Category: Life

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Reactionary Redneck Takes Over

I allowed my Reactionary Redneck to take over yesterday when I called out a massage therapist publicly for behaving badly on my blog. If you’re a regular reader, you may know of whom I speak. I’ve always been against censorship, but I’ve now stooped to that level; I’ve deleted the comments, which I had unfortunately allowed to go on for too long, and warned the person that future comments would be deleted. I also stooped to his level by talking about him on FB. I’ve deleted the thread, but it got a lot of comments (all supportive) before I took it down.

My Reactionary Redneck pops out occasionally…well, okay, regularly. I just don’t always put it in print. Sometimes I yell at the actual person I’m mad at. Or I at least call them up or send them an e-mail to voice my opinion. Sometimes I just sit here with smoke boiling out of my ears and don’t unload to anyone except my husband and the dog. Massage is one of those subjects I’m passionate about–and as my livelihood depends on it, the one most likely to spur a Redneck Reaction.

When I am writing about the politics of massage, I am frequently in the throes of a Redneck Reaction, but I try to channel that into constructive journalism. It’s sometimes a struggle to just report the news and offer an intelligent, balanced opinion on it when what I’d really prefer to say is “WHAT ARE THEY THINKING? HOW CAN THEY THINK THIS IS EXCUSABLE? WHAT ARE THEY TRYING TO PULL? THEY MUST BE STOPPED! WHAT A BUNCH OF MORONS!”  My evil twin is cussing like a sailor, while my professional self is trying to write a professional, well-thought out, balanced piece of commentary. That’s what I strive for, anyway. Occasionally I fall short of the mark.

I don’t delete comments just because people disagree with me. I’ve been disagreed with by some of the most brilliant minds in this business. Most of the time we agree to disagree, and do it in a civil fashion. Sometimes, one of us comes around to the other person’s point of view. Occasionally, my Reactionary Redneck takes over. Yesterday was one of those times. A colleague called me out and pointed out that I was stooping to this person’s level, and I was. I hate it when that happens. None of us like to hear that. We tend to want to make excuses, and defend ourselves. It’s human nature.

I’m putting my Reactionary Redneck back in the closet, and she’ll come out another day. I can guarantee it.

 

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Substance and Sustenance

Substance: what something is made of.  Sustenance: support, maintenance, nourishment.

On a personal level, I have a tendency to think that whatever your character traits, your qualities–your personal substance–is all about, has a lot to do with what you do to sustain that. I don’t intend the word sustenance just in the context of what you’re having for dinner…rather, in the context of what is it you do that sustains not only your body, but your mind and your soul.

On a business level, I think the same is true…if you’re a basically positive person, and you do things that sustain that, it’s going to carry over into your massage practice, or whatever it is you do for a living. If you’re steeped in negativity, you’ll remain there, unless you take some action meant to change that, and that will carry over into your business as well. We all have our off days. When we go too long without taking care of ourselves, we have more of them!

I’m taking care of myself this week. That actually started today; my husband and I enjoyed a boat ride, swimming, and a picnic at the lake with some friends. Tomorrow we’re heading off to Ireland. I’m fortunate to have an annual class there, so it’s a few days of work and a few days of pleasure. Actually, the work is pleasurable to me, too. I look forward to it every year. It’s one of those things that sustains me. The day we get there, we’re heading straight to a spa for a day of rest and restoration.  After the class is over, we don’t have a plan. I like to travel that way, just go where the wind blows.

It’s good to get a change of scenery, and be around some new people. I enjoy hearing how others run their businesses and about their lives. One thing that I always ask when I’m teaching a class is how often the therapists get a massage themselves. I’m mortified at the people who admit to not having had one in months. And most often, those are the therapists who are struggling in their businesses. I offer the suggestion that you have to practice what you preach. Otherwise, you’re not nurturing yourself, and your substance will suffer.  You’re like an instrument that needs tuning. You can still play a song, but it’s off-key, if you’re not giving yourself over to that same feeling of well-being we give people when they come to us. Don’t let a tight budget keep you from getting massage. Someone will trade with you.

Make time for whatever it is that sustains you…whatever it is that you enjoy doing. Don’t use the excuse “I don’t have time.” If you knew that today was your last day on earth, would you spend it at work? Probably not! I’m an admitted workaholic, and I’ve found out the hard way that if I don’t do the things that sustain me, the universe will usually end up knocking me flat on my butt. Usually, if I get sick or run down, or some business woe is driving me crazy, it’s normally a kick in the pants that says “slow down, it’s time to stop worrying about everything else and take care of yourself.”

