Business as a sacred doorway...

What following the path of our heart work can really look like and witnessing business as invitation and initiation...

Hello lovely ones

How are you tending to yourself this weekend? What are you doing purely to nourish your spirit?

Having not written a longer piece to you for a few weeks I felt the urge to let these words be set free today. Sometimes I have to remind myself that while I have a regular Wednesday writing rhythm, creativity does not operate on a linear time and when the spark is there to share I can give myself permission to go off track a little.

I am once again in the midst or a shift in my own heart and soul work. Not a drastic pivot, but an expansive evolution. It feels gentle and steady and I am approaching it with a sense of trusting in uncertainty rather than fearing the unknown, but it hasn’t always been that way.

I find that the changing seasons in work requires a lot of reflection and integration time, and so with the beautiful invitation I had, having sat with

Emma Barfield

recently in a wonderful Alchemy Session she held for me, I took some time to cast my heart over the journey that I have taken so far in the magical realms of my business.

Stepping on to an unknown path…

I had been running my PR and Marketing business for nearly ten years when I stepped in to the pathway of my truest heart work. I didn’t know it back then though… I didn’t realise the call to go down an alternative path was coming from something way deeper than I could comprehend.

At that point most people in my life had followed a fairly linear career path. Choosing a job, mastering their craft and working in that field pretty much all of their lives. I have to admit I found it pretty challenging not to dismiss myself as fickle or flaky when I was being drawn towards multiple different ways of earning money and on the cusp of a totally new career.

Knowing what I do now about myself, about Human Design and being a 4/6 Sacral Manifesting Generator of course it makes perfect sense. But at the time it was a bit of an internal wrestle at times.

I just knew deep in my bones, in my gut, in my being, that I could no longer do the work I had been. When something no longer lights me up and the energy has drained away for it there is almost a physical repulsion in my body. It’s beyond heavy. It’s like a sickness that cannot be shaken until I take the leap of faith and trust my inner compass to guide me.

Is that easy? F*ck no!

Every part of my rational mind has to be coaxed gently in order for me to have the courage to listen. Many times it takes me months before I will admit it to myself that my energy for something has literally just gone — by which time I’m normally exhausted and anxious as my body cannot hide it — but I’ve come to realise and trust this part of me, even thought it’s very inconvenient at times.

Needing something ‘more’…

I remember the moment when I realised I just wasn’t someone who could go through the motions of work simply to pick up a paycheck. Life felt too precious and short for me to be doing something that didn’t excite me. I had started a new job at a PR firm because I felt I needed to get experience in that world. It was a business to business agency and within two months I knew I couldn’t stay because it was draining the life from me. I was 22 at the time and took the leap to set up my own agency specialising in equestrian PR and Marketing. I’m 42 this year and I’ve not been employed since I left that job.

I built my agency up from scratch and it soared. Everything grew naturally by word of mouth and it could have kept expanding. But in my late twenties, when the business was around 8 years in, I felt a big shift in direction. The many hours I had poured into horses in my personal life and in my work was no longer igniting a spark in me. Instead, thanks to my own health concerns and struggles with anxiety — I was strongly pulled down the wellbeing route.

I didn’t know it at the time but I was being initiated into my heart and soul work.

I was being called by something far vaster than me to step into work that was beyond what I could rationalise through the mind. It was my body guiding me, a magnetism and a sense of longing, that was only fulfilled when I followed the breadcrumbs. The first of which was training to become a Health Coach.

It was gradual… my human self needed time to be walked into this world. It was also uncomfortable, uncertain, wobbly and tender — but I couldn’t ignore it.

Each time I was called to a different modality I thought ‘this is it, this is my calling, when I complete this phase I will find peace and a sense of arrival’… and yet the path kept (and still continues to) leading me deeper.

No arrival. No final destination. Just a living, breathing essence of purpose, inspiration and desire that courses through me.

Yoga teacher training. Womb Yoga Therapy, Meditation, Yoga Nidra. Cacao, Sex, Love & Relationship Coaching, Pregnancy and Post Natal Yoga. Energy healing, Human Design… some may say I was simply seeking answers but I can see now how every piece of this puzzle was leading me deeper and deeper into this work.

The work of holding space. The work of connecting with my inner artist. The work of intimately working with the hearts and souls of other beings. The work of bringing women together in circle. The work of dancing with the unseen elements of the world and somehow bringing them into form through various medias and means.

Motherhood and the work of the heart

Motherhood came into my world and totally rearranged me once more, it brought me even deeper into union with myself. I thought maybe I would forget my work once I became a Mama… but if anything it only made it stronger.

It would have actually been easier if I could have forgotten all about it, I wouldn’t have felt the torturous pull of wanting to be in two different places at once and the guilt that would come when I chose my work over my children. But no… my daughters simply activated the desire to do this work even more strongly within me.

At times this work has barely kept me afloat financially, and other times it has been flowing with monetary abundance. It has been my greatest source of suffering at times and yet it’s also been my biggest awakening. Similarly to my path with Motherhood to be honest.

