Self-care for Bodyworkers with Tami Hackbarth|

Business and Marketing for Massage and Bodywork Therapists

Episode 10.

TAMI HACKBARTH:   Self-care is everything you do on purpose to take care of your physical body, your mental body, your relationships with others, your mental health, your emotional health, your spiritual health, your physical environment, your money — it’s all aspects of your life, which if left untended, can suck all your energy from you.

MINDY TOTTEN: Welcome to Do It With Intention, the podcast for massage and bodywork therapists. I'm your host, Mindy Totten, a mentor and coach for bodyworkers who want to turn their passion for the work they do into successful businesses that they love -- all without burning out or selling. 

For the last 15 plus years, I've created a successful six-figure Craniosacral Therapy practice in a small city in coastal North Carolina. Over those years, I've met so many skilled, big-hearted therapists who are struggling to make their bodywork businesses work for them. Not because they weren't terrific therapists, but because they didn't know how to make the business side of their practices work. 

It became my mission to help other massage and bodywork therapists build practices that support not only their soul, but also their bottom line.

On the Do It With Intention podcast, we'll dive deep into what it takes to build and to sustain a profitable massage or bodywork business. We'll have honest conversations about what really works and what doesn't as you create the ideal practice for you. 

After all, you do great work in the world and you deserve to make a great living doing it. But you've got to be intentional about it not only in your modality but in your business too. That's how body workers Do It With Intention.

MINDY: Today we welcome Tami Hackbarth to the Do It With Intention podcast. Let’s jump right in! First, though, what is something that very few people know about you? And then I'll share something the same way.

TAMI: I am a California credentialed teacher, and I had a previous career before that, so I feel like I'm a professional career-changer.

But seriously, I'm a huge Old 97s fan. They're a Texas-based alt country band that’s been around for 25 years. They come to California once or twice a year.

MINDY: OK, here’s mine: I lived in Hawaii when I was three, four and five years old. And what very few people know is that I had really long blonde hair, and at the time that was really auspicious – it was really good luck.

So I would walk around and everywhere I would go from the time I was three, people would rub my head all the time, just come up to me like there's no problem and rub my head because it was good luck!

Tell us a little bit about the work that you do.

TAMI: What I do is primarily one-on-one work with clients. I work with women and help them remove obstacles to their self-care. Many of them know what they need but don’t have the time to follow through.

I work with all kinds of clients. I have worked with clients on starting a new income stream for their business, and people who do hands on things. I help them have the discipline to sit down and get their thoughts out into the world.

I have worked with folks having trouble with coworkers. They ask: “Can you help me run some scripts on how to communicate better with people?”

I have helped people build exercise into their daily routine. I've helped several people get promotions in their jobs. There’s always something in the way, and it’s usually us. I help them see what they can't see.

MINDY: Self-care is kind of a hackneyed phrase these days. What does it actually mean to you? How would you define or describe self-care?

TAMI: It's all the unsexy stuff that you do that actually takes care of you rather than comforts you.

So sometimes self-care is going to the gynecologist over Thanksgiving break on a rainy day when you would rather do anything but that. It's basically your present self taking care of your future self. It's going on a walk when you're in your 40s so you can still walk when you're in your 80s.

It’s setting time boundaries with clients. There’s always that person who shows up late and just thinking about her makes you bonkers. Setting and holding time boundaries is a form of self-care.

It’s also everything you do to take care of your physical body, your relationships with others, your mental health, your emotional health, your spiritual health, and your physical environment, All of this really affects your self-care and taking care of your money. All these things left untended can suck the energy right out of you.

MINDY: How did you go from being a teacher into this work?

When I was a teacher, I was determined to be the best teacher that ever walked the earth. I decided to work pretty much 24 hours a day.

And my husband, who's also a teacher, kept advising me that you can't sprint a marathon. I so wanted to prove him wrong, but he was right. By the end of the first semester of my first year of teaching, I couldn’t believe I had six months left.

I went to an acupuncturist and he said that I was going to drop dead in my classroom if I didn’t take care of my stress.

So, I decided to volunteer at a yoga studio, and also did some marketing for them. When they offered their first teacher training, I jumped on it. We got to dig into the more esoteric parts of yoga that we don't typically talk about.

