• “Reiki… should be free for everyone, for the Creator does not charge you for what is unconditionally given to you.”

• “A real master would never ask you for money in order to pass on to you the knowledge and experience they have cultivated and practiced for so many years.”

• “If they charge you money, they are commercializing and perverting the spiritual practice.”

• “One can have a regular job… and also offer a spiritual practice free of charge in order to help others out of Unconditional Love.”

After having my content all over the internet for several years now, I am very aware and accepting of others opinions in this space - but this is a subject I am particularly passionate about. Not from a place of defensiveness, but in advocacy for myself and other practitioners out there.

On the surface, I can understand where the commentators opinions come from, and sure it sounds downright pure, generous, and “spiritually evolved” - but since we aren’t living in a utopia where we can work, or even educate ourselves for free, the argument just doesn’t hold up.

It would be wonderful to live in a world where everyone could dedicate their lives entirely to healing others without needing to think about income, rent, food, or basic survival, but we don’t live in that world. Spiritual practitioners live inside the same economic system as everyone else, alongside the same responsibilities, costs, and limitations.

If the expectation is that all healing work must be free, then the implication is that practitioners must also work full-time elsewhere to survive. Which raises a simple question: who, then, has the time and energy to not only provide the healing work, but to learn the skills required to do so in the first place?

Healing work involves real investment

Unfortunately, spiritual work does not exist outside of material reality. Practitioners like myself have spent years investing into their development - including training, courses, supervision, practice, ongoing learning, hell even the dreaded annual First Aid renewal. Working in the healing and wellness space requires insurance, equipment, space hire, websites, platforms, marketing, and countless invisible costs, just to name a few.

Energy exchange is not unspiritual

I believe a huge block for many that work within this space (myself included once upon a time), is the undervaluing of our skills, and this often comes in the form of financial exchange.

Throughout human history, healing, teaching, and spiritual service have always involved exchange - sometimes that exchange was food, shelter, land, protection, gifts, patronage, or money. Great temples, Cathedrals and sacred sites were not built on unconditional love alone.

It is the simple social value of reciprocity.

*I will add a side note here, that in my work I also offer service based exchanges with fellow practitioners or personal services - which I think is also an excellent exchange option.

Why is spiritual work expected to be free?

It’s worth asking why this expectation exists so strongly in spiritual spaces, since we don’t ask therapists, doctors, yoga teachers, massage therapists or educators to provide their labour for free. Given that these are examples of predominantly vocational works, should the spiritual aspect of these roles be disregarded if this argument is to hold up?

There is an important distinction to be made here: free does not automatically mean pure, and paid does not automatically mean corrupt.

Many practitioners already offer significant free work - I personally have over 200 FREE videos on YouTube and Insight Timer to support people on their healing/spiritual journeys. This is hundreds of hours of recording and editing work with no guaranteed regular source of income cough looking at you YouTube cough.

The irony was not lost of me that this comment came from one of my free offerings available and accessible to anyone on the internet.

And finally…

If every practitioner were expected to work a full-time job and offer all spiritual healing for free, the likely outcome would not be more healing in the world. It would mean less availability, more burnout, and fewer experienced practitioners able to stay in service long term.

We do not create sustainable healing systems by asking people to devalue their labour.

We create them by supporting reciprocity, fairness, and sustainability.

Spiritual work is not less valuable than other forms of care, it is not outside of the human economy, and it does not cease to be spiritual simply because it is exchanged for money.

Temple, from the Latin: templum; open or consecrated space

If we are the temple, we are the consecrated space, a place of spiritual blessing, of divinity, and sanctification that is not accessible to everyone. There are holy places just for us, chambers of silence, altars of offerings, grail cups of holiness that only we may drink from.

I experienced an intense awakening several years ago after a plant medicine ceremony where I connected deeply to Mary Magdalene, and the energy of the divine feminine/masculine.

I remember lying on the floor of the yoga studio, running my fingertips up and down the left and right side of my body, noticing all the ways I had abused or neglected either side of the archetypes of masculine and feminine. It cracked me open to the idea that the integration of both is what truly brings harmony back into our energy body – our temple cannot be cared for by warring factions. We cannot thrive without love and in balance within.

This sacred relationship with our earthly vessel as a living temple is not about control or the denial of the things that make us experience joy or pleasure, but a connection that we cultivate through devotion to self, presence, and embodiment.

Recently, I wanted to bring this vision to life in the form of a guided visualisation on our YouTube channel, where we enter the inner temple and drink from the Holy Grail with the comforting presence of Mary Magdalene. This practice is a journey of coming home to oneself, drinking from the Grail symbolising divine union, of refilling your energetic cup, and sitting with reverence at the holy altar of who you truly are.

Perhaps the truest act of devotion isn’t in denying the cake, but tasting it slowly, reverently, and knowing that pleasure too is holy.

The temple is not a destination we are constantly working towards.

It’s who we already are.

