Shadow work isn’t just an emotional exercise—it’s a powerful key to unlocking deeper authenticity in business. In Episode 4 of The Wild Sage Society Podcast, I explore how the “disowned” parts of ourselves affect our roles as entrepreneurs. By examining the unspoken truths we hide from ourselves, we can address the blind spots that impact our team dynamics, finances, and personal fulfillment. Through sharing my own experiences with chaos, fear, and overcompensation, I offer insights on how embracing the parts we usually try to bury can empower us to create thriving, heart-centered businesses.
Why Shadow Work Matters in Business
Unresolved personal blocks inevitably surface in business. Whether it’s in team dynamics, decision-making, or financial management, the parts of ourselves we’d rather avoid can manifest as challenges. Shadow work helps us own our “dark” aspects, freeing us to operate from a place of integrity and clarity.
For me, addressing these shadows was transformational. By owning my fears and vulnerabilities, I was able to make decisions that aligned with my highest self. When you integrate your shadow, you’re no longer controlled by it—and that’s when true authenticity shines.
Feminine & Masculine Energies in Leadership
Entrepreneurship often requires us to balance feminine and masculine energies. The feminine brings intuition, creativity, and flow, while the masculine offers structure, strategy, and action. Recognizing habitual shifts between these energies can help maintain balance and authenticity in leadership.
In this episode, I share how shadow work helped me identify when I was overcompensating with masculine energy to avoid vulnerability. Learning to embrace my feminine energy allowed me to lead from a place of balance and connection.
Practical Shadows in Entrepreneurship
Money struggles, chaotic team dynamics, and burnout are often symptoms of deeper issues.
Shadow work invites us to look beyond the surface to uncover the root causes. For example:
- Money Shadows: Patterns of overspending, avoiding profit and loss statements, or accumulating debt can reveal deeper dissatisfaction or unresolved emotions.
- Team Dynamics: Recurring conflicts or miscommunication might reflect personal fears or blind spots.
- Overcompensation: A frantic “fix-it” mode can be a way to avoid discomfort or deeper truths.
By addressing these shadows, you can create a foundation of authenticity and integrity in your business.
Actionable Steps to Explore Your Shadows
- Spot Your Shadows: Journal about recurring conflicts or anxieties in your business. Ask yourself: Where am I resisting change or projecting blame?
- Review Your Financial Habits: Look at your financial statements. Do spending or debt patterns reflect deeper unhappiness or unresolved emotions?
- Balance Your Energies: Notice situations that shift you into a frantic “fix-it” mode. Practice pausing and asking if you’re overcompensating to avoid discomfort.
- Choose Intentional Relationships: Reflect on the five people you spend the most time with. Do they elevate you or reinforce limiting beliefs? Set boundaries or recalibrate as needed.
Journaling Prompts for Shadow Work
- What recurring challenges in my business reflect unresolved personal patterns?
- Where am I overcompensating or avoiding discomfort?
- How can I balance my feminine and masculine energies in leadership?
The Power of Integration
Facing your hidden fears can revolutionize the way you show up in business—and life. Through shadow work, you’ll learn to integrate all parts of yourself, stepping boldly into your role as an authentic, heart-centered entrepreneur. Remember, the shadows you fear hold the keys to your greatest power.
Listen Now
Tune in to discover how shadow work can help you integrate your hidden fears and step into the resonance of your highest potential. Together, we’ll uncover the power of authenticity and create a business that thrives from the heart.
The glittering lights and festive feasts of the holiday season have faded, leaving behind a sobering reality: the financial strain on your pocketbook and the physical toll on your body. As the calendar turns to January, many of us feel the weight of overindulgence—in spending, eating, and emotional energy. While the holidays are marketed as a time of joy and connection, they often leave us feeling drained, overwhelmed, and unbalanced.
The good news? January offers a fresh start. It’s an opportunity to assess the toll of the past few weeks and set a course for a more grounded, intentional, and harmonious year ahead. Let’s explore how the pressures of the holiday season impact our financial, physical, and emotional well-being and uncover strategies to restore balance.
