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Nicole Laino: Hello and welcome to Unshakeable with Human Design, everybody. I am excited to be here with you and with a special guest. It’s not just me today, which I’m so thrilled about. I love doing interviews and I have done so few of them in recent months. So I’m super excited not only to have a guest, but to have this particular guest.

She and I met at a retreat. Well, we met a few times, but I got to know her at a retreat for a mastermind that I’m a part of, and she just brought such amazing energy and insight and her presence was so grounding to everybody there that I’m so excited to bring her to you.

[00:01:00] Her name is Erin Nicole Porter. She’s an Energetics Business Coach, Master Practitioner and Trainer of NLP and Hypnosis, Breathwork Facilitator, Somatic Experiencing Practitioner in Training, Adult Attachment Repair Model Therapist, and host of the Energetics of Business podcast, which you should check out.

Erin, welcome to the show. Thank you for being here, and I’d like to kick it over to my guests to introduce themselves and tell everybody what I didn’t capture in that bio.

Erin Porter: I love it. Thank you for having me. And thank you for that beautiful introduction. It was interesting as you were saying that like very grounding presence because I feel like that’s very much what I feel like I’m known for now, but and I’ve always had that presence I guess of being very grounded.

But now it’s not from the lens of a mask, which is pretty much my entire life. I looked calm and grounded on the outside, but the inside was anxiety, burnout, overwhelm, go, go, go, do all the things. And so I was receiving that as you shared it. And I was like, wow, it’s so nice to have that be reflected and not [00:02:00] be a mask anymore.

Nicole Laino: Yeah, absolutely. I also want to say that Erin is a 3/5 Splenic Projector, and we’re going to talk a little bit about that, about the mask of the 5, the 5 line can definitely wear a mask because it’s very uncomfortable for us to be seen because people don’t really see us, and it can feel really uncomfortable. But I think that also is a testament to your journey and what you do, which is, I think a lot of us that end up teaching the things that we teach, where we’re teaching the squishier stuff, as I refer to it, like the embodiment practices, the energetics, the mindset, all of these tools that we have, those of us who have gone through that journey, it’s sort of like, we have to share it because it’s so life changing to come out and be yourself and to really step into your authenticity and take off the mask. Can you tell us a little bit about where you were and how you got to this point?

Erin Porter: I’d say the big thing where I started finding the body. So I’d done a lot of mindset work, inner child [00:03:00] work, all of those sorts of things for a few years at this point. And I had even been trained in breath work, started tapping into doing a lot of breath work practices.

Again, like I said, being certified in it. And that started to open up a doorway, but it was when I really began to do more somatic based coaching. A mix of attachment work, somatic experiencing, energetic patterning, where I really felt like my whole body I was like, oh, this was it. Not that it was necessarily a missing piece because I wouldn’t have gotten to finding that place until I found everything else, but I felt like there were certain places where I was looping. I’m like, okay, this is a constant story, or this is a constant thing, whether it was with relationships, money, business, what have you.

And when I sat there working with a mentor of mine and actually beginning to work with the internal parts, I was like, oh, okay. This is it because I tried to mentalize everything, everything I looked at in business and life, it was through this protection [00:04:00] lens of strategic and almost strategy within the healing too.

It was healing to get, healing to fix, healing to overcome. And so I literally just took that whole strategic lens that I used to have of, let me figure out all the strategy and what am I supposed to do here? But then I looked at my whole body and my whole internal system and healing from that same lens.

And so somatic work was the first time where I was like, oh, I’m trying to figure out and fix these parts of me. And I’m meeting the parts from the resistance that these parts feel. So that’s where I’m like, I see what I’m doing here. Trying to mentalize an experience that can’t be mentalized.

Nicole Laino: I got chills there, just listening to that because I think that is embodiment, right? That’s really being able to embody the work, and not making it a mental process, and not making it all this strategic, how can I get what I want?

And I do want to give you guys a little insight into Erin’s chart. She has a defined head, a defined Ajna, and a defined throat. And you have two [00:05:00] channels running from your Ajna to your throat, which, that strategic side, of wanting to be able to formulize things into a message, wanting to be able to make sense of things with such an active mind that you have, that makes a lot of sense.

