As I stated in my last piece, I still contend with health issues that have brought about a major reassessment of priorities, values and personal energy. For some time I have been in a living situation that allowed me to work from home as a licensed Massage Therapist at the Conscious Living Center in Cincinnati, OH, where I received my Enneagram training and certification.
As of this article I am still moving but somehow it feels right, as I consolidate my practice and begin to put more energy and attention towards coaching for not only a more balanced practice, but a more balanced life.
I’ve always believed that when we relocate or move, we move more than just stuff. In a sense we are moving our altar space, a space to which we return to repeatedly to focus on a particular thing even if its something as spontaneous as play. By rubbing the lamp so to speak, we are creating a residue of practice or grooved habit that seasons the space with the history of our activity. No wonder we experience emotional memory, exhaustion, excitement and frustration as we shift our reference points and orientation to a new space.
After my cancer diagnosis, I’ve had to take a closer look at how I am using my personal energy and time, and the medical situation has turned out to be a most urgent aspect of a longstanding feeling that I’ve been spread a little too thin in my work and perhaps a little too specialized,having worked in two locations in the same skill set.
A recent series of coaching sessions with a particular client has inspired me to return to an aspect of my practice, more specifically in coaching, that I’ve allowed to languish, and the retrieval and refocusing of my personal energy to do it was previously unavailable and unworkable in my previous work/living situation. I now have my massage and coaching practice in one location at the Conscious Living Center, and the change feels good. A feeling of focused Integrity and clarity which is the very stuff of confidence is now the predominant feeling. It was radiantly clear from the first session.
When one is in line with what one does, says, and thinks the inevitable result is that we become a conduit for the will and desire. Our sense of being becomes more frictionless and we are said to have integrity, a steely resilience in the affirmation that what we are doing is right, not merely in the usual moral sense, but in the sense of fit and action resident in what we are trying to do.
My genuine desire to help others as an extension of my own self work can now begin to search for balance in another outlet through coaching and seems a natural compliment to what I’d been doing with bodywork. Basically what we do as healers in bodywork is facilitate the dissolution of past patterns that no longer serve us , so acting as an advocate for others in coaching their life process is just another level or facet of this work in every sense of the word.
Of course, the Enneagram continues to be the centerpiece approach that generates the self observation so necessary to navigating my way with an expansive sense of listening. I can always return to a basic sense of radical self honesty without judgement when my old friend self doubt arrives on the scene to put the brakes on my growth and power and “show up” as a more integrated source of help and counsel.
I can fall in line my natural proclivities, feel more at home in my own skin, and thus my work, and feel ok with the integrity that says I’m doing what’s needed for both clients and myself. I may move on to other things, but the affirmative feeling is unmistakable, recurrent and perennial, providing a reliable home to return to even in new circumstances.
What do you need to move in your own life that would allow you to breathe a little easier and infuse your life with a sense of surety about what you are doing with your time? This question comes around again and again for us, but when we hit paydirt we don’t need external confirmation to move into it. Thank you.