Hosai Mojaddidi – Imposter Syndrome Why Everyone Feels Like They’re Faking It
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So I was at a coffee shop, if those of you who follow my posts,
you might know this about me, I get into some really strange
conversations with people at Trader Joe's that target coffee
shops pretty much anywhere, it just happens to me. But I was in a
coffee shop once and I met this was actually during a blackout, we
had a blackout in the Bay Area, the power company actually shut
off purposely our power because they were
the there's a lot of complaints about them, but I won't get into
that. But they shut off our power. And we were completely in the
dark. So everybody, of course, when to charge their phones and
laptops and whatever else at the coffee shops. So I ended up
sharing a table with this husband and wife, the wife ends up being
this really high profile, executive and marketing. And she
goes on to share with me that she didn't I was startled by what she
shared. She said there's millions and millions and millions of
influencers online. And she said, for people like her, there's
entire databases that she's like, it's so easy for us, we could just
go plug in whatever product they're like working on. And
without any human interaction contact whatsoever. She can, you
know, pair up the most perfect or ideal influencers online that
would match that product. And then, you know, work out a system
where they're basically, you know, selling the product online, never
having used it never having talked to anyone just because there's you
know, financial perks for them, obviously to do that. But, you
know, she went on to talk about, she questioned the ethics of what
she was doing. Because she's like, you know, it's all it's all a lie.
You know, we're just pushing this out to people because some of
these people, like for example, I mean, let's keep it real. Have you
seen the commercial? Gosh, I don't know which company it is. It's
some hair color company, maybe L'Oreal? I don't know, one of
those. But I think Beyonce is the one who's selling it. It's like a
hair product or hair shampoo, maybe color. How many of us
actually believe that Beyonce is using right drugstore company hair
color and shampoo, right? I mean, this is how sad it is that these
people who are you know, I mean, they have some of these people
suffered a lot, their egos are so big, they have gold toilets, you
think they're gonna go and use a product from the drugstore, highly
unlikely. But this is the world we live in now, where these people
have so much influence in our lives. They tell us about
everything, what to eat, what not to eat, what to wear, you know
what to buy about everything. But in addition to that they're doing
something else. They're actually shaping our ideas and our beliefs
about ourselves. And this is where we really have to examine, you
know, this whole concept of why women are feeling inadequate?
Well, if you have not just you know, in, you know, previous
times, I mean, you had your mom, your dad, your siblings may be
your, you know, immediate family members, your extended family,
friends, a handful of friends, and they were telling you do this, do
that marry him, Don't marry him, you know, it's kind of like that.
But as women now on top of all of those influences, now we can, you
know, at any point of the day, go on our Instagram, Facebook, and
subconsciously even if you think it's not affecting you it is they
say look at the research person who spends time online, inevitably
walks away with lower feelings of happiness and satisfaction.
Because just by looking at a news feed, you can walk away feeling
absolutely depressed, demoralized, like, Oh, I'm a loser. What am I
doing with my life? Right? And this this constant stream of
negativity that we sometimes aren't aware of. And, you know,
just as a side note, it's important to mention this because
I feel like women, we need to study certain things, you know, we
need to study patterns, especially when we see patterns in society.
One of the back in 2010, I believe, or 2000. I don't know,
this is a while ago, I came across a research paper, you can Google
it. It's called The Paradox of declining female happiness. This
was published in 2009. It's a 40 year research paper. And what did
they do? They examined women from every single cross section in the
country, from every background, you know, racial background, but
also economic, socio economic background education and marital
status, children, no children, every cross section, and they
found that from the 1970s, up until this was published in 2009,
that there was this trend of the decline of fulfillment of
happiness. And it's kind of you know, it goes against what we're
told, right, because what happened in the 70s Right, I mean, the
message that we get is that you know, the sexual revolution
happened. Women Empowerment women came into the workforce, women
came into college.
