Many aromatherapists enter the profession because they love plants, healing and helping people - rather than because they love marketing, selling or putting themselves ‘out there’. One of the biggest challenges healing practitioners (who I often call Witches) face is that discomfort over offering their gifts. Yet building an aromatherapy business requires us to develop additional skills and qualities other than just using the oils; we need to learn to develop confidence, courage, creativity, self-belief and leadership.
For many healers, that often leaves them hiding behind qualifications - seeking more and more before putting their gifts into practice - waiting until they feel more ‘ready’, comparing themselves to others, or feeling uncomfortable charging for their services. That’s because running a ‘witchy’ business isn’t just a practical journey, but one which often requires us to lean into healing our own wounds and expand into being an entrepreneur.
Essential oils can be beautiful allies to help us navigate the emotional and psychological rollercoaster of entrepreneurship. They’re so needed - because building a business isn’t just about what we do, but who we become as we learn to share our gifts with the world.
The secret psychology of building a holistic business
Those who enter the world of holistic therapies are often deeply sensitive and caring practitioners. Which brings some challenges - the shadow side of this calling. These include fears around:
- Visibility: the fear of judgement, criticism, rejection or being seen (I lose count of how many times I’ve been called a ‘charlatan’).
- Creativity: the feeling of being uninspired, overwhelmed, or pressured to create something new.
- Courage: the fear of failure, making mistakes, charging appropriately or stepping outside of our comfort zone.
- Leadership: struggling to trust ourselves, make decisions, hold boundaries or back our expertise.
These challenges are often felt as things that can hold us back, that stop us moving forwards with creating our businesses - and yet, contrary to popular belief, they aren’t signs that we are doing it wrong. Instead, they are normal parts of developing new skills and growing into building a business.
Using aromatherapy to support ourselves as business owners
Sometimes we need to harness our own medicine for ourselves - which means also using essential oils to help us in our business ownership journey.
As you will know, if you’re a therapist, our sense of smell is closely connected to parts of the brain that handle our emotion and memory. This means essential oils can support us with the challenges we face - and scent can also become an anchor for particular qualities we are wanting to embody.
Creating rituals around our work can help us step into the ‘witchy’ practitioner we were born to be, and deal with the challenges of entrepreneurship much more consciously. Think of it as having your own little Business Apothecary - different blends to support you as a therapist in business!
Essential oil blends for your 'witchy' business
Visibility potions - for the courage to be seen
When sharing your business and putting yourself out there to find clients, it can be scary to be in the spotlight. The act of marketing yourself can surface fears of judgement, rejection, criticism, or being perceived as ‘too much’. Becoming visible, though, isn’t about pretending to be someone you’re not - it’s about allowing people to see the work you genuinely believe in.
To overcome the fear of being seen and putting your business offers out there, try this Visibility Ritual:
Pulse Point Blend: Mix 2 drops Rose, 1 drop Bergamot and 1 drop Frankincense into 10ml Grapeseed carrier oil and pour into a rollette bottle. Apply to your pulse points as a reminder to simply be yourself, each time you post on social media, record a video, speak publicly, or share an offer.
Reflect to yourself: what would I share if I wasn’t afraid of being judged?
Creativity potions - to reconnect with inspiration
It can be challenging to be continually creative as a self-employed aromatherapist - developing treatments, writing content, designing workshops, and finding new ways to connect with clients. Creativity can become blocked when we put ourselves under pressure to produce or get things ‘right’. And yet, true creativity really occurs from curiosity, play and spaciousness.
To call back your creative spark, when it feels lost, try this Creativity Ritual:
Creative Diffusion Blend: Mix 3 drops Sweet Orange, 2 drops Rosemary and 1 drop Cardamom into water in an electrical diffuser or candle burner. Each time you feel creatively stuck, diffuse this into the air, maybe dance a little, and then journal on your next step. Use it when you’re brainstorming marketing, planning or developing a new offer. The invitation is to step away from rigid planning and explore what excites you.
Reflect to yourself: what would I love to create if I stopped worrying about getting it ‘right’.
Courage potions - for stepping beyond your comfort zone
Entrepreneurship constantly requires us to be in unknown territory. We have to share our services, set prices, speak to people about our work, launch something new, or have challenging conversations - and this can all feel uncomfortable. It’s helpful to remember that courage isn’t the absence of having fear - it’s our willingness to take action in the face of our doubts.
To work with your fear and cultivate courage, use this Courage Ritual:
Courage Massage Blend: Mix 3 drops Cedarwood, 2 drops Black Pepper and 1 drop Ginger into 15ml Grapeseed oil, and massage into your heart - or even all over your body in a direction towards the heart - before doing something brave.
Reflect to yourself: what would I do next if I trusted myself?
Leadership potions - to trust your own authority
As practitioners, especially when we are just starting to create our businesses, we can often look outside of ourselves for permission, validation or reassurance. Yet running a business requires us to make choices, set boundaries and trust ourselves and our way of doing things. Leadership isn’t necessarily about being more ‘authoritative’, but about becoming more rooted in ourselves.
To step more into your own power, try this Leadership Ritual.
Inner Authority Roller Blend: Mix 2 drops Frankincense, 1 drop Cypress and 1 drop Vetivert into 10ml Grapeseed carrier oil and pour into a rollette ball bottle. Apply to your pulse points each time you need a reminder of your power - when you are making important decisions, leading groups, holding a therapeutic session or doing something where you need to feel more grounded. Ground yourself and reconnect with your heart.
Reflect to yourself: where am I looking outside for permission that I could provide to myself?
The relationship between healing and earning
Many of us enter the healing profession because we want to nurture and support and help others - yet we can also feel uncomfortable receiving money, promoting ourselves (ethically), and asking to be paid appropriately. Somehow, being a caring healer and being a business owner can feel incompatible. We might even believe that promoting ourselves means becoming manipulative or persuading people to work with us. But that simply isn't true - building a sustainable business means honouring both our desire to help and also meeting our own needs in order to provide that support. We can share our work cleanly and invite those who genuinely resonate with it. Receiving exchange in your work doesn’t diminish its healing intention - it just makes it more sustainable.
Creating your own Witch’s Business Apothecary Ritual
As we complete, I invite you to develop a simple ritual to engage with before beginning your working day. Pause and ask yourself what you need: visibility, creativity, courage or leadership - or perhaps something else. And turn that very medicine you have in on yourself - engage with the relevant oils to support your emotions and goals. Use your skills, firstly on yourself.
Take a few deep breaths, set an intention, then ask yourself what the ‘next’ action is today to support your business. However small that action is, make it.
Essential oils, when harnessed with ritual, connect intention with practical action beautifully. But magic isn’t simply about setting intentions - it’s also about what we choose to do with them.
Your business is an expression of you. It doesn’t require you to perform marketing or be someone you aren’t - I’ve found it actually initiates you into being more of who you really are. It invites you to grow into the qualities that help you share your gifts confidently. Essential oils, of course, can help with that transformation, offering grounding, inspiration, courage and reconnection.
Your business gets to be an expression of your own values, creativity and unique gifts. That means go be you and share the wisdom you already carry.
Happy blending!
Nicole Barton
Consultant Aromatherapist
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