July 31st, 2007 Julie Onofrio
Massage Therapists seem to have a common theme of always struggling to get by and make ends meet. They also are usually very eager to give their time away in many different ways -
by working longer than the time alloted for the massage session thinking that it is a way to market their practice and get people to come back more as a client
by charging less than they need to make
by offering discounted fees
by saying they want to offer their services to people who can’t afford it who really need it
bartering your time for things of lesser value or things you don’t want or need
fail to market yourself to get the business that you need to be successful
Whatever the excuse or reason you give for giving away your time is usually an emotionally based decision which is different from a business decision. Your actions are a way to discover the root cause of issues that you are faced with by helping you to uncover your unconscious beliefs. Your thoughts and beliefs create your actions.
Giving away your time shows how much you value your own time. It doesn’t necessarily win people over or make them want to come back more than when you don’t give away your time. People want to give back when they receive your massage - they do this in the form of payment ($$$). When you try to give them more than they are paying for it sets up a power imbalance. People will feel indebted to you or feel like they have to come back because you gave them more than they wanted.
Wanting to work on people who are underprivileged and really can’t afford massage while may seem noble, it may not be really helping anyone. If you really wanted to help these people you could do something with all the money you do make and open up a free clinic or teach classes to them on how to do massage themselves - teach them to take care of themselves.
When you want to be so giving of your time, it is usually an indicator of how much you value yourself and that it is you who are in need. If you don’t value yourself clients will feel it and not value you either.
Mikelann Valterra in her book “Why women earn less: How to make what you are really worth” says this:
” Our time is one of our most precious assets. Yet many people feel compelled to give it away to others, excessively in some cases, and at the expense of not using it to enrich their own lives and reach their goals…
Chances are that if you regularly put other people before yourself, you probably give away your time inappropriately or excessively. It can feel uncomfortable to put your own needs and wishes first. But learning not to give your time away is essential. It ultimately comes down to the fact
that valuing your time is the same thing as valuing yourself.”
The roots of underearning are usually from early childhood. Our people pleasing behaviors come from not getting early needs for mirroring, connection, acceptance, appreciation and love. Early in life children are taught that they can’t get their needs met so they try to survive by finding out the rules and following them - giving up what they really want and setting aside their feelings. The purpose in life then becomes learning to please others rather and attune to their needs to others or we think we risk losing the connection. We lose ourselves trying to please others. We learn to be caretakers - taking care of others in the way we need/wish to be taken care of ourselves.
I first learned of the idea that caretaking is really different from ‘caregiving’ after reading a series of articles by Jack Blackburn - a local Seattle Trager practitioner and teacher. He defines it in this way:
“When we caretake we assume responsibility for our clients’ healing. When we
caregive we support clients in assuming responsibility for their own healing.”
When we are giving away our precious time in ways that ‘caretake’ others, it usually leads to less than fulfilling practices and not having enough money to take care of yourself (and family.)
Posted in Money issues, Recommended Reading, The Code of the Caretaker, The Wealthy Massage Therapist | No Comments »
July 14th, 2007 Julie Onofrio
One of the major
themes in all helping professions revolve around the idea that people need to be helped and don’t have the resources that they need inside to take care of themselves and heal.
I just read a great explanation of it in a book called “Living in the Light” by Shakti Gawain
She says:
Victim consciousness is the belief that we are helpless; that the world, people and the economy do things to us and we have no choice but to accept what is dished out to us…
As victims, people enlist rescuers to save them. Rescuers do not know how to take care of themselves, so they focus on helping others, unconsciously trying to fulfill their own needs in and indirect way. They need victims to care for. A rescuer believes that others are weak or powerless and need his help…
You can’t be a rescuer, though unless you believe in and have a victim inside you…
To transform rescuing, we need to take responsibility for our own pain, and get in touch with the poser of the universe within us to help with our own healing…
The energy stays stuck as long as people are focusing on others as the problem or the solution…
Rescuers do not see how much they need help. They are so busy helping others, they cannot see their own pain. When they start to feel their own feelings, they cover them up by finding someone else to take care of…
The only way to help others is to do exactly what you really want to do.