Eggs, we achieved so much because of all of that yay, women, women,
right? But what's happening to our happiness level? Why are we
reporting that we're coming increasingly unhappy? It's
difficult, obviously, when you're measuring something that's
subjective, to come with finite answers, but they did conclude two
things. Two things that they noticed is one is increased
anxiety. Okay. And this is very much in line, you know, the
prophesy sort of said that there's a piece of flesh in the body. If
it's at peace, right? The whole body is at peace. And if it's not,
right, everything else is kind of out of out of play, or not with
peace, right? So what is that piece of flesh? It's the heart,
the spiritual heart, right? And so anxiety, there's definitely
something there that if you're feeling, you know, those feelings
of anxiety, and depression and sadness, there's something
spiritual there, right. So they're noticing that we're just, it's
also because we're juggling so much, we're wearing multiple hats.
We're constantly, you know, pulled this way and pulled that way. So
it's going to make us more anxious. Generally speaking, the
other part of this study revealed that there's also been a decline
of social cohesion. So while we're taking on so many different roles,
and we are advancing guests in certain areas, what we're not
doing is what we should be doing, which is getting together more
women need other women, we have to come together. And by coming
together, I'm not talking about, you know, going out for coffee and
going shopping, going watching a movie, that is like not a good use
of your time. If you have very limited time with your
girlfriends, please do not go watch a movie. I think that is
like the utter waste of time. Because what do you do, you're
just sitting there staring at a screen right? Together, no, watch
your movie separately get together and talk. Because when you talk to
one another, you're actually experiencing the benefit of female
energy, a female intelligence, a female insight, a female
experience. Those are things that are not afforded to us anymore,
because we're all in the wheel, right? We're all in that hamster
wheel caught up, we're going from one thing to another thing, and we
don't have enough time to talk. And one of the big mistakes we
make and I know if you're married, you know, this, is that night when
we're exhausted and tired, and so on. So did this and so on. So made
me upset and blah, blah, we look to our husband. And we're like, I
want to vent right. And what do you do? You turn to him? And he's
maybe, you know, reading or on his phone or snoring? I don't know.
But he's probably not really interested in what you have to
say. And then he gives you Yeah, okay, fair, okay. I told you, so
don't do it in the few words, and you're even more frustrated,
right? That's what happens. Our husbands are not the people to
turn to, for those issues. They want to fix your problems, they do
not want to listen to you. So that's why we need female friends.
We need companionship, but we're loot. We've lost that so much. And
then we're measuring ourselves constantly to approach a world
that is filtered, right, a world that's cropped a world that is not
real, but that's what we're measuring. So when we think about
imposter syndrome, I mean, is it any wonder why we're we are the
way we are, it's obvious, we're losing, we're not doing what we
should be doing. As you know, as we're instructed to our dean, as a
dean of gem out, we're supposed to have sisterhood we're supposed to
get together and, and do meaningful things. Right? And so I
just wanted to talk about that. But just back. Because it's
important to know even the word influencer, by the way, you know,
for those of you who care, it's, you know, there's there's tears
that I didn't even know about, there's tears. So there's micro
influencers, then there's small influencers. So micro influencer
is someone who has 5000 to 25,000 followers, a small influencer is
25,000 to 100,000 followers, big influencers have between 100 and a
million macro influencers, have one to 7 million, and then you
have celebrity influencers. I mean, I think it's quite amazing
that we, you know, we look at people with so much power in this
way, I mean, to, to have the ability to influence 5000 people,
that's and that's considered like a low level, like, Oh, you're just
a small influencer, you're not that important. But 5000 people is
a tremendous amount of people to be able to, you know, affect
their, their ideas and make them you know, go this way or that way.
Right. It's not a lot like that's a lot of power. Who wants that
kind of I don't, I certainly don't want that kind of power. But I
don't want to power over that many of you. I don't want to I mean,
even my children, I'm like, become independent. You know, I want them
to be independent minded. I don't want them to constantly ask me
every single second what to do, right? So I think it's interesting
that our society looks at this as being something worthy of praise
because now everybody wants to be an influencer. And we measure
ourselves with how many likes we have how many followers we have,
as if that's a goal. It's an Amana
It's an absolute Amana to have that responsibility that people
look to you for guidance on anything. So we should actually,
really, as Muslims be a little wary of being enticed into that
world. But I feel like it's happening to so many people where
we're just like, again, we're drinking the Kool Aid, you know,
we're following and this is all over the province, I'm reminded
or, you know, he warned us about this, during the end of time, we
would just follow the footsteps of others, right. Even if they go
into a lizard's hole, we'll be right there behind them all the
biller, we have to be able to see the dangers ahead of us. And this
is an area that I think is really important, but it impacts our self
confidence, which is so important to know that that's not something
we should, you know, uphold or a some goal that we should want in
life to become an influencer, especially for the youth. I know,
it's a very strong message that is put out there constantly,
especially with women and young girls, but I just wanted to
mention that now, as far as you know.
