One thing most people don’t realize about doing online business is that it often ends up being about more than just how to make money.

It may start out as that.

Or as in my case, it may simply start from the desire to share something cool with a bunch of people. But either way, at some point it becomes a soul-searching journey of figuring out how to stay grounded in who you are, what you want out of your life, and how you express yourself.

That’s because in the crowded online business space, the best way to find the people who are ready to connect with your creations is to be yourself. Be authentic.

Sounds simple, but it’s really not. I’ve found that being myself requires shedding layers of emotional baggage that I’ve been carrying around since childhood. And it’s even more tricky because it’s necessary to balance being authentic with setting boundaries—how to be yourself without oversharing and compromising emotional and psychological safety.

Seeing a therapist for my mental health has been the best thing not only for me, but also for my business. Doing so has helped me to overcome the emotional walls that stand between me and my real expression. And as I’ve been letting those things go, I’ve been getting a clearer view of what stepping into my authentic voice looks and feels like.

So as a result, this whole process has been an in-depth exploration of how I can safely share parts of my authentic self.

When You’re Not Connected to Your Authentic Voice…

…You call in the wrong people. Or sadly, maybe even no one at all.

I’ve found that being uncomfortable with myself or not having a clear picture of who I am and how to communicate that when operating in the world of online business can possibly lead to following scenarios:

Scenario 1: You’ve built this thriving online biz empire that everyone dreams of! However you’re burned out and deeply dissatisfied because you’re masking every time you show up. This business is not a reflection of your true self and voice, and the dissonance is like a life sucking energy vampire. You want to be everywhere and anywhere but here, and something about this space feels profoundly lonely.

As a neurodiverse person, I find the pressure to mask and appear “normal” is especially exhausting.

Scenario 2: You are trying on all of the different masks to attract people to what you do.

“Maybe if I show up as this, or as that, then maybe people will connect with me?”

Have you ever seen one of those romantic movies where the guy is like, “Just tell me who you need me to be and I’ll become that for you, if it would make you fall in love with me!”

This is what being in this space is like. And you’re just attracting all of the wrong people. The people you are bringing into your world don’t care for you as you are, because you’re not being who you are.

I’ve never been this way in the business space, but in general life things…been there, done that. Fake friendships abound.

Scenario 3: Here you’re like, “What am I? Where am I? Who am I?”

This has been me, most of the time!

As I’ve shared before, I’m an Enneagram 3w4, and that shape-shifting chameleon thing that happens to me naturally often forces me to take time away from the noise to reconnect with myself.

For me, knowing who I am isn’t something that sticks with me. I constantly have to remind myself of what I want and where I want to go.

There are so many online business owners out there doing cool things, and I often struggle with losing my center.

If I see website copy I like, I want to try writing just like that. If someone shares a strategy that I think is amazing, I’ll take on that too. I listen to advice on who I should be and what I should do until I forget what it is I really want from my creative life.

Learning more about how to do online business is great, and I find it fascinating. But yet it’s important to stay aware of the difference between being open to learning and losing myself to some else’s methods.

Being Myself in Business? What Would That Look Like?

Recently I took a two month break from this blog to do some reorganizing, but doing so also gave me a moment to reconnect with the heart of my expression and how I want to share that with you.

One misconception about speaking from your authentic self is that it’s a consistent form of expression. In reality, your authentic voice does not stay exactly the same. The way you express yourself evolves with your life experience.

After taking my break, I realized that I should never take more than two months away from my blog. And it’s not for the reasons you may think.

I don’t feel this way because I’m worried about the traffic I could be losing from taking a break. In the past I used to worry about those things, but now I don’t really care.

I had to learn that my work can be found even when I’m not actively doing.

But, the real reason why not blogging for two months isn’t the best for me is because when I don’t blog, my mind feels littered with words. I feel too full and yet a bit empty. The words need somewhere to go!

I’ve learned that on my time off, I still need to write blog posts even if I’m not posting them. Doing so keeps my brain clear and my heart satisfied. Although I make money from writing, I’m literally here for the sake of being here. I’d still be doing this if I didn’t have a dime.

I have to. I feel physically moved to.

I have no choice in this.

After I was tired of my break and decided to return to this space, the words just came gushing out as if they were stored under pressure.

And it’s not like I didn’t write over the past two months. I’m still writing my crazy fanfic and journaling. But something about showing up here and pouring my words out into the world is so special. Maybe it’s cleansing. Maybe it’s sacred.

