The Book of Life: The Impostor’s Syndrome

Some of you may have seen the movie The Book of Life. I liked, one way or the other, all the characters presented in the plot: some of them are odious, some are lovable... And one of the characters that’s the most pitiest, for me, is Joaquin.
In the movie, we see a fearless General, ready for whatever comes in the way... Is it? Actually, no. He is consumed by guilt, really thinking that he doesn’t deserve all the medals and achievements he has. Even when he no longer has his ‘special medal’ to protect him (we have to see how ‘special’ was... Maybe it was something to lift his self-confidence, like the ‘beauty patch’, or the trick that Harry Potter plays on his friend Ronald) and fights along with Manolo, almost sacrificing himself on the way, he doesn’t feel himself worthy of a medal anymore.
This kind of thinking, self-doubting your competence and capacities, the overwhelming feeling that you don't deserve your success, is what we call ‘Impostor Syndrome’. As Joaquin, people that suffer this syndrome doubt their abilities, feeling like an actor with some pretty pilot costume, but that doesn’t know how to fly the plane. And worst of all, they fear for someone to ‘discover the fraud’.
This Syndrome is characterized by a fear of failure, low self-confidence, and a fear and/or guilt about success, among other things. A very peculiar thing I caught about this characteristics, is that it creates what is called ‘the impostor cycle’, the never-ending story of getting more doubtful of one's' abilities with every success achieved, and more fearful that the ‘fraud will get caught’. This tends to result in people not taking chances and opportunities to prove themselves, temporarily stopping the cycle.
A big fear of failure and the need to be the very best, driven by the idea they are a fraud, can lead people to reach even higher than expected when completing a task. Some people with impostor syndrome can set themselves extremely challenging goals, and suffer disappointment when they do not achieve them.
There's no treatment for this, given that it is a psychological matter, but some say that talking with trusted friends about your problem may help (a person that had this same problem, but overcame it, can help much too). Some say that documenting accomplishments are a step to ridding yourself of the problem. But the general point is to have a change of mind here, believing in yourself...
So, what do you think? Will Joaquin change his mindset someday and boost his self-confidence?

Photograph by @Raventhorne

Tangled: The Golden Flower

The other day, I was in the Taj Mahal, and I noticed something that caught my attention: the lily-like flower carved in the marble walls of the great mausoleum. I remembered that, in the Tangled movie, the Golden Flower was a Lilium, a very similar (not to say the same) flower. Why would they use a Lilium? The plant that Rapunzel’s mother ingested in the original fairy tale was a Rampion, that has a totally different flower... So I started researching. The first time a Lilium appeared in history was in a painting in Crete, in the year 1580 BC. For the Greeks, this flower was very precious: a myth says that it was created with Hera’s breast milk. For many cultures, this Lily symbolizes purity, chastity and virtue, and in a few cases death. In some others, it even represents Heaven on earth, or reaching a paradise in the afterlife. As for it’s pharmaceutical value, it was commonly believed to have magical qualities, using it to treat fever, wounds and arthritis in the Victorian Era. In E...

Brave: The Fire Waterfalls

Is it true? Does the Fire Waterfall really exist? Why is it called that? These are the questions that I asked myself when I saw the first two or three scenes of ‘Brave’... And I’m here to answer those questions. Yes, the Waterfall really exists, and it’s called the “Horsetail Fall”, a seasonal waterfall that flows in the winter and early spring. Unlike what we see in the movie, this waterfall is not located in Scotland, but in the east side of El Capitan, Yosemite National Park, California. The “Horsetail Fall” is also known as the “Firefall” because of a beautiful optical illusion that takes place here only a few days in the year. Around the second week of February, the setting sun hits Horsetail Fall at just the right angle to illuminate the upper reaches of the waterfall. And when conditions are perfect, Horsetail Fall glows orange and red at sunset. These ‘Perfect Conditions’ are: First and foremost, Horsetail Fall must be flowing. This depend...

Jumanji, Welcome to the Jungle: Citronella and the Mosquitoes

Alex, played by Nick Jonas in the new movie of “ Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle ”, has weaknesses as every other player in the game, but the most important of them is the ‘allergy’ to mosquitoes. In the scene where he makes margaritas for everyone, we see that his house (built by Alan Parrish ) is loaded with lots and lots of citronella candles to keep away mosquitoes... But what does citronella exactly do to these creatures? First of all, let's define what citronella is. What we call citronella is an oil obtained from the stems of mainly two species of the Lemongrass family: the Cymbopogon Nardus and the Cymbopogon Winterianus . This oil contains a majority of aldehydes and alcohols , being the active compounds in citronella oil (for the purpose of repelling mosquitoes) camphor , eucalyptol , eugenol , linalool , citronellal and citral . What does it do to mosquitoes? Well, some evidence suggests that these compounds interfere with mosquito olfactory receptors. It is sa...

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