And I think we said, as Anna mentioned this when she talked
about validation, it's so important to go back to this
question of okay, so, who are my influencers? What am I influenced
by right? What is the standard ru standard? Am I you know, am I
trying to measure myself to, and this is where that you know, this
constant internal questioning, it leads you to the, you know, to the
answers, and if you are being honest with yourself as Muslims,
the answer should be all unanimous, we should all have the
same answer. Right, that our standard is, is whose standards
should we measure ourselves by whose standard?
The standards of God that's it? Not what so and so celebrity tells
me not what, so and so even family member tells me not even what so
and so husband tells me, you know, we are created Allah subhanaw,
they're created us and He elevated women. What one of the greatest
things about the Sierra, I mean, there's so many beautiful things.
But what I love is that the prophesy said, I'm started with
elevating and honoring and giving women and young girls when he
stopped, you know, the practice of female infanticide. And he he
restored the honor of the life of a girl and a woman. And then in
the very end of His message, and his last husband, he focused on
what take care of your women. So this is a full circle for us to
realize, we are above all of this. And we need to go back to really
looking at ourselves through that again, lens of Tawheed that our
beautiful teacher reminded us about that Allah subhanaw taala is
the one who matters only him. And one of the ways to do that is yes,
to go through that internal process of Ask yourself but also
to look at the female heroines of our time, mashallah, you know, so
that gave us insights on the lives of two people. But I wanted to
look at some other women as well, and sha Allah. And just because we
can look at how much they've done for us and if we need to
appreciate them. I feel like we don't appreciate them. You have
Muslims who have memorized details about their favorite celebrities,
they know everything. They have posters on their board. They have
them on their you know, screen savers, whatever. They follow
them, they do everything but they don't know about these incredible
female women of our history. Let's look at for example Madea Mata his
setup. I mean, if you've studied her life, what a remarkable teen
girl Okay, let's keep it real. She was a teenager, but her EBA and
her conviction with Allah subhanaw taala was unshakable, unshakable,
she was given a place to worship. She I mean, first of all, she had
Subhanallah the guidance of a prophet right Prophet Zakaria. But
imagine how much power she had in that hurt you by that was so
strong, he would watch her and you would admire her like Subhanallah
she you know, she was just in her chambers, which was part of the,
you know, the masjid or, you know, the house of worship at that time.
She was she had her chambers where she worshiped all day every day.
And he was so amazed by her that he she's actually the inspiration
for why he made the dua for Allah subhanaw taala to give him an air
even though he was old, he his wife was barren, but he asked the
last part that after witnessing her so talk about an influencer,
right talk about an influencer, this teen girl influenced a
prophet of Allah subhana wa Tada to make dua that he is given
another child because he wanted to raise another one. Like her.
That's incredible, right? Ma sha Allah and look at how, by the way,
you know, when we talk about naysayers and haters, all that
stuff is real. We know it. There's people out there like that, but
Subhanallah Look how she handled it. They were slandering her. They
were saying the worst vile things about her. But Subhanallah she
just
what took it out Allah she trusted her Lord. So if you're in a
situation where people are ever doing anything negative
give to you don't fall into, you know, don't don't get yourself
muddied with their filth. Be above it, right? They go low, we go
high, right? That's how we should do it. That's that's a slab, you
go straight to Allah subhanaw taala. And the other example of
that, which I think is amazing, is said nyesha Look, if you haven't
read the story of the scandal, right, but if read it and look at
her response, another incredible shining example of true faith, and
Allah subhanaw taala. Again, she was slandered, she's a wife of the
province lies to them, and they were spreading the most horrible
rumors about her as she was she felt so ill poor thing. For one
month before she even knew what happened. Nobody told her that the
rumors are being spread about her. I don't want to ruin the story for
you. I want you to read it yourself. But just to make this
point, she was sick for an entire month. Then she finds out the
rumor, she got even more violently sick. The night the day that she
found out about the rumor more than the entire month she was
physically sick. She cried
for almost 24 hours.
