Taking A Business Sabbatical with Mel the Oracle
Welcome back to Under the Surface!
I am so excited for today’s guest, Mel the Oracle. She has been a muse for me, a friend, a previous client, and also a colleague. Melanie has spent the last 7 years as a multidimensional healing facilitator, embodiment guide, movement artist, and mentor for BIPOC and awakening women.
In March 2022, Melanie entered into a business sabbatical as a practice of radical self-care for mental, emotional, and spiritual/energetic renewal, hoping to explore other paths of her skills, gifts, and passions.
This is a really juicy episode where we dive into why Mel is taking a break from her business and what she’s expecting of herself in this sabbatical, to a reframe of how she would love to view this self-care practice. In this post, I’m going to share a piece of our interview that I think we all have experienced: our conversation around feeling shame while running a business.
If you want to listen to the whole podcast episode, tap play below!
I don’t have a list of people that I want to have on Under the Surface. I just follow the urge when it strikes. So, I saw some reels that Mel had put up, it made me laugh, and I was like, “fuck yes, I need this woman on my podcast.”
Then I saw that she was taking a break from her business, and I was like, “Oh double fuck yes! We need to talk about this.”
Let’s get into the conversation:
A lot of us business owners who are more spiritual have gone through our own personal journal and we see the power of it. We want to share that with the world.
Then, we’re given the message that we can do that and be paid well for it. But, it’s like, we’re almost selling ourselves and that can’t be it. That’s not sustainable.
“Hence, me being on a business sabbatical. Cause, you said it. I have been selling myself for years and I don’t think that I ever thought about that until now, until the beginning of 2022, where someone was like, ‘Of course you're tired. You've literally been selling yourself for years.’
It's wild because here's where that like nasty, ugly, compare bug comes into place because there are women, you know, that I know personally and intimately, who are doing a great job, similar work, doing a great job of sustaining themselves with their business and all of that.
So, I'm looking to them like, I am so confused. Like what, what am I missing? What is going on here?
Just because someone else is successful at doing the thing that you're trying to do, doesn't mean that that's what you're supposed to be doing…That's the thing that I'm getting to now, like within the last couple of weeks…
When you tell yourself that maybe there's something that I'm missing. Maybe there's a block. I don't know. I feel like I've done all this stuff. When you tell yourself that over and over again, you're going to try to invest in all the, you know, psychic readings and tarot readings, which is great because that's a part of my life, but I'm just saying you're going to keep investing to try and figure out what the block is, when there really isn't one and it may just be that this is not the direction…
The big blinder is that it’s time to stop…that’s an internal listening that has nothing to do with outside. And so that's the piece that I'm starting to find in this moment.”
Hm, yes. I feel called to mention that your incarnation cross is the Sleeping Phoenix and this feels like such big phoenix energy right now. You’re burning something down in a really big way.
You’ve started small fires with different offers or messaging, but it’s like putting a band-aid on a broken arm. If you get really, really honest with yourself, this isn’t it.
You’re a Manifesting Generator, you have this open aura, but as soon as you try to get super focused on one thing, one outcome, you get tunnel vision. It’s almost like you can’t be fully open because you don’t even know what your options are. You become so focused on this one thing and nothing else is coming through. If it is, you don’t even see it.
“What you just said-that tunnel vision-that's exactly what it is. That's exactly what it is…My little fires was my attempt to like, do everything except really stop and hear the truth.
Which is like, actually, stop.
Like these little fires, you’re putting those out really quickly. This big fire that needs to happen, that's going to run through this whole thing and just has to go out on its own, like that's what actually needs to happen.
I don't think that before March of this year, I could have heard that and, and really considered it as a truth.”
Even if a year ago, someone said to you, “What about stopping?” You probably would have wanted to try it out. But, at the back of your mind, you would have been like, “What if I didn’t give up?”
I’ve been in relationships where I have to try absolutely everything before I give up, otherwise I will always wonder. It truly is all divine.
I know you’re still so in it, but what do you think it is? What is the energy behind this sabbatical? Are you feeling disconnected from the online space? Is there any feeling you can pinpoint that has been out of alignment the whole time?
“It came to me as you said it, and like, it made me feel embarrassed. Wow. Ooh, I just got emotional too.
So, I think there's a lot of things, but I think what I will say is this: the moment that I knew, like you need to stop immediately, is [when] I found myself looking at other women who were in the similar space as me and I almost was like mimicking their energy. I was almost mimicking how they showed up, the verbiage they used, things that they were doing, I was mimicking.
I think in the moment, I was thinking to myself, well, you know, it's not working for me. Let me see what they're doing. I'm trying to show up in that way.
I actually had a woman, like she blocked me. We were actually pretty close, but she blocked me because she probably saw: Is she copying me? It wasn't even coming from that energy. It was really coming from: I've tried everything else. Let me see if I can try showing up like her and [if] it'll work.
