Ever heard of 'Esoteric Practices' but no idea what they actually are?
Here you'll find a beginner friendly introduction to what are classed as 'Esoteric Practices' and how you can start to integrate them into your normal well-being routines and habits.
Ever heard the word esoteric or the phrase esoteric practices and thought… what the hell are esoteric practices?
It’s basically a fancy word for having a niche interest or a specific understanding of something.
The term esoteric has been adopted in the spiritual community in a more philosophical sense, it is used to describe a practice or a person who seemingly has a deep knowledge of the universe and the lessons within it and actively works to connect with those things.
When it comes to modern spiritual practices, such as working with crystals, witchcraft, manifestation and other things of the like, we can often run across the term esoteric being used, as those things are often only practised by those that have a unique interest or connection with them.
Esoteric is an adjective and can be used in the following ways:
1) understood by or meant for only the select few who have special knowledge or interest.
2) belonging to the select few.
3) private; secret; confidential.
Somewhere over the years it has been swayed to lean more towards the spiritual, meanings someone that is on a journey towards spiritual enlightenment. Hence why things like energy healing, manifestation, meditation and the likes are deemed as Esoteric Practices.
Western Esotericism
Now, western esotericism refers to what we’re looking at, it’s the term we use to group specific beliefs, philosophies and traditions. Many of these will have been prevalent throughout various western religions such as Judaism, Christianity, Catholicism and Paganism.
If you do a bit of research around this subject, you’re bound to get to a point where you just feel completely confused, so here’s my own personal definition of esotericism as I see it.
Esotericism refers to a number of traditions, philosophies and practices, that focus inwards on the human beliefs, spirituality and wellbeing. It’s a very philosophical idea that gets us to ask the bigger questions around our own purpose and effect on this planet, from a spiritual perspective.
This is why I firmly place Tarot reading in the realm of Esoteric practice, because it is the perfect tool for diving deep into what it really means to be human. It allows us to approach our own personal spirituality in a way that removes barriers and defensive mechanisms.
What Are the Esoteric Practices?
I see a lot of what I do and what I preach to be grounded in esotericism. Everything I do from a spiritual perspective aims to help me grow as a person and develop a deeper knowledge of the universe and my place within it. This gives me more clarity, confidence and understanding of what I’m put on this planet to achieve.
Some of the most popular modern-day esoteric practices are:
Tarot reading – There are a lot of esoteric theologies and doctrines that go into Tarot, from Kabbalah to Astrology. If you continue to dig into the many areas of tarot, you’ll be able to uncover a whole new world within the cards. This is something I touch on in my Tarot Directory meanings. It’s also something I teach in the Energetic Tarot Advanced Tarot Course, helping you deepen your meanings and expanding the wisdom of your Tarot readings.
Meditation – Used by Buddhist monks to find enlightenment, this is a practice that helps you to delve inwards and explore the inner psyche and subconscious. It has its roots in religion and spirituality, but it has since been adapted into a Westernised form of mental health management.
Reiki healing – This is growing in popularity in the Western world, however, it originated in Japan. It involves laying hands on key energy centres within the body, basically along the same lines as chakra balancing and healing.
Akashic Records – The Akashic Records are said to be a collection of universal thoughts, words, emotions and intent to have ever happened, happening or will happen. People who access the Akashic Records have the ability to look into the life of a soul and see its history, present and future.
Astrology – You probably know your star sign already, but you are made up of more than one. We have a moon sign, a sun sign and more. Astrology is a pseudoscience that divines information around who we are as humans, based on the positions and movements of celestial objects, such as the stars and planets.
Witchcraft – Growing in popularity (just take a look at WitchTok on TikTok) Witchcraft contains multiple esoteric practices all rolled into one neat package. From alchemy to astrology, divination to astral projection, it’s a great way to add more esotericism to your life.
How Can You Use Esoteric Practices in Your Daily Life?
Now that we’ve established a few practices, let’s have a look at how we can actually use them. The best way that I’ve found is to simply make time for them in your normal schedule.
For example, I make time in my day for 10-minutes of meditation a day, plus I subscribe to the Witchcraft subscription box Witch Casket, which helps me carve out time to get my witchness on.
You can start small with things like consulting an oracle card every day, or picking out a tarot card to explore your thoughts, feelings and mood on that particular day.
Even making time to just learn more about esotericism and its many practices and theologies can help expand your mind and explore your soul. The key thing to remember here is to make time to question the universe you live in and your place in it. Look beneath the surface to find hidden knowledge and meaning.
As spiritual entrepreneurs, we need to make sure we take care of ourselves on many different levels. Whether it’s looking after our physical body, our mental wellbeing or our spiritual health, we need to make sure everything gets some love and attention.
