One of the easiest ways to connect with Feldenkrais clients is by acknowledging what you’ve overcome in your life and helping them do the same.
“Embrace what you’ve overcome.”
New Age Woo-Woo? Or sound business advice for getting more clients?
Let’s have a look, so you can decide for yourself.
Most of us spend a lot of energy hiding or ignoring things about our past from our clients, our friends and family — even from ourselves.
It could be almost anything — obesity, drug addiction, a failed marriage, not enough clients, chronic fatigue, a nervous breakdown, feeling that you’re not good enough. Or any one of countless other things. Everyone has personal demons. We all carry things we think will damage us if anyone finds out — and we try hard to chuck them into the trash where we think they won’t bother us any more.
I see that as wasted energy — first of all because nothing can be pushed down that far without exacting an enormous psychic toll. Maybe more important from the standpoint of a Feldenkrais® practice — or any other holistic practice, for that matter — it’s a waste precisely because the things we’ve overcome tend to be the things we know the most about. They’re the things we have as much expertise in as the work we do — maybe even more!
One of the fastest ways to connect with a new client is by letting the person know that you’ve dealt with the problem they’re going through. Put yourself in your client’s shoes. Just imagine what it’s like to find someone who knows the hurdles you’re facing, knows what you worry about, understands how it feels to struggle with that problem. That’s the person who understands how important it is to get past these problems and move on with your life!
Given the choice between working with two people who are otherwise equal in what they offer you, I’ll bet you’d choose the person who really knows what you’re going through from personal experience!
When you connect with what you’ve overcome in your life — face it head on and recognize it for what it’s brought to your life today — you give your clients a new way to relate to you. You allow them to see you as a person who has not only the specialized skill you bring — Feldenkrais® or anything else — but also as someone who will bring the human perspective to your work with them.
You will make them feel seen and heard. You will care more than someone who hasn’t been there. You’ve tried out what’s available. You know what to steer them away from — you know what works. All because you’ve been there. All because your own journey has brought you to this moment as a person who — though you can help anyone — can help some people more easily because they will see that you are the only logical choice for them.
Just as you can’t move gracefully without all of yourself participating, you can’t be who you are without embracing everything about how you got here. And when you do, you’ll find your clients breathing huge sighs of relief at having found you.
So… woo-woo? Or sound business advice for getting more clients?
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“In most of the things that are done wrongly, a person is actually straining to go beyond his ability and therefore he feels inferior and unable to cope with life…” — Moshe Feldenkrais, in The Master Moves
