Sea Change

I quit the spa. I couldn't take the lack of free time. But I appointed my successor, and I offered to train her. I've quit in the noblest possible way.

In truth, I'm contemplating closing up shiatsu shop and moving to an entirely different field. I love the business end--the strategizing, writing the marketing, vision statements and mission statements--but I'm tired of doing the actual shiatsu. But we'll see.

I'm lining up fact-finding missions: talking to people in nonprofit management to see what it's like and how one gets there. Two out of three contacts I found through my alumni network have already responded, happy to have coffee and tell me about their work. And a friend of my father is the CEO of a large nonprofit; my dad will call him to ask if I may talk to him, too.

What am I missing? I realized, thanks to working with a fabulous life coach (we trade), that I need to be more intellectually stimulated.There's a limit to my right-brained-ness. I'm incredibly analytical and need to use that part of myself. And I need to learn new things, whereas now I'm merely practicing things I've already learned. Practice is good, it lets one get into depth, but I feel I've probed pretty deep into shiatsu and book production, and I'm bored.

I also want time again. Time to devote to being wildly creative. I always had the creative arts in my life until I forsaked them for the healing arts. For the last 5 years, all my spare time, energy, and money has been in pursuit of shiatsu (and tai chi/yoga classes to support the shiatsu). And I'm sick of it, really. I want to learn ceramics or brush calligraphy, to dance as much as possible, and to accept that I've healed whatever I wanted to heal in myself, and helped heal a few others, and that's good. Good enough.