safety for at-home practitioners

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Permalink Reply by Makaranda...=) on June 1, 2009 at 7:41pm

That is a good question- I'd say get a rotweiller.

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Permalink Reply by Zoe on June 1, 2009 at 8:33pm

I've worked from home before and never had any problems. I even did massage from home and that often gets confused if you advertise in the wrong section of the paper (!) and still, never any problems. I am confident with people and had trained as a counsellor which helped me so, so much when being in a theraputic role.
I recommend doing a course in Person Centered Counselling (founded by Carl Rogers), just an 'Intro to counselling' course would be so valuable to you right now in preparation for this shift into becoming a therapist.

You may get more clients if you did it in a shared workspace like a therapy centre, beauty salon, health club, spa, hotel spa. Just because people are passing through, it is free advertising, people are already going there and will be interested to see what the new thing is.

As you are just starting out it seems to me that finding a room in an existing centre/shop/salon/spa would help a lot so you can learn things from other therapists, make friends, build a client base up, then work from home once you are established. You can go to other people's houses as well...be a mobile therapist, then you can treat people who are busy, disabled, or just prefer you to come to them. I used to treat a paraplegic in her home. You could also try old people's homes and see if there is a way of giving them healing. Even for free, they would talk about it to all of their relatives who come and visit them, you would enjoy it aswell, older people get so much pleasure from energy work, they are always blown away in my experience. They appreciate the comfort, the spiritual comfort it brings, as they come closer to their death. And they all have aches and pains...

It can be harder to get clients and more isolating to work from home. You need to advertise and network a lot because you don't have a 'shop front'. A website would be very handy if you were to work from home because it is like a 'shop front', but even so, you need to get people to look at it, so you need internet advertising, flyers etc maybe a P.R. person. It just depends on what your town is like and what your individual situation is like.

It is hard to make a living from just Reiki treatments...especially because a lot of people give healing for free...and many people who are 'into' it don't see the point in paying for Reiki treatments when they can get attuned and do it for themselves...maybe think about what else you can offer in addition to Reiki.
Reflexology, Indian Head massage, crystal healing, giving intuitive readings, raw food coaching are all quite popular, but still it is tough to make a full time living from it. I don't mean to be negative, it's just what I've seen in the last 10 years I've worked in holistic health. I live in the UK, it might be different where you live.
I just see quite often how Reiki masters make claims about how anyone can make a living out of giving Reiki treatments, in order to sell their attunements, I don't know anyone who does make their income from just that...The people i've met who make money out of Reiki are very good at self promotion, advertising themselves, networking and business in general, and they do group attunements which is where the money is.

My advice would be just to relax, give treatments to people, be open, and just do it, get used to being in this role, and the different dynamic when people are trusting you with their energy, their body.

The most important thing is to heal yourself, to give Reiki to yourself for a decent amount of time every day. This way you will be in the best possible state to give treatments and attract lots of people to you through your lovely energy. If you are alright in yourself, then everything else will be great, no matter what I said in this post, about it being tough etc, this does not have to apply to you, your own mental attitude and energy can overcome all situations and conditions... if you are feeling good in yourself and overflowing with love and energy, then the rest will just fall into place one way or another...

Good luck, if you want to chat about it in the future or more now then you can just drop me a line if you like...
Love to you... (sorry to have gone on so much, just all came out...are u still awake!! ;)

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Permalink Reply by yoda on June 1, 2009 at 9:19pm

Working from home safely means you need to make it seem like there might be someone else there - best way to do this is to have the treatment room at the entrance you are using, so people don't need to walk through any other area, they don't know what else is beyond the front door, or who else. Perfect setup is to have the master bedroom with attached bathroom off the hall at the front door and use that as a treatment room. This isn't a particularly common layout!

