What’s next for my business

Happy Sunday, Soothers. There's something you need to know about me:

I am a desperate workaholic.

I kind of knew this when I worked 9-5s; it was definitely also true when I was in high school, college, grad school, but I didn't really get that workaholism was a thing at that time, it just seemed like I was doing what it took to be a good student.

But nowhere, nowhere, has it been so clearly and deeply revealed to me that I am addicted to work, to productivity, to doing, and addicted to those things out of a sense of low self-worth and deep scarcity mindset, than in the process of becoming an entrepreneur.

While there is a special sort of liberation and joy and utter freedom and creativity that comes from working for yourself, I must admit that for me there has also been plenty of deep terror. Knowing you are the only one responsible for making money in the container of your work can feel very primal, and it is deeply difficult to "shut off" because you're always worried about where the next streams of income are coming from.

At least, this has been my experience the past three years of working for myself. And I understand all the reasons and whys behind it; the cellular level of absorption of the tenants of white supremacy and capitalism that live in my bones; being the first unmarried and first woman entrepreneur in my lineage who is earning and managing her own money and not getting to feel the nervous system and soul confidence of having generations of ancestors to back me up on this as normal and safe; that I can't necessarily decondition in three years what nearly 20 years of working in American 9-5s (and 20 additional years in public school education and higher education) has done to me.

I also understand the intellectual illogicalness of this. I have a safety net; I have resourced friends and family and all the privileges of my race and able-bodiedness that would sustain me should anything truly fall apart in my work.

And yet, the scarcity terror, and the associated grind that tries to keep the terror at bay, is still very real for me.

There have been ebbs and flow of this workaholism and terror and doing, doing, doing in my biz. Weirdly, I'll note, it felt least strong during my first year, when I had nothing to prove and enough saved I knew I could get by. My second year I was caught up in the momentum and elation of success. I was doing it! And now here, as I wind down my third year of self-employment, wow, what a shit show this year has been, in some ways. I've barely been able to turn off my brain and stop thinking about work. The fear feels so prevalent and for whatever reason I'm more worried about income in the coming year in a way I never have been before.

And so I know, that in this year as it gets the strongest: I think this grip of terror and work obsession is in its death throttle. It always gets the loudest when it's on its way out.

So I'm holding tight to that belief, because it's proven true to me in other areas of my life. And I'm practicing rest.

I was listening to this interview with Tricia Hersey (of Nap Ministry) and Glennon Doyle on Doyle's podcast, and Hersey was talking about how part of the healing for white women around this is acknowledging the ways in which we've been agents of grind culture. And at which our own bodies and spirits have suffered at that, and others who have suffered in our wake as well.

This caused an upwelling of grief in me at that moment because I felt its truth in my bones. Inherent in (much of, not all) the industry of coaching and self-help is the idea of learning tools to make yourself "better," more healed, more efficient, to be able to do your work better, be a "better" person. And I have to acknowledge that I have absolutely bought into this concept, both for myself and my clients. If only we could do enough journaling, enough meditating, learn enough tools, then maybe we'd feel good enough, maybe we could handle our insane jobs and demands, maybe there was a concept of finally "making it." Maybe if we did enough, accomplished enough, we'd be over there, in the meadow, with the rest of the healed and pretty people.

And as I decondition from this approach in my own relationship to myself and my coaching, it does leave me wondering, what's next for me and my work? As a Capricorn with enough Virgo in my chart to make anybody's head spin, this feels very precarious. If I can't teach people to set goals, to do more, to build businesses and shiny lives... then what can I teach?

And what I intuited and heard from my inner wisdom is that first I must grieve what the systems have done to all of us and how I have been complicit in that, and then I think the answer will emerge.

And I think, at least what's whispering at me from over the horizon, is that I can teach love, joy and magic. Self-tenderness. Building a right relationship with the Self.

As I was thinking about this, I turned to journaling and Tarot, as I often do. I have a method of journaling where I pull 4 cards: one for what's on Little Catherine's, my inner child's, mind. One for what's on Adult Catherine's mind. One message from our Higher Self. And one card to talk about in the journaling.