And there’s lots of things in your design that lead to why you would do something like that, why that’s really very natural for you. But we can also get caught in what’s natural for us and have that overtake what the true calling is. The mind’s a great tool, but we’ve given it too much license to take over in some ways.

For those people who are listening who don’t understand what somatics are, you are exactly the person I’d like to explain a little bit more about what somatic practices are, how it’s different than mindset, I think is a big key factor. And just what’s your take on what makes a true somatic practice?

Erin Porter: Yeah, so, in just a very basic term, soma means body.[00:06:00] I always like to say, we have conscious mindset work, which is, I think, where most of us enter into the world. Where it’s like, okay, change your thoughts, change the way you’re thinking about something.

And then we’re like, okay, I’m doing all of these things. And again, that’s helpful. We do need conscious mindset work. It’s like that 1 percent of the work that helps to keep us on track. It’s what we can conceptualize. We have our subconscious mind that 99 point whatever 6 percent kind of ranges and depends where you’ve looked at it, which is obviously our unconscious values, our behaviors, our memories, our identity. 

All of that I put in there, and then the Soma is the body. So, the body based experiences, the memories that maybe you don’t remember, but your body remembers. I think at this point, a lot of people have heard of The Body Keeps The Score, the imprints, the impacts are stored in your system. And so, people might disagree with me on this, but I believe everything that’s stored in your body and your nervous system is therefore impacting what you’re thinking and then therefore impacting your results.

And I think a lot of people try to focus it backwards. It’s like, [00:07:00] okay, I’m going to try to change what I’m thinking and that’s going to change the internal experience that I’m having. So from somatic work, there’s different practices. Obviously, anything that’s getting you into your body, things like breath work or yoga or dance practices are going to be considered somatic based practices because they’re including the body.

How I work with people in terms of somatic, it’s more through somatic experiencing, Adult Attachment Repair Model. And then Internal Family Systems work. So looking more so at the parts that are stored in your body, their protection mechanisms that they’re running, and starting to meet them in a healthy co-regulation space where they can unfold, and unwind, and the sensations do more of the talking than our minds do.

Or even like talk based therapy, we’re talking things out and you’re trying to process it because what happens when we do that versus actually getting in the body is we’re still from that lens of conceptualizing it. It’s like we’re looking outside.

One of my mentors always gave me this [00:08:00] beautiful reflection. It’s like we’re looking outside reporting about the weather versus being outside standing in the weather. Those are two different things. I can report to you about how my sensation is feeling, or I can actually drop in and speak from. So those are the different lenses, but that’s how I’m looking at everything in terms of the work that I do.

Nicole Laino: I find this so interesting, particularly Internal Family Systems, I find really fascinating. And before I even knew what that system was, I was looking at things through that lens of what’s protecting me. How is this negative behavior?

This thing that I’m trying to get rid of, how is this actually protecting me? How has this protected me my whole life? And when I learned about Internal Family Systems, I was like, this is just a much deeper aspect of it. How do you work with parts in that way. Where it’s different than working with parts integration in NLP and things like that?

How do you see them differently?

Erin Porter: Yeah, so it’s interesting. I just had a call right before this and we were talking about how do we meet [00:09:00] our parts? And for a lot of us, let’s say we’re working on something with money mindset or something like that. We’re usually meeting the different parts of us, the different selves of us through this lens of, like I said earlier, we’ve got to figure out, we’ve got to fix it, we’ve got to get through it, we’ve got to get on the other side of it.

And what that one does, is it keeps us looping and healing and looping and processed. Because we’re always trying to view things from this lens of figure out, fix, get over, get through, whatever it might be. And so, when I’m looking at parts, I’m being with the experience of the part. It’s very much agenda-less.

It’s like, okay, what if we meet this part without an agenda, without trying to figure out, fix, get through, get on the other side of, and we presence what’s here. And when we presence what’s here, especially in the body, the body is magnetic. It’s beautiful. It knows, it has a somatic story, and it’s going to move through that.

So it’s almost like the presence has no agenda and it’s there, and it’s with, and it’s a yes to the experience. The heart’s online, the [00:10:00] body’s online, we’re with it, and we’re just gonna see what the body does. And what I’ve found is, with our parts, if we go in with an agenda. Obviously, there’s an intention, right?

