My New Business - Why?

So, why am I writing all this about my new business?

Because I want to share not only a success story but also my fear of trying something new, how I may fall and how I follow my gut still.

Success stories are all cool and impressive.

But I'm most inspired by how they face their imaginary fears by changing their perspectives in life and manifest the world they want to live piece by peace (with themselves).

I'm more interested in knowing what thought processes they took to get there
than the actual results.

What I mean by that is to be interested in seeing how they choose to see their worlds as oppose to the business 'know-hows'.

Invisible (inside their heads) as oppose to visible (external result).


That's why I'm writing about my path in real time.

So, you might see me feeling insecure some day and you might even see me fall big time.

But you also see me keep having faith in myself, in my gut.

......................


"You are going to help many people in your life time."


The person who told me so was a Dutch naturopath Jan de Vries.

He was a well-known naturopath and the man behind the company Bioforce (A.Vogel) as the only student the eccentric genius, Swiss herbalist Alfred Vogel ever had.

He was also known to use his intuitive mind as well as his professional knowledges and skills to help people to wellness.

It was more than a decade ago that we met.

At the time, I wasn't practicing any therapies, hadn't even learned massage or craniosacral therapy, haven't been singing or making mandalas.

I just began working at a health shop.

I was delighted to hear what he said but wondered how.

Because I didn't even know the difference between Mono Sodium Glutamate (MSG) and L-Glutamine back then and making my colleagues laugh with my ignorance. 😂

I hadn't eaten quinoa.
I was stiff and shy to speak to customers on the shop floor.
I broke a brand new Vitamix (costing around 500 euro) by switching on the blender with a tea spoon in it. 😱


Oh, the patience of my bosses, colleagues, Jan and other teachers!

Amongst the many gifts they gave me, the most valuable one was their trust.

Trust.

When you trust people, what will happen?

They feel relaxed because they are not watched over.
When people are relaxed, they are not afraid of making mistakes.
When people are not afraid of making mistakes, they grow.

They grow faster.
They learn better.
They become who they are meant to be.


When you keep an eye on people (because you are worried), the right opposite happens.

People tense up.
When people are tense, they become timid because they are afraid of making mistakes.
When they are afraid of making mistakes, they grow less.

They try less.
They learn slower.
They won't tap into their massive potentials.


Now you know what I'm going to ask you next.

Are you trusting yourself?
Or are you watching over yourself?

When you trust your gut,
your gut will answer you with inspirations, your potentials and will take your hand and show you around what an amazing planet you were born; where you can try anythig you want to.


When you watch over yourself,
your gut will be silenced by your 'sensible' mind saying "Listen to the others. They know better than you do", "You are not good enough for this", "Be more realistic", "You shouldn't feel that way", "It's embarrassing if it fails."...

How would you feel if someone else told you that?

Sad?
Frustrating?
Annoying?
"How dare she said that!" ?

But you think it's ok you say that to yourself?

If you are watching over yourself,
Maybe you won't make mistakes but you won't grow much either.

Maybe no one will give you hairy eyeballs but your eyes will be the ones of a dead fish.

What is the purpose in life?
I don't know.
But one thing I know is 'being sensible' isn't included in mine.

....................


On the shop floor, the service I can offer is 'to give information based advices in a short amount of time.'

But I have nothing to give you.

My gut tells me I have nothing to say to you because your gut knows the best.


Despite Jan's words, I don't think I can help anyone.


But I'm doing this because it speaks joy in me.

It makes me grin when I imagine the world where people communicate better with their guts and begin doing what they want to do.

When you are doing what you truly want to do,
it doesn't matter what other people think of you.
It doesn't matter what other people do.
Just like when you were little, you were so absorbed into digging at a sandpitch that you used to forget about time, others and yourself.

Yes.
You forget who you are.
Your ego disappears.
You become One with the world.

What a joyous place to be.


If you are interested in, book in with me.

My New Business - What Exactly

I've been writing about me and my work here. ('Work', 'My New Business')


So, what exactly am I going to offer as a therapist?

I'm going to offer you everything I know and have done in my life.
Everything for you to be better connected with your gut - the part of your body that knows the best about you.

My main qualifications are teacher, holistic massage therapist and diet and nutrition adviser.

But I've done all sorts of practices and arts...craniosacral therapy, kiko (気功), phytotherapy, singing, body works, flower mandala making, painting, craft making and 13 years of advising people on their health at shop floors.