Because they were slandering her and she couldn't believe it. She
actually asked to go to her parents home. And there she asked,
you know,
her parents like, can't you defend me to the prophesy Saddam. And
they didn't know what to do because he was the prophet of
Allah standing in front of him, them. And so they were like, we
can't do anything. And her heart was so broken, that here's her
husband, here's her mother and her father, and all of them can't give
her any words. But Subhanallah she said what I'm going to just say
the words of Yahoo. Right? For southern jelly.
I'm going to be patient, and she relied on Allah subhanaw taala.
And look at what ALLAH SubhanA did for her. This is Eman. And this is
the power of true faith that this is someone from our history, a
woman who's showing us what true faith can do. In that moment,
after one whole month of no revelation, Allah subhanaw taala
descended a revelation right then in there, completely vindicating
her, exonerating her from all the allegations. Subhana Allah, this
is the power of what we can do when we put our faith with ALLAH
SubhanA wa. Tada. I mean, her story again, is so remarkable.
Sen. She was married to a tyrant. So if you're in a home, and may
God protect all of you from this, and relieve every single person
who's struggling with a marriage in a home, where they're living
with a tyrant because I know it's real. I know, this happens in our
community, but Subhanallah look at the strength of ESEA even though
she lived with someone who was who had killed, you know, massacred
1000s Subhanallah she still did what she had to do. She defied him
when she wanted to and she knew that she was on the right because
she was right with her Lord. So you know, and I speaking from
personal experience, you know, I had similar situation I was
married previously to someone who forbade me from learning the book
of Allah subhanaw taala I actually had an opportunity to learn from
the book of Allah subhanaw taala with a very famous, notable chef,
but he told me I cannot go to those classes. And this is what
knowing these women's stories will do for you. When you're empowered.
Guess what I did? I went to those classes because nobody stands in
the way of your relationship
so many amazing examples. Subhanallah we have no Felicia
Mashallah. She was mentioned, but smart Allah, you know, what I love
about her teaches her confidence. Mary twice before 40 years old,
she saw gold. She was like, I'm gonna get it.
Oh my god, how many of us question ourselves I see with single
sisters all the time, who are empowered, beautiful educated in
every single way, but they have so much self doubt, because they're
not married. Well, guess what? You're more than you what you know
being married to someone but don't let you know the societal message
of Oh, you have to be young you have to be this you have to be
that you have to have this get you have to work it out. Allah have
conviction. And if you see something, go for it, but do it
obviously with in the right way do it. But don't be afraid is what
I'm saying. Learn from the example of Khadija who didn't fear and
then look what I'm also proud that she she knew what she wanted she
went after it and he gave her treasures beyond treasures beyond
treasures in this life in the next life because she had that European
in herself that confidence in herself. She wasn't falling prey
to the negative messages and oh, this person doesn't think I'm this
and you know, no, she was her own woman mashallah learn from these
women. Right? And then I mean, subhanAllah there's so many
examples, but the point I hope is clear whatever path you're on in
life if you're a stay at home mom
Um, if you're a working mom, if you're a single mom, if you're not
even a mom yet, if you're a single person, if you're, whatever your
situation may be, remember that you are a creation of Allah
subhanaw taala. And while the message out there is to just focus
on this form, you are way more than that you are multifaceted
look at all of the talents that almost Father has given you. But
just remember, this life is temporary. Okay, we're here as
travelers, it's not going to last, what is lasting is the ephemera.
So invest in that. Invest in that with your prayers. Invest in that
with good suffer, invest in that with good knowledge, good use of
your time. You know, don't waste your time. Time is so valuable.
There are people Subhanallah that don't that wish they could do so
much because but they can't. They can't do it because they don't
have the health. Some people are terminally ill. They've already
gotten their sentence. Right? Or they don't have the wealth. They
don't have the means we are living in abundance here. We're living
with privilege. So don't waste your time. And certainly don't
give up your honor the honor that all of us had that I gave you and
he raised you with and he gave you because of what influencers tell
you for the love of God. Please don't do that. You are above that.
You are beautiful muslim women. You have Eman on your tongue.
There's Baraka in your body, every cell of your body because it knows
Allah subhanaw taala honor that in sha Allah just a little bit and
said I'm honored