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The State of the Massage Profession Address

February 9, 2023 by admin 2 Comments

In Jan 2023, I had my 35th anniversary of having my own massage business in Downtown Seattle. Through the many years I have watched the profession and wrote about it on my many websites (starting back in 1999 with thebodyworker.com which turned into www.massageschoolnotes.com; www.massagepracticebuilder.com started in 2002, now this site and www.lookbeforeyoubookamassge.com) . I have watched the number of therapists and massage schools go up and down and the current drop in the number of massage schools and therapists is concerning considering the growth of massage chains, an aging popluation and the increase in stress in our daily lives. I have looked at our history of massage and saw how we began as a grass-roots effort with organizations like AMTA who started out meeting in people’s homes and paving the way for what was to come. Their intentions were to elevate the profession, separate us from sexually oriented businesses and get massage therapists the recognition as health care. Massage therapists who were disgruntled with AMTA started ABMP in about 1987, splitting up the profession in two.

Is it a Profession or Industry?

I have always referred to us as a profession, yet others call it an industry. When I think of industry, I think of blue collar workers in factories (industry).

The Oxford English Dictionary defines Profession:  a. An occupation in which a professed knowledge of some subject, field, or science is applied; a vocation or career, especially one that involves prolonged training and a formal qualification. 

Pub Med’s article “Profession”: a working definition for medical educators says:  “The proposed definition is as follows: Profession: An occupation whose core element is work based upon the mastery of a complex body of knowledge and skills. It is a vocation in which knowledge of some department of science or learning or the practice of an art founded upon it is used in the service of others. Its members are governed by codes of ethics and profess a commitment to competence, integrity and morality, altruism, and the promotion of the public good within their domain. These commitments form the basis of a social contract between a profession and society, which in return grants the profession a monopoly over the use of its knowledge base, the right to considerable autonomy in practice and the privilege of self-regulation. Professions and their members are accountable to those served and to society.”

Are We a Profession Yet?

Back in 2008, this white paper On Becoming a Profession, 2008 (PDF) from Rick Rosen, a leader in the massage profession wrote these words:

“Despite the fact that it has become commonplace to refer to this occupational domain as “the massage therapy profession”, it lacks a number of essential elements that are considered to be hallmarks of a full-fledged profession. These include: a well-defined body of knowledge; educational standards; teacher training requirements; common terminology; standards of practice; and a regulatory system that affords public protection and allows inter-state mobility for practitioners. While some of these elements exist on a limited scale, there is little consistency among them.

The massage field has grown haphazardly over time, without a central organizing template to shape its development. It can be likened to a patchwork quilt—with a lot of holes in it. By contrast, a profession is based upon a coherent structure and universal standards. Until the work is done to establish this foundation, massage and bodywork will continue to spread across the landscape but our overall situation will not improve. Truth be told, we are not yet a profession, and the mere use of the term does not make it so.
Here are the action steps that will get us there:
• Establish a Body of Knowledge
• Improve the quality of massage therapy education
• Reorganize the credentialing process by putting licensure before certification
• Create parity among our state massage laws to increase portability
• Develop and promote a unified professional identity
• Use lessons learned from other professions
~Rick Rosen, On Becoming a Profession, 2008 (PDF) Body Therapy Institute. North Carolina

The Body of Knowledge

The Body of Knowledge was created in 2009. The only evidence of it is currently on archive.org Nothing has been done with this important document since then. I am not sure who owns the domain, but the massage profession needs to get it back online.

Does it need to be updated? I would guess so but not really sure. Who is using it is another issue. Do people even know it is there or need it?

Quality of Massage Education

The Alliance for Massage Therapy Education was created to “advance the therapeutic massage and bodywork professions by strengthening and elevating educational practices and standards through supporting, credentialing, and engaging educators.”

Teachers at massage schools are often just recently graduated massage therapists who need jobs but lack teaching skills and expertise.

The paper from Rick Rosen called for the need to address these six critical areas in our education systems:

  • Improve Curriculum Design.
  • Require Teacher Training
  • Focus on Body Mechanics and Self-Care.
  • Increase Training in Business, Ethics, and Professional Relationships
  • Be Selective in the Admissions Process
  • Resolve the Accreditation Conundrum.

