How to Run a Heart-Centred Business That’s Aligned with Your Soul

Katie Carey is a mum, nanny and a multi-passionate, heart-centred disabled entrepreneur from Northamptonshire, United Kingdom. She chooses to focus on thriving, despite the chronic pain and disabilities she lives with. She is an international best-selling author, globally ranked podcaster and she decided to combine her coaching skills and love of books and story-telling by launching her own publishing house.

Qualified with a BSc Open degree combining Social Psychology, Science of the Mind, Challenging Ideas in Mental Health and Counselling & Psychotherapy, she also trained as a Reiki Master, Mindfulness Coach, Holistic Therapist and more recently an EFT Practitioner. It was this tool that shifted her own patterns of trauma. Katie also trained in Mediumship and Psychic Development which has fascinated her since she experienced spiritual connection in childhood.

She realises now that her superpower is connecting people with what and who they need to support their healing, personal growth and overall evolution. She founded and led an “alternative” mental health charity between 2013 and 2019 called STAGES, training volunteers in reiki and mindfulness. She provided coaching and mindfulness sessions alongside therapy. STAGES supported local people, who now have a network of support and lifelong friendships through the connections they made because of the charity.

What inspired your business?

I have always been a bit entrepreneurial. I was an actress and singer in my teens and loved that. Life changed when I married my first husband becoming an army wife. We moved 11 times in 13 years. Jobs were difficult for wives to come by. So, I created opportunities for myself. In 1991, I was made redundant. We planned to start a family, so I purchased my first computer. It was an Amstrad PCW. The plan was to work from home, so I could be there for my children, as my husband was away often.

After being self-employed it was very difficult going back to a job but it seemed to be the reality I needed to deal with. Oh, how I hated that job! It had a major impact on my body, along with the stress of my marriage to my alcohol-dependent second husband. I was eventually ill-health retired when I became physically disabled.

I had created a Charity alongside that job, which was inspired by my need to help my second husband, and in July 2018, I started my brand Soulful Valley, with the idea that I would create multiple streams of income.

You describe yourself as a heart-centred entrepreneur, how do you define that?

Everything I do must be aligned with my soul and in complete integrity me. I used to hide away the intuitive, spiritual side of myself. Now, I lead with my heart and soul because I know that I am a guiding light to others.

I’ve experienced a lifetime of trauma, being brought up in a home filled with domestic abuse, mental illness and alcohol abuse. These experiences resulted in relationship traumas, and I am now twice divorced. I’ve had some extremely traumatic experiences with my health in recent years. I now understand that this was a result of the toxic marriage and job that I held on to for too many years. You can read about some of that, in the Chapter I contributed to the book “Intuitive: Knowing Her Truth”

I learned the hard way that clinging to things that are not in alignment, wreaks havoc on every aspect of your success and well-being. So, I now make 100% sure that everything I do is done from the heart, with love at the core.

What sets you apart from other people in your field?

I have a tremendous amount of experience in transforming trauma into thriving. I have managed to alchemise extremely intense situations in my own life. I care deeply about shifting generational trauma and about how mental health affects us all. Mental health is a global pandemic that goes on quietly in the background and is woefully underestimated.

I know that emotions attract our reality, both in positive and negative ways. When we shove our feelings down, they affect our bodies. I have experienced this myself. So, I know that I can help others not only with all that I have studied but with my lived experiences.

I am 52, if I can change these patterns, I know that it is possible for anyone.

How do diversity and inclusivity play a part in your business?

Being disabled I have been on the other end of workplaces not being inclusive, although stating that they were. Welcoming applications from disabled people but not making appropriate changes for someone becoming disabled. I worked on an 8th floor with 16 flights of stairs, where the lift didn’t work a lot of the time. Their solution was to move me to the 4th floor with only 8 flights. Not exactly helpful. Moreover, the parking permit I was provided was located two car parks across the hospital grounds. This resulted in debilitating and exacerbating my conditions even more and made me feel completely inadequate and helpless.

I think representation is very important and want people to be able to relate to at least one of the authors in my multi-author books. I am open to applications globally. It’s important to me that a wide range of role models are in my books from a variety of cultures and backgrounds, the LGBQT+ community and people who are disabled and deemed unemployable by society.

How have the challenges of the past year changed your business?

Quite dramatically! I was building multiple streams of income with my eBay store and coaching as well as an online travel business I started. The eBay side of things went dead, the travel business had to go… so I started looking around. I came across a spiritual coach called Joanna Hunter and totally resonated with her. So, I invested in some of her courses, not having a clue how I was going to pay for them. But I trusted that I was worth investing in and I would attract the solutions.

I landed face-first in a 5-day podcast challenge. That felt right for me and I happened to have the right equipment. I had trained as a radio presenter after I was ill-health retired and purchased equipment as I was planning to create meditations. I launched the podcast and it was featured in the New and Noteworthy on Itunes and reached number 22 in Great Britain, number 9 in Cyprus and number 35 in Ireland in the Alternative Health category. It is now a globally ranked podcast in the top 5% of all listened-to podcasts with thousands of downloads, and I have had some amazing guests.

I invested in myself and these opportunities, despite the financial issues I was facing and money began to show up to support me. I chose to use some of this to keep learning how to expand my business and shift it in the right direction with more courses and at the end of 2020, I joined the “My million-dollar experiment”, which shifted my mindset even further.

I can’t wait to see what the future holds!

Do you have one practical tip from your business to help people empower themselves?

Lack mentality is a huge block to us reaching our full potential. Reframing this, changed everything for me and I still can’t believe the magical appearances of money that continue to come in to support me, each time I invest in my business.

More opportunities appear because I am open to recognising synchronicities. Tapping into my intuition has been invaluable to me. If we don’t do that, the mind gets in the way and goes into keeping us safe from danger mode. There is no growth or expansion possible when our brain is desperately trying to cling to what is safe and familiar.

Where can people find you?

You can find out more on my website, https://www.soulfulvalley.com. I am currently offering the opportunity to invest in collaborating in my multi-author book entitled: Evolving on Purpose: Mindful ancestors paving the way for future generations. You can email for an application form: [email protected].

About FEM

FEM stands for Feminist Entrepreneurs Magazine (or Finally Eradicating Misogyny, if you’re feeling cheeky), and is a House of Hives publication. We started this magazine to support entrepreneurs who feel disenchanted with the 24/7 hustle culture, the competitive narrative of toxic masculinity and narrow definitions of success, value and wealth that it peddles. We want to talk about balance, the importance of mental health, the power of collaboration and diversity, and much more.

We hope to inspire and support entrepreneurs as they build their businesses in enjoyable and sustainable ways, by sharing stories and tips from thought-leaders and change-makers. Join the mailing list to have the FEM e-magazine sent directly to your inbox.

Originally published at https://www.houseofhives.com on June 4, 2021.