The Emotional Alchemy Podcast
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The Emotional Alchemy Podcast
145. Balancing Feminine and Masculine Energies in Entrepreneurship with Feminine Energy Business Coach Natalia Gorcheva
Join me and Feminine Energy Business Coach Natalia Gorcheva as we dissect the delicate dance of masculine and feminine energies in the entrepreneurial world. We're tearing down the veil on the exploitation of feminine energy, especially within online coaching, and advocating for an authentic fusion of both forces in our professional undertakings. Our personal anecdotes shine a light on the invisible struggles behind the glamorous façade of social media success, urging listeners to embrace both robust strategies and a grounded presence for a truly successful business journey.
This episode is a treasure trove for entrepreneurs seeking to navigate the choppy waters of self-development and business growth. Natalia and I share our transitions from structured environments to the world of coaching and embracing our own feminine qualities as strengths. We puncture the myths of easy success and the deceptive appeal of 'quick-fix' strategies, offering instead a perspective of entrepreneurship as a unique, ever-evolving process. We encourage listeners to set actionable intentions in their businesses and stress the importance of adaptability and presence.
Wrapping up this enlightening discussion, we explore the significance of boundaries and the fine line between coaching and therapy. The episode emphasizes empowering clients to harness their intuition while balancing the 'feminine' aspects of nervous system regulation with 'masculine' business acumen.
Natalia Gorcheva is an intuitive and heart-centred woman driven by a mission to help spiritual entrepreneurs thrive in their heart-centred businesses through embodiment and devotion. She helps female business owners heal and balance feminine and masculine energies so they can show up in their businesses with trust and commitment to their soul’s purpose. She believes that entrepreneurship inherently supports our feminine nature and that women are now called to model new, conscious, embodied leadership, success, and wealth.
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Kat HoSoo Lee is an Emotional Alchemy Coach, Spiritual Business Mentor and host of The Emotional Alchemy Podcast.
She loves playing in the space where science and spirituality converge because this is where we get to experience emotional alchemy. In her work, she educates space-holders about somatic physiology and environmental biology so they can deepen their practices of listening and presence which ultimately helps them expand their capacity to hold space for others.
As a Spiritual Business Mentor, she guides soulful entrepreneurs to approach their business as a spiritual practice. The work bridges the emotional landscape with practical tools which allow them to cultivate businesses that are rooted in conscious values, relational marketing and purposeful service.
This podcast is made possible with sound production by Andre Lagace.
Hello, my friends, and welcome to the Emotional Alchemy podcast. I have got my guest, natalia Gorcheva, here with me and I am excited because we're going to do an episode that's about busting myths, and those always end up a little bit spicy and exciting always end up a little bit spicy and exciting. And, specifically, we're going to bust some myths about how feminine business is marketed these days and we're going to share some of our own experiences and thoughts and, in particular, I'm really excited to hear about, like, how we can balance, uh, masculine and feminine energy. For those of us who are, who have been in my community for a little while, you know that I talk about these energies in terms of like, yin and yang, um.
Speaker 1:Natalia uses the vocabulary of feminine and masculine, um. I always like to sort of preface these conversations by saying like, hey, like, we have both feminine, masculine energies within us, and so we have access to both sides and we also have access to, like, the manipulation and mutation of both sides, and I think that that's like, where we're going to go is like, what is the manipulation, mutation of both of these sides? Look like, um, what is the balance versions of these energies? Look like and um, and just so you know like I will be flowing with the conversation and um sort of using these terms interchangeably yin and yang, and feminine and masculine, and so um fill in the blank with whatever terms make the most sense and feel the most aligned for you.
Speaker 2:So welcome Natalia. Hi everyone, hi Kat, thank you so much for having me today, and I'm really excited for this conversation as well. It does feel already spicy. I've had these conversations before and I must say when I sat down with you it feels extra spicy, so let's get into it yeah, I love when people bring the spice.
Speaker 1:I I'm, you know. I don't like it when people censor themselves or feel like they can't say exactly what it is that they're wanting to say and so like full space to run around and say what needs to be said in this space here. So I'd love to first get into what your observations are when it comes to the exploitation of feminine energy in business, what we're seeing out in the online coaching world in particular, and I think that's a good, really like starting place for us to get into this work 100%, I think, starting with the exploitation.
Speaker 2:I've been speaking about this for a while in my circles, how the way we market feminine energy, coaching, business relationships, feels so much like a product to me, where and it's not only my experience I see it also from many women who have gone through the feminine energy world, the initial stages of it, and they come out feeling like they just received another thing to say another thing, to do another thing, to learn. In my understanding of it, in my embodiment of it, I feel that it goes completely against what the feminine energy teachings is about, because feminine energy is a space of being, is an expression of our being, of who we are. I like to always explain it. As you said, all of us have both right. We're masculine, feminine, yin and yang, um, and I always like to explain it that the masculine energy is the one that faces outwards, right, so, away from my body, into the world, is the thing that bridges the space between me and other people, my clients, my business, etc. So it includes marketing in in the business context, it includes marketing content how I sell, what offers I'm providing, how I'm holding space for my clients. It's the bridge right.
