LET’S GET DOWN TO CONSCIOUS BUSINESS.
Tell capitalism to fuck off and get conscious about your business practices. Read the latest:
LET’S GET DOWN TO CONSCIOUS BUSINESS.
Tell capitalism to fuck off and get conscious about your business practices. Read the latest:
SUBSCRIBE FOR NEW CONSCIOUS BUSINESS POSTS
SUBSCRIBE FOR NEW CONSCIOUS BUSINESS POSTS
CONSCIOUS BUSINESS NEEDS A REBRAND.
Get in, loser. We’re starting a revolution.
Not only is conscious business coaching joke, it isn’t even the least bit conscious. The formula goes something like this:Flaunt faux overnight success to make you feel like a loser (shame via aspirational marketing) + Dangle alleged secret formula they discovered that will make all of your dreams come true (magic pill) + Throw in a little talk about manifesting and alignment (lightwashing) = $$$$
What happens afterward when you fail to achieve the unattainable standards of success they sold you? They tell you that you just didn’t work hard enough and then you feel like a loser, and the cycle starts all over again with a new product to up-sell you on.
The allegedly conscious business models, marketing strategies, and services that the elite coaching industry are selling are the same old predatory capitalist business practices that have always existed –– they’re just wrapped in love, light, and greed: manipulative messaging, coercive sales tactics, deceptive practices, and empty promises about manifesting your best entrepreneurial life.
This model of conscious business isn’t truly conscious business at all.
Traditional business and marketing practices were founded in the dying paradigm crumbling all around us. Its philosophy is one of social Darwinism, which is inherently at odds with spiritual expansion. Its model is based on competition, and scarcity, shame, and fear are the result. It pits us against one another and teaches us to financially prey on our clients in order to achieve success.
The messaging is sending us subconscious signals that there’s not enough clients, not enough money, and not enough time; and the magical solution to attain the unrealistic levels of success which are constantly flaunted in front of your face as “manifesting your dream life” is to buy more programs, tools, workshops, coaches, courses, and on and on and on.
“Invest in yourself!” conscious business coaches tell you. “Visualize your success!” they say.
Visualize your success? What about your clients’ success? What about helping people? What about building a better world? What about being of service? Why isn’t this their top priority? Because they have to convince you that it’s worth it to spend thousands of your hard-earned dollars on their services that provide little to no value or return on investment.
They violate your boundaries, they cause you emotional and financial harm, and they teach you to do the same to your prospective clients.
As someone with two decades of experience in marketing and advertising, and someone who is hell bent on living a heart-led, purpose driven life, I’ve recognized that the reason myself and many people like me feel a strong aversion to this style of marketing isn’t because we’re “playing small” and it isn’t because we’re suffering from iMpOsTer SyDrOmE, as these conscious business coaches always like to tell you.
It’s because the energy of it feels repulsive. It isn’t in alignment with our identity, our values, our spirituality, nor the new world we want to create, and heart-centered entrepreneurs intuitively feel that. It’s spiritually bankrupt, and we know it.
We’re not scared of offering services. We’re not afraid of our own greatness. We’re in tune with our hearts, our spirit, and our values, and we’re not willing to compromise our spiritual integrity to get more clients and make more money. We are here to be of service to the collective. Our mission is heart-led. Our vision is soul-centered.
“Most Cringeworthy Coaching Award” is a gold medal I’m sure you don’t care to compete for, and I don’t know about you, but I’ll gladly declare myself a loser in that contest.
Fundamentally, this old model of business and marketing cannot survive and neither can the people who are profiting from it, because it is out of alignment with the New Paradigm we’re building.
For those of us who refuse to bow to the capitalistic idolatry evangelized by the conscious business coaching industry, the message is clear: it’s time to evolve the way we promote ourselves and do business. That starts with defining our values, re-envisioning our definition of success, and stripping away all of the problematic biases and subtle forms of emotional abuse that underpin today’s business practices to create a new paradigm for conscious business.
CAPITALISM IS SO OLD PARADIGM.
