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Ammo O'Day describes herself as an esoteric life coach, trainer, and, most importantly, fitness witch. Yes, fitness witch.
It started when O'Day went from working at Enchantments, NYC's renowned occult shop, to working as a trainer at an Equinox gym — which, despite its nature-based name, has nothing to do with the spiritual realm. Each job felt fulfilling, but only to a certain extent. At Enchantments, O'Day felt disconnected from her body. "I felt like the clientele there were so much in a spiritual headspace all the time that they were neglecting their physical bodies," she said.
Meanwhile, she found the people at Equinox to be much too grounded in the material world: "One more squat is not going to fix the problem. There was a root emotional problem that they were trying to put a Band-Aid on with money."
So, O'Day quit the gym and sought self-employment. She decided her ideal job would allow her to offer spiritual advice while helping people improve their physical well-being. "Witchcraft and being healthy never went hand in hand. I felt like those things needed to come together," she says. That's when the title "fitness witch" came to her.
Today, O'Day has built a business around one-on-one consultations with clients. She begins with a tarot card reading in order to assess each client's emotional and spiritual state. Then, she follows up with a Reiki or energy-work session, which tells her what she needs to know about a client's physical energy.
[Ed note: Reiki is a type of energy healing in which practitioners lay their hands on someone in order to encourage the transfer of "good" energy. The science behind it is hazy, to say the least, and any success stories are anecdotal at best.]
Once O'Day is familiar with a client, she works with them as needed, meeting with them once a week, once a month, or "once and I never see them again," she says. She'll then assign "a combination of physical fitness and energy work;" depending on a client's needs, she'll recommend different medicinal herbs, encourage journaling, or make therapeutic candles for them to light.
Whether you're looking for emotional clarity or renewed energy, O'Day says the work she does with clients takes a lot of self-awareness and consistency. Your mind and body are probably trying to tell you the same thing, she explains, so you need to always be listening. Sure, there's no hard science to back up O'Day's methods, but we say it seems like a pretty fun idea to get in touch with your spiritual side while working on your fitness. (Two ravens, one stone.)
Curious how to get started? Click through for some very down-to-earth advice from O'Day, a truly otherworldly trainer.
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Get Out Of Your Comfort Zone
Whether you're new to the occult or new to working out, you're bound to encounter something that makes you uncomfortable or intimidates you.
O'Day explains it can be especially difficult to tap into your spiritual self if you've never listened to it before: "It’s like a door opens and [the client's] like, 'What the hell was that?' It’s not scary. It might be uncomfortable for you, but it’s not abnormal."
"There are so many deeply rooted emotional things coming up [during a Reiki session or tarot reading]. It takes a long time to process that," she says, adding, "it takes a long time to be okay with pulling up more of it."
This leads us to O'Day's next tip...
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Put In The Time
O'Day makes this totally clear: She doesn't work with people who expect instant results.
"If you want to help yourself, you have to make an effort," she says. This might mean setting rational fitness goals for yourself or taking your "energy work" home with you and journaling or meditating regularly. Emotional and physical progress takes time.
"When people complain about working out, I’m like, 'It’s called working out,'" O'Day says. "The word 'work' is involved with the phrase."
If you haven't guessed by now, she's pretty free with the tough love during training sessions, but she says that's what gets results in the end.
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Find A Mind-Body Balance
This goal is at the heart of O'Day's work. She only became a fitness witch when she realized this balance was out of whack for her. She tells us it's of the utmost importance that others seek it in themselves, too.
According to O'Day, you won't feel spiritually in tune if you don't care for your body: "If you can’t keep your body in good physical condition and if you’re not taking care of it, then how are you going to manifest anything?"
"Manifest," in this case, can mean advancing at work or starting a new relationship — anything that has to do with reaching your larger goals.
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Take Care Of Yourself
Of course, as you seek your mind-body balance, don't forget about your needs. It may seem more natural to be hard on yourself than it is to show yourself compassion, but that doesn't help you reach your goals, O'Day says. Instead, she urges her clients to take time out for self-care, whatever that may look like.
"I don’t care if you do yoga, if you meditate, or you do some kind of journal writing," she says. "[Do] whatever helps you to just hear yourself — play your favorite record and sit there with your eyes closed and just block out everything else."
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Be Present
This might be the toughest thing for you to do, but it’s the most important, O'Day says. All too often, she notices clients worrying about how close or far they are from reaching their goals, rather than appreciating what's going on for them at that moment.
You have to ask yourself, "What’s going on and what can I do right now?" she says. "If you can’t do anything about it, don’t worry about it."
Along with being patient and kind to yourself, O'Day wants you, above all, to be reasonable with where you are in your progress. As she puts it, "Fix something you can fix."
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