The Shapeshifter Multi-Passionate: dissolving the tension between wanting approval and self-expression
The Shadow Shapeshifter vs. The Quantum Shapeshifter: the multi-passionate's journey of creating a personal brand
If you’re ready to embody The Resourced CreativePreneur, and start creating a multidimensional brand that reflects the work your soul came here to do, I invite you to a 3-Day program called CREATIVELY RESOURCED.
You can sign up for a complimentary experience on Day 1 here:
→ Click here for CREATIVE CAPACITY CODES: The 3 ‘stereotype immunity’ codes to expanding your capacity for creativity & energy as a visionary designed for quantum-leaping moves and fulfilment (the path of claiming your Category of One)
In February of 2023, a fateful turn in the trajectory of my 12-year relationship with my ex-fiancé led me to saying “yes” to a 180° change in my life.
I wanted a fresh start, new opportunities. I wanted to rebel against my old life, and I decided to join an amazing network marketing company.
I was ready for CHANGE.
I was excited. The decision I made got me out of my comfort zone. I had to learn networking skills that I never had to master previously, as an introverted solo-preneur whose main mode of work was the internet, but necessary for my holistic development. (Creators need to live full lives.)
I loved, and still love, every moment of my entrepreneurial journey.
However, as I got more involved in my network marketing journey, where I filled my schedule with meetups & prospecting, I realized that I was beginning to put my creativity (and my zone of genius) on the backburner.
I was becoming less innovative, lacked ideas, and I looked towards the big personalities in the team I was in to ‘correct’ my marketing message by targeting the ‘most common’ group of people (with the ‘most common’ struggles) whom I felt little resonance with.
In essence, I subserviently followed the stereotypical network marketer’s rulebook.
It was my first time in network marketing, and I wanted to do it ‘right.’
As the weeks passed, I could no longer ignore the growing pains of being disconnected from the life-force energy of the Creative/Artist/Innovator within me.
That was when I gave a figurative slam of my fist on the table and said enough is enough to the ritualistic enactment of losing myself in a different character → pulling back from dynamic where I played said character → merging because I couldn’t withstand the discomfort of being alone →losing myself → pulling back → merging…
…like a shapeshifter.
“The shapeshifter changes role or personality, often in significant ways, and is hard to understand. That very changeability is the essence of this archetype. Sincerity of his claims is often questionable.”
When I first read Carl Jung’s definition of The Shapeshifter, I cringed; it carries a connotation of deception & trickery. I fought hard with this newfound awareness.
I didn’t want to be deceptive.
I wanted to be as reliable and constant as a stalwart pillar.
But shapeshifting IS an expression of the Feminine who embodies unconventional archetypes, divergent artists, and muses — she is the multi-faceted archetype who dreams up brand worlds, creates bridges between realms, and embodies the ever-flowing stream of creative life-force. Without the Shapeshifter, business is dry, mundane, and rigid.
So, I developed my vision of the Shapeshifter in entrepreneurship and business, whom I call the Shapeshifter CreativePreneur:
The Shapeshifter CreativePreneur
/ðə ˌʃeɪpˌʃɪf.tər ˌkrɪˈeɪtɪvprəˈnɜː(r)/
A multi-passionate in entrepreneurship and business who, in creating a personal brand, is called to transform from the Shadow Shapeshifter archetype to the Quantum Shapeshifter.
See Also: Alchemist, Multidimensional Visionary, Artist, Courageously Unreplicable Asset Creator, Creatrix
The Shadow Shapeshifter vs. The Quantum Shapeshifter
The Quantum Shapeshifter contrasts with the Shadow Shapeshifter.
Here’s the difference between the two:
The Shadow Shapeshifter
The Shadow Shapeshifter juggles multiple identities, labels, voices, and lingo to fit in, to gain approval from different categories, industries, or groups.
What weighs them down are questions like:
“Who am I? A life coach, Human Design reader, brand strategist, copywriter, or network marketer? What do I call myself? Will they actually get it if I call myself a Brand Alchemist? Do I have to explain myself for the 100th time that I’m not strictly a consultant or coach or Human Design expert?” (using my experience here as an example 😉)
The Shadow Shapeshifter tends to find themselves in a cycle of losing themselves when they get close to others, especially among mentors or authority figures with bigger and bolder personalities, and then cutting them off abruptly to reconnect with themselves.
The cycle repeats the moment they ‘yearn’ for community, belonging, and oxytocin. None of this is sustainable, and the yearning always returns with more intensity.
Unsurprisingly, the Shadow Shapeshifter is also the archetype that’s most susceptible to being held hostage by an algorithm to a niche they’re internally battling to get out of. (The algorithm works by categorising content producers to power its engine.)
