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ASK A SPIRITUAL CEO: 8 WAYS TO RECAPTURE THE MAGIC

Posted on by Lisa Levine

Are you a full-time healer whose mojo feels more 9-5 mundane? Maha Rose founder Lisa Levine shares 8 ways to recapture the magic …

lisa levine maha rose spiritual ceo ruby warrington the numinous material girl mystical world recapture the magic
Photo: Sorin Sirbu

QUESTION: “I’m full-time in the healing arts, and found this path through a lifelong obsession with all things mystical and witchy. Now that it’s become my main gig, I struggle to keep connecting to the mystical practices that have always supported me, which have now started to feel like just more work. How can I keep parts of this world sacred and separate, so all the healing magic I’ve always loved can still serve me off-duty?”  

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LISA’s ADVICE:

#1 Stay present to your needs. There are certain tools for certain times in our lives. Tools that served us for many moons in one capacity, may need to shift over time. Magic comes from staying in the present moment and listening to our intuition and our connection to Spirit. “What do I need right now?” is a good question to ask ourselves. It may not be the same every day. A practice that’s become your full time gig may need balancing with other activities in your off time.

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#2 Know that our relationship with ANYTHING will have ups and downs. Think about a romantic relationship. There are the weeks where you’re totally in love and in the magic and the flow, and then there are the weeks when you aren’t, when it’s off, challenging, feels out of alignment or just bad. Do we leave the relationship when it is in a dull or difficult period? That depends on our level of commitment. If we are committed to somebody or something we ride through the waves of challenge or disinterest. We don’t abandon the puppy when it turns into a dog.

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#3 The Universe loves commitment. I felt this when I got married. There are different things that we can work through when we commit to something. Our relationship to our work is not unlike our relationship to our partner. Sometimes magic, sometimes not. Stay in it and move through the __________________. Commit to seeing what’s on the other side…

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#4 Find ways to keep the spark alive. Speaking of love relationships, how about romancing your practice? Get a new tarot deck, give your crystals a bath. Take them outside and talk to them under the stars. Be creative. Show how much you care.

lisa levine ruby warrington maha rose spiritual ceo recapture the magic material girl mystical world the numinous
Photo: Carlos Dominguez

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#5 Seek fun. If you spend all day with your tarot decks, after work you need a different way to connect your magic. If a practice you used to heal part of yourself is being fully explored at work, try something different after hours: painting, dancing, singing, running, cooking. Follow your heart, make FUN your guiding principal as you explore the other healing arts.

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#6 Receive. Get a reading, get a massage, get a reiki treatment. Chances are, if you are giving lots of energy through your work and not receiving back, you may just be tired, making it harder to connect to the magic. RECEIVE. Healers, I can’t say this enough, RECEIVE! The more we receive the more fun it is to give. The more we then have to give. Also you will most likely be inspired and learn from other peoples’ ways of doing things. It keeps the journey feeling like an adventure.

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#7 Vacation. I’m an all-in mama CEO to my baby Maha Rose, but it is important for me to step away from her. And I mean far away from her. She can grow without me and I can grow in other ways outside of work. With distance comes clearer perspective. When we are so in something all the time, our nose in it deeply like a book, it can be hard to see the bigger picture.

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#8 Gratitude and perspective. Back up and see how beautiful and magical and amazing it is that you get to be doing this work for your living. Thank you Goddess, thank you Angels, thank you Guides. Think of the jobs you were doing before and wishing that you could be doing what you do now for a living. Think of all the jobs you could be doing for a living that you don’t have to do. We are so blessed and so fortunate. Remember this to keep perspective.

Got a question for Lisa’s monthly “Ask a Spiritual CEO” column? Email [email protected] with the subject line: “Spiritpreneur Questions.” 

ASK A SPIRITUAL CEO: 9 STEPS FOR TURNING YOUR SPIRITUAL HOBBY INTO YOUR HUSTLE

Posted on by Lisa Levine

Longing to work your mystical magic on more than just nights and weekends? Maha Rose founder Lisa Levine shows us how to turn a spiritual hobby into a main hustle, and start sharing our super powers every day …

Lisa Levine at Maha Rose South in Mexico

QUESTION:  “I recently started opening up about my empath side on social media and have been warming up to the idea of pursuing my reiki healing as more than just a hobby. Ultimately, it would be ideal to get paid for my services. But how do I even get started?” 

