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Huh? Yep, you read it right. Business and Spirit do serve each other, and we’re seeing a growing number of such examples around us.
To give you an idea of how it might happen, feel welcome to study my story. It’s nothing that I can put in a resume, but perhaps it can serve you as something to bounce your own journey against.
I’ve been entrepreneurial-minded for about 20 years, since I first met my husband who was self-employed in the theatrical business. I envied him his freedom, and from then on, I was hooked on the idea of me too doing my own thing, and getting paid for it. (I’ve been a poor employee ever since, LOL. Talk about burning your bridges!)
Before I left my professional job in the Health Department, I learned to do Reiki to Master level. This was a continuation of my own spiritual journey that began in the early 1980′s, but which had basically been put on hold while I studied at uni, and then worked at a government job.
So, at the time I was skilled in counselling and training and now in Reiki, I thought that I could just launch out on my own in private practice helping people wholistically.
My naivete is embarrasing, now when I look back on it. I just had all this enthusiasm and ideas, but little money behind me, let alone an understanding of running a business. So I went to a government-based small business development officer, whose best advice to me was to go and get a job! No, no, no, no, NO!!!!!!
You see, I’m stubborn, and I knew that this was a path I just had to follow. I couldn’t, I wouldn’t, squash that seed of freedom that was beginning to grow.
One of the things I resist strongly is the pull to be average. Frankly I just see it as a zombie-like state, with society and authorities putting thoughts inside your head (mainly via television), shaping what you think and how you think. “Trust me, I’m a doctor” or “I’m the expert” or “I’m the boss”
Anyway, back to my personal little drama. I found I could be of service by developing my skills as a tarot reader (linked back to Jungian psychology, with symbolism, collective unconscious and dream work). So for two or so years, I worked at what I call being a sneaky counselor. I learned the everyday people with an uncomfortable degree of unhappiness would prefer to pay to see a tarot reader rather than a psychologist.
And although I wasn’t making a fortune, I was at least able to sustain my end of our joint expenses, which weren’t very high. I was, at least, able to avoid taking a “real job”.
When I went to uni, I really enjoyed fulfilling my intellectual potential. Then as a tarot reader, I found I was fully exploring my intuitive potential, which I also really enjoyed. But I didn’t like being mentally lopsided, in either direction, so I looked for a field of expression where I could work both sides of my brain. One day it found me.
I remember the day, when browsing through the bookstore where I worked as the in-house psychic, when I was looking at a particular book, and being literally punched in the gut with realisation that this was the next path for me. The topic was Feng Shui. The year was 1995.
At that time, there weren’t many books on the topic, so I ordered as many as I could, many imported from the US. (I’m in Australia, remember). I discovered a practitioner course offered in Sydney, run over a few months, that I knew I had to get to. That involved a quite a bit of the juggling of finances to pull off. But I did it.
I especially enjoyed grafting feng shui onto my psychology background. I began to see very clearly how you could “read” people very easily from their home environment. This connection was hardly covered at all in conventional psychological studies.
I also enjoyed exploring new paradigms through which to view the world – learning to see it as varying levels and quantities of interacting energies. I learned to appreciate the difference between the role of cultural superstitions and the authentic application of feng shui.
Working as the local feng shui consultant provided a bit of work here and there, and I ran seminars to help educate and train others. I very strongly believed in helping people to help themselves.
By the late 1990′s, feng shui was taking off like wildfire. Unfortunately it became a band-wagon of all kinds of junk applications, where there was no differentiation between Chinese superstition and the skilful art of assessment and remedy.
I continued to study advanced feng shui with a number of masters, including Kwai Lan Chan. But my consultation requests were almost all for the basic stuff. So my advanced knowledge became rusty with lack of use.
Thus I became disillusioned with feng shui, not wanting to taint myself with the junky side of it that was being churned out by the popular media. I turned down many consultation requests, because, in my mind, after speaking with the callers for a few minutes, they were not genuine requests for help but simply wanted to savour the exotic gimickry.
Again, this wasn’t the field that was going to make me financially free. I learned that I had difficulty in charging an appropriate price and defending it.
Maybe it’s appropriate here to give a few words of my background, to put the financial side of things into context.
I grew up in a poor part of Brisbane, Australia, after my family migrated from Germany. Not used to home ownership, my parents were happy for us to continue renting from the state housing commission, and my mum still lives in the same house to this very day.
My mum stayed at home, and my dad worked as a labourer. So mum was forever paying off Paul to pay Peter, and juggling the money to stay on top of things. Our clothes were mainly home sewn, or second hand.
Despite all this, it was a book loving home, and education was highly valued for the five girls – of which I’m the eldest.
So it was a pretty typical place of mixed messages regarding money, success and opportunities. My parents undoubtedly loved us, but had their own issues about money that were passed down to the next generation.
Down the track, I’ll write how I incorporated Feng Shui with my Psychology skills.
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