One thing I am is I am a chest with many drawers.
I have many rabbits in my hat.

As I wrote in my previous blog post 'Work', I have many ways to express myself.

.........................................


Say you have a stiff neck and decide to go for a massage.

Usually, there would be a menu with types of massage; full body massage, back massage, neck massage, head massage, deep tissue massage, lymphatic massage and etc.
The therapist might have reflexology, shiatsu, acupuncture, etc. on the menu, too.
But you have to decide which one you are going for when you are booking.

And the sessions are priced according to how many minutes you receive the service; 30min, 45min, 60min, 90min, etc.
You have to decide how many minutes you are going to receive a therapy on your booking.

That works fine.
That is the only way I've seen so far, how therapy businesses operate.


But I thought...


Wouldn't it be great if I, as a therapist, can offer a solid amount of time to listen to a client without worrying about running out of time?
Say minimum 2 hours for a session.

Wouldn't it be great if I can spend time to find out what the client's body is looking for and offer a tailored therapy that matches the individual needs on that day?
You might come for a massage as a solution for your stiff neck but something else may work better for it. Or the problem lies somewhere else, totally unexpected area in life.

Wouldn't it be great if I can offer different art forms to find out the client's untapped ways to express themselves so that they can continue to do it at home?
It could be singing (making sounds), flower mandala making, crafts, meditation...

Giving yourself a chance to express is an act of listening to yourself.

How would I feel if I'm given a safe space to express myself without the fear of judgements from others?
I might still judge myself for what I did.
But if I can stay peaceful even if I find myself judging me, wouldn't it be so...liberating?


......................................................................


As you can see this is my selfish (but not egoistic) desire that sparks joy in me.

My selfish desire is that people start listening to themselves (not the media, doctors or their mothers.)
Then, they will stop giving away their responsibilities to look after themselves and stop blaming others (= media, doctors and mothers.)
Then, people start doing what they want to do rather than what they are told by others (= media, doctors and mothers.)

Then, everybody is selfish! (Not only me!)

Selfish people won't listen to others but listen to themselves.
Selfish people won't blame others because they do what they believe essential to them.
Selfish people make other people feel easy to be around because they won't blame others.
Selfish people don't say 'I'm telling you this for your own sake' as they are too busy minding their own business. 
Selfish people are kind to the environment as they take full responsibilities to what they do.


Heeeeehehehehehe....😈😈


In my opinion, we always choose easier options.

It's easier to complain and stay miserable about our health, our society, our doctors and our mothers than taking responsibility of ourselves.
Taking responsibility means we admit that we are capable.
We are capable to shine much brightly. 
We are capable to have much more fun.

It takes courage to face our abilities because we fear the potential failure, what would others (media, doctors and mothers) think of us when we fail.

It's not easy.
But beyond the fearful first step, there will be unknown, untapped joy for us.
Our gut knows it is easier to be in a joyous place than a miserable place.


Our ailments are there to show you your hidden potentials.
Your stiff neck, temperamental digestive system and bad back are smoke signals from your body.

The real fire is elsewhere.


I want to offer a space for you to see the fire.

Not a self critical way, but for you to look at with compassionate, warm eyes as if you are looking at the camp fire.

The fire that had been there to protect you and defend you all your life but you might not need it any more.




***To be continued to the next.

My New Business

So, on the last post, I said I was starting a new business.


I'm going back to be a therapist again.


Why?


Because I have nothing to say to you anymore.


????


I'm going back to offering a therapy because I have no advice to give you.


................................................


I've been working in an alternative health field for 13 years and the majority of the time has spent at shop floors giving advices to people on their health.

Recommending health supplements
Recommending diets
Recommending therapies
Recommending life style changes...

Your first choice of health consultants may be Mr. Google but your local health shop is a great place where you could meet people who are there to listen to you and giving advices from their experiences and professional/semi-professional knowledges.

To me, it doesn't really matter whether customers buy anything on that day. But I made sure they had something new to try (i.e. new methods or a little life style changes) at home or somewhere to go (i.e. pharmacy, doctor or therapist, etc) when they stepped out of the door.


I wanted to give something the customers didn't know that would work for them.


Something they don't know about themselves...


Then, a question arose in me.

Is it true that I know about another human better than they know themselves???


My answer is NO.

No one knows ourselves better than we do.
No doctors, not even your mother knows you better than you do.