When it comes to looking after my own wellbeing, there are 6 different areas I like to make time for. It may sound like a lot and you may think ‘Cat, I do not have time to maintain 6 areas of wellbeing!’, but I’m here to show you how you can ensure all parts of yourself are being well cared for in a time-efficient and intentional way.
> “A person being “too busy” is a myth. People make time for the things that are really important to them.”
— Mandy Hale
Area 1: Physical
It’s one of the most well-known areas and for many, one of the easiest to let slip into nothingness. I won’t lie, cardio workouts make me want to instantly lie down and nap, but I know I feel better and I can do more when I look after my cardio fitness… I hate it.
I also make sure to do one exercise class a week that is fun, for me it’s aerial hoop, for some it may be pole or if you’re stuck at home, there are a plethora of online exercise videos to choose from. Physical health isn’t just about looking good or keeping your body in good condition, it can have a knock-on effect with all the other areas we’re going to be looking at in this post. Physical exercise can boost your endorphins helping to lift your mood, it can also force you to breathe more deeply, helping you feel calmer and get more oxygen into your bloodstream, making you feel more awake and motivated.
Area 2: Mental
Something that we are all very aware of at the moment and rightly so. Our mental health can be one of the trickiest things to take care of. I always liken it to trying to keep a mound of sand in your hands whilst juggling, at least that’s what it feels like for me.
The key to taking care of your mental wellbeing is to take breaks. Force your mind to stop, relax, unplug from the information filth cauldron that is the internet. A lot of the issues we see today are because we are constantly pushing information into our brains at a rapid rate, so do something where you have to focus on just one thing, like reading, sewing, gardening or even watching your favourite show.
Area 3: Emotional
Our emotional wellbeing can often get lumped in with our mental wellbeing and that makes a lot of sense as the two are closely connected, but they are not exclusive. Your emotional wellbeing often requires some dedicated time and attention, as it has its roots in your subconscious.
Your emotions control how you feel, your mental wellbeing controls how you think but how you feel can influence your thoughts, this is where it gets tricky to separate the two. However, when taking time to take care of your emotional wellbeing, we need to delve into that subconscious and the way we do that is through mindfulness meditation, journaling, gratitude lists and shadow work (facing and working through the darkest parts of ourselves).
Your spiritual self-care should aim to create a connection between you and the universe in which we live. It’s all about recognising what we don’t know and may never know and coming to terms with that. It’s about exploring our faith, our philosophical beliefs and how we feel about the world and the people in it.
Not only should we focus on forming a relationship with the universe, but we should also be focusing inwards in order to uncover and tap into our own personal power. As energetic beings, we are capable of so much more than our conscious mind allows us to believe, so taking time out for some spiritual self-care can help to build confidence, create a much healthier relationship with self and even open your eyes to new perspectives.
Area 5: Creative
Creativity, whether you think you’re a creative person or not, is essential to being able to process and express difficult emotions. This is why so many artists, poets, playwrights and actors have deep dark troubles. Granted back in the day some of the great artists had various diseases that made them crazy, but they still managed to use creativity to unleash some of their deepest emotions so you have no excuse.
Even something as simple as doodling in your notepad can help you get that creativity moving along nicely. Creative self-care can be the key to unlocking difficult emotional memories, self-limiting beliefs or even fears we never knew we had. Freewriting is great if you’re not good with a pencil or a paintbrush, or even just creating visual mood boards can help, Canva is a great tool for this and you can just save the images you love and drag and drop!
Finally, we have our intellectual self-care. Now, the trap we don’t want to fall into is overloading ourselves with information, which can be easy when we fall down a YouTube rabbit hole or go on a Google rampage. In order to take care of our intellectual health, all we have to do is challenge ourselves in an intellectual way. This can be grabbing a puzzle book to fill out in your break times, taking a short online course in something you’ve always been fascinated with or researching about a specific subject you want to know more about.
Taking care of your intellectual wellbeing can help you to discover new perspectives on the world, yourself, your career, your wants and desires, how you treat others and so much more. Plus, keeping our minds focused in this way links back to that mental self-care from earlier.
How to combine them all together
You may have noticed a few commonalities as we went through each area, but here are a few things you can do, as a busy spiritual entrepreneur, to give each area care and attention without having to take hours out of your day.
Freewriting – The idea behind freewriting is that you just write down everything you have in your head without censorship. This helps with your mental, emotional and spiritual wellbeing all at once. You could even do this in the form of a short story, adding in that creative element.
Dancing – Whether it’s a Tik Tok dance or a professional dance class, dancing can help you be creative using your body and help to get your heart pumping. This can take care of your physical, mental, emotional and creative wellbeing.
