Mind Matters: Presence, part II

Posted by Dr. Kayta Gajdos on March 26, 2016

You may recall that the last Mind Matters column was a review of Amy Cuddy’s book, “Presence: Bringing Your Boldest Self to Your Biggest Challenges.” As promised, here is part 2 of the discussion.

Presence abides when an individual is not paralyzed by fear and has a sense of trust in oneself. Its counter, according to Cuddy, is “impostorism.” At first, researchers Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes studied high-achieving women who felt they were impostors, despite their accomplishments. It took an anonymous survey to discover that men also suffer impostorism. Apparently, men felt less able to speak openly about their fears.

Unfortunately, “fears that we will be unmasked as frauds can defeat us even before we begin.” Jessie Collett and Jade Avalis study the effects of “impostorism on career and educational ambitions.” After surveying hundreds of doctoral students, many in science, they found that impostorism did indeed cause “down shifting.” That is, there was a lowering of professional ambitions for these students.

Fear of failure appears to be a prevalent factor for the “impostor phenomenon.” Ironically, those who fear failure most are people “who have achieved something — people who are demonstrably anything but frauds.” Something to consider if you’ve ever felt like an impostor.

Feeling powerless also defeats us and stymies our ability to be present. The research of Dacher Keltner and his colleagues found that when we feel powerful, we feel free, in control and safe. And so we operate out of an approach system. We seek opportunities and are able to meet the world openly. Not about dominating others, personal power is about trusting our own inner authority.

However, when we feel powerless, our behavioral system is one of avoidance. We tune into threats, rather than opportunities and we withdraw. “We feel generally anxious and pessimistic, and we’re susceptible to social pressures that inhibit us and make our behavior unrepresentative of our sincere selves.” And our anxiety even impairs our ability to think or to remember, for that matter!

In addition to anxiety, powerlessness can be self-defeating, notes Cuddy. She states, “People who feel socially powerless are … dependent on powerful others to lead the way. This causes the powerless to endorse the unfair systems that reinforce their state.” Studies by Van der Toorn and cohorts found that “the powerless justify rather than strive to change the hierarchical structures that disadvantage them.” Interesting to ponder in these election times.

So how not to collapse into powerlessness? Don’t collapse the body, for starters, exhorts Cuddy. Poet David Whyte, who can mesmerize an audience for hours with his lyrical stories, says “Be Large!” Cuddy would concur.

When we feel powerless, we may collapse in our postures, gestures, walking, even our speech, says Cuddy. And, yes, Cuddy asserts, men use much more expansive body language than do women. “Men display generally more non-verbal dominance and expansiveness, talk more, and interrupt more than women do. Women show generally more submissive, contractive, non-verbal behavior, talk less (yes, the stereotype that women are more talkative than men is just plain wrong), interrupt less often, and are interrupted more often.”

Unfortunately, women globally are still subjected to less social power than men and it shows behaviorally.

Note that the subordination of women is not evident among children in their early years. At first, little boys and little girls are equally likely to elicit expansive postures — throwing their arms in the air, standing with shoulders back, feet planted apart. However, eventually, “as boys continue to expand … girls begin to collapse.” Cuddy issues a call to all of us to intervene when we see our daughters, sisters or female friends start to collapse in on themselves.

But both men and women can benefit from power poses that have been extensively researched. It was found that simple expansive body postures held for a couple minutes had better results than being assigned a powerful role.

Or, in the words of Maya Angelou, “Stand up straight and realize who you are, that you tower over your circumstances.”

Cuddy’s book can help us do just that: to integrate presence with our personal power that frees us to connect to and care for others and thus live a more expansive life.

* Kayta Curzie Gajdos holds a doctorate in counseling psychology and is in private practice in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. She welcomes comments at MindMatters@DrGajdos.com or 610-388-2888. Past columns are posted to www.drgajdos.com. See book.quietwisdom-loudtimes.com for information about her book, “Quiet Wisdom in Loud Times: The Rise of the Wounded Feminine.”

** The opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the ownership or management of Chadds Ford Live. We welcome opposing viewpoints. Readers may comment in the comments section or they may submit a Letter to the Editor to: editor@chaddsfordlive.com

About Kayta Gajdos

Dr. Kathleen Curzie Gajdos ("Kayta") is a licensed psychologist (Pennsylvania and Delaware) who has worked with individuals, couples, and families with a spectrum of problems. She has experience and training in the fields of alcohol and drug addictions, hypnosis, family therapy, Jungian theory, Gestalt therapy, EMDR, and bereavement. Dr. Gajdos developed a private practice in the Pittsburgh area, and was affiliated with the Family Therapy Institute of Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, having written numerous articles for the Family Therapy Newsletter there. She has published in the American Psychological Association Bulletin, the Family Psychologist, and in the Swedenborgian publications, Chrysalis and The Messenger. Dr. Gajdos has taught at the college level, most recently for West Chester University and Wilmington College, and has served as field faculty for Vermont College of Norwich University the Union Institute's Center for Distance Learning, Cincinnati, Ohio. She has also served as consulting psychologist to the Irene Stacy Community MH/MR Center in Western Pennsylvania where she supervised psychologists in training. Currently active in disaster relief, Dr. Gajdos serves with the American Red Cross and participated in Hurricane Katrina relief efforts as a member of teams from the Department of Health and Human Services' Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.Now living in Chadds Ford, in the Brandywine Valley of eastern Pennsylvania, Dr. Gajdos combines her private practice working with individuals, couples and families, with leading workshops on such topics as grief and healing, the impact of multigenerational grief and trauma shame, the shadow and self, Women Who Run with the Wolves, motherless daughters, and mediation and relaxation. Each year at Temenos Retreat Center in West Chester, PA she leads a griefs of birthing ritual for those who have suffered losses of procreation (abortions, miscarriages, infertility, etc.); she also holds yearly A Day of Re-Collection at Temenos.Dr. Gajdos holds Master's degrees in both philosophy and clinical psychology and received her Ph.D. in counseling at the University of Pittsburgh. Among her professional affiliations, she includes having been a founding member and board member of the C.G. Jung Educational Center of Pittsburgh, as well as being listed in Who's Who of American Women. Currently, she is a member of the American Psychological Association, The Pennsylvania Psychological Association, the Delaware Psychological Association, the American Family Therapy Academy, The Association for Death Education and Counseling, and the Delaware County Mental Health and Mental Retardation Board. Woven into her professional career are Dr. Gajdos' pursuits of dancing, singing, and writing poetry.