99. From Invisible to Unforgettable: The Branding Mistake Making Your Doula Business Forgettable {Part 2}

In this episode, I’m getting painfully honest about something I think so many women silently experience…

what happens when you slowly start abandoning yourself in order to be easier to love.

I’m sharing the deeper story behind why I care so much about visibility, branding, self-expression, and helping doulas stop watering themselves down online — because this work has never really just been about Instagram bios or marketing strategy for me.

It’s about identity.

It’s about the years I spent believing I was too much:
 too emotional,
 too loud,
 too expressive,
 too ambitious,
 too visible.

And how slowly — through relationships, conditioning, fear of judgment, and fear of rejection — I started shrinking myself without even realizing it.

In this conversation, I open up about:
 ✨ my first marriage and how I lost myself in tiny edits
 ✨ the emotional cost of becoming “digestible”
 ✨ why visibility feels unsafe for so many women
 ✨ the surprising role dance played in helping me reclaim myself
 ✨ how self-expression impacts business, confidence, and magnetism
 ✨ why so many doulas struggle online even with “good strategy”
 ✨ and why the goal of branding is not to remove yourself from your message… but reveal yourself more clearly

If you’ve ever felt like you need to tone yourself down to be accepted…
 If you’ve been hiding parts of yourself online…
 If your content feels flat, filtered, or emotionally disconnected…

this episode is for you.

And if you want support making your brand feel more human, emotionally connective, and memorable…

I do offer personalized Doula IG Bio Audits where I review your bio, messaging, positioning, and first impression so your page actually sounds like YOU.

Snag one here or DM me the word AUDIT on Instagram. 

Struggling to grow your doula business? Tired of chasing prospects online? Imagine effortlessly attracting your dream clients and consistently generating a steady income month after month. 