The Financial Hangover
The holiday spirit often comes with a hefty price tag. According to recent statistics, the average American spends over $1,000 on holiday gifts, travel, and festivities. For many, this spending is funded by credit cards, creating a debt hangover that lingers long after the decorations are put away.
But the financial strain isn’t just about numbers. It’s about the emotional weight of unmet expectations, comparison, and the societal pressure to give and do more. These stressors can lead to anxiety, sleepless nights, and a sense of failure when bills come due in January.
The Physical Toll
Overeating during the holidays isn’t just about indulgence; it’s often a response to stress, loneliness, or the discomfort of navigating family dynamics. Holiday foods, typically rich in sugar, fat, and salt, can leave your body feeling sluggish, bloated, and out of balance. Emotional eating compounds these effects, creating a cycle of guilt and dissatisfaction that can persist into the new year.
The Emotional Cost
For highly sensitive and empathetic individuals, the holidays often amplify emotional triggers. Family gatherings can surface old wounds, financial stress can create tension, and the push for perfection can lead to burnout. By January, you might feel emotionally spent, yearning for a sense of peace and alignment.
Reclaiming Balance in January
The key to overcoming the post-holiday hangover lies in cultivating balance. Here are practical steps to help you reset and reclaim harmony:
- Take Stock of Your Finances
- Review your holiday spending without judgment. Awareness is the first step toward improvement.
- Create a simple budget for January, prioritizing essentials and setting aside a small amount for savings.
- Consider a no-spend challenge or focus on free activities to help recalibrate your financial habits.
- Nourish Your Body
- Shift from holiday indulgences to nutrient-dense foods that support your energy and digestion.
- Incorporate movement into your daily routine, whether it’s yoga, walking, or a dance break in your living room.
- Stay hydrated and prioritize restorative sleep to help your body recover.
- Reconnect with Your Emotional Center
- Practice mindfulness through journaling, meditation, or breathwork to process lingering holiday emotions.
- Set boundaries around your time and energy, saying “no” to obligations that don’t serve you.
- Focus on gratitude for what the holidays brought—even if it’s lessons or growth opportunities—rather than what they lacked.
- Plan for a More Intentional Year
- Reflect on what worked and what didn’t during the holidays. Use these insights to plan a more aligned approach for next year.
- Set one or two realistic goals for the new year that focus on holistic well-being rather than perfection.
- Anchor your goals in meaningful practices, like a daily intention or a weekly check-in with yourself.
The post-holiday season doesn’t have to feel like a crash landing. With awareness and intentional action, you can transform the financial, physical, and emotional chaos into an opportunity for growth and renewal. By prioritizing balance, you set the foundation for a year that aligns with your values and nourishes your body, mind, and spirit.
This January, give yourself the greatest gift of all: permission to slow down, reassess, and move forward with clarity and purpose. The holidays may have taken a toll, but they also offer a powerful reminder of what truly matters. Use that wisdom to craft a year that feels as good on the inside as it looks on the outside.
As we step into 2025, it’s time to reflect on what it truly means to set goals that resonate with our souls. In Episode 3 of The Wild Sage Society Podcast, I share a guided visualization to help you connect with your body’s intuitive wisdom, create an ignited vision, and magnetize what you truly desire. If you’re seeking alignment in your business or personal life, this episode offers practical steps for crafting intentions that aren’t just words on paper but are felt deeply in every cell of your being.
Beyond SMART Goals: A Heart-Centered Approach
Traditional goal-setting often focuses on being Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound (SMART). While these elements are useful, they can sometimes turn goals into draining checklists. Instead, I advocate for blending practicality with a heart-centered approach. When goals resonate with your inner truth and ignite your passion, they become sources of energy rather than obligations.
Ask yourself: Are your goals aligned with your values and deepest desires? Do they feel expansive, or do they feel like a burden? If they don’t inspire you, it may be time to reassess.
