Issue link: https://www.massageandbodyworkdigital.com/i/1128556
If massage therapy is a part-time job for you, do you complement it with another career? In what? How do you make it work? Publication Date: Sep/Oct 2019 Only 18 percent of the US population receives a massage each year. How do we increase that percentage? Publication Date: Nov/Dec 2019 Email your responses to editor@abmp.com. Your submission can be as short as you'd like and up to 250 words. Upcoming Topics Ta k e 5 a n d t r y A B M P F i v e - M i n u t e M u s c l e s a t w w w. a b m p . c o m / f i v e - m i n u t e - m u s c l e s . 19 Of course not. I am not a role model; I am a care provider. What I "preach," to use the term some have used here, is "I will give you massage if you like." Not "You should live your life in a specific way." And so many of the practices labeled "healthy lifestyle" are (a) untested fads, (b) available only to the rich, and (c) far outside our scope of practice. This question has gotten me hopping mad on many occasions during my 20-plus years of practice. We owe our clients good clinical care, not a model of behavior for their lives. BECCY BAYNE As the saying goes, you should practice what you preach, but honestly you also need to let your clients see that you are human and sometimes forget to take care of yourself too. Be real and not afraid to admit that you are a work in progress, just like your clients. MICHELLE MOBERG I consider it my job (and privilege) to hold space for whatever state my client's mind/ body/soul may be in. They are exactly where they need to be on their path to wellness. I try to be "happy and healthy" when I show up to work, so my best energy is available to them. If they ask about my habits, I'm happy to share—but there is no one "healthy" way to live. My goal is to empower them to love the body they're in and to celebrate their self-care successes. Each person's "healthy" looks incredibly different, and it is a powerful learning experience to just allow it. Creating a space for a person to just be without judgment is a gift we could all use. MISTY GIBBS In a perfect world, yes, we should practice what we preach. But sometimes life happens and we're all human. How many doctors or nurses do you know of who are not in ideal health? SANDY GALLIMORE It's a practitioner's job to be authentic, whatever that means for that individual. While we are obligated to guide our clients to their healthiest self, we can best achieve this through modeling vulnerability and honesty. Trying to force a certain projection creates a barrier to connecting with our clients. When we are authentic to ourselves, including our limitations and challenges, we silently give our clients permission to do the same. ALEXIA JENKINS I feel it's important to do my best in those three aspects. Physically, I have an obligation to have the strength and stamina to offer the best of my work to the first client of the day and give that same effort to the last of the day, and the last one of the week. Massage is hard work at times. I want my physical body to be able to handle the rigors. Over the course of 17 years of having a practice, there have been difficult periods, where my emotional and spiritual self has had to endure through crisis. Those have been the trying periods where I just wasn't sure I could put out the effort to work with a client. But having a foundation and philosophy of good health allowed me to muster the energy to do the job at hand and quite often gave me the space to do what comes naturally—bodywork, which offered clarity for me as well. MATTHEW GIBBLE Do nurses play cards all day? Public perception is very important. We are in a wellness profession, and to be professional, we should be an example of wellness. Physically, we should not smell like smoke or be caught with a soda in our office. Our job requires stamina. We need to feed and nourish our bodies (and minds) to keep up. Mentally, if we are in a constant state of stress, lack, or scarcity, how can we market our businesses, earn a great living, or care for others without feeling drained? Spiritually, if we don't have strong boundaries and self-worth, we won't attract good clients and will work ourselves to death. We need to do our own healing so we can effectively heal others. STACY OLINGER One hundred percent. I think it's important to exhibit a well-rounded healthy lifestyle. I have been on both sides of the coin. I used to be overweight and wasn't in a good place in my life. I was exhausted in every aspect—kind of had a bad attitude and had TERRIBLE posture! Even though I was doling out massages and heath tips, you could see I was not following my own advice, and I wasn't taken seriously. Now, I practice what I preach. I exercise and meditate daily, and it shows. My niche is working with athletes, and now clients not only ask for advice but seek me out as an LMT who is an athlete—a.k.a. "one of them." It makes me more relatable to the clients I seek out. MARCY BOWMAN