Love Reflexology FB Group Live Interview

hey everybody its Sam over at the foot was for a reflexology Institute here in Tampa Florida USA I am so excited for this live video I know that I'm just a couple minutes early so as everybody continues to jump on just as you hit refresh and we start to get going this is basically an interview where I have a list of questions that both you have given Kelly and Kelly has given me so that we all get a chance to talk shop about foot reading which is what I do as well as reflexology and how I got started and all that jazz so as we start to get going the goal is for you all to post your questions in the comments section and interact with me basically because I have predetermined questions here but I would very much like to know what is on your minds that I can make this video of utmost value to you our Thank You Kelly I sincerely appreciate you having me on again it's it's so amazing if you see me looking down I'm looking at the chat and the camera at the same time I'm not really sure where to put my eyes but every but as everybody's joining I think I'll just start with kind of how I got into reflexology as a basic kind of preface as everybody's getting in so here in Tampa Florida it is required that you have that you have a massage therapy license in order to practice reflexology and so I started off in massage therapy but the reason why I got into massage therapy in the first place was because I was originally on a physical therapy track and I was all set to become a physical therapist and then they changed the requirements from a master's degree to a doctorate which would have been another four to five years of school and I was like screw that mess because me in school traditional schooling don't get along very well so I decided to become a massage therapist instead and then about a year and a half into trying to figure out like how the body is actually wired and how its put together and understanding the fact that what they teach you in school and in textbooks is not how the body actually works I finally took my first reflexology class but grudgingly not thinking that it would work and turns out that it was the only thing that did so I got into reflexology totally by happenstance which if you've listened to the foot reading and reflexology podcast you know that so many other people in the reflexology community share the exact same story like we didn't get into reflexology because we wanted to we got into it because it kind of pulled us into the craft and I think that that's just a really fascinating way to experience something so powerful is totally by divine providence anyway so everybody is jumping on everybody saying hi everybody's saying how much they're looking forward to it so thank you all so much let me jump to a couple questions that you all gave to Kelly so the first one is about the energetic transference during a reflexology session the question was very long but basically during a session of what happens when you feel the pain of your clients in your own physical body and how do you shake or discharge or ground yourself after a session from that standpoint and what we need to understand is reflexologists is that the body is electric the body is alive and our bodies are meant to communicate with one another and this is through the use of what's known as mirror neurons and it is a social adaptation because we are social creatures so it's normal for your body to feel somebody else's pain a lot of people would like to categorize that as being an empath or activating the skill of empathy but I disagree I think everybody has that experience and I think that we are hard-wired to feel each other sensations and to know what we're thinking and feeling just as social creatures so what I tell my students is if you are experiencing pain during a session or your client is picking up on you or vice versa that's normal breathe into it chances are it's just your body's communicating and that knowledge is valuable but also if pain lingers after the session if you feel the sensations after the session chances are you haven't been up on your self-care and also chances are you already had a predisposition for that pain in the first place so what I tell my eight students is the way that you get rid of it is through the basics food water meta hñ exercise if you haven't been up on your basic lifestyle requirements that energetic sensation is going to stick around for a lot longer you cannot meditate your way into a good diet nor can somebody do push-ups for you you know it ends likewise just having a stone on you that is supposedly energetically grounding is not going to replace an active self-care practice so what I recommend is go get some water or go get some food go meditate go run around the block like get the heart pumping get the joints moving get the energy shaken out and during the session you know you won't feel as strained because you know how to handle and you feel confident in your ability to handle those sensations and that kind of plays into question number two which is when working with clients I sometimes feel a buzzy sensation and my fingers especially when working on the solar plexus reflex totally normal the body is not just a meat suit that's moved around and laid over like skeletal structure it's an electric organism so energetic sensations and electrical impulses and things of that nature temperature shifts even visualisations during a session just the optic nerve trying to register what's happening to the brain and the psychological process trying to work its way through the session like all of that is totally normal because we're not just muscular creatures we're not just skeletal creatures we are electric and intuitive and energetic and all these different things so it's about communicating holistically about what reflexology does and who you are as a practitioner really who your clients are like you touch your client far far in advance of them actually walking through your door and that's something that I personally believe so anyway those are two questions I'm trying to see if anybody's posting real quick in the comments oh my goodness goodness goodness gracious everybody's saying hi everybody is saying hi so now would be the time for you to ask questions as I continue to scroll if you have any just post them in the chat otherwise I'll move on to kind of question two that Kelly sent me which is how did your passion and talent for foot reading evolve and develop so painfully painfully slow and it was very much a tale of frustration because in my school where I was originally trained not to name names but high levels of pressure were emphasized and lack of assessment was very present so we were told to jam until the reflex until basically somebody passed out essentially and the more it hurt and the deeper you went the better you were going and I found that not to be true and when I started to scale back my pressure and listen to the reflexes it started to get super interesting to me because I was I was picking up things but I didn't know what those things were I didn't understand like what markers were or what the feet were trying to say I just knew that from my training like the feet meant something other than just being feet like there was a map somewhere in there but to actually look at the map literally and see the organ like that was never that was never impressed upon me as a student so a lot of it was