We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Sarah Hosseini . We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Sarah below.

Sarah , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

Right before the pandemic hit in early 2020, I began to get a strong stirring that I wanted to help women heal in an unconventional way. Writing has been my career for more than half my life, as a journalist first, then a professor of English. Mostly, though, writing has been my therapy. I know the power of words to self-heal intimately.

I remember being a little girl, about six years old, witnessing domestic violence in the home and eventually, a divorce, and feeling like I had no way to express my feelings. No one I could be completely honest with, no one I felt truly emotionally safe with – except for, myself. So, I wrote my feelings in a diary that had a little lock on it. There, on the page, I could be myself. Without censoring or worrying about what other people would think of me. Through the years, I’ve written volumes of diaries and journals. The page was always there for me, and it’s saved me every time.

I wanted to give people the same power to self-heal. I knew journal therapy could do it.

Within a month of launching The Sovereign Daughter journaling community on Instagram, I had clients booking 6-week journal therapy sessions with me from around the world. I had other online communities reaching out to me for journaling workshops. It was wild, and apparently so, so necessary, especially given all that everyone was going through.

While emotional dumping in your journal is great for immediate relief, guided journaling moves you from venting and rumination, to clarifying and having more control over your circumstances. Having focused prompts allows you to reflect on specific aspects of your life, whether it be: career, love, money, sex, grief, among others – whatever area you most urgently want to address – and come up with solutions for yourself. The guided nature of journal therapy prompts helps tap into people’s intuition, which they can use as a guide to move them into action. It’s very empowering to have the tools to heal yourself, especially if you’re a woman.

Black women, women of color, and other historically oppressed groups face many barriers to healing and therapy. A lot of it is accessibility and cost. But the biggest barrier I see is that traditional psychotherapy was invented by a bunch of white dudes a century ago (no disrespect to white dudes, I know quite a few great ones), and the methods can be archaic and inherently patriarchal and racist in nature. The system of traditional therapy doesn’t work for everyone.

Journal therapy is there for people who haven’t felt seen, heard, or safe in traditionally therapeutic spaces.

I think the most exciting part of my business now is it’s accessibility. It’s evolved from when I first started in the beginning of the pandemic. I offer online journaling courses on my website that are guided and self-paced. You can do them from your bed or couch, wherever you want. And you can do them whenever you feel like it – whether it’s before bed or at 3AM! These online journaling courses cost a fraction of what it costs to work with me in a live, journaling mentorship. This means you get to work the prompts how you want to, and can keep it all private and to yourself if you wish.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My friends say they call me when they want to be angry about something, because they know I will match their energy. I won’t try to prematurely jolly them up. I won’t try to fix it. I’ll just straight up be in the anger with them, and then I’ll honor whatever message their anger is telling them (usually anger means you’ve been wronged or are registering an injustice).

It’s like that in journal therapy. My clients know that my approach to healing is different than others. They know that I believe, first and foremost, that they are their own best healers. They hold the power. They hold all of the answers they’re looking for. Their intuition reigns supreme, always. Whatever emotions or thoughts my clients are having, especially the ones our society deems as “bad” or “shameful,” will be honoured and celebrated.

My journal prompts and live healing sessions encourage clients to be real and embrace their truth no matter how scary or wild. Many people are afraid to go there. I get it. I totally get it. And I’ve been there too. But I think journaling actually allows for more emotional safety and acceptance for that. It also allows for more customization.

If a client wants to incorporate astrology, we do it. If a client wants to use tarot, we do it. I also use personality tests, bibliotherapy, and whatever woo-woo ritual helps enhance the experience. I love it. I’m here to support it.

Whether it’s in a live healing session, or through my Self-Soul Talk online journaling courses, the prompts are designed to work in a solutions-based manner, always moving forward towards a vision for their highest Self, rather than staying stuck and ruminating on the same shit from childhood over and over again. We all got childhood shit, OK? Everyone has blocks, OK? Let’s just be real about that. But in journal therapy we get to identify those blocks and move beyond them. We take a good look at those subconscious sabotages and patterns that keep you stuck in jobs, relationships, and ways of thinking that hold you back.

My jam is baby stepping. Taking baby steps gets you closer to meeting your inner work goals. Planning these large, grand gestures of change and transformation for your life is not sustainable. Plus, it’s just plain exhausting and hella counterproductive.

Above all, I believe everyone is deserving and worthy of abundance, love, and joy. And again, I believe everyone has the power to heal themselves. It’s the world that told us we can’t. I’m here to guide you and give you the tools. If I do my job right, you won’t have to keep coming back to me. I don’t make my clients reliant on me. My work is to empower you with the journaling techniques and self-healing tools to do it yourself.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

The biggest lesson I had to unlearn was undercharging for my journal therapy sessions. This was one of my money blocks and a particular brand of self-sabotage that took journaling, mindset work, and a financial coach to help me work through. It was rooted in two places: a) I’m not worthy enough to charge the rates that reflect my work b) I want to help everyone.

Self-doubt has plagued me most of my life in most every form! But when I got clear on how much my self-doubt and feelings of unworthiness were actually costing me (like, I seriously calculated the dollar amount I was LOSING by doubting myself), it changed my approach. I started with a goal amount of money I wanted to make in a year, the amount of hours I dedicated to my business tasks, and determined my rates from there.

As for the second block, through work with my financial coach, Dylan Snowden, I realized I couldn’t help anyone if I wasn’t taking care of myself first. I could always accept a certain number of discounted or free clients, but I needed to put a cap on it. He empowered me to make a business decision that was aligned with my values, while also protecting number one.

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

I don’t know if there’s been a particular strategy for growing my clientele, or rather an unwavering commitment to certain ethos.

Meaning, I know my main brand archetype is a Rebel/Outlaw. My second is Sage. If you don’t know your brand archetype, I highly recommend figuring that out and there are many free online resources to do that. With every social media post, caption, newsletter email, etc. I am consistently rejecting status quo and teaching people along the way. My color palettes, fonts, language (ie profanity), and imagery (black and white) all reflect the rebel and sage archetypes, and I do not veer too far from them. This helps create consistency in tone for my brand. It also helps create expectations for potential clients and followers. That way, when they decide to purchase my services they know what they’re getting them selves into! They know, “Ok, this may be a little dark, a little scary, and a little wild, but I will learn a lot about myself along the way.”

Most of all, I would say: authenticity. I know this word gets thrown around a lot nowadays, and probably means next to nothing now, but it’s the only word I can use to describe how I approach my brand and growing my clientele. I strive to be as real and relatable as possible so that my clientele can trust me. Most of my clientele grows through word of mouth, even though the roots of my business got started on Instagram. I think it’s because I’m not some mega-millionaire who’s inaccessible or doing perfectly curated launches. I’m in it with you, truly. I don’t talk down to anyone or act like I have all of my shit together. I put myself out there no matter how messy it looks sometimes. I don’t care if it’s not a perfect “strategy” for growing clientele. I simply show up as me and trust that those most aligned with my values and energy will find their way to me and my work.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.sarahhosseini.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesovereigndaughter/
• Other: Online Journaling Courses: https://the-sovereign-daughter.teachable.com/