Unmasking Your True Self: A Guide for Sensitive Entrepreneurs

Feeling like you can’t embrace your true self without experiencing distress? Are you sacrificing your authenticity to fit into societal expectations in your work and life? Especially as a sensitive or neurodivergent entrepreneur?

What if instead, you could own your unique traits and align with your soul-led mission? It’s possible. And it's easier than you think

If you're like most sensitive entrepreneurs, you want to move from surviving to thriving, embracing your inner magic.

In today’s episode, I provide steps to shed societal conditioning, disarm your inner judge, and align with your soul-led mission. This heart-to-heart is not just about self-acceptance; it’s a roadmap to mastering your life, and your life’s work.

Whether you've struggled with trying to fit into a box or faced the common issue of working against your true nature, you can thrive in your business and embrace your entrepreneurial magic for a more fulfilling and successful journey.

Transcript

Michelle Dowker: 1:11

Hello and welcome back. Today's episode is going to be a little bit different. I had started to record something that I was going to be putting on to my Instagram stories about how so many people that I've worked with, and myself included, have felt at some point in our work that we've been cramming ourselves into a box to try to fit into the status quo or do things that we think that we should be doing, and how that causes distress. And what was intentioned to be a really quick sound bite on this topic ended up to be a nine minute channeled transmission, of sorts, and so I wanted to share this with you here, because I think there's so much energy and so much insight in what I had to share that I think you're going to find to be helpful if you've been feeling this way yourself. I just had an amazing client call today, and there was something that she said in the call that I wanted to share with you, because so many of us, especially as highly sensitive people and neurodivergence feel this way, and what she said was fitting into a box that I was not supposed to fit in caused me so much distress. There's this tendency for us and me included in this historically of, especially when you are sensitive, especially when you are a neurodivergent, especially when you are highly intuitive, is that there's this tendency to try to fit in, blend in, try to force ourselves into a box, play small, make ourselves small, hide away, mask who we are and maybe any of the unique traits that make us original and unique and creative, maybe some of the traits that we've been doing and to try to regulate ourselves, like stimming, for example, and there's this tendency to force ourselves to be someone that we're not in order to look quote normal in a neurotypical population, and all of that causes all sorts of inner pressure and what I call the inner judge, especially if we've been raised in an environment where people around us didn't get us. What I tend to find is that, especially when somebody is doesn't understand themselves, they're not going to understand our unique qualities, and I know for myself my mother did not understand my sensitivity. I realize now that she's also, she was also highly sensitive, but did not accept this about herself, and so because of that, she would then judge me for being sensitive, and so I made it all about me, as we often do in our developmental years, and I tried to hide that, I tried to mask it away and try to pretend that I wasn't sensitive.

Michelle Dowker: 4:22

And the more you try to hide something, push it away, it has control over you. You can't control it when you're trying to hide it. This is the thing. Once you see it, once you understand it, once you accept it, once you own it, then you become the master of yourself. You become in the driver's seat, instead of having all these things that you're pushing and hiding away come out when you at least want them to, to start to create all sorts of these inner mind games within ourselves, of judging ourselves and shaming ourselves and guilting yourselves for not being like everyone else.

Michelle Dowker: 4:57

And this, of course, leaked into my business and I see this often with highly sensitive entrepreneurs is this tendency to try to run your business like everyone else, to do the things that are expected of you and work with the clientele that you think you should be working with and working the way you should be working, because maybe that's the way that you were taught. Instead of understanding where your threshold is, what your needs are, your sensory needs, your nervous system needs understanding what actually lights you up, what you really love to do, what your special interests are, what clientele and at what stage of their journey is your favorite to be working with and where your skills are best suited to guide that particular person and to do the specific type of work that you love to do, and to own that and say this is who I work with, this is what I do, these are my special skills and gifts and talents, and I use them best in this way and decide and give yourself permission to actually do that, instead of trying to fit yourself in the box of like who you think you should be and how you think you should work and who you think you should work with, because that's what the industry standard told you. So this switch is actually what helps you to become even more successful and deliver even more impact for the people that you're here to impact with deeper and more profound transformation, because you're actually doing what's aligned for you, and so when you do that, you are more productive. You do use your gifts more, instead of trying to mask them away or hide them away or force you to be doing the things that you don't want to be doing, because that leads to burnout, that leads to resentment and that leads to lower productivity.

Michelle Dowker: 6:48

I feel like I just stepped up on a soapbox here. This is the key. This is the key to stepping up into this new paradigm for entrepreneurs, for leaders, for healers, for practitioners is to understand who you are, accept it, own it and use who you are in your leadership, instead of hiding it away and trying to be someone that you're not, to try to work in a way that doesn't work for you, and give yourself permission to stand up and do the things that work for you and say no to the rest, unapologetically, without having to explain yourself, reason yourself away, but actually owning what you're here to do and following that and letting go of all the rest. I love that to say. You don't need to try to force yourself in a box. That's survival, and what helps you to survive is not the thing that helps you to thrive. Plain and simple. If this lands, send me a message, let's chat. Let's see if what I have to offer works for you in terms of where you are in the stage of your awakening and entrepreneurial journey.

Michelle Dowker: 7:56

I help fellow sensitive entrepreneurs really own their magic skills, especially as sensitive, creative, intuitive and spiritual minded people who want to bring more of that into their work and step into a new direction from where they've been. Their work used to light them up and now that they've evolved within themselves through their own personal development and inner awakening journey, they're seeing that what used to light them up no longer lights them up. There's a little bit too much mundane-ness in repeating the basics. They're feeling like they have to reach back a little bit too much to where they used to be. And now they're ready to move forward, owning these aspects of themselves and bringing them more and more into their work.

Michelle Dowker: 8:49

And the work that I do is helping you to uncondition from all the conditioning that left you feeling like you should be doing things a certain ways, and all the inner judgment and worries about how other people might be perceiving you or what they might be thinking about you, so that you can finally shed that and disarm that inner judge, so that you can move forward confidently without worrying about other people's reactions to you, and then really deciding what it is you actually want. Because, especially when you've been doing all the things for all the other people and doing all the things that you feel like you should be doing, once you unconditioned from all of that, there's this moment of okay, well, what actually do I want and helping you to get crystal clear on what those things are and what your inner purposeful mission truly is for yourself, and how to move forward on that path, following the breadcrumbs of your soul-led mission, unapologetically. If this resonates, I'd love to hear from you. Let's chat. Either way, I hope this was a helpful insight for you.