Physician heal thyself
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”
Charles Dickens
There’s a lot going on in the naturopathic world at the moment. With half the country currently in lockdown (again) and controversy about the way out of this pandemic, our clients, family and businesses are under pressure.
Beyond the pivot
While we’re pros at supporting our clients through stressful time, practitioners are also struggling. By now you probably can pivot with ease. You’ve got telehealth sorted, noise cancelling headphones and strategies to wrangle the household to give you some peace while you’re consulting.
But all that takes energy. What are you doing to top up your own tank? We’re great at giving self-care advice, but how’s your own physical and emotional care at this time?
Practitioner self-care
Other than actually taking some of my own delicious nervines and adaptogens, I’ve been fastidious with exercise and sleep.
Business-wise, I’m keeping up with the basics (accounts, newsletter and client management). With so much time at home, boundaries can get a little leaky, so I’m conscious of not replying to client emails out of clinic hours.
I’ve lowered my expectations of achieving the non-essentials. In creative moments, I’ll go to my work journal (similar to a regular life journal but kept solely for business, practice and career inspiration) and scribble away, without pressure to action immediately. I’m being non-judgmental when projects take longer than usual (I began this mentoring update at least two Melbourne lockdowns ago!).
What are you doing to get you through this?
Do you notice this?
You know that universal naturopathic law of how our energy impacts business?
Have you noticed that your patients drop off, cancel or annoyingly don’t show when we’re tired or there’s too much going on in our personal life. No? Keep an eye out and ask your colleagues about this.
It’s a bit ‘law of attraction’, you need some time out and the universe serves it up ten-fold, whether you’re aware of it or not.
So if this is happening to you at the moment, use it as a prompt. Physician heal thyself.
If self-care isn’t enough for you at the moment, what advice would you give a client in the same situation? Is it time for self-referral to a naturopath/acupuncturist/herbalist/psychologist? If you’re feeling lost or overwhelmed managing your business, consider booking a mentoring session.
Are you a health practitioner or business owner? I have been supporting clinicians and small business for over 20 years. If you’d like to receive my quarterly mentoring newsletter, the sign up is over on the mentoring/learn page.
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