Tapping into Body Wisdom
Your body holds profound intuitive wisdom. In this episode, I guide you through a grounding meditation to align each chakra with your 2025 intentions. By rooting your goals in both physical and energetic awareness, you can ensure that they feel aligned on every level of your being.
Pay attention to how your body responds to your goals. Notice where you feel expansion or constriction. These sensations are your body’s way of signaling what aligns with your truth and what doesn’t.
Ignited Vision vs. Inspired Vision
An ignited vision comes from within—it’s a spark that lights you up and propels you forward. An inspired vision, on the other hand, is often influenced by external factors, such as societal expectations or comparisons. While inspiration has its place, ignited visions hold more power because they are deeply personal and intrinsically motivating.
In this episode, I share how to uncover your ignited vision for 2025. The process involves tuning into your body, reflecting on your values, and letting go of external expectations.
Actionable Steps to Create Your 2025 Vision
This episode isn’t just about theory; it’s about action. Here are steps to help you create an aligned and ignited vision for the new year:
- Create a Sacred Space: Find a quiet spot, light a candle, or play soft music to support visualization without distractions.
- Tune into Your Body: When thinking about your goals, notice where you feel expansion or constriction. Let this guide you toward what truly resonates.
- Identify Your Pillars: Reflect on five areas of energy management (physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, financial) and see how they support your 2025 vision.
- Write Down Your Ignited Vision: After meditating, journal about the insights and sensations that surface. Let your body’s wisdom shape your goals.
Journaling Prompts for Alignment
- What goals light me up and feel aligned with my soul?
- Where do I feel constriction or resistance when thinking about my goals?
- How can I honor the five pillars of energy management in my 2025 vision?
Guided Meditation for Deeper Alignment
In this episode, I lead a grounding and chakra visualization designed to help you connect with your body and align your intentions for 2025. This practice is a powerful tool for rooting your goals in physical and energetic awareness, ensuring they feel authentic and empowering.
Resources Mentioned
- Guided Meditation: Grounding and chakra visualization for deeper alignment.
- The Five Pillars of Energy Management (Blog): A closer look at balancing physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, and financial well-being.
Join Me on This Journey
Let’s cultivate an ignited vision for 2025. By blending the wisdom of your body with practical goal-setting, we can step into the New Year with clarity, purpose, and alignment. Together, we’ll explore what it means to manifest goals that feel both empowering and authentic.
Thank you for being part of The Wild Sage Society. Let’s step into the resonance of what’s truly possible—together.
As we close this transformative year, I reflect deeply on the parallels between my journey with money and my emotional healing. Rewinding the tapes of my life, I see pivotal moments where unresolved beliefs about abundance held me hostage. These moments became the seeds of self-doubt, where shame whispered that I wasn’t good enough.
Christmases of my past come to mind—when both of my parents used grand gestures to mask their own struggles. Looking back, I see how those moments planted subconscious money mindset beliefs about material wealth being a tool for validation and love. As I’ve untangled these abundance blocks, I’ve learned to see the credit card debt and emotional spending of my past not as failures but as calls for help from a younger version of myself yearning for peace of mind.
This past Thanksgiving, I traveled to Bozeman, Montana, to spend the holiday week with the Walker side of the family. It was an experience I deeply cherished but also one that brought unfiltered truths to the surface. Watching my cousins with their families—their kids running in and out of homes situated on 200 acres, their well-built houses, their seemingly successful and lucrative careers—stirred a storm within me. My observations of their lives turned into comparisons, and comparison mindset became my suffering. I measured my self-worth against theirs, believing for a moment that my lack of material abundance or a conventional life path meant I had failed.
Comparison mindset is a killer. It robs us of gratitude, fuels our insecurities, and suffocates our souls. Measuring our self-worth monetarily or materially is soul death. In those raw, painful moments, I felt the truth of that lesson deeply. I realized that my worth isn’t defined by bank accounts or property. My Empire—my operating system—is built on purpose, morals, goals, and values. It’s a self-governance that ensures everything in my life aligns with my highest calling, from the way I show up for my son to how I contribute to my clients' holistic transformation.
