Tag Archive for: leadership

Why Women Resist Leadership (and How Shadow Work Sets You Free)

Let’s just name the thing:

A lot of brilliant, capable, intuitive-as-hell women secretly resist leadership.

Not because they don’t want it.

Not because they’re not qualified.

And not because they’re “too emotional” or “too much” or “not enough.”

They resist because leadership – as we’ve been shown it – is often traumatizing.

Yeah. I said it.

So if you’ve ever:

  • Delayed launching the thing
  • Procrastinated on claiming your title
  • Dimmed your voice in a meeting
  • Opted out of visibility
  • Felt exhausted at the thought of leading anything

You’re not broken. You’re not lazy. You’re not lost.

You’re responding perfectly to a system that wasn’t built with your nervous system – or your soul – in mind.

Let’s unpack it, trauma-informed style. Then I’ll show you how to work with your shadow to lead without betraying yourself.

First, the Why: What’s Really Behind the Resistance?

1. Generational Trauma Says Power = Pain

For centuries, women in power were burned, banned, mocked or silenced. That energy lingers. Even if you weren’t punished for speaking up, someone in your bloodline probably was.

So when you think about stepping up, being seen, leading a movement? Your nervous system isn’t thinking, “Hell yes.” It’s thinking, “Am I gonna die?”

Shadow Work Prompt: Where did I first learn that power was dangerous? What happens in my body when I imagine being fully in charge?

2. The Nervous System Sees Leadership as a Threat

Leadership is exposure. Visibility. Responsibility. All of which can trigger the same trauma responses as a bear attack: freeze, fawn, flight or fight.

If your system is stuck in survival, leadership feels like a death sentence. Not because you aren’t “ready,” but because your body still thinks the spotlight is a sniper.

Shadow Work Prompt: What parts of me believe that being seen equals being unsafe? What do those parts need to feel protected and empowered?

3. We Inherited a Patriarchal Model That Doesn’t Work for Us

Most leadership we’ve seen is forceful, rigid, extractive. It leaves no room for softness, for cycles, for the sacred. So we reject it – because it feels wrong. But then we shame ourselves for not wanting it.

Shadow Work Prompt: What leadership qualities have I exiled because they were “too feminine,” “too emotional,” or “too much”? Can I reclaim them as strengths?

4. Imposter Syndrome Is a Trauma Echo

Nearly 70% of women in leadership roles report feeling like frauds.

Translation? We’re leading while dissociated. Leading while afraid. Leading while hiding parts of ourselves. And that’s not leadership. It’s performance.

Shadow Work Prompt: What part of me believes I’m unworthy or fake? Whose voice is that, really? What truth lives beneath the mask?

5. Hyper-Independence Keeps Us Stuck and Small

Many high-achieving women are secretly terrified to be supported. Why? Because being let down, betrayed or dismissed in the past taught us not to trust anyone. So we do it all alone, and then wonder why leadership feels heavy as hell.

Shadow Work Prompt: Where did I learn that needing help was weak? What part of me still believes that if I lead, I must do it alone?

Now, the How: Using Shadow Work to Lead Like Yourself

Shadow work isn’t about fixing you. It’s about finding you—the version you hid to stay safe.

Here’s how it rewires your relationship with leadership:

🔥 1. You Build Safety in the Body, Not Just the Mind

Instead of forcing confidence, shadow work helps you feel safe being seen. That changes everything. When your nervous system feels secure, your brilliance stops hiding.

🔥 2. You Lead With the Parts You Used to Hide

Your rage? Sacred fire.

Your grief? Deep empathy.

Your sensitivity? Strategic edge.

Shadow work teaches you to bring all of it to the table, so you lead as your whole damn self.

🔥 3. You Redefine Leadership on Your Terms

You stop mimicking old models. You birth new ones. You build a business or movement that feels like you, not a costume.

Still With Me? Good. Let’s Burn It Down.

