Impostors are preoccupied with acceptance and approval. Because of their suffocating need to please others, they cannot say no with the same confidence with which they say yes. And so they overextend themselves in people, projects, and causes, motivated not by personal commitment but by the fear of not living up to others’ expectations. The false self was born when as children we were not loved well or were rejected or abandoned. John Bradshaw defines codependency as a disease “characterized by a