The only word I’ve ever found to really express my work in the world is ‘heart work’. While it is a business, it is my career and it does nourish me financially, it is also my passion, my creative outlet, my sense of expression, my purpose and it connects me to something far bigger than what is right in front of me.

It is a portal to the divine. When I am connected to this transmission it reminds me of spirit and soul — it is my anchor to magic and mystery.

The way I see holding and nurturing my business, my heart work, is as a birthing process, a Mothering of types. It’s taken me into my depths and it’s gifted me my highest heights. Much as motherhood has done many times over too.

Our business as a guide and teacher

I realised very early on in my heart work journey that my business was a mirror. Reflecting back to me my wounds, my triggers, my pain… it was presenting me opportunity after opportunity to meet different parts of myself.

The parts of me scared to be seen. The parts afraid to speak up and be heard. The parts terrified of getting it wrong. The parts that felt unworthy. The parts that felt ignorant and like I didn’t know enough. The parts that wanted to keep me safe and small and quiet and submissive.

Nobody really talked about business in this way but I found myself repeating patterns of expansion, burnout and then shrinking. When I started to get curious with this frustrating rhythm it lead me to deeply study my own nervous system and look at what I now view as the foundations of my business.

My roots were not fully planted, the ground was un-stable… I knew how to do all the practical things like build a website, write the copy, do the marketing and put myself out there but something in my system never felt fully safe and grounded and so I would end up depleted from being in a high stress state for too long. Then I would retreat back into my cocoon again and feel like a failure.

The more I understood this pattern, the more I could see what needed to be nourished. I had to tend to the roots so lovingly and in a way that allowed growth and expansion but also time to integrate, to soothe myself and support myself through the discomfort of transformation.

I needed to listen to my nervous system and my heart together in order to know when it was time to rise and spread my wings, and when I needed to rest and observe. This is what I believe is missing in so many approaches to business and is why the ‘five steps to… ‘ kind of processes sold in the masses often don’t ‘work’ because they disregard the roots and innate sensitivity of each unique human being.

A new way of being in business

It’s not about staying in the safety bubble all of the time, but it’s also not about being in a constant state of expansion either.

I’ve realised that to fully allow the transformative potential our heart work is inviting us in to there has to be a sustained approach.

As I deepen into this work more and more I can see so many important threads that are often missing when it comes to tending to this sacred union between ourselves and the work we do in the world.

• Nervous system support at the absolute foundations.

• Community and connection as necessity. It is not just a ‘nice to have’ it is essential medicine.

• Sacred pauses and integration time.

• Rest and play in all forms.

• Ritual and ceremony as anchors.

• Embodiment and energetic awareness.

• Honouring our uniqueness.

• The importance of a sacred structure and rhythm.

Would you add anything here?

On the subject of community… something I have been sitting with recently is the isolation that so many people face when doing their heart work. I wonder if this sense of alone-ness and loneliness is potentially the biggest thing that holds us back?

Our nervous systems need social connection and a trusted community to hold us… while so many of us are working alone behind screens, without this sense of support, on some level there may be a lack of safety. I know myself that with the support of just one or two people ‘having my back’ I feel way more capable of stretching my edges and stepping forwards. I wonder how many more creative offerings would be put out in the world if there was a greater sense of belonging and being held in our heart and soul work?

Unearthing your Essence

This past decade of following my own heart work path has taught me so much and I am weaving this all together in my forthcoming 6 week group Branding journey Essence.

In Essence I will hold you through the process of bringing your heart work visions to form…

I will walk you through the process that I take all of my Soul Branding clients through and at the end of this journey you will have the chance to get crystal clear on your Brand Voice, with a collection of aesthetic anchors that represent the essence of what you want to transmit to the world.

This is beyond just a logo, this is a transmission of your unique sacred expression on this earth at this time. We begin on Wednesday 4th June. Use the code ESSENCE25 to get £25 off at the checkout. Learn more about Essence by clicking the button below.

Of course I understand that not everyone is called onto this path. But if there is a whisper or a nudge within you urging to to explore it… I urge you to listen and get curious with it. I would love to hear if any of this resonates with you.

Until next time, have a beautiful weekend.

(don’t forget you can listen to my Wild Rose Yoga Nidra for free this week here and if you would like to join us live on Monday evening for a Restorative Session do consider joining The Balm Membership here)

Love

Lauren

xxx

Hello to anyone who is new here… I am Lauren. A Mother of two daughters, Writer, Women’s Circle Facilitator, Sacred Business Mentor & Guide, Soul Branding & Website Creator and multi-dimensional human being. I walk with, and hold space for, others who are treading the tender path of their heart and soul work. You can find out more about this space and what to expect here. If you wish to be held in a deeper way do consider joining The Balm membership for restorative practices, sacred heart work offerings and more…

If you enjoyed this piece and wish to explore my other spaces please use the links below to explore…

Motherhood Essays
Self-Tending Practices
The Unravelling Podcast
Human Design
Work With Me