The Shadow Shapeshifter’s voice is so inconsistent that they themselves struggle to communicate who they are — therefore they have clients come to them for different one-dimensional problems – e.g. fitness, life coaching, or marketing consultancy, etc – and the only thing holding them back from unapologetically owning what makes them uniquely multidimensional is their capacity for holding and expressing ALL of them in a single direction.
The Shadow Shapeshifter also lives a ‘Jekyll-and-Hyde life’ where they morph and selectively express parts of themselves to different categories of people, based on the level of truth, depth, and complexity they think others can hold, or based on what has proven to work for their industry peers. The pain of not being understood, even by the wrong people, is greater than the discomfort of becoming potentially perceived as a puzzle so challenging to fix that they’re chunked in the forgotten recesses of the dusty attic.
In my shadow shapeshifting days, I used to say that I have zero stories to share… simply because I had the penchant for dismissing my own lived experiences as I felt others’ tragic, heroic, or poignant tales carried more weight.
All of this was reflected in my relationship with money.
I was exhausted most of time, not because I am a Human Design Projector, but because I kept losing more energy (e.g. burnout & money loss) from frequent context switching and cycles of identity collapse than I could generate and steward from a stable & resourced identity.
This is how Energetic Debt™ happens.
“Identity collapses are a symptom of not having the Resources of SELF (inner forces) to sustain stability and rootedness in the face of increasing external pressures.” — Clarice Leong
Shapeshifting sounds like a terrible thing, isn’t it?
After all, it doesn’t benefit anyone to be a chameleon when it comes to building a personal brand, especially when notable traits of a successful personal brand are a consistent voice, brand values, and a core idea.
Well… that’s true until the gift of shapeshifting is leveraged in the right ways.
The Quantum Shapeshifter 🐦🔥
While the Shadow Shapeshifter, like Mystique in X-Men, morphs into the shape a group or situation expects of them, the Quantum Shapeshifter shifts her shape through her identity upgrades or transitions, in alignment with her vision.
Think of this as a snake sloughing its skin, as a metaphor for an identity death that makes way for an upgraded identity that can carry a vision.
The Quantum Shapeshifter is not one who plays the stereotypical role of any category — she doesn’t feel the need to wear a blazer to appear professional and neither does she feel the need to don herself in hippie fabrics, braids, feathered earrings, and crystals to look like a legitimate spiritual entrepreneur. She also does not resort to speaking like a stereotype of her industry. She is a Creatrix who stewards her creative energy, leverages her genius, and uses her Resources of SELF to weave together the different facets of her identity to create her own unique delivery style (a Genius Asset of hers).
As the Quantum Shapeshifter, she knows when to play the right role within her brand ecosystem. She coaches when needed to, teaches when appropriate, and dives fully into the role of a ‘thought leader’ when writing, speaking, and shaping her body of work. She is a masterful facilitator, who gives and takes shape from a stable & resourced identity.
“To be a Quantum Shapeshifter is to courageously reinvent the wheel — to create your Unique Genius Brand that’s wide and deep enough to hold you through your creative evolution and life path. The Quantum Shapeshifter is the Creatrix who will take on many shapes through her lifetime, and she’s here to master the art of navigating the full range of their expression without collapsing.” — Clarice Leong
How to go from being a Shadow Shapeshifter to a Quantum Shapeshifter
A noticeable trait of the Shadow Shapeshifter is they tend to swing back and forth between merging with a group or community created by others and pulling back to find themselves again (aka ‘protecting their peace’).
Or they fall into analysis paralysis from overthinking their next steps, worrying that what they’re about to say or create is too unconventional to be accepted. But imitating what has proven to work for others feels soul-stifling.
Instead of creating their first post since their ‘rebrand,’ saying the thing they’re afraid to say, or announcing the path of their redirection, they hedge, shut down, water things down, or find that their ‘bad habits’ or old circumstances return like the plague.
Here’s why:
The Shapeshifter needs to understand that whether they’re fawning, freezing, fighting, or fleeing in these situations, they’re simply expressing the tension between the need for approval and the desire for self-expression.
Once the Shapeshifter recognises that the actions or tendency of its shadow is an expression of survival (to avoid to being “weirdly different” which would risk being ostracised) and it’s not something to vilify or shame, they can start to take the Quantum Shapeshifter’s path of dissolving the tension between the need for approval and urge for self-expression.
How to dissolve the tension between the need to be approved and wanting to express yourself
The tension between the pressure to be approved and the pressure to be self-expressed can be overwhelming. Both unmet and conflicting emotional needs are contesting each other; in order to be self-expressed, your desire to live in alignment with your truth has to be greater than your need to be liked, and vice versa. The unmet need with the more intense hunger will destroy the other.
Most believe that each emotional need has to be worked one at time. I mean, how many times have you been told that you need to ‘heal’ (never quite liked this word) first before having fun hustling in the physical arena?
This belief has kept many gifted artists and creators stuck in a loop.