In today's pull I got the following:

Little Catherine: The Magician reversed. Burned out. Can't create magic because she is so tired. This one has been coming up a lot lately.

Adult Catherine: The Hermit reversed. Resisting alone time. Needing it. Needing to tend to my inner flame, but refusing.

Higher Self: The Eight of Cups. It is time to walk away with both grief and deep reverence, from a behavior that has not been serving you.

What to talk about now: The Nine of Cups. What would it be like to get your hopes up around true joy and fulfillment? What does joy look like?

The message was so clear. I canceled everything else that was on my calendar for the day and after I write this — which was begging to come out of me, and feels less like work than channeling — I'm going to go watch a bunch of movies by myself, one of my favorite ways to decompress.

There was a time earlier in this year where I thought the inevitable next step in my business was to scale it. You hear a lot about this in the biz coaching world: scale to your next six figures, to multiple six figures, to seven figures! Hire a team. Outsource. Delegate. Build the empire. Let's go. Go big.

I had had a big revenue year in 2021 and so this made sense to me. If I could make $250,000 in one year (to be clear that's what my biz brought in, not what I paid myself, but still) wasn't the next step.... $500,000? Then a million? It was time to build the Sunday Soother empire! How could I outsource functions of my business, detach from the "boring" stuff like admin, hire virtual assistants, learn to better be the "face of my brand"?

I eagerly went along with this messaging, because it seemed so clear that that is what SHOULD be next for any business... right?

But along the way I found myself also resisting it. I like being in the weeds of my business. I don't know whether I necessarily want tens or hundreds of thousands of people in my energy. I had my time as a manager and leader in the corporate world and while I was good at it and enjoyed it, I don't think it's what I want to spend my time on now. I do want to help as many people as possible, but what does that realistically look like, in a sustainable way, in a regenerative way, in a way that doesn't extract from my body and my soul? Why is growth prioritized as so inevitable and so necessary?

A vision that keeps coming to me is of the Sunday Soother and my work as a cottage. It's off the beaten path; certainly not everybody has heard of it like they may have a larger coffee shop or hotel or a national brand. The entrance path up to the door way is a little raggedy and overflowing with flowers and herbs. When you arrive at the cottage, it's a tiny bit run down, but it practically glows with warmth and love and attention and care. It's filled with chintz and incense and candles and crystals and plants. It can only fit a few people at one time around its cozy dining table, but it does have a space out back for larger workshops and teaching events. And it's so seasonal. When it's cold and time to winter, the cottage is closed so I can dedicate myself to making stews and sleeping 10 hours a night and journaling by candle light. In spring and summer though, it's an explosion of joy and flowers and magic and prolific abundance. People who know about it come over and over again, year after year, for seasonal rest and restoration. For retreat. When you're in that cottage, you feel you can trust. You know you're in the right place, at the right time, and that what you need is always coming, as surely as spring is around the corner of a long winter.

When I think about my business in this way, it feels true. It feels right. I don't have to build an empire; I don't have to grind myself into dust to "scale" anything. I don't have to worry about more coming because I can lean into the cycles of the season that are as true in me and my work as they are in the natural world. I don't need to make an arbitrary amount of money or more money, just to make money, because I trust I will always be provided with the amount that is just right, that I need for that season.

This vision simultaneously feels so close and far away, but it's there, and it's emerging more clearly from the haze with every day that I rest more.

Hersey said in her interview the key to rest is to be willing to practice in tiny increments. Five minutes a day, ten minutes a day. And I know the key to deconditioning from my workaholism and scarcity mindset is the same. Five minutes a day, ten minutes a day. One afternoon spent watching movies at a time. The inevitable loop back to checking my email frantically and posting, posting, posting, and catching myself, and coming back to the practice.

Step by step. Brick by brick, herb by herb, I can tenderly, sustainably, gently, carefully, build this cottage, this life for myself.

And I can let it take all the time that it needs.