Going Through a Transition
Photo credit: Tod Cravens
I’m at a transition point in my life and work. I’ve been an osteopath for over 16 years, following a 5 year training. Much of the last decade has been immersed in further study and training, honing my niche. For the last few years, I’ve wondered what that sweet spot might be of doing work that is meaningful and makes a difference, that supports many people, and that enables me to be paid well for my skills and experience and protects my own energy and health. It might sound like I’m trying to have my cake and eat it, but I’ve never understand why you wouldn’t want to eat the cake!
When I first qualified, I had a lot of student debt. I worked hard, mainly in 2 clinics a day and quickly gained hands-on experience which I’m so grateful for. Within a couple of years, my debt was paid off and I could afford to work at a more sustainable pace. I didn’t see the model of work/life balance around me. Some osteopaths hired ‘associates’ to take on their extra clients, but I knew early on that this wasn’t for me. I’m collaborative but not interested in management. Others built large clinics but this meant that they weren’t able to be as hands on. I think of hands-on work as a craft to be honed, and I’d never want to be in such a complex set up that I couldn’t keep developing.
I can remember at least two personal experiences of burn-out. There was one time when I had an eye infection that was so raw and reactive. Even though I had a fever, I continued to see clients and even went in for a meeting on my day off, wearing a patch on my eye. Ignoring the cue from my body to rest entirely. Another time was more gradual, but I’m convinced it led to me eventually being diagnosed with an underactive thyroid, even though it took over 2 years of persistence to get a formal diagnosis. At that time I worked late into the evenings and had a 30 minute list, which meant that I could see 10 highly stressed clients in a busy clinic in Soho back-to-back.
It might seem counter-intuitive, but I’m learning the lesson over and over that when you prioritise your needs, you are able to tend to the people in your life with presence and attention, without getting depleted. Furthermore, when you work to your own rhythm, you have more capacity. It helps that I’ve had teachers like Fritz Smith, creator of Zero Balancing, who is now in his 90s and still teaches. I feel like I’m a late bloomer, and that I’m coming into myself in later years. I also feel that I don’t have time to waste on things that aren’t quite me.
In the last few years I’ve been looking at shifting from the 1:1 way of working to a 1 to many approach. This is a challenge as most of my way of working until now has been 1:1 and there’s a different sense of connection in this space than in group dynamics. I’m also naturally shy, as well as introverted, so I’m not at my best amongst a large crowd of people. I started off running some group workshops and felt that it was a natural transition to hold space for people in a room as I was used to doing this as a 1:1 practitioner. And even though I’m shy, I can forget the shyness once I get going as I really do love teaching and sharing. Launching my podcast last summer was a bigger part of that. I find conversations deeply stimulating, and it’s been a natural thing to expand them and publish them. It’s been rewarding to see how far those episodes can travel. I long to experience that when I have written books that can go on their own voyages.
I’ve known it intuitively, but as Emma Gannon described it in The Multi-Hyphen Method, you don’t have to just do one thing. I like having a boutique clinic of clients I work with hands-on, but I also love running my Moving Through Loss workshops and feeling the energy of a room of people. And although there’s still plenty to learn about automation and sales funnels and online marketing, I’ve enjoyed creating courses so I can put what I know into a more structured format to help others.
Lockdown was a transition-point for me. Not being able to do my job for so many weeks brought me so much insight. My identity is so intertwined with what I do for work. And yet who am I if I can’t be hands-on? It’s possible to love what you do and yet put boundaries around it so that it stays sustainable. Boundaries are absolutely essential. I’ve seen it being modelled badly, for example by experienced osteopaths who are always squeezing in clients in their lunch breaks, but who never re-educate clients to prioritise health so they don’t keep coming back with an ‘SOS’.
I was a guest on a podcast earlier this week and we riffed about creativity. I said that creativity comes in in the decision to create a life on your own terms - you don’t have to be employed, you can choose your working hours. I want to have a life that’s spacious enough to be here now, not rush through my days without paying attention. I’ve created a life where (in regular times) I can go to a museum with my parents, or spend a day in half-term with the little ones in my family. And since lockdown, I’ve committed to daily exercise, meditation and cooking nourishing meals to ensure that I’m keeping my mind, body and soul in check in these uncertain times.
So over to you. Are you in a transition, where you need to shed something in order to make space for something new? Do you have anything that keeping you stuck? Is there something you desire but are ignoring the call for? I’d love to hear about it.