The Gifts of Massage: A Holiday Perspective for the New Year Part II

The Gifts of Massage: A Holiday Perspective  for the New Year Part II

Victoria Jordan Stone, M.A., N.C.M.T

Co-director Blue Ridge School of Massage & Yoga

The beginning of the year marks a time that many people make resolutions; there must be a really strong urge among us to keep refining who we are and how we behave, how we attend to our health and other aspects of our lives. But it's a well-known fact that most New Year's resolutions, many focusing on weight loss in the aftermath of holiday season gorging) rarely last more then a few days at most. Giving up something is generally more difficult than creating something new.

There are more productive ways of welcoming change into one's life. From Business Class 1, graduates of Blue Ridge School of Massage & Yoga, may recall a discussion of annual vision statements. My personal one is put together every year now, for about 18 years, between Christmas and my birthday on January 7. It takes two weeks because it's pretty comprehensive, covering health and fitness, home, garden, massage practice, the school, artwork, spiritual life, relationships, personal development, continuing education, and finances. The business plans students put together as part of their program are a form of vision statement. Part of my vision statement this year is to take more time for myself and for fun and so I am running two weeks post-New Year's with this article on vision plans; I see it as a sign of health, and the information is timeless in any case.

If you have no goal you're bound to get there, but it might be nowhere. Conversely, it is known that if you have a well-fleshed out, descriptive plan – vision – for what you see in the coming year or other time frame – chances are good you will realize your plan. A study some years back showed that older children who engaged in journaling/vision plans for a period of more than one year during the formative years of early adolescence showed  significantly higher scores on their SATs, better grades in college and a higher rate of completion of programs, and higher participation in graduate programs.

What I've found from the use of a vision  for the particulars of my life is (example) that if you can truly envision the way your massage practice  will look and operate, and you can really feel the feelings that will be present when you are successfully seeing the number of clients you want, where and when you want to see them, and having the results on their health and well-being you hope for. In my experience   there is somewhere around an 85% success rate for realizing your visions when you really work the process. . Gregg Braden has a great short work, available printed, on audio CD, or YouTube called The Lost Mode of Prayer in which he details the use of this type of visioning process for manifesting what you want, and he indicates having the emotional response to what you're seeing in your mind as an already done deal helps to make it so. Firefox has a number of background designs you can choose from, and while I tend to go for aesthetics, the one mine pulls up every time I go to the web has V + E = M (and  attractive muted peach and grey tones). The formula refers to Visualization+ Emotion = Manifestation.

So, in manifesting your dream massage practice you will circumvent some of the self-defeating practices I have recently been reading about on massage related Linked In news groups. There have been endless discussions about the use of Groupon, Daily Deal, and umpteen other programs for discounting massage therapy. Proponents of these practices will say that it's a cheap way of marketing, and needless to say many of those proponents are those who set them up and they are laughing all the way to the bank. In many localities where massage therapists are using these discounting programs the rate for massage therapy has dropped to a regular price of $30/hour; discounted many of these therapists are earning $15 or less when they participate in the discounting or package deal programs. It may be a cheap way of marketing – no up front cost – but it is very expensive in terms of lost revenues from regularly price massage sessions. And there are several pitfalls to the use of these schemes, which ultimately primarily benefit the promoters of them:

·         Discounting to new clients is a slap in the face to established regular clients who are presumably paying your full rate for massage sessions.

·         Those who come in for a cut-rate massage session will almost never re-book at your regular rate

·         Those who come to you based on price will leave you for someone else's discounted offer

·         Clients generally feel they get what they pay for and therefore will come in with low expectations, and even if you pleasantly surprise you, they may still undervalue the experience because of their pre-emptive prejudice

·         Clients generally treat their massage therapists in direct correlation to the amount they pay for massage, ie: they will tend to arrive on time, not cancel at the last minute, and tip (where accepted) when they are paying a standard or premium price for massage therapy, and will not do so for massage “deals.”

There may be other pitfalls as well, but you get my drift. If you can effectively image your practice into perfection it is a much more beneficial way of “promoting” yourself than making the promoters of these practices rich while you work your hands into repetitive strain injuries. This is not to say you should never perform massage for less than your standard price; it may be imperative to provide a reduced rate, or a different method of payment to specific individuals in need to meet your vision for yourself as a spiritual or evolved therapist, and certainly providing gift certificates for charitable organizations fund raisers, or on-site massage at public charitable events may fill a place in your personal vision statement and your business plan as well.

What we are engaging in as massage therapists is a heart-centered, highly skilled, caring and  beneficial  integrative healthcare practice and we make a huge difference in peoples' lives, which is why the public perception of massage therapy has risen so much over the past twenty years. It is also why people are willing to pay for our services out of their pockets when they could potentially seek services with insurance coverage. Let us all be thankful we can undertake such valuable and self-actualizing work and maintain an image of that work supporting us and our families abundantly, so we will maintain the energy, enthusiasm and heart to continue to give in a variety of conscious ways.

Namaste