Healing Outside the Machine: My Sacred Economics Practice Model

You are tired of spending money that ends up funding billionaires and corporate interests.
You want your money to go towards things that actually add value to your life.
You want people to be paid fairly for their work and to be able to provide comfortable lives for themselves and their families.

And you know the system is rigged.

Health insurance and medical companies report record profits while refusing to pay their workers a livable wage. Executives boast billions while care becomes more inaccessible, more bureaucratic, more hollow.

I’m over it, too.

Healthcare—mental, medical, emotional, spiritual—should be accessible.

I come from a lineage of Wise Women and village healers who traditionally did not charge for their services. Not because their work lacked value, but because it was deeply valued. Their communities made sure they had what they needed—firewood, clothing, food, herbs—because people knew that either they or someone they loved had benefitted from that care before, and likely would again.

This is interdependence.

In villages, the farmers, bakers, and blacksmiths eventually need a healer, just as the healer needs the farmers, bakers, and blacksmiths. Care was not separate from life.

They have taken away our villages and sold them back to us.

To wriggle out from the shackles of late-stage capitalism, we need to move away from hyper-independence and back toward interdependence. Striking and protesting matter, but what we really need is a shift in how we live. In how we relate. In how we exchange.

We need our villages back.

I originally intended to build my practice based on Sacred Economics principles. I was talked out of it—by my own fears and by well-meaning loved ones. Scarcity thinking runs deep. The fear of “not enough” is strong. And it chafes.

Taking insurance is an option. In some ways, it increases access. And yet the insurance industry as it exists today is antithetical to what I stand for. It keeps people trapped in jobs they don’t like for fear of losing coverage. It dictates care based on what will be reimbursed rather than what is actually needed. It reduces people to diagnoses and treatment to what is “most effective” for the “average person”—when no one is average.

We all have unique histories, bodies, nervous systems, and needs.

Billing insurance also often comes with session limits. On the other hand, I have also heard complaints from people who have gone to private practice therapists before that it feels like they have to continue going in order to receive benefit.

Interdependence

When I turn to Nature for guidance, I don’t see anything charging for services. I don’t see insurance panels. I see giving, boundaries, interdependence, and adaptation.

My practice is my devotion to life and to Nature. It is the place where my “deepest gladness and the world’s hunger meet.” As cliché as it sounds, this work is a calling. It is the culmination of learning how to navigate my own extreme emotional depths (hello, Pisces moon) while still being okay in the world—alongside years of professional, spiritual, and herbal training and experience.

I know there is immense need for mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual support. I am deeply grateful to be able to be of service to people in their dark nights of the soul. I also know that cost is a prohibitive barrier for many—especially as the cost of living continues to rise while wages do not.

Because of this, I am transitioning my practice to one based on Sacred Economics.

From a practical standpoint, this means I will not set a fixed fee for my services. Instead, when you decide to work with me, I invite you into value-based reciprocity.

When you consider reciprocity, I ask that you look at a few things:

• the value this care brings to your life

• what you are reasonably able to afford

• the scope, frequency, and duration of the work

• and the reality that this is how I make my living

This is a conversation—one rooted in honesty, discernment, and mutual respect.

I will be transparent about what goes into each service and product: the time, training, experience, expense, and energetic labor involved. I will also be transparent about how I live. The money exchanged here goes directly toward feeding myself and my family, building our small homestead, feeding our chickens who produce an abundance of eggs we share with our community, and doing my best to spend consciously—locally, ethically, secondhand when possible, and with as little waste as I can manage.

Unlike CEOs and billionaires who profit from both the poisons and the “cures” (looking at you, Monsanto/Bayer), the money exchanged in this practice goes directly into the service of life, healing, and Mother Nature.

Abundance

Anyone who has had a fruit tree or egg-laying chickens knows that nature is abundant.

If you find yourself in a season where you have more than enough and feel called to support this work beyond what you receive individually, you are welcome to do so. Offering more is a way of paying it forward—of helping keep this work accessible for people who are in tighter circumstances or greater need.

This is how community care has always worked. Those who have more in a given season share it, trusting that there may be other seasons when they themselves need support. If you are resourced and want to contribute to the wider web of care this practice is part of, that generosity is received with deep gratitude.

Sacred Economics, however, does not mean a lack of boundaries.

This model relies on good faith and mutual respect. It asks that you engage honestly with yourself and with me when considering reciprocity. Unlike sliding-scale therapy, the invitation is not, “What can you afford?” it is, “What value does this bring to your life?” It becomes a gentle invitation to reflect on whether the things you spend money on add value to your life.

If someone does not value this work, this way of practicing, or the time and care that goes into it, then I am likely not the right healer for them—and that is okay. Not every doorway is meant for every person.

My intuition is strong. I trust it. I will know if someone is engaging with integrity, and I will also know if someone is attempting to take advantage.

If a person intentionally undercuts, manipulates, or exploits this model, that is not something I will carry. That is a burden they will have to hold themselves.

This work is offered in devotion, not exploitation.
In trust, not naïveté.
In openness, not self-abandonment.

Sacred Economics is relational—but relationship requires honesty.

Boundaries

A note on how I work

My primary goal in this work is not to create dependence. It is to help people heal from the root so that, over time, they do not need to keep seeing me forever.

I prioritize empowerment and education. I want people to understand themselves—their nervous systems, their patterns, their inner worlds—well enough to move through life with greater agency, resilience, and self-trust. Because of this, I do not impose arbitrary session limits the way insurance companies do. I also do not encourage people to continue paying for care they no longer need.

In both my clinical therapy work and my non-clinical offerings, my approach is change-based, not focused on temporary relief alone. The intention is real transformation, not endless maintenance.

This work is grounded in choice and self-sovereignty.

I will not push someone to “fly solo” if they are not ready. Healing unfolds in seasons, and there are times when consistent support is necessary and wise. I will also not tell someone they are “not ready” to fly when they are.

And people are always welcome to return. Healing is not linear, and life brings new thresholds, losses, initiations, and challenges. If you find yourself in another season where support would be helpful, you are welcome back—without shame, without having to start over, and without being seen as having “failed” some imagined finish line.

My role is not to keep you in my orbit.
It is to help you remember your own wings—and to be here again if you need a place to land.

I also stay within my areas of expertise. If at any point I feel that you would be better served by care beyond what I am able to provide, I will name that honestly and support you in finding appropriate referrals. This is part of my commitment to integrity and care.

This shift to value-based reciprocity is an invitation, for myself and for you, to be the change we want to see in the world.

I am stepping into a business model that is not new in the history of humanity, though it may feel unfamiliar in a capitalist context.

When you visit my metaphorical—or physical—Wise Woman Cottage, I invite you to participate consciously in assigning a value of exchange for the care, services, or products I offer.

When helpful, I will offer a market-value range so you can see what similar services cost elsewhere. I will also be transparent about the time, energy, and experience involved, so you can make an informed and grounded decision.

I am also open to discussing trades and exchanges of goods and/or services when they feel reciprocal for us both.

When I told my mom—who is a Capricorn and tends to live more firmly in the realm of logic and practicality—that I was shifting to a Sacred Economics model, I expected her to warn me away. Instead, she said, “That’s how your grandpa ran his legal practice too.”

It helps to know my ancestors are in this with me.

If you’re tired of just coping and ready to actually heal, check out the healing paths I offer.