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LISA LEVINE: You’re in the process of waking up. You’re discovering your spiritual powers. Others are discovering your spiritual powers and gifts. You feel called to share them. Other people are asking for them! taking the leap and working out the best way to go about monetizing this process and transitioning into a full time mystical business can be daunting and confusing.

Read on for my tried-and-trusted 9 steps in turning your spiritual hobby into your main hustle .. 

#1 Make your own path. Your route is unique. Follow your intuition. The answers and the guidance live within you. Don’t worry or model your route after others’—your path is unique and yours only.

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#2 Give a lot! And be open to receiving. The best way to gain confidence in your work is by doing a lot of sessions. I’m talking hundreds. Exchange is important but don’t get stuck on it: give, give, give. When we are starting out, the experience gained is a big part of the exchange. That said, let there be an exchange. Be open to receive! Your clients/friends can make you dinner, take you out for tea, give you feedback—not just “that was amazing,” but ideas about how could it be even better. Allow constructive criticism to be your friend so you can constantly improve the services you are providing.

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#3 Take cues from the Universe. When people start wanting to pay you for your services this is a tip from the Universe that you’re ready to start charging for your work. Accept the money graciously and begin to price out your services. Many practitioners I know have a hard time receiving money in exchange for spiritual work, so find a price that may make you slightly uncomfortable but that you know is right. This is how we up-level. Get comfortable with this discomfort.

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#4 Become your own marketing department. First off, let people know what you are doing. I recommend emailing your friends and family for starters: “I just finished this course in Reiki, crystals, etc. and am ready to begin offering sessions. The first X number of sessions will be offered at a special rate of X.” Get people in the door and onto your table.

Secondly, gather feedback and testimonials. When someone tells you something amazing about their experience with you, ask them if you can share what they’ve said as a testimonial. This is better than gathering testimonials way after the session happened. Even if the client was to say the exact same thing it won’t have the same vibration as when they share with you fresh after the experience.

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#5 Be organized: you are your own manager. Call out your inner Virgo! Gather emails, keep client lists, get on top of session dates and times, and other important information. If you are looking to turn this hobby into a full time hustle, then act like it’s a business even before it IS your business by being organized. Then you won’t have to add the foundation after you’ve already been in business for some time.

lisa levine ruby warrington the numinous material girl mystical world maha rose spiritual ceo spiritpreneur spiritual hobby
Lisa balances her hustle with flow

#6 Stay in touch, a.k.a. don’t be a stranger to social media. Totally necessary. But keep it fun and keep your unique expression. We are all artists—see social media as a way to create a 4-D picture of your business. Have fun and share from the heart. Don’t let it own you, and don’t obsess over numbers. If it isn’t feeling like a healthy relationship, take a break!

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#7 Get out there LIVE. This is still the best way to meet people and perspective clients. You live is better than you on social media. Call me old fashioned, but I still believe real, live interactions are the best way to form lasting and meaningful relationships—including client relationships.

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#8 Be patient and let it grow organically. Quitting your day job can put too much pressure on your new found hobby/hustle. Like a garden, allow it to grow organically and be patient. It takes time to build our strength and ability to hold space for many people. Feel into how many sessions a week that might look like for you now, and imagine how many people that would be in a year and in five years.

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#9 Have FUN! We have spiritual businesses because we are connected to the Universe and we want to be of service and do good in the world. Let’s imagine a new paradigm of doing business: without stress, powered by the Divine as the motor , and with the Universe as CEO. What if we were just along for the magical ride?Business can be beautiful!

Got a question for Lisa’s monthly “Ask a Spiritual CEO” column? Email [email protected] with the subject line: “Spiritpreneur Questions.” And make sure to check our her Intro to the Art of Running a Spiritual Business on March 22nd at Maha Rose for some in-person wisdom!

