The Business of Healing

Going into business for myself was a bigger decision than I really understood at the time. I made the decision six years ago when I resigned from my seven-year career in software development and enrolled in chiropractic college. I knew that the change in career would involve becoming an entrepreneur because there aren’t really “jobs” for chiropractors in institutions or companies, and I was ready for that shift in that I was ready to start making my life work for me. What I didn’t realize was just how profound the difference really is.

The financial safety nets and emotional certainty of a job with an employer had been a huge part of my adult life, and I did well in that type of structure at work and at school. Graduating from chiropractic college thrust me back out into the world, but this time with no external structure into which I could fit myself. More than three years after the decision had been made, I found myself suddenly forced to live the choice I had made. I am responsible for my own safety nets now, and the feelings of certainty have to come from inside. The challenge was significant, and though I managed to regain some semblance of order and confidence in my life, it’s only recently that I discovered the true healing that my original decision was calling for.

Woman-owned businesses are often vehicles for creative self-expression at their core, and the courage required to be successful in business is the courage required to bring your authentic voice out in public. As a woman choosing to start and run her own business, I must get fully on board with myself. I am attaching my livelihood and that of my family to my business, which is really an expression of my truth and what I value. So for me to truly be successful in this business, I must first recognize and own the unique value of that expression, the worth and specialness of me. And though I wasn’t aware of it several years ago, the “calling” I responded to in choosing to become a chiropractor and a businesswoman was actually a calling from within to take this journey to embodied self-esteem. Indeed, in all our endeavors, our healing is the point of the situation we find ourselves in, and real success comes when we can take the opportunity in front of us.