What is your spiritual awakening story?
So many spiritual women come to me because they have had one, and I want to begin with that question today, because the way you answer it shapes how people find you, trust you and choose to work with you. How to share your spiritual awakening story to attract coaching clients is the topic of today's Woo Wednesday on The Spiritual Business Hour, and you can watch me live on YouTube at 2:00 PM PT.
When something inside you wakes up
If you have had a spiritual awakening, you may recognize the moment Neo has in The Matrix. You are living your life and working your job, and then something happens inside you, and you become aware of another level of existence within you and around you. You begin tuning into the language of the universe: synchronicities, sensuality, spiritual guidance, messages that arrive through your ancestors, the light of fairies at the edge of your vision, and a knowing about the people in front of you that they never told you.
Spiritual awakening is a beautiful experience, and it can also be frightening. All of a sudden you are living in another dimension of life, and you open your eyes and see as you have never seen before. A Course in Miracles describes seeing as a process that trains us to see through the eyes of God, and for many of us that training arrives without warning, as though a caterpillar were awakening to the call of the butterfly within.
Your awakening is where your authority begins
Sharing the story of your awakening matters for coaches, healers and heart-centered entrepreneurs, because it marks the time when your Divine Genius activates and makes itself known. It is also the point where your journey to True Authority begins. A woman who can say when she began to see, and what she saw, gives the person she serves a reason to trust that her gifts are real. If you would like to hear more about how Divine Genius connects with authority, my earlier live, How to Access Your Divine Genius for Authority and a 6-Figure Business, is available as a replay.
If you are in midlife, your awakening may have arrived after decades of living a very different life, which gives your story a long arc and a rich before and after. Your years of experience become part of what makes the story believable.
Why your story draws coaching clients
When a person is looking for a coach or a healer, they are rarely comparing credentials first. They are asking a more personal question, which is whether this person understands what they are going through. Credentials tell someone that you are qualified, and a story tells them that you know where they are standing. A story also carries a feeling, and a feeling travels, so the person who reads or hears a part of your journey that you have genuinely integrated feels recognized, and recognition is the first form of trust. You want to be sought out, and people seek out someone they can recognize.
Joseph Campbell described the hero's journey as three essential stages: separation, initiation and return. The Joseph Campbell Foundation explains the hero's journey as a metaphor for the way a life unfolds as a series of initiations, and that the final work is the return, when the hero brings back a boon that restores the world. Seen through that pattern, the awakening you lived through holds the first two stages, and the story you tell holds the third. The same page records that when Campbell was asked how the journey adapts for women, he said that he could not say what the counterpart would be and that women would have to tell us how a woman experiences it. Your telling is part of that answer.
Your awakening is the departure and the initiation, and sharing it is the return.
The way you tell it matters as much as the telling. A story told to be admired earns applause, and a story told to be recognized draws the people who need you. A confession keeps the attention on you and on the difficulty, while a map puts the attention on the person you serve and shows them where they can go. Your awakening story belongs in your marketing as a map.
Which part of your awakening story to share
An awakening carries a great deal, and you decide how much of it to share. In today's episode we read your story like a tarot spread, using four cards from the Major Arcana, which is often read as the Fool's Journey, one soul moving through a series of initiations. Each card becomes a story stage.
Story Stage 1, the Fool, is the moment you knew. It is the moment you first sensed another level of existence and stepped toward it.
Story Stage 2, the Tower, is the break. It is the loss, ending or upheaval that changed your direction, and it carries the most risk of oversharing.
Story Stage 3, the Star, is the healing. It is the practice, teacher, realization or season of rest that brought you back to yourself, and it shows the first steps of the path you now teach.
Story Stage 4, the World, is the gift you offer now. It is where you stand today, with your awakening integrated and available to others.
For most coaches, the strongest place to begin is the Star and the World, with a brief and honest mention of the Tower. Together they show the transformation and the path, which is what the person you serve is looking for. Share what you have already moved through. If a part of your awakening still feels raw or frightening, it belongs with a trusted practitioner, a therapist or a close friend before it belongs in public. You never need to share another person's story, or any detail that would identify someone you have worked with.
You may also wonder how the people who knew you in an earlier chapter of your life will respond. Telling the story from the part you have already integrated gives you steady ground to speak from.
How to turn your story into a message
A story becomes marketing when it becomes a message, and the episode gives you three steps for building one.
Message Step 1: Name the person you serve and the moment they are in right now. Your story needs a listener, so picture your ideal client at the moment they would most need you and describe that moment in a sentence.
Message Step 2: Choose the turning point in your story that matches theirs. If they are standing in the doubt of whether they are allowed to start, your Fool or your Star may speak to them. If they are rebuilding, your Tower and your Star may be the match.
Message Step 3: Name the change and the next step. End with what became possible for you and one clear invitation, such as a free resource, a conversation or an offer, so that the person who feels recognized has somewhere to go.
Five places to share your awakening story
Your story can live in five places, and each one meets a person at a different stage of knowing you.
Your about page and bio are where people decide whether to trust you, so give them the Star and the World of your story, in your own voice, ending with an invitation.
Short videos and lives let people hear your voice and see your face while you tell one stage of the story.
Your email list is where people who already like you go deeper, and you can tell the story in parts, one stage at a time.
Posts and captions can hold a single moment, such as a Star moment or a World moment, and can end with a question that invites others to share theirs.
Conversations and discovery calls are where the short version becomes the most natural answer when someone asks what you do, followed by a question about their path.
Questions coaches ask about sharing their awakening
How do I share my awakening without sounding strange to people who have not had one? Describe the turning point and the change in plain words, in the language of the person you serve. The fuller details of your experience can come as trust grows, in your lives, your emails and your conversations, because the people who are drawn to that depth will ask for it.
Do I have to share the painful parts? You choose. Share the parts you have moved through and the change that followed, and keep the rest for your own healing work and your trusted circle. Your story needs a turning point that someone else can follow, and it does not need every difficulty.
What if my awakening was gradual and has no dramatic moment? The person who needs your work is looking for a story that is true and includes a turning point they can follow, and a gradual awakening has one. You can begin with the moment you first noticed that something had changed.
Join me live today
Spiritual awakening and how to share it is today's topic on The Spiritual Business Hour, and I would love to see you there. You can watch me live on YouTube at 2:00 PM PT today, and you are welcome to bring the first sentence of your own story with you. At Badass Butterfly Alchemy Coaching, I help women coaches convert their hard-earned wisdom into revenue, and your awakening story is where that wisdom first shows itself.
If you wrote the first sentence of your spiritual awakening story today, what would it say?
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Crystal Lynn Bell
Founder of Badass Butterfly Alchemy
Visit www.badassbutterflyalchemy.com →Crystal Lynn Bell is a Spiritual Business Mentor, visibility coach, and founder of Badass Butterfly Alchemy Coaching. Her work sits at the intersection of deep inner transformation and serious business architecture. Since 2011, she has guided more than 800 women through the process of building coaching businesses grounded in their genuine experience and designed to produce real, sustainable income.