You want me to WHAT??!!
You want me to WHAT??!!
This was my response to the guides last summer when they suggested I double my prices. I about fell over. I double and triple-checked in every way I could think of. Was I hearing correctly? Yes. Yes, I was.
Although I wasn’t consciously aware of it, I had been on the journey towards raising my frequency, prioritizing my health, working differently, and doing work that is better aligned for quite a while.
How We Got Here
For those of you who follow my blog and subscribe to my email list, you know that over the last 18 months I’ve left work I enjoyed at a college I loved, reopened my private practice, and have been identifying and releasing beliefs and behaviors related to work and income I inherited from my ancestral lineage.
This included spending some time with my husband’s family who carry a different set of beliefs to get a clear sense of how I have been impacted by my own. (Missed some of this? Read the blogs.)
A Time to Review
Astrologically, I have been reviewing my 6th house – the house of health, wellness, and daily routines over that same 18 months. Because the planets transiting that house were related to my work, I also reviewed my work routines, structures, and processes.
I imagined and reimagined my work in the world and experienced a humbling health crisis and financial loss on the way towards receiving a graduate degree in “do what you love in a way that supports your well-being, or you’ll get incredibly sick.”
Leaning Into External Guidance
Sometimes guidance comes to me (us) through synchronicities and conversations with people a few steps ahead of us on the path, and this was especially true regarding my work and health transformations. I needed other people to show me new ways of being a business owner and entrepreneur.
This winter, I listened more deeply to the guidance I was receiving (from people and guides) but had been dismissing. Here’s the summary:
K.I.S.S. – Keep it Simple Sweetie.
Transition to more intuitive and energy healing work. (You’re an OG. You’ve got game.)
Lead with your frequency. It’s high, magnetic, and it changes people’s neuropathways in a good way (referring to Energy Body Alignment).
Double your rates.
Work less, write more, tend to your health and wellbeing in a steady, ongoing way.
Finally, as Venus and Mercury went direct, it all fell into place. I released the old narratives and stepped into new ones. Now, it’s time to share the journey of how I arrived at those new models and rates. It’s a long one, so hang in there!
It’s All About Frequency
Metaphysically, it’s a simple, but not easy, 3-step-process to elevate one’s frequency – identify stuckness, release beliefs and behaviors that keep you stuck and suffering and replace them with ones that are at a different (higher) frequency. I taught this during a 3-Day Guided Meditation Challenge in December 2021 where we all experienced incredible shifts. (I wrote about it in this blog).
But in this human body, there are always activities like feeling our feelings and shifting how we show up in relationships, how we talk to ourselves, and habits that no longer serve us that are necessary to make the shift.
These are “not easy.” Every part of us that resists the change rises up in protest. It’s our very human purpose to acknowledge those parts and their fears, integrate them into our being, and teach them a new way forward.
My activities included researching coaching packages and rates, networking, and hiring a coach offering packages in the price range I was moving into. I also identified and began the transition to a new client management system that holds a higher frequency. And of course, I had to work with all the judgments and fears that arose as I did these things.
Because the changes in my work were intimately linked with my health, I also reviewed how I work. I learned to prioritize my health and put structures in place that support me as a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP), empath, and intuitive that channels high-frequency beings.
The upgraded structures needed guardrails so I didn’t overwork, which triggers chronic fatigue. They include regular yoga, exercise, and energy work (acupuncture for the moment) as well as not seeing clients before 10 am and limiting the number of clients and appointments I have in a day.
Facing the Facts: A Journey through the Coaching World
The research I did about the coaching industry helped me re-imagine why and how I offer what I offer. When I re-opened my practice in November 2020, I knew changes had happened within the industry, but I was not ready to embrace them (my frequency just wasn’t there yet). While this was a form of self-preservation, procrastination, and avoidance, it also worked. I had a satisfying year working with many “ideal clients.”
However, Dragonfly Coaching and Consulting, LLC was not profitable. For a first-year business re-boot, this is not surprising. However, it became clear that there was not enough time in a week, nor energy in my body, to see the number of clients I’d need to see for the business to be profitable. I also discovered I wasn’t the only one having this experience.
Over the last decade, the entire coaching industry changed from hourly pricing (like therapists) to value-based pricing. Value-based pricing asks the provider (me) to embrace the overall value of my education, experience, and the services I provide – services that have both an immediate impact and long-term benefits for my clients’ lives – and to price accordingly.
Values-based pricing asks my clients to consider “What is the value, short and long-term of”:
Being able to hear and follow my intuition consistently and being able to manage the fear that arises when I’m guided in new directions?
Stopping my people-pleasing and putting myself at the center of my life?
