Inner Authority and CONFIDENCE Through Creative Self-Expression Welcome back to Her Rules Radio! I'm Alexandra Jamieson, your coach and host. Kate had a hidden, secret, second-self. Her Shadow.   Despite her success, Kate couldn’t shake the idea that women in her sales group were better than her: more sophisticated, better educated, more confident than she.    They were members of an “in-group” that she never felt invited to. She worked super hard to get her children accepted to groups and clubs and schools where they would “belong.” She always felt like an outsider at work events, school gatherings, and caught other moms giving her strange looks, and obsessed that they were judging her.   “Every time I hang out with other women at company events or conferences, I freeze up. I drink too much because I’m obsessed with how I look, always comparing myself to them.    And even though I’ve reached the Gold Circle and the top 10 people in sales at our company, I never feel like I’m good enough. I drink too much, eat too much, and can’t relax to make friends with people in a way that feels authentic. I just feel uncomfortable in myself.   It’s so weird, because I’m doing so well with my sales! People always comment on how authentic and easy-going I am in our business conversations, but when the attention turns to me in real opportunity for connection I get weird and start to feel anxious.” Freezing up is caused by an inner insecurity where we aren’t able to express ourselves fully and honestly.  Imagine you’re in front of a person or group of people whose opinion you care about.  They’re all looking at you.  Focus on how your body feels: do you feel physical signals like tightness, heart racing, sweating, or other feelings like you’re a deer in headlights?   In this moment, do you feel like you can express yourself, while feeling these feelings?   The insecurity, awkwardness, and anxiety kills our ability to connect with others, and our creative thinking shuts down. It makes us so obsessed with how others might judge us, that we can’t be authentically generous and become overly self-focused. Which makes us feel more alienated.   Through our coaching conversations, K realized she was keeping herself from these relationships. We practiced and K was able to approach a couple of the women in her company that she wanted to connect with.    She asked if they’d be interested in forming a women’s group within the company, so they could support each other. K told them about her inner anxiety and what she was working on with her coach, and they immediately opened up:    They had also been feeling disconnected and wanted to create stronger relationships at work, with her! In fact, they both looked up to her and hoped they could learn more from her about how she had become so successful!   K has misjudged them: she had become so self-obsessed and withholding that there wasn’t an opening for the other women to approach her. Both sides were wrong about each other. And by bravely, vulnerably opening up to them, they were able to begin a new way of being together.   Insecurity seems to have a life of its own.   Inside each of us is a hidden, secret, second-self. The Shadow.   All those feelings of inadequacy, fear, and self-doubt, are our inner shadow. It’s the part of us we try to hide. The part we fear we’ll be judged for, if anyone knew the truth. It’s everything about ourselves we don’t want to be, but fear we truly are.   It’s called The Shadow, because it follows us everywhere. It’s your dark side, your ego, Bitch Brain, low-vibration self, and id. It’s the grotesque Mr. Hyde to our respectable Dr. Jekyll.    Your shadow impacts how you see yourself. It doesn’t matter if others see you as successful, beautiful, brilliant, and wonderful: if your shadow says you’re a reject, a loser, too fat, too old, or too lame, that’s what you’re likely to believe about yourself.   The Shadow is our insecurity.  And it’s why insecurity is impossible to get ri