Speaker 2:Well, it's the feminine is everything that goes within that faces inwards. It's who I am. Who is the person that is doing all these things into the outer world. That's how I look at it. So when I hear women who come to me and say it's just, you know, I can't be frolicking around in the garden, I just don't have the time, I just don't have the mental space, it stresses me out that I have to do. You know now add hours of self-care to my routine where I can hardly find time to hang out with my kids or with my partner or actually do what I want to be doing. Then it just feels like we're adding another product, it just feels like we're adding a chore. And that's not supposed to be like this, because it's supposed to be about shifting the space, where we're coming from. It's supposed to be about shifting the person who's doing all these things.
Speaker 1:Otherwise, you can spend hours on self-care and baths and champagnes and stuff like this and you will be nowhere near feminine energy, closer to burnout I mean, I think that what I'm hearing is the manipulation of feminine energy, but putting them like, almost like putting a mask of feminine energy into like masculine energy, so like putting the mask of yin energy onto yang energy. It's like, if you actually dig underneath the surface of all these self-care routines we're supposed to be doing for ourselves, it's actually coming from a very young sort of outward facing sort of a way. I've also seen in this space where it almost seems like there's this new crop of coaches that are about like manifestation and like transformation, and it's it feels disingenuous because it almost feels like a like we've swung too far into the opposite end of like. If I just sit and journal about this, or if I just, you know, feel really relaxed about this, if I am in complete regulation about this, then you know the clients are going to come pouring in, or you know the money is going to come pouring in, or the baby is going to land, or like name, whatever it is that we're trying to do, name, whatever it is that we're trying to do.
Speaker 1:Um, and I think that this is where it gets really interesting for me. Is it needs to be this like balance? Yeah, and so for me, like when I talk about yin and yang energy, I talk about in terms of like. The yin is what sets the intention and then the yang is what creates the aligned action. And it's in the marriage of both where we're able to come to a place where you know the manifestation or the transformations do happen, but it can't just come from a place where it's solely one energy or the other Like. We can't manifest from a pure yin state and we can't manifest from a pure yang state either, because we lose track of what the intentions were 100%.
Speaker 2:And let me tell you, I have tried really, really hard to manifest success in my business purely from feminine energy.
Speaker 2:I was showing up online, treating Instagram basically like my dear diary entry.
Speaker 2:I was fully speaking from my heart, preaching what I thought everybody should now embrace in their life and what you said also wanting to be so relaxed about everything, but without the inner work, right without the embodiment, and without actually doing taking the action to create relaxing environment for ourselves, it just doesn't make freaking sense, right?
Speaker 2:It's?
Speaker 2:I know and I truly speak from my own experience that probably the time when I was in this extreme feminine expression where I just thought that journaling is the answer to all my problems and that my clients will manifest out of nowhere, I was probably the most depressed and unhappy with my business.
Speaker 2:And unhappy with my business, I just was lacking direction, and it was only until I came to the realization that there has to be this balance, there has to be communication between who I am and what I'm bringing into the world. Right, I think for me, finally, the penny dropped when I realized that my business was not about me, and I feel that so many women I work with come to me with this attitude of taking everything so personally in the business, and I really think it comes from us misunderstanding this feminine expression, misunderstanding that the problems of our business problems or results of our business make something mean about me and about my worth. And trying to work through strategic issues, trying to work through content issues or sales with inner work it's just like applying wrong tools in the wrong place.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that our work is very similar in that like for me, when I have people come, it's typically after they've tried a lot of these strategies already, so I tend to have folks who are a little bit more young driven just generally. I know that that's the space that I used to live my life and so I think that there's a bit of relatability and and resonance there, and so when folks show up in my space, it's like I've taken those courses, I have downloaded those email templates, I have tried to write a sales page based on this person's framework, and there's something about it that feels either disingenuous or like they get frozen and stuck, and so that, I think, is the perfect time to do what I call like the yin work. Right, like you go back in and you think about the values that your business like sits on, and just even thinking about just the values of it helps decenter you as the like human being at the center of all of this and brings it back into how it is that you support your clients. This is also the place where I love doing inner child work and somatic work with folks, because, like if there's like a little kid in there who had to survive by being small, by not taking up space. And then you're saying, hey, like marketing, inherently you have to be more outward and you have to take up a little bit more space, little bit more space.
Speaker 1:That little kid feels really scared and upset and actually might feel like like just terrified about that. And so, like, to me it's, it's. It's not just about hey, like we have to implement these strategies, it's like no, we have to actually go into that space, go into those deep caverns where we might have hidden some fears and some, you know, insecurities, and help those parts feel safe again. And then, like running a business, like the strategy part is actually easy. You know it's, it's the, the tools we feel like we can't use because we're not coming to it from a place of intentionality. And that's where I think people get really burnt out on business strategy is because there's 10,000 different things that you could do differently. And so how do you know what to choose for yourself if you aren't in alignment and you aren't feeling rooted and grounded in your own sort of sense of values and self? Um?