But if we go in trying to move through something or get through something, we get met with a resistance because we’re usually trying to meet the part from either another part, or from the way that whole part was formed and then what happens is that part then tries to get bigger.

It tries to run that same strategy. And so you can’t meet the part from the same way that the part was formed. It’s got to get the attunement in the healthy way that it didn’t get met growing up. So then that’s where the attachment dynamics start to play in. So, I don’t know if that answered your question fully, but it’s always the lens in which we meet the parts, which helps it to move through. 

Versus NLP parts integration, yes, both of the parts both have this highest intention, which is usually like love, connection, safety, presence, whatever it is when you chunk up high enough. But the thing is, that part’s not going to put the armor down, or the protection strategy [00:11:00] down until it has the safety and the reassurance in the body for it to feel actually safe to be able to do so.

Nicole Laino: And I know you also use EFT as well in your practice. How do you use EFT in this whole arsenal? Because I really love, and I think this is a valid point, that it’s not just one tool, there’s this toolbox that you pull from for working with different people that you’re working with.

And I think that’s similar with human design, and with the other things that I do. I’m always looking at the individual and what’s present right now, and what tool, what do we need in this moment? How do you decide what to use? Do you have your favorites that you go to, or is there some process that you’re taking people through to figure out, this is really what is needed here?

Erin Porter: Yeah, I’d say with EFT, I give that more as like a self to self modality, like anything that I can give people, if I can give them a hypnosis, if I can give them an EFT, that’s something that they can do more self to [00:12:00] self. In session, I’m doing more somatic experiencing, attachment repair, those sorts of things, because those are things that, you can’t heal your attachment style on your own.

It’s something that you have to be in connection. You can regulate yourself. So, I’ll give regulation tools, but if I’m doing a session with somebody, I’m going to do things that require co regulation as a skill for healing. So, I use them all, but just in different ways of like, here are things that you can do outside of session versus what needs presence and what needs to be here now in the body.

And too, because when we start working in the body, if we don’t have a baseline or a capacity, it can actually be, for some archetypes, it can be worse to put somebody into their body if they don’t have a foundation laid. Because let’s say for example, if someone is very much leaving their body, or dissociating, somatic work is gonna blow them out faster than they even have ever been blown out before because there’s not a titration and a pacing to it. So I want people to feel and experience [00:13:00] that so then when they go to do an embodiment practice outside of it, they have a foundation of safety built first.

Nicole Laino: Right, you don’t want them further dissociating, you don’t want them going further into something that is their strategy already because that’s what we do. This is what works, I’m going to work on this thing and we can definitely end up running right into a pattern that we’re looking to break.

So your podcast is called The Energetics of Business. Let’s talk about the energetics of business and why this stuff actually does matter. I think that this is something that in my experience, and I’m curious what yours is, but in my experience, working with people and talking to people, it’s something that they know that they need, but it’s not always something that they feel is at the top of the list of priorities until usually everything falls apart, or they’ve exhausted and spent lots and lots of money on all the other stuff and it hasn’t worked that they’re like, oh, wait, it must be me. 

And then sometimes there can be shame that we’ve layered [00:14:00] on there because all the other things didn’t work and it’s like I’m broken, here now come fix me. What do you see as the role of energetics in business? What is your perspective on that?

Erin Porter: You know it’s so interesting that you said that first part because everyone does usually come to this work in like a rescue dyanmic. And if we would approach our businesses from body first, it’s be so fascinating, right? But a lot of us, we find it when we’ve clawed through everything else.

And then we’re here and like, okay, now I’m going to build from this foundation. And I think what happens is a lot of us have to rebuild our businesses from the body. Once you find it, you’re like, okay, I can see now where everything that I’m running and operating is from a strategy and a part and you usually end up rebuilding.

I’ve rebuilt multiple times once I’ve found things that were operating just from an older lens, or from a part that was trying to get a need met, and then I rebuild it from the body. And so, when we’re looking at the energetics of business, find this type of work first, because it’s going to create you more sustainability, more longevity, [00:15:00] because you’re operating in more of the truth than you are operating in a part of you that’s trying to get a need met through the business.

If your nervous system is dysregulated, or you have, again, parts that are running your business, like your little inner children are just operating all the things, yes, I’m sure there are people out there that can tend to operate in that way, and they will have a lot of success, but the thing is, they also have a lot of anxiety, maybe not healthy relationships, all of that.