And through that training I learned that I'd probably die if I didn't take care of my stress. I used to have this really physical, hot, active yoga practice and I eventually morphed into a restorative yoga teacher. Restorative yoga is basically that part at the end where many people leave because they thing it’s a waste of time. Others come just for that.

I learned in my teacher training what I needed to do was less, not more, to be more effective.

Clients asked me how they could have energy after lunch. Or how can they work all day at a computer and still have mobility in their body. How can I feel good when I wake up? How can I feel good during the day? How can I feel good at the end of the day? You're not going to find that kind of relief in a one-hour yoga class, even if you're doing it privately.

This is interesting too: All of my private yoga clients had pre-existing conditions that were pretty long-term degenerative pain. All of our bodies react differently to all of this anyway.

To make a long story short, I became a coach because that's what my clients were asking me for. I also found that people were way more interested in talking to me in the coaching situation versus them being on the mat and me teaching.

MINDY: You and I have spoken about this before, it's like an archetype of who we are as teachers. I've come to acknowledge it and to embrace it for my own journey. I know sometimes people want to say, “Mindy, I'm not in sixth grade. Quit teaching me.” And I say, “Sorry, I can’t help it!” So you became a self-care coach because you are 100% guilt-free self-care coach.

TAMI: I am indeed.

MINDY: You've made that shift from teaching a part of yoga to teaching a more holistic way of being and fulfilling potential.

I see that a lot with massage and bodywork therapists. We typically go from about eight or nine in the morning and I build a half an hour in between clients. A lot of people don't even do that. A lot of people just go back to back, five, six, seven clients in a day. And then at the end of the day, they are completely exhausted.

When most people talk about self-care, I think that they confuse it with pampering.

What's your self-care this week? Well, I went and I got a massage. For bodyworkers that's not even really pampering because it’s our work.

For example, it's hard for me to go for a CranioSacral Therapy session and completely turn my brain off because I'm intrigued by what the person is doing. My analytical side is working, so it’s neither a pampering, nor self-care for me because I'm not engaging.

A lot of subtle touch therapies like CranioSacral Therapy, like Reiki, and others don’t require large amounts of physical manipulation, but it's a lot of energy.

TAMI: Here’s a question for you — What energizes you?

MINDY: It varies for me. So tell me if this counts, Tammy. I don't know if it energizes me, but it makes me feel great… to be at the beach. It makes me feel present. It makes me feel connected to look at the ocean, at the waves. It doesn’t make me want to run a marathon, but it makes me feel solid in my body. Is that what you mean?

TAMI: Definitely. Going to the ocean is one of my spiritual self-care prospect practices. I look at spiritual self-care as something that you engage in that makes you feel part of something bigger than yourself. And every time I'm at the beach, I feel so insignificant. This has been here forever and this will be here forever after I'm gone. It's a wave of surrender for me. I don't have to be in charge because the ocean is here and there are forces bigger than myself.

MINDY: When you look out at the ocean there's so much expansiveness. Like when you see the stars at night.

TAMI: One of the things that makes talking about my work really tricky is I can't tell you what your self-care is.

There are some non-negotiables as humans that we need.

One of the non-negotiables is the very unsexy sleep. Sleep while you can, because at some point, as you get older, you may be sleeping less than you wish you could. You will long for the days where your head hits the pillow and you just sleep all night. Sleep can shorten your life if you don't actually do it and do it well.

Another non-negotiable is moving your body. A few years ago I interviewed 100 women about self-care. I was curious if it was a thing for other people, and I wanted to know how they defined it. If you're going to hang your entire career on something, you should probably get a little research in.

Many told me their self-care was fine. I’d ask, OK, and what could you some work? All of them sort of guardedly said that they should exercise more. Everyone hates it. Exercise makes people feel awful. I want everyone in the world to find a way to move their body. That doesn't make them feel bad.

I'm not saying don't work hard because some people really like to work up a sweat. Other people like to do distance things. Other people like to dance. I don't care what you do, but our bodies were made to move.