Improve Curriculum Design

Rosen’s call for improved curriculum design called out the fact that most schools “present too many modalities and specialized applications in too short a period of time. There is a general tendency toward an over-emphasis on techniques, and an insufficient amount of time spent on the fundamental competencies.” Not much has changed in this arena. It is further complicated by the profession declining to define the many techniques such as deep tissue massage and medical massage. The recent surge in massage competitions that focus on the moves and techniques is evidence that it is not changing. CE classes for business are the last ones to be filled at conventions.

Require Teacher Training

The Alliance for Massage Therapy Education was actually created as a result of this white paper and has been consistently working on a comprehensive effort called the National Teacher Education Standards Project (NTESP). The initial phase of this project involved the development of the competency standards for teachers, which are broadly applicable across the continuum of entry-level, continuing education, advanced massage therapy and bodywork training programs, and specialty certification programs. Overall, the goal of the NTESP is to create a culture of teaching excellence in our field. The Certification Process Committee (CPC) has created a voluntary certification program as a way for educators to demonstrate they have achieved the Competencies.

Focus on Body Mechanics and Self-Care.

The statistic that is often quoted is that most massage therapists leave the profession after 5 years due to injury and burnout. Included in this should be the low pay, long hours and unfair work places that misclassify massage therapists as independent contractors when they should be employees. AMTA used to have lawyers hired by their chapters to help with understanding the laws and working with labor departments to help sort this all out.

AMTA and ABMP websites are full of self-care classes and articles. Everyone knows what they need to be doing for self-care but the main problem is that most don’t do it just because an article or class says to. What could make the difference is requiring participation in Supervision and Peer Supervision Groups. The CE requirements across the states have so many different requirements, yet none have ever made it so Supervision was required. Supervision and Peer Groups are one of the main methods that can actually help massage therapists by allowing them to talk and learn from others that they are not alone in this profession. Learn more about Supervision on my other site—www.massagepracticebuilder.com

The Massage Therapy Foundation in 2019, created a study on body mechanics to assist massage therapists in using proper ergonomics. Learn more about The Massage Therapy Ergonomics Project.

Increase Training in Business, Ethics, and Professional Relationships

The call for more training in Business, Ethics and Professional Relationships has not happened in massage schools. The main complaints from our massage boards are still sexual assault by massage therapists and not taking the required CE classes. Massage schools have never been able to have enough business classes, but it really isn’t their job. Massage school is there to teach massage. You really have to go to business school to understand business and run a business. There are many coaches, mentors and others who have paid programs to help massage therapists with their business. After looking at about 500 massage school websites that I have listed on this site, none of the schools seem to cater to their graduates by providing job boards or after massage school programs to build their careers.

Be Selective in the Admissions Process

I am not sure where schools are on this but hopefully they have seen the consequences of just accepting anyone and everyone into a massage program. The current shortage of massage therapists though has been creating innovative admissions processes that make it so massage school is very low cost or even free if they work for the clinic or spa that the school is connected to. That just really brings people looking for low cost or free education and not necessarily those who really want to be there.

Resolve the Accreditation Conundrum.

“In other professions, accreditation of educational institutions and specialty programs is the norm. Most commonly, there is a single accrediting agency for a given profession. An example would be the Commission on Accreditation in Physical Therapy, which oversees the 200 college-level training programs in the U.S. This kind of structure ensures consistency across a spectrum of institutions.” ~Rosen

In the massage profession this is the Commisison for Massage Therapy Accreditation which currently shows there are 68 schools accredited. My current guess is that there are about 800-900 massage schools, but we really don’t know.

Licensing First Before Certification

The National Certification Board of Massage and Bodywork (NCBTMB) was the go to testing option for state licening for a very long time. It’s so called National test was confusing and was overtaken by the FSTMB’s MBLEx test. It was never a national test that let you move easily to other states. Most states have moved to using the MBLEx test created by the Federation of Massage State Boards as the licensing test. The NCBTMB has changed their exam into the Board Certification in Therapeutic Massage and Bodywork (BCTMB®).