Reading non-fiction – Picking up a history book, a book on an academic subject or a self-help book can be a great way to not only take care of your intellectual wellbeing, but it also tackles your mental wellbeing. Depending on the subject it can even address your emotional, spiritual and creative wellbeing. If you grab yourself an audiobook, you could listen to it while running or in the gym, adding in some physical self-care.
Sex/Masturbation – Yep we went there. Sex or some one-on-one time with yourself can be a great way to not only reduce stress and tension in your body, but it can also help you learn more about your own preferences, likes and dislikes. Plus you open up that Sacral chakra, which is the seat of your creativity and emotional wellbeing.
Scheduling in specific self-care time is something all business owners should do, after all, your business relies on you in order to succeed and it can’t do that if you’re burned out. To give the most to our projects, we have to to give an equal amount of energy to ourselves in order to balance the scales. How do you make sure to stay balanced when busy?
With a brand new year comes a brand new direction for The Self-Care Emporium (sort of…). When I first started this business, I worked closely with the amazing and ambitious women that I had already surrounded myself with. I’d been a big part of various groups and organisations, that strived to encourage and support entrepreneurial women, so these women became my first tarot customers and clients.
As I moved back across the globe and struggled to settle back into ‘normal life’, things ran away with me and it was easier to try and appeal to a more general audience than hustle within a niche. Now, I feel more strongly than ever that The Self-Care Emporium should be striving to support empowered and empowering women in business.
How will the Self-Care Emporium support women in business?
Many of the customers and clients that come to me are women who are trying to build or run their own businesses, usually by themselves and from the comfort of their own home. Although this is an amazing and impressive feet, these women are the most prone to feelings of self-doubt, burnout and loneliness when things get tough and confusing.
The Self-Care Emporium was always created to help people to find a better balance in their lives, by using metaphysical tools and beliefs to tap into a higher power. This inner work and trust in the universe can be a truly powerful tool for business owners. It can help you to form a new and more positive perspective on difficult situations, it can allow you to surrender to the universe and the powers that be.
I know from personal experience, that when you are a soloprenuer, the feeling of being in complete control can be a tough thing to let go of, but it is so often the answer to some of our biggest worries and anxieties.
With my Spiritual Coaching packages, tarot readings and spiritual tool online shop, I aim to help my clients to dig deep, listen to their inner voices, tackle difficult thoughts and feelings and trust in their own intuition.
By the end of our sessions, I want you to walk away feeling settled and comfortable with where you are at, passionate and excited about where you are going and at peace with where you have been and what you’ve been through.
What does a Spiritual Coach do?
A Spiritual Coach is basically a very niche type of life coach. I use metaphysical and spiritual tools and ideas to help you gain a new perspective and understand yourself a whole lot better.
I work primarily with the subconscious mind and use tarot cards to draw out all the thoughts and feelings that often hide within the unconscious. With everything laid out in front of you, it’s a lot easier to understand why you are feeling what you’re feeling and how you can start to overcome, grow and move forward.
In business, these things are incredibly important, as solo entrepreneurs can often get in their own way. Whether it is tackling limiting beliefs, imposter syndrome or self doubt, our internal thoughts and feelings can create roadblocks, that when we are living our busy lives, we can often overlook.
Sometimes all it takes is an outside perspective and guidance, to help you see the truth in front of you. Some of the types of issues I help my clients with are:
Overcoming the belief that ‘someone can do it better’
Figuring out a more focused and purposeful path
Reigniting a passion that has fizzled out
Creating a new direction for their business or for personal growth
Finding a balance between running a business as a soloprenuer and taking care of their wellbeing
Learning how to be kinder and more flexible with themselves
I offer three different services to help female entrepreneurs, ranging from one off seven card tarot readings (perfect when you need a little readjustment or a bit of clarification), the New Direction Spiritual Coaching package (helps new business owners or aspiring business owners to find a new path in life) and the Realignment Spiritual Coaching package (designed for current business owners that feel stuck, plateaued or disillusioned with where they are and have lost a sense of direction).
What are the benefits of having a Spiritual Coach as a solopreneur?
As solo entrepreneurs, we can often try and fix things ourselves, but this often just adds more bullet points to our task lists and creates even more pressure on ourselves. A Spiritual Coach is here to share the load, I work alongside you as a confident, a friend, a guide and a supporter of you and your business.
It’s always helpful to have someone to talk about your business with and bounce ideas off, all whilst tapping into our joint intuition, listening to the messages of the universe and understanding our inner selves a whole lot better.
I’m here to ensure you don’t push yourself to breaking point or spiral into a pattern of self-bullying and limiting thoughts. Investing in a Spiritual Coach can be the eureka moment you’ve been looking for, whether it is finding clarity on how to grow and develop your business, or learning how to be happier and more passionate about a project.
