Today we’d like to introduce you to Charmaine (Aunty) Carraway.
Hi Charmaine (Aunty), thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
My story starts in Brooklyn, New York — in the home of women who didn’t have the luxury of falling apart.
My grandmother Frances was African American — a woman of elegance, deep faith, and quiet authority. She married into African royalty. Her mother-in-law, my great-grandmother, was the sister of the then-king of Liberia — a woman who fled her native country during a military coup and rebuilt her life in Paris, France. My grandfather, her eldest son, carried that same unshakeable determination to Brooklyn and built something lasting with it. I grew up in the presence of that lineage — survivors, builders, women of faith and fire — and I didn’t fully understand what I was carrying until I was well into adulthood.
When I found my voice, I used all of it — at the same time.
I was contributing to The Huffington Post, writing the stories others were too afraid to publish — from global injustice to the intimate wounds women carry in silence. Simultaneously, I was serving as a UN Ambassador to UN Women, teaching women across Africa the power of ownership — not just of business, but of self. And in that same season, I was building something of my own. Something I believed the world was missing.
I founded TheVisionaryWoman.com — a digital media company for women, by women. And we did not tip-toe into that space. We changed the game. We interviewed icons and innovators — from Angella Nazarian to Her Excellency Dr. Sara Al Madani. We dismantled the “mean girl” archetype, called out the systems that thrived on women’s silence, and replaced all of it with radical sisterhood and unfiltered truth. The Visionary Woman left a footprint. It proved that women’s stories — told by women, for women, without apology — could move culture. That legacy still stands.
But every chapter has a season. And when The Visionary Woman’s season came to a close, I sat with everything it had taught me — about sisterhood, about media, about what women actually need from a platform — and I carried all of it forward.
Underneath the media work, I had always been a student of people. Formally — I hold a background in Psychology with a concentration in Marriage and Family Counseling. And spiritually — through ancestral healing traditions, metaphysical practice, and years of doing the inner work most people avoid. In 2018, I stepped fully into spiritual life coaching. And in 2020, Spirit gave me a clear directive I wasn’t about to ignore.
I founded Beads & Potions The Mystikal Apothecary — not in a boardroom, but at a kitchen table, guided by the teachings of my grandmothers. Today it stands as a full-spectrum holistic spiritual practice — handcrafted ritual tools, herbal remedies, one-on-one coaching, psychic medium sessions, ancestral healing, and mentorship programs — rooted in Nashville, Tennessee, serving a global community we call Soultribe, seven years strong.
And then came the full circle moment.
Everything I had built — the Huffington Post platform, the UN advocacy work, the years of running a women’s media company, the spiritual practice, the community — it all pointed to one thing. I couldn’t find the kind of soul-centered, truth-telling, spiritually grounded media I needed to feel whole. The Visionary Woman had shown me what was possible. Now it was time to build what was necessary.
Soultribe Media launched in September 2025 — and it was not a soft entrance. As its founder and Chief Creative Officer, I brought decades of journalism, ancestral wisdom, and practical spirituality into one house. It is media with a mission. Content with a conscience. The full evolution of everything The Visionary Woman started — now deeper, more rooted, and built for a world that is ready for it. The momentum Soultribe Media has generated since its launch tells me everything I need to know. We are exactly on time.
Running alongside it — rooted in the same ancestral foundation — is Beads & Potions The Mystikal Apothecary, sister company to Soultribe Media. Two companies. One mission. One woman who answered the call — again and again.
That is how I got here. And I am just getting started.
Peace & Love Y’all.
— Aunty Charmaine
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?
Has the road been smooth? No. And I would not trade a single hard mile of it.
One of the most pivotal and painful turning points in my journey was closing The Visionary Woman. That company was my heart. But life had other plans. I went through a deeply challenging pregnancy that resulted in my son arriving eight weeks early. Everything stopped. Everything had to stop. My family needed me present in a way that a thriving media company simply could not compete with. So I made the choice most entrepreneurs are terrified to make — I chose my family. I closed the doors. And I grieved it. Then I got back up.
In 2020, I opened Beads & Potions The Mystikal Apothecary — online, from scratch, with intention and ancestral fire. What began as a digital concept grew into something I am still in awe of. We moved from an online store to craft shows, building real relationships with real people face to face. In 2021 we opened our brick and mortar — a physical community hub where Soultribe members could walk in and feel held. It was everything a sacred space should be.
Then the economy started shifting beneath everyone’s feet. By 2024, the financial trembles were undeniable. And I made another decision that the outside world might have read as defeat — but was actually wisdom. We closed the brick and mortar. Not because we were giving up. Because we were paying attention. We refused to let pride keep us in a space that no longer served the mission. We moved the full store online, protected what we built, and kept going.
That transition was not just a business pivot. It was a rebirth. Because while Beads & Potions was evolving into the thriving online metaphysical store it is today — Soultribe Media was being born in the same breath. One door closing made room for something larger to step through.
Soultribe Media launched in September 2025 and has wasted no time making its mark. The Soultribe Podcast has already delivered conversations that matter — sitting with world-renowned astrologer Molly McCord for Episode 21, Surviving the Shakeup: Navigating the 2025 Astrological Weather with Grace & Grit; hosting country music sensation Cassidy Daniels — featured on The Road, the 2025 CBS country music competition series executive produced by Keith Urban and Blake Shelton — for a soul-stirring episode titled Trusting the Vision Within: A Conversation About Instinct, Resilience, and Staying True to the Inner Vision; welcoming Forbes Coach Whitney Mulling for Episode 16, The Real Reason You Keep People-Pleasing and What It’s Costing You; and sitting with Sarah Gray (Sue Dillion) for Episode 13, What If Transformation Is How You Finally Meet Yourself.
