Update on the transition
So it's been about 6 weeks since I said goodbye to the law and hello to being a massage therapist and an energy healer. I thought I'd just provide a quick update on where I'm at in that neck of the woods as the point of this blog was to document my own transition (with its ups and downs) and also focus on spiritual topics that have some sort of relevance to my own life.
If I look back over the past 6 weeks, all I can say is that I feel very grateful. The pay isn't as great as being a lawyer, and it's been a significant dent in my paycheck actually, but I had set myself up so that I had some savings I could use and that would get me by in the first couple of months whilst I tried to find a new foundation for myself.
The 6 weeks really has been about change and flexibility! Having gone from a job of 3 days work sitting in an office on my ass and 2 days of being at home with the occasional massage here and there, I've now landed myself in a position where I am working from 4 different locations (including my own home) in a given week! It's required me to actually catch a bus to go to work one day a week, and walking to the other clinics on the other days. The other change has gone from working 3 full on days to working 6 days a week and the 6 days can actually be pretty long. Not to mention I'm still studying so I'm lucky if I actually get a Sunday where I do absolutely nothing.. Sundays generally are taken up by studying at the institute.
I have been extremely fortunate to have found a job which has an established brand so I can just take on an over-run of clients and the like instead of going out and marketing myself. On days which aren't that busy and the opportunity comes up, I get to massage a professional sports team and slowly beginning to build rapport with the players and also the staff members which is great. I'm beginning to get some regulars who book in to see me at the clinics which is a bonus, and not to mention the team that I work with, in particular the director, are such fantastic and selfless people. It's such a breath of fresh air to work in an environment where we're not trying to steal clients from each other - it really is an environment of working as a team and we all help each other out. For example, if one of us is really busy then the other one will pop in between clients and change the towels and do the admin work for them. One of the therapists phoned me up in my 2nd week there to welcome me and give me a few hints about what he does to get some new clients. I decided to follow his advice (albeit grudgingly as I didn't think it was really me), but through that I have met some really nice people and some of them are now my clients. We also look after each other in terms of giving the other a bit of a massage around sore areas that they have to help them get through the day. It's really a good environment to work in.
Through the clinic I also started to do mobile massage.. but this is a bit different because the client actually just lives a few roads away from home so it's easier for me to get to their place. My client is a really nice person and seems to be happy with my massages so I hope to be seeing them more in the future. Mobile massages pay pretty well haha!
At the moment I get about 6 or 7 clients a week to massage through that clinic which is great. At the other clinic where it's just me trying to build up my own business, it's been pretty slow. I've got a room in a chiropractic clinic where I'm the only person in on the days I'm there (apart from the Thurs where there's another chiropractor) and I've been placing promotional postcards around in the hopes of people deciding to give me a go. It's been 3 weeks there and I've only had 2 clients. One of the clients is actually a client of one of the chiropractors and she's come to see me twice already which is great. The other is a former work mate (I was sooo happy when I saw that she had booked in lol). I think my bf and the head chiro there can sense that I'm a bit worried about how things will go and they really do go out of their way to make me feel OK. The chiro messaged me this week to check in and ask if there's anything he could do to help and that things will pick up in no time. The receptionists have been busy coming up with ideas on how I can get myself out there and spruke my business too lol. My bf has been telling me stories of his own experience when he first started out as a massage therapist.
At the moment it's slow going and I spend the days in the clinic alone but the flip side is that I can use that time to study and just lie down on the grass at the gardens across the road and just soak in nature's energy. Deep down I know I will be fine there - there was a reason why I took the step to ask the chiro whether he would let me use a room, and there's a reason why he said yes. The clients at that clinic are used to the kinesiology that the chiros do, so taking it a step further to incorporate the energy work in my massage isn't a big stretch for those types of clients - they actually get it. It'll just take time for the work to build, but that is why I am grateful for the other clinic as that kind of pays my bills for the time being.
In other news, I've taken the whole Lions Gate, eclipse, full moon energy on board and have been trying to clear out shit that is old in my life. I've decluttered some of my bathroom stuff (for some reason I just kept buying things like shampoos, body lotions, etc but never used them) and donated that to the homeless people in the city. I've also done a bit of a re-jig of some other things in my apartment, haggled my way through my energy provider to obtain a waaay better discount than what I have currently been paying and seriously beginning to look at ways to reduce the amount of waste that we have and to try to be more sustainable. Here's some things that I've been doing to try to eliminate waste and be more sustainable:
So there's been a couple of changes in my life over the last 6 weeks but that's OK. I think I can finally start to settle in some sort of a routine (for now... until the Universe decides to shake it up again).
If I look back over the past 6 weeks, all I can say is that I feel very grateful. The pay isn't as great as being a lawyer, and it's been a significant dent in my paycheck actually, but I had set myself up so that I had some savings I could use and that would get me by in the first couple of months whilst I tried to find a new foundation for myself.
The 6 weeks really has been about change and flexibility! Having gone from a job of 3 days work sitting in an office on my ass and 2 days of being at home with the occasional massage here and there, I've now landed myself in a position where I am working from 4 different locations (including my own home) in a given week! It's required me to actually catch a bus to go to work one day a week, and walking to the other clinics on the other days. The other change has gone from working 3 full on days to working 6 days a week and the 6 days can actually be pretty long. Not to mention I'm still studying so I'm lucky if I actually get a Sunday where I do absolutely nothing.. Sundays generally are taken up by studying at the institute.
