If you are feeling any kind of restriction, resistance, limitation or lack of enthusiasm and energy around your career as a massage therapist or bodyworker, the solution to such emotional blocks may be as simple as enrolling in a continuing education class.
If you have ever taken a continuing education class or even stumbled upon a class listing for continuing education, you likely have some idea of the vast array of offerings for massage therapists and bodyworkers when it comes to continuing education.
All these options mean you should be able to find a continuing education class to help you dissipate whatever type of negative emotions or occurrences you might find yourself experiencing in your work as a massage therapist or bodyworker. It is important to acknowledge these emotions when they come up—and do something about them—because your energy in the session room can play a big role in whether clients keep coming back.
You may not be able to clearly identify the restriction or limitation you are feeling; instead, it may simply feel like a slump. If this is the case, there is an exercise you can try to help you figure out the solution to this slump, even if you are not even sure what caused it in the first place.
In order to do this exercise, you will need about an hour of time and a computer with an Internet connection. Sit down at your computer and type “continuing education for massage therapists and bodyworkers” into the search field on a major search engine, such as Google. You may also want to try other keywords that may come to mind, such as the name of the state or region in which you live and work, or any massage therapy or bodywork terms that pop into your head. Try to stay open and tune in to what comes up for you.
By doing a general search for continuing education for massage therapists and bodyworkers, you should come across several sites that represent providers of this continuing education. On these sites, you should see listings of those continuing education classes that are coming up in the near future. The exercise here is simple: Look at the class listings and pay attention to which ones appeal to you.
For example, you may come across a continuing education class that provides a refresher on body mechanics for massage therapists and bodyworkers. If you are aching and tired from your daily hands-on work, this physical fatigue may be what is holding you back from truly enjoying what you do for a living. In this case, a continuing education class on body mechanics could be just what you need.
Other continuing education classes that might catch your eye could be those that focus on accounting in your practice, or marketing to draw more clients, or technique specifically for pregnant women, or a modality that focuses on clients with a certain kind of injury or medical condition.
These are but a few examples of the long list of continuing education classes currently available for massage therapists and bodyworkers. As you comb through the course offerings, there is a good chance one or two of the classes will catch your eye—and for a reason. Follow your instincts, and you may be able to get out of a temporary rut with the right continuing education.
–Brandi Schlossberg