The Nervous System Work No One Talks About in A Soul-Led Business

Soul-Led Business, Unearthing Projectorhood

Around the start of Spring this year, I experienced a sort of mini burnout.

I had many clients I was holding space for; it was a record number I had not experienced before (I love each of you so much if you are reading this). It was not long before I realized that I could not be present for my existing relationships, loved ones, projects, and, most importantly, myself. This realization sent me into a deep contemplative hermit mode as I scrambled to restore my capacity and reinstate my nervous system baseline.

As a Human Design Projector, I felt a theme of bitterness. Instead of placing an order of self-constraint and self-doubt on myself, I asked,

“What if this simply represented a call for more expansion? What if this is an indicator to audit and refine how I operate as a business owner and with my personal practices? What if this is simply an initiation?”

And no, I did not spiral.

I loved working with each of my clients deeply and took pride in supporting them through their personal shifts. But behind the scenes in my own life, I was auditing, refining, deconstructing, building, and embodying the upgraded identity as a founder I was ushered into. In my Substack post, I discuss how an identity shift must precede any change, no matter how minuscule or grand it may appear. Read more about how growth is just a succession of shedding and initiation of identities on my Substack here.)

This article is not about what I did afterward or how I am today (Amazing, by the way), but about the importance of nervous system work and capacity-building as a soul-led business owner, which is rarely discussed.

Perhaps you have experienced a story similar to mine that made you question it all too.

My hope for you with this article is that you realize a soul-led business will by far be the biggest initiation one will experience in life, and most of all: that you are more than capable of having all of your hopes, goals, and dreams realized— if you get your nervous system in place.

Explore 5 ways nervous system work is imperative as a soul-led business owner:

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Learning To Embrace Uncertainty

A soul-led business rarely offers the certainty conventional business models provide.

When we consciously choose to adopt a soul-led approach in business, even with a dependable business strategy set in place, it can sometimes look like betting on how we feel. This may look like tuning into our Authority based on what our body feels called towards and how energy moves through us, rather than what may present as the most logical choice or choices laid out that worked for others. It may look like holding an unwavering trust in them, in a way that your state of consciousness has never done before, without knowing when it will work.

If undiscerning and unaware, this ambiguity can threaten one’s nervous system, leading to immediate or misaligned actions that send one in search of a solution, a new offer, a new funnel, a new course, a new niche, or worst, abandoning our business completely for something seemingly stable.

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Learning To Embrace Visibility

As you probably know by now, exposure is inevitable in business.

Exposure is mandatory for others to find and learn about you and your work. But for many, before becoming business owners, their nervous systems have never been calibrated to an exposure of this breadth. Visibility never seemed to be an issue when you were an employee, but visibility suddenly becomes so jarring when you are the face of your business. Posting content, selling, sharing your opinions, launching, being witnessed in your leadership in videos/testimonials and in-person conferences/forums/retreats these can be extremely activating for the nervous system. Self-expression as a business owner suddenly feels personal.

One way to notice someone who is still marinating in their old identity is through their visibility blocks. It showcases ways in which their nervous system may reject visibility and require more micro-expansion. Sometimes, a “I don't feel aligned with this” is actually “my body doesn't yet feel safe doing this.”

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Learning To Embrace Receivership

When we opt out of doing business the conventional way, we are also unsubscribing from the hustle culture that is often encoded in this patriarchal way of letting our business lead us. For many of us, we have been heavily programmed to act and do because that felt safer for our nervous system than allowing or trusting.

I remember the first time I had to price my offers and the first time I received my first full 1:1 payment. My body may not have rejected it, but it sat very uncomfortably in me. I self-supervised; I held the figure in my bank account as a statement of my worthiness, encoded in scarcity and lack. I wondered if that was considered a scam. I questioned. I doubted. When I first invested in a business mentor, I questioned how I could afford it rather than how it would support me as a business owner in the long run. The truth was, I just had terrible receivership. And my nervous system was not accustomed to being resourced, complimented, and supported.

Running a business will ultimately require you to constantly review your relationship with receivership. Either that or you will sabotage yourself in the long run. Receiving money, recognition, support, praise, opportunities, and invitations can all feel unfamiliar and activating when your nervous system has never been calibrated for it before.

Poor receivership with wealth isn’t just about under-earning. It is the energetic and nervous system resistance to allowing in more. More money, support, ease, visibility, and celebration. Healthy receivership is the ability to carry the energetic capacity and nervous system to hold more without interfering, self-sabotaging, feeling guilty, or collapsing.

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Learning To Embrace Having More

This is the bit that came up for me when I experienced resistance earlier this year. It is a subtle nervous system work that gets talked about far less. We talked about regulating the nervous system in response to uncertainty, failure, rejection, exposure, and making wrong decisions. The fear that the launch would not work, that no one would show up, or the money would run out.

Here is the one that is often under-discussed: learning to embrace having more.

It is not about the fear of failure, but about the fear of expansion required by having more.