Substance and sustenance. They go together. I’m going to be busy sustaining myself, so I’ll see you when my vacation’s over.

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Daylight’s Burning

I hit the floor early every morning, so early that I’m usually on my second cup of coffee by 5 am. “Daylight’s burning,” my Granny used to say…meaning get up and get at it. It’s been my lifelong habit. I’m pretty worthless after 9 pm.

I’ve been feeling more than a little paranoid lately. As my schedule gets busier and there are more demands on my time, I find myself constantly looking at the appointment book on the desk at the office, the calendar on my computer, and the calendar I carry around, and hoping I’m not forgetting anything. Yes, I have been one of the last people on the planet without a smartphone, but I just ordered one a minute ago. It’ll be here in a couple of days. So I will be carrying around an electronic calendar, but I’ll still be checking it against the appointment book at the office, where I also record my activities for the benefit of my staff, who might wonder where I’m gone and when I’ll be back. I also record Chamber meetings, local events I’m attending and so forth in the appointment book, because staff members are sometimes involved or might want to be. I will also have to keep the Google calendar, because it is shared with the other members of the North Carolina Board or Massage & Bodywork Therapy, so that we can all keep up with committee meetings and the tasks that we have all been assigned to do and we are supposed to check in on it when we’ve completed our assignments. It’s a balancing act and I keep worrying about missing something.

I get to my office at 7:30. I handle the housekeeping chores, like cleaning the bathrooms, catching up any laundry left over from the night before, vacuuming and making sure all the trash cans are empty. People sometimes act shocked to hear that I still scrub the toilet at my office…well, if I didn’t do it, I’d be paying someone to do it, and I have the cleaning there down to a fine science of about 15 minutes a day. I’d have a hard time finding someone who only wants to work 15 minutes a day. When I’m there, I’m also the receptionist. I file all the insurance. I answer the phone. I schedule appointments and check clients in and out. When I’m on the road teaching, I pay someone to do the job…and frankly, nobody does it better than I do. It’s my business. It’s hard to find someone who will care about your place as much as you do and take care of it in exactly the same way. When I get back from a trip, I have to keep myself in check not to be too critical about how things were taken care of while I was gone. I know the clients got good service, I don’t have to worry about that part of it, but as for the mundane tasks of running the business, I will be pouncing on everything with my eagle eye, noticing that the blinds are dusty, or that the office helper entered a cash transaction as a credit card on the daily log or that the insurance was filed incorrectly and got kicked back.

In between all this, I try to keep abreast of the legislative and regulation activities going on that relate to massage, write my blog and work on the articles I am writing for the various magazines. For the past six years, I’ve also almost continually had a book in progress that needs my attention, too. I check in on my FB and YouTube channel and make posts or upload new videos. In accordance with my own advice, I spend at least 30 minutes a day on marketing activities for my business…working up new ads, sending out the email newsletter, updating my website, calling clients, sending out birthday cards, or whatever it is I’m focused on that day.

Out of the estimated 50-60 times a day or more that the phone rings at the office, at least a half-dozen of them will be someone who wants me to answer questions about the massage board, continuing education requirements, or what they should do about some ethical dilemma they’ve found themselves in. Or I’m asked to do some project for someone, that in the end turns out to be a total waste of my time because they didn’t like the way I handled it. My e-mail is the same way, as are the messages in my FB inbox. I listened to Michael Reynold’s great e-mail ninja presentation this week, and implemented the “requires action” folder, and it is already stuffed full.

I’m participating in a lot of webinars and live events, which I’m grateful to be doing, but along with those also comes the accompanying responsibility of publicity. In addition to just getting ready to teach my own classes, there are radio interviews and video commercials to make, and of course the organizers would like those posted every day. I have to look back on my FB page and Twitter to make sure I’m giving everyone equal time. I also have this paranoia about not appearing to be fair and impartial, and I don’t want to give one event more coverage than another. I also try to help my friends in the massage profession advertise their events, and I worry about that…did I post Gloria and forget to post Felicia, or was it the other way around? I’m always checking back to see, and I’m afraid when other things take precedence, I feel bad when it doesn’t happen at all, especially if they’re helping me, which they usually do.