Speaker 2:and so, yeah, I think that that's, that's kind of the intersectionality of our work together totally and I think you bring an important piece of how business is or business coaching is sold these days, and especially the feminine energy, business coaching.
Speaker 2:Because, I've experienced spaces where I was literally a baby business owner, with zero clients, zero strategy, zero understanding of what it actually takes to run a business, and I have joined business masterminds led by feminine energy coaches who taught me nothing about strategy, about the foundations that I need as a business owner to create myself, you know, sustainable income and sustainable environment for my business and, at the same time, being told you know, or just relax and manifest the money that you need for the next month's payment or something like this, like the, or something like this like the.
Speaker 2:That's what I meant with the exploitation of the feminine that for me. I came, I came from a non-profit background. I was working as a fundraiser for our charities in london and I was organizing loads of events, project managing, managing, et cetera, and I came from this very quote unquote masculine environment for myself. So after and it's been already a few years after I started my feminine energy work in terms of relationships and in terms of inner healing. So once I found out that I can actually apply all of this that I was already doing in my life to business, I was completely charmed by it.
Speaker 2:I was like, yeah, 100%, I manifested a husband. I can manifest clients, right, it's so easy. And no one well, no one ever tells you that if you're doing this work in isolation, it sounds great and beautiful, right. It's like doing the relationship healing before you're actually in a relationship, right? Or doing the feminine energy business before you actually run business. And in my understanding now and in my view, the business is actually a masculine function in our life the same like money, the same as anything that again bridges that gap between us and the outside world.
Speaker 2:So, understanding that the masculine, like our business, like our partner, needs something different from us than just journaling, than just self-care, than walks in the garden all day, was what really shifted for me Once I started looking at it. Okay, how do I become a better partner? Instead of making everything about myself, instead of trying to manifest things out of the blue, how do I actually apply these masculine functions that are already available and make them work for me, make them carry my energy, make them carry my message to the right people?
Speaker 1:so what you're bringing up for me is another myth that I want to bust, um, which is especially in this like era of social media. It seems like, hey, you just figure out how to coach and then you put your shingle up on Instagram and then all of a sudden, boom, you've got clients. And I really, really want to bust that myth, because business is hard, like running a business that is soul aligned, that is rooted in the medicine of your life, like I really think about, you know, everything that I teach as being um, little little nuggets of of wisdom that I really want to share with the world. Um, this shit is hard and I'm really Um, this shit is hard and I'm really, really tired of this, this myth that's out there of you know, just download my you know sales call template and you're going to be making 10 K months in no time. Like that's not how this works.
Speaker 1:Um, and for anybody who's been out there and kind of been burnt by this whole system, like I'm so sorry, uh, that that has happened to you, because I've seen it happen over and over and over again where people are like, why does so-and-so make it look so easy? It's because they're not actually showing what's underneath the surface of what it means to run their business. What's underneath?
Speaker 1:the surface of what it means to run their business. And I say this with a lot of love for the hard parts. I think business is supposed to be hard, otherwise we'd all be solopreneurs out there doing our life's work. It's really hard work to first of all say I want to do something different. You know the fact that you know I have so many clients who are leaving their systematized jobs, like I have so many therapists and teachers this year for some reason who are leaving, leaving their comfy, cozy worlds of these systems and saying, hey, like I want to do something different. Like that in and of itself is fucking hard. So like let's stop glossing over the hard parts and sharing some of these hard parts, because I think that you know when we can get real about it. A it gives people a real sense of what it takes to run a business, and then they're not disillusioned by the fact that it's hard. And it's hard on like both the like yin and the yang. And it's hard on like both the like yin and the yang. Like it's hard to do the inner work and it's hard to like be consistent with the strategy in the business systems. And so like, both sides are difficult and you know, when it comes to like what you were just sharing about, like oh, I was able to, you know, bring in my feminine energy and then manifest my husband, and it was so easy. And now, look, I should be able to do it with my business.
Speaker 1:I remember my husband telling me this, actually before we met is he like was like, hey, I want a partner who is outdoorsy and I want a partner who, like, cares about the same things that I care about, and he sort of like listed out all these things that he really wanted in a partner. And then he like looked at his life and was like I'm working so much, like he was working in a nightclub and just spent so much time at work. And I'm not eating healthy, I'm smoking cigarettes, I am doing all these things that like if I met that person that like partner that I'm like sort of envisioning for myself, would they even want to be my partner. And so he had to do like that yin yang work that we're just talking about, of like saying I want to hold this intention of that kind of partner, saying I want to hold this intention of that kind of partner and I also need to put in some of my young effort, my aligned actions to make that happen. And so, like it's both right, like, whether we're talking about relationships or whether we're talking about business, we have to hold that intentionality and we have to take those aligned actions. And so he quit smoking, he picked up some of these hobbies that he's always talked about wanting to do, and so then, when we met, all I had to do was say yes. It was so easy to say yes to him.