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START UNLEARNING
How Energy Workers Can Harm Clients When They Aren’t Trauma Informed
Even the most well-intentioned energy workers, coaches, and spiritual practitioners can harm their clients if they don’t understand trauma. Here’s a personal story about how an energy worker harmed me.
Mapping out the Wellness-to-White Supremacy Pipeline
The wellness-to-white supremacy pipeline – aka the crunchy-to-alt-right pipeline – may be something you heard of. This describes the pattern of indoctrination of people within the wellness world into the alt-right. Today, I’m going to show you how New Agers are uniquely susceptible to it, which might explain why so many fall for conspiracy theories and become born-again Christians.
How Spiritual Materialism and the Coaching Industry Help Bankroll the Climate Crisis
The New Age obsession with wealth manifestation and abundance is helping to destroy the planet. If by ascension, you meant mass extinction, then yeah. That light work is workin’ it alright.
Sexism’s Feminine Rebrand: How Polarity Doctrine Sells Repackaged Patriarchy in the Form of Benevolent Sexism
Learn how New Age spirituality becomes anti-feminist and repositions sexism as a good thing by appealing to a very specific type sexism known as benevolent sexism.
4 Common Reasons Your Coaching Clients Aren’t Getting Results That Have Nothing to do With Them
Plot twist: It’s not *always* your client’s fault that they’re not benefitting from your program. Here’s four of the most common reasons clients fail in a coach’s program and what you can do about it.
What is Ethical Business, Anyway?
I’ve seen a lot of conversation here and there lately about what exactly ARE ethics and what IS ethical business, so I thought I’d talk about that a bit.
Do you really need a coach?
Do you really need a business coach? Or is a consultant or freelancer your best choice? Here’s a guide to help you decide what’s best for your business.
Interview: Deconstructing the Coaching Industry
I did an interview with business coach George Kao last week. Some of the things we talk about include: asking your clients for feedback, emotional manipulation in marketing, how our culture breeds narcissism, abuses of power in coaching dynamics, business cults, and the negative effects of branding too personally. Check it out!
How White Supremacy Shows Up In New Age Spirituality
The answer to this one might surprise you.
Social Justice Best Practices for Business Owners
As the owner of a conscious business and someone in a position of power and privilege, you have a duty to your audience and clients to let them know where you stand on social issues that directly affect their well-being. Here’s some best practices to help you respond to these kinds of situations.
5 Ways Coaches Use Emotional Manipulation
The coaching industry is rife with toxic business practices and harmful industry standards. Here’s five ways that coaches use emotional manipulation in their content marketing to coerce you into committing to their programs.
How to Spot Spiritual Frauds Online
If I’ve done anything over the eight year span of writing this blog, I hope I’ve taught you discernment. Today I’m giving you a few tools to help you discern whether or not you should be putting your trust in someone online, whether it be a spiritual teacher or coach.
Performative Vulnerability
“Vulnerability porn or performative vulnerability” looks like sharing highly curated intimate details of one’s life for the sake of engagement, virtue signaling, and at the end of the day, sales. This brand of faux authenticity still only shows you a small piece of the whole picture. As with everything, it’s often not the action itself, but rather, the motivation behind it. Let’s explore.
How to Transition Into a Full-Time Business
Question from a reader: “One thing I genuinely struggle with is the part about financial scarcity and if you’re pressured to need to get money from this work then it loses integrity. Is it wrong to make any of this a sole source of your income?”
Money Mindsets and Poverty Consciousness
Time to talk about “abundance” mindsets and whether or not you can really get rich by simply thinking positive thoughts. The sordid history of this popular concept might surprise you.
Check Your Spiritual Elitism
It’s important that we recognize when and how systems of oppression and classism show up in our community and in our own spiritual and business practices. Here’s a few ways that may be happening and what you can do about it.
Passion is a Contagion
Fuck rules. And fuck sales. Fuck the strategies. Fuck the funnels. Fuck all the bullshit. Passion is contagious, and that’s all the marketing you really need.
Spiritual Narcissism
For those in the know, “spiritual ego” is quite rampant in the spiritual community. The more mainstream spirituality has become in the west, the more it has been influenced by individualistic Western cultural values, resulting in what social science has now termed spiritual narcissism.