The long, confusing history of the NCBTMB (on www.massageschoolnotes.com) has left massage therapists unsure about it’s importance but the NCBTMB is trying to get back on track. Whitney Lowe explains the reasons why Board Certification is the way to go in his article The Future of Advanced Massage Credentialing.

Our licensing and legislation is really a mess across the US because of the variety of laws and state requirements. Our associations could have done more work on this. What could have helped was creating model licensing legislation that everyone could agree on and implement it across the US. I talk about it in another article on license portability. We need consistent laws based on data like the Entry Level Analysis Project (ELAP) and that needs to be updated regularly.

The National Certification Board for Massage and Bodywork is in deep financial trouble, but is working on reviving itself. The history of this organization is so up and down and all around, that it is a wonder it is still here today. Currently, (Jan 2023) it is almost totally funded by AMTA from what I hear through the grapevine.

Creating Parity of our massage laws to create portability

“State licensing laws are never identical from one to the next, but they are said to be in parity when they are based upon a common set of standards and requirements. The many discrepancies among our massage laws are the reason that professional mobility is so limited.” Rick Rosen, On Becoming a Profession (PDF)

License portability is being worked on but not by creating licensing laws that would allow massage therapists to move more easily around the US. It is being done by the Dept. of Defence who wants to create a State Licensing Compact called IMpact. I just wrote about it on my other site. Right now, 3 states have bills in process but two of the states have stopped the bills mainly because of the issue of the required number of hours of education. The other option for portability is to finish the Model Legislation idea created by the FSTMB back in 2011 and get states to pass laws that are similar in language, number of hours required for massage licensing and CE (See my article on the massage compact.)

Licensing and Legislation

Our state laws are all over the place when it comes to definitions of massage, scope of practice, education requirements and CE requirements making it so difficult to move about the country. Some states consider massage therapists to be healthcare providers; some don’t.

Most states have laws that say an unlicensed person cannot use the terms massage yet our cities are filled with Brothel’s disguised as massage businesses. The media portrays them as ‘Illicit massage businesses” and “massage parlors, when in fact they are SOB’s (Sexually Oriented Businesses), further confusing and entangling massage therapists. The language that is being used is what is entangling us with these businesses. Our professional assocations are not doing anything about the use of language. I bought a site last summer to do that work –www.lookbeforeyoubookamassage.com to try to work on that issue.

Once again, Model legislation could help us get together to look like we know what we are doing. (See the What else can be done at the end of this article.)

Develop and Promote a Unified Professional Identity

What does that even mean or look like? The modality or different types of massage wars have created confusion and many misconceptions about what massage is or isn’t. No one really knows what medical massage, sports massage, deep tissue massage or anything else really is. Our professional identity is marred by the long-term and consistent misuse of the word massage by sex workers. Our associations stand by watching it happen. When one thinks of a doctor, nurse or chiropractor one thinks only of a doctor, nurse or chiropractor. When one thinks of someone giving massage, they wonder if there is something else going on behind closed doors. (Wink wink, smirk, smirk).

Our professional associations are the ones who should be standing up and defining massage and the many confusing terms: Medical massage, bodywork, somatic practices, reflexology, structural integration. Some of these things are left out of massage licensing laws and do not have their own regulatory boards, leaving us with more confusion.

“Doctor. Nurse. Physical Therapist. Attorney. Chiropractor. Psychologist. Members of each of these licensed professions have dozens of areas of specialization within their respective scopes of practice—yet they have achieved a unified identity that is immediately recognizable by the public. By contrast, our field has been mired in an identity crisis which shows no signs of
abating. One mark of an immature discipline is an over-association with the small details, and an inability to see the big picture. To date, we have no official definitions that effectively differentiate massage, bodywork and somatic practices. Confusion reigns both within our field, and within the minds of those who are seeking hands-on therapies. Most people have no idea what distinguishes one modality from another, yet therapists commonly use modality names from Ashiatsu to Zero Balancing as their primary identifier.” ~Rick Rosen, On Becoming a Profession, 2008 (PDF)

Meanwhile

The demand for massage therapists is growing, the number of massage schools and massage therapists is decreasing. Issues of low pay, misclassification of employees, lack of advocacy plagues us. Our associations are working on things but they are not forthcoming with information on what they are doing. AMTA chapters are filled with volunteers doing the best they can watching legislation, massage boards and trying to get massage therapists together for networking and advocacy. A few states have additional associations working locally for changes. None of these talk to each other regularly for think tanks and planning so we are all over the place with advocacy work.

