3 | The Root of Visibility Issues & Imposter Syndrome with Laura K. Connell

Have you ever felt stuck in patterns of self-doubt, procrastination, or playing small—even when you KNOW you’re capable of more?

In this episode of The Shannon Fox Show, I sit down with Laura Connell, a trauma-informed author and coach, to discuss the hidden reasons we self-sabotage and how to break free from limiting beliefs that hold us back in our careers and lives.

Laura shares how childhood experiences shape our confidence, visibility, and leadership potential, and why many career-driven women unknowingly keep themselves small and unseen out of fear.

If you’ve ever struggled with self-doubt, imposter syndrome, or fear of stepping into your full potential, this episode is for you!

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

✔️ Why high-achieving women self-sabotage (and how to stop!)

✔️ How your childhood experiences impact your career confidence

✔️ The fear of being seen and why many women stay small

✔️ How to identify & embrace your core gifts instead of hiding them

✔️ Practical steps to overcome self-doubt and step into your power

Connect with Laura Connell & Grab Her Free Gift!

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📲 Follow Laura on Instagram → @LauraKConnell

💼 Work with Laura → [Insert Laura’s Website Link]

Resources & Links:

🚀 Take the Mastery Zone Discovery Quiz → [Insert Link]

📲 Follow Shannon on Instagram → @the.shannon.fox

💼 Work with Shannon → [Insert Link to Coaching Services]

📩 Join the Email List for Career Strategies & Updates → [Insert Link]

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👉 Subscribe & leave a review so more career moms can discover these powerful self-sabotage breakthroughs!

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Transcript

Welcome. Today we have Laura K. Connell, who is a trauma-informed author and
coach who helps ambitious and growth-oriented women discover the subconscious reasons they hold themselves back.

She writes about healing, self-sabotage, and dysfunctional family dynamics at her
website laurakconnell.com. Her guest articles have further reached millions through personal development websites, Lifehack, Pick the Brain, Dump the Little Man, Thought Catalog, Highly Sensitive Refuge, the anthology Chicken Soup for the Soul, and national newspapers The Globe and Mail and Toronto Star. She has bylines in several more publications, both online and in print, which span the last two decades. She has helped thousands heal from dysfunctional family trauma through her online retreats.

Her book, It's Not Your Fault, The Subconscious Reasons We Self-Sabotage and How to Stop, is available now at the Simon Schuster website. Welcome, Laura. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Thank you for having me. I'm really grateful to be here. So for those in the audience who may not know who you are yet, can you tell us a little bit about your story and what brought you here on this career path? Yeah, absolutely.
So I'm a trauma-informed coach and an author, and I kind of write about the same things that I coach people on. These are family dynamics that lead us to sabotage ourselves as adults. A lot of people don't realize that the ways you kept yourself safe as a child when you were going through traumatic experiences are the same things that hold you back as an adult.

So when you don't make that connection, it's very hard to heal something when you don't know why you're doing it. So a lot of people, even though they've had a bunch of therapy, they still can't get to the root of the issue. And that's what I went through.

So I grew up in a very dysfunctional home, both parents, emotional abuse on one side, emotional neglect on the other, and just domestic violence, addictions, all kinds of really hard stuff for a kid to go through. So I developed those coping mechanisms that became sabotaging in adulthood. So I ended up recovering from that about a decade, a dozen years or so ago.

I started to heal from that. And so through that journey, I started writing about it, started blogging about it, the book came about. And in building the audience for the book, I was asked to coach people.

So I learned how to be a coach. I'd already done a psychology degree. So that's how I got into it. Like a lot of people doing this work, it's something I've been through myself. And I think a lot of people say that's the thing that I add is that I've actually been through this stuff. I'm not only teaching people how to get through it. I've done it myself. Right. And I think that that makes you stand out because you have had that experience before.

And you bring that into what you do. And so I love that. I think a lot of us in our audience watching have had to deal with trauma. And I mean, I know me personally, I have had family trauma that I've seen as I've grown in my business. And I'm like, oh, okay. So I think this topic is really relative to so many people.
So a lot of us tend to hide and make ourselves smaller rather than stand out. So where does this tendency come from? And how can we overcome these issues, visibility issues?

Yeah, often, our tendency to hide and not shine our light, so to speak, is related to
childhood trauma. So if you grew up in a home that we call dysfunctional, that means that your needs were not getting met.

Maybe you weren't praised or encouraged. You were made to feel like you were
burdened, whatever it was, being seen could have felt very dangerous. So either it was that you would have been punished if you showed up and showed off or tried to shine your light.

Or it would have been that you just got the message that, you know, I am a burden. The best thing I can do is just to be very quiet to keep my parents happy. And the reason why it's so important to keep your parents happy when you're a child in one of these homes, is that there is the threat of abandonment.