When I really came to that realization that, okay, this was probably like one of the first times that I wasn't even showing up fully as myself, which is what I have always done to like stay in integrity with myself. I was like, yeah, this is a no. This is an absolute no. And that's embarrassing.
That embarrassing feeling came over me because, again, I've always liked transparency and like just being real and raw and myself, unapologetically. That's a real thing. That's a part of my personal brand and then my business as well. So to admit, and then this is publicly, I'm talking to y'all, to just say that in the moment, the first time that I've really said that out loud, that's uncomfortable.”
I want to acknowledge the power in you saying that. It does have to be said, because I see more of that than I see real, true, raw authenticity.
I think we’ve all been there. I know I certainly have been. I’ll see something I wrote in the past when I was working with a specific mentor and I think to myself, “Wow, that was just not me at the core.” Like maybe it was a version of me at the time, but that version of me was caught up in looking for answers outside of myself, instead of looking within.
Instead of having a relationship with my business and asking how best I can show up to support it, I was asking myself, “What is wrong with me?”
“For me personally, that's like one of the lowest places for me to be, because that's just, that is not how I move throughout the world. So again, that was something that was one of those markers of like, something's not right. Like you're acting outside of yourself. Something is not right.
And then you get to a point, Krystal…where you have to tell yourself the truth. Like, you know what, no, There isn't any block…like personal and spiritual growth in like self-reflection and introspection and all of that, that's a part of my daily life.
I don't know. I kind of had to get to a point where it was like, just tell yourself the truth here. It doesn't feel like you're missing anything. It just feels like the thing that you're missing is the thing that feels like it's most illogical to do, just stop.
And I think that, you know, I wanted to talk about this with you because there's probably someone listening or someone who knows who's listening, who knows someone where it might just be, that might actually be an answer that you've never considered before, because you're considering everything else.
It's just like anything else, relationships, you know, whether it's romantic or friendships, life, jobs, you know, things that you are pushing so hard. Like I really want to make this work. I'm really, I'm doing all that I can. And you still find yourself, like, exhausted, and like there's no resolve at the end of it. And then you have to decide one day to wipe your hands of it.
And that's the same thing with business…but because I've been selling my life, like really selling the way that I live. And my heart was so much in wanting to serve. I could not fathom… like, what do you mean? I feel like I’m sitting with God when I do this work. What do you mean I need to stop and switch directions? …Sometimes the most illogical thing is the most intuitive thing to do and that’s where it’s important to really learn the difference between the two and what that feels like in your body.”
Just like you said, it’s with anything in life. Even in relationships, there is a difference between, “Am I trying so hard because this person has been in my life for so long that I can’t imagine what life is without them?” Or am I pushing so hard because I have to, because in my being there’s no other option. The energy is so different.
“Yeah, and I definitely had moved into: I'm pushing because I've been doing this for seven years and there has to be some break in this, where I'm able to fully sustain myself, where I feel like I'm thriving in this, where it feels like, okay, I caught–It has to come. I know it has to come.
And I've been working at this for so long. And again like that tunnel vision, I've been so fixated on this. This is my thing. This is my thing. Facilitating sacred spaces. This is my offering to the world. So if I'm not doing that, who am I, and what value do I have?
When I first made this decision, for like a day and a half after that, I couldn't even talk. I couldn't talk. I couldn't–moving felt like too much, like I just was in my bed because that thought that I just shared was so strong.
What gifts am I offering to the world if I’m not doing this?...My spiritual sisterhood, like the women, you know, that are doing their own things. Whether they’re doing tarot, or psychic readings, or reiki, whatever…If I’m not the one facilitating the movement and the meditations, what do I have to offer my friend group anymore?
Oh my God. I know, really deep, heavy stuff.
This is what I've been moving through. And like that energy and sitting in that was much heavier when I first made the decision, because it really felt like I was killing a whole part of myself.
You know what I mean? It just felt like I was literally killing off a whole part of myself.
So yeah, it's to have those thoughts and really…feeling that in a very visceral way was really hard to navigate.”
You’re definitely not alone. So many of us tie our worth up in what we do.
In the online business world, it’s not just what we do. It’s like revenue, the clients, the testimonials, how beautiful your branding is, how many comments are on your post, how engaged your social media is, etc.
This is a cultural problem.
It’s like having a score and all of these things make up the score. It’s dangerous territory. I feel like in the online business world there is a scorecard. In relationships you have this scorecard. There are different score cards for all different areas of your life…but who are you without your scorecards?