This isn’t about fixing your leadership gaps.

  • It’s about grieving the old stories.
  • Calling back the exiled parts.
  • And leading from wholeness, not hustle.

Leadership doesn’t have to feel like a betrayal.

With shadow work, it becomes a coming home.

5 Stats That Prove You’re Not Alone:

  1. Only 10% of Fortune 500 CEOs are women
    You’re not imagining the gap. It’s real.
    (Fortune, 2024)

  2. 60% of women say they’ve never had a leadership role model who looked or lived like them
    Visibility matters.
    (LeanIn, 2023)

  3. One in three women globally experience gender-based violence
    Trauma isn’t rare. It’s common, and it shapes us.
    (WHO, 2021)

  4. Women are twice as likely as men to say they feel burned out
    The cost of performing leadership is real.
    (McKinsey, 2023)

  5. 70% of women report imposter syndrome in leadership
    It’s not a personal flaw. It’s a cultural symptom.
    (KPMG, 2022)

Final Note

If you’re craving leadership that lets you breathe, rest, rage, and rise—

Shadow work is your map.

You’re not behind. You’re not broken. You’re on the edge of remembering who the fuck you are.

P.S. Check out SHADOW RISING, my exclusive mastermind for women who want an approach to business and life that gets real results. (Bonus: your clients will RAVE.) As I type this, we have 3 seats remaining for the entire year.

You are your own permission. Take it.

P.P.S. I created a brand new FR∑∑ guide to help women reevaluate – and burn down – dysfunctional businesses. Do you feel like you’ve changed more than your biz? Outgrown your clients? Are you ready to take a more aligned leap in the direction you want? GO HERE.

It’s called THE COACHING INDUSTRY EXPOSED, 15 questions that will likely shatter your coaching practice in a GREAT way. You’ll love it. xo

Bragging rights – not

Every entrepreneur wants to share her clients’ massive successes. They want to inspire you with what is possible and make themselves top of mind when you want the same results. It’s business.

What I don’t see discussed very much is down turns.

And, dammit, I’m in one.

Highs go with lows. After 16 years in business, I know this to be an absolute fact. Except this time, I don’t seem to care.

It’s scaring me a bit.

I’m not bothered by anything that’s not working. I don’t feel compelled to create something new and dazzling. I definitely don’t have the urge to do a big launch, splash my face all over social media or find some new platform or app to shake things up.

It’s got me thinking that maybe my time is up. Or maybe I need a very long vacation.

Or both of those may be true.

Over the years, my clients have hired me to build stronger businesses, write books, land speaking engagements, fill client rosters and bank accounts, and more. I help them do it all the time.

Yet I’m finding these days that I’m happier to have people work with me on themselves, on figuring out what they want (you’d be amazed at how many only want something because they think they’re supposed to), and feeling better about who they are. The people who just want to feel comfortable in their own skin, who sometimes simply need permission to feel how they feel.

Money and business-building are so easy, they’re almost boring. Does that mean my career is over, or morphing again? I can’t decide.

Things that light me up:

  • taking clients out to the herd of horses so they can see their own impact and if it’s who they want to be
  • forest immersions and learning via nature (trees talk, btw, and plants share healing energy)
  • normalizing emotions and helping people give themselves permission to live on their own terms

The irony here is all of those things actually make people better equipped to deal with the stress of business and life. They are all modalities that reset the nervous system and show you where you need to shore up your own emotional intelligence.

Obviously, they aren’t sexy 6-figure promises. That generally means people new to coaching have no clue about their value. And those who have been in this industry for a while know they need it, but they also know that’s going to mean getting off the hamster wheel, no longer hustling and changing how they show up. And they’re scared to do it.

Meanwhile, I’m over here – having gone through that entire transformation almost 6 years ago – waiting for the world to catch up.

Spirituality and frequency are the current buzzwords. I figure the next evolution will be serious mental health care. I may or may not be waiting.