just like seeing things over and over a lot of it was really struggling to identify and kind of what I was seeing and getting things just told to me by the universe and by the body and by the feet themselves over and over until I finally realized what I was looking at I would have 10 clients come in with the exact same pain and I realized that this marker in this place represents something to do with that pain so the next time I saw it I was able to identify it and that's really how it started then I looked into foot reading and I found that there weren't a lot of materials out there but I did find Jane Chi Huns book that's where I got my start Thank You Jane love you so much so excited to get to see you in the UK in September and devoured her book absolutely devoured have moved on to Chris dormers and Emery samajis books and the online course that Jane has and just started to play with the concepts and as I started to learn about people like sue Ric's and all the other foot readers out there you know it started to develop into this thing where it's like no this actually exists and then just validating over and over through trial and error and making the mistakes and saying things when I shouldn't have and not saying things when I shouldn't have and it was just a very it was just a very interesting process to grow through experience just by doing but now like there are so many more books on the market than when I first started so I really encourage people to follow the passion follow the curiosity because that's really what kept me going was I was just super curious you know the the body is so intelligent and that intelligence amazes me and so by looking at kind of the way that the body is wired and keeping that motivation strong I think that that's really how I got started was just following that innate curiosity and looking at the resources that I had but then also you know part of the reason why I wrote a book was because there weren't resources and I wish people would have told me stuff and you know so it's it all kind of plays into it but it was definitely the passion and the talent came from just a lot of hard work and a lot of hitting walls and just wanting to do better I'm Emily posted I've just started reading your book very new to it how would you say is the best way learning it in a practical sense I think I just answered that Emily so glad we're on the same page what I personally think is that clients are our best teachers and even just like looking at feet is really powerful so you turn around and you google feet if you're not looking at actively clients feet so a client comes in you know that's the best example because they can talk to you but just even like searching for feet online looking at the different types of feet reading the books that's really what what will fuel your process is just like I said through experience but getting creative with that experience as well and he says do you have anyone in the reflexology world who inspires or motivates you and your practice right now honestly Kelly does a lot sue Rick's crystal merging xi'an i'm watching them all on social media it's definitely something that i I stalk people a lot and especially my students I look at their Facebook pages I see what they're posting they're talking about foot reading in reflexology but honestly the field is still really small in my opinion so the people who genuinely inspire me to do greater are actually people that I follow outside of the reflexology arena people who talk about business and entrepreneurship and marketing and the hacks that they've used to grow their business and build you know multi-million dollar companies like I like to follow their example and jump out of the reflexology realm because we're a very heart centered community we tend to do a lot of stuff that is that is very much about taking care of others but not so much about focusing on the business so I think it's important for us to look outside of kind of our network in our circle to find people who have maybe build bigger practices than us or like at one point I was studying the makeup of Massage Envy which is a major bodywork chain here in the US and that kind of cracking the code and considering like well what would it take to build a franchise model for reflexology would that be feasible and kind of sinking my teeth into new ideas that aren't necessarily just reflexology based Barbara Scott I'm just reading your book fascinating Oh Barbara Scott oh my god she's reading my book I love it dudu so glad that you're finding value in that fabulous questions Emily says what's the best way for using info on your foot reading book in a practical way but yes so in the end of the book I talked about documenting your foot reading experiences and just doing that over and over and over that's really important even if you don't have live clients feet like Google defeat and write up a note about them as if they were a client but then also like in my foot reading online certification program I talked about like doing an all-call on social media asked for people's feet and then asked to like if you can ask them pointed questions or give them feedback or generate a foot reading a report for them I have a video on how to do that on the online school but that's also in the online course that I teach so just getting creative with ways that you can ask people for photos of their feet are looking at feet are just basically doing the work emilie finding ways to implement it that are maybe creative or one of the sir sizes that I didn't have my students doing the online course is go to a crowded area like a coffee shop or a mall and look at people's feet and watch the way that they walk and that's really going to be your best teacher over time okay that's it yes Jackie awesome just did first reading with a client hope it went fabulously well let me move on to question number three can you name one standout moment when working with a foot reading client that truly blew your mind this is actually a little bit of a sad story and I've talked about this in multiple kind of webinars that I've done but I think it deserves to to be said because it does hit on multiple aspects because one client who came in to see me back when I was for studying foot reading I really didn't know what I was doing I really didn't understand kind of what foot reading was the power that it held and how to assess the feet in general so I had this client who had literally burning hot stabbing pains in the second toe on the right foot and we went through like shoulder stuff and we went through potentially neck stuff leading into the shoulder and nothing was resonating and we talked about the emotional side and the client wasn't really giving up any further details and they weren't really on board and so I was kind of stumped and I really didn't know I knew I was looking at something I just didn't know what I was looking at and I didn't have the vocabulary and the experience to sit back and say hey I really want you to take this seriously instead I just tried to you know traction the toe a little bit more and do things that were more reflexology based manually to clear the zones and so the client kind of fell off the face of the earth and then about nine months later came back and said you know it's funny you kept sending chest chest chest and it turns out that I had a lump in my breast that I had to actually get treated and removed and that was a real