Life, Balance & Reflexology Where I’ve Been + What’s Next

Hello and welcome. Adam Thomas from Balancing Touch Reflexology. So good to see you and thanks for joining me today. So funny story. I just got a call this morning from a lady, wonderful lady in the United States and uh she said, "Oh, she's so grateful that she found my videos and um but she noticed that I hadn't been posting for a while and was wondering if I'm still in business." So, I thought that was um really great cuz honestly like I feel connected with a lot of you um cuz I have talked to you through email or you've asked me about different products and things like that. So, individually I've been, you know, talking and stuff, but I yes, I haven't realized that it's been a while since I've posted. And so, I wanted to share with you in this video kind of like the reality of balancing um you know, work with personal life and you know, raising kids and all that stuff. So, I just this is going to be more of a personal uh video about what um I've been going through and where I'm kind of heading and some ideas and things uh to come. So yeah, it's been a real challenge to try and keep uh videos coming out on a regular basis. And I seriously don't know how like real YouTubers do it. You know, every day or, you know, couple times a week they come out with new videos and stuff. Um I have been working on videos. I'm working on a course. I'll talk to you more about that in a bit. So I feel like I've been doing it, but yeah, like the reality when I check my channel, I'm like, "Oh, I guess I haven't been doing it." So, I'm really sorry about not uploading more um content. You know, the plan is is to get some out there for you. And so, send me any questions, any ideas that you have about um the world of reflexology and what um you know, some challenges that you come across, things like that. Um and then that will give me some more inspiration and ideas to build some videos off of. Right? So, that's sort of there. But what it's been really difficult lately to just balance my life with uh video creation and things like that. And a lot of you maybe don't know, but I have two kids that are in swimming, their competitive level. And they're at different levels. One's an elite swimmer, one's um in the competitive senior level. And those two groups um do not have any practices together. So, I have, you know, one kid has six practices a week, um, and the other one has five. So, I have 11 practices a week that I need to get them to. And, um, it's really difficult. And I'm sure a lot of you can that have kids or other commitments to parents and things like that that can really relate to just how much time that takes and commitment that takes to keep family and and the community running, right? So that's sort of been my main focus is just working with my kids and watching them excel and and do really well and support them in in getting them to do what they want to to do. So I'm a basically a driver and uh a food provider right at this point. Um, so then I reflect on how great it is, even though it's a big challenge, but how great it is to be um in the world of self-employed as a reflexologist because it allows me to have and pick my schedule to be able to support my kids and family that way. So, that's really great. And when I can, I sort of like can work and and uh pick up some income that way. But, you know, being a reflexologist, the reality is, at least my reality is I'm, you know, my focus isn't on making a lot of money. Uh, it's, you know, my focus is about caring for people and sharing uh the knowledge of reflexology with with all of you, right? And so, I feel really honored to be able to do that. But my time lately has getting compressed into just a little bit of time. And and another point too is I'm sure a lot of you are more familiar since you know co and stuff of working out of your home for example cuz that's become more of an option and yeah the challenges in in staying focused and working out of your home are quite a lot right um staying disciplined to be able to you know continue with work and things like that. So on one hand it's really great that I can be um have an open schedule when I need it to be. Uh but on the other side when I need to work um I might be too tired or using it as an excuse. So I I notice that I have become a lot more you know lazier than um I have been in the past. Right? So all these little challenges of balancing reflexology with um life and making an income and things like that. But the great thing about it is yes, I'm able to do that and support my family as best as I can. And so that's a really great um benefit being self-employed as a reflexologist. But it's also a challenge as many of you know, right? So I'm just blabbing about it. It's not an excuse. It's just the reality that a lot of us um face, right? The reward you get from working with people and sharing information is above the the money that you get back. So, um that's also great. Of course, it's really important to make money as well, but that's as an aside. Um the reward that you receive also makes it feel more um meaningful work that we're doing, right? So along with reflexology, I do have other creative passions and many of you know and maybe you don't know, but um my job before reflexology was a professional musician and I'm a drummer if anybody's curious. But since I've had kids, music has again dropped down the level of importance um as you know, life goes on. So, now that my kids are a bit older and they don't need me as far as constantly watching them, like I said before, that driving them around and getting food for them is basically what I'm used for now. So, I don't have to, you know, focus on every little thing. They can be left alone and they're doing their own stuff. Um, so that has allowed me to actually think of the possibility of doing a bit more um, diving into my music and stuff