"Making it" as an alternative health practitioner

It is an unfortunate reality that the majority of alternative health practitioners struggle to make a decent living from their business.

This raises the question: "Why are people who are dedicated and passionate about what they do failing to translate this into a successful business?" Having spoken to countless alternative health practitioners, I have identified why the majority of them are struggling:

• They often do not realise that their healing work can also be a successful business that makes them money.
  
• A deeper version of this belief is: They believe that it is not ethical or spiritual to make a lot of money doing this type of work.

Many alternative health practitioners start in their business more as a hobby or part-time. They get into this business because it is something they love to do and passionately believe in. Building a successful practice isn't always a top priority at first, but as they love the work, they want to do it full time. Making that transition does require investing time in some business building activities. You can do it! I know many successful alternative health practitioners and society requires many more.

Once you have accepted that you can have a thriving alternative health practice, let us address the belief that it is not ethical or spiritual to make a lot of money doing this type of work. Do you believe that in order to be spiritual or ethical, you should not charge for your work? It's easy to mix your "caring, heart energy" with your skilled time. But they are not the same: skilled time is scarce, and highly valued. It is a business service just like a carpenter, a programmer, a nurse. Heart energy and love are infinite and can't be quantified into a dollar amount or a session time limit. I've developed the distinction that "I bill for my time, the caring is free. "

Spirituality has no relationship to money. You can be very spiritual and be rich. You can also be very spiritual and be poor. You are able to make a bigger difference in the world and pursue your spiritual path more in-depth if you don't have to worry about how to pay the bills from week to week. A person's spirituality manifests by what they do with the money they earn, not by the amount of it.

On this Christmas Day, I send out hope to my many colleagues to understand and overcome these blocks so that you too can create a thriving alternative health business and make a good living while helping more people and doing what you love.

Erica Bliss Winston, LMBT
www.massage-therapy-cary.com