Or the face, the mask is everything’s great. Everything’s awesome. But you look at your HRV score, you look at all of these different things and the body’s telling a different story. So with the energetics of business, we get your body on board, align it within your strategy and business, and not just doing what you think you have to do to be successful.

Making sure your nervous system’s regulated when you are launching. And again, you’re not doing these giant things where you get all this prep for this launch and this thing, and then you crash after. For me, I look at the energetics as sustainability and scalability, versus just [00:16:00] being on this constant rollercoaster that we say that we have to be on in order to be successful.

I don’t really buy into that. Yes, there’s dips, there’s highs, there’s lows, but it shouldn’t constantly feel that way. Yes, there’s spirituality. Yes, there’s some woo elements, but a lot of it’s just science. It’s the nervous system. It’s the science of safety in the body, all of those things.

And when we build from there, we build businesses that are actually meant to last.

Nicole Laino: Yeah, I don’t think you want to burn your business to the ground if you have a regulated nervous system. You’re looking at it from a very different lens. You’re looking at it maybe going, this isn’t really working and I feel good about changing it. 

Rather than, oh my God, I can’t take it anymore. I’ve just got to let all of this go. I’ve got to quit and run in the complete opposite direction, which I look at when I quit my corporate job, that was a dysregulated nervous system. I was diagnosed clinically depressed and I was like, I have to pick up and move across the country. I have to leave.

And that was definitely, it was an aligned decision. However, it was definitely [00:17:00] from a place of high stress, anxiety, fear, and really feeling out of control in my body. And I look at the energetics of business from my own perspective and my own business and the people that I work with, it’s the ability to wake up every day and no matter what happens, I mean, this podcast is called Unshakeable, not because we don’t feel anything, but because nothing’s going to knock me down.

There’s nothing I can’t handle. There’s nothing that can come my way, and I can’t allow to feel it all, let it pass through me, and make a decision still from a grounded, clear place and keep going.

Erin Porter: hmm. Mm hmm.

Nicole Laino: And not from that wounded place of, I must keep going or it’s all gonna fall apart.

It’s like, no, I can take a day off because that’s truly what I need right now, and I need to be at my best. You know?

Erin Porter: I feel like we’ve almost normalized it. Like I see a lot of posts on social media, like, if you don’t feel like burning your business down every day, are you even an entrepreneur? And I’m like, actually that doesn’t have to be that way. That’s, [00:18:00] again, where we’ve fell into some societal programming of it has to be this extreme, and we actually don’t have to be in constant stress fight or flight and all of these things in order to build success.

It’s just what we’ve been programmed or conditioned to be able to do to be successful.

Nicole Laino: Totally. And I want to ask your take on toxic positivity. Putting the mask on is another way to look at this, too. The everything is fine. Everything is fine. Everything is fine. But it’s actually not. Do you see that just as much in your world or what you’re picking up from on social media?

Erin Porter: 1000 percent and I think too, especially when you are looking at the somatics of somebody, at least for me. I’m just gonna see through people in that way. Yes, you’re telling me one thing but all of your physical cues, like I can watch you dissociate, I can watch you move your body in certain ways, I can sense the level of presence and connection and all of those things versus if you’re not. So for me, I used to be able to [00:19:00] be like, well they must have everything, they’re making all this money X, Y, and Z.

But now I feel like you just can’t hide behind that anymore. At least I know I can’t. I think once I finally stopped hiding behind it, then I could see it within other people as well. But I had to also stop lying to myself that way first and put that guard down too.

Nicole Laino: And I think this is a beautiful segue to talk about your design a little bit, if you’re game for that. You being a projector, what has your journey been like? We talked a little bit before we started recording about you operating like a lot of projectors do as a mani gen before you get grounded into no, actually I’m like this.

But you are meant to see deeply into people. You’re meant to be able to tune into energetically you are not in alignment. Something’s inauthentic happening here. I think it’s almost perfect that you are a somatic practitioner just because you can pick up on that sacral energy that 70 percent of the world has, which is telling them to go.

You can [00:20:00] pick up your completely open emotional center. You can really tune in to what other people are feeling. What has it been like, how do you see yourself as a projector in the experience of being a projector now versus before?