Changing my mindset from one of “lack and limitation” to one of resourcefulness?
Deep, lasting relationships anchored in kind, clear, compassionate communication?
Learning to ground, breathe, calm, settle and soothe myself?
Working in an industry, job, or entrepreneurial endeavor that is aligned with my values, inner spark, and is also financially supporting?
The truth is, coaching clients are on my mind all the time. I reach out to check in, I take and review session notes, I review documents and respond to emails between sessions, forward opportunities I think they might enjoy, and so much more.
A value-based model allows for that in a way the hourly pricing model doesn’t.
Accepting Myself: A Journey through My Underworld
I’ve always loved deep, long-term intuitive coaching as opposed to short-term problem-focused coaching. I love the long-term relationships that develop with people who book sessions regularly over months and years. I love walking with them as they heal old, deep wounds, learn new ways of being in the world, and create relationships and careers that are deeply satisfying. As they re-imagine and re-create their lives, we both benefit.
On occasion, a person who is already steeped in work like this comes forward to do a short piece with me and that’s wonderful. But overall, long-term, deep transformational work that touches all aspects of one’s being – physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual – is what’s mine to do. There is no better way for my soul to serve than this.
Over the last 10 years, I have marginalized the intuitive and energetic aspects of this work. I’ve prioritized coaching and distanced myself from being too woo-woo in my marketing.
But the truth is, I carry a transformational frequency and can channel high-frequency healing energy (Energy Body Alignment). It’s present in every coaching session because I’m present. If you read between the lines, you can see it; heck people visiting my site who are empaths and intuitives can feel it! But I stayed away from marketing it outright.
I get that the Universe is all about energy and frequency. I have many firsthand experiences of oneness, communication with other beings, channeling Sanat Kumar, the Ancient of Days, and what some people might call “miraculous healing” using energy and energy medicine.
I hardly ever tell those stories. But the guides have been clear for a while now. “Go there. Re-language your marketing. Call in those who are newly awakened. You were one of the trailblazers – now it’s time to be the guide and teacher.”
Business is Business
Finally, I was asked to separate myself from Dragonfly Coaching and Consulting, LLC.
The first step in this process was closing the sole proprietorship and opening an LLC. Then I learned to invest in the business as an entity separate from myself in a way that supported me, the owner/employee and my values.
I started in 2021 by hiring a woman-owned company to manage my website, edit and post my blogs, and create web pages for me even when the investment required took my breath away.
A few months later I contracted with someone to handle all my social media. I knew that although I value the relationships inherent in social media, I really am not good at marketing myself. I gasped at her pricing, too, but moved forward anyway.
Next, I allocated resources – time, money, and more – on a program to learn how to build an online audience, create a one-to-many program, and launch it. Recently, I signed up for the training to become a Sparketype Certified Advisor when I saw how impactful the Sparketype assessment was for my clients.
Then one day, I called a coach I have loved and respected for a loooong time just to visit. During our chat, I discovered she was starting her own practice again. Synchronicity, anyone? I hired her almost on the spot, paying more for coaching than I ever have.
This last decision (well, guidance really) was a turning point. I saw how creating distance between me and my business was a healthy thing. I realized how investing in all the other stellar services, losing a shit-ton of money on a one-to-many experiment, and doing all the recapitulation of beliefs and behaviors that no longer served me offered me freedom.
Freedom to step into my power and competence. Freedom to ask for what I want and receive it. Freedom from a lifetime (maybe even many lifetimes) of bondage to suffering, lack, and “work-till-I-drop” behaviors.
On the Other Side
So, here I am on the other side of a journey I didn’t realize I was taking. This boatload of inner work has led to outer changes – the only way changes really stick, I think. Both wings of the dragonfly are necessary – personal development and spiritual growth to make and maintain the frequency shift.
I’ve changed the business model I’m using, increased the investment people make to work with me, and discovered other models that will allow me to serve a variety of people at different price points down the road. I’ve also re-structured when and how I work to keep my health and well-being front and center.
Did I know this was where I was heading in summer 2020 when I left Southwestern College? Nope. But today, I can see this 18-month journey as one more turn of the spiral towards healing my co-dependent and people-pleasing patterns.
I had to let go of caring for others more than I cared for myself. It was and continues to be about engaging my intuition, putting myself at the center of my life, and trusting myself and the guidance I receive. It’s also about surrendering to the simple, but not easy, work it takes to close out old narratives and heal intergenerational patterns of lack, suffering, blame, and shame.
I’m not completely free of fear and anxiety – I’m editing this at 4 a.m. because I woke up in a panic about it. But I am doing it anyway. When the frequency starts to shift, there’s no going back for me.
So, onward!
Thanks for reading!
