Exploring Life & Business with Abby Carter of Abby Beth Carter

Today we’d like to introduce you to Abby Carter.

Hi Abby, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
As a young adult, I was obsessed with fitness. I loved going to the gym and taking group fitness classes of every kind. I started teaching group fitness classes when I was 16 at the Shawnee Community Center. As an eager teenager, I continued to expand the repertoire of classes I taught and began personal training when I was 18. Although I loved to exercise, the obsession with body image began to wear on me. I felt like I was doing a disservice to personal training clients by focusing solely on their measurements, size, and physicality.

This led me to a deeper interest in yoga and meditation. The mind-body connection was a bridge to spirituality, healing practices, and something beyond the self. For my own personal body image journey during college, I started working with a local dietitian, Kathi Bjerg (of Insight Counseling) whose compassion-laced approach spoke to my soul. This was the springboard of my journey into a more intuitively led relationship with myself and my body.

After college, I moved to San Diego where I was trained in health coaching and taught yoga classes. I enjoyed mentoring clients to be more empowered through their own intuition and inner wisdom. Our coaching philosophy was that each and every person we worked with was creative, resourceful, and whole. That’s still a motto I live by.

I continued dabbling in the fitness world, working for gyms, overseeing group exercise programs, and training/mentoring fitness instructors. Although I enjoyed fitness, I still felt something was missing. This led me to pursue graduate school where I studied mind-body medicine at Saybrook University. Graduate school connected me with a community of mentors and peers who valued healing and spiritual practices. As part of my thesis, I wrote and published a self-coaching workbook to help people thrive, Coach yourself to Flourish.

I worked in corporate America for another seven years while I built my coaching practice. During this time, I moved through a tremendous amount of loss (death) in my life and moved through intense grieving. My interest in trauma-informed self-care became even more paramount during this time and fueled my interest in tarot, body-based mindfulness, and restorative yoga.

During the pandemic, the importance of mental health and self-care became front and center for many people, which led me to launch my practice full-time. My business has evolved into a variety of offerings, which center around helping spiritually-minded empaths with trauma histories feel more connected to their bodies to transform shame and self-hatred into compassion and self-love.

I do this through three main themes: tarot cards/readings, body-based mindfulness, and restorative yoga. This trio is a culmination of practices that helped me (and continue to help me) in my ongoing healing journey with self-love.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
The road is hardly ever smooth! There have been many bumps and obstacles along the way. I wanted to start my business full-time since I was in graduate school, but didn’t have the clarity or resources at the time to do it. It’s easy to fall into a comparison trap when you see other people who are similarly-minded and seem to have a smooth road, but I’ve come to realize everyone has their own struggles and most people don’t broadcast what’s difficult.

For me, I dealt with depression most of my life, which leads to periods of severe exhaustion. I also have dealt with a lot of loss, losing people who were close to me due to a variety of reasons (illness, unexpected tragedies, cancer, and old age). So dealing with the heaviness of grief has been a challenge.

Finding motivation while grieving can be hard. For me, grief required an immense amount of rest and self-care. I am also a single mom to a toddler, which has added a combination of joy and overwhelm into the mix!

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
My work is guided by spirituality and science as well as my own life experiences. I specialize in helping spiritually-minded empaths with trauma histories feel more connected to their bodies so they can transform shame and self-hatred into compassion and self-love. My work is not a replacement for medical advice or therapy, but it is a beautiful addition. My services are intuitively led, trauma-informed and inclusive.

I use tarot cards as anchors into helping people take better care of themselves – physically, mentally, emotionally, energetically, and spiritually. My approach weaves together the body, brain, and spirit so that people can see beyond the limited perspective of their thinking minds into the expansiveness of their souls. My own journey through grief and trauma has provided me with a deep inner reservoir to serve and hold space.

I teach Soul Tarot, as taught by my teacher Lindsay Mack, which is soul-centered, inclusive, trauma-informed, and non-predictive. I don’t forecast into the future or use fear to interpret cards. Every card in the tarot has the medicine and is happening FOR us, not TO us. The tarot cards mimic the journey of what it is to be human, and all the joys and sorrows we experience along the way. When feeling overwhelmed, uncertain, anxious, or dealing with chronic pain, tarot can provide clarity and insight into how to work with the present moment in the most empowered way possible. It is a co-creative, co-collaborative experience that invites the client to participate and take an active role in their healing journey.

I deeply desire to help people upgrade their relationship to their bodies and their ability to love themselves. I offer a variety of free resources to help people connect to their own innate ability to heal and transform. By signing up for my newsletter at www.abbybethcarter.com, you’ll receive a self-love guide that leads you into a six-step process to open up to deeper levels of self-love. I host a weekly YouTube segment, Self-Care Sundays, where I incorporate tarot with self-care for the week ahead.

I also offer weekly meditations on my website to further embody the lessons and invitations from the Self-Care Sunday episodes. I teach a monthly donation-based yoga and meditation class at Unity Southeast on the third Wednesday of the month from 7 pm-8:30 pm. In addition to one-on-one sessions, I just launched my Etsy shop, where spirit meets, where I have a variety of my most popular tarot readings available.

What makes you happy?
My daughter, Poppy! She is a bundle of joy who always brings a smile to my face and reminds me to play. She is a constant teacher of what it means to live in the present moment.

Pricing:

• $44 Etsy 3-card tarot readings
• $77 Etsy 7-card tarot readings
• $122 Etsy 11-card tarot readings
• $10.50 my book, Coach yourself to flourish
• $144 Insight Session (1 on 1 virtual session with me)

Contact Info:

• Email: [email protected]
• Website: www.abbybethcarter.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/abbybethcarter/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Abby.Beth.Carter1
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbYmCRq13NGg_WClyVthWvw
• Other: https://www.etsy.com/shop/wherespiritmeets

Image Credits
China Fagen