Meet Emily Schranck

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

Hi Emily , we’re so appreciative of you taking the time to share your nuggets of wisdom with our community. One of the topics we think is most important for folks looking to level up their lives is building up their self-confidence and self-esteem. Can you share how you developed your confidence?

Confidence and self esteem, like healing, are practices that we choose to integrate into our awareness daily, rather than a state we achieve and remain in once we arrive.

Confidence is built through consistency. Showing up for oneself time and time again, honoring your intuition, engaging with the practices and hobbies that inspire and uplift you, often. Committing to daily yoga, journaling with my tarot cards, solo travel, an ayahuasca journey, and making art have all been grounding practices/experiences that have taught me that I am a badass. But for me, the biggest act of consistency I have integrated is choosing to quit drinking. As I embarked on the journey of abstinence, I was slowly remembering who I really was without the toxicity. Proving to myself that I am capable of restraint and devotion to myself has been the most powerful thing I have done to build inner confidence. I walk through the world knowing I can totally trust myself. Choosing presence and clarity has allowed me to approach life with a sense of self assuredness I would otherwise not have.

Confidence and self esteem are also found in taking risks. Reaching out to people I want to collaborate with, going zip-lining, backpacking to the bottom of the Grand Canyon to Havasupai, choosing to work a part time job so I can invest more time into my business, falling in love, and moving across the country-multiple times-are all experiences I’ve chosen with a lot of unknowns involved. Taking risks teaches you to step out of your comfort zone, and if anything does goes awry, your ability to bounce back teaches you that you know how to rely on yourself no matter what.

I am a human, and therefore I regularly encounter feelings of self doubt, questioning, and a yearning for more. The Wheel of Fortune in the tarot reminds us of the fleeting nature of all of our emotions, “good” and “bad”. Everything we feel is impermanent, and by acknowledging this, we are able to embrace the natural ups and downs in life with more peace. No feeling is forever.

How quickly, in times of distress, can you return to your regulated state of being? How easily are you able to remember your true nature, your own inner voice? When beginning to build this awareness, it may take longer to ground yourself, but every time you choose to return to yourself, you remind your body that you are safe. You remind your anxiety that you are in charge. Thoughts are just that-thoughts. You’re the boss.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

I am a Tarot and Oracle diviner with an emphasis on channeling messages which inspire self love, intuitive knowing, and inner trust for my clients. I feel like my role as a diviner is to remind people who they are, and how to identify what is holding them back from embracing their truth.

My foundational knowledge of the cards was built upon a desire to love and honor myself and my intuition. I built it into my journaling practice, asking question upon question, peeling the layers back further and further, until I began to fall in love with the essence of who I have always been. Learning the cards came very naturally to me, and I have always been amazed at the synchronicities that appear in my readings and the level of resonance I feel them. I read for many friends, family, and strangers for free, for FUN, because I was so enamored by what I was witnessing from the cards, Spirit, and myself. Eventually, I started booking local gigs and experiencing the reward of energy exchange by sharing my craft with the public.

My career is evolving all the time. What began as a gig here and there turned into consistent opportunities for private parties, vendor markets, festivals, and one on one readings. This year, I’ve opened up my own website for online scheduling to conduct virtual and written readings. While in Clayton, New York, this summer I was the resident tarot reader at River Yoga. In November I’ll be hosting my very first workshop with Chakra Wellness, a local healing center I am super excited to be working with. The workshop, New Moon in Scorpio Journaling & Divinatory Guidance, will allow guests to learn how to integrate cards into their own journaling practices, syncing up with the moon cycles for super charged intention setting.

I know in my bones that my career will expand far beyond divinatory readings, although this will always remain at the heart of my work. I’m also a writer, a yogi, an artist, and a creator. As I grow and evolve, my offerings will too.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

1. Anxiety vs. Intuition
A pesky, cyclical conundrum we have all found ourselves in time and time again-is this my anxiety or my intuition talking? While I do think it takes time and practice to somatically understand the difference between the two, here are a few pointers that will help ground you when you are torn. Anxiety is the one who asks the same questions over and over, and demands an immediate answer. Anxiety is the one who ruminates, who asks, shaking and crying, what if??? Anxiety needs control. Intuition reminds you that you are in control. Anxiety pangs your heart. Intuition is a warmth in your gut. Anxiety is terrified of failure. Intuition is the guiding force that determines your dreams. Anxiety keeps you small. Intuition guides you forward.

2. Sobriety
While it’s not the path for everyone, it’s been the most impactful choice I have made to feel happier, healthier, confident, creative and capable. If you struggle with substances, if you feel like you have lost control over your life, and you have even a hint of knowing that you are deserving of more, know that it is possible, and that you’ll never regret taking the leap. Try taking a 30 day break at first. Pay attention to your energy levels, your sleep, your emotional state, your productivity; anything that may shift when you take a step back. Take it one day at a time. Each day is another milestone, and eventually, you’ll have been doing it long enough that you can look back on the way life once looked, and know that you can never regress back there again. The truth is, I have more fun now than I ever did before.

3. Self Love is Not Linear
There are days when you are so sure of yourself, so confident about where you’re heading, and have an ability to regard yourself with so much grace, you feel like nothing can disturb your peace. And then, you’ll encounter a day where you’re hard on yourself, wishing you could go back and do something differently. As you cultivate a regularity with the practices that ground you, you’ll remember, more frequently each time, who you are and what you are worth. Taking accountability for your mistakes and actively choosing to move forward with more awareness is key. Self love is a practice, a constant remembering of your true nature. It’s the process of choosing yourself, again and again, and forgiving yourself when you act out of character. Having a tough day does not mean you have failed. The only disservice you can do to yourself is to refuse to feel what needs to be felt. Choosing to be present with all of your emotions is love.

Thanks so much for sharing all these insights with us today. Before we go, is there a book that’s played in important role in your development?

The Choice, a memoir by Dr. Edith Eger; a holocaust survivor, mother, psychologist, therapist, and public speaker. Dr. Eger, if you’re reading this, you are my hero, and I talk about you all the time.

In her novel, The Choice, Dr. Eger unpacks the trauma of having lived through the hell that was Auschwitz. She remembers how when people lost their will to live, their days were numbered. She instills the sentiment that survival came to those who gave themselves something to live for, something to look forward to after the war. Her guiding light was a lover she was separated from in the camp. She longed for their leisurely afternoons together, dreamed of building a life with him once they were out of there.

Her message is this, your attitude is your choice. She goes into detail about how she survived the concentration camp with her sister, returning to what was once her home, and finding that she would have to venture into the unknown to create a new home.

She journeyed all the way to the United States, where she married, created a family, and eventually began her career in mental health. At one point in the novel, she is face to face with a loved one of someone she befriended in wartimes. She was not open about her experiences with anyone at the time, she held her trauma close to her chest. But a revelation occurred to her during this meeting, one that struck me so deeply I gasped and had to put the book down: “Maybe moving forward also means circling back”. When I picked the book back up, I looked down and noticed the page number, 147-my angel number.

At the time in my life when I was reading her story, there were aspects of my past I had yet to explore in depth. In that moment I knew I would have to return to San Diego where I grew up, a place where I had more questions than I had answers. This year, I had the opportunity to go back, and found closure when I visited my childhood home.

Dr. Edith Eger helped shape my outlook on life entirely, and I recommend her work highly.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://empressemilytarot.as.me/schedule/8d6c2529
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_empressemily_/?hl=en

Image Credits

Chelsea Dufresne