How I turned my imposter syndrome into a mini zine about confidence
My name is Laurie and I’m an artist and and a creative coach.
I’ve been told I can often come across as confident and intimidating, but it’s not always a reflection of my internal experience. 👀
To be honest, I think it’s mainly the autism doing its thing. 😂
I’ve bloomed so much as a person over the last five years of my life, and my confidence has sky rocketed. AND there are still so many moments where it feels like the ground is shifting from underneath me and it feels like I am doing it all wrong.
The imposter syndrome is still going strong.
And look. I’ve done years of therapy, and it changed me and helped me in so many ways. But also… it can only get you so far. I needed a cheerleader I let into my inner world who could help me feel more grounded when everything felt wobbly.
After I joined Jess Bruno’s Content Club to get support for my coaching business, I met confidence coach Elena, who I quickly decided to work with, and oh boy, did the universe deliver on the MAGIIC.
My session with Elena allowed me to put a face and a feeling to the parts of me that are really confident and the parts of me that are scared.
The trick? She asked me to give them a name.
The scared part of me, I called little turtle. I shrink back into myself. And believe me, I’ve turtled my way through SO MUCH OF MY LIFE.
And the confident part of me? Naturally, as 80s child raised on WB teen shows, I called her Brooke, after THE one and only Brooke Davis from One Tree Hill, played by queer icon Sophia Bush.
My inner Brooke is smart, tender, unapologetic, and she dresses like Elle Woods from Legally Blonde.
And here’s what I said to Elena that lit the spark for the pages of the mini zine included in this post: Brooke is the part of me that knows that if I put my heart into something, I’m going to be really fucking good at it.
Elena shrieked at the statement, and her joy at my very genuine confidence validated that part of me in ways that I’d needed for so long.
Brooke was seen and heard in that moment, and she grew even bigger, taller, and louder.
I don’t know it’s the neurospicy bits of me, but I find having a voice and a face to this confident voice helps me to recall her so much more easily than if I was trying to hear me amongst all the other voices blending into one.
So now, whenever I doubt myself, Brooke pipes up with her gorgeous, raspy voice.
(And yes, Sophia Bush is my ultimate queer crush too, what about it?)
When I got off my call with Elena, I went into a hyper-focus creative trance (anyone else??? It’s like my phone and social media disappears and I am ARTISTING HARD), and I made the zine you’ve been ready above, about my experience of imposter syndrome leading into confidence.
I designed the zine on Canva. It’s actually my favourite way of making a zine — I know, don’t kill me, traditional zines are meant to be crafted and collage — but doing it on Canva somehow allows me to make something at the pace of my brain.
I started with a template that I moved away from pretty much entirely eventually, but I find it so much easier than starting with a blank page!
I knew that I wanted images of B. Davis at the heart of the zine, but I also quickly realised that I needed images of me in the zine, too. I went for photos cut outs with pink borders to reflect my colourful style and playful personality. I choose a typewriter font for nostalgia and a sense of maturity, but I choose a notebook style background to capture the youthfulness of all the parts of me - Brooke included.
Here are some draft pages that show the progression of the design:
Wanna find your own Brooke? Click here!