to find some balance here of like, there's a middle ground. Like, no, don't wallow in it. And it's still a real feeling.

A lot of these answers are making me think of this definition of a slash that I really loved when I was in elementary school. Have you ever heard of a slash being defined as or, or, and, or, or, and, and?

No, because I'm not linguist.

But I'm just like, there is a lot of or, or, and, or, or, and, and in this conversation. And that's not maybe satisfying or definitive all of the time, but part of our challenge living through this particular time in history, I feel, is being able to hold multiple truths at once.

Yes, right. And to not overthink it, thinking that there is one right answer for every single thing.

Yeah. Let's do one more thought spiral. This one is funny. This person says, As a trained actor, I often wonder if I'm actually good at my job or just acting like I am. That is a thought spiral. Right.

That is a thought spiral. So I don't know a lot of actors, but the actors that I do know, this totally sounds like something an actor would ask. So perhaps this type of thinking is a prerequisite to go into that type of field. That's a pretzel that is just going to keep winding around.

Oh, my God. I love the idea of a thought pretzel. There's a thought spiral, and then there's a thought pretzel.

I do want to caveat this by saying I would never I don't ever respond to a patient in that way. A patient who came to me like that, just to be clear. But to a podcast listener who's asking this question, I feel okay responding in that way.

Yeah. You know what? I live in LA, and there are therapists here who specifically specialize in working with actors' thought spirals. That type of person might have a very bespoke answer, should you pursue therapy one-on-one and not just listen to podcasts for your healing, which I hope you don't. Anywho, my very, very last question, and thank you so much for basically therapies me and offering so much wisdom throughout this hour or so, is what do you think is the number one thing that folks are overthinking in terms of imposter syndrome? And what is the number one thing we are underthinking?

So I think that just in general, I would say that the discourse around imposter syndrome is probably right where it needs to be, as we've been talking about the evolution and really incorporating social determinants of health and not just putting this as something that is on women or on marginalized groups to figure out. But I do think that in that process, it is still helpful to have tools to sort through the pretzels that come up in your mind, because it's going to take a while for corporate America and for society at large to really come around to getting to the right place.

Yeah, totally. And then what is the number one thing you think we're underthinking?

I think We need to think more about the spectrum of imposter experiences and thinking about it more as it's not static, and it's not all or nothing. I think that there's a spectrum, and depending on the situation that you're in or life position that you're in, it can come and go. And I think if we have curiosity there, it can also help us shine light onto the systemic changes that are needed.

Thank you so much for this interview. If folks want to keep up with you and your work, where can they find you?

Yeah. So my book is called Real Self-Care: Crystals, Cleances, and Bubble Bats, not included. You can get it in all the places that you buy books. And I also read the audiobook, true. So if you like to listen to audiobooks, you can get it on Audible. And I am Pooja Lashma, on Instagram and pujalakshman. Com on Substack.

Incredible. Thank you so much.

It was such a pleasure. Amanda, thanks for having me.

And thank you all so much for listening. Now is the time in the episode where I provide a little bit of advice for how we overthinkers can get out of our own heads this week. I do feel like Dr. Lachman did offer some seriously actionable nuggets of wisdom, but I wanted to offer one more. This one comes from a psychotherapist who got in touch with me on Instagram Instagram. Her name is Roxanne Mawong, and she provided a very interesting theory about why our thoughts feel so threatening to us as if we're being chased by a predator or something, even though we've just received a current email from a boss or a salty comment on Instagram. From this theory, I think we can derive something to do to manage those unpleasant experiences. On Instagram, she told me, as a psychotherapist, recovering over and big fan of the Nagosky's work on completing the stress cycle. Stay tuned for a burnout episode because I'm going to be interviewing author Amelia Nagosky about burnout. She said, My working hypothesis about the mechanics for overth is that When we are down the rabbit hole of our anxious minds, we lose touch with our body's felt experience of anxiety.

This is a problem because even if during our overthinking, our prefrontal cortexes stumble on a solution for a realization that there's nothing to worry about actually, the rest of our brain's nervous system can't process it as such because all it's aware of is that you were in fight or flight mode or close to it for ages while dissociated from your body. Read in your head. Especially if you're more or less stationary, and particularly if you're lying down, this combo of behavior, cognition, and anxiety is consistent with a freeze response that in the absence of a quick burst of cardio energy indicating to your body that we fought or fled the danger, which is what our body wants to have happen to resolve the trigger, it's likely to flip into a collapse/play dead nervous system response that dissociates us further from our bodies and is consistent with both the physiology and the felt experience of depression. Literally, our nervous system has depressed its stress response because the body dissociated over thinking is so consistent with what antelopes experience when fight or flight is made impossible by a predator that has sunk its teeth into it. I can relate to this so hard core because don't judge me, but sometimes I work from bed while I'm literally lying down.

And if I receive a stimulus in the form of a message that sends me into fight or flight, I feel like a dying antelope. And so from that, I've gleaned, and maybe we can all do this pseudo experiment together, that when I am feeling like I'm in fight or flight, what I should really do is exhaust a burst of energy. Maybe instead of just lying there in a play dead position, I should stand up and do 10 jumping jacks so that my body knows that it has fled the danger. I don't know. This is just a theory that Roxanne, thank you very much, proposed to me, and I really like it. I am going to test this jumping jack experiment out and let you know how it goes. With that said, thank you again for listening. Stick around for a new episode in two weeks, and I think I finally have an outro for you. It goes until the next thought spiral. Remember, think it over. Just don't overthink it. Magical Overthinkers was created and hosted by Amanda Montell and edited by Jordan Moore of the Pod cabin. Our theme music is by Casey Kolb.

Thank you to our magical coordinator, Katie Epperson, producer, Rebecca Swann, and Network Studio 71. Be sure to follow the pod on Instagram at Magical Overthinkers. We're also on YouTube, link in show notes, and ad-free episodes as well as behind-the-scenes extras are available on the Magical Overthinkers sub stack at amandamontell. Substack. Com.