Being covered by health insurance/Medicare/Medicaid.

AMTA has consistenly said that massage therapists and the public use massage for healthcare reasons and want massage to be covered by their health insruance. (See all the last Industry Fact Sheets.) WA State has been able to have massage therapy paid for by health insurance for medically necessary conditions since 1999 or so. It came about after a long battle with insurance carriers in which the insurance commissioner won (See the Report that was created and the timeline of events). While this was great until about 10 years ago when carriers cut allowable fees in half and started creating prior-authorization requirements making it so many have left the networks. The Affordable Care Act had provisions that would have helped make it so across the US. Some plans in some states are covering massage. AMTA has said that Medicare Advantage Plans are Covering Massage. The VA sometimes covers massage but there are not any resources to help MT figure out how to do that.

Plagued by Employment Challenges.

The first Union was created last year at an Elements Massage Studio (link to Youtube video) in Denver Colorado. The number of brothels disguised as massage businesses is increasing (see Facebook post). The misclassification of massage therapists as independent contractors is rampant across the US.

Plagued by CE requirements

CE is a requirement for license renewal in most states, yet no studies have been done to see what is actually needed to Continue one’s education beyond massage school. Massage Boards are in existence to protect the public from harm and most of the current harm is coming from sexual assault cases. Continuing education needs are different for each therapist depending on where they are in their career and what they want to focus on – wellness or healthcare. A massage therapists right out of school may need more support and training to get through their first years of practice than someone who has been a massage therapist for over 10 years, over 20 years and more. There are no CE requirements that actually do keep a massage therapist up to date on the actual science and art of massage therapy. Massage therapists continually believe the many myths of massage and are not up to date on laws and rules in their state. I have repeatedly written about the CE conundrum in the massage therapy profession/industry on my other site.

What’s the massage profession/industry to do?

Your guess HERE.

The Number of Massage Schools in the US

January 16, 2023 by admin Leave a Comment

I have been tracking the number of massage schools over the many years and the findings are very interesting.

From the website www.massageschoolnotes.com — the number of massage schools in the USA is listed as 190 in May 1991, as 316 in January 1995, as 572 in December 1998, and as 875 in June 2002.

 Number of Massage Schools by Year

1985 – 50

May 1991 – 190

Jan 1995 – 316

Dec 1998 – 572

June 2002 – 875

Nov 2004 – 1346

2006 – 1582

2009 – 1600

2011- 1400

ABMP reports are somewhat different with always saying that the number of massage schools is higher that what was reported above.

https://www.abmp.com/updates/blog-posts/massage-schools-stay-resilient-during-covid-19-pandemic

1985 – 50

May 1991 – 190

Jan 1995 – 316

Dec 1998 – 572

This ABMP metrics report says:

New Training Entities Get Into the Act

  • The number of state-approved schools has increased 122.8 percent between 1998 and 2006.
  • Larger schools dominate the field — one-fourth of schools account for more than 70 percent of graduates. Half the schools account for 90.5 percent of all graduates.

ABMP used to report on things like this and keep track of them in their media section on www.massagetherapy.com (link to archive.org) .

The State of Massage Schools

Today, (Jan 16, 2023) I have added 495 massage schools to the website here. I have looked through every website and I have to say that the cause of the decrease in the number of massage therapists is because the massage school websites are so dreadful and do not promote the profession. I found about 100 that were closed. I found so many really bad sites that I did not include them.

Most Massage School Websites Suck

January 7, 2023 by admin Leave a Comment

As I am working to create this website, I am going through a list of massage schools and looking at each and every website to gather information to add to their listing. I have to say I am in shock at just how bad the websites are and after thinking about how we have had a shortage of massage therapists for over 10 years and it is going down more and more with the pandemic. Many say it is due to issues like low pay at entry level jobs, brothels disguised as massage businesses, lack of job benefits, lack of skills to start and run a business and many other major issues the profession is faced with. Could it really be that massage school websites suck?