wake-up call for me and if I had known just a little bit more information and had a little bit more experience I think I would have able to to communicate in a way that the client understood to take that a little bit seriously so that was probably the first concrete experience that really sticks out in my mind that foot reading showed me how truly truly powerful it was in in a negative way but those are the experiences that we learn from the most so that's that's definitely where I personally stuck my heels into the ground and got motivated to really pursue foot reading as a serious practice because it told me I just didn't know how to listen so it was my mission from that point on to just get so good that that would never happen again and that's that's kind of how it happens online course yeah Emily so I teach a foot reading online certification course it's a self-paced course thirteen lessons all that can be found at foot whisperer come back slash classes you'll be able to see a link to the online school and look at all the programs that I have not just the certification course but also recordings of webinars and also mini masterclass series on the various body systems so if he says looks like you should be my next book purchase I love it thank you so much yep yep yep good stuff Oh Thank You Sally oh good that's all of the people that I look up to in the in the reflexology community who I previously mentioned that I stalk on social media are all liking and Harding and all that jazz it really gives me a lot of warm and fuzzies so next question what advice would you offer to a reflexologist who wants to get started in the foot reading definitely back to the idea of just read get every book on foot reading that you possibly can and just read read it over like read it until the pages start falling off part of the reason why I started becoming so vocal about foot reading was because of the the tools versatility how it enhances a reflexology practice and really just I've said it multiple times I'm starting to get tired of myself saying it but the power of it like the power of the technique so if you can get James Brooke she has multiple books at this Kris dormer just launched her second book but her original book as well embrace emoji is mo she's book on feet and personality sue Rick's book on the feet but then also like I know that the association of reflexologist did kind of like a combined book on foot reading physical and mental emotional my book is in there and then also like I do foot reading videos on YouTube find those like just immerse yourself in the content because that's really how you're going to learn it doesn't have to be alone because there are support groups as well so join I do a foot reading and reflexology online community group on Facebook like ask questions find a mentor talk to me you know let's let's get you immersed in the craft and the practice because that's really how you learn but it definitely starts by just getting the books and immersing yourself in just the book content and then finding just little by little those nuggets in real-life practice I call it finding them in the wild you know it's one thing to read about a marker and you know hear me talk about foot reading on and on but it's when you really find the experience of either identifying a marker on yourself or somebody in your family or somebody with a health issue or with a client it really changes your perspective and you never look at feet the same way again but also the other extremities too so don't just be limited by feet it's it's truly a practice that will change your life if you give it the chance and it all starts by just reading the literature and finding the online resources that are available right now I need a question yes I will totally post a link to all of that again another question does everyone have a slightly different take on foot reading the same way all reflexology charts are slightly different that is a great point and yes so the way that chris dormer reads feet is definitely more from a metaphoric symbolic point of view versus Jane Chi hun has elaborated on the grid system that a merese emoji start at the Maresa mode you started with reading toes Jane expounded that into a whole foot grid system which I then took and ran with and incorporated both the physical and the mental emotional markers and I tend to use a very systematic approach but I also weave in the elements and talking about markers being hot cold wet dry and understanding constitutional types and things like that so it's definitely a personal person it really gives you an idea of how fast you know different practices are to just give a shout out to people who have already commented like Barbara Scott does fertility reflexology Sally Cave works with the lymphatics you know Kelly Ainsworth coaches other reflexologists and helps them build their business like we're all in the reflexology community we just do very different things I'm a reflexologist like just before I hopped on this interview I was treating a client who came in with her service dog you know because she has chronic anxiety and we actually had a breakthrough moment or she told me that she was actually giving up alcohol which was a big part of her inflammatory condition like I mean really cool stuff but at the end of the day like I'm a foot reader like I'm more interested in the assessment aspect but I still do reflexology we all come together from this community just in very different ways and likewise foot reading is very different from our own perspective I know Angela talks a lot about her visual reflexology group and her courses that are largely physical but I tend to be mental emotional as well bridging physical and mental emotional whereas Jane she hun tends to be mental emotional it's I mean we're all coming from the same place we're just trying to all get to that same idea that you know the body is interconnected and if we just give it a chance to talk and be open to the interpretation of what it's trying to say you know we'll be able to get a lot more information Kate just enjoyed your online course on the integumentary system thank you so much the front group is a great resource thank you thank you thank you excited about your trip to the UK Ireland tour conference yes totally can you give us the details yes that is excellent so I think that's a couple questions down but we'll go there so as most of you know I will be traveling over to the UK in September I'll be leaving here the 12th and arriving the 13th and my track goes as follows I have it listed here so pardon me while I read I'll be in Norwich the 14th of September over at the Jacquie Hamilton School one day class there I'll be in we roll at the gaya school for natural health with Carolyn Roberts thank you for hosting me and that'll be a one day advanced foot reading class and then the foot reading conference hosted by Sue Rick's I'm so excited that'll be on the 20th I will be there I will be one of the five keynote speakers for that event that's going to be super fun then it is off to Milton Keynes with Alex and the temple school I'll be doing a two-day advanced reflexology reading class there on the 21st and 22nd and then I am off to Brighton to do a foot reading workshop there with Chris and all of those details can be found on my website so if you just go to foot whisper comm backslash classes scroll down a little bit you'll see the UK tour and you'll see the