82 | Promoting your Practice When the World is on Fire

0:00 Hi there. Welcome to In the Clinic with Camille. My name is Camille Freeman. I'm an herbalist and nutritionist. And in this podcast, I share little tips and tidbits that might be helpful for other practitioners. So today I want to talk about something that's on my mind, given the current state of the world, and in particular the current state of this country, which is the idea of promoting your work when it feels like there's fires literally and metaphorically just everywhere. And it seems like your little piece of whatever it is that you do is maybe not that important right now. And maybe you feel worn down or overwhelmed or busy with other things and it just doesn't seem like it's that important or something that you have the energy or wherewithal to do right now.

0:51 And I think about this a lot and I talk about this a lot in my one-on-one mentoring with people, that when there's a crisis, multiple crises, I'm not sure that's a word, in the world, it can almost seem petty or insignificant to be like, oh, hey, come work with me as an herbalist or a coach or a nutritionist or whatever it is that you do. And I just want to talk about that for a little while. Because I do think, I truly believe on a very deep level that when people feel better in their bodies, that is an important part of global healing.

1:31 That when we feel better. When we feel that we are resourced, when we have capacity, that means that we are able to do the work in order to make things better. And I also know that especially when there's so many chaotic things happening around us, the nervous system is hyper-vigilant for a lot of us. We're on guard because it feels like things are crumbling around us in all directions in many ways, and it's hard to know what's going to happen next. When the nervous system is like that, when we're hypervigilant, it's almost like a multiplier of whatever else is going on for people.

2:13 So if they previously were having digestive issues, it can just be hyped up when the nervous system is like that or mental health issues, whatever it is. So it just turns that volume up to be going through something like this. And also, when we're in that kind of hypervigilant state, it also makes it harder to see objectively what's happening in our own lives. I've had this happen. I think I've talked about it on the podcast before, which is, you know, sometimes when I'm not doing well, I don't realize that I completely forget about the tools that I've spent decades of my life learning about. And I need somebody from the outside to say, hey, Camille, don't forget about these things.

2:57 Or have you considered doing X, Y, and Z? I think it might be a really good fit for what's going on with you. Or to just put things into place so that I understand them more. And that's what most of us do. We are those outside eyes for people who can say, hey, sounds like this is what's going on. Let's see if this is gonna help you feel better. And again, when we do that, we resource people so that they have the capacity to show up and help make things better. Okay, so our work, I think our work is really important in this moment in particular. And the reason this is a little bit weird is because most of the people that I work with feel really conscious about not trying to capitalize on tragedy or whatever terrible circumstances are going on.

3:47 People were not trying to profit from what's happening in Palestine or whatever political crisis is happening here, any of that kind of stuff. Yeah. People don't want to be seen as making some sort of weird LinkedIn post relating your, you know, like, oh, you know, the world's on fire and you need nutrition. That's not what most of us want to do. And that's not what I'm promoting here. I'm not recommending that you do that. But what I am saying, and what I'm hoping you'll walk away from after listening to this, is that if we don't show up in spaces where our clients are and remind them that we're here and tell them about the type of work we do, then they don't know about our work and we aren't actually serving as a resource.

4:35 So I think that now more than ever, people forget things. Our minds are cluttered with lots of different situations right now. It is not easy to recall in the first place that help is available. And it's not easy to recall if it is available, who is that person? So it's time for us to show up and be present and visible in spaces where our clients are so that we can just stand as a resource for people to find when the time is right for them. So what might this look like? I'm just gonna give you maybe an idea, a suggestion. You don't need to do it this particular way, but some of the things that I would be thinking about are, for example, writing a newsletter or a post if you're on social media or something, and just speak from your heart, speak authentically about what you see happening.

5:27 This may or may not include your political beliefs and views or anything else, but just saying, hey, what I see happening in my community right now is this. I see that some people are in hyperdrive, doing everything they can to just try to push back and make some change about what's happening right now. Other people are in overwhelm and shutdown because there's lots of reasons for that. And no matter which one of these represents you. This is really hard on the nervous system. It's really hard on the body to go through what we're going through right now. If you are in a place where you need some extra support, that is the kind of work that I do. I would love to work with you if that's where you are right now and you need some outside eyes to help give you a feel for how you can best get through what's facing you right now.

6:17 You know, here's how you can work with me. That's the kind of thing I'm talking about. I'm not saying you need X, Y, and Z support or I can make it all better. Or anything along those lines, but really just showing up and saying, this is something that herbs can help us navigate. Or sometimes this is when we need an outside objective perspective to help us figure out what are the small changes we can do to get through whatever's coming next. Whatever it is, what are the ways that you are available to help your community show up and at least tell people that you're available and see if that serves. So I hope this is helpful I you know I go through these processes myself in my head I'm thinking like you know I have a whole bunch of workshops this month about marketing and things like that and I you know part of me is like I mean it doesn't even really matter my little corner of the world, you know I have one coming up Thursday that's about how to talk about what you do and I have one spring dreaming and planning workshop coming up the following week and a seasonal allergies workshop coming up, these types of things.

7:25 And I've thought about adding to every single one of them, like, seasonal dreaming in these terrible times, seasonal allergies in these terrible times. I'm like, that's not very... Anyway, I've decided against that. But what I am saying is when I think through all of this and how to do this work, I do think it's important. I do think that this is a time for us to step up and show people that we're available to help them to be examples of taking good care of ourselves as much as we can so that we can stay resourced to support other people. And even talking about how we've been able to navigate some of this, what's really improved for you.

8:08 When you put things into place for yourself, how does it help you? Because that may show other people how herbs or nutrition or whatever else it is that you do can help them provide some examples based on taking good care of yourself. So with all that in mind, I hope that's helpful. I'll be talking about this more in the coming weeks and months, I suspect. If you have questions or thoughts or anything you'd like for me to hear on this topic, I would love to hear from you. you can go to intheclinic.com, leave me a message there, or you can contact me through that website. Also, speaking of the things that I have coming up, if you would like to come to a workshop on how to describe what you do, that's happening on Thursday, which is, I believe, the 5th. I've got to check on that.

8:55 It's someday, March 6th. It's the 6th, March 6th, from 12 to 1 Eastern Time. We're not going to be talking about how to describe what you do on your website, which is important but this is more a conversation where this comes up and you're at a potluck or a friend's house and they say oh what do you do most of us stumble we're like oh i'm you know how do you say what you do in a way that makes sense that doesn't turn people off and it doesn't make you sound like an absolute weirdo unless that's what you're going for we're just going to talk through it what do you say we're going to practice saying what we say and saying it out loud that sort of thing. You can come for free to the workshop if you share it with somebody else, such as on social media or a friend or something like that.

9:41 Or you can just pay $25 if you do not want to share it and that's not your thing. That would be great too. So I'd love to have you there if that's of interest. And I did mention my seasonal allergies class. That's part of our immune system deep dive, which is in March happening on the 10th from 5 to 630. And that one has CEUs available. We'll be talking more about what causes seasonal allergies, how can we support people both during allergy season and leading up to allergy season to really strengthen. Both the tissues and to support the immune response prior to allergy season hitting. So I'm excited about that. Perhaps you will like to join us for those. You can find out about both of them on camillefreeman.com or in the show notes.

10:24 All right, I will talk to you later. Thank you for listening.