We’re living so much in the virtual world too. I have to check myself and be like, “You haven’t posted on your stories in a couple of days.” Like yeah, because I’m fucking living my life, because I have a life. I think there are so many factors that make us forget that because the only life that we really had was online for a couple of years. But now, it’s like, no, I have a life that’s outside of the online world and navigating that feels weird.
That’s scary.
I mean, you’re in a scary place right now. But, it’s also so juicy.
“I know you hit the nail on the head with that. It is terrifying. It is terrifying. And then it's also like, OoOoh, it's kind of like a space that we all secretly want to be in. Like it's freedom in a way, like it's terrifying, but it's freedom because there’s so many different timelines that I can grab onto. I really have to choose it. You know what I mean?
That's the scary part. I have to be open to hear it and choose it, but it's also really exciting because there's any road that I can go down at this point, because I've let go of a really strong grip on something that I thought I never could, but I’m in the process of doing it. So, it’s clearly possible for me to do.
Now, there's this openness and this freedom to like, be curious about what I choose next. That is exciting, you know?
I think it’s terrifying. I mean, you know, being real and raw…I've had this business for years and it has never been self-sustainable, not at any point…it's interesting, the embarrassment, I feel it, like, right here in my chest…when it comes up in my body, I feel it like here.
But that feels embarrassing to say…mostly because of the comparison thing, right? I know people who have been in the business for two years and they are thriving, self-sustainable, building wealth, all the shit. And like seven years? And my business has never been sustainable at any point?
So, it's scary, because the thing that I was scraping so hard to make sustainable and was bringing in like little bits of income I let go, which means at this point I don't have any income…Even though I have stepped out of the, like, grinding to get out of survival mode, I've let that go…I feel like I stepped outside of like capitalism for just a second. Like even if this only lasts a month, I feel like I've stepped outside of this…It feels like I glitched out of the matrix for just a second.”
Well, two things about what you just said…
First of all, you were like, “I have to choose next.” As soon as you said that, this voice in my head said, “No, it's going to choose you.”
Like, you choosing didn’t work out for you in the last few years. You know what I mean? You have got to let it choose you.
The second thing I wanted to say was that the embarrassment, that shame, I feel so much of it too. And it’s crazy because I have moved through so much of it.
I hired a money coach last year because I had so much shame around the money I was or wasn’t making. I had this story that I told myself about not being good with money. I carried so much shame.
My money coach was like, ‘Honestly, I’ve worked with hundreds of people, most entrepreneurs are where you’re at. In fact, the ones that are making multiple six or seven figures can be a complete mess on the back end of things sometimes. Their profit is disastrous.’
I’m using this money stuff as an example. The thing is that there’s an unspoken elephant in the room. Everyone wants to share about everything amazing, like: look at all that I’ve built, look at how easy things are happening, I’m taking a shit and payment notifications are coming through.
This is amazing, and I do believe you, but it’s like, can we please talk about what happened on the way there? That’s where the real juice is.
People need to be liberated from the shame that they feel, watching that, thinking that any resistance, difficulty, obstacle, mess, or chaos that’s going on behind the scenes means that they’re wrong or they’re doing things wrong.
We all have that embarrassment about something. We all have it. Why don’t we just talk about it?
“First of all, I receive what you said. It’ll choose you. I receive that wholeheartedly…and what you said about this idea that people watching it feel like, if there’s any resistance, if there’s any time that they have to stop, or anything that feels like, wow, this is hard to move through or navigate, it means that there’s a block…I’m assuming these well intentioned messages about, ‘when you do this, this is what will happen, and see this, I’m the example of it.’
There's something about those well-intentioned things, it can be a positive thing, but how it can also make people feel more shameful and feel more inadequate…There is a little bit of a thin line between it being, you know, empowering, and then just contributing to this idea of just perpetually feeling inadequate.”
I’ve even just been working my way up to talking about that stuff because it feels like there has just been so much shame. And as soon as we talk about it, as soon as we get it out there, there’s no more shame.
Even just for readers and listeners, it’s like: Wait. You mean I can still do this even though I am a mess with this?
Yeah, you fucking can.
You are literally perfect and whole just as you are.
Maybe you need to make some tweaks. Maybe you need to listen a little more carefully. Maybe you need to let go a little more, or whatever the case may be. Obviously there are going to be things that you’re going to have to do, but if you continue to carry that shame and shove it down and pretend it’s not there, it’s just going to consume you.
Listen to the full episode here:
Well, Mel, this conversation has been more than I could ever have imagined it to be. I just knew. I’m so glad I followed my urge.
I’m sending you all the love right now and I cannot wait to see what happens next. I’m running over to get on your email list now, so I’m the first to know.
But listen… I’m not worried about you whatsoever. I feel like it’s only up from here. It’s going to be amazing.
Thank you for being a guest and just being willing to show up openly in this space. I hope it was healing for you.
I love you. See you next time😘😘