If they do walk through the rest of the house/apartment to get to the treatment room, you have to be a clean freak, it virtually makes the space they walk through a show home. It's all about them, not your living environment, so you need to remove evidence from the area they walk through that you live there. Can you live like that? Pets are a no-no if they need to walk through the living area - you'd be amazed at how often someone is terrified of dogs or cats, and when you add the allergies, some people see evidence of an animal and they start to cough. If you have a treatment room off the front door, you can keep the pets away from the treatment room.

As Zoe said, making a living from only reiki is a challenge, there are so many reiki healers, everyone knows someone that does it, there are reiki healing circles setup all over the place where people go to give and receive for free. Reiki is a very good add-on but by itself it would hardly make pocket money to start off with. If you don't have a special treatment room and just do it in the living area or a spare bedroom, it really makes it seem like a pocket money job, but if you do have a treatment room, can you afford the extra rent or whatever for that extra room?

I'd recommend go to a bodywork message board like either bodyworkonline.com or healthypages.co.uk and search for working from home. You'll get a lot of additional info and tips. healthypages even has a sticky thread about safety for therapists in the massage section. As Zoe said, massage is a bit riskier due to the confusion for some people that a massage is sex work, so the safety precautions are a bit more of a concern, but it gives you an idea of how to be extra careful and you can wind it back to how careful you think you need to be.

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Permalink Reply by aililiu on June 3, 2009 at 11:24am

thanks for the replies!

im not looking to start a reiki practice as my main means of income, and i know that can be a hard path to take--
ive already commited myself to another hard hard-to-make-money career, as an artist :)
but i do love reiki, and i thought perhaps having that as a side business could possibly work.
if i was working from home, it wouldnt matter if i went a stretch with no treatments booked-- even just once in a blue moon could be useful & enjoyable then!

i havent found my space for next year so i dont know what it will look like, but i was thinking that the living room might be a good place to set up a table. i know i'd have to keep it tidy and well decorated :)

i just want to make sure id be safe in this situation, as i dont know yet whether i'll be living with anyone.
if i WAS living with someone i'd make sure theyd stay in another room during the hour or so of the treatment.

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Permalink Reply by jodykwik on June 3, 2009 at 4:40pm

great to hear from you again!...8^))

i've done massage from my place for quite awhile. and i also travel to people's houses too. and i've worked in other places (spa's, doctor's offices, group practices, etc...) and i've had my own office space.

working from home has proven to be a great thing in some respects, not so much in others. since my client base is pretty set and has been for awhile, home is a great option. but i do get new clients in the summers mostly and there's the aspect of more detailed instruction giving in order how to get here as well as the fact of having regular visits from strangers in my place. strangely, i find it hard to keep on top of my schedule when working from home--the informal feel of it gets me off my internal clock a bit. not a lot, but a bit.

these things can be visualized and affirmed to run at their most efficient pace and with efficient energy though. and i love working with energy too...don't do reiki exactly myself, but i've trained in a very similar way of working with people and i both love it and feel it's one of the reasons i'm on the planet. and interestingly enough...it sort of chose me rather than the other way around...that's another story though....

hey good on ya aililiu!!..8^))...all best with it (and with your art too!!)

xx paul

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Permalink Reply by aililiu on June 4, 2009 at 12:24pm

paul! its been forever! :) fantastic to hear from you

i know what you mean about losing track of time when you work from home--
but, well-- i plan to be self employed so thats something i'll have to learn to cope with ;)

i havent completely decided if i'll be going ahead with this.
ill be in school, still, so it would be fine if i didnt get much business,
but i wont be able to hold a job down otherwise so even once in a while could help.
and this is besides the enjoyment factor and wonderful healing for all involved ;)

YES visualizations!
and maybe if my home is just SUCH a feel-good place, with positive energy and loving affirmations everywhere, it would deter any negative happenings ;)

how queer--reiki chose me as well! also an interesting story. it was just completely out of my hands. (now, of course, its just completely IN my hands-- hahah. love it!)

have a lovely day, paul!

bless,
aililiu

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