We were lucky to catch up with Brittany Prince recently and have shared our conversation below.

Brittany, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Setting up an independent practice is a daunting endeavor. Can you talk to us about what it was like for you – what were some of the main steps, challenges, etc.

The early days…

I graduated with my bachelor’s in nutrition in 2018 and went straight into working as a health coach at a company — already deep in the holistic nutrition and functional medicine world. Then COVID hit, I lost my job, and suddenly had a lot of time and zero excuses not to bet on myself.

I invested in a blogging course called Blog It Like It’s Hot, built my first website, and started putting out healthy recipes. By July of 2020, I’d invested in my first business coach and officially launched Fresh & Fit Nutrition as a nutrition coaching business. As a single mom, the stakes felt very real — this had to work.

And it did work, in a lot of ways. I built a community of over 60,000 members. But somewhere in the middle of all that growth, I burnt out completely. I ended up giving the community to my business partner and walking away from everything I’d built.

That pivot changed my life. Stepping back from nutrition gave me the space to go deeper into the work I’d been doing on myself — I got attuned to Reiki, earned my breathwork certification, and started seeing my clients’ struggles differently. The women I’d been working with weren’t just dealing with gut issues or hormones — they were carrying deep unresolved trauma. And no meal plan was going to fix that. As my own healing transformed my health in ways nutrition alone never had, I knew what I was actually being called to do. Awakened Prana was born from that.

The main steps and challenges…

When you’re a solopreneur, you are the CEO, the marketer, the content creator, the bookkeeper, the customer service rep, and the tech support — all at once. Nobody warns you how much of running a practice has nothing to do with your actual craft. I had to learn all of it on the fly.

And then there’s the inner work that entrepreneurship demands whether you want it to or not. Every limiting belief, every bad thought, every story you’ve ever told yourself about who you are and what you deserve — it all comes up. Imposter syndrome was very real for me. I think that’s something a lot of new business owners don’t talk about enough.

On the growth side, one of the most exciting and surreal moments has been watching content go viral. A sound bowl series I started creating took on a life of its own and reached millions of views — and what that did for Awakened Prana’s reach was something no ad budget could have manufactured. Showing up consistently and authentically on social media became one of the most powerful tools I had.

What I’d do differently…

Two things. First, I’d be way more discerning about investing in coaching. There is no shortage of people who will happily take your money and promise you the world, and when you’re hungry to grow, it’s easy to say yes to the wrong people. I eventually learned to trust my gut on that.

Second — shiny object syndrome is real and it will derail you. There are a million strategies, platforms, and frameworks for growing a business, and it’s so easy to keep chasing the next thing instead of going deep on what’s actually working. I wish I’d stayed more focused and trusted the slow build a little sooner.

Advice for someone starting their own practice…

Start before you feel ready, because you will never feel ready. Get comfortable being a beginner — not just in your craft, but in business itself. Be really intentional about where you’re spending money and energy, and protect both.

And your story is your differentiator. Nobody else has lived what you’ve lived. The thing you went through — that’s exactly what makes you the right person to help someone else through it. Lean into that completely.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?

Tell us about yourself and your work…

I’m Brittany Prince, founder of Awakened Prana, based in Old Town Scottsdale. I’m a Reiki Master, breathwork facilitator, and spiritual mentor — and honestly, I’m also just a single mom who figured out that healing herself was the most important thing she could ever do, and then made it her life’s work to help other women do the same.

My background is in nutrition. I graduated with my bachelor’s in 2018, spent years working in holistic nutrition and functional medicine, and built a thriving nutrition coaching business after COVID. But the deeper I got into that work — especially with women navigating chronic health issues, burnout, and anxiety — the more I realized that what was keeping them stuck wasn’t their diet. It was unresolved trauma living in their bodies. That realization, combined with my own healing journey, led me to Reiki, breathwork, somatic work, and energy healing. I eventually walked away from a community I’d built to over 60,000 members to go deeper into this work and launch Awakened Prana. I’ve never looked back.

What I do and who I do it for…

I work primarily with women who are spiritually awakening — women who feel like something is off, who’ve tried therapy, tried the wellness routines, maybe even tried mindset work, and still feel stuck, anxious, or disconnected from themselves.

My approach is what I call “body-up” healing — we start with the nervous system first, because you simply cannot hold a higher version of your life in a dysregulated body. That’s the core of everything I do.

