Shame Is The Greatest Trap Of Easeful Entrepreneurship – Nervous System and Trauma Healing for Profitable Business

[00:00:00] Insidious, pervasive, and one of the most harmful things in our society today. Shame. Shame makes your business slow, less profitable, and heavy until we start changing it, which is exactly what you’re going to do today.

 

[00:00:20] Today is step one of your journey towards more clarity, ease, and intuition. In business as well as more profitability, you’re going to walk away from this episode, very clear on the physical manifestation of shame that you need to know in order to bring more energy into your body, clarity into your mind and profit into your business.

 

[00:00:49] The little known way that shame impacts your day to day actions in business and how it was all related to our not so helpful habits, such as procrastination. And how to know [00:01:00] if it’s actually worth your time and energy to focus on shame healing this year.

 

[00:01:05] Sometimes we think of shame as a primary emotion and in the nervous system state, what that provokes is a state of freeze. Now, if you go back and listen to the four part series that I did starting from episode 39 up until, I guess, that’s what 43.

 

[00:01:21] If you go back and listen to the last one, 43, um, we talk about the different nervous system states, but essentially quick 15 second recap when your nervous system. Perceives something as being dangerous to put you into a stress response. It’s trying to protect you. One of those stress responses is a mobilization.

 

[00:01:42] And so we commonly know it as a state of freeze. So your body kind of freezes and it’s like thinks, well, the best way I can get out of this threat is by just like freezing, blocking up, like being immobile, kind of playing dead. Right? So Shame is this primary emotion. [00:02:00] Every single human being can experience shame and it provokes inside of us a nervous system response state of freed, freeze.

 

[00:02:10] What it does is it creates this embodied, , experience, , and accompanied with a belief of something is wrong. With me, something is wrong with me. And that’s actually why we have shame. We were given, I guess, shame through our socialization process as human beings, because it. It stops us from doing things that are not supportive to society and things that we could be kind of kicked out of the tribe for.

 

[00:02:40] But we’ve, we’ve become very complex beings with complex tribes. , and our nervous system just hasn’t really caught up totally yet. And our shame response hasn’t caught up either. So. It begins to kind of leak out into different, um, activities and it kind of, it becomes insidious, 

[00:03:00] right? It leaks out and it’s very harmful because it stops us from doing things that are actually going to be very supportive to us and help us be flourishing, contributing members of society that are happy and healthy.

 

[00:03:12] It does this by putting the body into a free state and lowering our ability to think and act clearly. We’re going to go deeper into this in a moment, we’re going to look at the physical, mental and emotional and then business oriented ways that this happens. But first of all, I want to, , 

I want to, I want to touch on the fact that shame is something that we.

 

[00:03:34] Naturally want to stay very far away from our nervous system perceives it as one of the most displeasing Emotional states either within ourselves or within another person Shame is something that you may not even want to be look It might be a stretch for you to actually listen to this podcast because your body might be saying Oh what?

 

[00:03:56] Maybe you’ve had it sitting in your saved episodes for a few 

 

[00:04:00] weeks and you haven’t gotten to it yet. But here you are, congratulations, like really genuinely honour yourself because you’re here and you’re doing something that most people, um, don’t do. And You should, yeah, you’re having a lot of courage in this moment, but shame is something that we want to stay far away from and our clients want to stay far away from it.

 

[00:04:21] Next week I’m going to do a podcast. It’ll be number 78 on how shame repels our clients, but I’m mentioning it this moment because I want you to know from the beginning that it’s going to be natural if you find yourself Wanting to move away from this topic and that’s okay. Use your tools to come back slowly moving forward.

 

[00:04:44] Um, it’s a natural response and the more that we can move closer to this topic, the more that one, we actually remove shame around a lot of what we do and two, we. I have less shame about that. And we kind of take more control and regain that clarity, regain embodiment, 

 

[00:05:00] regain profit, we gain, , emotional health, regain physical health.

 

[00:05:04] So let’s look at the physical start, , side of things. As I said, we’re going to look at physical, mental, and emotional, and then business and the ways that shame will affect you so that you can start kind of self diagnosing as much as you can from a podcast, , and just seeing. Oh. Is it possible that I’m experiencing X thing and could shame actually be, um, could healing my, could healing my shame alleviate some of these more difficult symptoms?

