Caught Between The Corporate World and the Wellness World
- Sanaa Green
- Jan 28
- 5 min read
I just had a full circle moment! I was in a planning meeting with Abiola Abrams about an Oshun Goddess event we will host in August, 2026. I mentioned the Black owned Akwaba Bed and Breakfast in Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn as a place the Black women who attend might want to stay. Later I thought about the last time I was at there on the porch of this New York City Brownstone. I had an informal interview with a Black, female advertising agency executive about a job.
At that time, I was between the advertising world and the wellness world. I moved to New York city to accept a job in advertising. The culture never did fit me. While my co-worker planned a Nascar promotion to celebrate Black History Month, I was commissioning an original Leroy Campbell painting to give away in stores. I experienced cognitive dissonance with selling unhealthy food to my community rather than using the available advertising dollars to improve Black people’s lives.
When my father passed away, my manager came to the funeral where my father’s compadres in the Fihankra Council of Elders, dressed in white, offered last rites. My manager said, I understand you now. I see why you want to uplift Black people.
When I went back to New York after the funeral, I was changed. I had a spiritual awakening when my father passed away, so it was even more difficult to please the fast food franchisees who were my clients. I had more important things on my mind. Of course most business people think there is nothing more important than making them money. Houston, we have a problem.
I didn’t want to quit because it was a dream come true to be moved to the big city to work at a Black-owned advertising agency. I was trying really hard to do well in the work. I thought something must be wrong with me so like any self evaluative Gen X’er, I turned to self help books. Somehow I found the book, Can You Stand To Be Blessed by TD Jakes. Surely, this was a dream job and being unhappy in it must be my personal flaw. I wrestled with this idea for months.
When I was fired from the agency, I was relieved. I trained the new person and left with an exhale.
In the aftermath of my father’s passing, after the spiritual awakening, I had a ‘dark night of the soul’. I did not fit into the advertising world. I had lost my job and needed to support myself. But what do I do instead?
Yes, I had a spiritual awakening, but my ego was invested here. I created a vision board, found jobs like the one I wanted in New York. When I walked into corporate housing in Tribeca, I was so proud. Advertising can be glamorous and hard to break into.
Working in New York in the advertising field meant success to me. Me, the one who was ostracized throughout my school days. My neighbor who I went to elementary school with came to visit me in New York, she was shocked to see my hair in cornrows and me working in a sexy field. I showed her. She thought of me as a nerd, now look at me.
When I went for the interview on the porch of Awkaaba Bed & Breakfast, I tried to sound really eager to work 12 hour days in order to get the campaign completed. Despite my ego, I could not commit to that kind of job again.
But I had to make a living, so I worked through a temporary agency. This was a good transition position because I didn’t have to try to make the employer think I was there for life.
Over the years between those in New York City and now, I have worked many jobs. Taken multiple holistic trainings. When I started the Reiki training after Feng Shui training, I was sure Reiki was going to be the thing for me to make a really good living as a holistic practitioner. I was encouraged by the people already doing the work. Although there are many more people who are Reiki attuned now than back then.
What the Reiki attunements did is expose underlying emotions that needed healing. My Father’s death caused profound grief that lasted for years. I couldn’t focus on my own healing and give Reiki treatments at the same time. Again I was stuck between work worlds.
The transition from advertising employee to Multidimensional Embodiment Coach and Retreat Leader has taken years. It took a long time because the conditioning from my Mother, the Christian Church and society runs very deep. Women (good girls) are supposed to get married, have children, go to church, stay close to home and devote their lives to their husbands and family. That was not my path. Even after I discovered my path, it was a hard row to hoe. (That is a phrase from my Mother who was a cotton picker in Arkansas.)
It was difficult because being a healer required me to transition from 3rd dimension thinking to 4th dimension feeling. As human beings transition to the 5th dimension, we will need more people who are awakened to assist people in this transition.
The is third dimension, the realm of physical matter, knowledge that can be proven with science. Many of us live in this dimension. At any time when you allow yourself to be motivated by the love in your heart, you exist in the 4th dimension. Jesus the Christ brought 4th dimension teaching to the Earth. The 5th dimension is the ability to manifest what you chose with your intention and, energy. Humankind vacillates between these 3 dimensions and we need people to help seekers navigate these dimensions. This can be done with unique gifts in a variety of ways. When enough people spend most of their time in 5th dimension endeavors, humans will ascend to the 5th dimension.
All of those transitions, while frustrating helped me to fully understand and experience all of the parts of the third dimension. It was frustrating because my Higher Self could see who I am now; a multidimensional being who acts from her heart. I could imagine who I was ‘supposed’ to be, but felt so far away from the vision. I would have had no interest in Past Life Regression, had not been for my desire to understand how my father’s spirit around me after death.
It is spending more time in 4th dimension heart space that has helped me be the holistic practitioner I am now. 30 years ago, I could not have imagined what my work actually consists of because I was seated in the 3rd dimension. My heart was grieving and closed.
Now, more often than not, my heart is open to joy, multiple realities and love.
Sanaa Green is a Multidimensional Embodiment Coach. She uses Belly Dance, Reiki, Hypnosis and more to help women live In The Center of their Power. She is a Starseed and the creator of the African Starseed Oracle Deck and The Inner Realm Coaching program. She will be hosting a retreat for Black women, October 9-16, 2026 in Ghana. The Inner Realm Sacred Dance Retreat will allow Black women to embody the priestess through dance on the soil of the Motherland. www.centerherpower.com
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