Nancy: The golden key that is going to create the most resonance between you and your client, you and your reader, is looking at the aspects of your own story that you at one time, and you might still feel that you need to hide, feel embarrassed by, feel guilt around, or even shame. Healing those elements of your own story is exactly what will connect you most with a potential client and a potential reader.
Nancy: Welcome to the Nancy Levin Show. I’m Nancy Levin, Founder of Levin Life Coach Academy, best-selling author, master coach, and your host. I help overachieving people pleasers set boundaries that stick and own self-worth, anchored in empowered action, so you can feel free. Plus, if you’re an aspiring or current coach, you are in the right place. Join me each week for coaching and compelling conversations designed to support you in the spotlight, as you take center stage of your own life. Let’s dive in.
Welcome back to the Nancy Levin Show. I have just spent the past several days as part of Hay House’s book Writer’s Boot Camp virtual event. And I had the great honor of speaking and sharing my own story of how I brought my own story out of the shadow and into the light. And I had the opportunity to meet so many aspiring authors and coach around how to best do shadow work as an aspiring author in service of building your platform, creating an audience for your book, and ultimately standing center stage and delivering your message free of any fear.
So one of the things I did is I actually gave away a free gift to everyone who joined us in the bootcamp, and I wanna make it available to you as well. I know that you may very well be working on a book or working on a signature talk or coaching or working in some way where you have to integrate your story and there still might be a little friction there. There still might be a little stuckness around sharing yourself authentically.
So I have a brand new free guide for you called Shadow Work for Aspiring Authors. And really it is for anyone who wants to bring your story out of the shadow. And you can grab it for free at nancylevin.com/write W-R-I-T-E. So again, nancylevin.com/write allows you to download my shadow work for aspiring authors to bring your story out of the shadow for FREE.
And the reason I made this is there is such power in shadow work, especially for those of us who are putting ourselves out in the public eye. One of the things I teach often inside of Levin Life Coach Academy is our special sauce as coaches, as authors, as people who are sharing our message, is doubling down on our own history and our own experience.
And the golden key that is going to create the most resonance between you and your client, you and your reader, is looking at the aspects of your own story that you at one time, and you might still feel that you need to hide, feel embarrassed by, feel guilt around, or even shame. Healing those elements of your own story is exactly what will connect you most with a potential client and a potential reader.
And this guide that I’ve created is really designed to help you harness the power of shadow work, to bring depth, authenticity, and transformative power to your writing, to your coaching, to your message. And you know, often our deepest fears and greatest desires lie in our shadow – those parts of ourselves that we keep hidden and yet in the shadow is our most compelling story.
So this guide that I’ve crafted for you is designed to help you uncover your own hidden treasures, allowing your own true voice to shine through.
Nancy: Hi, it’s Nancy interrupting my own show. I’ve got a lot of exciting things coming up in 2024, including a brand new book plus a group coaching opportunity, unlike anything else I have ever offered before. To make sure you are in the know, pop on over to my website now and sign up for my free weekly newsletter at nancylevin.com/newsletter so you don’t miss a thing. Okay, back to the show.
Nancy: So shadow work, very simply, if you haven’t heard me talk about it, I’ve, you can go back and check out a few of the previous episodes, but I’ll share really quickly. Shadow work involves exploring the parts of ourselves that we have denied, repressed or deemed unacceptable. Our shadows hold the essence of our untold stories, the stories that we’re afraid to tell. And we’re not only just afraid to tell them to others, we are afraid to tell them to ourselves.
And I know this well when I began writing Jump… and Your Life Will Appear, I had not yet done the depth of inner shadow work that I needed to in order to write that book and put it out in the world. There were elements of my own shadow, of my own story, that I had to get in right relationship with, that I had to get in alignment with. Because whatever external judgment we are fearing, the truth is we are already judging ourselves for that very thing. So I needed to clean up inside of myself any shame I felt about my own story, and instead see my story as my strength, see my story as the very thing that was going to draw in readers, clients, and my audience.
And by engaging in shadow work, you will tap into a wellspring of emotions, experiences that will resonate with you and your authenticity and your own truth. So this exploration not only enriches your writing, but it also leads to your own growth and transformation.
So a lot of this is about really embracing your own life story, identifying your shadows, learning how to write from your whole self, transforming your own shadows into insight. And again, in this free guide at nancylevin.com/write, W-R-I-T-E, I will share with you my story of how shadow work impacted my writing and how my own shadow needed to be uncovered and brought into the light before I could share.
So this is a transformative journey. This is a deepening of your own self-discovery. And in this guide I’m offering you several prompts that you can begin to use on your journey to find your own true voice so that you can stand center stage and stand firmly in your truth and know that the more personal, the more universal.
And one of the things I heard all throughout the past week in the event and I hear often is, who am I to write a book or who am I to get on stage and share my story? And the question I always respond with is, tell me who are you to write that book or to share your story? Flip it instead of who am I? Ask yourself, who am I? And write from there.
So in this guide, I’m sharing so many different ways that you can get inside of yourself in the process of your own internal exploration here, your excavation of the parts of yourself you’ve been hiding so you can bring them to light. And ultimately you get to fuse and merge your self-discovery with your writing. So you’re integrating who you are with what the message is that you are bringing to the world.
So there are ways to incorporate your own personal shadows into your story. Use life lessons as key themes and maintain your own authentic voice. Because ultimately, as you explore your own shadows, you want to ensure that your unique voice and perspective remain at the heart of your own narrative. The authenticity is what’s going to connect you with readers.
And here’s the thing, we have all experienced that desire to hide the part of ourselves. We think if, if they knew this about me, they wouldn’t love me anymore. But what if I told you that the thing you’re most afraid to share is what will have us love you the most? This is true. I have experienced it firsthand, and I have seen it time and time again in my clients and my students. Whatever it is you are afraid of revealing the most is what will connect us to you the quickest.
So grab your free guide, nancy levin.com/write W-R-I-T-E, and get writing and I’ll see you back here next time.
Thanks so much for joining me today. I invite you to head on over to nancylevin.com to check out all the goodies I have there for you. And if you’ve enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, leave a rating and a review. I’ll meet you back here next week.