Like everyone else, I also have a household to maintain, laundry to do, meals to cook, a spouse to spend time with, bills to pay…I am childless, and those people who are parents have my admiration for doing all I do and more.

In the past ten days, my husband’s best friend died at the age of 61, another friend survived crashing his private plane although he did sustain some serious injuries, one of my brothers flipped his truck on black ice and thank God didn’t get hurt but it was still scary, and yesterday the wife of one of the musicians I play with on Sunday nights passed away, also at the age of 61.

None of us have the guarantee of drawing the next breath. So what if I don’t get everything done that’s on my to-do list everyday…I can’t take it to the grave and in the general scheme of things, the world isn’t going to come to an end if I don’t post a blog or make a new video. At the end of the day, all I really want is to think I did the best I could. Daylight’s burning, and I’m pedaling as fast as I can.

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Perspective

I always seem to get in the mode of reflection during the holidays…taking stock of my life, business, my accomplishments, my shortcomings, my failures, my plans that fell through, and those that exceeded my expectations. This past year has been one of ups and downs for me. On the upside, it’s been a good year for my business in spite of the recession. On the down side, my husband’s construction business has taken a huge hit for the past couple of years, and it’s affecting our finances and my attitude. I need a swift kick in the pants, because in the final analysis, it’s damn inconvenient, but it isn’t going to break us.

I spend a lot of time on social networking, mainly Facebook, and besides being good for building business relationships and keeping up with friends, it has provided a reality check for me on an almost daily basis.

I have a fair amount of followers on Twitter and a lot of FB friends, many of whom I’ve never met in person. Most are massage therapists who read my blog or have read my books, attended a class or listened to a webinar. I get little glimpses into their lives on Facebook. I see a lot of massage therapists struggling with their businesses and some who are jobless altogether. I see tragedies every day; somebody loses a loved one, or someone’s beloved pet dies. I see the posts of several who are battling cancer, and a couple with children that have cancer, and the positive attitude they keep amazes me. I read about the comings and goings to Afghanistan and Iraq, and sometimes about the deaths, of soldiers whose family members are my FB friends. I’ve seen people announcing their weddings and engagements, and I’ve seen a few divorces play out as well.  Facebook isn’t all about Farmville. It is a journal of the human collective.

I’ve also been obsessed recently with looking in our local paper to see how many job openings are listed vs. how many foreclosure notices are listed. Today it was one job opening, 6 foreclosures. It’s depressing, but it’s also a wake-up call for me. I’m not in any danger of losing my house. We can survive on my salary–I had to put the kibosh on collecting guitars and we might have to skip a vacation, but we’ll be fine.

In perspective, I don’t have any problems at all.

Peace on Earth, and may you all be blessed.

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Detoxing

A lot of massage therapists are into cleansing and detoxing. Some of the more scientific minds I associate with think that’s hocus pocus, so before they get their panties in a wad and don’t read any further, this is not about cleaning out your bowels. It’s about cleaning the toxic people out of your life.

We all come across toxic people. Most of us have at least one or two in our own family tree. Some of us have toxic friends. Maybe they weren’t always toxic, but something happened to them along the way, and they became like a nuclear cloud hanging in the sky over the reactor. I’ve always thought it’s funny that one of the nuclear power plants here in the Carolinas is located on Lake Toxaway. Sounds like an oxymoron! I used to date a fellow who lived down there, and the route to his house was confusing…back in the days before GPS…I learned to just follow the mushroom cloud and I could get there.

Toxic people are negative people. They always see the glass as half-empty. They take everything personally. If it’s not about them, it doesn’t exist. Tell them your plans and dreams, and they’ll shoot them down.  Tell them some accomplishment you’ve achieved, and they’ll tell you what you should have done instead. If you praise something they did, they’ll tell you that nobody appreciates it while you’re standing there telling them that you do. If you praise something someone else did, they’ll turn it into a personal attack that you’re complimenting someone else instead of them.

