Making honey....
I've been working on my business for a while now. Getting it all set and ready to go. I've been trying to feel good about the work I *have* done for it and trying to continue to feel accomplished despite the fact that I have very few patients as of this time.
I had the chance this weekend to meet with one of my close friends and a friend of hers with whom I'm becoming friends. They've been working together on a business model they're planning on launching during the next year and we all met together to share ideas and to support one another in becoming business women as well as practitioners. As we were working together I was so encouraged by the work that they had done and pleased that through my school training with a practice management class I was able to offer helpful insights of my own. Also, as we were meeting, I went back through my own business plan, completed toward the end of my training a year ago, and noticed that I had some pretty wonderful ideas. In my mission and vision statements I expressed the desire that my business incorporate the following...
"Creating health in collaboration with our patients through the use of acupuncture, bodywork and counseling. To foster the process of health in our patients through collaboration, inspiration, and understanding."
"We, at Nectar Acupuncture and Integrated Therapeutics, inspire healing and transformation in our patients through various forms of acupuncture, bodywork, and other therapeutic methods. At our clinic, art and health coexist, nurturing and inspiring one another."
"We believe that getting in touch with our artistic and creative selves, the side of ourselves that is true and rooted, is one of the most important aspects to healing oneself. By providing a quiet, soothing, and artistic atmosphere along side of diverse treatments we are able to connect with our patients' personal healing potential and facilitate a sense of personal growth."
At the time I was creating this business plan it was within a few months of my mother dying. My creativity was, I believe, encapsulated in a cocoon of mourning. I was attempting to birth my practice out of a place of loss and grief. I know that some people can do that, can just keep on going strong after losing someone but I don't think I could. In someways I barreled through, I finished school and received my masters. But I felt like an empty husk and, while the thoughts and statements I wrote down were very much in line with who I am and want to be in life, my ability to infuse my ideas with the energy, integrity and passion to make them come to life was outside of me at the time. Looking back I see that what I *was* able to do was to plant a seed.
Across the last year plus or so, as I've been working on self and have truly begun to come back into my self, I've been nourishing the soil in which the seed has been lying dormant in the winter of sadness. I've begun to look at what I really want my practice to look like and have begun to think about living that that path. Starting to really dream again. To truly envision what I want my life to look like. It's time to believe that I will embody it and to take steps along that path. Time to redirect my intention consciously and gently with belief that I will do what is nurturing and right for my life and therefore the lives of those around me. Time to let the seed sprout and start to unfurl.
"Last night, as I was sleeping,
I dreamt -marvelous error!-
that I had a beehive
here inside my heart.
And the golden bees
were making white combs
and sweet honey
from my past mistakes."
Antonio Machado,
"Last Night As I Was Sleeping"
I had the chance this weekend to meet with one of my close friends and a friend of hers with whom I'm becoming friends. They've been working together on a business model they're planning on launching during the next year and we all met together to share ideas and to support one another in becoming business women as well as practitioners. As we were working together I was so encouraged by the work that they had done and pleased that through my school training with a practice management class I was able to offer helpful insights of my own. Also, as we were meeting, I went back through my own business plan, completed toward the end of my training a year ago, and noticed that I had some pretty wonderful ideas. In my mission and vision statements I expressed the desire that my business incorporate the following...
"Creating health in collaboration with our patients through the use of acupuncture, bodywork and counseling. To foster the process of health in our patients through collaboration, inspiration, and understanding."
"We, at Nectar Acupuncture and Integrated Therapeutics, inspire healing and transformation in our patients through various forms of acupuncture, bodywork, and other therapeutic methods. At our clinic, art and health coexist, nurturing and inspiring one another."
"We believe that getting in touch with our artistic and creative selves, the side of ourselves that is true and rooted, is one of the most important aspects to healing oneself. By providing a quiet, soothing, and artistic atmosphere along side of diverse treatments we are able to connect with our patients' personal healing potential and facilitate a sense of personal growth."
At the time I was creating this business plan it was within a few months of my mother dying. My creativity was, I believe, encapsulated in a cocoon of mourning. I was attempting to birth my practice out of a place of loss and grief. I know that some people can do that, can just keep on going strong after losing someone but I don't think I could. In someways I barreled through, I finished school and received my masters. But I felt like an empty husk and, while the thoughts and statements I wrote down were very much in line with who I am and want to be in life, my ability to infuse my ideas with the energy, integrity and passion to make them come to life was outside of me at the time. Looking back I see that what I *was* able to do was to plant a seed.
Across the last year plus or so, as I've been working on self and have truly begun to come back into my self, I've been nourishing the soil in which the seed has been lying dormant in the winter of sadness. I've begun to look at what I really want my practice to look like and have begun to think about living that that path. Starting to really dream again. To truly envision what I want my life to look like. It's time to believe that I will embody it and to take steps along that path. Time to redirect my intention consciously and gently with belief that I will do what is nurturing and right for my life and therefore the lives of those around me. Time to let the seed sprout and start to unfurl.
"Last night, as I was sleeping,
I dreamt -marvelous error!-
that I had a beehive
here inside my heart.
And the golden bees
were making white combs
and sweet honey
from my past mistakes."
Antonio Machado,
"Last Night As I Was Sleeping"