dates as well as the links for registration to those classes and it's just going to be super fun and then next year I'm doing the North Ireland reflexology conference oh my goodness that's going to be so fun I'm so excited we all be doing multiple classes there as well and so I haven't it's a little bit far off so I haven't gotten dates or venues but if you're in Ireland and want to host a class let me know hit you up for 2019 and that's going to be super fun and then we have Sally Kay coming here to Tampa to do lymphatic work at the Institute late February but there's only one more spot for that super excited and then we're in talks with Barbara Scott to get her over to Florida to teach afford a reproductive fertility reflexology workshop so that'll be super fun but yeah that's going to be my trip only two weeks I'll be flying out the 26th and then I'll be taking a couple days off and then flying up to New York for a five-day foot reading retreat up at the Omega Institute so lots of teaching the end of September beginning of October consent hi Sam lovely having you online tonight wanted to ask what kind of certificates we get through the online courses great question because foot reading is not a regulated profession I give you a certificate of completion you are a certified foot reading practitioner through me because I am kind of the authority of certifying you but at the same time like there's no regulating body so it's hard to to talk about kind of a certification in that way but at the same time you know it's basically a certificate of completion based at this point until we form a foot reading Association which I'm sure we'll talk about at the conference that'll be fun everybody saying hello Lou Jackie says I'm booked into the class at the guy school awesome so glad that everybody's enjoying those class dates okay next question so I see you have a new advanced foot reading course in the pipeline when can we expect to see this available and what can we expect from them so yeah so the first foot reading online certification course launched at the end of last year and that was based on the book foot reading a reflexology primer on foot assessment my first book and then this kind of ties in with the second question about the 100 foot feet project so when I was thinking about book number two the the big feedback that I got from book number one was that it was a fantastic manual and introduction to the foot reading concepts that I've learned you know that are successful in my practice but there weren't a lot of pictures and that was because the publishing the self publishing agency that we used they had specific requirements for pictures and I just got really cumbersome and I couldn't include as many pictures as I wanted I was able to get the charts in there so you get some good visuals in terms of like very similar to the downloadable charts that I have available now through my website but I couldn't post as many photos as I wanted so my goal was initially for book two to do a picture book kind of like a case study book and I wanted to call that the 100 feet project and that's still going so if you want to submit your pictures for that project just go to foot Whisperer comback slash projects and you'll be able to see the detail for how to submit your feet for that book and I'm still collecting for that book but something spontaneous happened and the creative process kind of took me in a different direction and I did a big post on it and everybody loved it and it was just very frustrating but also very eye-opening because I'm still just I'm learning just like you all and I had this wave of new content that came to me that I started teaching about advanced vote reading an advanced vote reading assessment and it was based off of kind of a combination of traditional Chinese medicine and era Veda and astrological work and different diagnostic methods from different traditions and the extensive research that I've done with dietary protocol and movement exercises and yoga and you know it really started to get to the point where as I was teaching like another book came out and I was very shocked at the same time to to start writing because I have a daily writing practice and the content that I was writing was so powerful and so good but it was different than what I had intended on writing so I'm now in the works of online course number two which will be the advanced version of the foot reading online course so it will be in advanced foot reader certification and that that will probably be book two as well and the 100-feet project which I'm still working on has been pushed to the backburner as I continue to work on that on the side but then really work on some of the advanced content that also be teaching over in the UK so you all in the UK who will be attending my classes you'll get the first taste of what's coming down the pipeline in the advanced foot reading online course but that's going to talk a lot about a concept that I call the assessment triangles the assessment triangle but also the remedy triangle and how to work with somebody's diet their movement their internal stressors but also assessing the 12 body systems and how to do a much more comprehensive intake and really drill down into what different systems of assessment would call the interrogation techniques of working with coaching a client into the next state of their health and wellness so all of that's going to be coming in book two it's going to be super fun and the online course is really going to come out before the book because that's that's where a lot of the online content is definitely in demand right now which is why you're seeing me post more of that is because everybody's just gobbling that up like you wouldn't believe the online school is just crazy busy right now so I'm trying to do more of that especially as I develop you know connections like these more international audience it's it's I feel so blessed but at the same time so overwhelmed by the attention and it's hilarious I've vocalized this multiple times to my my live students and sometimes in the in the Facebook groups as well but the online content is being devoured at such a fast rate and my live classes we go in two-year cycles here in the Tampa area the Florida area really because we have the massage license requirement every two years we have to renew that license so on a non renewal year it's hard for me to fill my live classes unless students are coming to the the year-long certification program that I teach live so I'll need to cancel a live class because I don't have enough students to fill it but then my online school is blowing up and people are asking me to come over to the UK so it's it's the idea of shifting my attention more into the online platforms generating more book content generating more mini courses so that I can start to teach and remotely get into everybody's lives as opposed to just you know relying on being physically present so I'm learning at the same times you at the same time you guys are asking and that's really kind of where I'm at um yeah everybody's saying bright and bright and love brighten Sam can you tell me if your foot reading appointment slots are in UK time I would love to have you on my books thank you so much for asking so the online scheduler that I use for remote consultations is actually in US time it's Eastern Standard Time so it's Florida New York time for the actual states so it's about