Speaker 1:And so, when we diminish the hard work of what it takes to embody a good partner, or what it takes to embody a spiritual entrepreneur, or what it takes to embody a ethical coach, like yeah, we just see the very to be top of that iceberg and there's this like entire world landscape underneath.
Speaker 1:And I want us to like really understand and that's the myth that I want to bust here is that, like you know, don't fall for the like facade and the like thing that people show you at the very top.
Speaker 1:You know, I try really hard in my business and on my platforms to be like shit is really hard, like you know, and not coming from a place of like please save me or please help me, it's just like I want us all to be able to relate in community about how difficult this stuff is, and I think that that is such an important part of this work is actually building community around it, because, like you were saying earlier, you know when you're doing this stuff in isolation, it it makes it so that it feels like you're the only person who has ever experienced this in this entire like um, you know however many years that businesses have been being run. It makes you feel like there's something wrong with you, like there's something broken about you and Like there's something broken about you, and that is absolutely not true, business is hard, absolutely 100%.
Speaker 2:And yeah, business is hard, like you need to, I don't know. I graduated with a certain degree, with a certain set of skills, and I applied that and somebody told me what were my tasks and what were my deadlines and, like I get, I got proper instruction, even when I was running new projects. I basically continued repeating the job that I was doing for 10 plus years, right, and when you step into entrepreneurship all of the sudden, you have to know what are your deadlines and you have to be the one that meets those deadlines and all of this you need to learn a whole lot.
Speaker 2:And I really don't think, as you said, I really don't think all of us have to be entrepreneurs, right? And also I think this idea that it's so easy, first of all, as you alluded to it leads to such level of like self gaslighting with why is it this? Why is this not working? Why am I the only one in this mastermind that is just falling behind? Because it's supposed to be as easy as journaling in the morning and having a midday bath.
Speaker 1:And it's just BS.
Speaker 2:It's just, that's not the reality of what business actually needs. And again, coming back, my reflection. That happened one and a half years ago, when I finally realized that business is not about me, it's about the people I serve. It's about the people that the lives will be transformed by working with me and looking at what do they need from me. Working with me and looking at what do they need from me, how do I, where do I need to show up so that I connect with them? And this is for me when this balance of yin and yang came into realization, because, on the one hand, as you say, it's not easy to be consistent with our strategy, especially when it feels like nothing is working and we see things in this very dualistic way in our business. And then doing the work, the inner work that actually supports us, to become the person that is consistent, that trusts in this unknown terrain that we navigate day to day and then deals with the judgment, questions etc. From our environments.
Speaker 2:Right, it's, it's not easy and it's a beautiful story you shared about your husband, because, yeah, you can easily kind of throw it out and say, oh, I just manifested my husband and it was so easy. In my case, I knew my husband for 10 years before we got married. We even were flatmates at certain points. We even were flatmates at certain points, and I think this story also just shows that there has to be a certain level of growth and development that has to happen before you're ready to enter that next commitment.
Speaker 2:And simply saying that work on your energy and things will start falling into your lap just doesn't work. If you just sit at home and not show up um for the people that you want to meet right, or you show up in the wrong places, and I'm speaking both romantically and business. In the business context, you have to be the person that is out there, especially when you're an entrepreneur to wave your flag and say this is me.
Speaker 2:and yes, I mean right now. The entry level to business is low and I think that's absolutely fantastic because highly likely I would not have started the business I have right now if it wasn't for the fact that, on the one hand, it is easy to establish a business online. But I also know that I wouldn't have stuck around for four plus years if it wasn't for the work, for the inner work that was in there for me that kept me going that. You know, meeting my own um, meeting my own edge and exploring that and going beyond that, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:I didn't realize that this is just going to be like an airing out of the like online coaching industry today. But as you were talking, I had another sort of myth that I want to bust here, because I feel like there's this idea that like, oh, if you just download somebody's strategy or download somebody's formula, it's going to bring in all these followers or whatever it is that they're promising. I've been running this business for four years, but I've been running businesses since 2007. And let me tell you, every single time I launch, it is so different. It's different because I'm different. It's different because the social media landscape is changing. It's different because tools get updated. It's different because my niche or the way that I talk about things might be a little bit different. It's different because what I said a year ago I might want to amend a little bit because I've done some growth and some learning.
Speaker 1:Every single launch is fucking different, and so if it is different for me in this one business, I really do not understand how somebody can say, oh, just take my template. Here is the blueprint to my you know, $500,000 launch. Or here is the template for my whatever it is that they're promising. Like I really do not understand how you can just overlay that onto your own business and expect the same results. You know, to me, when I see uh sort of those catchy things out there, of course it like piques a little bit of interest in me because it's like, yeah, I want this launch to go well Right, and like I have never seen it work, like both in myself and in my clients, and so like I think this is a moment where I'm just kind of like buyer beware.
