When I first started my own business, I went to other entrepreneurs for advice. They all said that you are your own brand and if you just be yourself, people will be drawn to you. It sounded to me like a cliche from a Disney movie. But cliches always start from a truth, right?
The problem was that I felt divided between my traditional Catholic upbringing and the way that “new age” practices had helped me in my own life. I couldn’t deny that there was truth in both, because I had experienced it for myself.
Some of my more conservative, Catholic counterparts poo-pooed the New Age idealism and practices. Astrology and quantum physics are seen as “woo woo sciences”. Yet, the Catholic church practices many of the same ideals of trusting unseen forces and receiving signs and visions from God. As one who is gifted in seeing connections easily, I saw more and more links between the teachings and beliefs of two supposedly paradoxic belief systems. As I got more into the healing world, I discovered so many practitioners of the healing arts were in fact former Catholics.
On the otherhand, I knew many who had been wounded by the church and wanted nothing to do with Christianity. The ideas of vision boards, affirmations, and “manifesting” were their forms of prayer now. They read self-help books and angel cards instead of the Bible.
I felt that I needed to present my business as 2 different Julies. The Catholic Spiritual Director to some and the Energy Healer to others. I didn’t like hiding a part of myself, but felt like people would run or think less of me if they knew the other half.
Skip forward a year and those words of advice from entrepreneurs came true: “Just be yourself and people will be drawn to you”. Three strangers found me online. They all were seeking a spiritual director but they were curious about energy healing, and here I was offering both. They felt safe to explore it with me since I was grounded in my Catholic belief system. They selected me to meet their needs purposely because I was both Catholic and “woo woo”. I did not need to hide a part of myself because it was the marriage between the 2 ideologies that made me uniquely equipped to reach them.
When you examine your own beliefs and identity, are there pieces of yourself that you are hiding? Do you find yourself compartmentalizing different parts of your life? If you desire to bring your identity back to wholeness or to share yourself whole-heartedly with the world, then I would love to companion you through that process. Contact me below to schedule your free consultation.
About the Author: Julie Glaser is a healer who creates sacred spaces for people to share, release, and grow. She’s in the habit of being in awe and wonder and writes to share her own experiences and learnings with other inquisitive souls in the process of transforming.
Spiritual Direction and Healing Touch Energy Therapy 