a five-hour difference if you to book with me online that's a good question in terms of also like I do remote consultations if you want to do a foot reading consultation and that's really the other powerful side of foot reading as opposed to just being manual is with manual reflexology obviously somebody has to be there you can't like press the screen in order to you know manipulate somebody's reflexes so foot reading allows us to be remote and to give advice in consults and really touch people's lives through the internet which i think is really cool so I do remote consultations and those are normally half hour hour hour and a half our clients will actually send me via email their foot pictures they'll take pictures of the tops and bottoms of their feet I'll jot down some notes and then won't basically have a conversation just like this and we'll talk about the meaning of the feet and do a lot of Education on foot reading and reflexology principles and it's just a method to help understand kind of what your body is trying to say through the lens of the extremities we also go into like not just the feet if you have questions about like a mark on the face or the hands or the ears you know pictures of those can be sent and we can talk to you for about all four extremities not just the feet and that's kind of the consultative approach that I do and that's very much something that I wanted to get into in the advanced foot reading content is more of like how to do a good consult because once you get the fundamental principles down of like the grids with the zones the elements you know you know the difference between your horizontal vertical zones your area you're influencing factors versus Constitution versus markers you know the four elements things like that once you start to crack the code on foot reading principles it's time to start like having a deeper conversation with clients and how do you do that and that's really what the advanced principles are going to be talking about so that was long with an answer to a very short question Oh Lorraine hi Lorraine oh my gosh I'm so excited to see you're on here yes I would love to answer your question do you feel I can develop and use foot reading skills to look at different types of feet and working with clients that are non-verbal that may have intellectual disabilities and may communication issues to discuss other nonverbal feedback using foot reading skills yes totally 100% so when we look at clients who are not able to either consciously or unconsciously verbalize what's happening I've worked very heavily with children actually I just had a mom and child and the other day and she basically said you know he's so she literally said fire it up and that gave me a cue in terms of what elemental markers to expect and indeed like when he got on the table his feet were hot to the touch it was so cool so he had a lot of conversation about fire markers and Fire Constitution and things like that so but also like I've worked with Parkinson's Alzheimer's dementia also clients who are non-verbal in fact my associate Cody who graduated from the Institute's program who works with me here he goes to see a client who's non verbal nonverbal on a weekly basis and he finds that really really beneficial in terms of communicating through the reflexes kind of what's going on on a daily or weekly basis with that clients so I think that it's totally possible I think that that question is really opening up you know the the conversation with us being just reflexologists because when you think of reflexology is just a manual therapy I think you're cutting out half the equation really like the foot reading assessment content allows us to be more well-rounded professionals and gives us an idea of what's happening in the body and that no longer be limited by just you know press the button fix the issue that's that's no longer what we're focused on we're focused on reading and assessing and having a conversation with the client and the body not just you know pressing the reflexes to have an effect but really taking that outside of the session into a consultation approach so I think that's totally valuable Lorraine and I totally agree with that it can be a valuable asset that do post your questions system fabulous fabulous will you be doing any foot reading at the conference I would love to do but we're getting out the conference I'll definitely be interacting as it gets closer I think the conversation that I'm going have I'll be doing a one-hour talk each of the speakers is doing a one-hour talk at the foot reading conference and the topic that I've decided is and that ties in with the next question is using foot reading and social media and how to develop a foot reading presence online that through the use of social media channels and documenting your foot reading experiences so I think that that's going to be really fun let me let me actually talk about that real quick Kelly asked what advice would you give a practitioner who wants to start to do more promotion online and what advice would you give somebody just starting out on YouTube so for those of you who have been following me for a really long time you know that I'm very active online it's something that I've had to learn just because I am younger doesn't mean that I've had it any easier I hated Facebook I absolutely hated it I did not want to do it in fact I didn't have a Facebook account until like a personal Facebook account until last year when I did the first interview here that was actually the debut of my personal reflexology my personal page kelly didn't know that so that's pretty cool she kind of drew me into the Facebook bubble because before then I was just using my business partners Facebook account in order to do the social media stuff so I I really didn't like social media but I had to learn to use it because I knew it was such a valuable tool for my business and with the videos I really just started talking to the camera and the videos that are on the YouTube channel right now are just a fraction they're at the tip of the iceberg of the ones that I actually filmed because some of them were so horrible but they were so bad I just so embarrassing to think about you know how I was in the camera when I first started and that was really hard to get over that hump so I think that part of it is just doing it like if you're excited about the content if you're excited about reflexology if you're excited about foot reading then just just do it like make the post go live like it's easier now more than ever I went live on Instagram for the first time just before here to promote the talk so I'm again I'm still learning you know it's just about being willing to try and letting the excitement of the modality and the practice be stronger than your fear of social media I think that's the the really big lesson because I didn't have a Twitter account until a couple weeks ago and Kelly's just been Sam you have to be on Twitter and I'm like I don't really like Twitter but I finally caved in and I'm actually loving it I'm actually really enjoying it it's totally different platform and it has a different energy to it so I think that social media is growing and it's evolving but I think the goal is not necessarily to focus on social media I think it's to focus on content because if you have something to say and I'm looking right into the camera as I say that's like if you have something to say the