MINDY: You're talking about movement in a way that feels good for you. If you are in a career where you're doing these back-to-back sessions, don’t do it. Put at least 15 or 20 minutes in between. You were talking earlier about computer people who sit all day long. How can we move if we have to sit most of the day?

TAMI: Little yoga moves can help. Roll your wrists gently both ways. Wrist rolls, shoulder rolls. You can just do the breathing part. You could go on YouTube, grab a chair yoga video. Lay on the floor, bring your knees into your chest, rock across your back.

MINDY: We spend so much time with our shoulders rounded over the people we're working on. Then go from there to looking at your phone. I infamously don't have a smartphone, so I'm never looking at my phone, but I look at my computer a lot.

TAMI: Get a towel and roll it into a cylinder. Lay down and place underneath your shoulder blades. This might hurt for some but it’s opening up the back, which makes you breathe better. Or sit on the floor and cross your legs. That’s a good stretch. Do a little face massage.

MINDY: Are there any other non-negotiables? You talked about sleep and movement.

TAMI: Food. It's kind of complicated because everyone has their food baggage. More fruits and vegetables is my one food rule. And water too. Of course. All of those ridiculous things that your mom or grandma or doctor told you to do? They tell us those things for a reason.

I have a nine-year-old and a few times the last few months, I decided to eat like a teenager -- a bunch of processed crap. By mid afternoon I was laying on the couch with stomach pains and she says, “When are you going to learn? You can't eat like that anymore.”

I'm not saying take all your treats away because that would be a life not really too exciting or worth living. I'm not trying to be the food police, I'm just trying to have people be cognizant of what they put in their bodies. As we get older, it is so much less negotiable. And I find that shocking and insulting, but true.

MINDY: I know that all of the folks listening are older today than they were yesterday. I want to go back to when you asked me what energizes you. I think that is a really terrific question for everyone, but particularly for massage and bodywork therapists. I'd really love for all of you listening to really reflect on that.

This episode is airing during the holidays, when you're doing everything for everyone else and perhaps not taking the time that you need to reflect on a few things.

That’s something that I would love for you to take away from this episode: What energizes you?

As Tammy said, there's no right answer. There's no wrong answer. There's no one way to do it.

TAMI: That really speaks to our souls, doesn't it? I did this women's group thing this year, and at the end of every month we had reflection questions. One month the questions were: what energized you in the group this month, what inspired you, and what drains you?

I went back and looked at my calendar and looked at every single thing that I said yes to. Some of the things I did, like public speaking events, both energized me and drained me. Because I'm a super introvert. If I am a public speaker and I know that I'm both energized by it and drained by it, I need to manage my energy on both sides of that event.

And how I manage my energy is through solitude. The more you know yourself and the more you know who and what brings you energy and who or what sucks you dry. It's not just activities. People can suck you dry also.

MINDY: Oh heck yeah. And we know that big time in the bodyworker world because we are touching that energy.

So what energizes you, what inspires you, and what drains you?

Those are wonderful reflection questions, Tami.

I know that have a really fun challenge coming up in January. Talk a little bit about it so that people who resonate with your message can find out more about it. We'll have the link of course in the show notes.

TAMI: At least once or twice a year, I run what I'm calling my 100% Guilt-Free Self-Care Challenge. It's 10 days. We start on a Wednesday, and finish on a Wednesday. I send love notes on the weekends and basically take you through my self-care framework.

We do work and exercises on your physical body, your mental body, your relationships and your spirit. You’ll get one email a day for 10 days, and it's meant to take 10 or 15 minutes. At the end of the challenge, you may think you need to work on your sleep. Or you might think you need to work on better communicating with others. The challenge is an easy way to take the temperature of where you are in your self-care. We start on January 15th.

MINDY: That sounds great, Tami. Thank you so much for joining us today.

TAMI: It was a lot of fun.

MINDY: Thanks for coming on this journey with me today. I know what it takes to make time for something like this in your busy day and I so appreciate that you tuned in and listened all the way to the end. 

We've got all the links from today's episode in the show notes that you can find over at MindyTotten.com/podcast/episode10.

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Okay, that's it for today. It's my pleasure and my privilege to be with you on this journey. I'll see you next week, same place, same time. Until then, get out there and Do It With Intention.