So in your little child body, you sense that if I don't keep my parents happy, they're not going to love me, they're going to reject me. Because I'm a child, I can't take care of myself. So it is mandatory that I find a way to keep them happy.

And if that means being quiet, staying out of their way, being very small, even invisible, that is what I need to do. So we take this into our adult lives. And especially I know you're talking to leaders here and probably business women.

And so if you're in the workplace, and you take on this feeling that being seen as
dangerous, you can imagine how that holds you back, right? So in life and in work, it means that people aren't going to see your gifts, you might not even know what your gifts are, because they weren't encouraged. They're not going to know what you have to offer, maybe other people are going to get credit for your work, all kinds of things like this. And so being invisible or being small, is not only hard on you and your well being, it's hard on your quality of life, because you're not going to have the same income even, you know, you may not get the promotion, or whatever it is, or you don't believe that you can earn as much as you can, all these things go into it.

So your quality of life is really diminished when you can't show up and shine in that way. And often it does go back to childhood. That's amazing.

Yeah, I can. You're gonna hit me in the heart here. I mean, I have some, I mean, we all have issues, you know, and we've all I come from a very dysfunctional family.
And it's like, I've seen that I've seen where I, I was the one that felt like I needed to hide and didn't shine my light. And I stayed in the back. And I'm extroverted, I love to talk, I love to be in front of people. But instead, I was hiding, because I didn't, I wasn't asking for more money when I knew I deserved it. All of those things, which I'm sure some of our listeners are going to be able to relate to. So this is very, like, I can relate to a lot of this myself, you know? 

Yeah,yeah, absolutely.

Because I mean, we're all we're all we're all working on it. I mean, like, I constantly want to work on myself. So I love that.

So what advice would you give to these women that may be hiding? And they're like, recognizing it? Like, Oh, that's me, they're raising their hand. They're like, this, this is me, what what should what could be a simple next step for them? Once they recognize this? 

Yeah, I think the most important thing is that because this fear that we feel is from
childhood, it is stored in the body. So what we try to do is talk ourselves out of
something that doesn't make sense.

So rather than paying attention to the fear that we feel in our body, which is very primal, it's a fight or flight response. So because like I said, in childhood, it felt almost like death to not for your parents to not be happy because of that rejection that could occur. You still have that feeling.

So you think if I show up, and if I'm visible, even I'm in danger, and you feel that in your body, and it's not logical, it doesn't make sense. So we try to say, well, get over it. That's not a big deal. Or we try to override what we feel in our body and just push through. And neither of those things are good. What we need to do is know that the logic of the brain is no match for the trauma stored in the body.

So we need to deal with our symptoms in the body. And you do that by instead of
pushing through, instead of trying to talk yourself out of something, you are going to attend to yourself. So you're going to feel the feelings in your body, and you're going to soothe yourself. So instead of what a lot of us do, like say I was coming on this interview with you, and I was feeling activated in my body. A lot of us who don't know why we're feeling this, instead of attending to ourselves, we will detach from ourselves, almost like a disassociation. So we'll ignore what's going on in our body.

We will do that old pushing through. And that's the worst thing you can do, because it's like a type of self abandonment. And that's why, you know, this idea that if you just keep doing something over and over, you're going to get better at it is actually not true.

If you just keep pushing yourself to speak when you feel very dysregulated in your body without attending to what's going on in your body, you're not going to get better at it. You're just going to feel even worse, in fact. So it's like almost being a parent to yourself, like saying, you know, this feeling here, this is happening for a good reason.

This is happening because of how I felt as a child. So now I can soothe myself, feel
what's going on, you know, just like even give yourself a hug, you know, just like slow down your breathing, get yourself something warm to drink, put a blanket on your legs, anything to comfort yourself and be there for yourself. And even during the talk or whatever it is that's causing you to feel dysregulated, instead of detaching, keep tuning into yourself. Like slow down. If you feel like you're talking fast, because you're feeling nervous, like just slow down and just tell yourself like, it's okay, you know, it's okay. I'm only talking to this one person. 

I don't have to think about all the thousands of people that are going to be watching it. It's just me and Shannon here having a chat. And I think that's like the the first step is just attending to attuning to what's going on in your body, not minimizing it, realizing there's a good reason. And often it's that that inner child inside you just wants you to be safe. That's all it just wants you to be safe. So it's sensing danger. And so it's warning you with body signals that you need to get ready to fight or flee. But in fact, that's not really true. And so instead of, you know, trying to ignore it, which is impossible, just like attend to it, be nice to yourself, hold yourself like, you can even say out loud nice things to yourself, it makes sense why you feel this way, things like that.

