Spiritual entrepreneurs, have you ever considered that your greatest business “flaws” might actually be your hidden superpowers? In this eye-opening episode, I challenge the notion that we need to hide parts of ourselves to appear professional. Instead, I reveal how embracing our shadow sides can be the key to unlocking our next level of leadership.
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Show Notes | Transcript“These shadows can actually manifest as unconscious limiting beliefs like ‘I’m not good enough.’ And that can lead to things like self sabotage, poor decision making or strained relationships with clients or team members.” – Gloria “Grace” Rand
Drawing from personal experiences and psychological insights, I explore how our repressed emotions and unconscious patterns can hinder our business growth and leadership potential. But more importantly, I share practical strategies for recognizing, embracing, and transforming these shadows into powerful assets.
Discover how to:
- Identify your shadow archetypes and understand their impact on your business
- Overcome self-sabotaging behaviors rooted in childhood experiences
- Harness the power of energy healing to release subconscious blocks
Key insights include:
- The five common shadow archetypes that affect entrepreneurs
- Why acknowledging your shadows is half the battle in overcoming them
- The importance of seeking support through mentorship, coaching, or healing modalities
- How embracing your shadows can lead to increased resilience and creativity in business
I also share a personal invitation to experience a free 15-minute light language session, offering a taste of this powerful energy healing modality.
Whether you’re struggling with imposter syndrome, perfectionism, or fear of visibility, this episode provides a compassionate roadmap for integrating your shadows and stepping into your full potential as a business leader. Tune in to start your journey towards a more authentic, empowered version of yourself!
Resources:
Join the Soulful Women’s Network
Get your free 15-minute Light Language Trial: bit.ly/LLTrial
Questions about shadows? Book a Call with me: engagewithgloria.com
Connect with Live Love Engage:
Send Gloria Grace a message
☕ Support the podcast
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LinkedIn: Gloria Grace Rand
Facebook: Gloria Grace Rand
YouTube: Gloria Grace Rand
TRANSCRIPT
Namaste. Imagine if your biggest business flaws and I’m doing this, I’m doing air quotes here. Flaws were actually your untapped superpowers. Many spiritual entrepreneurs tend to hide parts of ourselves we think aren’t professional enough or are too much for business. But on today’s show I am going to challenge that thinking, going to point out that our hidden or shadow sides are like, you know, deeper emotions, need for control, fear, you know, things like that. Actually they hold the keys to our next level of leadership. But first, I do want to welcome you to Live Love Engage, especially if you are new to the podcast. I am Grace the light messenger and founder of Align to Shine Academy and I work with spiritually minded entrepreneurs who are ready to break free from self doubt and step into their highest potential. Using my proven love method, I help them build unshakable confidence, attract premium clients and create a soul aligned business that thrives. And I don’t know about you, but that’s what I want and I’m building it actually right now as well. So yeah, so let’s, let’s talk about shadow sides. Now if you’re not familiar with this term, it’s what psychologist Carl Jung referred to as that unconscious part of our personality that contains the qualities and emotions that maybe we don’t quite like. You know, like anger, resentment, stuff like that.
Well, in our business, these shadows can actually manifest as unconscious limiting beliefs like I’m not good enough. And that can lead to things like self sabotage, poor decision making or strained relationships with maybe clients or team members. And sometimes these repressed emotions, these shadows can also come up unexpectedly as strong reactions to challenges or can leave you kind of prone to conflicts with others can also going to hinder your ability to collaborate and really keep you from being an effective leader if it’s not addressed. And business owners and CEOs who are operating out of their shadows are also kind of reluctant. Not just kind of, they are, I would say reluctant to take risks and step out of your comfort zone and have a hard time accepting feedback. And there are really five archetypes, I guess I think that’s the right word to describe it. Five. Five. Yeah, I’m going to stick with it. It’s archetypes that describe these patterns. You’ve got your inner perfectionist who is afraid of mistakes and judgment. There’s the people pleaser who has trouble setting boundaries and pricing their services. You’ve got the overachiever who goes through burnout cycles because they’re just doing too much in their Business trying to do it all. You got the wounded child who has trust issues in business relationships and the hidden leader who fears true power and visibility. And I gotta tell you that during the first, I would say eight to 10 years of my business, I embodied one or more of those archetypes at any given time. And what I do know too is that, I mean, certainly for me, and I believe this is probably the case with a lot of CEOs who are, you know, dealing with these shadows or, and entrepreneurs, you know, solopreneurs, things like that.