world needs to hear from you because there's always somebody who knows less than you do and you're talking to them you're talking to the person who you were six months ago to tell them what you know now that you wish you would have known them and that's the basic kind of premise of all social media education and that's your audience as you're talking to the you six months ago or a year ago or when you first started and you're giving them the advice and you're sharing with them the experiences that you've had that you wish you would have known and if you could reach back in time like that's that's the goal it has so so little to do with the platform it has everything to do with the message so really encourage you to take that viewpoint and oh my god so many people are loving that comment I'm so glad that everybody's really enjoying that because that's that's really what I personally think it's about okay so let's let's move on to that sorry Sam did Lauren thank you thank you thank you work in the field oh thank you you build my confidence with every word it's like I pay you guys to say this yes so content is really what it's at and actually Sally Kay's a great example of this because she talks about you know publishing her work and that's something that I really want to talk about at the conference and something that I touch on in the book but something I really want to talk about inter marketing reflexology is the idea of you have to document what you're doing and even if it's just as simple if you look at my Instagram you know posting a picture of somebody's feet that they send you or asking permission from a client to circle a marker and share your thoughts on it post something really quick use a couple hashtags that doesn't need to be super fancy but instead just get the message out there like I learned a new marker today you know and post about it and be excited and that that excitement will be infectious and that's really kind of what it boils down to is you sharing the message so taking taking what you're doing on a daily basis as a practitioner or even like asking a question you know engage in social media follow the group's see what everybody else is doing and just see what I'm doing and then mimic me like I don't care take what I'm doing run with it just don't let yourself not be heard and I know that that was a double negative which is terrible but really just allow yourself and your message to be vocalized because that's that's really what it's about at the end of the day okay did you do how important has the use of social media been in your business um again everything like using social media I think has become more and more a part of my business especially as I've grown internationally i vocalize my frustrations earlier about like the cyclical concept of continuing education here where I'm at in Tampa Florida and not being able to fill live classes but then have so many people overseas who want to hear from me so I think that social media especially as you know the book got published last year and how it's exploded and you know just my my will you know back to the social media concept has just literally been about my passion for reflexology exceeding my fear because it's scary like even like I've done millions of webinars not millions but a lot of webinars at this point and still before I jumped on here like I was shaking I was nervous excited but like nervous yeah that never goes away so don't don't let that stop you but instead it's about the passion for the work overriding that fear and so with the social media like as my my content has been devoured and other places other than my own backyard like I've had to learn social media I've had to learn how to put a class online and so I think it's really forced my Meetup come out of my box not just not just with the content but also socially like being willing to engage more being willing to have conversations more not just being in the background by being an active part of the community so social media is huge for me it's becoming a more and more of a part of my business everyday and more and more part of my life everyday like it's starting to to really break down a lot of my social barriers because I don't I don't get along with people very well I'm very I'm very good when I'm the subject matter expert and I can talk to people about something and educate people about something that I know but if you ask me to like chat about the weather or to like talk about sports or to you know just be like social with people I don't do that like unless you're changing somebody's life like don't talk to me and that's that's a terrible way to say it but I'm super socially awkward so you'll see me at the conference as well like if you just want to come up and shoot the breeze I'll probably get really uncomfortable in standoffish but if you want to talk about foot reading like I'll be totally on it and that's just kind of what social media has helped me do personally not just professionally so I think that that's that's a big part of him scrolling through the comments totally agree you need to keep shouting loud exactly a question from a member medication yes yes that was it okay Thank You Kelly for posting that I forgot about that question and I think that this is super relevant so let's talk about technique for a second and let's talk about the session dynamic so when a client comes in and they're on a multitude of medications the question basically it was super super long-winded and if you want to read that in the comments you totally can a lot of details there but basically it boiled down to like if a client is on a very heavy medication does that influence the effect of the session I personally have not witnessed it affect the session what I what I have seen is that the body will receive the work regardless of what medications it's on and that's also like I've had multiple and multiple students who have worked on people with full paralysis as well as like I personally worked on people who are intoxicated either like by choice or by medication and they can not get words out very well but I like I did the session because I knew that they needed it a little bit of ethical stuff there but likewise um I had a client come in yesterday and she turned around and she said yeah I've been struggling to sleep at night and I've been having this bad neck pain so I went to my doctor and he put me on xanax and steroids xanax being a cold medication steroids being a hot medication and I just saw all the nation and the coagulation of fluid in her feet like the fire and water were battling it out in her system I was like well that helped not at all but I had to hold my tongue and you know just work with the client where they were at so I think when we look at a client who's heavily medicated we have to understand that the body will hear you regardless of what you think medically is happening the body will always understand what your touch is trying to accomplish and I think that's the innate intelligence of why reflexology works as a modality and why it's more complicated than just press reflex fix issue somebody comes in and you just jam on the stomach reflex because they have a stomach issue is not going to help very much but the body is going to understand what you're trying to do it's going to induce a meditative state induce an altered state of consciousness start to produce endorphins and start to feel better and bring itself back