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 -
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.)
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