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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

TRANSFORMING TRIGGERS

THE BLOODY TRUTH ABOUT MEETING YOUR DARKNESS

You feel it again. That familiar electric shock to your system.

Heart pounding. Mind racing. Body frozen or ready to fight.

Someone said something. Did something. And now you’re gone—hijacked by the past, dragged back into old wounds that never fully closed.

And you hate yourself for it.

“Why am I still like this? Why can’t I just get over it?”

Stop. Now.

Your triggers aren’t your weakness. They’re your war cry.

The places where your system screams the truth everyone else is too afraid to hear.

WHAT TRIGGERS REALLY ARE

Triggers aren’t problems to fix. They’re weapons waiting to be claimed.

When something in your present slams into an unhealed wound from your past, your body doesn’t politely suggest you might want to pay attention. It fucking detonates. It floods you with chemistry designed to keep you alive.

Your triggers’ intensity directly corresponds to how deeply you were wounded and how desperately your system needed to protect you. The worse the original trauma, the more violent the trigger.

You may recognize yourself here:

  • Your body becomes a war zone: heart racing, muscles locked, breath stolen

  • You fall into the same relationship hellscapes, over and over, wondering why you keep attracting the same monsters in different masks
  • Your emotions hijack you like a hostage situation, while you’re just a passenger watching yourself burn
  • You shut down completely, your consciousness fleeing the scene while your body stays behind
  • Ancient pain resurfaces like a corpse rising from dark water

How you face these triggers determines whether they keep you chained to your past or become the exact tools that carve your freedom.

WHY YOU STAY TRAPPED

Triggered is the opposite of choice. Of power. Of sovereignty. You remain triggered because your system hasn’t developed the capacity to do anything else.

Your body lacks the resources to process what lies beneath. AND THAT IS NOT YOUR FAULT.

Your nervous system has never experienced safety in a new response. It only knows the familiar patterns of chaos or collapse.

The fractured parts of you still haven’t received what they’re screaming for: Acknowledgment that what happened was real.

A TRUTH YOU WON’T HEAR ELSEWHERE

Changing patterns that are burned into your nervous system doesn’t happen in a weekend workshop or a positive affirmation away.

The reactions you can’t control have been reinforced for years—often to keep you alive. Of course this work feels impossible. Of course it takes time.

But you’re still here. Still fighting. Still showing up with your bloody knuckles and tear-stained face.

Healing isn’t about “doing the work” in some pristine meditation room. It’s about dragging yourself through life – working jobs, raising kids, maintaining relationships – while carrying the crushing weight of experiences that nearly destroyed you.

Before we go further, recognize this: You’re still standing.

After everything that tried to break you. After all the times you wanted to give up. You’re here. That’s not nothing. That’s fucking everything.

Now let’s tear apart the lies about triggering and reveal what actually works.

THE BRUTAL PATH THROUGH TRIGGERS

Transforming triggers means burning down everything you were taught about “getting better” and building something true from the ashes.

STAGE 1: CREATING FUCKING SPACE

Triggers feel like being possessed. Something else takes the wheel while you watch yourself spiral. The hardest truth about being triggered is that it feels like there is no choice. Your survival brain drives while your conscious mind sits helpless in the passenger seat.

Space is the first weapon you need. Not to “calm down” or “be positive,” but to create a crack in the automatic response where something new can emerge.

With space, you’re no longer completely devoured by the trigger. You can witness it rather than become it.

STAGE 2: MEETING YOUR DEMONS DIFFERENTLY

This is where most people fail. When triggered, we default to the same useless patterns that keep us locked in trauma cycles.

Probably like this shit:

Overthinking the fuck out of it…
“This means I’m permanently damaged.”
“This proves I’ll never change.”

Judging yourself mercilessly…
“This shouldn’t still happen.”
“I’m pathetic for feeling this way.”

Frantically trying to fix it…
“How do I make this stop now?”
“I need to figure this out immediately.”

Shaming yourself into oblivion…
“I’m so broken.”
“Everyone else has their shit together but me.”

Becoming the trigger…
“I am anxiety.”
“I am damaged goods.”
“I am unfixable.”

Every time you respond this way, you reinforce the trauma cycle, further locking the trigger deeper into your system.