Erin Porter: I think a lot of it I felt during launches where my business before, I had program that led to program that led to program, and I was constantly launching. Like I was always in this launch, and this next program, and running five programs that were live, and doing all of these things at once.

And I was like, it was great. Like it definitely built me to wherever it is that I was going. It was helpful for me to learn all those things. And then I’m like, wait, what if I’m just not doing 9, 000 things at once? And had to obviously do a lot of deconditioning around the fear of doing more in order to be successful.

But what I actually found within that too, and I think it can relate to any type of design, is I actually had to find the safety in my body first before I [00:21:00] could be more in that projector essence and operate that way. Because for a lot of people, we don’t feel safe in the not doing. We feel safe only in doing, or if we’re not doing we’re more dissociating than we are actually truly resting. 

And I think that was something when I started playing and experimenting more with my design, I was like, I’m not resting. I can try to tell everybody that I’m resting. I’m either dissociating or I’m spinning out, not feeling safe in the rest. And so I feel like I had to work all those parts and find more of that to land before I could really let myself be in that space. 

Nicole Laino: I’m like falling off the edge of my seat because I feel like that’s something, not just with projectors, not just with the non sacrals, I do this with sacrals too, because you’re waiting for response. We’re not supposed to be just, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, going all the time.

Just waiting for the right response and doing things in between. There’s rest involved for everyone. There’s just different levels of rest. And once you kick the generator [00:22:00] on, we can sustain the energy for a long time. We can keep going. That’s the difference. We’re all designed to rest.

Nobody’s meant to be going all the time. But I loved what you said that when you were resting, you weren’t really resting. You were either dissociating or you were just spinning in a loop of being uncomfortable with the rest and wanting to be in action.

What’s the difference now with your experience of what you’re able to feel and what you’re able to do now that you are grounded in that energy of being a projector? I think it’s interesting too, because the people who I find who are in alignment, they found other tools that helped them regulate their nervous system, decondition some of the parts of their design without knowing what they were doing, that they were doing it to their design. 

But we find what we need a lot of times if we are the type to search and to seek. And you have definitely seeker as part of your design. But what is your experience now as a projector?

Versus then if you know the difference. Which I’m guessing if anyone does, it’s [00:23:00] probably you. How does it feel in your body and how does it feel when you’re with other people? What’s the difference of the quality of your experience there energetically?

Erin Porter: You know, there’s two things that pop up. The first one is if I’m around a bunch of other people and they’re doing a bunch of different things in life and business, there’s less of a power over/power under dynamic. Mostly I would lean towards more power under where then I would say throughout all of my energy into everybody else around me thinking that their truth had to be my truth.

And I would lose myself. I either merge in the energy, I would endure. I’d do all these different things. And now there’s like, I can hear you, I can feel you, I can be with you, but I can also find my truth, my central channel, and relax and lean into that. 

So there’s more discernment, I guess, in the system would be one way to put it. And I think the other piece, too, is I’m able to hold myself in the discomfort of, okay, if these parts get activated and they start wanting to do these sorts of things. 

I’m making like a [00:24:00] reaching thing here if you’re listening to the podcast. I can find more of this staying and being with whatever discomfort, my truth versus their truth and all of that, and there’s not like a needing to prove, explain, or do, or jump on everything. There’s a deep knowing in the system.

Nicole Laino: I love that. Would you say that prior to the work that you’ve done, did you find that you would pick up on energy and ever think it was you, or feel disoriented by it?

Was that the experience before?

Erin Porter: I would know this is theirs this is mine, that didn’t stop me though. I could be like, okay, that’s their story, but then it was like codependency. So it’s like, but I need to make them happy, or I need to do it this way to prove that I’m a good girl, that I’m achieving, that I’m doing all this. I would do this a lot with coaches or just in relationships. So it was more that I knew the difference but still lose myself in it because I wasn’t standing on a like a strong internal foundation, so I would get constantly swept [00:25:00] versus actually speaking up of what I wanted to do or how I wanted to do something. And so I think that’s the biggest piece is more of that truth is more there and there’s an unwavering in it, versus if I don’t do this, or if I do speak my truth, or if I go against the grain, what’s going to happen? I had to work through more of the fears then of then not being in that codependent pattern with people or things.