 

[00:05:36] Let’s have a look. Shame manifests physically, somatically in the body in a couple of different ways. And there are This is a new area of research and there are a couple of different, uh, areas, or different studies, I’ll probably try and link one of the ones below that I really like, that talks about how um, You know, [00:06:00] the differences of how, how shame manifests in the body, but essentially it often appears as physical pain, pain that cannot be explained or treated, a hormonal imbalance, a disconnection from your intuition, particularly when it becomes to your own wellbeing.

 

[00:06:24] Or food. Brain fog and lightheadedness. Autoimmune conditions. You guys know I have alopecia areata, it’s an autoimmune hair loss and throughout my experiencing understanding shame and uh, like living with this and looking at different treatments and things, it has become pretty clear, at least for me, and this is not going to be for everyone, that there is an element of shame that possibly created, um, my Uh, immune flare up and led to my hair loss,

 

[00:07:00] heart palpitations, a chronic health health issue that is exacerbated or triggered by stress.

 

[00:07:08] Also hair loss, chronic fatigue, chronically stiff neck or back, particularly in the back of your heart area. Or around your jaw, constipation or diarrhea, even after making dietary changes. So a lot of people who are experiencing or suffering, um, with IBS, another physical way. And this is also mental and emotional, but I’ve taken it as physical is like being hyper aware of your body, being hyper aware of yourself.

 

[00:07:38] Do you ever have moments where you just hyper aware of the way that you’re sitting or the way that your hands are or your face or the way that you look? We then kind of swing back the other way and we go feeling really numb and disconnected. Some of my clients have described this as looking at yourself through a glass.

 

[00:07:57] I know when I was experiencing the, [00:08:00] the larger parts of my chronic post traumatic stress disorder, it was kind of like, I felt like I was witnessing myself walking instead of me being the one that was walking. It’s like you’re looking at yourself through a window in a way and you feel kind of numb and you feel like you’re not really there.

 

[00:08:18] Like this dissociation from yourself or like you can observe your thoughts and you know they’re yours, but you don’t really feel connected to them. And everything feels kind of foggy and you know, like, and you have that sometimes migraines would be associated, like everything feels foggy. Um, sometimes it feels almost like a big cloak or uniform that you can’t get out of.

 

[00:08:42] I’ve had clients describe it to me as like a big cloak that you just can’t really get out of. And I felt it in my body, almost like a zipper up uniform of like, but it’s, it doesn’t fit right. You know? Um. physically and this manifests a lot of kind of like putting your head down, [00:09:00] pulling your shoulders in, chest kind of pulls back.

 

[00:09:02] You kind of hunch a little bit. You might notice yourself like putting your, your, your gaze down. And these injuries just be small little things. Like maybe you’re looking at the ground a little bit more. , then another person and they’re very small. Maybe you notice that your shoulders kind of mine roll forward just a little bit.

 

[00:09:18] And I know that that’s shame because I know that more than I heal shame, my shoulders just like roll back a little bit. Um, and so, you know, like rolling, rolling those shoulders forward a little bit, or I’m trying to make yourself small, um, like by pulling your waist in perhaps even, um, Feeling quite stiff in your movements, or for some people that also manifest, we can go two ways.

 

[00:09:47] It can be very quick, rapid movement. Like if I move quickly, then I won’t be noticed. For some people, they’re a little bit slower. It’s like their body is fully taken down by shame. They just like kind of trudge on through, you know, [00:10:00] um, and sometimes it’s hiding face. So for some of my clients, this will manifest in business as literally wanting to not have your face.

 

[00:10:08] Uh, And this isn’t always, but a lot of the time, literally not wanting to have your face on your, um, business. And for other people, it’s kind of like they put their hands over their face or, um, they’d like to wear big glasses or they have a lot of hair in their face. Right. Whenever you’re hiding yourself.