OK I could probably quote the whole chapter but what it is saying really sums up all that I have been saying and learning for myself. The clearer I get about what I desire and I do that by checking in to see what feels the best, the easier things come to me in every aspect of my life.
Resources:
www.thebodyworker.com
The code of the caretaker
Posted in Ethics, Recommended Reading, The Code of the Caretaker, The Wealthy Massage Therapist | No Comments »
July 13th, 2007 Julie Onofrio
I was just about to take some books to the used book store to trade in when I came across a copy of a book written in 1986 called “living in the Light” by Shakti Gawain.
I am sure I read it a long time ago but when I started re-reading it yesterday I was delighted to find another explanation of the theories I write about - the ‘code of the caretaker’ - which involve learning to take responsibility for ourselves and take care of ourselves first before taking care of others. It leads to learning to be of service which is different from helping.
There are a few great chapters - on on the “Tyrant and the Rebel”. Here is what she says:
“The tyrant is the inner voice that tells us what we should and shouldn’t do. It’s all our rules and rigid expectations. The rebel is the part of us that refuses to do anything it’s told to do. It reacts in total rebellion and trusts no one. When the tyrant says ‘do this’ the rebel says ‘No way’.
The rebel was developed early in childhood in response to pressures and demands from outside authorities. The rebel originally protected our feelings by refusing to believe anything our intuition knew was untrue.
The tyrant wants to be heard and wants cooperation.
Neither the rebel or the tyrant are listening to or protecting you anymore. They have taken on their own personalities and are working in reaction to each other. When this happens, people feel stuck.
Neither the tyrant or the rebel are truly you. By learning to trust and follow your intuition both the tyrant and the rebel dissolve and you emerge into who you really are.
So when you are struggling in your life somewhere it is a good idea to take a look at who is speaking and taking the actions. Is it the tyrant who keeps driving you making you think that you should or should not be doing something? Is your rebel reacting and stamping their feet saying “no”?
Learning to trust your intuition is a process. Taking it easy and being gentle on yourself and taking very small steps can help you get unstuck. When the tyrant and the rebel are fighting it really is a form of beating yourself up which is what you were probably taught to do at an early age. It happens when we are told things like “big girls don’t cry”, “stop crying or I will give you something to cry about”, “you can’t sing - you should be an accountant” and all of the other critical voices of others told you. Everytime you beat yourself up you are continuing the cycle.
Learning to be gentle with yourself requires that you develop a certain amount of strength
Gentleness comes from a place of spiritual abundance. We can
only afford to be gentle when we are secure enough to lay aside
our instincts for self preservation, defensiveness or aggression when
we know what we need.
Taking the time to really go inside and find out what you need is really about taping into your intuition - your inner guidance system - your feelings.
The wealthy massage therapist is able to honor both the tyrant and the rebel and get in touch with their deeper selves and finds out what they need and value and is able to start taking the steps to tune into their intuition and take care of their inner needs.
Posted in Ethics, Peer Supervision, Recommended Reading, The Code of the Caretaker, The Wealthy Massage Therapist | No Comments »
July 11th, 2007 Julie Onofrio
When I start working with a massage therapist who is just starting their massage business or someone is more experienced I teach them something I have called truth marketing. It is a way of taking a look at what you value most and then taking the action steps you need to show that you value that.
There are so many different types of marketing and so many things you can do to market your massage practice but none of them will work until your actions are in alignment with your inner self (higher being, god self or whatever you want to call it.) This often is a process of discovering more about yourself and what your values are and what you desire to happen in your practice. When you are able to start taking action steps that support those values the marketing you do will be more effective. You will also begin to see things happen without you even having to do anything. Suze Orman in her book “Women and Money” calls it being in harmony with yourself.
