Spirituality and business can (and should) coexist

I can’t figure out if January is going by fast or slow. On one hand, I can’t believe it’s already January 22. 

On the other, I feel like I’ve been slowly easing myself into the year. A couple of weeks ago, I had shared here that I was scheduled for dental surgery.  

But when I was at the dentist’s office two days before the appointment, I learned of a major miscommunication in regards to this procedure. My gut told me to hold off and seek out another opinion, which is what I’ve decided to do. 

Luckily this isn’t an urgent issue: I am grateful that I can take my time with it. 

I thought I would feel more relieved, though: No surgery? No pain? No recovery? Great, right? But I was mentally and financially preparing for this treatment for months. Having it suddenly come off my calendar really threw me off for some reason: All of that energy spent building towards something that might not even be right for me. 

It didn’t help that I received an unkind message on the same day my dental care got derailed. I had shared about my upcoming workshop, Selling Your Spiritual Services, when an acquaintance wrote to me to share that he felt it was “crass” I was running such a class.  

He suggested I at least change the name of it. The idea of business and sales merging with spiritual work makes him uncomfortable.  

Of course, I’m not changing a thing. Nor am I apologizing for it. (And also: Why do people feel the need to give unsolicited advice in the first place? It’s so patronizing.)  

This class is called Selling Your Spiritual Services because I didn’t want to get fancy with the title: I wanted it to be clear what we’re doing here. If you have a spiritual business but you’re having trouble selling your offerings, I want it to be clear from the start that this class can help you with that.  

I included “spiritual services” in the title rather than something more specific because I wanted to keep the class open to practitioners of all kinds.  

It doesn’t matter if you’re a tarot reader or an astrologer or a tea leaf reader or a medium: What I’m teaching in this workshop is foundational training that can be applied to any type of spiritual or service-based work.  

When pushback, like what I received recently, comes up in regards to business and spiritual work, it sometimes stems from shame or guilt around money.  

Or it comes from the belief that sales and business are inherently sleazy and manipulative. Or it comes from a desire for business to be an effortless flow of manifestation rather than discipline and commitment.  

But you can’t build a business out of shame or guilt. You have to move forward with confidence in your path: If you don’t believe in yourself first, how can you expect your clients to put their faith in your work? 

The idea that learning a business skill will somehow take you out of your integrity as a practitioner is a major block in spiritual communities.  

So many readers, healers, and diviners dream of helping as many people as possible through their work. And yet they feel stuck in figuring out how to reach those people in the first place.  

Or, they spend way too much time posting content on social media that doesn’t translate to paid client work.  

Or they put together beautiful websites that don’t end up making any sales. 

Or they wait to be discovered when instead they need to be taking initiative to stand out. 

These are the things that my upcoming workshop will help with. Before I went full-time in my tarot business, I spent eight years in marketing and communications in the non-profit industry.  

My aim then was to help people.  

My aim is the same now, except I do it in different ways: Whether it’s through a tarot reading, a workshop, a course, a book… it all comes down to facilitating change in someone else’s life.  

I understand how challenging it can be to communicate something as intangible as transformation, or hope. But that’s what we do as spiritual practitioners.  

And that’s how I want to help people this month, through Selling Your Spiritual Services. Sure, it might not be the cleverest class name, but if you want to learn how to clearly communicate your work in a way that will help you align with your ideal clients, I’d love for you to join.  

You’ll leave with foundational tools that you can use again and again, no matter where your path takes you. Join here.