COMING OUT OF THE SPIRITUAL CLOSET

Posted on by Sushma Sagar

Sushma Sagar pursued a high powered career in fashion, but always practiced reiki on the side. She shares how she finally found herself coming out of the spiritual closet at work.

Coming out of the spiritual closet by Sushma Sagar for The Numinous

 

“I’m a closet hippie” I used to jest to my close friends. “She’s doing her witchy stuff again” they would say, all tongue in cheek, making a silly joke. It was no joke.

I’ve been practicing reiki healing on the sly for around 16 years, and only now do I feel like I can admit it freely. It’s not the middle ages, I’m not going to get burned at the stake, so why has it taken so long to come out?

Of course you must always look back to look forward. As a kid, I played with the other children and got along just okay, but was always a bit on the outside. A little misfit who would hang around with other misfits to fit in. Fitting in, being what you thought others wanted, was what you did. A child of Indian doctor immigrants, with success and achievement drilled into us from an early age, assimilation was the most important thing.

Childhood passions were quashed one by one – dance, theatre, art, textiles- and I grew up to find myself working in marketing for well-known fashion brands like Diesel, Ted Baker and Ben Sherman. It was fiercely competitive, and as for fitting in…well that goes without saying. I was so desperate to prove myself and to get along, shape shifting became natural.

But quietly, outside of work, I was developing other interests. The catalyst of heartbreak saw me visit a healer who used acupuncture and reiki to calm my heart and make me smile, when I believed I could not. Astonished and intrigued, before I knew it I had done a course and had been initiated into this, then secret, world.

And as anyone who’s experienced their reiki initiation will know, once on the path, it slowly changes you; your trajectory shifts and, whether you want to or not, you move towards your personal truth. As did I…but on the weekends only!

So my double life continued. By day, corporate world, shallow dreams, and fickle desires. On evenings and weekends, I was back to my private world, filled with magic, loving energy, and heart opening activities. As far as I was concerned these worlds were mutually exclusive, and I felt more comfortable keeping them that way too.

But then holistic therapies began to gain interest; LA’s healthy living and New Age thinking was becoming popular in London. Celebrities and their holistic entourage were being reported in the press, spa and yoga retreats were all the rage. I ploughed on, reading and practicing until I finally completed my master reiki training. Simultaneously, my corporate life was also going from strength to strength.

coming out of the spiritual closet by Sushma Sagar for The Numinous

And all around me, I could feel attitudes changing, judgments becoming less harsh, and ideas about “alternative” healing finally entering the mainstream. By now I had also joined a wonderful fashion brand, that celebrated interesting women. And yet still I didn’t let on to anyone about my “interesting” side.

But then, heartbreak yet again, and some serious healing was needed. I called in the big guns and found a shamanic practitioner in London. Together we journeyed back in time, healed some karmic contracts and made my soul whole again. Delighted, I trained with him to learn these skills for myself. As a result, I now felt so fully and completely me, that hiding “myself” seemed impossible.

Life was improving fast now on every level. My heart was healing after all I’d come through romantically, and I felt whole, settled and happy in my skin. I got promoted at work, felt inspired again, and began working on all the creative side projects I’d been afraid of starting.

The last piece of the puzzle was to find a way to bring my two separate worlds together. To cause a synthesis of my spiritual self and my life in the fashion world – something I’d never felt a need to do until now.

Then, when I was invited to give reiki taster sessions to professional women on a retreat hosted by a friend, the fact I understood their life turned out to be an empathetic advantage. I realized you can have one foot in the material and one in the spiritual!

Monday morning at the office following the retreat, the conversation began as usual: “so what did you do last night?” asked my boss. Me: “OH, I did a healing exchange, I gave a friend some reiki and he did some energy work on my knee.” “You do reiki?” she cried, “That’s amazing, you never said.” Me: “Didn’t I? I’ve been doing it for years, I must have mentioned it. Anyway about that budget…”

And just like that, I came out the spiritual closet. I haven’t looked back.

To book a shamanic reiki session with Sushma contact [email protected]

How did you come out of the spiritual closet? Share in the comments below!

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