In all fairness, sometimes toxic people are genuinely disturbed. One of the most toxic relationships I ever had was with a woman who was my closest friend for many years.  During the time we were friends, she had a few failed love affairs (and so did I, including a devastating divorce). Then she developed some health problems…nothing life-threatening, but she did have to make adaptations. She never had another positive thought or said a positive word. Over the years I watched as she became more angry and bitter at the world. I spent years trying to comfort her, say and do anything I could to make her feel better. After I left my life as a chef and became a massage therapist, she was very critical of my new career…she couldn’t believe I wanted to touch people for a living, because she had gotten to the point where she didn’t want anyone to touch her. She eventually became a hermit and refused to leave her house except for dire necessities, like buying food and going to her doctor’s appointments.

Our relationship ended one Christmas. For 17 years, she and I had gotten together on Christmas Eve to share a bottle of wine and exchange gifts.  A few days before Christmas, I received a letter in the mail from her–she only lived about ten miles away from me–and it said she didn’t want to see me on Christmas Eve, that she didn’t ever intend to celebrate Christmas again, and it was a long diatribe of her trauma and drama. By this time, she was on a lot of medication, and I knew that it was not my old friend talking but the person she had turned into.

I had already purchased her Christmas present. It was a 6-foot tall concrete angel statue for her yard. She had commented once on wanting one, so I bought it. Since she was in the state she was in,  instead of delivering it personally like I had planned to do (with the help of a pickup truck and a couple of strong friends), I paid the statuary dealer $120 to take it up to her house.  I wrote her a letter that I would always love her and that I would always have fond memories of the many Christmases we had spent together, and taped it to the statue. The day after Christmas, I went out shopping, and when I got home, it was standing in my front yard with the letter still attached to it, unopened. She couldn’t accept friendship, love, or compassion anymore, and I knew I couldn’t do anything about it. I decided to let it go. I had to.  For about 15 years until she passed away, I continued to send her a birthday card every year and a Christmas card with reminisces about some of our wonderful years together. She never responded.

Sometimes the toxic people in our lives are people it’s hard to avoid, like a co-worker or even a parent or sibling. If you can’t stay away from them, surround yourself with a bubble of white light and don’t let their negativity get to you. It isn’t about you. It doesn’t have anything to do with you. It is about them and their own perception of their misery. They can’t smell the roses that are right under their noses–that they have a roof over their head, enough food to eat, friends and family who would love them if only they would accept that and stop looking at the world through the black fog. If it’s your spouse that’s toxic, you’re going to have to make the choice to stay and let that kill you a little bit at a time, or if you’re going to get out.

When a person is genuinely suffering from clinical depression or other mental or emotional disorder, I certainly feel sympathy and compassion for them, and I make allowances for that the way I made them for my friend for many years. But when it’s just a plain old case of “I’m going to rain on your parade,” guess what? They aren’t going to rain on my parade, because I refuse to let them. I cleanse them from my mind, even if I have to be in their physical presence. I detox them right out of my psyche and don’t allow their trauma and drama to affect me. I can still love them, but I don’t have to like them.

Toxic relationships keep us from reaching our own potential and interfere with our own emotional and spiritual growth. If there are people in your life who are toxic, let them go. Detox yourself and bless them on their way.  Sometimes its better to love people from a distance.

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Thanks to Champ

I usually don’t blog about my husband, but this is my personal blog and I can do what I please so I want to take this opportunity to give my husband a little pat on the back.

Champ is turning 58 this week, and in a couple of months we’ll be married for 18 years. During that time, we’ve made it through a catastrophic illness, unemployment, and being broke…the same kinds of problems most other people have been through. We’ve had our ups and downs, and we’ve survived and thrived. I’ve only thought about killing him a couple of times.

In the past 18 years, we’ve had our arguments like any married couple, but I have to hand it to him–never once in all that time has he stepped on any of my dreams. If I say I want to do something, his first question is “What do you need me to do?” I travel a lot teaching. If I said I was going to the moon tomorrow to teach a class, he’d say “Do you want me to put your suitcase in the car?” If I say I’m going to play music with my friends, he grabs my guitar and either comes along or stays at home, whichever suits me, and doesn’t complain about it, either way.

I appreciate this all the more because Champ is my second husband…my first one (who doesn’t read my blog, I feel pretty sure, but I wish he’d see this one) was an abusive jerk who never supported anything I did. Bless his heart.

I had to kiss a few frogs to get a prince. He’s not perfect, but neither am I.  In fact, we’re pretty sure we stay together because no one else would put up with either one of us.

Happy Birthday and thanks, Champ.

xoxo

The Evil One (and yes, that is his nickname for me).

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