This episode explores the idea that your business is not separate from your spiritual path, but one of its most powerful expressions. It is for women entrepreneurs who notice recurring patterns—procrastination, undercharging, burnout, fear of visibility—and want to understand them more deeply. Rather than treating these as business problems to fix, Sara reframes business as a spiritual practice which helps healing and growth. At the center is a shift from external success to what she calls success with soul.
In this episode, we explore:
- Why recurring business struggles often point to deeper internal patterns
- How business functions as a spiritual practice rooted in embodiment
- The IFS concept of “trailheads” and how friction reveals parts ready for healing
- The difference between external success and success with soul
- Relating to your business as a living, intelligent partner rather than an object
Key takeaways
- Business challenges are not simply strategic problems; they often reflect unhealed patterns and protective parts.
- Friction in visibility, money, or leadership can be approached as an invitation rather than a failure.
- Spiritual practice is about embodiment and self-mastery, not transcendence.
- External success without inner alignment can feel hollow and depleting.
- When you relate to your business as a living partnership, new insight and direction become available.
Resources mentioned
Episode FAQs
What does it mean to treat business as a spiritual practice?
It means approaching business as a path of embodiment and self-mastery. Instead of separating inner work from external results, business becomes a place where personal healing, leadership growth, and spiritual development unfold in real time.
How does Internal Family Systems (IFS) apply to entrepreneurship?
IFS offers a framework for understanding internal reactions—fear, procrastination, perfectionism—as protective parts rather than flaws. In business, moments of resistance can be seen as “trailheads” pointing toward parts that need attention and compassion.
What is the difference between external success and success with soul?
External success focuses on metrics such as revenue or recognition. Success with soul prioritizes inner alignment and wholeness first, allowing external results to emerge from that grounded foundation.
Why do recurring patterns show up in business even after personal growth work?
Business brings internal beliefs and wounds into visible, relational contexts—money, leadership, visibility, power. These environments can activate parts that may not surface in private spiritual practice alone.
Who is this perspective most helpful for?
It is especially relevant for spiritually oriented women entrepreneurs who sense that strategy alone is not enough and who want their work, inner healing, and leadership to be integrated rather than compartmentalized.
Full transcript available below.
I want to invite you into something with me. Pause for a moment wherever you are and consider this question:
What is one pattern that, despite how much inner and outer work you’ve done, keeps showing up for you in your business?
Maybe it’s the way you freeze before you launch something new. Chronic undercharging. Inconsistent income no matter how consistently you’re working. Pouring yourself into others’ needs and neglecting your own. Starting something with fire and then abandoning it before it takes root.
Whatever it is, it’s like a recurring injury. You think it’s healed. You feel strong again. Then you’re under stress, you push a little too hard, and there it is—flaring up. And you think, why can’t I just get past this?
We all have our version of this. Naming it, even quietly to ourselves, is where the real work begins.
Everything I’m about to share speaks directly to that place.
I want to talk about the idea that your business is one of the most powerful spiritual practices you will ever take on.
If you’re in the middle of a struggle—a launch that didn’t go well, burnout, procrastination, questioning your path—that may feel like a stretch. But stay with me.
When I was in my twenties, I was living in Thailand, deeply immersed in spiritual practice—meditation, yoga, silent retreats. When I returned to the U.S. and began building my business in earnest, I noticed something.
All those years on the meditation cushion prepared me in many ways. But building a business—being seen, asking people to invest, navigating rejection, failing, leading a team, managing money—cracked me open in ways that silence alone never could.
Business asks you to take what’s internal and make it external. It brings your inner world into the outer world. In that process, you come face to face with every place you are blocked, invested in limitation, wounded, or not yet living into who you truly are.
For me, spiritual practice is not about transcending your humanity. It’s about embodiment. It’s about bringing your soul’s essence more fully into your body, relationships, daily life, business, and finances. It’s about mastering yourself.
When you’re writing a sales page and a voice says, “Who are you to charge that much?”—that’s a spiritual moment. That friction is an invitation.
Business is a sacred mirror. It reveals old wounds, beliefs, and patterns that keep us from full expression.
Fear of visibility. Fear of judgment. Fear of failure. Fear of success. People-pleasing. Over-functioning. Procrastination. Perfectionism.
These are not business problems. They are human patterns. Parts of us learned long ago that it was not safe to be fully seen or expressed.
Business brings those patterns to the surface—often at inconvenient times. But those stuck places are not problems. They are doorways.
In Internal Family Systems, we call these moments trailheads. A trailhead is not a boulder blocking the path. It’s a signpost saying, go here. There’s something important to discover.
Anxiety before you hit publish. Scrolling instead of working. A knot in your stomach before a sales call. Trailheads.
They point to parts of you carrying beliefs, stories, or wounds ready to be seen and tended with compassion.
When we turn toward those parts rather than judging or bypassing them, we grow. We become more whole. From that wholeness, we lead and create in a more authentic way.
There’s also a difference between external success and what I call success with soul.
External success—revenue, followers, accolades—without connection to your inner life is hollow. It can be depleting.
Success with soul is an inside-out approach. The internal victory comes first: mastering yourself, transforming patterns, leading from wholeness rather than wounds. From there, external results become an expression of inner alignment.
We cannot compartmentalize business from spiritual or therapeutic work. They are braided together. Your inner world shapes your business, and your business invites you deeper into your inner world.
Your business was a divine inspiration. The desire to build what you’re building did not come only from strategy. It came from somewhere deeper.
Your business has its own highest self. Its own intelligence. It is alive and evolving. It is choosing you as much as you are choosing it.
There are moments when it seems to lead you—an unexpected opportunity, a closed door that turns out to be necessary, momentum you couldn’t manufacture.
Your business is a mirror and a partner. It sends the right client, creates growth circumstances, and places opportunities that stretch you.
How are you relating to your business? As an object? An extension of yourself to control? Or as a living entity with its own wisdom?
When you relate to the sacred intelligence of your business, you open to transformation that strategy alone cannot create.
Your soul chose this life, this time, these gifts and wounds, and the inspiration for this business. The obstacles are not detours. They are the path.
Nothing is wasted. Not the difficult client. Not the failed launch. Not the season of doubt. It is all part of who you are becoming.
So here is a reflection:
What is your business showing you right now?
Where are you feeling friction, resistance, avoidance, fear?
What if you approached it as a trailhead?
What if you said, “I see you. I’m curious. What are you trying to show me?”
You don’t need all the answers. You need willingness to listen.
That willingness is the heart of the practice. That is business as a spiritual practice.
