Meet Charla Afoa

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

Charla, we’re thrilled to have you on our platform and we think there is so much folks can learn from you and your story. Something that matters deeply to us is living a life and leading a career filled with purpose and so let’s start by chatting about how you found your purpose.

This is such a huge question as I don’t believe that I have “arrived” in my purpose per se but I follow my passions and what I have found is that I care deeply about the abuse of power in particular in the areas of the church. I grew up Catholic but in my earlier adult years I found myself questioning a lot of how my life as it was, was actually being supported by the Catholic faith. I became angry and resentful to spending so many years in this faith that yielded little to support my very real issues that I was facing so I stopped attending the church and saying the “our fathers” as my own personal act of defiance. However, in my early adult years, I was still very spiritually minded I just didn’t know where to “house” it as I thought that I needed to at the time. So I started to explore, with a open heart, other non denominational places of faith only to be met with similar issues and more. I recall the first time I went to the altar to “dedicate my life to Jesus” and the pastor said, “are you saved?” and being from Catholism I didn’t know what that meant so I said I didn’t know. He then said, “go back to your seat and get saved before coming down here again”. I felt rejected and confused but immediately assumed that something was wrong with me and that I needed to get right with God…so I continued to explore. Years later, I did find a church home that was non-denominational that I thought was right for me. It was here that I was truly met with who God is to me, and not because this church did all the right things, its because of what they didn’t do that I found God. It was them encouraging me to give up my power little by little to trust “pastor” in the name of God, shaming me for my human ideas and ambitions, abandoning me in my darkest hours of a very abusive relationship that I was left so alone to actually meet God for myself, raw and uncut. This terrible yet pivotal time in my life is what helped me actualize my purpose in supporting so many in my therapy/spiritual practices of finding their voice when it was conned out of them by people of the cloth and others in power. I find that in my work, I tend to attract people that have struggled with the loss of their power to the point of not even recognizing their own voice anymore. I have been there and it is my true passion to help others meet themselves again and rise from their own ashes with fire and purpose.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

I am a licensed marriage and family therapist by trade but I only say that because I am a therapist and can not separate this out of my work in any capacity. It is my calling and will always be the undercurrent of how I operate in my business. But with that said, I am a psychic medium and oracle where I give intuitive readings and insights to people to help them work through issues and soothe areas of loss as it relates to loved ones that have passed on. Clients that are attracted to my work usually are open to a variety of supports that I provide including intuitive guidance but also EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing), Hypnosis, and Female Sexuality and Empowerment (FSE) coaching with a focus on somatic releases. I am excited about all of my services but as of late I have been leaning more into my packages with both EMDR and FSE as I am seeing such great results with my clients and their success in working more with their trauma healing and outdated narratives that are keeping them from their best selves. I have several different service launches that I am working on and that are available to the public including dream interpretation to help people utilize their dreams to get the things they want and understand what is keeping them stuck. I would just encourage your readers to check out my website for my information or email me to inquire about what they are interested in and how I may be of service.

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

I think following my intuition is hands down the most important quality I have used on my journey. When I think about it, it never steered me the wrong way. Being open to the right mentorship for me even when it was costly was extremely important as well. Investing in myself by taking advise from mentors has been the gift that keeps on giving and I am so grateful to all of them and those to come. Finally, I think, being myself no matter what that meant in every situation helped me to step into my purpose more, Whether it was a career that wasn’t serving or a relationship that was taking from me rather than giving. My commitment to me has always led me back home to myself and kept me going every time.

How can folks who want to work with you connect?

I think that currently I am looking to have conversations with people around topics of the spiritual community in aspects of both healing from abusive and traumatic situations as well as the fun of spiritual exploration. My focus is to open up a dialogue around these areas that some may feel they can’t speak about and although not exclusive to Black women, particularly wanting to have these spaces open for Black women as I think there is a need for this within our community. If someone is interested and wants to reach out, please email me at [email protected]

Contact Info:

• Website: [email protected]
• Instagram: @divinelycharla

Image Credits

Chiffon Lark