I have been extremely fortunate to have found a job which has an established brand so I can just take on an over-run of clients and the like instead of going out and marketing myself. On days which aren't that busy and the opportunity comes up, I get to massage a professional sports team and slowly beginning to build rapport with the players and also the staff members which is great. I'm beginning to get some regulars who book in to see me at the clinics which is a bonus, and not to mention the team that I work with, in particular the director, are such fantastic and selfless people. It's such a breath of fresh air to work in an environment where we're not trying to steal clients from each other - it really is an environment of working as a team and we all help each other out. For example, if one of us is really busy then the other one will pop in between clients and change the towels and do the admin work for them. One of the therapists phoned me up in my 2nd week there to welcome me and give me a few hints about what he does to get some new clients. I decided to follow his advice (albeit grudgingly as I didn't think it was really me), but through that I have met some really nice people and some of them are now my clients. We also look after each other in terms of giving the other a bit of a massage around sore areas that they have to help them get through the day. It's really a good environment to work in.
Through the clinic I also started to do mobile massage.. but this is a bit different because the client actually just lives a few roads away from home so it's easier for me to get to their place. My client is a really nice person and seems to be happy with my massages so I hope to be seeing them more in the future. Mobile massages pay pretty well haha!
At the moment I get about 6 or 7 clients a week to massage through that clinic which is great. At the other clinic where it's just me trying to build up my own business, it's been pretty slow. I've got a room in a chiropractic clinic where I'm the only person in on the days I'm there (apart from the Thurs where there's another chiropractor) and I've been placing promotional postcards around in the hopes of people deciding to give me a go. It's been 3 weeks there and I've only had 2 clients. One of the clients is actually a client of one of the chiropractors and she's come to see me twice already which is great. The other is a former work mate (I was sooo happy when I saw that she had booked in lol). I think my bf and the head chiro there can sense that I'm a bit worried about how things will go and they really do go out of their way to make me feel OK. The chiro messaged me this week to check in and ask if there's anything he could do to help and that things will pick up in no time. The receptionists have been busy coming up with ideas on how I can get myself out there and spruke my business too lol. My bf has been telling me stories of his own experience when he first started out as a massage therapist.
At the moment it's slow going and I spend the days in the clinic alone but the flip side is that I can use that time to study and just lie down on the grass at the gardens across the road and just soak in nature's energy. Deep down I know I will be fine there - there was a reason why I took the step to ask the chiro whether he would let me use a room, and there's a reason why he said yes. The clients at that clinic are used to the kinesiology that the chiros do, so taking it a step further to incorporate the energy work in my massage isn't a big stretch for those types of clients - they actually get it. It'll just take time for the work to build, but that is why I am grateful for the other clinic as that kind of pays my bills for the time being.
In other news, I've taken the whole Lions Gate, eclipse, full moon energy on board and have been trying to clear out shit that is old in my life. I've decluttered some of my bathroom stuff (for some reason I just kept buying things like shampoos, body lotions, etc but never used them) and donated that to the homeless people in the city. I've also done a bit of a re-jig of some other things in my apartment, haggled my way through my energy provider to obtain a waaay better discount than what I have currently been paying and seriously beginning to look at ways to reduce the amount of waste that we have and to try to be more sustainable. Here's some things that I've been doing to try to eliminate waste and be more sustainable:
- Using a bokashi bin for food waste (and them getting my bf to dump the contents in his parent's compost bin or dump it in my friend's compost bin)
- Using soap nuts (plus a couple of drops of essential oils) instead of laundry detergent (these are super cheap and last for quite a while)
- Making my own all purpose kitchen cleaner from the soap nuts
- Recycling (I've always done this anyway)
- Recycling plastic bags and plastic stuff in general (Redcycle bins are at selected Coles outlets)
- For the ladies, I've switched to using a moon cup (i.e. menstrual cup) instead of tampons and the like that adds to landfill
- When shopping I bring my own bags
- Try to buy at farmer's markets when I can
- If I manage to get to a Harris Farm grocery store, I go for the imperfect picks as much as I can
- Buying toilet and tissue paper from What the Crap? - this company donates 50% of its profits to a good cause and uses bamboo in the toilet and tissue paper
- Buying Thankyou products - this company donates 100% of its profits to various causes in an attempt to get rid of world poverty
- Switched my superannuation fund to Australia Ethical Super
- Taking my Keep Cup when I am ordering coffee
Eventually I would like to make my own body butter using coconut oil and essential oils too. Some of you may think I'm going a bit overboard in terms of the sustainability and waste elimination stuff but from my perspective, if I can change my own habits then at least I'm helping out the environment in some small way. When we realise that we are one with the environment then it just follows that we need to treat it with respect and if we can do something small to help someone, then let's do it. It might make their day a lot better - who knows!
So there's been a couple of changes in my life over the last 6 weeks but that's OK. I think I can finally start to settle in some sort of a routine (for now... until the Universe decides to shake it up again).