It reminded me of a website called exactly that Websites that Suck from the mid-90s that is still actually up. It talks mostly about design which is a big problem but also the massage schools do nothing to attract students to make the career look interesting and even fun.

After looking at so many websites, I have to say that the main problem that the massage profession has of not having enough massage therapists these days is mainly due to the baaaddd websites! The other thing adding to the problem is probably the lack of consistent income and low pay found in the massage industry.

Why do massage school websites suck?

So many of them are just a calling card type of website that does not show the main reason for having a website: To tell the world and potential students What solution do you provide?

This is the most basic thing that needs to be communicated to set your massage school apart from all of the other schools.

Google and other search engines are in the business of finding the best content for what people are searching for. Google even has a protocol for it in their Search Quality Guidelines (PDF): E E. A. T Trustworthiness of the page: Experience, Expertise and Authoritativeness can help with your assessment of Trust.

Here is a list of some of the things I am finding:

  • Schools providing inaccurate salary data using the old BLS statistics that calculate hourly wage based on full time (40) hour work weeks when most massage therapists never work that many hours.
  • Lack of security certificate: http (s). All websites must obtain a security certificate or else visitors will get the dreaded error: this site is not secure. :Your connection is not private Attackers might be trying to steal your information from www.yourbadmassageschoolwebsite.com (for example, passwords, messages, or credit cards). Learn more NET::ERR_CERT_DATE_INVALID
  • Hard to find contact information. No address, email address or phone number. This must be on EVERY page for ease of use.
  • Hard to find section for massage program on college and career training institutes websites.
  • No Social Media accounts and if there are social media accounts, they are no posts on them or posts from many years ago.
  • Very outdated software and design
  • Lack of graduate services section for job postings and career information. (Your graduates will be the main source of referrals for your school.)

How to fix your massage school website

The first page most people land on is your home page which must answer the question: What solution do you provide? Your website needs to tell the vistor What is in it for them! Most sites make the mistake of making the site about the school and program. Your potential students want to know if you are the best massage school for them. They will want to know if you are THE top school in the area and have the Experience, expertise and are the authority on teaching people to become very successful massage therapists which makes them trust you and your school right from the start of their search.

Your about page will tell the story of your school…how and why it was started. Who are the owners, teachers and what the school means in the community and in supporting students through the process of schooling and how to become successful massage therapists. While the page is about you and the school, it still needs to tell the reader what is in it for them.

Keep your social media accounts active and sharing the stories of students becoming massage therapists. You can even make it part of the students assignments for school. Your social media should show how massage changes the lives of students and receivers of massage therapy also being an advertisement for massage in your community. How does massage help with pain, anxiety and depression and more?

In Re: the matter of Deshaun Watson

August 8, 2022 by admin Leave a Comment

The news abounds with the case of Deshaun Watson., the now quarterback for the Cleveland Browns who is acused of sexual assault by over 66 women. AP news says: “Cleveland Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson was suspended for six games Monday after being accused by two dozen women in Texas of sexual misconduct during massage treatments, in what a disciplinary officer said was behavior “more egregious than any before reviewed by the NFL.” It is a long sordid drama that if you are not up on the details you can start reading the AP News Story that has the court case documents.

It in only coincidence that the American Massage Therapy Association Convention (AMTA) is coming up on Aug 25- 27 and is being held in Cleveland OH, home of the Cleveland Browns. Now many say so what…but I see it as one of the biggest opportunities that AMTA has ever had to start doing what they claim to be doing for the profession – Advocating. This is not the first time crimes have been committed against massage therapists. In fact, it has been going on for a very very very long time.

Massage Licensing was supposed to help fix the problem by requiring massage therapists to go to massage school and to get fingerprinted and background checked in order to work in the massage profession. Well of course it did not do much to help stop brothels disguised as massage businesses from ruining our good name. It did not stop creaps like Watson from thinking that is what massage therapists do. While we don’t actually know if some or all of the acusers were licensed massage therapists, it does not really matter. What matters is he pushed himself on women and even his lawyer said asking for a happy ending is not a crime….now what’s that? Of course it is. It is sex work aka prostitution. It is still illegal in every state in the US.