because that was really a huge part and an important part of my life. And so back in 2009, I actually finished an album just before my uh, daughter was born, but I never did anything with it. So, if anybody's interested in what that sounds like, I have um released it on YouTube Music, Spotify, uh iTunes, you know, all the major places. Um it doesn't come up in search because it's not very popular and things like that. But that's fine. Um it's not about, you know, becoming famous. Uh just I wanted to just I had it rather than it sitting on my hard drive. Why not share it? So, um if you're interested in that, I do a lot of the most of the vocals. I wrote the songs and um played a lot of the well all the instruments um unless I wanted somebody to do it. So I'd ask my other musician friends to play the part or do some stuff with it. But yeah, it's basically just songs I had been writing along the side of other bands and things like that. So yes, so it's called Oscars stream is what I go by and so that's there. So I'll put a link in the description below if you want to check that out. So, I'm excited about being able to um find time to work on um creative uh music stuff as well. So, that's cool. So, it's probably more interesting to you since you follow my channel because of reflexology. Um I have been shooting videos uh and I'm working on a new course. And so when I've been going back to Japan and on family trips, of course, I'm always, you know, reflexology, geeking out and trying to find uh what Japan uh is focused on and foot health and body health and all that stuff. And I've come across in the last bunch of visits this catchphrase which is walk for life. And that basically means like for the rest of your life, however long or short that may be, to maintain your feet and your body through your feet to be able to be comfortable, to walk for the entire span of your life, right? to be able to have walk pain-free, to have mobility because I know from, you know, watching people around me and, you know, we're in the health industry. We see people get older and then they stop being mobile and they just sit and watch TV and then they're just basically waiting until they're done, right? I have seen soon as mobility becomes an issue is when people kind of like lose hope. This is a major thing in Japan because they have a it's like a pyramid now where most of the population is elderly. They can actually focus on what is important and they have lots of studies on keeping this um aging generation healthy and happy and able to work because of the pyramid. there is not enough, you know, younger generation of people that are working. So, what you see in Japan is a lot of older people carrying out jobs still and just not retiring, right? Keeping active, keeping stuff going. So, you know, you see it on TV all the time. They're talking about the foot health and how by exercising the feet, keeping them in good shape, it affects everything upstream. So, I've been really interested in this and I've picked up a bunch of books and I've spent the last year or two translating a lot of these books and I'm been working on sharing this information with you by a course. And the reason why is I find reflexology is really great. It's really relaxing. It focuses and helps people. We see them uh they come in and they're you can see stress and and they're heavy and they leave our session feeling lighter, happier. Um the stress has come down. But I find with reflexology, it's a great tool, but some of its shortfallings are not a lot of um long-term uh benefits from one session, right? So having these exercises that I've been learning about to give as additional benefits to your reflexology practice actually supports and helps your reflexology because you'll give them an exercise for example to work a specific issue like shoulder or something like that that you found weakness in their foot and you give them that as home play. they work on that and they see longer benefits from it because their feet are actually allowing their posture to be in a better place so that the body can support. So, what I'm saying, what I'm blabbing about here is that um I found some really cool information that when we have this paired with reflexology, it creates a full more of a holistic um practice and package that we can give to clients. And so, it's a benefit on both sides, right? because they're going to feel that you're this even better um you know amazing person that can make them feel good and now have tools that really actually work and help them with their life right being able to walk for the rest of their life. So anyway, that's a little bit about um the course and stuff that I've been working on. So um stay tuned for that coming out in September. So there you go. That's what I've been struggling with and playing with and having fun with uh in the last couple months here. And yes, my goal is to get more videos out to you. So yeah, I'd like to hear from you, of course. Um you can just leave a comment below or you can email me. Check out my website balancingtouch.ca and you know there's a whole store section. you can find my contact and email me and talk to me about uh what you think would be a good video, anything like that. So yeah, until next time, this is Adam Thomas from Balancing Touch. Remember to keep those feet happy. See you later. Bye-bye. [Music] If you're interested in learning more about reflexology, you could subscribe to the channel below. It's also very helpful to hit that like button and feel free to share it with anybody who you think might be interested in it. You can find my online courses, reflexology charts, and other reflexology goodies over on my website, which is balancingtouch.ca. Thank you so much for watching today, and if you have some more time, you can check out some other videos. Till next time, this is Adam Thomas from balancingtouch.ca. See you later.