There is a whole side of my life I am developing and would love to share with you. It’s my Business Witch side; the part that is dedicated to merging my priestess practice and venusian, witchy sensibilities with the adventure of being self employed and running a biz (or two, or three: I’m self employed full-time as a performer, dance teacher, mermaid and priestess.). So here is my new column: Witchpreneur.
Honestly, it’s taken me a really long time to share this stuff, because I am learning, and I am in no way a business coach or anything like that in a million years. But I find my journey as an entrepreneur throws up so many challenges for growth and priestess opportunities, I want to start sharing my journey… especially as I run a balls our incredible witchy business/branding/ritual retreat called Spellbound in the Autumn.
I’ve been finding it hard to push myself the way I used to.
Once upon a time, I used to be able to consistently work till 9pm every night, hustle hustle hustle. I’d have lots of stress and deadlines and chaos and I’d be able to put up with it.
I mean, it wasn’t great, and the stress affected me in sneaky ways like injuries and headaches and a profound lack of fun. But it was do-able. I could do it.
Nowadays though?
Last week I pulled just one all-nighter and stayed up till midnight sewing a costume for my big biannual production.
And for three days afterwards, I was beyond exhausted, on the brink of tears, feeling incredibly unworthy and small and fragile and a bit pathetic.
I cried a little bit when I saw a baby dog. When I my shopping bag split. When my boyfriend disagreed with me about something in Lord of the Rings.
I’m on day 6 right now and I am still a sensitive and exhausted.
This has happened before. Last time I was doing mad work for a deadline (my Morgan le Fey course back in November), the same thing happened. I burnt out hella quick and spent a week in a fragile coma lying on the earth trying to get better.
Last week, when I realised I was burnt out again, I was shocked. I thought, Holy crap I am so WEAK. I can’t even deal with a little tough deadline any more! How PATHETIC.
I felt so ashamed: so, so ashamed that I couldn’t handle the “usual” stress and hustle of deadline life.
SO I spent a couple of days moping about feeling sorry for myself.
Then I realised something.
Last year, my biz bestie and I ran an incredible, magical branding retreat in Glastonbury for a small coven of entrepreneurs (Spellbound! You should check it out), and one of the powerful rituals I held was us vowing to open to the Feminine way of doing business, to walk from the hustling, pushing energy of the Masculine to the receptive, magnetic energy of the Feminine in biz.
We were all tired of the hustle, of trying to fit the esoteric things we do – one person was an angel healer, another a tarot reader, there is me the Dancer Priestess, a copy writer, a coach – into the competitive patriarchal mould of struggle, pushing and competition. We wanted to know what it was to open up to the Divine Feminine way of running a business.
Essentially, we vowed to open up to a new way of doing business COMPLETELY.
And since then, as soon as my work life starts to push and cause detriment to my personal life, I just shut down.
If I work late, I can’t sleep.
If I push a little too hard, I break down.
If I loose myself in hustle and the not-enoughness, my emotions go wobbly and I’m back to crying at dogs and Lord of the Rings discussions.
Before my big ritual transformation I totally did burn out every now and again, but it was always a huge buildup and a huge implosion. I’d treat myself like shit for a year, then collapse in a wobble for a month or two.
Now, I just need to fall out of alignment a little bit and BOOM, wobble time.
I guess its a reminder that things are different now.
That I really need to be in alignment with the Divine Feminine in biz, and cos I vowed it, She’s not going to let me flunk out on it.
I can’t do things the old way anymore: it’s ritually sealed that it won’t work, and my job is to learn the new way.
Isn’t it INCREDIBLE how powerful rituals can be? I can’t quite get over how something as simple as a ritual in a sacred space can so profoundly change the way everything in your life happens.
I mean, I’m a priestess and my mind is BLOWN.