Shadow Work & Subscription Models
Shadow Work & Subscription Models
What your data knows… that you’ve been trying not to see.
You launched a subscription because you were tired of chasing one-off clients.
You wanted consistency. Stability. A rhythm you could rely on.
You built the container.
Set up the automations.
Invited people in.
And now — there’s some traction.
People are joining.
Some are staying.
Some… are quietly leaving.
And you?
You’re in your dashboard.
Watching the churn.
Refreshing the MRR.
Staring at the numbers like they’ll reveal something deeper.
But here’s the uncomfortable truth:
Your numbers won’t lie.
But they won’t coddle you, either.
This isn’t about optimization.
This is about ownership.
Because when someone leaves your subscription, it’s rarely random.
It’s feedback.
And most of us?
We don’t want it.
We want to believe it’s the algorithm.
The timing.
The economy.
Their lack of discipline.
We want to believe our offer is fine — and they just didn’t “get it.”
But what if they did get it?
What if they saw something you haven’t looked at yet?
Shadow work isn’t just personal.
It’s structural.
It’s in the parts of your model you don’t want to question.
Like:
The bonuses you resent delivering
The access you give because you’re afraid to charge more
The bloated content library you don’t even believe in anymore
The Slack channel you haven’t opened in a week
The people still paying… who aren’t actually engaging
These aren’t surface problems.
They’re signals.
Every underused feature, every churned member, every confusing offer stack — is holding up a mirror.
Not just to your strategy.
To your self-concept.
Your boundaries.
Your values.
Your inner conflicts.
And no automation will fix what you haven’t faced.
Shadow work shows up as:
Overdelivery rooted in fear of rejection
Underpricing disguised as “accessibility”
Exhaustion masked as generosity
Shame when people cancel
Rage when they don’t “get results” — even though you gave them everything
You want loyalty.
But you built obligation.
You want freedom.
But you’re afraid to remove the things people didn’t even ask for.
And the truth is — your subscription model is doing its job.
It’s surfacing everything you thought you could outrun.
The data doesn’t care about your brand voice.
It cares about your patterns.
That’s the beauty and brutality of recurring revenue.
It doesn’t just tell you what’s working.
It shows you what’s unresolved.
The launch that felt forced
The onboarding that still isn’t intuitive
The value that isn’t as clear as it used to be
The access you’re offering that isn’t sustainable
It’s all right there.
If you’re willing to see it.
Not as failure.
But as feedback.
Not as shame.
But as a signal that something is misaligned.
And misalignment is expensive.
Want to grow your subscription?
Don’t add another bonus.
Ask:
What part of this offer am I pretending to love — but secretly dread?
What does my retention rate say about my boundaries?
Where am I giving from fear, not from clarity?
What would this model look like if it were built from wholeness, not wounds?
Because churn isn’t always a marketing problem.
Sometimes, it’s a reflection of the energy underneath the structure.
Final thought
You can’t build a clean business from a chaotic identity.
And your subscription model — with its rhythm, its retention, its receipts — will keep showing you what you’ve been avoiding.
That’s not a bad thing.
That’s your next level knocking.
So yes, use your data.
But not just to tweak your CTA or shorten your onboarding.
Use it to investigate your truth.
Because sometimes, the reason people leave isn’t because the offer’s wrong.
It’s because you’re not really in it anymore.
And they can feel that.
You’re not broken.
But you might be misaligned.
And now — you know.
Now, you can choose again.
Not from fear.
From integrity.
Let the numbers tell the truth.
Let your body do the same.
And let your next version of this offer be built with all of you — not just the parts that perform well.
