WOW, what a time we are now facing. I wish us, all over the world, luck in this endeavour.
If you have already been affected in any way, I send you and yours healing vibes.
For many of us, our businesses (never mind our lives) are going to be massively affected and as sole traders, there are many questions marks.
For talking therapists, you have the luxury of moving to online sessions.
For touch based, skin to skin therapists, we do not have that luxury and I’m still ruminating about solutions for this.
This will be a challenging time for us all AND for our clients.
And one thing is for sure, our clients (and the NHS) need our support at this time. Here are a few things I am thinking about;
- We need to help protect the NHS from overflow, not only from practicing social distancing to help not spread corona, but from the perspective of supporting our clients as best we can to take the burden off the NHS
- We need to help our clients and their families remain sane during isolation
- Help pregnant women remain calm and safe
- Patients who struggle with things such as OCD, will need lots of support
- We can encourage clients to practice self-care; good mental and physical wellbeing
- I think this will affect many people in many ways we have yet to discover. It will open up opportunities to support our clients in ways we’d not thought of previously
- Many people will be dealing with someone’s death/giving and perhaps their own illness at the same time. If it gets as bad as Italy, many people will have to wait who-knows-how-long to bury a relative. Grief counselling will be needed
- If you have been putting off taking your business to the next level and going online, now is your time to embrace the online world
- Classes online: meditation, yoga, exercise, laughter yoga etc
- Talking therapist can continue offering 1-1 therapy sessions, online…or even just on the phone.
- There is definitely going to be an online therapy/classes explosion from this point which will stay in place after the pandemic; Zoom, Skype, Whatsapp video, Apple facetime etc are all good starting point for this
- Watch this video about working online
- If you run courses and workshops, how are we going to manage this situation? Can we offer these courses online?
- For touch therapist, keep abreast of government guidelines and your governing body suggestions
- Be careful what advice you give out, there are still people out there who have it in for complementary therapists and this is a time they will prey on us! Stick to the CAM and ASA guidelines of what you claim about your therapy or treat!
- Support our neighbourhoods, especially seeing if anyone on your street is affected and needs help
If you need me in any way, please let me know how I can help you.
Holding thumbs for the whole world and sending gratitude to all who are working tirelessly to bring this under control.
Stay safe and sane!