I love that. That's very tangible advice that you can do anywhere, like, even right before some of these people may be going into an interview situation, and they may, you know, be nervous or not wanting to shine as bright as they can. But going in and soothing themselves right before they walk in, that's a very tangible thing that they can do and then walk in with a lot more confidence.

So how are people how should we discover our core gifts? And because I know that when we're hiding, we also have this imposter syndrome. So how does all of that play into?

Yeah, the ironic thing when you grow up in a dysfunctional home, and you're not shown, you know what your strengths and weaknesses are, you're not given guidance about who you are, because in order to develop a sense of self, a child needs guidance, it needs to be shown like, oh, like, you're good at this, you know, and maybe you're not so good at that. And we can steer you away from that and toward what you're good at.

Like, I'm so proud of you, all these things that help a child discover who they are might be missing in a home like this. So as a result, you don't know who you are, quite literally, your sense of self is not really there. That's why you might feel very empty.

And that's why you also might be reaching outside of yourself for validation a lot, like you just can't give it to yourself. You don't know how. So often in these homes, what I call core gifts are the very things that are maligned or not allowed or what's the word not minimized, but berated, I guess, or you're told they're not good.
So it could be like you're a sensitive child, you know, sensitivity is a gift. Not everyone has it, and it can be a very healing gift, right? But if you're in a home like this, you might be told you're too sensitive, and that something is wrong with you because of it. So what happens is that this core gift we have, which you were given to really heal the world, in my opinion, you suppress and you think that's bad, that's wrong, I can't be that.

So this essence of who you are, you actually do everything not to identify with. So you see how inauthentic that is, and how detached, again, you become from yourself, when the very thing that makes you who you are is the thing you're denying, because you don't think it's going to be accepted, you think it's going to get you rejected, and in fact, it did get you rejected in your family. So that's an example.

Another core gift could be insight, you know, if you're a very insightful person who's ableto see the truth, good discernment, those qualities aren't wanted in a family that's hiding everything, right? Again, you might be told like, oh, that like, you're just ruining everything, you know, because you see things truthfully, you ruin everything. And so you'll think, well, I don't want to ruin everything. Let me pretend everything's fine when it's not, you know, and there again, you suppress your gift, which is a healing gift for the world, right? Those are examples of discovering your core gifts can often mean looking at the thing that you hate in you the most.And seeing this might actually be the thing that I've been given to heal the world. 

I love that. I love that. Because yep, I can totally relate personally on that level of, I was always told I was too opinionated. And so I became really quiet and didn't voice my opinions. I didn't want to ruffle any feathers. And now I've done a lot of healing. And I still have more because I feel like I can always heal more. There's always layers, but you're definitely going to get a nice way but you're
still good. 

I'm still I'm breaking through that of, I can have an opinion, my opinion does matter. And I actually bring a lot of value when I can share that. So yes, and what a powerful thing to be able to say. Yes. So I love that. And I hope our listeners are hearing that and feeling that same desire of like, oh, I want to break free.

I want to, I no longer want to be an imposter. I want to be true to who I am and true to those core gifts that you mentioned. So why do you think we experience this imposter syndrome? And how do we overcome it? I mean, we've talked about that a little bit, but are there other ways that we can continue to overcome this imposter syndrome? 

Yeah, so imposter syndrome is another thing that women often feel in the workplace. So it's this sense really of just not being good enough, or this feeling that it was all luck that got you where you are. And one day, it's just people are going to find out that you don't really belong there. And of course, none of this is true.

You're there because you worked hard or you had what it took to get there. And you belong there. But I think the reason for imposter syndrome, if we're relating it to the dysfunctional family stuff again, is that there is a perfectionism that goes on with growing up in a family like this, because you feel like you have to be perfect to be loved, because the love wasn't freely given, either because the parents weren't capable of it, they weren't willing to give it whatever their issues were, you experience that as a lack of love.

And instead of saying the truth that these parents are not capable of giving me what Ineed as a child, you blame yourself. And you think if only I were better, I would get what I need. So let me just be perfect, and everything will be fine.
So you take that again into the workplace, and you think I have to be perfect to be
acceptable. Whereas every other person or every person who grows up in a healthy home anyway, knows that if you say get a promotion, you grow into that you're not nobody's ready for it, you go into it and you grow into the job, you might have 70% of the capabilities and you learn the rest on the job. But someone with imposter syndrome is going to look at that promotion and they might turn it down because they'll say I'm not ready for it.

I don't have 100% of the capabilities when in fact, if you had 100% it wouldn't be a
promotion, like you're being moved up so you can learn more and grow more. And so there's this sense of like not allowing yourself to be imperfect. And what comes along with that too, is a lot of wasted energy because over preparation.
So say again, with the talk example, you know, if you have to give a presentation, and I have a client like this, that I just started working with, she prepares all night long, like she won't even sleep because she's preparing even though it's something that she's done many times before. She knows the topic inside and out. She just feels like she has to be prepared down to the, you know, the very like dotting all the I's and crossing all the T's and just being perfect, or else it's not going to be good enough when in fact, that is kind of the opposite of the case.