I love reading the life stories of different people, and lately I’ve been reading Fragrant Palm Leaves, the published journal entries of Thich Nhat Hanh, a Buddhist monk and writer who was forced to flee his country during the Vietnam War. One thing that struck me from his journal is how moved he was by the nocturnal wildness of the forest in the part of Vietnam where he lived. He expressed that at times, he longed to rip off his clothes, run off into the forest, and get devoured by nature.

Similarly, at times I want to rip off my clothes, get lost in the midnight wildness of my words as they spin from my authentic self and get devoured by the essence of my true nature.

Is there something in your life that you feel compelled to do, come whatever?

My Return to Personal Blogging

So what do I want for my blog and by extension, the way I express my voice?

I just want to share my day with you in a meaningful way!

I want to say what I did for the day, what I learned from it, and how it impacted me. I feel like my authentic voice is grounded in the everyday and in simplicity.

Honestly, I feel like taking this route is crazy. When it comes to blogging online, no one does this anymore, mainly because it’s not SEO friendly.

But for me, sharing the impactful moments of my day with you feels like the realest and most sincere way to express myself.

I feel like with my last blog post, that was where I was headed, and I really want to move more in that direction.

I want to give you a glimpse into my process and make you feel like you’re not just learning from me but also like you are also going on this journey with me because…you are.

This sharing of creative work is something that we’re doing together, and I want to express that from a more relaxed place.

I feel like everything I’ve written so far has been authentic to me, but what I want is something simpler. And nothing is simpler than expressing life in a way that is not shaped and molded by societal expectations overly enforced structure and overthinking.

Modern blogging for the past ten to fifteen years has been extremely informational. But now with AI, information can be pulled from anywhere. And when I think about it, do we really need more information? Like, really? I feel what we really need are more authentic stories and art, so that we can better understand each other.

So I really want to lean more into sharing my story with you. I’ll still share helpful tips and information, but I feel like my real life experience is the most valuable thing I have to offer right now.

So please be patient with me as I detox from “commercial” blogging and reconnect more with personal blogging. Of course, I’ll still be sharing my books and creations with you, but I want to lean more into my voice as an artist.

Aligning With Your Authentic Voice

Right now I feel like I’m rebooting and reinventing myself to express more of what’s important to me.

In many ways, I feel like I have the creativity of an early 2000’s blogger in me. Forget the click-bait post titles, first sentence hooks, and SEO for a bit. Let me just show you who I am and what I do. Done.

I’m an artist expressing herself, and I’m sharing that out into the world and sending it all to you.

My authentic voice loves to show up in the spaces of my blog, my journal, in story writing, and although I haven’t explored it much, I feel the same energy in speaking. However my speaking works best when it’s anchored to ideas that I first express in writing.

It’s as if after writing, my authentic voice likes to adorn itself in visual art and auditory expression. Visual art and speech isn’t the place where my authentic voice shows up first, but after it makes its appearance, it loves to dress up in these things to create more of an impact.

I find that writing newsletters comes easier to me when I write my blog posts first. And I believe that on some level, people can feel that much of my creative energy resides in my blog.

My creative energy is also strongly intertwined with my books and products, and I think that’s reflected in how much traffic I get to my shop as well.

So where does your authentic voice show up first?

Where are you naturally the most expressive?

And to clarify, you don’t have to be a writer or an artist to be expressive.

I think watching my dad at work really taught me that. My dad isn’t a writer or a visual artist. But he does have a form of self-expression that comes naturally to him: building and repairing houses. The way he works on these projects, I can tell that they allow him to express his energy and strategic thinking. It is an expressive art.

When you speak from the realm of your authentic voice, you don’t have to worry about which voice you should use to attract the right people, because when they hear you through your words or whatever form of expression is the most natural for you, your people will recognize and see you.

If you’re into online business like I am, take time to ask yourself, “Where does my authentic voice like to show up first?”

In music? In song? In poetry? In video? Visual art? In crafts?

How can you use the spaces and mediums in which your authentic voice loves to play to create products, emails, social media posts?

No matter what it is, I believe that there is a way to use your authentic voice to make things easier for you in business. Start with where your authentic voice likes to show up the most. Then let everything flow out from there.

If you wish to go deeper into exploring this idea of being comfortable with your own voice, you can find more in Hush Zine Issue 1: Crying is Awesome. This is my first audio collection, and it’s centered on the concept of building trust in one’s own voice and process.