 

[00:10:25] Mental and emotionally, the way that shame might manifest for you. It’s this essence of like, there’s heaviness. You’re slow. You doubt yourself. There’s a feeling of hopelessness. I can’t do this. I’ll never make it. I also see this a lot manifest as I need to fix something about either the process, the method that I’m using or myself.

 

[00:10:48] People who experience a lot of shame get stuck in a self development. We are constantly trying to fix something about myself, myself, ourselves.

 

[00:11:00] I do this. I’ve done this. Um, healing has made me not want to do it. And it’s been really great, but I’ve definitely been there. It’s like we’re constantly trying to fix something.

 

[00:11:10] We’re always in this self discovery. We’re always having a revelation. We’re all kind of like going forward. Um, There’s always something to fix. There’s always something to learn. There’s always like, you guys know what I’m talking about. And at the same time, um, it’s just, shame is very self oriented. Um, we it’s thinking more about you than it is about connecting with other people.

 

[00:11:35] So. We’ll skip forward a little bit, but in business that looks like thinking more about yourself and your revelations and your development and what you’re doing, what you’re not doing, being hyper aware of yourself, then being oriented towards how can I serve, how can I help and how can I solve other people’s problems?

 

[00:11:54] Entrepreneurship is about solving problems for profit in a way that supports you and

 

[00:12:00] supports embodied entrepreneurship is about. I’m supporting a society, right? So it’s like, I’m more focused on me than I am focused on. How can I solve other people’s problems? This manifests as being a perfectionist for some people.

 

[00:12:14] It’s going to manifest as, and I’m sorry, you might hate me for it, but some narcissistic qualities. This also manifests as self sabotaging manifest as worrying. Manifest as people pleasing manifest as having social anxiety and manifest as having anxiety or depression. Let’s look at some very specific scenarios.

 

[00:12:35] Let’s bring it into business. If you remember what I said earlier, I mentioned two different components, the freeze state and then the inability to think and act clearly. Let’s focus on the nervous system freeze state. The nervous system freeze state is your body’s inability to move or act against the threat.

 

[00:12:54] Then within that, we have a couple of different things that I. In 

 

[00:13:00] episode, I guess it’s 43, we’ll, we’ll go into that a little bit more, but I’m just going to read out some of the, uh, traits that I, I literally just like went on Instagram and like made a list of things that I’ve seen. And I read some of the emails and DMs that you had sent me and made a list.

 

[00:13:16] So this might be a little bit out of order, but it’s the list that I have today. So let’s have a look. Oh, let me take a sip of my coffee.

 

[00:13:32] Okay. So basically, in essence, we go into this nervous system freeze state because our body perceives that the business is actually the threat. The action, the boldness, the clarity, and the connection with other people, um, provokes a stress response inside of us, which in this case. Latches on to shame and shame latches on to you.

 

[00:13:54] Essentially we avoid work that we don’t perceive as safe or as hard to do. We struggle

 

[00:14:00] connecting with people from a relaxed, confident, and heart centered way. And we tend to have burnout, lack of creativity and lack of clients. Even if you do have clients at the moment and you’re bringing shame to it, it’s maybe 30 percent of what you could.

 

[00:14:14] So as I mentioned before, you might notice that you are in a freeze response if you notice yourself feeling like you have to consistently fix something. about yourself, you might notice that shame is affecting you and pulling you into this freeze response. If you, if you’re doubting yourself, if you’re just kind of stuck and you’re like, Oh, you know, I’ve been meaning to make this decision about what’s my offer or how am I marketing this thing?

 

[00:14:38] Or what’s the messaging that I want to have? Uh, but you can’t make a decision easily like you’ve been thinking about it for a long time and you’re kind of going, okay, well, should I say this? So maybe money should be that. It also appears in blaming, blaming the economy, blaming your health, blaming your partner, blaming your industry, blaming your coach.

 

[00:14:58] These are manifestations of shame. [00:15:00] We’re actually trying to deflect shame by blaming, they co exist. It’s also in low self esteem, and this might, there are some things that people do that show low self esteem, and I say this with love guys, and I’ve done it too, I, trust me I’ve done it, that show low self esteem, and some of these things are like, hey, you can sign up for my, for my email.