Nicole Laino: Oh, thank you for sharing that. I mean, your G Center is completely open. Your ego center is completely open. Your emotional center is completely open. And the way we look at that is just there’s no consistency that is yours, that you are able to experience it so cleanly from other people. And then being a projector with your super focused aura where you dive into people whether you want to or not. Energetically, you just focus on other people. And other designs have challenges with every single one, but with the projector, I feel [00:26:00] like in my experience living with lots of projectors and working with them, is that you’re here for other people. Meaning that your energy is always seeking out the other. There’s nothing in you that’s saying cool, now go do this.

It’s all very much attached to other, or focused on other people. You’re always taking in the other, you’re always diving in.

Did you ever have to learn to hang back and wait for the invitation, or wait for people to allow you in? Or was that not really an issue for you?

Erin Porter: I think I had to learn more emotionally not to rescue people. I very much had the lens of what I call the fixer coach archetype where I would just want to put out everybody’s fire. I wanted to rescue people from their own discomfort because I couldn’t be with my own emotional discomfort.

And this is also something within the merging pattern,, within the five personality patterns where you self abandon your own needs and you go fix and rescue everybody else’s [00:27:00] because that’s the way that you get out of your own discomfort. So a different map, but very similar, I think, to what you’re sharing.

So it was more so, I don’t know if I necessarily was waiting for the invitation. I was like, you need a life vest? I’ll take off mine and take off everything and give it to all of you. And no, I’ll be good. I’ll be fine. I don’t have needs. What are those?

I’ll just project all my needs out onto you, fix them, and then feel good about myself.

Nicole Laino: Absolutely. That’s why I wanted for you to share your experience and thank you for doing that because I think it helps people to hear what was it like for you? Because my experience is very different than yours and pretty much everybody else’s.

The other question that I have for you, what part of human design have you found the most impactful or that you’ve really been able to tune in and that’s helped you understand yourself more or had another effect on you?

Erin Porter: I think honestly, the profile lines I find very, very fascinating and both in what tracks and also feeling very seen. I was mentioning this to you earlier, in leadership stuff. Like, with the [00:28:00] five, the projections onto and not then contracting or crumbling into the projections, but being able to hold a truth.

When I heard about the projector thing, I had already kind of been operating in that lens. Like, if you would’ve told me projector stuff in 2015, I would’ve been like, I don’t get it. The splenic, I’ve always been like, yes or no, very quick, and I don’t really take too much time.

I’m just like, yep, I’m in, it’s happening, we’re going, and we’re doing this thing, and I’ll move across the country or start the business or whatever. The experimenting part with the three, that tracks, but it was that five, where I was like, oh shit, there’s something here where I felt like it helps me with the initiations within leadership.

And also I would track a lot of the five stuff of, so I look a lot at your energetic capacity within your nervous system to feel safe and holding more. That’s a big piece of somatic work when people are wanting to grow their income, or hold more people in their programs, you gotta get your body on board with that. And I made a huge connection because of the amount of projections, I would limit how much I was able to [00:29:00] hold because there was so much fear of what would happen. 

If it’s 10x what it is right now, that’s 10x the good. Can I actually receive that and hold that? And that’s also 10x the possibility of somebody not liking me. Can I receive and hold that? So those are some of the connections that I’ve made then in the body too.

Nicole Laino: That’s huge. And I love that you made that connection because that takes people a long time usually to get to that point because of the projections and I know I’ve had this experience. My five is in the front, so I’m a 5/1. And it’s still there.

It’s just, do you feel it? Like, I identify with it. You might not identify with the five as much. Do you have that experience where you identify more with, I try things. I experiment. Like you said, I move across the country and if it doesn’t work, whatever, I’ll change it again.

That’s so three. We’ll just do it again and we’ll do it better next time. Do you find that you identify more with that consciously than the five?

Erin Porter: Yeah, definitely.

Nicole Laino: Yeah. And that’s really the big difference. They’re both there [00:30:00] equally. There’s nothing that’s there more or less. There’s just one that it’s out in front and being like, that’s who I am.

And so I’m curious, I know that once I understood what projections were, I realized how much of it was affecting my nervous system and was something that I feel daily. Like every time I’m around people. And how much I was anticipating projections, and how much I hid from them, or I masked to protect myself from them.

