9 Ways To Not Feel Like a Fraud
We see all of the beauty and success on Instagram and Facebook and we assume that everyone always has their shit together and is just killing it. In this work (i.e. coaching, healing, channeling, facilitating), you will, again and again, hit up against various ways to feel like a fraud and a fake. And in the world of healing and coaching: shit goes wrong. We over-invest, clients drop out of programs, things fail, we get sick, we need to continually keep adding more clients to our programs and private sessions, etc., etc.
What Makes us Feel Like a ‘Fraud’?
Just before and after big pushes and expansions (big retreats, larger programs, charging more, doing something new), we often rubberband back into a familiar form of despair and the feeling that we might not do so good again, or people didn’t really get that much from it, or we aren’t really qualified or good enough to do this new thing.
Strangers criticize us on the internet when we put out our most heartfelt posts and blogs. There are so many ways that we can fall, once again, into this place of “not good enough, I’m a fraud, I’m a failure.” It is these moments when we think we could just quit it all and go to work in a cat cafe pouring lattes for kittens.
So how do we avoid giving up?
Every Healer Needs to Know These 9 Simple Truths:
1. You have to have that one person. One person that you can call and who will listen to you cry and not judge you because you are supposed to have all of your shit together. Someone who will remind you of who you are, your talent, your mission, and your heart. They see you and know you and are able to do for you what you are often doing for others.
2. Know that everyone goes through this. You aren’t alone. Everyone fails. Everyone has a hard time with money. Often those who seem so put together from the outside are in just as much of a struggle as anyone else. Healers and others focused on service, are often burdened with financial struggles -sometimes even more than other entrepreneurs.
3. Keep in mind that you are actively swimming upstream. You are trying help raise the consciousness of the planet, guide people through healing themselves, expanding their awareness and living more free, joy-filled and heart-centered lives. All in a global structure which does not support these things. Schools, the financial systems, food, work and even relationships are all designed to keep people small, under control and barely getting by to fuel industries of pharmaceuticals, alcohol, porn, and shopping. Even not doing much you are still swimming upstream and that can be exhausting in and of itself.
4. Honor that you are at the same time working on yourself. You are expanding, growing, healing, learning and mastering yourself. This can be uplifting but can also send us into healing crisis, overwhelm and sudden realizations that big things have got to change – fast. New gifts and abilities are coming online and there is more need for time integrating spiritual practices and experiences.
5. Realize that you are grounding Spirit to Earth. You are actively asking spiritual concepts and awareness to come through you to Earth and be made manifest in a way that people can understand, purchase, take in and integrate. Sometimes these messages are just known as feeling states that must be translated into human language. Sometimes they are elaborate practices, rituals and modalities that must then be tested, practiced and taken through a process of the best ways to share and teach them to others. This is what it means to truly be a spiritual warrior, to not be only in the upper realms but grounding it back down into the tangible form.
6. Accept that you are possibly doing something completely new. It’s pretty hard to get a certification in a channeled work that you are bringing through. It is hard to stand up and say with conviction, “This is right” when it hasn’t come from a master teacher, mentor or lineage. You are a change maker and a thought leader who is bringing new energies and ways of doing things to the planet and you have to figure out not only how to bring them, but how to explain why they are important, what people will get for them, and why they should invest. These are probably things people aren’t even aware they are in need of, so add another level of explanation to the masses beyond just doing the work.
7. Know that you are actively creating. Creation takes energy. Not resting and honoring the ebb and flow of creative process can leave you feeling down when things seem to dry up for a spell so that you can go inward, work on yourself, rest or play in the human world.
8. See yourself as the Alchemist. You are doing Alchemy, which means this is a process of transformation. And, not all phases are comfortable or fun. Sometimes you get stuck, sometimes things take longer than you would like. You are learning the processes as you are going along. Your teachings and wisdom often come from your own learned experiences, and so it requires going into the underworld of fear, doubt, shame, and failure in order to properly teach or facilitate.
9. Give yourself a ton of credit for running a business in the midst of all of this stuff! Meaning: bills, taxes, bookkeeping, managing a team, marketing, planning, doing, doing, doing. Often these tasks are not in your zone of genius in order to make a living at the only thing that you could possibly do.
Because, let’s face it, the minute you start thinking about working in the cat cafe, you smile, think, “Yes! That would be amazing!” and then come back to center and admit that you were designed to bring this very specific special medicine and contribution to the planet, so you jump back in and keep on swimming.
You are amazing! Keep on swimming!
Inspired by the latest Light Warrior group call. Join us at the next retreat!
Special thanks to Michelle Hawk for always being the one I call when this is coming up for me.