A holistic sleaze-free workshop with tips to help you feel good about marketing your work AND help your clients find your services easily. The world of private practice can be a little daunting at times, especially when it comes to marketing. If you long to be serving a steady flow of clients that you have the confidence to support on their healing journey, then this write up is for you. If you want to have marketing basics without needing to be a guru while still helping your clients find you, then the workshop I offer might just be for you too. Advertising your practice on the local notice board or in the local paper or even in one of the online directories just doesn’t seem to yield as many clients as it used to. Because of the online nature of things, it means that often our location is no longer a deal breaker. And partly because of this it seems clients are searching differently for therapists, or support in general, and the online world has become more and more important to make use of as a ‘signpost’. Clients search differently for therapists. Someone will not only ‘type’ search but also ‘voice’ search things like, ‘getting panic attacks what’s the best therapy for me’ or ‘therapy for anxiety’ ‘help me with my anxiety’ in the search bar and then will likely take a look at the 1st page that comes up. This page will be filled with ads to begin with followed by 1 or 2 of the more popular online directories and only then by therapists or similar services that have marketed their way onto that 1st page effectively. Chances are if you don’t show up on there or anywhere near there, you may get overlooked. So, if your potential clients don’t have access to the links that signpost them to your services it can be really hard for them to find you. And that’s really tough, cause essentially you are out there to help people. Therapists need to help their clients find their services, but how? The problem with ads is you have to pay for them, and you may not want to be getting that in depth with your online marketing. The problem with directories is that once people get to the directory it can be tricky to choose a therapist in amongst a sea of other therapists. Your next best shot of helping your clients spot you is to be clear about your niche. It’s really tough for clients, it take a lot of courage to reach out and they want to make sure they get it right. The beauty of searching online is that clients can search almost anonymously for support and so they feel courageous enough to be specific. So, if you are specific about what you offer, and your client is specific in their search it makes it so much easier for you to ‘find each other’. Clarifying your niche So, in the workshop we look at clarifying your niche. The great thing is that usually there is a specific group of people that you actually love working with. You either don’t know it yet, or you know it but you need to find a way to let your clients know about it too. The Latest Trends Many of us are not given the training for how to market our wonderful lifesaving services that we studied so hard to be able to offer. Or we’ve had training, but things have changed at such a fast pace it’s hard to keep up. Or we’ve had training and were completely paralyzed by the sleazy sales talk. In this workshop we’ll discuss some of what seems to currently be the latest trends-but hurry up otherwise my workshop will be out of date-which makes me feel like the pressure is on. 😊 Attempting to dip my toe ironically into sales talk sleaze here. Jokes aside, what is great is that once you have a basic platform for your services you can tweak the marketing as needs be, if needs be. The Basics Th workshop will help you explore what your basics might look like. We are all different, our clietns are all different, so our priority’s when it comes to basic marketing will be different too. So, let’s get together and get the basics covered so that you can help your clients find you. No not where you live 😊 But the wonderful services you offer!!! Using creative and movement exercises to find clarity for our marketing. Creative arts therapists as well as therapists who tick more creatively, we tend to need to process things way more holistically than the rest. We have to feel our way into who we are as practitioners and what we offer so that it can become viscerally clear to us. It has to feel right, we long for that authenticity. We tend to be put right off by some of the sleazy sales talk we see bandied about. The creative and movement exercises will help us find our way to clarity here, so that we can then also express our creative services with more clarity too. About my marketing journey My name is Lisa, I’m a dance movement psychotherapist in private practice and over the past 3 years I have been able to grow my private practice in such a way that it supports my family commitments as well as my financial commitments. I’ve spent hours and hours in online training and trialing things out for myself and adjusting to the trends. So I kind of want to save you some of the time and the heartache I endured and more than anything I want to help you and your clients find each other. I know what its like to feel lost. Somedays I still feel lost, sometimes I’ve had to put my marketing on hold and all of that is okay. However, once I put the basics in place, I had a mostly sustainable flow of clients. Did I say mostly? Yes, I did. When I noticed that things weren’t working I was able to check in to see what adjustments needed making to get things back on track. And horror of horrors I actually found I quite enjoy marketing. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed, just take it one step at a time and get support when you need it. If you’re not sure where to start? I’d love to welcome you to my latest online workshop. Its fun and its also professional and most importantly it has you and your clients best interests at heart. It would be wonderful to see you there and to learn from each other so that together we can make it easier for clients out there who are looking for our services. Cause that’s what our passion and calling is, to offer support to clients. With love and respect Lisa PS this blog article is straight from the heart, it would probably fail the ‘marketing 101’ test. I’ve started sentences with ‘and’, and used ‘because’ in all the wrong places’ 😊 and I’ve even finished off with some love. But what it does show is that as long as you connect with your audience you’re well on your way. I look forward to hearing from you and also to helping you help your clients find your services.