Does that resonate at all for you?

Erin Porter: Yeah, yeah, I think it’s what always has been such a limiter for me because I either wanted to live up to the projection that you had on me, and I always wanted to do that, or the moment that I was like, I don’t want this projection anymore I don’t want to be on this pedestal or this thing and I come down. And I’d actually have to hold a boundary, like what a shocking thing, or up level my standards.

Then there could be the attack on the other side of it, because I wasn’t operating any more of the projection, or I couldn’t be [00:31:00] everything to everyone, so I feel like it was a lot of, first of all, I don’t want this projection. I want to be here, and see you from here, and vice versa, but also if there were things that needed to adjust or change, some people are going to come along with you, and some people aren’t, and so being able to navigate then the dynamics in leadership that come with all of that too.

Nicole Laino: Yeah, it’s kind of a mind blowing thing when you’re a five and you find out what that all holds, because it unravels so much of how you’ve operated, and they say, the shadow of the five is, usually fives are either afraid of their own power and they hide from it, or it can go to the other end of being overactive where it’s power hungry and authoritarian. And we don’t want to be any of those things and the challenging thing is that we have to be ourselves outside of the projections, but the projections are what other people see.

So, finding yourself, I think, is one of the core pieces for anyone [00:32:00] who holds a five line in a prominent place, for sure.

Erin Porter: Mm hmm. Mm

Nicole Laino: So I love that you’ve come to all of this through the work that you’ve been doing. And I know you’ve been exposed to and been working with human design for a while as well.

But I think that it’s a testament to all of this work, the energetic work in general, that all roads lead to alignment in some way if you’re seeking it with an open heart.

Erin Porter: hmm. Yeah, and it was interesting what you were saying with the five, like I would use the terms power over/power under dynamic, because I would go more into the power under dynamic. Like I couldn’t actually receive the reflections or whatever was coming in, like, in terms of the healthy projections or the healthy, praise or whatever it was.

My body couldn’t receive it, and so then I would also then do the same thing of, let me power down more, and hide and mask, and all that. So just as you were sharing that, I was like, I refer to the five [00:33:00] personality patterns work a lot where the enduring pattern is more power under, the aggressive pattern is more power over.

And a lot of times with childhood, you can oscillate within those two. So yeah, just interesting how you made that connection. I was like, oh yeah, that, that map goes with this map in that way.

Nicole Laino: I love that, the power under and the enduring and aggressive. I can think of times in my life where I shifted from one to the other. Where it went from, our dynamic is enduring and I made a choice, but then you overshoot it and now it goes aggressive. So it’s so interesting this work and all the work that you do. 

Tell everybody how can they work with you? How can they learn more about what you do? Because it is such deep and just universally impactful work that you do, and it does have a monetary impact. It does have an impact on what you are able to achieve, and grow, and grow into.

It’s probably things you haven’t even consciously attached to because you’re afraid to go there. [00:34:00] That the possibilities beyond yourself are so much greater once you do start doing this work. So tell everybody where they can learn more about you, what you do, and how they can work with you.

Erin Porter: Yeah. Yeah. So I’m pretty much Erin Nicole Coaching everywhere that you go on the internet. The Energetics of Business is also my podcast. And I actually have a book it’s called Burnout to Breakthrough where I bridge my gap, I guess, between just burning out go, go, go doing all the things.

And that obviously then not finding that as my pathway anymore. So that book is on Amazon and I usually have different ways. I have my certification, working together one to one and all of that.

Nicole Laino: Well, I highly recommend you checking all of that out. We will link all of that up in the show notes for you as well to make it super easy for you to find Erin and to find all of the ways that you can work with her and learn more about her. Thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate you having this conversation and just being your beautiful self and sharing your wisdom with us.

Thank you for being here.

Erin Porter: Thank you for having me.

Nicole Laino: And thank you for making it all the way to the end of this episode [00:35:00] with us listener. You made it. We appreciate you. We love you. Thank you for being here. And remember, you can only have an unshakeable business if you first become an unshakeable human. So we hope we helped you on that journey today.

And we hope you join us next time where we continue helping you on your journey of becoming Unshakeable with Human Design. We’ll see you in the next one.

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