If you know your topic, and you know what you're talking about, you're going to give a better talk if you're a little more relaxed and a little more in the moment. But with imposter syndrome, it's very difficult to allow yourself to do that. So you're in this constant state of stress, constantly hypervigilant, this actually creates sickness in your body.

So a lot of women in this state, they get chronic illness, they get autoimmune disease, all this kind of stuff that comes from the stress of feeling like you have to do it perfectly when in fact you really don't. So overcoming it is just allowing yourself not to be perfect, which can be really hard if you're struggling with this. And knowing that again, you know, anyone who goes into a new position or a new challenge, nobody feels ready for it.

Not feeling ready for it doesn't mean you're an imposter, it just means you're human. And you're growing into something that is going to challenge you. And that's really what life is all about. So that is the advice I would give is once again, knowing that you're not alone, really knowing you're not alone. Everybody feels this way, except most people expect to feel that way. And they allow themselves the chance to grow into it rather than feeling like they're an imposter if they don't know everything.I love that. And I think that applies to so many people right now, because we do have women that are watching that are trying to advance in their career. And maybe this is holding them back, because they feel like they're not 100% ready for that promotion.

But I love what you just said, like, you don't have you're not supposed to be ready, like fully know everything. It's it's 70 - 80%, you know, and then you're going to learn and then and make it that way. So for those people out there that are like, Oh, I'm trying to go get a new promotion, but I don't feel ready. I'm hoping that this encourages them to still go after that and break through that.
Because that's just powerful. So thank you.

So we also also want to take a few moments to talk about your freebie that you have for everybody. And there it should be in the button below the dysfunctional family roles quiz. Could you tell us a little bit about this quiz? 

Yeah, since we're talking about dysfunctional families, and I am a specialist in that area, I'm providing a quiz that will help you see the role that you play in the family.
So there are five roles in a dysfunctional family. They are the scapegoat, the mascot, the enabler, the lost child and the hero. And they all have a different function that keeps the system going.

So if any of these sound familiar to you, you can go on and take the quiz, find out which one you are. And this will give you a little bit of insight into, you know, just some self discovery and also how you can overcome it. Because when you get the results, you also get a little bit of education on how to overcome these roles.

So and that'll put you on my list, you'll be in my community, and always unsubscribe if you don't want to go any further than the quiz. But I'd love to have you in my community, you'll get a blog post every week. And it's great education.

So can you change between these different roles as you grow and heal? Is that correct? 

Yeah, so my opinion is that you can play different roles, but at different times. So depending on the family's need, I believe you can move in and out of roles like often the scapegoat is the one that gets blamed for all the problems in the family. So if the scapegoat leaves in order to heal, then somebody else might come in to take that place. And that's why people in the family try to keep the scapegoat in the role because they think subconsciously they know that somebody else is going to have to take that place.

And I can give you an example from my life when I was a teenager, I was a scapegoat because I was sort of the problem child. So instead of you know, I was drinking and partying and all that stuff. So instead of looking at what the family might have been doing to contribute to my acting out, they would just point at me say you're the problem. If it weren't for you,everything would be fine, which is of course not true. But then later on, I got married to a man who became very successful in his business, we had two beautiful children, big house in the suburbs.

So all of a sudden, I was the hero, you know, and I lived the hero life for maybe a decade while we were married. And then I got divorced. And I was right back into the scapegoat role. So that's an example of how you can go in and out of these roles. 

Right, right. Well, that's interesting. I was wondering, I assumed you would, you know, depending on a season, that you would be able to go in and out of these roles. And would a mom be able to use this to kind of ask her kids and kind of figure out with her kids and be able to maybe, if she's using a child as a scapegoat, and she recognizes that would she be able to change and reverse her actions? 

Well, the interesting thing is that normally scapegoating happens in a family with a narcissist. So the narcissist, I wouldn't say always, but this is what I've seen.
And this is what the research bears out. It's usually a narcissist that is scapegoating the child. So a narcissist is not going to be able to see the error of their ways or anything like that. But it could be worth taking it if you think there's someone in your family who is, you know, they might be playing out one of these roles, and you kind of just want to find out.

But the scapegoat often it's someone who is not capable of self-reflection, who is
inflicting this on them. So that's what I would say for that.

Very cool. Well, thank you so much for being here today with us. This was amazing.
I got a lot out of it. Great. I'm happy to be here and really happy to have this chat with you.

Yes. And don't forget to download the freebie below the quiz and take that. And thanks again.