But why? It’s arguably the most feared card to receive (other than the Death card, if you don’t know any better!) and yet it is a part of everyone’s life at one point or another. In a basic overview, the Tower signifies abrupt change, life changing circumstances, and disaster - something we will all get to experience over and over again throughout our lives, it is not something we can avoid, and we shouldn’t even try to - and here’s why…

On the Tower card, you’ll notice the small yellow flames scattered about the sky, almost raining down on the poor victims of the Tower’s destruction. These small flames are actually the Hebrew letter “Yod”, meaning God, divine spark, and is considered a building block for all other letters within the Hebrew alphabet. The beauty of this small yet important choice is the suggestion that there is the presence of the divine within the events that are occurring.

The Tower has been built on a flinty foundation - it’s open, exposed to the elements, just begging to be struck by lightning and set aflame. If you reflect upon any moments in your life that have felt like the energetic embodiment of this card, often you will notice the cracks that formed before the collapse, the warning signs you ignored, the conversations that were never had, the thunder that rumbled with the anticipation of the lightning bolt…

The chaos, however disruptive and painful, is an act of the divine. It is a cosmic redirection, a karmic consequence, a bright new beginning in the journey of clearing the rubble that you now sit amongst. Why would you needlessly fear, or try to prevent this destruction when it can propel you toward a path you never considered before? Why would you try to resist the crumbling of a building that is falling down around you, when you never built a strong enough foundation in the first place?

Every ‘Tower Moment’ in my life has paved the way for the greatest and most potent of changes. I may have spent months in the emotional processing of said changes, I may have grieved harder than I ever have in my life, and yet trusting that these events serve a greater purpose than just being a victim to the world we live in, is true to my experience, and it can be for you too.

It is a matter of perspective that allows you the softness and surrender that disaster, chaos, and the crumbling of your life as you know it serves a purpose that you do not need to know the extent of just yet.

Trust in the unfolding. Trust in the Tower.

What ‘Tower Moments’ have reshaped your life? Can you look back and see the divine spark within them?

If you’re moving through your own “Tower moment” and would like guidance, I offer 1:1 tarot readings where we can explore what’s shifting for you and how to navigate the rubble with clarity and trust. You can book a session through Soul Tranquility or via our Etsy Store.

However, today the realisation washed over me; that I am not living in receptivity, in magnetism, of how I actually want to live my life. I am shrinking my worth for the fear of being magnetic.

I’m not an especially shy person, but I’m also not especially outgoing. In a crowded room of unknown people, I can feel swamped and bogged down by more oppressive and assertive energies. I can often feel lost and forgotten, as though my true self isn’t really seen until you have a session with me one on one as a client, or if you become a close friend. Sometimes this aura comes across as “standoffish” or cold, when in fact it is my discerning presence, taking in everything that is going on around me.

This sense of presence, however, very easily bleeds into the realms of withdrawal, a snail sliding back into its shell because it’s safer there in the dark than out in the light where I’m exposed and everyone can see me.

“I believe that there is a subtle magnetism in Nature, which, if we unconsciously yield to it, will direct us aright.” - Henry David Thoreau

You know a magnetic person when you meet them; they don’t demand your attention, they command it. It’s charisma, it’s openness, it is a complete willingness to be seen and witnessed in all their glory.

I do not live like that - and I’m fucking tired of it.

I’ve been reading a lot recently about how your capacity for holding all the money, abundance, joy, and happiness you desire is directly correlated with your nervous system’s capacity to hold all of these things.

We know it isn’t necessarily about skill, or even quality when it comes to achievements and success, it often comes down to what you believe you are worthy and capable of…

Do you feel safe holding a million dollars?

Do you feel safe to lead a sold-out online course?

Do you feel safe to embody all the teachings you are sharing with the world?

In theory, I think we would all argue that we would be more than safe to hold a million dollars - but what about everything that comes with it? The journey to reaching that goal, the consistency, the milestones, the failures, the rejections, the successes, the pitfalls, the losses, the hopes, the dreams. Can you hold all of that?

Because it isn’t a question of whether you can handle everything you want if it landed in your lap in the shape of a lottery ticket.

The question is whether you are able to hold space for the journey that will get you there.

And this is where magnetism becomes essential.

Magnetism is the ability to feel safe and witnessed in all our glory - not at the finish line, but at day one. You become so magnetic that anything that doesn’t work out is because it isn’t aligned with what you are calling in. You won’t be able to tolerate not being seen because your natural state is to be visible.

Following the intensity of this eclipse season, I have felt something crack open inside me, where I have felt too wrapped up in hiding, in the illusion that being humble means I don’t get to be magnetic.

And it’s time to flip the script.

If you’ve felt like you’ve been hiding too, maybe in the depths of your healing journey, maybe in the stories you have been telling yourself of what you aren’t capable of, maybe it is time to crack yourself wide open too, and step into the light of your own magnetism.

With love,

Naomi

P.S - If you’d like to explore magnetism and nervous system capacity more deeply, I share free guided meditations and ceremonial practices on YouTube and Insight Timer. These spaces are where we can journey together beyond the page.