Meanwhile, the massage professional associations sit on their heels doing nothing to respond or use this opportunity to make the massage profession more well known for what it is – A therapeutic intervention for pain and stress.

Massage therapists are not sex workers. Massage therapists do not give happy endings. Sex workers do that.

Brothels disguised as massage businesses have continued to degrade the massage professions image with little being done to educate the public on the difference.

Massage is Therapy. Massage is NOT Sexwork!

The response from the profession should look like this ( from a massage therapist in OH)

The Action Plan

  • AMTA – get yourself on the news already… the major TV news stations and Twitter/Facebook are all over this. Call all of the news stations and make a Bold statement. You can leave any thing directly related to the case out if it if you don’t want to risk getting sued or whatever it is that is holding you back from doing just that. Shall I spell out what to say?

    Here is what they did say on their website:

AMTA’s Response to the NFL’s Decision on Deshaun Watson 

August 2, 2022 – Massage therapists should never have to tolerate conduct outside the bounds of therapeutic massage therapy within a massage session. AMTA strongly believes that any client who steps over the line to inappropriate touch should face the legal consequences. And it’s disappointing to see such a relatively light punishment from the NFL levied toward Deshaun Watson in their findings of his violation of the league’s personal-conduct policy. If the NFL is concerned about professionalism and upholding high standards in the league, creating a safe workplace for all members of athletes’ care teams should be a priority. We hope the league is taking measures to ensure that the massage therapists on the Browns’ personnel and throughout the NFL, as well as those supporting individual athletes, are able to work in a safe and professional environment.

The alleged behavior, and the language used by the legal team and others involved in this case put professional, licensed massage therapists at risk by condoning inappropriate conduct in a massage environment. “Massage therapists work every day to help clients ease pain, discomfort, stress and manage medical conditions, making a meaningful difference for their clients, especially for the millions of Americans struggling with chronic pain.  Massage is and always should be about health and well-being in a safe environment whether for an athlete or any other client,” shared Michaele Colizza, AMTA National President.

What they could say:

Massage therapy is not sex work. By asking massage therapists to perform sex work, you are endagering all massage therapists and all women.

The NFL even says: NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said he feels the league needed to keep pushing for a year-long suspension for Cleveland Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson because of his “egregious” and “predatory behavior” toward women.

  • Have AMTA and ABMP contact all of their members and ask them to attend the convention and start a protest rally outside the Cleveland Brown’s game on Sat Aug. 27. Print signs that say : Massage is Therapy, Happy endings are sex work…or whatever. This is not just AMTA’s issue but it is fortunate that the convention is being held there. ABMP has as much responsibility and I expect more from them too on this issue.
  • AMTA can contact all of their chapter leaders and create a huge massage awareness project — everything doing/saying the same thing…not like their massage awareness days/weeks where everyone is all over the place doing different things. They need to make a strong stance on this issue and should have been doing that for many years. You can contact the individual local units…oh darn…they did away with those about 7 years ago. Each of your chapters needs strong leadership along with a lobbyist and a few lawyers to help with the specifics of each state. Why are they all volunteers?
  • We need Legislation:
    Stronger laws that make using the words massage in a business name a felony that is given jail time or at least a high monetary penalty. (Both ABMP and AMTA have said that is what they do think is best.)
    Stop the states from adding any more establishment licensing and put an end to the establishment licensing that is already in place.
    Have your chapters contact every local legislator, sherriff department, police department and talk to them about the problems we are having. Create a clear way to report offenders and have the authorities take the complaints seriously.
  • ABMP – you need to create a PAC and fund it with big bucks and get this in front of Congress Representatives.
  • Read all of the articles I collected when I previously wrote about the issues of Massage, Prostitution and Human Trafficking and especially read and implement the suggested Untangling Massage, Human Trafficking, and Prostitution by Deborah Kimmet, M.S., LMT, CETMB, BCTMB www.LMTBodyPolitic.com an trafficking in illicit massage businesses.

