We're not being punished, we're being prepared
What looks like a downturn may be the fertile ground of your next great becoming
Welcome! This is the Sunday Soother, a weekly newsletter about compassionate personal growth, practical spirituality, and authentic living, written by me, Catherine Andrews, a life coach, teacher, and writer. Did somebody forward this to you? Subscribe here.
ANNOUNCEMENT: New offering - Feng Shui Small Group: Love & Connection, July 24th, 7pmET, 6 spots
If you're ready to shift that energy and invite in more love, connection, and ease… ✨
Join me on Wednesday, July 24 (the new moon in Cancer!) for a Feng Shui Small Group Session focused on the love + relationship area of your home. You’ll get:
❤️ A mini personalized Feng Shui reading
🃏 A group Tarot reading for love
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Spots are limited to 6 so it stays intimate. Everybody will get a personalized mini love feng shui reading. Sign up here — I’d love to support your heart and calling in the love you deserve 💫
*****
Happy Sunday, Soothers. Most folks wouldn’t give you this sort of “uh, things be not good” behind-the-scenes look of their business, but I love authenticity and transparency so here’s the deal: My business is quieter than it’s ever been. Some days, it feels like it’s not just quiet, but stalled out entirely—maybe even beginning to shut down??
This year I’ve made less money than I have in any year since I began working for myself in 2020. And while there’s a part of me that wants to panic about that—start problem-solving, productivity-hacking, or launching something flashy to jolt it back to life—there’s another part, a wiser, slower one, that keeps whispering:
Nothing is wrong.
This is an invitation.
I have enough savings, so I’m okay for now. I’m trying out some new fun offerings (like the Feng Shui Small Groups — if anything else, lulls in business force you to try new things and call on your creativity.)
But more than that, I feel okay, emotionally and mentally (well, most of the time) in a way that doesn’t make a lot of sense on paper. Catherine of five years ago would have been in a TOTAL panic, but now… something is shifting.
(An acknowledgement that I’m also able to feel more okay about this because of my savings, my racial and economic privilege, and other safety nets I have available to me that are not available to many, and seem to be getting scarcer and rarer every day.)
And not just for me, but for many of the heart-centered, creative, and spiritual folks I know. Coaches, writers, artists, intuitives that I’m friends with—we’re all noticing it. Old ways aren’t working. Launches are flopping. Marketing feels flat. Algorithms are throttling us. Growth is flatlined, or going backwards.
More than that, for me at least, the spark is missing. What used to bring joy and momentum in figuring things out in my biz now feels like dragging a boulder up a hill in a thunderstorm while trying to smile for Instagram Stories.
(And if this is not your experience and you’re experiencing a lot of growth and abundance wherever you are, that is amazing. I’m thrilled for you and want your magic to ripple as far as it possibly can. Keep going.)
But for those of us who feel like something invisible is pulling us inward, slowing things down, or inviting us into a different kind of pace—we’re not alone.
I don’t think this is just economic or seasonal or algorithmic, though certainly those external forces are at play, too. If I’m honest, at my core: I think we are being prepared. Called inward. Quieted, so we can listen more deeply. Asked to stop performing, producing, and chasing long enough to hear what’s underneath it all.
I believe we’re witnessing the slow unraveling of capitalism and work as we’ve known it. We’re being shown that constant growth is not the only way to live, and that our value was never meant to be measured in productivity or profit margins. The systems are cracking, not just externally, but in our own hearts. Many of us can no longer participate in ways that ask us to abandon our bodies, our communities, our nervous systems, or our truth. And so, in the quiet, we begin to imagine something different.
As our businesses begin a decline, I don’t think we’re failing. I think we’re preparing. I think we’re being asked to tie up loose ends, to let things fall away, to trust that just because something’s quieter doesn’t mean it’s dead. Maybe it’s composting. Maybe we are, too.
Something bigger is coming—not bigger in the way capitalism measures things, but bigger in resonance, in alignment, in humanity. We are being invited to let go of what’s not real, to end what no longer fits, and to soften our death grip on strategies that once served us, but now feel hollow.
And we’re being asked to do all this without certainty or guarantee—just trust. Which, let’s be honest, is deeply uncomfortable. But also kind of sacred.
So if things feel slow for you too—if your work feels like it’s in a cocoon, if you’re questioning your direction, if your launches are quiet and your income’s weird and you’re googling “WTF is going on with online businesses 2025”—you’re not alone.