The seeds for the shadows really planted in childhood. And I know as me, I’m a daughter of an alcoholic and I know that that led to a lot of trust issues, you know, because I couldn’t, didn’t quite know what was going on in my house from day to day. And then also because of a lot of the. I had an older brother and older sister and they fought with my, my mom and not so much my dad, but really my mom a lot, you know, yelling matches and things like that. I decided that I was going to be the peacemaker in the house. I’m going to be the good girl, I’m going to be the responsible one. And that carried over into adulthood and then, you know, wound up being, you know, like I said, the people pleaser, you know, one who didn’t want to raise her rates for fear of, you know, maybe her clients aren’t going to hire her anymore. Didn’t. Not true. One of my longtime clients who, who. One of my first clients who was also a longtime client when I finally realized, oh, duh, I should have been like, you know, asking for a raise, you know, raising my rates, they paid it without any hesitation. I was like, oh, really? Oh man. Ah, so that’s what happens, you know, when we’re, when we’re dealing with these shadow sides. So how do we, how do we move past them? You know, it’s one thing to, you know, be going along, but what do we do?
Well, first thing is to recognize them because you can’t fix what you can’t see. So if you have things like, you know, if you. Well, number one, if you see yourself at any of those archetypes that I just mentioned, that’s a good clue. But maybe you’ve got, maybe you feel guilty about making money. You know, I know a lot of heart centered entrepreneurs, especially in like healing modalities, they want to help everybody, you know, because we got a big heart and I feel that way too. So, you know, you, you hesitate to Charge a lot of money. However, you got bills to pay too. So you do have to be able to stand your ground a bit. So, you know, that’s one of the things that you can be aware of. If you have resistance to receiving support, perhaps, you know, you want to soldier on and do everything yourself and you don’t want to ask for help. Maybe you feel like an imposter sometimes. You see other people succeeding and you’re like, who am I to really be? You know, this, this one, this entrepreneur, I, I can’t live up to those people. You know, comparison itis as well kind of plays in here. And you, you need to acknowledge that. You really do. You’ve got, you’ve got to be able to own it. And as I mentioned in my episode that was out two weeks ago where I talked about this, doing like a spiritual year end review. Don’t beat yourself up over it because that’s not going to do yourself any good either. I’ve learned that lesson too. You’re human. You’re allowed to make mistakes. And, you know, some of these things were things that you picked up in childhood that were maybe, you know, buried unconscious things.
So you can overcome whatever is going on. You can overcome your shadows. That is the good news. So like I said, acknowledging them is half the battle right there. Because with awareness, you can decide, number one, you can decide that you want to make some changes in your business. And that’s the first thing you know, okay. And then if you can either decide to take action on your own and just, you know, power through and say, okay, today I’m not going to do things the way I did it before, there are some people that probably can do that with no problem. I would say, though, probably for the, the majority of people, though, who are going through this, you’re going to need some support. What does that look like? It could be simply calling a friend. It could be calling a fellow entrepreneur. Maybe you’ve got someone in your network who is really kicking butt. Talk to them, you know, seek out a mentor and ask for advice and say, hey, this is what. Well, first find out if they’re open to offering it. Giving the advice. I should say find out. You might have to pay some money to them and not just expect that they’re going to be giving you advice for free and treat that as an investment in yourself and an investment in your business. So it could be that you need to hire, actually hire a coach. I have worked with. I don’t know, I’m thinking maybe like a dozen coaches over the 15 plus years, now that I’ve been in business, yeah, most likely, I mean, I’ll have to sit down one of these days and write it out and try to figure out who all I’ve worked with. But it’s been a lot and each one has helped me at the time with what I was dealing with and helped me with different things. And that’s why it’s so wonderful, because I remember one of my coaches, unfortunately, she’s no longer with us. She transitioned a few years ago, but she really helped me see blind spots that she heard me say things that I wasn’t even aware of and really limiting beliefs about myself. And that was so eye opening to me. I was like, really? And she’s like, yeah, I’m recording this. Go back and listen to it. Gloria. Gloria. Grace. I know I’m still. I really have been called to really step into using grace, but I’m over 60, you know, I’ve been using Gloria a long time, so I may still slip up. So, you know, give me some grace anyway. Yeah, so. So that’s why, you know, working with a coach is so important.
And I will tell you, the other thing that I really believe has also made a huge difference in my life and in lives of others that I see out there as well, is to do some healing work. Because again, you know, sometimes if you do have trauma, you know, maybe you had something really, you know, abuse or something, you need to work with someone who really is number one specialized in that, who can help you. You know, it could be a psychologist or something like that. But I also really believe in the power of energy healing, frankly, because we are energy beings, you know, that is what we are made of. I’m. I’m reading this fantastic book right now called the Holographic Universe, and it’s about quantum physics, but really talking about how we are, we’re made of energy, and so we respond to frequencies and energy. And so when you can take advantage of different energy healing modalities, and there’s lots of them out there, that it can really help you to release some of these blocks that are again, that are subconscious that you don’t even know about. I know for me, one that’s been. I originally started working with Reiki, which I still love. I think Reiki is a fantastic modality. But I also, over the last few years have been channeling light language, you know, using it’s this sound healing. I, I speak it and I sing it, and there’s these languages that I don’t always am able to necessarily translate, but it has done wonders for really helping me release things. So I would love to encourage you right now if you, if you would like to try this, you know, and experience something like that for yourself, I have a. I can give you a free 15 minute session. You just have to go to bit.ly/LLTrial and the L is capitalized, the second L is capitalized and then T is capitalized. And I will have that in the show notes for you as well. But I would encourage you to come with an open mind and see what it’s all about because it might be something that you would like to do more of. And I know over the last week I’ve been doing, doing this for myself in the morning after I meditate and it’s, I know it’s just continuing to help me just really clear things out. Let’s see.