Shakti Gawain in her book “Living in the Light” calls it following your intuition. Ester and Jerry Hicks in their book call it “the Law of Attraction”.
Whatever you want to call it- the bottom line is that it works but it isn’t always easy to get to that place of integrity. It sometimes takes doing a lot of different things so that you can see what you like or don’t like so you can feel the difference and learn to choose what feels better.
Like I have been doing insurance billing for about 6 years and became a provider for the major insurance companies here in WA. At first they paid really will (above my cash rate) but gradually through the years they started paying less and less and making it harder to get paid and decreasing clients benefits. I had to work harder to get paid the same. I hated dealing with collecting payments and writing chart notes and reports. I also had to deal with clients trying to use their benefits for stress but their policies do not cover stress and they were not happy. I put up with it for a few years thinking it would get better and they would pay more but it just got worse. I kept doing insurance because those are the people who called. I finally made a decision not to take any more insurance clients and things started changing. I started getting new clients almost weekly from my website www.massageseattle.net that I created using Site Build it! and also got a stead flow of calls from my www.citycentermassage.com which was a test site using a system provided by massagelaunch.com. I also raised my cash rates for new clients considerably. After I stopped taking clients from the low paying insurance companies I found one that paid more than my cash rate and all of a sudden started getting clients from them. I am now doing less massage than ever and getting paid more than ever.
Or in the words of one massage therapist “Once I finally opened myself up to “receive” the benevolence of the universe, it happened right away.”
Posted in Building Your Practice, Recommended Reading, Starting Your Practice | No Comments »
July 6th, 2007 Julie Onofrio
Not many people will use the words wealthy and massage therapist in the same sentence. I personally like the feel of it and the sound of it.
It felt so perfect for all that I have been writing about and saying. I got the idea from Suze Ormans book/PBS show “Women and Money”. She has a section called “8 Qualities of a Wealthy Woman”. It could be called “Massage therapists and money” and “8 Qualities of a wealthy massage therapist”. Her words really were nothing that I haven’t been saying all along. A successful massage therapist is one who can set clear boundaries for themselves and their business.
The wealthy massage therapist values themselves enough to charge what they need to make a GREAT living.
A Wealthy massage therapist charges for the time and energy they put into doing a massage.
A wealthy massage therapist participates in peer supervision groups to get a better understanding of why they want to help others and take a deeper look at the shadow side of helping.
A wealthy massage therapist takes responsibility for their success and doesn’t blame the economy, their location, the competition or the phase of the moon.
A wealthy massage therapist shares what they know with others and makes money doing so.
A wealthy massage therapist understands that they need money in order to take care of themselves and their families and when this it taken care of they will be in a better place to help others.
A wealthy massage therapist says “It is about the money” and I value myself enough to want the money that I need to take care of myself and my family.
A wealthy massage therapist is in harmony with their deeper or true selves. They think, feel, believe and act in alignment. The have faith and courage in themselves and their ability to start and run a successful business.
A wealthy massage therapist understands the value of their time and energy.
A wealthy massage therapist is in tune with their feelings as much as possible and learns to find the deeper meaning they are providing. They are telling you when you are out of alignment. Anything but love and joy is telling you that you are thinking something that is not true. It is a false core belief that you have acquired to protect yourself at an early age.
A wealthy massage therapist understands that their wanting to help others is a defense mechanism and it keeps them from feeling something that they have long held back.
A wealthy massage therapist creates professional boundaries and sets policies and procedures to support them. They don’t date clients. They don’t become friends with clients. They charge for no shows and late fees. They respect the clients needs for privacy. They keep their appointments on time. If they take time in between clients they charge for that time. They are aware of the possible problems with billing insurance companies and selling retail products to clients.
A wealthy massage therapist….
Posted in Money issues, Recommended Reading, The Code of the Caretaker, The Wealthy Massage Therapist | 2 Comments »
