So. Tired.
Shout-out to Narya. I'm feeling your pain. The working + running a shiatsu practice + volunteering is wearing me down. I'm tired. Got home at 7:30 PM today after running around doing Shiatsu Practice Building and hospice volunteering, and still had more preparation to do for the festival tomorrow. (A literal festival, not a Plain Croissant Festival, at which I'll be doing shiatsu demos. And it's supposed to be 90 degrees out there again.)
Coworkers from Day Job enviously say, You have Fridays off!, but I don't. I work loooong days on Fridays, just not at Day Job. I'm hot and tired and worn out and won't get a weekend this weekend, once again. I work on Sundays. And this weekend, on Saturday. Tonight, affixing new address labels to business cards, I told the husband: I don't want to practice shiatsu anymore. I'm just tired. He said that most small business owners probably say this type of thing a lot. I pictured our ranks, all lined up and haggard through the ages, our houses messy and friends wondering why we can't lounge by the pool on Sunday.
I think I need to tweak this so it will work for me again. I'm a little too tired to figure out how.
posted by kStyle @ 9:21 PM
5 Comments:
OH yeah.
Chuck's sister has a business, one she started not long after he and I met. She also has a husband. He's not always the most . . . effective person around (though I do like him), but he has a day job and benefits. Her/their business is now booming, they moved a couple of years ago into bigger quarters (which had its own drama), etc., but it was very much hard work.
And that's why I gave up my dream when Chuck left me. Because, even though it's difficult to do it with someone, and even though it's difficult, period, doing it all, all by myself, just feels way beyond what I can manage.
I just wish I were near you, so I could design some healthy treats for you to give away to your clients!
You know, I didn't really mean that comment to be so All About Me--and Now Tell Me What YOU Think of Me.
And I keep thinking about your post.
I have found that "trying to reconnect with the joy" doesn't always work so well--sometimes just gutting it out is the way to go, and the joy will return or it won't. If it does, well, you remember the good parts. If it doesn't, then you figure out something else that's valuable instead. but it's a difficult balance, between accepting What Is and recognizing that something can/should be changed.
Oh, healthy treats for my clients--what a great idea! And we're have a conversation here--the idea is, we both share about ourselves (that means YOU, too!).
I agree that grasping at Joy makes it run farther afield, but, it's also important to Avoid Burnout and Adrenal Exhaustion. And sometimes we really just need to tweak a little.
Two examples:
1. I found I was getting very physically tired from giving treatments and also developing a stiff neck. So I visualized how I've been working (body mechanics) and I realized I've been looking at the patient too much, rather than keeping head up and glancing down with eyes. Tweaked it, felt better.
2. Why was I loving giving shiatsu demos and hospice shiatsu, but not enjoying working on my clients? I recently realized that in both short demos and hospice, I'm not trying to "cure" anything; I don't grasp at results. And the kicker is that I *give better treatments* when I'm not worried about outcome or trying to do it perfectly. So I'm going to try being more relaxed in that way in sessions with clients, to just be in the present and not worry about the outcome--which lets the treatment be much deeper.
So, tweaking. Tweaking good.
That's a pretty profound realization--the second one, I mean. (the first one is useful, too.) It says a lot about how you seem to be taking on responsibility for a kind of relationship, when that's not necessary to provide the kind of assistance your clients need (and, you observe, even counterproductive). A little of that is probably unavoidable, given that (a) you're doing bodywork, fer chrissakes, and (b) your form of practice recognizes the package deal of body/mind.
Tweak #2 is more about Zen than anything. Zen is about letting go of expectations, being in the present moment. It's not that I was forming a relationship with clients; it's that I was fixating on "making the problem (eg, sore shoulder) go away" rather than allowing the session to unfold. I practice Zen Shiatsu--I've been exploring what that means, the "Zen" part. :)
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