There’s a quote I return to again and again, especially in seasons like this one. It’s from Pema Chödrön, and it lovingly dismantles my need to label every shift as either good or bad:
“When we think that something is going to bring us pleasure, we don’t know what’s really going to happen. When we think something is going to give us misery, we don’t know. Letting there be room for not knowing is the most important thing of all... When there’s a big disappointment, we don’t know if that’s the end of the story. It may be just the beginning of a great adventure.”
Life is like that. Business is like that. We don’t know. We can’t always see what’s forming in the dark. We try to predict, plan, optimize—but we don’t actually know. And what a relief, in a way, to stop pretending that we do.
So instead of forcing clarity or rushing to “fix” things, I’m letting this be a time of quiet preparation, of simplification. Composting. Root-deep tending. I’m asking myself: if this isn’t a problem, what could it be instead? What is this space inviting me to notice, clear, soften, allow?
Here are a few tangible ways I’m responding:
🌿 Decluttering. I’m getting rid of old clothes, broken things, items I haven’t used in years. My little town is having a yard sale this fall, and I’m clearing out physical weight I didn’t even realize I was carrying. (Also, who knew I had six mostly-empty lotion bottles in my bathroom? Why??)
🏡 Downsizing in my business. Overhead is real. I pay thousands of dollars a year for email marketing software, hosting, course platforms, and tech tools that once served a bigger, growth-driven model. Now I’m asking: Do I really need all of this? Could I run a simpler, more heart-aligned business with fewer expenses and more peace? I'm strongly considering shutting some of those systems down.
🏘️ Investing in local, unscalable community. I’m focusing more on in-person gatherings—circles, classes, conversations—that don’t necessarily “scale” or bring in large amounts of money.
💸 Cutting other life expenses. I’m looking at everything with new eyes. What feels nourishing? What feels excessive? What am I paying for out of habit rather than alignment? The pruning is uncomfortable at times, but also clarifying.
📖 Focusing on my book. This part is big. I believe—truly—that I’m being called to compost my life coaching business, at least in its current form, so I can step into something I’ve been circling for years: writing full-time. I’m currently working on a book proposal for Tarot for People-Pleasers and Perfectionists: How to Use the Cards to Stop Self-Abandoning, Set Boundaries, and Return to Your True Power, and I’ll be shopping it around this fall. (Stay tuned for more on that—I’m excited and terrified.)
🌙 And even more reimagining of my work. As I finish my nutritional therapy training, deepen my spiritual practice, and step more fully into my identity as a witch and midlife woman, I feel something new forming. I’m beginning to imagine a new direction—one that centers the magic of midlife, spiritual nourishment, and community for modern-day crones and creatives. Which means... The Sunday Soother may be changing. Stay tuned. I literally have no clear plan here, but you’ll know when I do <3
Other than the above… haha, well, that’s what I’ve got for ya. I don’t have a 90-day plan. I don’t have a funnel strategy. I have a pile of uncomposted compost. I have a one-third-finished book proposal. I have a cup of tea and a pile of half-used candles and a sense that something is quietly rearranging itself beneath the surface of my life.
And I have trust—tender, wobbly, not-always-convenient or rock-steady trust—that we are not being punished, but prepared. That the unraveling is its own kind of guidance. That we don’t have to panic when the numbers dip or the inbox is quiet. We can listen instead. We can clear space. We can let go of what was, and prepare—gently, slowly, honestly—for what’s next.
May this season be gentle with you. May you remember that silence is not absence. May you find unexpected beauty in the small, the slow, the unscalable.
And may you let it be enough, as you are, too.
You are always enough. You always have been, and you always will be.
xo
Catherine
PS: If you liked this post, please hit the “heart” button below, share it on Notes, or forward it to another entrepreneur or person whose business or work might be in this weird, scary stagnation phase.
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I have been loving all your Sunday Soothers. When you write, I feel like I'm in conversation with you, not just reading an essay. I, too, have been working with the idea of a "small, quiet life" for years. It can be hard to let go of the cultural expectations of MORE, MORE, MORE. But when I allow myself to settle into my life as it is, not big, not loud, it's actually quite lovely. I look forward to seeing your adventure unfold.
I love these open and vulnerable behind-the-scenes glimpses! And this one is so valuable for so many of us right now. (Gonna share with audiobook narrators, many of whom are experiencing this exact thing.) Can't wait for that book, though!!