How your teeth meet as you chew,
the impact you feel when your feet touch the ground,
the sensation you get on your skin....no other human knows how you are better than you do.

Then why do we get confused and wonder like 'Is chicken a healthy food?'

Because the part of you who knows about you is not your brain.

It's your gut!

Yes.
When I try to think what is good for me, I get confused.
I see ketogenic diet, macrobiotic diet, raw vegan diet on media, and they all recommend different foods.
Am I pear shape or apple shape?
Would I be included as premenopausal or not?
Coffee is bad, right?
Brown rice is good, yeah?
I'm interested in what this expert says. I'll follow her lifestyle...

If this way works for you, that's great.

But if you are not comfortable with the way you feel and wondered why that is despite doing everything you think it's good for you,
you may be following a wrong guru.


Your guru is your gut.

We just forget how to be connected to our guru - our guts, from time to time.
That's all it is.

In my opinion , we dip in and out of the connection with our gut throughout the day.

Why do we crave chocolate when we are expecting period?
Would you say to yourself "Chocolate is bad for me. Full of sugar and caffeine..."?
It might just be the high magnesium content cacao naturally has that you are looking for.

Just like that, a desire, a hint, an idea without any reasons come up to us throughout the day, everyday.
Our brain often dismisses them but there may be something there that worth listening to.

Our body knows what the best for us.
But it is our gut that know, not necessarily our brain.


That's why I felt I have nothing to say to you anymore on the shop floor.

Because your gut knows the best.

What I can do is to stop giving you advice on your health.

But I start to yield.
I give a way to make a space for your gut to speak out.


.....How am I going to do that?
I'll write on my next post.

Work

What does 'work' mean to you?

A service you give in exchange of money?
Something you are good at (but not necessarily what you like doing)?
Something you have to do to support you and your family?
Something you like to do it even if you don't really have to?


Recently, I got a chance to think about what 'work' means to me.

Here's what I think.

...............................................................

To me, 'Work' is 'Expression'.

To express what I want to express in the way I want to express.


Regardless of jobs I chose.

Whether I work as a telephone operator,
Whether I work as a teacher,
Whether I work as a health shop assistant,

I express what I want to express in the way I want to express.

This is not only for artists who express their ideas in paintings or sculptures.
In my opinion, all works are for that.

Or even if the time I didn't work at all, I was expressing as a receiver and that was my job because if there was no receiver, there won't be a provider.

As a customer service operator in a telephone company, my work was to express the ease of getting through and the joy of communicating with your loved ones who lived on the other side of the globe.

As a teacher, my work was to express the ease of learning and the fun of trying new things.

As a health shop assistant, my work was to express the ease of making small changes in life and the fun of getting well.


Yes!
I seem to be gravitated towards expressing 'Ease' and 'Fun'.

Because I've always wanted living this life as easy and fun even if when I didn't realise.

I was brought up believing 'Life is tough', 'It's not all fun in life' and '禍福は糾える縄のごとし(Japanese proverb. 'Misfortune and fortune are entwined like a rope' meaning they come in turns.)'

But why not all easy?
Why not all fun?

When I got punctured other day, I could have been miserable and cried for my misfortune that I was with a small child without being able to find a jack in the boot.

Or I could be grateful of how lucky I was that the puncture happened at a busy car park where two gentlemen helped me to fix the puncture in no time, with my child making us laugh for the whole time with his knowledge of cars and having someone lending me a jack.



Easy and Fun.

That's what I want to express in this life time.

This is my work.

And when I express what I want to express in the way I want to express well, 
I feel enriched, feel full filled and get paid well.

Then, I want to be better at expressing.
More ideas and desires will come to me to make it easy and fun.


.....................................


This is why I'm starting a new business.
To express Fun and Ease!

I'll write about my plan on the next post.

How to Know Who You Are: Incompleteness and Instability

When I want to know about relationships I have with others, whether it's to do with romantic or business partnerships or friendship and kinship, I search inside myself. 

I don't face my partner, my family or my friends.
I look at the relationship I have with myself.
Because I've found my internal relationship is an exact reflection of my relationships with others.
It is to the point of cruelty that how I am with myself reflects how I am with others.


On the contrary, when I want to know about myself, I search outside.

I don't look inwardly in an attempt of trying to understand myself.
Instead, I look the others who are close to me; my partner, my family and my friends or even the environment I'm in.
Because I found they are the people or situations that are there to balance this exact point of time and place I'm in.