Speaker 1:If somebody is promising the blueprint is going to be the answer, or the template is going to be the answer, or that email strategy is going to be the answer, the answer is actually fully within yourself. It's going to look a little bit different each time, and I used to sort of be upset every time it was different, like I really wish that I could just send out the same email every single time I launch and that way it like reduces my work, my young work, a little bit. But that's not how it works. That's not how relationships work. If you were to just like rinse and repeat conversations with your friends, you know you're not actually fully present to the person that's sitting in front of you, you're not fully present to who you are, and so these marketing strategies that tell you that, oh, you can just feel so frustrating to me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, where do I start? There's like points on points on points here. I literally just posted a um post about it today, because one thing is that every launch is different. It's also that on a simple human level, we are different. I wrote that today about a client who came to me and she felt completely burnt out with social media. She absolutely hated showing up and before working with me, she went to a social media boot camp. That was basically just real after real and you have to post and more stories and more engagement like the just as I speak about it. I want to throw up a little bit and you know, when we sat down and talked about okay, like, why do you hate it so much? What is the actual reason? It was just bringing up all the pain from her childhood that she experienced when she was being ridiculed every time she showed up as herself.
Speaker 2:she showed up as herself every time she expressed opinion, every time she expressed who she was truly in her inner state. Right, yeah, and one thing is download my template and it's going to work. That's like it's just not going to work because we are all different. Whatever, this person is selling their template right, and this is why it's working for them. What?
Speaker 2:you're selling is also completely different in nature, and every time I catch myself on this, when I'm like listening to someone's masterclass or I, you know, look for the marketing tips masterclass, or I, you know, look for the marketing tips and then it's it, just after a couple of weeks it just feels funny to me in my business, right it something feels completely off and I'm like, holy shit, I did this again.
Speaker 2:I again, let someone else influence what I was doing because, as you say, we're just evolving, and and every time I evolve, every time I feel like I need to upgrade my offer. I feel like maybe there's a part of me that goes out there and says maybe there's something I need to learn here, rather than completely lean into the experience that I have already developed. And this is also where I feel bringing this yin and yang is so important, because even on this.
Speaker 2:When we look at our physiology and biology, the feminine gives once she's received something.
Speaker 2:So this is I'm trying to practice what I preach that every time I receive this information that this is what's going to sell, this is what's going to attract my clients, I really give myself the time to sit with this and digest it in my own right and maybe play with it and see if it's really working for me.
Speaker 2:But I'm also encouraging everyone to be honest with themselves, with their coaches, with the people who sold them the template, saying this is not what feels right for me Because, again, if we don't do this, then we're just gaslighting ourselves, thinking this is not working and I'm the only one that is failing at it, but it's simply because we're doing something that is out of alignment, out of alignment with our body, out of alignment with our values, right, yeah. And this coming back to ourselves, coming back to our core, coming back to what we truly value in business and what we want to share, I think for me, has been, apart from navigating the strategy and really learning what it takes to run a business, yeah, and how to be a CEO, not just a solo entrepreneur, yeah, yeah, that's a huge piece of work to be on the lookout of. Am I making this decision from the three year old Natalia?
Speaker 2:who wants to prove something to someone or am I? Making this decision because this is the best decision for my clients, for my business and for me in the long run yeah, and that's a very feminine trait is to like look at the whole community, not just yourself, you know, yeah um and discernment also. This is also, you know, speaking of finding husbands and meeting people.
Speaker 2:Discernment is also what brought me, in the end, to my husband and discernment is also what I really rigorously want to apply in my business understanding, because we can add so much on top of our business and make it really complicated yeah and it's hard to run a business.
Speaker 2:We don't have to make it any more complicated, right, yeah, and being discerning and allowing our nervous system, allowing our body to communicate with us about where we fear that we're pushing too much, where we feel that we're overloading ourselves, and finding the balance and finding rootedness in that space, I think, shifts a lot.
Speaker 2:Because I remember my first kind of good sales spree, let's say, when I got my first clients and it really felt like, okay, this is now working. It wasn't just a one-off purchase from a friend. I remember that I received, you know, objections. Every time when you're having and I don't know if I want to call them objections, but for the lack of better word, I'm just going to continue using that and if I was making decision, what is the best or like what is comfortable, I would probably just say, okay, next time, see you later, you know, and just like go back and curl up in my husband's lap and say I got rejected again you know yeah I need to manifest more, yeah, again, three-year-old natalia there, exactly, yeah, and the shift to actually step into, fully embodied in both masculine and feminine energies in me, where I can discern whether this is a good decision and if it's true, for me, right, if it's true in its core, and right to do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and also the masculine space holding for the client and coaching them to make the decision that is right for them, regardless whether it's working for me or not. That was the key that just opened the door because, then it just at least for me, then it just got really much easier to feel like I can actually do this yeah yeah.