The Success Trap
I realized a while ago that material success is an ego trap. A shiny distraction from what really matters.
Western Individualism and Spirituality
I reference individualism frequently in my posts and point to it as one of the underlying problems with Western spirituality. I wanted to take some time to do a deeper dive on this so everyone understands what I’m talking about.
Buzzwords Are Bullshit
Have you ever noticed how the latest new age buzzwords seem to trickle down into spiritual business coach marketing jargon, but they have absolutely no meaning attached to them?
Your Perspective isn’t Valid if it Contradicts Objective Reality
A common misconception that many spiritual people have is that spirituality tells us that we each create our own reality. What many often don’t realize, however, is that reality isn’t what is subjective –– your experience of it is what is subjective. The personal beliefs and opinions formed by those experiences are may not be valid, particularly compared to someone else’s.
Health and Privilege in the Wellness Industry
I’ve noticed that a lot of people have been led to believe that health is something that is equally attainable to anyone who simply chooses it. Today I’m talking about why this is a misconception that has been inceptioned into your brain by a $4.3 Trillion industry that needs you to believe it in order to get you to pay the unfairly high prices they are asking.
Spirituality’s Toxic Marketing Problem
If you’re a spiritual practitioner who hates marketing yourself, or you’re someone who is in the market to find a practitioner for any kind of service, you need to read this RIGHT NOW.
How Patriarchy Shows up in Spirituality
You might think spirituality is supposed to be void of cultural programming. After all, it’s supposed to push us to question all of those things. But does it, really? Especially when it comes to the Divine Masculine and Feminine, patriarchy seeps in. Here’s how to identify it.
How Ableism Shows Up in Spirituality
I made a post on Instagram last week about ableism and spirituality which has sparked some conversations that further demonstrate how ableism is so deeply embedded in our beliefs and culture. I’m going to really dig into this today and ask you to critically examine some of your own spiritually-based beliefs and biases.
Healing Will Not Make You Wealthy
Have you noticed this new trend in spiritual business coaching that’s selling healing as a means to obtain a seven-figure business?
Why You Don’t Feel Aligned with Modern Marketing
One of the most common complaints I’ve heard from spiritual entrepreneurs is that they feel completely repulsed by modern marketing, and yet, they always believe there’s something wrong with them and end up investing thousands of dollars with business coaches who attempt to mold them into a carbon copy of themselves: another soulless marketing machine. And it does nothing but dim their light.
Disembodied Spirituality: Is it Really Zen or is it Dissociation?
Spirituality and holistic wellness is supposed to be about the mind, body, and spirit, but a lot of toxic, ungrounded spirituality completely ignores the entire body part and only focuses on the mind or the spirit. Here’s how to discern whether or not a spiritual teacher/teaching is disembodied (and thus, not holistic).
How to Know if your Spiritual Teacher is a Narcissist
Spiritual professions are an area ripe for manipulation due to the lack of structure, cohesion in teachings, no governing body to regulate them, and a host of wide-eyed people in pain seeking answers from gurus. Here’s some tips on identifying patterns of behavior from a narcissist disguised as a “light worker.”
Why Your Spiritual Practice Should be Trauma-Informed
Not all spirituality is helpful or healthy spirituality. Trauma-informed spirituality is where we need to go in our attempts to leave behind toxic spirituality. Here’s what that is, and how to identify it.
The Fine Line Between Boundaries and Bypassing
Are you actually setting boundaries? Or are you using spiritual concepts to avoid accountability and having to face your own cognitive dissonance? Let’s discuss.
On Cancelling Cancel Culture
Digging into cancel culture, racism, sexism, bias, and bigotry today. Oh my! As well as what these all have to do with spirituality.
Why QAnon Infected The Spiritual and Wellness Communities
I’ve been receiving a lot of comments on my posts lately from people within the spiritual community and outside of it all saying the same thing: “I don’t understand how people got from spirituality to QAnon.” Hold my beer, I’m gonna draw you a diagram…
Have You Been the Victim of Spiritual Abuse?
I’ve seen (and been subjected to) spiritual abuse many times throughout my spiritual journey. I’ve compiled all the signs and symptoms of spiritual abuse that I’ve observed so that you can spot it.