into balance just through the simple act of touch alone so same thing goes with medication you know if somebody's incapacitated in any way shape or form don't think that that should prevent you from using touch because touch is such a powerful healing medium and I always say you know just yes yes to the touch so even though that client that the person talked about is very medically compromised and is heavily medicated and you know the how sedated is the nervous system and does that have an effect I personally don't think so because I've seen even with somebody who is heavily medicated sedated or should not be feeling things they are receiving the work on multiple levels if you wanted to totally negate the physical aspect of the work talk about energetic talk about just the calming presence of somebody else treating them like a normal person for two seconds instead of a cold doctor or a cold nurse who just comes in checks vitals and leaves you know you being present and sitting with them and holding space can be even more powerful than the touch itself so that's part of the the work as well great question Lynne Butler yes yes yes questions questions thank you thank you so glad you're enjoying the book yes social social awkwardness is definitely something that I think we all can relate to okay so question number 10 that Kelly sent me at 2018 has been a very busy year for you professionally and what plans do you have in the new year so part of the big thing is I'll be going to Ireland the UK trip is really what I'm focused on right now I'm really not focused too much on next year because the UK trip is going to be not just the farthest I've traveled personally but it's also going to be the longest I've been away from the Institute so a little bit of a little bit of separation happening between me and me and my baby me and my my physical storefront location that's going to be really big for me but I'll be remotely checking in every day just to make sure that my my Institute is safe but no Cody okay here you'll be running at everything will be fine but I think for next year what I'd really like to focus on is getting booked number two out I'd really like to focus on the online course I'd really like to focus on more of the content that everybody can be a part of instead of just the live stuff I'll be doing towards the end of this year I haven't announced this yet but towards after I get back from my trips in September October I'll be doing a webinar series on kind of basics of bodywork but reflexology specific stuff too from my local people it'll be CEU accredited but then I'll be live-streaming it and then I'll be putting the replays on the online school so that'll be happening every other Friday and that'll be a really cool thing as well but just throwing more stuff like that like using more social media leaving using more live streaming not doing as many live classes where everybody can't be a part of them like it really I'd really like to make sure that everybody can get on board the foot reading train and kind of learn from what I'm doing and learn from the results that I've had the experiences that I've had and kind of take their practice to the next level so that's that's really my focus for next year is taking it taking it to that next step and really giving back to everybody that's been following me because that's everybody's just been so amazing then how do you stay motivated and focused this is a really powerful question or I wanted to save this towards the end because we've got about 10 minutes left but I think that going back to the beginning I stay focused and motivated because it's not something that I have to fake and I think my genuine curiosity helps me with that like a lot of the reason why people do social media and quit is because they're like oh well you know it's scary first and foremost so they finally get the courage up to do it they do a couple of posts and then they let the fear win and then they stop doing it because it's like well that that was scarier you know than I expected it and it didn't really bring me business and I think that I stay motivated because it's my curiosity to figure out how the body works how the foot is actually mapped like to share client stories to figure out what other people are doing to understand how other people view reflexology and have kind of mastered their craft and my my passion for the field starts to really take over at that point so if I were doing it like I hit a wall trying to post every other day or whatever you know talking about you know the google searchable terms for reflexology and just trying to use it as a marketing ploy and that that was really really difficult so I think when I switched over to just being passionate just sharing what I felt was relevant and to share what I was interested in which was really more the foot reading work than the reflexology work and I focused just on speaking my truth and you know showing people what I was learning and being excited about the stuff that I was learning and sharing that and really trying to you know call out into the vastness of the universe and say is anybody else seeing what I'm seeing in the feet and and really just letting that excitement take over that's really how I stayed motivated and that's really how I stay focused is because even when you know I veer off track I always pull myself back because it's just my natural state I just I'm fascinated and I think that fascination is what other people are attracted to and what's made the the foot reading aspect of what I do so successful is because I'm genuinely interested in what I have to say and regardless of if people follow me or not I'm still going to be talking about it when I go out with friends on the weekends I'm looking at people's feet like that's what I do it's it just to me it embodies how interconnected our world is and our universe is and how it's like a universal truth you know and me touching the raw wire of something that powerful and that creative and that interconnected really gives me energy so with that I think that's what keeps me motivated is the fact that I'm just genuinely fascinated by the process and I'm not I'm not faking it I'm not trying to use it as a marketing ploy like I'm trying to to share it and help it grow and to learn what's next and to fall down the rabbit hole of health and wellness just like everybody else it just so happens that the feet were my first stop on the journey I'm researching all the time I'm learning all the time I'm taking lots of classes I've been enrolled in an herbalism class I'm looking into medical astrology right now I'm looking to era Vado right now I'm looking into traditional teas medicine and I'm I'm always trying to find how other people do what I'm interested in which is basically hack the body for greater health and wellness so that's that's kind of how I stay focused and motivated is by just surrounding myself with those new things but old things and just staying consistent with my message okay questions questions questions thank you that's so confirming looking forward to the Ireland trip so excited thank you for answering my questions yeah any other questions we've got like about eight minutes eagerly waiting for my book to arrive I love that phrase speaking my truth looking forward to seeing you at the foot reading conference last question that Kelly and opposed to me was when you do have a day off from work how do you like