⬇️ START HERE ⬇️

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

That I don't think this is just me. I think women are conditioned from childhood to become emotionally manageable, selfless and easy to handle, controlling their emotions, pleasant. And women who are expressive and very passionate and loud and opinionated, they get treated like they need to be fixed. And women learn very early on that being fully expressed can actually cost them that love. And so we shrink and we adapt. Welcome to the Six Figure Doula podcast. This is where confidence becomes currency. If you're a birth worker who's ready to stop overthinking, stop undercharging, and start leading like you mean it, then you're not here by accident. Every week we talk sales without the ick, money without shame, and building a business that actually holds you and your clients. Welcome home, doula. We are back. Back to this incredible series that I am so excited about called Invisible to Unforgettable. Now, in the last episode, we talked about why different is more powerful than better and how so many doulas are blending in online because they're trying super hard to sound polished and profesh and acceptable. And today's episode is definitely a lot more personal. So hang on to your hats because the real reason that I care so deeply about helping women find their voice and stop hiding online and stop watering themselves down and build bold businesses that are rooted in who they actually are is because I know personally what it feels like to slowly abandon yourself. I know what it feels like to feel too much for some people. And for me, that has looked like too loud or too open. I've been called too intense. And I also know what it feels like to start shrinking because of that, to start editing yourself, softening yourself, questioning yourself, and really just trying to become easier to handle and easier to love. And for me, that was also often less threatening, less noticeable. And so I spent years believing that the strongest parts of me were the exact reasons that I was so difficult to love. It really wasn't until entrepreneurship that I finally got a chance to talk about how painful it is when your natural self-expression is the thing that is treated like a flaw. And then I found the dual world, which honestly feels like home to me now because of this reason. There is something deeply, deeply painful about feeling like your natural energy makes other people uncomfortable, especially when that feeling gets reinforced by people that you love. And so for me, it looked like constantly monitoring myself, second guessing my personality, overthinking my tone, trying not to embarrass certain people, trying to seem calmer than I actually was, quieter than I actually was, trying to basically make my presence feel smaller. And the scary part is you don't even realize you're doing it at first. I know I didn't. I just started adjusting. So I was making these tiny edits, tiny suppressions. I was really having these moments where I was deciding maybe it's easier not to say the thing, not to do the thing, not to post the photo or share my opinion. And eventually I didn't even realize and I didn't even know what was actually happening, but I stopped recognizing myself. And I've talked a little bit about my first marriage on the pod. We met really young. And at the time, I thought love meant adapting, compromising, trying to become what the other person needed. But over time, the traits that felt most natural to me started becoming the traits that were treated like the problem. And I was constantly told to quiet down. I was accused of wanting attention all the time. I was told I'm too flirty, too expressive on the internet, that I was way too open about my hardships and my ambitions, and basically just too much. That's what kept coming up. You're too much, Lisa. And there was this really challenging, heavy internal conflict because the things that felt most natural to me started to feel unsafe. And I started wondering if who I was is the problem. So my solution in that moment, my reaction was to adapt, tone myself down and stop posting certain things and soften my perspective and apologize for my excitement and basically just become easier to digest. And looking back now, I realized that I didn't lose myself like all at once. It was these tiny micro moments. And honestly, I've had so much time to reflect and I've come to some conclusions. One of which is that I don't think this is just me. I think women are conditioned from childhood to become emotionally manageable, selfless, and easy to handle, controlling their emotions, pleasant. And women who are expressive and very passionate and loud and opinionated, they get treated like they need to be fixed. And women learn very early on that being fully expressed can actually cost them that love. And so we shrink and we adapt. And the cost of that is what I want to talk about today. The cost of that shrinking for me was massive. I was never spontaneous. My confidence dwindled to nothing. I stopped being creative. I felt like I had zero sensuality. I didn't have magnetism. I didn't feel alive. And I remember getting to a point where I genuinely did not even know who I was. And I wasn't just muting my voice. It was like I was muting my entire life. One of the biggest things that helped me reconnect myself, thank goodness, was dance. And it wasn't about the performance, it was more about the embodiment, the freedom. And this was the place where I could occupy space again without fault, without risk. The best dancers are not self-monitoring every second. They're fully present. And I knew this. And this was just the safest place for me to be in that studio, emotionally connected and expressive, fully committed in my body, unafraid to be. And I started to look around me, the people I was surrounded by, these dancers, these incredible humans. And I realized that the women that I think about and that I look up to and emulate and want to be around their energy, the ones that I truly remember, are rarely the ones trying to be acceptable. And that realization changed all the things because eventually I absolutely hit a breaking point. I realized that I could either spend the rest of my life trying to become digestible for someone or everyone, or I could just become myself again. And rebuilding after that divorce forced me into that decision. Entrepreneurship forced me into that decision again. Getting back into dance forced me into that decision. Building a business online forced me into that decision. Because visibility will literally expose every single place where you still believe it's unsafe to be fully yourself. And I have come to realize working with doula's every single day is that it's not just about needing a better strategy. It's we are still operating from this belief that visibility is unsafe. And if you are a doula and you are afraid of looking cringe or sounding arrogant, being misunderstood, right? Getting taken out of context, canceled, not being enough, then I can guarantee you you will not be able to build a memorable brand while constantly negotiating your own self-expression. You cannot create connection while you're in hiding. And the goal here is not becoming louder just to get more attention, not to become, you know, obnoxious, not to be a shit disturber. That's not what I'm saying. It's about becoming whole again, more free, more alive, more embodied. Because the parts of you that made the wrong people uncomfortable may be the exact parts that make the right people feel safe. And I want you to really sit with that. So, what are the traits that people have criticized you your whole life for? What if those traits are actually connected to your magnetism? What if your audience is craving the version of you that you have been hiding and second-guessing? What would your business look like if you stopped apologizing for that energy, that perspective? I used to think I needed more confidence to grow my birth business. But honestly, sometimes what women really need is just permission to come back to themselves. That's what I needed. That's the work. That's why I care so much about helping duelists sound more human online, because most bios that I see sound emotionally stripped down. They're vanilla, they're forgettable. The goal of branding is not to remove yourself from the message, it's to actually reveal yourself more clearly. Safe and forgettable often live in the same neighborhood. If you want support figuring out how to make your page feel more clear, memorable, human, and emotionally connective, I am now offering my free Doula Instagram bio audits. I personally review your bio, your positioning, the first impression that you're making, and I help you identify where your page is blending in, watering you down, or missing that authentic emotional connection. You can grab one through the link in the show notes or DM me the word audit on Instagram.