Is This What’s Really Holding Your Business Back?
June 21, 2026
My son was lying on the floor the other day, stretched out in a patch of sunlight while shadows danced across the carpet. He looked up at me and asked, “Mum, where has my shadow gone?”
It hadn’t gone anywhere. The light had just shifted.
I stood there for a moment, because that simple question from a nine year old said something I’ve been trying to articulate to my clients for years.
We all have shadows. And most of the time, we have no idea they’re running the show.
What are shadows, exactly?
Not the kind on the carpet. The kind we carry.
Our shadows are the parts of us that live in the background. The beliefs we formed early in life that we never stopped to question. The fears we’ve pushed down because there was always something more urgent to deal with. The patterns we repeat without realising, wondering why we keep ending up in the same place.
They aren’t bad. They aren’t something to be ashamed of. They are simply the parts of us that haven’t been seen yet.
And in business? They are everywhere.
How your shadows show up in your business
You might not call it shadow work. You might just call it feeling stuck.
But if any of these sound familiar, your shadows are likely playing a bigger role than you realise.
You undercharge, even when you know your work is worth more. Because somewhere underneath the pricing conversation is a belief that people won’t pay, that you’re not quite credible enough, that you need to earn your place first.
You stay perpetually busy, moving from task to task without ever feeling like you’re actually moving forward. Busyness can be a beautiful distraction from the fear that if you slow down, you’ll have to face whether this is actually working.
You say yes when every part of you wants to say no. Because somewhere along the way you learned that your needs come last, that being helpful is how you stay safe, that boundaries make you difficult.
You shrink your goals before anyone else gets the chance to. You make them smaller, more reasonable, more palatable, because if you don’t say them out loud, no one can tell you they’re too big.
None of this is a strategy problem. None of this is a time problem. It’s a shadow problem.
What shadow work actually is
I want to be honest with you here, because shadow work can sound heavy. Like you need to unravel your entire childhood before you’re allowed to sign a client.
That’s not what I’m talking about.
Shadow work, in the way I work with my clients, is simply about awareness. It’s about creating enough space and safety to look at what’s actually going on underneath the surface. To notice the pattern. To name the belief. To gently ask, is this actually true?
That’s it. That’s where the shift begins.
You don’t need to have it all figured out. You don’t need years of therapy before you’re allowed to grow your business. You just need someone to help you see what you can’t see on your own, because that’s the nature of shadows. They exist just outside your line of sight.
When you can see it, everything changes
My clients don’t just get clearer on their strategy inside the Life Aligned Business® Mastermind. They get clearer on themselves.
And that clarity changes everything. How they show up. How they price. How they talk about their work. How they handle the slow months. How they feel at the end of a working day.
When you stop working against yourself, building your business stops feeling like such a fight.
Ready to look at your shadows?
If something in this post landed for you, that’s not a coincidence. That’s awareness. And awareness is always the first step.
Inside the Life Aligned Business® Mastermind we do this work together. The mindset, the patterns, the strategy, the structure. All of it, in a space that’s supportive, honest, and designed around your real life.
If you’re ready to stop letting your shadows run the show, I’d love to have you inside.