Speaker 1:I think that something that feels really important to name there is like both sides of our masculine and feminine energies need to show up on on any sort of interaction that you have with a client, whether it is through your content marketing or through your newsletter or like actually on a sales or a connection call.
Speaker 1:And you know, I think, that it's so easy to revert back to what our survival strategy is in the face of what feels really threatening. So I'm hearing, you know, in your story there's this fear of rejection and the easy thing would have been like to just go back into three-year-old Natalia and say like, okay, I don't actually want that client anyway. Into 3yo Natalia and say like, okay, I don't actually want that client anyway. But like the wise part of you which embodies both sides right, it embodies the sides of the feminine, which is saying like, hey, what is ethical for what? How is the most ethical way I can show up in this call? You know also what is the intention that I want to hold, which is like I really want to find people who are really aligned for me and I also want to serve this person. But if their alignment is not there, then I'm also going to allow that door to be open so they can step outside. And then the masculine it sounds like on this particular call, like example, I think that you can hold space in a very feminine way and also in a very masculine way, and it sounds like on this particular call like example, I think that you can hold space in a very feminine way and also in a very masculine way, and it sounds like in this particular example, you were able to hold space in a masculine way, which is like about holding and allowing for the feelings to be there and allowing for that space and that capacity to be there for that person so that they feel safe enough to make those decisions of yes or no based on what feels good and in alignment for them. And I think that that is such an important piece.
Speaker 1:That doesn't get taught in business is the way that I was taught in business. I've taken two sort of like longer, longer term containers and in both of them they talk about figure out how to address objections before they come up, so that you have a plan and a strategy for how to get that person to say yes to you. There's not a conversation about well, what if I'm not actually the right person for that, that client. You know what if actually I know somebody in my community who would be a better fit for this person? Or what if I have this conversation with this person and I really feel that you know it's outside of my scope as a coach. Like like that's something that feels really important to name too, is like, as coaches, we are not meant to serve every single problem that's out there.
Speaker 1:Like I have a very, very clear line of discernment around what is a coaching um thing, and then who needs to refer, who needs to be referred out to a therapist and who needs that like that level of, um, emotional support and care that a therapist is going to provide that I'm not going to be able to provide, and oftentimes that comes with.
Speaker 1:Is this person going to be served with a diagnosis? Is this person feel like a threat to themselves or to somebody else? And I think it's so important to understand those boundaries as coaches, because the intersectionality of therapy and coaching is so like overlapped. If we don't have that felt sense within ourselves and that embodiment within ourselves to hold those boundaries, then we can actually end up doing a lot more harm than good and I don't think that anybody comes into this work thinking like, oh, I actually hurt people, but we can actually hurt people, right. Like if we are saying that we can transform and help people transform, like we can transform them to a place where it's actually not helpful for them, and so like we need to understand the power dynamics that are at play here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a really important part of the discernment piece is, like, if you have a coach who is saying, just do the thing that I did, just do what I say, that's Like to me that is a massively huge red flag. You know, if you are looking for a coach right now, look for somebody who asks these questions around hey, like, how can we get you deeper within yourself, how can we get you more in touch with your own intuition? And from that place, I might offer some options of things that I've seen have worked, or things that I've seen that have not worked. And um, that's the experience that I can offer, but the decision of what you end up doing is completely on you, right, like. I feel like that's an important part of the discernment that doesn't get talked about 100%, and maybe you also experienced it.
Speaker 2:I've been gobsmacked by people who um are in sales conversations with me, and the number of people that are in sales conversations with me and I'm saying conversation on purpose, it's not a process, it's not a funnel, um, and they come back to me with feedback that, even though they may not end up working with me, they feel supported, they feel heard, they feel that they're making the right decision for their development yeah and one thing I wanted to mention.
Speaker 2:I think this is why and I mean I have to explain that I'm using this feminine and masculine in a very like umbrella um terms, right where with the feminine work.
Speaker 2:I include a lot of nervous system regulation, our subconscious programming, our physiology, biology, hormones, etc. And the masculine is the more structures, marketing, business strategies, etc. So this is, I think, where this combination of both has to be married together. This combination of both has to be married together. It has to come to a mutual point, because you can only hold your clients in this clear space If you're able to hold yourself through uncertainty of the sales conversation. Yeah, possible rejection, possible judgment, possible loss of income, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Everything that comes with, you know, bringing in clients and potentially not bringing in clients.
Speaker 2:Yeah, clients and potentially not bringing in clients. Yeah, and that's why, when you bring it to this, what, what am I making it mean on a subconscious level? Yeah, is it kicking off? Is it triggering the three-year-old natalia that needs to be held by mommy?
Speaker 1:is it?
