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I have been practicing massage and bodywork for 20 years in
Downtown Seattle. I graduated from Seattle Massage School (now Ashmead College) in 1988 and began a practice in a health club in 1989 in
downtown Seattle. Since then I have built my practice and taken many
classes along the way. My most intensive study has been through the
International Zentherapy® Institute which is a combination of Structural
Integration (based on his training with Ida Rolf), meditation and using energy in the practice of
bodywork. Other classes I have taken include Reflexology, a Leon Chaitow
workshop, Deep Tissue, Somatic Unwinding, reflexology and a few Feldenkrais
classes. My current work involves using the physical techniques that I have
learned with body psychotherapy techniques.
My life before bodywork was a career in the commercial photography
industry that was always stressful. (Everyone needed everything yesterday!)
When I realized I was putting in all these long, hard hours to pay for
the owners year off while he built his own sail boat and sailed around
the world, I decided there must be a better way! I found myself in
massage school within 2 weeks and the rest is history.
I started this web site in 1999. I was burned
out from doing massage and while I love doing massage, it is really hard to make
a decent living doing so. I was looking for other options so I started set up an apprenticeship program
for massage therapy here in Washington State. I was gathering information
to put a program together, when I realized how many "hoops" you have to
jump through to become approved, accredited, etc, etc. I am not much
for politics and credentials - so this is what has come about - A
website with free access to all the materials needed to be a massage therapist/bodyworker. It
is basically everything I learned in massage school. It is about 800 pages
and I still have a file full of information that I want to add to it!
At first it was just an information junkies haven. I
wrote everything I could about the basics of massage and health and building a
massage practice. I didn't have any plans to make money with it when I
first started. I was just doing it for fun and I discovered I loved
writing (something I never thought in a million years I would be doing since I
was such an introvert. My high school friends aren't surprised as they say
I was always writing then.)
Also, through the years I have seen many friends take up massage, only
to give it up later. Even after graduating from accredited schools and
passing all the exams, they were not able to succeed in business. They
didn't realize how much was involved other than the hands on part.
Marketing, business planning, billing and managing a practice were such
a struggle. With that in mind, I am hoping to provide support
for all those who have chosen to explore the art and practice of massage
and bodywork while maintaining a business.
I also started writing an ebook called "The Massage Therapy
Career Guide - The truth about becoming a massage therapist" as a way to help
people make a more informed decision about going to massage school. As I
was learning about websites I had come across an Ebook (which you can now read
for free) called "Make Your Site Sell" from Ken Evoy of Sitesell.com. I
got this idea to try to sell the Ebook online through a website so I started
www.massagetherapycareers.com
in around 2000 using his system called Site Build it! To my amazement I
was selling Ebooks right from the start - not enough to quit doing massage but
enough to keep me interested in learning more. Then an interesting thing
happened. In about 2003 or so Google created this program called Adsense
that allows people with websites to put Google's ads on your site. I had
read about it for about a year or so saying 'who clicks on ads? I don't!
How can anyone make any money doing that?
It took me awhile before I tried it in Dec of 2004 and put
the ads on my top 25 pages on this site (www.thebodyworker.com)
I was shocked when I logged into my account and found that people were actually
clicking on the ads making me money. My first month it was about $140 and
that was just from having it on 25 pages. At that time I also only had
about 500 visitors a day or so. I put the ads on the rest of the pages and
now my traffic is about 2000 visitors a day and this site alone makes me about
$1200-$1500 alone each month just in Google Adsense Income.
So when I realized what I had I started taking the Ebook that
I was selling and putting it into separate pages at
www.massagetherapycareers.com
creating more content and following the Site Build it! process that says
That site is now on the first page of Google for the keywords
'massage therapy' and 'massage therapist' with the traffic constantly climbing
to a current 750 visitors a day. The thing is that I put Google Ads on
that site too and no matter what I do it seems to make me more money per click
with less pages and less ad impressions. The only thing I can contribute
it to is that I use Site Build it! to create and host the site. Now the
combination of these two sites makes me an extra few thousand a month just in
Google Ads. I also have a few other streams of income from them through
affiliate programs which is where you can make money referring people to their
products or services - like amazon.com and Site Build it!
So now that my income problem was solved I could focus on
what I love best - doing massage and writing!
Meanwhile : Along about the same time in 2004 or so I found
out about peer supervision after reading an article in our local AMTA chapter newsletter by Jack
Blackburn
(www.presensingsource.com)
- see articles section) talking about the hidden addictions in doing bodywork
and the issues we are faced with as caregivers. I went to the AMTA
convention specifically to meet Jack and took a 3 hour class that he was
offering.
I wish I had found supervision about 15 years ago, as it would have
greatly reduced the stress of the process of starting and building a
practice. I often think though that I wasn't ready back then for
supervision and I was too involved in collecting all of this knowledge and too
busy figuring out what to do next. I also think that many massage therapists are
unable to really look at these issues because they are caught up in the same
thing...collecting techniques and knowledge to give them self confidence.
Well the news is massage is 10% technique and 90% who you are!
I have rededicated my websites to educating massage therapists about the
process of supervision and peer supervision groups.
I really feel that the future of the massage profession depends on our
strengthening our community and preserving the core of all modalities and that
is touch. Supervision and peer supervision groups will be instrumental in
providing a forum for such a community. I
have found that one of the first things people really need before they can
really start understanding the influence they have on clients, is that they need
clients. They need a viable practice to sustain them financially.
With this in place, a committed therapist can then take the necessary steps to
deepen their practice through the community support of peer supervision
groups. With that in mind I am updating the website to include even more
information. When this information is assimilated and passed on, it allows
wisdom to become the basis of a healing practice.
I
also believe that a successful massage (or other healing) practice, is really
because of the therapist and who they are. It is not what technique you
know or how many hours of education they have. It is 90% who you are and 10%
what you do (have I said that enough here?). Supervision and peer supervision is also the way to support
the therapist in their process of healing.
My other passion is now creating websites for massage
therapists for their massage practice using Site Build it! and also teaching
massage therapists and anyone who is interested in how to create a website about
some topic that they know and love and turn it into a money making online
business. It can provide the solid base of income so that you can be free
to do what you love - massage! You can learn more about it on my other
(Site Build it! site)
www.workless-playmore.com
You may use what information
you take from this site, but I would appreciate a credit where possible.
Feel free to contact me with questions, comments, suggestions,
or any other feedback.
I am also available for
email consultations as well as
in person and phone consultations to help massage therapists in dealing with all
aspects of starting, building or maintaining a massage practice or finding a
job. Thanks!
 Yours in service,
Julie Onofrio
contact me
Editor, Explorer, Webmaster,
Student, Janitor
www.thebodyworker.com
www.massagetherapycareers.com
www.workless-playmore.com
www.massageseattle.net
www.learn-the-law-of-attraction-secret.com
www.citychickens.com If
you are not having fun, why are you doing it! Make your passion your
work!
07/03/2008
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