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If you’ve noticed your relationship with your body change drastically since 2020, it might be time to ‘Come Home to Your Body’. ‘Come Home to Your Body’ is a workshop I was inspired to create when noticing and reflecting on just how drastically my relationship to my own body had shifted since 2020. In this article I explore the journey that led to the beginnings of this workshop. I know we aren’t all ‘huggy’ people, but I certainly am. I love offering; a hug or handshake upon greeting, a reassuring arm around the shoulder or a high five/fist pump with a kid in a friendly encounter. To me it’s a way of affirming your importance, a way of affirming that you matter me and to the world. The children matter, people matter, you matter, the affirming encounters matter. ‘Social distancing’ threw me, it threw my body. My whole sense of being and moving in the world was thrown off balance. Social codes changed overnight. It was as if suddenly my personal space and kinesphere were being determined from elsewhere and I was given numbers to adhere to. Numbers measuring permitted distances between us, numbers of people, number of visits, number of walks, number of items allowed and even the number of deaths being broadcast. It all felt so clinical, so detached. It was as if suddenly we needed to ask for permission for things that had previously come naturally to us. I felt utterly lost. I no longer felt at home in my body. Suddenly solutions were offered to the world at large. It felt to me like some strange kind of one size fits all. I was utterly perplexed. Surely our bodies are not all the same, we respond differently to loss, to different illnesses, to news and suffering, to different treatments, to grief, to change and not just because of our body’s biology. We respond differently because of our environment, our support structure, our worldview, our faith and perhaps even our opinion and intuition. Alarm bells rang in every cell of my body. I ached. I ached physically and emotionally and soulfully. I know many people ached. My own body didn’t feel like a safe place to be. Then came the polarization, the judgement and the heated debates. I was not comfortable with any of it. Part of me left my body just to try and survive. I had to put it on hold somewhere until it felt safe enough to return. And yes, the tears well up in my eyes as I write this, I’m noticing my body is physically responding to me sharing and remembering. It’s been tough on us all. I pause to give the tears space to be felt on my face and they remind me I am blessed. I was truly blessed to have a husband who stood up for me, listened to my concerns, held me, hugged me when no one else would or ‘could’. This was an absolute lifesaving blessing. Each hug soothed the tension my body held, each hug helped rebalance my system. Sure, I could spend time moving and centering on my own, but I can’t help but feel that some of us (if not most of us still) are social beings who thrive in community, even if we are introverts with our unique way of connecting. I was oh so truly blessed. As a therapist specialising in the body mind connection, I could see the impact of all of the above on my body. I could see the impact of it on my clients and professional peers, each impacted so differently, yet by kind of the same thing. I saw how vital it was for me too to tend to the impact on my own body, finding support to help me to feel held in a world that felt unsafe, in a body that had also begun to feel unsafe. I needed to remember what it was like to feel safe again. I needed to realise and reaffirm that I was actually still free. When it came to my private practice work, it took me time to process the changes, but it became really important to me that clients continued to feel welcome. It was important that they were supported to either attend therapy online or where at all possible, to continue with face-to-face meetings when needed. The discrimination and loss people have bared from ALL walks of life has been phenomenal. In continuing to practice, I realized that there was a need, not just for clients, but for others too to have a safe space to reconnect body mind and soulfully. It was not just me that needed a heartfelt, centering and rebalancing practice in my life. I knew I needed time to regroup before I officially offered this sort of practice to others. While I feel I am ever learning, I also know that I am ready to hold space to offer this heartfelt workshop to others. I am delighted to share that the ‘Come home to Your Body’ workshop is up and running. This workshop (usually 90 mins) can be offered both online and face to face where possible, depending on my geographical movements (the joys of big families and international family commitments). Do get in touch if you or your organization would like to arrange or attend a ‘Come Home to Your Body’ workshop. lbodenstein@yahoo.com It would be both an honour and a joy to support you with this. I look forward to welcoming you to ‘Come Home to Your Body'. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Many of us have alienated in some shape or form since 2020 and it can really knock us. If you would like to get in touch and enquire about 1:1 therapy and availability, please do so too. lbodenstein@yahoo.com If you have felt sidelined in therapy or supervision, at home or in the workplace for your choices around your jab status or health choices or side effects, whatever they are, please be tender with yourself-this can feel so gut wrenching. If it’s ruptured your therapy or supervision journey, home life or career, please take the time you need to find support where your healing journey can continue. You matter. ‘...the real relationship doesn’t depend on words…it depends on the capacity to be with.’ ~ Dr Gabor Mate. When people find out that I offer sessions for people who are non-verbal or speak a different language to me they are often curious and have asked, ‘How does therapy work if you can’t speak the same language?
