Shame. It keeps us from sharing our beauty. It leaves us with a watered-down expression of ourselves.
Hide and seek. Approach and retreat. A beautiful game as a child. Yet for adults, this approach in life can be exhausting, unfulfilling and lonely. At its worst, avoiding feelings of shame can be disabling and deadly. When shame moves into toxic shame, the behaviors surrounding it are our most serious crises, such as suicide, addiction and eating disorders.
Hidden shame is one of the biggest challenges we face as humans. Yet exploring its impact on you is also such an important part of this most beautiful human journey. This is especially true with clients who seem to “have it all” and yet unconsciously feel unworthy to really share themselves, let alone their actual unique and true vision. They get caught up in achieving and performing based on a “small-self” vision Vs from a state of freedom that allows them to accomplish what truly fuels their souls.
For entrepreneurs, the incapacity to truly express YOURSELF—not the inability to find the right niche, strategy or create what the market needs— is the BLOCK to creating the harmonious and luxurious inner and outer lifestyle you seek.
Entrepreneurs who aren’t aware of their shame can start making decisions from avoidance. They can be running from Vs running towards life and biz experiences–even when it “looks like” it is an amazing mission, purpose, vision, business, career, or relationship that they are running towards. This can be especially true in the helping professions as we are praised for selflessness.
This avoidance is really a normal human reaction to fear. Fear of the unknown sure, but with shame, it is especially fear of the ONCE KNOWN. The human experiences that were once too much to handle yet are still being avoided in the here and now. And often avoided unconsciously, expertly and seemingly successfully. Rewarded, unfortunately, all the more so in high-achievement striving and in helping professions.
It’s tricky stuff.
And exactly why I love serving big-hearted entrepreneurs. Because shame will keep the truest, biggest visions from sometimes even launching.
My own shame—of being perceived as “giving up” on a helping profession, letting my practice come to a natural end vs keeping alive what was becoming dead for me, and extreme fear that I wasn’t loyal to the profession that I still love so very much—was keeping me from showing up on social media, even as recent as yesterday.
Yet healthily exploring my shame has allowed me to face many personal and professional challenges and to find the greatest satisfaction in meeting even more of ME. When I fought the shame of considering leaving healthcare, I avoided that which needed to be said and felt. My shame grew and I came to face the hot flames of burnout. And my shame around those feelings added to even more heartbreak. More delays in choosing that which was actually alive for me. It felt as if it would take away my actual capacity to do the healing work I so very much love.
Releasing this shame reminds me that I don’t want to play small, nor do I want to keep my vision to myself. It is my desire to help every heart-driven, helping professional who is ready to dive into the depths of themselves and create more for the world of healing and beyond through the spiritual journey of entrepreneurship.
You may come to work with me spurred on from sadness, burnout, grief or despair. But you may also come from knowing there is more for you and you are willing to excavate that which binds you. A sense of freedom that awaits you and with the right-for-you support an even larger capacity to hold and create the vision. Especially while facing the peaks and valleys of the entrepreneurial lifestyle.
I’ve been the client from both angles. Along with my guide, I’ve created an experience solely to see how much I can expand and create. I have also chosen to come into a supportive space from a down-trodden, broken spirit when I was working through my burnout. They both have led me closer and closer to ME.
Our helping professionals are under so much internal and external pressure to help assist a world in pain. The earthquake of change is here. It is untenable to accept anything less. Helpers desire and need support to process their human experiences BEFORE they are in burnout. I’m here to help support other helping professionals who are not fully expressed and are often caged by their unknown shame & therefore held into their traditional paths. They feel in their bones that they are ready for change.
It’s deep work. It is a pleasure of a lifetime to share in their chosen experience. They are brave and beautiful as they allow these very human experiences to be felt, processed and released to actually help shape them into the beacons of healing they already are. Just more aware and alive than ever. Thriving and weaving their experiences into the perfect life-giving work exactly suited and crafted by them. To freely choose a traditional path or carving their own, ready to welcome all of them and therefore all of their clients.
If you are in this space, please feel free to reach out to me to explore how we can create the exact experience you both need and want. As a guide and mentor who has walked the journey, I love to walk alongside you on the journey of a lifetime.
May You Find The Majesty,
Amber