If everything is always in balance as how this world has been, the others are the right opposite of who I am to keep the fine balance.

The minus (-) and the plus (+) are attracted to each other to balance the energy.

If you put the hot food in the fridge, the cold air would cool it down until the temperature is evenly balanced in the fridge.

The water will run from high to low until the differences in hight is balanced.

So, when I want to know about myself, I look at people and the situations around me.

What kind of people tend to gather around me?
Are there anything in common between the people who are close to me?
How about the places I was born and have lived?

The right opposites of the answers to those questions are my qualities and who I am.

The universe is always trying to balance out in attempt to go back to one.
I'm not talking about the spirituality, it is just the way of the energy.


You have what I don't have.
I have what you don't have.

This place needs something of me.
I need something of this place.

In other words, it means that,
I'm forever incomplete.
I'm forever unstable.

What I don't have is there for the others to fill in.

And what the others around me don't have is my quality and that's the place for me to shine.

Adaptogenic

There are certain medicinal herbs categorized as 'Adaptogenics'.

Rhodiola Rosea and Eleutherococcus (Siberian Ginseng) are the first to come to my mind.

What they do is to help you to adapt in the situations you are in.
Often it is the case that you can't really change a stressful environment you are in.
But you can do something about the way you are in it.

Rather than fighting with the situation or trying changing it, the herbs help you to adapt to the situation you are in.

So, Rhodiola is often know to work for stress, but also helps with the altitude sickness, for instance, when you go to the environment you are not used to.

........................................................


Shits happen in life.

And maybe,

No matter how it looks from the outside, I guess all of us get almost equal amount of shitty events in life.

If we look down from the sky, it could even be precisely the same amount of shits dropped on us in our life time! That's my guess, anyway.

Then, why there are some who seem to glide smoothly and others who stumble?

I suspect 'adaptogenic' could be the key.

No that they have been dosing with those herbs, but rather they don't resist in the flow.

If you stop puddling against the flow, you would be brought to somewhere.
We've been told we have to make an effort to gain something we desire in life.

But what if.

What if what you want is at the downstream of the river?

If the river is carrying you to a certain direction, how about adapting with the flow rather than fighting with the flow?

So, when something undesirable happens in a day, we have a choice to label it as 'shit' or rest it by saying...

'Well, maybe he is having a bad day.'
'We are mare human. We all make mistakes sometimes.'

We don't have to grab every rocks on our way in the river and moan about them.

Anyway, if we are puddling against the flow, we would stay around the rocks longer trying to find a way to avoid hitting them.

But if we are floating, we just pass them quick. 
So quick that by the time you notice you bumped your head, you'd have passed it way long before.

..........................................


On the physical level, I would say the same.

We contract our muscles to push, stretch and lift.

But I think our muscles know where to go.
Rather than doing something (= puddling against the flow), I found non doing (= making a space for the muscle to do its own thing, relaxing, yielding) brings ease to our movements.

Adaptogenic.

I'm always in awe of the message from plants.

Illnesses - The End Result of Our Past

When we get ill, whether it's a cold or a cancer, it is the result of our life style in the past.

The result of our life/work balance up until now.
The result of our eating habits up until now.
The result of how we have been with ourselves up until now.


The result means the end.

Yes.

It is the end result.

So, it's all done.

It is what it is.


But we talk badly about ourselves.

We say terrible things to ourselves.

"I'm too fat. Look at my chin!"
"My knee is no use."
"I'm fed up with how I feel. I have to change! I need a detox!"

We say it hoping to change, make it better, improve.

But the illness we have now are the result of our choices based on our thoughts in the past.

You can't change the result because it's the end result.


................


But how about leaving the illness aside for now?

How about looking at our thoughts?

How about looking at the way we talk about our body?
How about looking at the way we talk to our body?



If our body is touched gently by ourselves, it would know it doesn't have to tense up.

If our body is listened to patiently by us, it would know it doesn't have to scream with pain to be heard.



(Then, we might get a good idea what to do with the result we have...)


................


I've worked in the alternative health field for so long.
I feel sad when I hear people talk negatively about their body saying it is no use and needs to be better.

Because I think our body just did the best they could do under the circumstances they were in.

When our loved ones - and our body is truely the love of our life- did the best they can, all we say is...

Well done. 
Good job.
Thank you.



Maybe 'change' in life style is not what we need.

Maybe we just need to be ok with who we are including our illnesses and start being compassionate to our body.