Speaker 2:triggering my survival response. Do I need to regulate myself? So that I can be discerning for myself to see is this the right client that I should be working with? Is the space we're creating me and my client the right space? I want to be in right? Is this where I want to direct my energy and also, can I lead them in that space without projecting all my bs? Yeah, well, not bs, but without projecting my past traumas, my survival mechanism, my ability to pay rent next month, et cetera. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And then I think that this kind of brings me full circle back to like what we started the conversation out with is like sort of our sticky, itchy feelings around coaches who are like, yeah, just walk in the garden and like go swim in the river and manifest in that. In that way, I think that there is actually a little bit of value in that Like it's something that I've been sitting on this Instagram post and just wanting to say it, and also like taking a moment out of my day to like film a thing, film a reel like feels feels. I don't know why. There's like a little bit of like a struggle bus situation there, but anyways, um, like the, the idea is that, like I, I actually do spend a lot of time out in nature.
Speaker 1:I do spend a lot of time walking on my land. I, you know, snuggle up with my husband. I am cuddling with my animals all the time. And you know, snuggle up with my husband, I am cuddling with my animals all the time and you know, I used to feel guilty about that. Like the masculine part of me would come in and be like you should be. You know, filming a reel for Instagram. You should be writing a newsletter for you know your newsletter group and creating content and all this stuff group and creating content and all this stuff.
Speaker 1:And what I started realizing is that I do all those things so that I can build up capacity to hold space. I think about my marketing actually as an extension of my holding space, and if I'm not in regulation, then I'm going to show up in those spaces in a dysregulated state, wanting something out of my clients, wanting something out of my audience, wanting to see that like follower list, going up and up and up and like not really caring about the connection behind it. And to me, like, I do all those regulatory things because they bring me joy, they make me feel regulated, they also make me feel connected both to my creatures and to myself, so that I can do all this other stuff that is more outward facing. And so we're not saying like, don't go walk in the garden and like, feel good about your life and like, drink champagne. Like we're saying, do all of that and know that it's in service for, like or actually rather know what it's in service for.
Speaker 2:yes, exactly because it's not a prescription to you know, walk 10 000 steps a day or something like this, and I think what you brought up there is a very important piece. That again, coming back to, um, the conversation we had at the beginning women who feel like, now feminine energy for them feels like a chore, because if you go out in the garden which is fantastic and you know, I advise everyone I'm not a medical professional, but it's good for us um, if you go out in the garden and you spend this 20 minutes of being in your feminine by beating yourself with beating yourself up and telling yourself that you're not supposed to be there and feeling guilty about it, it feels like a chore. Right, we need to do for some women and I've definitely been there for some women we need to do the inner work to release the oppressor who's?
Speaker 2:telling us that the only time we ever are productive is when we're doing something right. Yeah, because I remember the time when I um quit my nine-to-five a couple of years ago and I was still super fresh in my business.
Speaker 2:It was not like I had, you know, booked out roaster and eight hours of work a day not at all, but at the same time, I felt so glued to my laptop this whole time because I felt like I need to be alert, I need to be in this space all the time, because if I just let myself relax, relax, go on a walk and I was in asia at the time, so I was in a completely new country.
Speaker 2:I didn't let myself explore because I felt that I need to constantly be present, right, because someone will be checking what time I clocked in and what time I clocked out and if I'm my boss at the same time bad boss, right?
Speaker 2:So we need to come to this space where I think we know what we need to be doing in our business. Right, we, we've got the strategies, we've got the foundation, we know who our clients are, we know how we help them and we are clear in the transformation that we offer, so that we are building this bridge between them. But we also have to be in the space where we feel that whatever we do is already good enough, because I think we're making it harder for ourselves when we for ourselves, when we feel like we're not doing enough, we're not doing it good enough, and then we're just stuck in this self-perpetuating torture where we feel that I quit my business because I wanted to have more spaciousness and I'm working 24 7 and of course there are periods of time when we have to put in the work in our business but if we have this feminine sense of self-worth that is embodied in us, then we also can use structures, can use systems, can use timetables, etc.
Speaker 2:To create the spaciousness. Yeah, then spend the rest of your day in your garden and with your animals and just fully be present with that, rather than think I was a bad girl today because I didn't record the real right.
Speaker 1:Yeah I think that there's something about this that, like intentionality matters so much.
Speaker 1:Um, I think the sort of example that we used at the very beginning of the episode, where we're, like, you know, sort of calling out the feminine embodiment coaches who are, like, just walk in the garden and you're going to get clients, like like that feels transactional already.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like walk in the garden because it feels good to walk in the garden and because it helps you feel connected to yourself, you know, like, if you're walking in the garden thinking that that's somehow going to miraculously turn into, you know, uptick in your like, follower count, like that is not, that's not an embodied way of actually being in the garden, and so like to me, it's like let's, let's take the expectation out of it. Like I walk in the garden because I love walking in the garden and because it opens up capacity, and capacity means that I have openness for connection and that's really what it is. It's like I personally I don't know how you feel about this, but like I don't care about reach, like I don't care how many people you know watch my my next Instagram reel. Like what I care about is like, did that connect with somebody?
Speaker 1:and even if it connected with like one person.