 

[00:15:24] But you can unsubscribe whenever you want. I won’t send you too many emails. This is a sign that we’re operating from the shame body. You might also have your pricing and your contracts all over place. You might be somebody who tends to what people pleasing. You might be trying to make content that people will like rather.

 

[00:15:43] Then what you want to say and feel excited to express you might, , dissociate or get really numb when you’re reading your feedback or you don’t want to ask for a testimonial because you’re scared of what they might say. You might have difficulty being coached. It might be hard for you to actually receive [00:16:00] guidance from a coach because you just kind of like freeze.

 

[00:16:02] You’re like, Oh, what? A lot of the time we say what we think people want to hear. You might have a lot of thoughts that begin with, I can’t, I can’t do that. I can’t do that. I can’t do that. I could never, I can’t. This inner critic and perfectionist part of you, there’s a lot of fear that comes up. Um, people have said to me as well, I’m reading now from things people have said to me recently, um, fear around what people will think leading to inaction, leading to not feeling present into my body, feeling like I have dizziness, um, feeling like every time I take another step of showing myself and expressing my voice and work, it feels dangerous and I want to pull back and I want to escape to the beach for three weeks.

 

[00:16:45] Feeling like. I’m stuck feeling like it isn’t working and. Then also, yeah, wanting to stop after I gain momentum. If I get too much traction in one area, I begin to feel antsy and start pulling back [00:17:00] to quote unquote regroup and figure out what to do next. This is a sign of shame. Instead of doing something, I retreat and do nothing.

 

[00:17:08] See how there’s like a lot of retreat and like avoiding? Watching a lot of Netflix and taking a pretty long time to do things like read an email from last Tuesday and send a response, taking a long time to send an invoice, or when somebody asked for an invoice, getting brain fog and not including everything that was on that invoice, or like a lot of confusion and hopelessness, getting confused about what to say in your messaging, getting confused about how to structure your launch plan, um, getting, looking at your, like a lot of Brain focus.

 

[00:17:39] Well, I noticed there’s a really common one appearing in a lot of my clients or people and listeners. I’ve heard you guys say so another one, um, would be attracting codependent coaching relationships. And what I really mean like by this is feeling that your worth is dependent on the success of your clients.

 

[00:17:58] Now it is [00:18:00] important that we understand that we are all going to be good at our jobs and we are going to make sure that people get the results that they desire. Um, And that we promise in our programs. I’m not talking about that. What I’m talking about is us having like feeling dependent, like your worth depends on how good your product is.

 

[00:18:22] There is a difference between asking. Is this product, is my work the absolute best that it can be and have I, have I delivered on what I said I would deliver versus, those are good questions to ask. We always, I ask these, I literally ask myself those questions every single day. Good questions to ask.

 

[00:18:45] Versus the question of can I make this work be as good as it can be? Am I good enough? Am I smart enough? Am I, do I have enough willpower? Do I X, Y, Z enough? Am I, am I, am I, you know, have I 

 

[00:19:00] perfected my morning routine enough for this work to be the best that it can be? Kind of like, that’s different, right?

 

[00:19:08] It’s different when it’s about have, how can this work be the best? Versus can I make this the best? Is there something wrong with me? Cause it looks easier for her and hers is better than mine. That’s different. So those are the mental and emotional things. And it kind of pulls into our second part, which is that shame lowers your ability to think and act clearly.

 

[00:19:32] And I would even add onto that with intuition, some of the best entrepreneurs in the entire world. rely on their intuition. Intuition is like a, it’s like a tap into this infinite abundance of information that our logical mind can’t comprehend, but that we know is there. And it’s, it’s just extra information.

 

[00:19:53] That’s, it’s like this little secrets, like secrets the world has that we just don’t have yet. When we take [00:20:00] in, um, when we think. Clearly. And we act clearly and we are in touch with our intuition. That’s when magic literally happens. That’s when things are so easy. That’s when you make more money. Um, that’s when you like, it just, Oh, everything just flows.

 

[00:20:15] It’s just so juicy. You guys don’t want to talk. I hope, tell me if you don’t know what I’m talking about. I want you to know what I’m talking about. That’s why we’re here, right? So because your body is in a stress state, energy is going to the behaviors that it thinks is going to help you perfectionism.

