For many years I struggled to gain traction in my own career, and to more profoundly impact others with my gifts.
I’d launched my coaching practice and was offering workshops, only to end up coaching people without charging them and begging my friends to come to my events because only two paying participants had enrolled!
I didn’t feel that what I had to contribute was seen or valued by others or by the world, and I was deeply confused as to why—in spite of my intelligence, hard work and commitment—I wasn’t having more success or being offered more opportunities.
This is what it feels like to have an inner glass ceiling, bumping up against an invisible barrier to your success, regardless of your efforts.
I deeply sensed my own potential to teach and to serve, and when I would go to conferences and events, I’d hear the speakers share their ideas and I’d have a knowing that I, too, had something valuable to contribute.
I also doubted myself and feared that maybe this belief was a bit arrogant because I hadn’t really had any external validation that it was true.
It was just a knowing I had inside me.
I wanted to express my voice and yet I constantly felt invisible.
I even had a whole long, sad, victimized story about why I wasn’t getting the opportunities I so desperately longed for.
But then I discovered the Power Center One Practices that I now teach in our Feminine Power courses…
And as a result, I was able to identify the specific ways I was showing up that were actually the true cause of my experience.
It was nothing short of a revelation.
OMG, I could instantly see that I wasn’t getting the opportunities I wanted because I was actually disappearing myself!
It turned out I had a core belief that I was essentially invisible, and my way of showing up was that I would disappear my own thoughts and feelings, and just mirror other people completely.
Whenever I was with another person, they wouldn’t be able to see me, because they were simply having a deeper experience of themselves in the mirror I was holding up for them.
No wonder I was creating this chronic experience of invisibility for myself everywhere I went!
So after I unlocked the first of 3 Feminine Power centers, I was able to, for the first time, fully connect to the truth of who I was, and from there I took responsibility for showing up in new ways that were reflective of that truth.
And the truth was that I do have a valuable contribution to make.
I’d spent my whole life waiting to be discovered—waiting for other people to find their way into my world, intuit the value of what I had to contribute, and then respond to my needs and desires.
But the truth was that other people can’t know my feelings, needs and desires unless I share them and make them visible.
So to break through this inner glass ceiling, I gave up this old way of showing up and instead took responsibility to begin to presence myself in all my relationships and in the world.
I took the weaker part of me that had been stuck for so long and connected it to the deeper part of me that knew how much I had to offer…and I became responsible for generating my own visibility.
And then a really wild thing happened.
A few weeks later, I was hosting a dialogue series—our first “Women on the Edge of Evolution” conference—and the first person I had to interview was one of the great woman teachers of our time.
I was so in awe of her, but I knew my challenge was, as always, to show up in ways that were consistent with the truth of who I was.
So that meant letting go of my old way of playing small and simply mirroring people to try to please them.
I knew I had to be a gracious host, of course, and offer some of that mirroring and reflection, but I also needed to be fully engaged in the dialogue as my complete empowered self.
About halfway through the interview, this woman said to me, “Claire, I have to speak to you privately tomorrow. Call me on my private line.”
So of course I did, though I was a little nervous as I dialed the phone.
When she came on the line, she proceeded to reflect back to me what she’d seen during the previous day’s interview, and it turned out that she’d really seen me.
She said “Claire, you have a great destiny, a great calling of leadership in the empowerment of women, and I want to support you and stand with you. Come visit me at my home.”
And when I did, she proceeded to share with me a much larger vision for me than I was able to see or hold myself at that time…
Then she opened up her rolodex and called and emailed every powerful, influential woman leader she knew and encouraged them to join me in the “Women on the Edge of Evolution” conference.
And out of that, the platform for Feminine Power expanded to reach hundreds of thousands of women, and the company I founded, Evolving Wisdom, became recognized as one of the top 100 fastest growing companies in America, reaching over a million people.
All of this came out of that moment when I brought who I truly was into alignment with how I was showing up in the world…and everything changed.
Now, it’s your turn!
I couldn’t generate my visibility, my contribution, or my impact from inside my old pattern, and neither can you.
And what’s at stake in breaking through these barriers is nothing less than your entire life and destiny.
Discover how you can begin to Break Through Your Own INNER GLASS Ceiling. Read the Feminine Power Breakthrough ebook now.