It’s such a valid question to ask and reveals so much about how we perceive communication. I think in many ways what helps the therapy to work so deeply is that we don’t need words. In fact, sometimes I find that words can get in the way of what we are trying to express. The therapeutic relationship we build, as with many relationships, doesn’t depend on words, it depends on the capacity to really be, and be with a person. Do you ever find yourself waking up earlier in the morning than you need to? Does it feel like a fear or some kind of anxiety about the day ahead? This happened to me the other day and instead of trying to encourage and coax myself back to sleep and even though it was freezing, I felt drawn by an inclination whisper me up and out of bed. I fumbled my way down the stairs as quietly as I could and made my way to the wood burner to start a fire. Soon I was watching the flames from the kindling lick at the unburnt logs of wood, tempting them to turn to light. Beautiful. Mesmerizing. I noticed myself anticipating that moment where the heat suddenly commits and by some kind of miracle ignites the logs as they catch fire. The room brightens and immediately I felt the warmth tangibly radiating on my face. I smiled and felt grateful. I wondered, what if this waking was not anxiety about the day ahead at all? What if it was inspiration that was bubbling inside me that I had misinterpreted into anxiety? What if it was nature’s way of giving me more time to prepare myself for the challenges that lay ahead and to open myself up to receiving the miracles and wonder that lay before me. It reminded me of a beautiful quote by Rumi. “THE MORNING BREEZE HAS SECRETS TO TELL YOU… |
My approach to therapy focuses on developing a greater awareness of the body mind connection. This can support you in tapping into your inner wisdom, gaining new insight and in understanding yourself and the world around you. It can give you a new-found confidence and perspective with which to face life's challenges and receive life's abundance in a wholesome way. The thought of therapy can feel intimidating, but that is why you do not have to go it alone. As a therapist, I am here to support you through this process. It is important to find a someone you can trust; someone you feel drawn to working with. If you feel you would like to book an initial meeting to find out more, then do get in touch. You can decide from there if my approach is something you would like to continue with. If not, there are a number of support structures and therapists out there for you to access. The most important thing for you to do is to reach out if you need help and then to find something that feels right and safe for you. Yes, there will be times when sessions offer insight and inspiration and then there might be times where therapy feels awkward and uncomfortable, a bit like learning how to walk or talk. It is helpful to be honest about and aware of this. My role as a therapist is to provide a safe, non-judgemental space for you to find out what it is you need to learn to heal and experience a sense of connectedness. I am here to support you in this, but it is you who ultimately has the power to heal you and it is you who can determine the pace that is right for you. potential BENEFITSTherapy can help you gain a deeper sense of connectedness and understanding of your life and your life's purpose. It enables you to get to know yourself better; those parts of you that you celebrate and those you perhaps find uncomfortable or painful. My approach to therapy allows you to choose when you want to use spoken or non-verbal (art materials, sand trays and movement) communication within the session. Sometimes working non-verbally helps you to bypass any blocks you may have and enables you to work with hidden material in a way that is more manageable for you. This may evoke emotions that we can witness together within the safety of the therapy setting, allowing you to process them at a pace that is safe for you. You may find that there is a sense of release, or numbness or sometimes playfulness after sharing. I welcome the tears, the numbness and the laughter. Together we can help you find ways to cope better with both the hidden emotions and the everyday challenges of life, improving your self-acceptance and self-esteem. The idea is that you gain trust in you, so that you can grow in confidence to manage both with and without therapy. As your body-mind connection deepens it will become easier for you to find balance in your mood and general sense of well-being. Humans have emotions and we will have days that feel good and days that feel not-so good. Therapy is not there to ensure we feel great all the time. Therapy helps us to accept ourselves where we are at, to set ourselves free from things that hold us back or hold us down. It helps us to find a way of journeying through life in a way that is more supportive for us. There is no need to be afraid of this journey of discovering you. The timing of things and your understanding will unfold as and when you are ready for them. |
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