As Deepak Chopra beautifully stated in The Spiritual Laws of Success:
"Success in life could be defined as the continued expansion of happiness and the progressive realization of worthy goals. Success is the ability to fulfill your desires with effortless ease."
He reminds us that material wealth is just one component of success. True abundance includes health, enthusiasm for life, meaningful relationships, creative freedom, emotional stability, and peace of mind. It’s a journey, not a destination, and I’m learning to honor the unique path I walk.
As I prepare for 2025, I invite you to reflect on the stories you’ve told yourself about money, worth, and success. How often have you compared your life to others, only to feel diminished? What would happen if you rewrote your narrative? Let’s step into this New Year with compassion for our past decisions and the courage to embrace a new paradigm—one rooted in abundance, alignment, and self-love.
2024 was a year of profound transformation—a time when old patterns, unresolved traumas, and ingrained beliefs surfaced, asking to be healed. In Episode 2 of The Wild Sage Society Podcast, I reflect on the transformative lessons that defined my year. From embracing sacred pauses to facing financial shame, these experiences brought me closer to my authentic self. My hope is that sharing these reflections inspires you to examine your own journey and take meaningful steps toward healing and alignment.
Lessons in Integrity
Integrity became a central theme for me in 2024. I had to confront areas in my life where I had been out of alignment—whether in my business, relationships, or commitments to myself. This required making difficult but necessary choices to live and work authentically. The process taught me that true integrity isn’t just about honesty with others; it’s about being honest with yourself and acting in alignment with your values.
If you’ve ever felt disconnected from your purpose or struggled to maintain consistency in your commitments, I encourage you to reflect on where alignment might be missing in your life. Integrity isn’t about perfection; it’s about progress.
Letting Go of Over-Responsibility
For much of my life, I carried too much responsibility, both personally and professionally. This year, I began to let go of these outdated beliefs and learned to trust myself and others in new ways. This shift wasn’t easy, but it was liberating.
Releasing over-responsibility allowed me to focus on what truly matters and create space for growth—for myself and for those around me. If you’ve ever felt burdened by the weight of doing it all, know that it’s okay to set boundaries and trust others to rise to the occasion.
Facing Financial Shame
One of the most transformative parts of 2024 was confronting shame around past financial decisions. Like many, I carried guilt and embarrassment over financial missteps. By addressing these feelings head-on and taking steps to clean up my financial practices, I reclaimed confidence and rediscovered empowerment.
This journey wasn’t just about dollars and cents; it was about releasing emotional baggage and stepping into a healthier relationship with money. Financial healing is deeply personal, but it’s also profoundly freeing. If you’ve been avoiding your finances, take one small step today to face them with compassion and curiosity.
Actionable Steps for Your Journey
This episode isn’t just a reflection; it’s an invitation for you to take meaningful steps on your own path to growth and alignment. Here are three ways to begin:
- Reflect on Patterns: Identify recurring challenges or themes in your life. What might they be teaching you about yourself?
- Create Space for Reflection: Set aside time to journal, meditate, or simply sit in silence. Light a candle, grab your journal, and let your thoughts flow.
- Set Aligned Intentions: Use your reflections to set goals rooted in your values and purpose. Intentions aligned with your authentic self are powerful catalysts for change.
Journaling Prompts for Self-Discovery
- Where have I been out of integrity in my life or work?
- What recurring challenges or patterns have shown up for me this year?
- What am I ready to release as I step into the new year?
Join Me on This Journey
As we continue Season 2, my intention is to share the lessons and insights that have shaped my journey and create a space where we can explore healing, alignment, and conscious growth together. Each episode of The Wild Sage Society Podcast is an invitation to redefine what it means to thrive and live in alignment with our highest potential.
Thank you for joining me on this journey. Let’s step into the new year with clarity, purpose, and a renewed sense of self.