Speaker 1:Like that it was worth making that real because it helped that one person feel understood in their life. And so, like again, and like the expectation is not like, oh, now that that person has commented on my thing, like maybe they're going to become a client of mine, it's like no. Like sometimes people connect on that level and they want to become clients and sometimes they don't, and that's totally up to them. And giving them the freedom and sovereignty to choose that for themselves, I think is such I don't know why that's so fucking rare in our industry. Like I feel like what we're trying to do in the ways that, like traditional marketing is taught, is to like convince and like manipulate people into working with us, and it's like that feels like an insecure relationship and I don't really want to foster any insecure relationships in my life. And so part of holding space for secure relationships is saying like, like you get to choose to be here. You know you don't have to be here. You know you don't have to be here.
Speaker 2:Like you're allowed to go exactly and I think you use two very important words which perfectly describe the shadow of the feminine expression which, as you say, in its balanced expression, is connected, is present, is discerning and understands the relationship that is happening between us and the clients, between us and the business, between us and the money. I, like I love looking at everything relationally, because it's also just such a simple example, because everyone at some point has been in a relationship. So I find that, even in business context and strategic context, it makes so much sense to me to explain it from this sense that I want to be a good partner to my business.
Speaker 2:Quoting myself again and yeah, I think. I think one of the reasons is that right now, with the, some people call it the divine feminine awakening I don't know if I want to go as far, but there is also a rise of transactional and manipulative feminine. And this comes from exploitation, right, the thing that we started with, Because the feminine and I mean Mother Earth, the nature, our bodies, feminine bodies, the feminine qualities have been exploited for so many centuries so many years, we've been taught that manipulation and transaction is the way to operate and.
Speaker 2:I believe that each one of us carries a version of that shadow within, because it is rooted in survival. It is rooted in our response to I want to be safe and I want to make sure that I live another day. I want to be safe and I want to make sure that I live another day, yeah.
Speaker 2:And just simply not being honest with what am I putting out there? And I remember when I came to your workshop this few weeks ago about the values and it hit me that my core value was truth, me that my core value was truth. Once that nail went in, it was like I felt like I need to redesign everything that I'm doing because if I really take it to heart and I definitely have my in myself this mode of operating from manipulation and transaction, I've been doing it for years, so it takes time to unlearn it.
Speaker 2:I know that and realizing that, if I want to step into my full power and in my full responsibility as a leader and I want to be honest and now I want to lead from the truth, that's some. There's a part of me that wants to forget that this is value, you know. There's a part of me that says, oh, my God, let's just continue things as they were, yeah, yeah, because it's easier, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It is easier.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean it's. It's basically, you know, mutated young and Yin's clothing, and so for you to uphold the value of truth in your business, you know you might have to go back and look at some of the ways in which you've been interacting with people that might not have been truthful and you might need to go back and look at some of your policies, and you know I think that that A it takes bravery to do that and it takes bravery to continue that work, and it's also what is going to differentiate your business from other businesses that are out there that aren't like looking at these like core values within business structures and being like okay, so like does that? Am I running my business along those values or are? Is there, are there tweaks that I need to do to make sure that I'm honoring those words?
Speaker 2:Yeah, 100%, and I think this is the responsibility, whatever your value is or the listener's value is, it is the responsibility, whatever your value is or the listeners value is, it is the responsibility of the new leadership that you know this low entry point to business also offers us. Yeah, this new way of sustainable leadership, renewable leadership and the business to be conscious about the relationship we hold with everything. Because I remember when I was dating my now husband and I started noticing the levels of manipulation that I was using and noticing that and being honest about it with myself and then needing to be honest about my needs and desires.
Speaker 1:That was like removing skin that I was living in at that point, point.
Speaker 2:and I think, just because the skin is very thick, I absolutely aware and conscious and also grateful for that, that in my business, because I want to race to be a conscious leader and I want and I want to be so conscious and present in my relationship with my business, it will. Yeah, as you say, it almost feels like reshuffling everything. Yeah, and making sure is what I'm saying is how I present it through. Because, coming back to our conversation from the beginning, back to our conversation from the beginning, I really don't want to be one of these women who say feminine energy business is so easy just journal and just frolic in the garden and money will flow into your pocket yeah, because you, you're worth it, you're absolutely worth it.
Speaker 2:So now we have to act this way. Yeah, act like we're worth it to put some aligned action behind that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, I feel like that was a really like you like kind of closed the circle there for us.
Speaker 2:It's really good. Yeah, I thought I'm really curious what what will come up, and I feel this was juicy and full.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and your experiences in this space and I want to make sure that people can find you. So, if you want to, just let us know here what are your instagram handles. Websites like give us some, some pieces of like where we can find you on the web, and I'll make sure that those make it in the show notes sure, so I think the easiest way to find me will be on instagram, and I'm there at.
Speaker 2:I am natalia gorceva and you can get in touch. Let me know what you thought about our conversation today.
Speaker 1:I really enjoyed it. Yeah, yeah, thanks for having me, yeah, thank you for being here and thank you for being one of the new leaders, as you, as you sort of phrased it so yeah.