The Shadow of Spirituality
The time has come for the spiritual community to confront its own shadow.
How to Spot a Spiritually Immature Wellness Influencer
Learn how to identify people who’ve placed themselves in positions of power and authority who perhaps have no business being there.
5 Toxic People To Avoid On Your Spiritual Journey
There’s five people we all meet on our spiritual journey that we wish we hadn’t. Here’s who they are, how to spot them, why you should avoid them.
Speak Your Truth, But Be Forewarned…
I originally wrote the first half of this post in 2015, but I came across something on Facebook last night that reminded me of it and I had some additional thoughts to add. The phrase “Speak your truth” comes with a couple of important caveats. I’m diving into a new one in the second half of this post.
Materialistic Spirituality
I don’t talk about manifesting a lot, even though it’s all the rage. Here’s why.
How To Know If A Spiritual Teacher Is Credible
The concept of credibility came up in my post on critical thinking and spirituality yesterday. I think part of our issue today with all of the misinformation floating around is that a lot of people don’t really understand what credibility means. Today I’m going to give you a rundown of what makes someone credible in the realms of science and journalism, and how to apply that to spirituality.
Do We Manifest Abusive Experiences?
It’s time to talk about toxic spiritual concepts and its contribution to victim shaming and the enabling of abusive dynamics.
I Quit
The day I thought would never come has arrived. This the end of In My Sacred Space.
The Day I Threw My Career In The Trash
Eighteen months ago, I abruptly shuttered my business as a marketing, business, and branding consultant for tech startups. Here’s why.
Healers Need Boundaries Too: The Unrealistic Expectations of Healers and Spiritual Figures
Just because you’re a healer doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice yourself. Don’t let others tell you otherwise… plus – another Woo Woo Wine Night: Intro to Tarot has been added. Sign up while you still can!
Should Psychics and Healers Charge For Their Services?
This is definitely one of the more hotly debated topics I’ve seen here and there. Should people be expected to pay for a psychic service or healing? Read on…
How Energy Workers Can Harm Clients When They Aren’t Trauma Informed
Even the most well-intentioned energy workers, coaches, and spiritual practitioners can harm their clients if they don’t understand trauma. Here’s a personal story about how an energy worker harmed me.
Mapping out the Wellness-to-White Supremacy Pipeline
The wellness-to-white supremacy pipeline – aka the crunchy-to-alt-right pipeline – may be something you heard of. This describes the pattern of indoctrination of people within the wellness world into the alt-right. Today, I’m going to show you how New Agers are uniquely susceptible to it, which might explain why so many fall for conspiracy theories and become born-again Christians.
How Spiritual Materialism and the Coaching Industry Help Bankroll the Climate Crisis
The New Age obsession with wealth manifestation and abundance is helping to destroy the planet. If by ascension, you meant mass extinction, then yeah. That light work is workin’ it alright.
Sexism’s Feminine Rebrand: How Polarity Doctrine Sells Repackaged Patriarchy in the Form of Benevolent Sexism
Learn how New Age spirituality becomes anti-feminist and repositions sexism as a good thing by appealing to a very specific type sexism known as benevolent sexism.
4 Common Reasons Your Coaching Clients Aren’t Getting Results That Have Nothing to do With Them
Plot twist: It’s not *always* your client’s fault that they’re not benefitting from your program. Here’s four of the most common reasons clients fail in a coach’s program and what you can do about it.
What is Ethical Business, Anyway?
I’ve seen a lot of conversation here and there lately about what exactly ARE ethics and what IS ethical business, so I thought I’d talk about that a bit.
Do you really need a coach?
Do you really need a business coach? Or is a consultant or freelancer your best choice? Here’s a guide to help you decide what’s best for your business.
Interview: Deconstructing the Coaching Industry
I did an interview with business coach George Kao last week. Some of the things we talk about include: asking your clients for feedback, emotional manipulation in marketing, how our culture breeds narcissism, abuses of power in coaching dynamics, business cults, and the negative effects of branding too personally. Check it out!
How White Supremacy Shows Up In New Age Spirituality
The answer to this one might surprise you.