These are not small conversations. These are the kinds of interviews that signal to the world that Soultribe Media is a serious platform with serious reach.
And Beads & Potions continues to show up and show out. Multi-instrumentalist Justin Schipper — session musician credited on Megan Moroney’s 2024 album Am I Okay? — was spotted wearing Beads & Potions handcrafted bracelets in a post on his personal Instagram. When artists organically choose your work, no ad budget required, that tells you everything about what you have built.
Both companies are growing. Both are gaining momentum. And both are built on the same unshakeable foundation — community. One Soultribe member at a time. That has always been the mission. That will always be the mission.
The road was not smooth. But every obstacle became a corridor that led somewhere greater. I have learned to trust that pattern completely.
Peace & Love Y’all.
— Aunty Charmai
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
What I do is not easy to put in a box. And honestly, I stopped trying.
I am a Holistic Spiritual Life Coach, Psychic Medium, Ancestral Healing Guide, podcaster, author, and founder of two companies — Soultribe Media and its sister company Beads & Potions The Mystikal Apothecary. I specialize in practical spirituality — which means I help real people navigate real life using the tools of ancestral wisdom, psychological insight, and grounded spiritual strategy. No performance. No escapism. No toxic positivity. Just honest, structured support for people who are ready to actually do the work.
My formal foundation is in Psychology, with a concentration in Marriage and Family Counseling. That training lives underneath everything I do. When I sit with a client — whether it is a one-on-one coaching session, a psychic medium reading, or an ancestral healing experience — I am not guessing. I am bringing both the science of the mind and the discernment of Spirit into the same room. That combination is rare. And it is exactly what most people have been missing.
I am known for being the Aunty you always needed — the one who tells you the truth with love, calls out your patterns without judgment, and refuses to let you stay stuck in a story that was never yours to carry. My community — Soultribe — has been gathering for seven years. Seven years of real conversations, real transformation, and real people choosing themselves out loud. That did not happen because I told people what they wanted to hear. It happened because I told them what they needed to hear — and held space for them while they figured out what to do with it.
Through Beads & Potions The Mystikal Apothecary I offer handcrafted ritual tools, intentional herbal remedies, energy bracelets, and mentorship programs — all designed as practical tools for daily spiritual living. These are not novelties. They are instruments of alignment, built with numerological intention and ancestral strategy, for people who take their inner life as seriously as their outer one.
Through Soultribe Media — launched September 2025 — I am doing what I have always done, now on a larger stage. As founder and Chief Creative Officer, I am producing conscious content that fuses decades of journalism experience, ancestral wisdom, and spiritual truth into storytelling that actually moves people. The Soultribe Podcast is already sitting with voices that matter — world astrologer Molly McCord, country music sensation Cassidy Daniels of CBS’s The Road, Forbes Coach Whitney Mulling, and transformational guide Sarah Gray — because we do not book guests for clout. We book conversations that serve the community.
What am I most proud of? The longevity. Anyone can launch something. Very few people sustain it — through a pandemic, through economic collapse, through personal loss, through every reason the world gives you to quit. I am still here. Soultribe is still here. Growing, evolving, and more rooted than ever.
What sets me apart is simple. I bring all of myself into this work — the formally educated woman, the ancestral healing practitioner, the media veteran, the mother, the truth-teller. I do not compartmentalize. I do not perform spirituality. I live it. And I have built two companies and a seven-year community to prove that when you do this work with integrity and intention — people feel it. And they stay.
What matters most to you?
What matters most to me is what I almost lost sight of in the middle of building everything else — my family.
I am a wife and a mother of four children. And if I am being completely honest, every company I have ever built, every platform I have ever launched, every person I have ever coached — all of it traces back to them. They are the reason I do this work with integrity. They are the standard I hold myself to when no one is watching. They are the legacy I am actually building toward.
There was a season in my life when I learned that truth the hard way. When my youngest son arrived eight weeks early, the world as I knew it stopped. Everything I had been pouring into my work — the media company, the platform, the momentum — none of it mattered the way he mattered in that moment. That experience recalibrated me in ways I am still grateful for. It reminded me that purpose is not just what you build in public. It is what you protect in private.
My husband has been the steady ground beneath everything I have stepped out to do. Building two companies, closing a brick and mortar, launching a media platform, raising four children — none of that happens without a partner who believes in the vision even on the days you have trouble believing in it yourself. That kind of support is not small. It is everything.
My children are my greatest teachers and my most honest mirror. They do not care about podcast guests or press features. They care whether I showed up. Whether I was present. Whether I laughed with them and listened to them and made them feel like they were the most important thing in the room — because they are. Watching them grow into themselves is the most humbling and awe-inspiring work I have ever been part of. And I do not take a single ordinary moment of it for granted.
What matters most to me beyond family is community — and the two are not separate in my mind. The Soultribe is an extension of that same value. I have spent seven years building a space where people feel less alone. Where truth is welcomed and healing is practical and nobody has to perform in order to belong. That is what a family does at its best. That is what I have always been trying to recreate — for the people who needed it and could not find it anywhere else.
I got into this work because I studied people formally — I hold a Bachelor’s in Marriage and Family Counseling and have spent years deepening that foundation through psychology and lived experience. But the real education came from my own table. From my own hard seasons. From learning what it actually costs to ignore the people and the practices that keep you whole.
What matters most is wholeness. Not perfection. Not performance. Not the number of followers or the size of the stage. Wholeness — for my family, for my community, and for every person who finds their way to Soultribe and finally exhales for the first time in a long time.
That is what I am building toward. That is what has always been worth it.
Contact Info:
- Website: beadsandpotions.com and soultribe.media
- Other: https://linktr.ee/themystikalapothecary