The old me held this programming:

More clients> More money > More recognition> More responsibilities> More reliance> More people who want from you> More opportunities and eyes on you> More problems> More overwhelm> More exhaustion> Burnout

If your familiar state and existing programming are marked by urgency, exhaustion, and uncertainty, and when there is greater recognition, wealth, and opportunity, this shift can be activating for your nervous system. And your nervous system has not been exposed to this level of expansion, nor has it been able to process and inhabit it.

So you reduce your rates and undercharge. You stop marketing and creating completely. You convince yourself that you do not actually want the things you've been asking for. You convince yourself that you do not need more. You spend all the money away. You create chaos in business by self-sabotaging and showing up less. And your income plateaus and the season repeats, and you wonder what it is, and why it is that you are so afraid.

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Learning To Pace Yourself When Activated

An activated nervous system can look like chronic burnout, decision paralysis, constant urgency, and a deep fear of visibility. In a soul-led business, we are encouraged to tune inwards and listen intently, but an activated nervous system can be loud and sometimes cancel out that clarity. It can sometimes distort and masquerade itself as alignment too.

An example of urgency masquerading as intuition:

“I just know I need to do this now.”

(Underneath) “If I don't do this now, I am going to miss my opportunity.”

An example would be you suddenly feeling you must launch this month because “the energy is right,” when, underneath, you are afraid that if you do not launch now, your audience will forget about you. Another common example I observe is having an idea for a new program and immediately interpreting that excitement as a soul calling, when what you are actually experiencing is relief from the discomfort of waiting for your existing offer to sell.

An example of fear masquerading as discernment:

“This just does not feel aligned.”

(Underneath) “This feels unfamiliar, and I'm not sure I can handle what might happen if I say yes.”

An example would be you decide you are not ready to raise your prices on your existing offerings, when the deeper fear is being rejected by people who can no longer afford you. Another would be declining an opportunity because you sense it would be too much to handle when what feels threatening is the possibility of being more successful than you or anyone who knows you, are used to.

Nervous system work does not mean the dissolution of discomfort or the constant self-supervision. It does not mean we are always calm, soft, peaceful, courageous, confident, and certain.

It means the ability to build and listen to our capacity alongside what comes, and the discernment to distill distortion and distraction from clarity while remaining connected to our soul work and who we are. It is learning to pace ourselves, show up in our soul work, and be so locked into our dominant emotional states regardless if our circumstances and external environment may prove otherwise.

A soul-led business will take you to places of healing and growth you never thought possible.

It is the absolute biggest initiation as a human being (Motherhood too btw). Nervous system work is part of your soul-led business strategy. It is the shell that holds you as a business owner, and it is your responsibility to nourish it and let it lead you. Your capacity to hold uncertainty, visibility, money, growth, rejection, recognition, and responsibility directly influences the choices you can make.

I hoped you enjoyed this one.

If you are drawn to my energy and work, I support heart-led, conscious individuals, creatives, and business owners through my offerings here. It is my hope that you find one that supports you wherever you are in your journey.

Ways to work with me:

→ (free)Download the Projector’s 3 Agents of Change Guidebook + join my Unearthing Projectorhood newsletter here.

→ (free)Join the 7-Day Projector In Business Receivership Challenge + join my Projector In Business newsletter here.

→ Becoming Empowered: A Personalized Human Design Guide
  → Projector in Business Workshop
  → 1:1 Self-Projected Mastery Immersion
  → 1:1 Unearthing Projectorhood Uplevel Session
→Soft Business Deep Dive 2-day 1:1 Immersion
  → The Projector Remembrance Group Container (Only available twice a year, we begin again in fall)
  → Shui 1:1 Bespoke Projector Mentorship
  → 1:1 Bespoke Soft Business Mentorship

Explore the other soft business resources:

• 7 Ways Human Design Has Shaped My Soul-Led Business As A Projector

• Soul-Led Business: 5 Blocks That Are Holding Your Wealth Back As A Business Owner

• What Learning to Receive Has Taught Me: Healing Receivership Wounds

• The Soul-Led Business Trap: When Alignment Becomes Another Form of Hustle

New here?

I am Sylvia— a spiritual writer, certified Human Design reader, Projector mentor, and business guide behind Arawme, 

“Arawme” is a raw me put together.

 Join 2000+ other Projectors in the Unearthing Projectorhood Newsletter: a safe space designed for Human Design Projectors, filled with insights, tools, resources, and services. Receive the free Projector’s 3 Agents of Change Guidebook: a 30+ page quick guide on activating your Projector divinity today. Explore here. 

For Projectors entrepreneurs and visionaries, join me in my Projector In Business Newsletter and journey with me in the 7-Day Projectors In Business Receivership Challenge as we recalibrate your nervous system to receive recognition, clients, and ease without force. Over the next 7 days, I’ll gently guide you into a different relationship with your business: one rooted in receivership, recognition, and energetic clarity. Explore here.

If you are on Substack, join me there, where I write about the Projectorhood journey, healing, spirituality, soft and slow living, musings about grief, love, life, and loss, feminine energetics, soft business, visibility energetics, and so much more.

Meanwhile, I’d love to connect with you on Instagram! 

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