What triggers actually need (read this multiple times):

  • Space to exist without your judgment or your desperate need to make them disappear
  • To be seen and acknowledged for what they are, not denied or prettied up
  • To be felt in the raw meat of your body, rather than dissected by your mind
  • To be understood as signals, not character flaws
  • To be met with regulation instead of more chaos

SMALL SHIFTS, LETHAL IMPACT

Healing doesn’t happen through force. It happens in the moments you show your system that something else is possible. These shifts aren’t Instagram-worthy. They’re unglamorous moments of raw courage. For example…

When triggered, giving the reaction three fucking seconds to exist without meaning-making, judging, analyzing, or trying to fix it. Just say “This is here” and let it breathe for a moment.

Getting curious about where the trigger lives in your body. If it’s too intense, step outside yourself and observe.

Moving your body when the weight threatens to crush you, instead of collapsing under it.

Reaching out when the isolation feels safer, instead of disappearing into yourself.

Saying “I don’t know” instead of pretending to have answers.

Choosing curiosity instead of condemnation: “Maybe this deserves to exist too.”

Acknowledging your needs, even when every instinct screams to abandon them.

These small rebellions begin to shift how you meet your triggers. And when you meet them differently, they transform from your prison to your power.

STAGE 3: CREATING NEW NEURAL PATHWAYS

Triggers don’t just need management. They need to be countered with experiences that show your body it’s capable of feeling something besides terror and pain.

If you only connect with your body when it’s screaming, you reinforce the idea that your body is just a vessel for suffering. To change this, you must engage with your body outside of crisis, building moments of connection that weren’t possible during trauma.

This isn’t about healing only when you’re falling apart. It’s about long-term revolution, allowing your system to discover that there’s more to existence than just surviving the next trigger.

Ways to forge new neural pathways:

  • Engage with your body in ways that feel alive, not just when you’re drowning in trauma.
  • Explore sensations beyond pain. Seek warmth, pleasure, strength, stillness, power.
  • Learn to experience your body as a weapon rather than just a wound.
  • Attune to your nervous system’s needs, not just when it’s in chaos, but as an ongoing relationship.
  • Notice moments of agency, power, or expansion and let yourself fully claim them.

When we only pay attention to ourselves in agony, we unconsciously reinforce the belief that we’re only worthy of care when we’re broken.

Healing includes giving ourselves attention in moments of strength, clarity, and growth, not just in moments when we’re bleeding out.

STAGE 4: HOLDING BOTH THE MONSTER AND THE MASTER

Unlearning the patterns burned into your nervous system takes time. This means allowing both the old and new to exist simultaneously.

The instinct to analyze and judge → alongside the new possibility of raw curiosity.

The reflex to react immediately → alongside the new experience of standing your ground.

The desperation to “fix” yourself → alongside the understanding that no immediate action is needed.

The pull toward self-contempt → alongside the unfamiliar practice of self-protection.

The automatic shutdown → alongside the courage to stay present for one more breath.

The belief that triggers mean you’re broken → alongside the truth that they are signals, not sentences.

At first, these new choices will feel like speaking a foreign language. But with repetition and brutal honesty, they will carve new pathways. And eventually, they’ll feel like coming home to yourself.

STAGE 5: FACING THE ROOT

Behind every trigger hides a deeper wound, a betrayal, or a survival adaptation. Understanding what’s being remembered or reenacted breaks the spell of reactivity.

Triggers aren’t random—they’re messengers pointing to:

  • Emotional wounds still bleeding beneath your conscious awareness
  • Nervous system patterns still locked in danger mode
  • Distortions in how you perceive safety, worth, or connection
  • Old trauma responses still running the show

The goal isn’t to manage the trigger—but to hunt down what lies beneath it.

The more you integrate the root, the less power the trigger holds over you.

THE BLOODY TRUTH

This process isn’t about becoming “healed” or “fixed.” It’s about becoming sovereign, reclaiming authority over your own experience.

Each small shift is an act of rebellion against everything that tried to break you. You are rewiring old patterns with presence, rage, and determination.

Your triggers aren’t proof you’re broken. They’re proof you survived something that should have killed you. And now they’re waiting to become the very weapons that will set you free.

Take them back. Make them yours. Turn what was meant to destroy you into what makes you unstoppable.