Social Justice Best Practices for Business Owners
As the owner of a conscious business and someone in a position of power and privilege, you have a duty to your audience and clients to let them know where you stand on social issues that directly affect their well-being. Here’s some best practices to help you respond to these kinds of situations.
5 Ways Coaches Use Emotional Manipulation
The coaching industry is rife with toxic business practices and harmful industry standards. Here’s five ways that coaches use emotional manipulation in their content marketing to coerce you into committing to their programs.
How to Spot Spiritual Frauds Online
If I’ve done anything over the eight year span of writing this blog, I hope I’ve taught you discernment. Today I’m giving you a few tools to help you discern whether or not you should be putting your trust in someone online, whether it be a spiritual teacher or coach.
Performative Vulnerability
“Vulnerability porn or performative vulnerability” looks like sharing highly curated intimate details of one’s life for the sake of engagement, virtue signaling, and at the end of the day, sales. This brand of faux authenticity still only shows you a small piece of the whole picture. As with everything, it’s often not the action itself, but rather, the motivation behind it. Let’s explore.
How to Transition Into a Full-Time Business
Question from a reader: “One thing I genuinely struggle with is the part about financial scarcity and if you’re pressured to need to get money from this work then it loses integrity. Is it wrong to make any of this a sole source of your income?”
Money Mindsets and Poverty Consciousness
Time to talk about “abundance” mindsets and whether or not you can really get rich by simply thinking positive thoughts. The sordid history of this popular concept might surprise you.
Check Your Spiritual Elitism
It’s important that we recognize when and how systems of oppression and classism show up in our community and in our own spiritual and business practices. Here’s a few ways that may be happening and what you can do about it.
Passion is a Contagion
Fuck rules. And fuck sales. Fuck the strategies. Fuck the funnels. Fuck all the bullshit. Passion is contagious, and that’s all the marketing you really need.
Spiritual Narcissism
For those in the know, “spiritual ego” is quite rampant in the spiritual community. The more mainstream spirituality has become in the west, the more it has been influenced by individualistic Western cultural values, resulting in what social science has now termed spiritual narcissism.
The Success Trap
I realized a while ago that material success is an ego trap. A shiny distraction from what really matters.
Western Individualism and Spirituality
I reference individualism frequently in my posts and point to it as one of the underlying problems with Western spirituality. I wanted to take some time to do a deeper dive on this so everyone understands what I’m talking about.
Buzzwords Are Bullshit
Have you ever noticed how the latest new age buzzwords seem to trickle down into spiritual business coach marketing jargon, but they have absolutely no meaning attached to them?
Your Perspective isn’t Valid if it Contradicts Objective Reality
A common misconception that many spiritual people have is that spirituality tells us that we each create our own reality. What many often don’t realize, however, is that reality isn’t what is subjective –– your experience of it is what is subjective. The personal beliefs and opinions formed by those experiences are may not be valid, particularly compared to someone else’s.
Health and Privilege in the Wellness Industry
I’ve noticed that a lot of people have been led to believe that health is something that is equally attainable to anyone who simply chooses it. Today I’m talking about why this is a misconception that has been inceptioned into your brain by a $4.3 Trillion industry that needs you to believe it in order to get you to pay the unfairly high prices they are asking.
Spirituality’s Toxic Marketing Problem
If you’re a spiritual practitioner who hates marketing yourself, or you’re someone who is in the market to find a practitioner for any kind of service, you need to read this RIGHT NOW.
How Patriarchy Shows up in Spirituality
You might think spirituality is supposed to be void of cultural programming. After all, it’s supposed to push us to question all of those things. But does it, really? Especially when it comes to the Divine Masculine and Feminine, patriarchy seeps in. Here’s how to identify it.
How Ableism Shows Up in Spirituality
I made a post on Instagram last week about ableism and spirituality which has sparked some conversations that further demonstrate how ableism is so deeply embedded in our beliefs and culture. I’m going to really dig into this today and ask you to critically examine some of your own spiritually-based beliefs and biases.
Healing Will Not Make You Wealthy
Have you noticed this new trend in spiritual business coaching that’s selling healing as a means to obtain a seven-figure business?