to relax a couple things that a lot of people don't really know and back to that social awkwardness starting to get just a little bit nervous like I feel my shoulders creeping in just a little bit I actually like to binge watch Japanese animation or anime that's one of the things that I've always been attracted to I was actually even more stuff and a lot of you are going to be totally freaked out because you don't know this about me because I haven't really shared it but for four years I was actually involved in live stage combat where I cosplayed it were dressed up as various anime characters and we all wielded like broad swords and shields and we enacted pre-scripted fight scenes for entertainment basically at one of the largest anime conventions in Florida so that was a part of my my teen years and I did that for a good while and that that's just always been something that I find relaxing is not just the the like animation part of it which i think is visually stunning and that there's a lot of like magic and otherworldly stuff in it but something like in my brain gets very soothed when I when I want something happened and I hear something happened but then I also read across the bottom of the screen the words that I'm hearing in Japanese in English like it it flosses my brain in some way and that's like the best way I can describe it so I do a lot of that I also cook I read I just got two new books from Amazon deliver the other day like I just can't stop reading but then also like I'm not a big social person I've talked about this like I'm not one to go I have to force myself to go socialize with people so it's not something that I'm not hanging out at bars or like going to social gatherings I'm just not comfortable with that so I think a lot of me is my ability to relax is just me like going into my cave and like just decompressing that way such energy don't be shy yeah so I oh yeah so acting was like a really big part of of it I think that that contributes to the stage presence and how I have overcome some of my social awkwardness as I assume the role of Sam as foot reader and that's you know stepping into that excitement and that's that personality is really what allows me to put like personal Sam to the side and I think that that's a lot of what social media is and a lot of people give social media flack for you know oh people aren't really being authentic and you know they're just trying to show what everybody else wants to see and not really themselves and that is true like this is only a big part of who I am this is a big part of who I am because it's my business but it's you know also a smaller part of you know who Sam is individually but it does help me like put meth into a box and step into a role and use a voice that I otherwise would have not used if I was stuck in my you know anti-social stuff so social media is very valuable in that way to you know stepping into the role of who you are business-wise and who you are practice one is versus like and this is a big social media mistake that a lot of people do is they try to combine their personal with their professional and I think that if you're you know toasting pictures of your kids and you know the food that you ate and blah blah blah on your business page that's that's a no-no always try to separate those two if you can because the people who are interested in who you are and what you do professionally are not necessarily going to be interested in kind of your personal life and I know that I've unfollowed people on Instagram from that multiple times just because it's like I'm sick of seeing Beach scenes about every vacation that you're going to I follow you because I'm interested in reflexology and foot reading not because I want to see photos of your vacation like do you ever work and that's really that's harsh super harsh a little bit of harsh Sam came out to the circus so forgive me for that but like that's the thought process I'm interested in you know learning and growing as a professional like I own a foot reading business and a reflexology business I want to learn what you know and that's another reason why I encourage you all to share your experiences because I learned from what you have to say - you know we can all learn from each other's experiences which is why I did the the all call for the video challenge the video testimonial challenge in my Facebook group so if any of you are members of the Facebook group post your testimonial like I want to learn how reflexology changed your life and has changed the life of your clients and you know how you use foot reading and share some of your stories so that we can all take those stories and spread them around and become better practitioners as a whole because how we share is how we grow from from that standpoint so really understanding each other's experiences and vocalizing those is part of the part of the social media practice question from a member what is the significance of a longer second toe bossy but not really that's that's the negative side of it but the positive side of it is somebody who is very emotional by nature they have a very strong heart space but then also they tend to vocalize that hard space very very strongly they also need to vocalize that a hard space very strongly so they do very well in leadership or teaching roles also that they tend to have shoulder problems not just physically in terms of rotator cuff stuff but they also tend to hold their tension in their shoulders so that's that's well I whip that out really quick guys that was really good see this is just because I do it all day like I'm literally thinking about feet 24/7 do you have a list of books on your reading list or website you would recommend yes so my book is up there all of J and Chi Huns books are up there sue Rick's a Maurice emoji mo she is up there the aor Association of reflexologist book also course Stormers books all of those really really important james jihun as an online course i have an online course like the resources are totally available and we are just about to hit 60 minutes so I will let everybody who is tuning in a way past their bedtime get to bed and I thank everybody who stayed with me for the hour it doesn't feel like an hour it feels like we just got started if you have any other last questions just post them in the in the comments below I would love to continue answering them throughout the day but then also hit me up like private message me message me through the foot whisper join the Facebook group like don't let this be the end of the conversation because I think that we were all on this journey together like we're all on the same train we're going to the same destination and you know although our specialties may be different and although you know some of you feel like you're better than others at certain things like we're all students we're all learning we're all at various stages and the common theme is like don't don't let your fear of where you think you're at stifle your next steps because we're all going to grow from each other's experiences if we just overcome and get the courage to share them with each other so that's kind of where I'm at and yeah everybody thank you thank you thank you so much love so much passion I appreciate you so much thank you thank you thank you but that will end the video and make sure to check out the replay I'll post this on my youtube channel over the next couple hours so see you later you