 

[00:20:31] Worrying about yourself, thinking about yourself, fixing yourself, blaming other people, um, hiding, eating food, watching Netflix, doing a lot of energy is going to those things, which means that energy is not going to your capacity to share creatively, to stand out, to do your best work, to connect with your intuition, um, to find more ease, to find more pleasure, to feel safer.

 

[00:20:57] And. So energy is going to these [00:21:00] actions that keep you where you are because your body thinks because it’s scared and it’s in a free state, it thinks that staying where you are as still as you can and as small as you can is going to keep you safe. Your energy is going to that right now. It’s not going to, how can I send out more?

 

[00:21:19] How can I be more effective? How can I be more creative? How can I make this easier? How can this be more profitable? How can I serve more? Those latter questions are what make business, like that’s, that’s how you, that’s how you make a business that supports you. That’s how you become successful in entrepreneurship in that you’re.

 

[00:21:40] business is making a profit that increases every month is consistent and is sustainable. So tangibly, some of the ways that I’ve seen this in the past couple of weeks is you might be asking yourself something along the lines of, I don’t want to [00:22:00] be in the coaching industry, but I’m not really sure what I want my product to be.

 

[00:22:03] But like I could do coaching, but I don’t, I’m not really sure what I want to niche or what the product might be. Because I don’t really know. I’m not really sure. I kind of like this thing, but I kind of like this other thing and like, how would I bring them all together? Shame takes us into inaction or hopelessness or both and finding a solution can take literally months and some of you, it’s going to have to take, it’s going to be a year process thing at the, at this point.

 

[00:22:33] So. When we bring and we look at it from a place of regulation or a place without shame, shamelessness, what we have is, oh, okay, so I don’t want to do coaching. I’ve got this product. I’ve got this experience. Cool. Let’s look at all that. Big picture view. Amazing. Cool. Awesome. Yep. Okay. Now we can do this thing.

 

[00:22:54] Here’s a solution because you access this analytical and creative thinking. And you develop this [00:23:00] really cool, really amazing product that the industry has never seen before and you are now a pioneer, and everyone wants to work with you. Good work! Yay! Another one that comes up is, is like, you know, I don’t know, like you’re trying to get your reels perfect or figure out the correct Schedule, um, or maybe you’re not posting at all.

 

[00:23:18] And so shame often takes you into hopelessness and confusion. And it’s like, Oh, is this the exact spell sheet? And like, is this the right hook? Can I need to do another course? And have I used the right thing? And I’m getting really frustrated now because the text doesn’t align and I don’t know what photo I want to use.

 

[00:23:32] And maybe I should get an assistant regulation. Shamelessness creates a solution in a few minutes because you access analytical and creative thinking. So you kind of say, all right, cool. Here’s what I don’t want to do. Here’s what I do want to do. Here are the tools that I have. Hmm. I’m going to use my notes app.

 

[00:23:49] I’m going to make it, , I’m not going to use this other app. I’m going to use this app. I’m going to make it really fun. Oh, maybe I need, I do need support. So I’m going to join a membership of something, or 

 

[00:24:00] I’m just going to ask my coach to something that I’ve. So I will love to do with my clients is like, they’ll make something and they’re like, no, I really do need a little bit of creative feedback on this.

 

[00:24:09] So, so I’ll give it, they’ll give it to me and I’ll, I’ll have a look at their content and provide some feedback. And so they’re like, okay, cool. And now we’re moving forward. We have some feedback. Maybe we make it funny. Maybe we, um, instead of trying to follow all of the copywriting rules, maybe we just speak to somebody, like they were literally in front of us.

 

[00:24:29] and It just gets to be yours and you just, and you create it and because it comes from you so easily, not only is it more sustainable, but people feel that and they resonate with it. It, you, we talk so much online about like being authentic, well, being authentic isn’t trying to manipulate authenticity and post videos of you crying on the internet because apparently it’s authentic.