So, so once you’ve, once you’ve really embraced your shadows and, and, and again, I think that’s, that’s the important thing. Not only to. Yeah, let me back up here because you’re probably like what I thought we were just recognizing. What do you mean? Embrace, Acknowledge them, Embrace them, love them, because they are part of you. They really are. So you really need to be able to just say, okay, yeah, yes, I have shadows. I’m human. That’s what we are. And when you can acknowledge them and really appreciate them, there are gifts in those shadows that will come through. And, and what you’ll find is by really acknowledging them and saying, okay, you’re going to find it’s much easier to do things like take risks and step out of your comfort zone to make offers in your business, to really not hem and haw about, oh, what am I going to charge for this new program? And you know, you’re going to be able to do that much more easily and you’re going to start really developing some increased resilience and enhance your creativity frankly too. And I should say one of the other things, in addition to energy healing, I think that is also really helps you to really make friends with your shadows is to spend time in contemplation, in meditation, in journaling, mindfulness, all of these ways that are available to you to go inward, to really again, to make friends with yourself, to love yourself, all of you, because you are worthy to be loved. You are worthy of all of the wonderful things that you want to accomplish in, in your life, in your business.
And the other thing to realize is that shadows can’t exist without light. I mean, you think about it, you only see a shadow if light is shining onto something, and then it makes that shadow. If there was no light, everything would be dark. So, so with you. Because even if, yes, if there is a shadow in you, there is also light in you. And the more that you are able to focus on your own inner light and to cultivate it and to bring it out, number one, it becomes easier to see those shadows. And I will say that this is a continuing journey because we’re, we’re never, we’re never fixed. We, we continue to grow and evolve, and there’s always gonna be something that’s gonna come up. So just, just know that and be, be at peace with that. I’ve, I’ve learned this lesson too, because we’re on this journey. We’re on this journey to grow. So anyway, as you, as I said, as you focus on this inner light, it comes easier to see the shadow. You can make friends with it. And then as more of your inner light comes out, eventually there’s all light and those shadows really start to fade away. You can, you know, maybe just see a little glimmer, a little smidgen of one from time to time. And the last thing I want to leave you with, the last point I want to leave you with today is that know that you are connected to a higher something. Now, I, I still use the term God. I was raised Catholic. That’s still the term that I use that I’m most comfortable with, but replace it with ever you want to use. If you want to use source, you want to use higher self, you want to use universe, whatever. But let’s face it, and I still don’t understand how is it atheists, I think, that don’t believe anything. We live in an amazing world in an amazing universe. And I’m sorry, the big bang didn’t just happen in a vacuum. Something still initiated that which made all of us possible. So I think it’s this energy of love. And so you are a part of that. You are surrounded by divine light, life and love. And more than that, not only are you surrounded by it, you are it. You are divine light. You are divine love. That is what you are made of. That is what we are all made of. And my, my intention for, you know, the next five years, let’s say, is that more and more people start to realize that and awaken to this fact that we are all number one, one human family. We are all connected. We are all made of energy. We are all made of love. And if we all knew that I think there would be a lot less conflict in the world. There probably would still be a little bit from time to time, but we’d be able to handle it much easier because we knew that we are love.
Okay, Yeah, I think that’s gonna do it for today. So, like I said, make peace with your shadows. It these, you know, things like, you know, the perfectionist and the people pleaser and overachiever and all of these things. And know that that doesn’t have to define you. That’s not really who you are. It’s like a mask that you put on and you can take it off. You really can. And if you need support with that, get in touch with me, message me, comment on either on like YouTube or if you’re watching on social media, let me know. You can. You can always go here as well. Go to engagewithgloria.com and let’s just have a conversation. You know, not gonna sell you anything. We’re just gonna have a talk because sometimes that’s all you need. You just need to have someone listen to you for. For a minute or two, and that might be good enough. So thank you for listening. Thank you for watching. I am, yeah, as always, just happy to be here, to be sharing what I’ve learned with you. And I hope you receive some value from it today and until next time, we’re rapidly approaching the end of the year here. I encourage you, as always, to go out and live fully. Live love deeply, love yourself deeply and engage authentically.
