The Most Underrated Branding Tool Is Knowing Yourself

After seven full time years in business for myself, I thought I should have had things figured out.

Things were moving in my practice. I had a steady flow of clients for intuitive sessions, my angel circles were full, Feng Shui consults were booking, and I was writing consistently. I had always told myself that as long as Spirit kept connecting me with people and I could help even one person a day, I would keep going. And that was happening.

And was also part of the problem.

I had so much going on I had no idea how to make it make sense, to myself or to anyone else. I had a hard time explaining what I did when asked. My husband has admitted it is one of his favorite questions at parties, he never knows who will ask or how I'll answer. We would walk into a room full of his friends or colleagues and the moment someone asked what I did, he would lean in with a little smile, genuinely curious what version of me was about to show up.

I admit it always sparks a chuckle of curiosity, yet it was also exhausting. Because underneath the humor was a real question I couldn't answer fully; who am I, and how do I explain it?

Every brand strategist I worked with said the same thing: niche down, narrow your focus, pick one thing. So I kept trying to do that and the more I did, the more I kept feeling like I was cutting off pieces of myself to fit into a box that was never built for me.

I remember being in a session with Cyndi around that time. My intention for the session was to gain clarity and hone in on all of the advice that I was receiving. She looked at me with wide eyes, a big smile, and giggled, “You are like the jack of all trades, master of nothing, but let that help you.”

Up to that point I had started to believe I was indeed the master of nothing, and my practice began to feel chaotic as I was being pulled in so many different directions. I had listened to countless voices telling me who I was and what I should do. I had completely lost the thread of my own knowing. It’s what I would refer to now as business insecurity: letting the outside noise drown out the inside signal.

And then I did the thing I would regret for several years to come. I invested an incredible amount of time and money into a full website rebrand, from someone who knew nothing about energy work, and everything about traditional branding and SEO. When it was done, it was full of beauty. It presented very professional. And none of it felt like me.

Eventually I shifted the regret into redirect. I redirected toward the one voice I had been drowning out. My own.

I knew something had to change. Not my brand. Me.

I transmuted the belief it was a bad decision and stopped the regret altogether. What I learned in that season was priceless. I will never again give my power, my time, or my resources to someone who is trying to fit me in a box. Nobody gets that job but me.

What happened next surprised even me. I didn't niche down. I expanded.

I took everything I had learned, the hard way, and taught myself what rebranding actually meant at a soul level. Not colors and fonts and SEO. But who I am, what I carry, and why people are drawn to me. That process deepened my work and put me in touch with more of what I do and more of who I am than any outside expert ever had.

It turns out the answer was never to do less. It was to understand myself more fully so that everything I offered could finally make sense, not just to my clients, but to me.

Part of my reflecting was revisiting the work of the one chakra Cyndi introduced me to, that taught me I wasn’t meant to limit myself to one energy center. Then things began to reorient.

In 2014 I learned about the 8th chakra though Cyndi’s teachings. I refer to this as the SHA-kra (Shaman Chakra). It sits just above the head and it is a powerhouse of a chakra for me to activate. It is the place where our truest self lives. And inside it holds three things that changed everything for me.

1) The Akashic Records, everything of who we are. There are files of our gifts, history, our soul's full story. Not who our coaches tell us to be, nor who our clients expect us to be. Who we actually are at the deepest level.

2) The Shadow Records, which holds our regrets and resentments. Working in this layer has helped me to learn what I am here to overcome. What I have come to understand about this is when we can look at what we have regretted doing (or not), and dig deep into the resentments of what has been done to us, deep healing can occur. The things we struggle with most are often the exact things our best clients are struggling with too. Here our wound becomes our wisdom. Our story becomes our service.

3) The Book of Life, and this one is the one that broke me open. It is how God sees us. Not how we see ourselves on a bad day. Not how we look when we are second-guessing every decision. But our truest, most divine self. Seen fully. Loved completely.

When I started understanding myself through these three lenses, something shifted in my business that no rebrand had ever been able to touch.

Every rebrand I had ever done worked from the outside in. Colors, fonts, messaging, strategy. The 8th chakra worked from the inside out. And that is the only direction that has ever actually stuck.

Cyndi has spent decades working with shamans across the world and teaching people how to access their own energetic intelligence. She has a gift for making this work practical, not just spiritual theory, but something you can actually feel shift inside you.

She is currently offering a 3-part live series, Shamanic Empowerment Through the Chakras, in May. Each session moves through a different domain, lower, middle, and higher, working through your chakras to clear what is holding you back, activate gifts you may not even know you carry, and connect you with the absolute universe where your truest self lives.

If you have ever felt disconnected from your own brand, overwhelmed by too many gifts, or like you keep letting other people define who you are, this is the work. This is where it changes.

$119 for all three sessions. Recordings and materials included, and we begin tomorrow! Check it out here.

I spent years and a lot of money looking outside myself for the answer. The answer was always inside. I just needed the right tools to access it. I hope this series gives you what it gave me.