The truth is: living fully in the physical arena – and learning how to manifest with fun without being enmeshed with the 3D – is how you actually discover the kind of structures you need to create and reinforce to carry the Quantum Shapeshifter’s vision into form.
The missing key 🔑 to the Shapeshifter’s transformation:
Structure.
I don’t mean automation systems like CRMs, or funnels, or even planning out your day rigidly like a lieutenant who swears by his regimental lifestyle.
The structure that you must build, as a Multidimensional Creatrix who’s here to usher in a new world, is the Identity Structure held together by your Resources of SELF, so you do not have to negotiate your worth (your ‘inner world’) with the outer world everyday, and so you do not have to keep proving your value deserves to exist.
Without this Identity Structure, external forces – expectations from the world, circumstances, projections from others, etc – become too much to withstand. Think of this as a house made out of cardboard or straw that’s expected to withstand strong winds. The wind pushes into the structures of the house, and eventually it collapses from the weight of overthinking, self-critique, and the pressure to please.
This house… is the identity of the Shadow Shapeshifter.
Repeated identity collapses causes burnout; switching between ‘operating systems’ (different roles/identities = different systems), pulling back and forth (and having to justify why), and constantly rebooting ‘operating systems’ take a toll on your biology.
How to stop the cycle of identity collapses and start revealing who you are
If your identity is a house, you must fill the house with your Resources of SELF.
When the house is full and your Resources of SELF continue to grow, your identity pushes outwards (expression of Self / Energetic Overflow™) even in the face of external pressure. Your Identity Structure, or capacity, (the size and strength of the house) expands too, to match your level of growth.
“The most courageous act you can take to honour your creative genius is to continuously pour into yourself — to invest fully in yourself, not just financially, but also through devoting 100% of your attention & life-force to your vision and your value ecosystem by which you operate daily.” — Clarice Leong
To start, the Shapeshifter Creatrix must act in alignment with the energy of certainty.
Certainty doesn’t mean dropping a post revealing what you’ve longed to say and expecting an immediate flurry of praise and likes, and then collapsing in a pool of doubt when that doesn’t happen.
Certainty doesn’t mean that what you believe needs to happen (the clients, approval, etc) must happen. Or else you’d collapse in inaction.
Certainty doesn’t operate on urgency or on the fear of failure.
Certainty shows up as radically trusting yourself, knowing that the right step will reveal itself when you take the first… even if you do not know it’d pan out.
Certainty means CLAIMING your Unique Genius, and trusting that your ideas & perspectives will eventually become a resource of value
This means no more skirting around that unconventional idea. This means you take courageous action by writing and speaking about (and promoting) your perspectives consistently, giving them shape and tangibility, even in the times you feel like you’re speaking into the void.
Certainty means trusting that you have (or will create) the resources to develop the skill of articulating your work’s value
Through the process of bringing your ideas to life, you develop the skill of communication — you learn how to give your genius a stable identity for it to flourish, which no amount of intellectualising your Human Design or natal chart can do. You have to get involved in the physical arena and put in the work.
Certainty means trusting that your lived experience (aka your stories) actually matters
When you believe this, you start leaning into life, rather than leaning back from it. You start acting like the main character who inevitably emerges victorious or wiser at the end.
The more you act on the energy of certainty, the more you build your Resources of SELF. And the more both the craving for approval and the pressure for self-expression dissolves. Because the only reason that your desire for self-expression grows from a whisper to a scream is it is frantically fighting against your need for approval.
You’re designed to be creatively resourced, to do your soul’s work
Building your Resources of SELF in the context of building your personal-brand-led business can be categorised into 2 parts, through The 6 CreativePreneur Archetypes 👇
Part 1 of Building Your Resources of SELF
Your Inner Resources: your creative energy & expression is your responsibility to nourish —
Your focus your purpose / vision / values.
Your devotion towards building your own world to which you can invite others.
Your joy. This is largely bioenergetics. Joy is a by-product of efficient energy production and cell communication.
Your curiosity and agency… to continuously sharpen your Unique Genius, refine your voice, promote your art, and shape your genius body of work.
Part 2 of Building Your Resources of SELF
Your Outer Resources: a stable structure to hold your inner resources so it doesn’t have to fight everyday to stay alive —
Your Genius Assets: your unreplicable method, Unique Genius message, your brand world and its value ecosystem.
Your personal value ecosystem that tracks your identity (not just your habits, time, and effort) everyday as a multidimensional founder building a personal brand.
If you’re ready to embody The Resourced CreativePreneur, and start creating a multidimensional brand that reflects the work your soul came here to do, I invite you to a 3-Day program called CREATIVELY RESOURCED.
You can sign up for a complimentary experience on Day 1 here:
→ Click here for CREATIVE CAPACITY CODES: The 3 ‘stereotype immunity’ codes to expanding your capacity for creativity & energy as a visionary designed for quantum-leaping moves and fulfilment (the path of claiming your Category of One)