Why You Don’t Feel Aligned with Modern Marketing
One of the most common complaints I’ve heard from spiritual entrepreneurs is that they feel completely repulsed by modern marketing, and yet, they always believe there’s something wrong with them and end up investing thousands of dollars with business coaches who attempt to mold them into a carbon copy of themselves: another soulless marketing machine. And it does nothing but dim their light.
Disembodied Spirituality: Is it Really Zen or is it Dissociation?
Spirituality and holistic wellness is supposed to be about the mind, body, and spirit, but a lot of toxic, ungrounded spirituality completely ignores the entire body part and only focuses on the mind or the spirit. Here’s how to discern whether or not a spiritual teacher/teaching is disembodied (and thus, not holistic).
How to Know if your Spiritual Teacher is a Narcissist
Spiritual professions are an area ripe for manipulation due to the lack of structure, cohesion in teachings, no governing body to regulate them, and a host of wide-eyed people in pain seeking answers from gurus. Here’s some tips on identifying patterns of behavior from a narcissist disguised as a “light worker.”
Why Your Spiritual Practice Should be Trauma-Informed
Not all spirituality is helpful or healthy spirituality. Trauma-informed spirituality is where we need to go in our attempts to leave behind toxic spirituality. Here’s what that is, and how to identify it.
The Fine Line Between Boundaries and Bypassing
Are you actually setting boundaries? Or are you using spiritual concepts to avoid accountability and having to face your own cognitive dissonance? Let’s discuss.
On Cancelling Cancel Culture
Digging into cancel culture, racism, sexism, bias, and bigotry today. Oh my! As well as what these all have to do with spirituality.
Why QAnon Infected The Spiritual and Wellness Communities
I’ve been receiving a lot of comments on my posts lately from people within the spiritual community and outside of it all saying the same thing: “I don’t understand how people got from spirituality to QAnon.” Hold my beer, I’m gonna draw you a diagram…
Have You Been the Victim of Spiritual Abuse?
I’ve seen (and been subjected to) spiritual abuse many times throughout my spiritual journey. I’ve compiled all the signs and symptoms of spiritual abuse that I’ve observed so that you can spot it.
The Shadow of Spirituality
The time has come for the spiritual community to confront its own shadow.
How to Spot a Spiritually Immature Wellness Influencer
Learn how to identify people who’ve placed themselves in positions of power and authority who perhaps have no business being there.
5 Toxic People To Avoid On Your Spiritual Journey
There’s five people we all meet on our spiritual journey that we wish we hadn’t. Here’s who they are, how to spot them, why you should avoid them.
Speak Your Truth, But Be Forewarned…
I originally wrote the first half of this post in 2015, but I came across something on Facebook last night that reminded me of it and I had some additional thoughts to add. The phrase “Speak your truth” comes with a couple of important caveats. I’m diving into a new one in the second half of this post.
Materialistic Spirituality
I don’t talk about manifesting a lot, even though it’s all the rage. Here’s why.
How To Know If A Spiritual Teacher Is Credible
The concept of credibility came up in my post on critical thinking and spirituality yesterday. I think part of our issue today with all of the misinformation floating around is that a lot of people don’t really understand what credibility means. Today I’m going to give you a rundown of what makes someone credible in the realms of science and journalism, and how to apply that to spirituality.
Do We Manifest Abusive Experiences?
It’s time to talk about toxic spiritual concepts and its contribution to victim shaming and the enabling of abusive dynamics.
I Quit
The day I thought would never come has arrived. This the end of In My Sacred Space.
The Day I Threw My Career In The Trash
Eighteen months ago, I abruptly shuttered my business as a marketing, business, and branding consultant for tech startups. Here’s why.
Healers Need Boundaries Too: The Unrealistic Expectations of Healers and Spiritual Figures
Just because you’re a healer doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice yourself. Don’t let others tell you otherwise… plus – another Woo Woo Wine Night: Intro to Tarot has been added. Sign up while you still can!
Should Psychics and Healers Charge For Their Services?
This is definitely one of the more hotly debated topics I’ve seen here and there. Should people be expected to pay for a psychic service or healing? Read on…