The Time is Now

Why has this taken so long for our associations to catch on? That is a whole other story indeed.

Massage Therapy Careers as a Calling

July 19, 2022 by admin Leave a Comment

Many people come to a career in massage when they find it as a calling.

Finding your calling is about finding what calls to you deep in your heart- what ignites you and supports you.

A call drives you to pursue something- whether it be your passion, your drive to find meaning in your life or to be able to contribute to others. Feeling a compulsion to follow something often brings up all of your fears.

Callings are really about questions…should I stay in this current job or career or change it somehow? If you didn’t get the job you wanted does it mean it wasn’t meant for you? If you don’t pass your state massage exam the first time, does that mean it isn’t for you? Following a call takes courage and persistence – Courage to face whatever is on the path and the persistence to follow through and find a way no matter what the obstacles are and obstacles there will be on the path to a career in massage:

Can you find the right massage school?

Will you be able to find a job as a massage therapist?

Will you be able to start and run a business?

Where will you find clients?

Will you have enough money to live on while pursuing the call

The Call to Help.

One of the main reasons people find themselves pursuing a career in massage is following their Call to Help. Some may be called to the massage profession thinking they want to work in a field that is more meaningful – helping others. While helping others may feel like a noble cause, there is also another side of helping. When we help thinking we are doing something good the reality may be that the person being helped already has what they need to solve their problem inside of them. We take it away when we try to give them our advice or take their pain away. We also often help others because it is what we need the most for ourselves. That is why a career in massage can help you with becoming the best person you can be. We think that by giving to others what we need, they will do the same for us. What massage does no matter what the technique or method is allows people to feel themselves. What often is an effort to get others to feel is really about learning to feel ourselves.

Exploring the needs underneath the call to become a massage therapist can really move you ahead in building a practice even though you may not have even gone to massage school yet. You may also discover other ways of getting your needs met without having to become a massage therapist.

One of the things to ask yourself is “What is the purpose for doing or becoming a massage therapist”? Is it the money? The freedom? While those may be your first answers – take a deeper look. For what purpose do you want to have a successful massage practice or job? Some of your answers might look like this: *To prove I am worth it. *To feel love. *To be needed. Most people live their entire lives being driven by an unconscious, unacknowledged need for something. Freedom and power come from knowing what it is that you do want and learning to keep asking for it until you receive it or come to know that you are worth it, you are loved, you are needed no matter what anyone else thinks or does. Becoming aware of these needs is an ongoing process – one I wish I had started in massage school but the need to build a practice and make money is real also and it pulls one another way – to the way of constantly doing.

A call to anything is really a call to ourselves – a call to really look deep within and discover all of ourselves. Gregg Levoy in his book Callings: Finding and Following an Authentic Life says:

“in order to be authentic we’re going to have to give up something dear: a job, a house, a relationship, a belief, a lifestyle to which we are accustomed, the prestige of being a big a big fish in any size pond, security, money, precious time, anger at somebody or just the plain pleasures of cynicism”.

Following a call is really about following what makes us feel alive. Even if the call didn’t work out it doesn’t mean it wasn’t the right thing to do. The trouble with trying to figure out which call to follow is that you often don’t know which one is best until you start taking steps and doing something to follow the call. One of the first steps is to just start investigating and researching the massage profession: – How much money can you make? – What kinds of massage are there? – What kinds of places can you work at? – What is involved in setting up your own business? – How does it feel when you think about massage, talk about massage, get massage, give massage and run a business too. Taking the steps to find out the answers to the questions that are pushing you toward a massage therapy career and then taking the time to discover more about yourself and what you want (if you don’t already know) will help you make an informed decision about following your call.

The last question to ask yourself is will doing massage help me to feel more alive? Keep asking and see what unfolds.

For more on finding your calling:

Before you tell your life what you intend to do with it, listen for what it intends to do with you. Before you tell your life what truths and values you have decided to live up to, let your life tell you what truths you embody, what values you represent.

Vocation does not mean a goal I pursue. It means a calling that I hear.

Parker Palmer, Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation .

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