The Feeling
I Couldn’t
Shake Part 2
How Many of Us Are
Carrying This?
BY CYBELE NEGRIS
Webnames.ca
OCTOBER 8, 2027
After I began speaking about my experience, carefully at first, I started to hear something unexpected. Recognition.
Not of the award, but of the feeling.
Women would come up to me after events, or reach out quietly in conversations, and share their own versions of it. Different roles. Different stages of life. Different paths entirely.
But the same underlying question:
What if they find out I’m not as capable as they think I am?
It Wasn’t Just Me
I had assumed what I was experiencing was personal and something I needed to work through on my own. But the more I listened, the more I realized how common it was.
Students just beginning their careers.
Women stepping into leadership roles.
Executives running large organizations.
Even those who, from the outside, appeared completely confident and accomplished.
The details changed. The feeling did not.
Putting Words to the Experience
Over time, I came to understand that what I had been experiencing had a
name.
Impostor Syndrome.
A pattern of self-doubt that causes you to question your abilities, your
accomplishments, and whether you truly deserve the success you’ve achieved.
For me, the most surprising part wasn’t the definition. It was the realization that it often shows up because of success, not in its absence. That even as you grow, achieve, and take on more responsibility, the doubt can follow and sometimes, it even gets louder.
Where It Comes From
As I continued to reflect and to listen to others, I began to see that this wasn’t just an individual experience. There are broader influences at play: expectations, stereotypes, and a lack of representation in certain spaces. Messages, both subtle and overt, about who belongs, who leads, and who is “ready.”
Over time, those experiences shape how we see ourselves.
They create a kind of internal narrative that can be difficult to challenge, even when the evidence tells a different story.
“I thought it was personal. I
didn’t realize how many of us
were carrying the same feeling.”
Why It Stays Quiet
One of the reasons this experience persists is because we don’t often talk
about it. We assume we are the only ones feeling it. We hesitate to name it, especially in professional environments where confidence is expected.
So, it stays internal and unquestioned. And sometimes, it quietly influences the choices we make. What we pursue, what we hold back from, and how we show up.
What Changed for Me
The turning point wasn’t solving it. It was recognizing it.
Hearing it reflected back in other women’s experiences made it harder to ignore and easier to question. It created distance between me and the feeling. Enough to begin asking: Is this actually true? Or is this something I’ve learned to believe?
What I Came to Understand
Impostor Syndrome isn’t a sign that you don’t belong. If anything, it often shows up in the very moments when you are stretching, growing, and stepping into something new.
That doesn’t make it easy. But it does change how you begin to relate to it.