 

[00:24:55] It’s actually being authentic. It’s actually sharing what you think in the moments that you think it. [00:25:00] That’s what it is. In the ways you think it, for some of you, that’s gonna be making really aesthetic things, and for some of you, it’s, it’s not gonna be making aesthetic things and that’s the correct way to do it.

 

[00:25:10] So in essence, being in being an embodied entrepreneur and being in business, when you are not operating from shame, when your shame body is so low at. I would never say that we can completely get rid of it. I’ll do another podcast episode on that. Um, nor would we want to, but when your shame body, maybe we’re at an 80% right now, maybe we can take it down to 13%.

 

[00:25:37] When your shame body’s operating at, you know, eight or 13%, what you are experiencing is so much more clarity, so much more focus, so much more resilience. You’re way more productive. You can actually do that four hour work week. Um. You can manage the stress and uncertainty of being entrepreneur, of having inconsistent income, of, a guy asked me yesterday, he’s like, Oh, [00:26:00] don’t you ever get worried about, about clients coming?

 

[00:26:02] And I was like, no, I know they’re going to come. They’re always coming. You can be, you can have that approach. I was like, yeah, I know it’s coming. It’s always coming. You can make decisions with discernment. You can maintain healthy coaching relationships, um, or healthy client relationships. You can maintain healthy relationships with your loved ones, with your audience, um, with your service providers, or, like, you know, your accountant, your bookkeeper, your, like, who else?

 

[00:26:29] Like, your assistant, right? You have positive emotions 80 percent of the time. You feel really at ease in your emotions 80 percent of the time, you smile more than you frown. You have an inner vitality and energy inside. You have physical energy. You look forward to going and moving your body. You’re creative.

 

[00:26:48] Everything is a, Oh, what’s next? Oh, how fun. Oh, let’s go. It’s this energy of feeling like you can take on the world and that you are fully supported. And it doesn’t mean, of course, you’re going to have some setbacks every now and again. We all do, [00:27:00] but you’re good. You’re happy. You’re excited. People gravitate to you.

 

[00:27:04] You’re solution oriented. Physically, you, your pain is not, there is very little pain in your life and the pain that is there, there’s a clear connection with what causes this and how do I fix it? You have better sex, you have good intimacy, sailors are just conversations. Sales are so easy. Sales are just like talking with old friends.

 

[00:27:28] It’s like there’s no charge around money. Marketing is, you know, something that you show up for, you do the task, you move on, you make it fun. Like it’s just easy. Everything is also quite a lot more intuitive and you can make decisions with Quickly, without second guessing yourself and everything happens, everything happens quickly because we’re, we’re now entering into that flow state.

 

[00:27:51] Um, and we’re more action oriented and we’re more solution oriented. So we provide better solutions to other people. They pay us more money for it and we [00:28:00] move quickly. You get to become a leader, you get to become a pioneer. You get to move quickly, you get to be astounded. Things come to you more quick.

 

[00:28:10] That my biggest theme over this past six months is just allowing it to be easy because I’ve wanted something and then like, it just happens and I’m like, okay, wow. How did this happen so quickly and so easily? This is insane. Um, and it’s, no, it’s no surprise that, you know, 12 months ago. 12 months before all of this was happening, I was doing a lot of really deep shame work.

 

[00:28:32] It’s no surprise. It is a direct result. So doesn’t that sound fun? Aren’t you here for that? I hope you are. We’re going to be diving into the topic of shame, um, in its different manifestations and how to heal it over this next couple of coming weeks. I have some really, I have really awesome. , offerings coming out, uh, yeah, let’s, let’s talk about it with something called shameless sales, which is going to be a group program and an online event

 

[00:29:00] called unapologetic offer creation, which you are going to want to hear more about.

 

[00:29:03] I’m working on that at the moment. What I’m going to invite you to work on is coming into. Check in on Thursday when we have the next episode come out, we’re going to look at the biggest way that people fuck up shame healing.

 

[00:29:18] And I’m saying that word and I mean with a big F and it’s a harsh word because it is a problem it hurts people. And I would like us to stop it. We’re going to look at how to heal shame and what not to do on Thursday . I love you. Thank you for this thing.

 

[00:29:33] Speak soon.