My services include Reiki energy healing, breathwork and sound healing, cord cutting, ancestral and past life clearing, soul retrieval, inner child healing, chakra balancing, subconscious reprogramming, and light language channeling — offered virtually, in-person at my Reiki room in Old Town Scottsdale, and as mobile sessions. I also offer private coaching containers for women who want deeper, longer-term support, and I work with clients on psilocybin microdosing and facilitated journey integration for those who are on that path.

What sets me apart…

There are a lot of energy healers and there are a lot of mindset coaches, but very few people are bridging both the science of the nervous system and the depth of energy work the way I do. I’m not here to help you think positive thoughts and hope for the best. I’m here to actually move what’s stuck — in your body, in your energy field, in your subconscious — so that real, lasting change becomes possible.

I also bring a very real, very human perspective to this work. I’ve navigated trauma, an abusive relationship, medical gaslighting, burnout, and rebuilding my life as a single mom. I didn’t come to this work from a place of privilege or ease. I came to it because I needed it, and it worked. That lived experience is woven into every session.

What I’m most proud of…

Honestly, the moments when a client tells me they finally feel like themselves again — that never gets old. But on a bigger scale, I’m proud of having built something from nothing, twice, and having the courage to walk away from the first version when it stopped being aligned. I’m proud of the content I’ve created that has reached millions of people — including a sound bowl series that went viral and introduced so many women to energy healing for the first time. And I’m proud of being a single mom who built a business she genuinely loves, on her own terms.

What I want people to know…

At the heart of everything I do is one belief: that every woman who walks through my door is already whole. Already divine. The healing work isn’t about becoming something new — it’s about remembering what was always there, underneath all the survival, all the conditioning, all the years of just getting through it.

If you’ve tried everything and still feel like you’re running on empty, still feel like something’s just off — come find me. The work we do together goes places therapy and supplements don’t reach. And it works.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

If I’m being honest, resilience isn’t some big dramatic moment for me — it’s a daily practice. As an entrepreneur, I probably want to quit at least five times a day. And I mean that genuinely, not as a joke. Some days the tech breaks, the bookings are slow, the content flops, and you’re doing all of it alone as a single mom wondering if any of it is actually worth it. That’s the reality nobody posts about.

But here’s the thing — I’ve walked away from two businesses now. My nutrition coaching practice that I’d poured years into, and a community I’d grown to over 60,000 members. From the outside, both of those probably looked like failures or at least giant question marks. Why would you leave something that big?

Because it wasn’t me anymore. And I think that takes a different kind of resilience — not the push-through-no-matter-what kind, but the kind where you’re willing to blow up what you built when your soul is telling you it’s time to go deeper. Both times I walked away, I was terrified. I was a single mom with real financial responsibilities and no guarantee that what came next would work. There was no safety net. There was just this knowing that I was meant to do this work, and that staying somewhere I’d outgrown wasn’t serving me or the women I was here to help.

Awakened Prana exists because I kept choosing that knowing over the fear. Over and over again, even on the days — and there are still plenty of them — where quitting feels like the easier option. I don’t think resilience ever stops being hard. I just think at some point you get clear enough on your purpose that the hard stops being a reason to stop.

Training and knowledge matter of course, but beyond that what do you think matters most in terms of succeeding in your field?

Honestly? Do the work. That’s it. That’s the whole answer — but let me explain what I mean.

You cannot take a client somewhere you haven’t been yourself. In this field especially, people feel everything. They can sense whether you’re speaking from lived experience or just from a certification. So the most important thing I ever did for my practice wasn’t a course or a business strategy — it was committing to my own healing, continuously and without shortcuts.

Beyond that — trusting your intuition is non-negotiable. Knowing when to say yes to a client and when to say no. Knowing what’s yours to carry in a session and what isn’t. That discernment comes from doing your own inner work and then learning to actually listen to yourself.

Showing up consistently matters more than most people want to hear. Before anything I created went viral, I was just showing up — posting, sharing, creating — with no guarantee anyone was paying attention. That consistency is what builds trust over time, both with an audience and within yourself.

And be a real human being. Be authentic, be warm, be genuinely interested in the people you serve. People can see right through anything that isn’t real — especially in healing spaces.

The thing I’ll say about this industry specifically, because I think it needs to be said — there is a lot of spiritual bypassing happening. A lot of ego. A lot of leaders who say the right things but aren’t actually embodying any of it or doing their own inner work. That’s a real problem. People in this space are showing up in vulnerable, open states and they deserve to be held by someone who is genuinely walking the talk — not performing it. That’s something I take really seriously, and it’s something I think anyone entering this field needs to be honest with themselves about before they start guiding others.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.awakenedprana.io/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/awakened_prana