Male Announcer: You’re listening to From Pain to Possibility with Susi Hately. You will hear Susi’s best ideas on how to reduce or even eradicate your pain and learn how to listen to your body when it whispers so you don’t have to hear it scream. And now here’s your host, Susi Hately.
Welcome and welcome back. I’m so glad that you’re here because today I continue on with my Safety in Selling miniseries. And this is cultivated for the yoga teacher, yoga therapist, for the health professional who wants to integrate yoga into their practices and they are looking for an aligned process to follow.
So many people that I train really dislike this idea of sales. And I get it. I totally, totally understand. I don’t think I’m a salesperson myself. Like I cringe at that idea. However, I do have lots of conversations with people about the services that I offer. And guess what? Those are sales conversations.
But what has me cringing on the inside is the same thing that everybody cringes about when it comes to sales. No one wants to be that slimy, gross, icky that we tend to relate to sales. Like nobody wants that, right? And for us, we just want to go teach people. We just want to help people feel better.
And the reality is that if we want to help people feel better, we need to have people as clients to help feel better. So ultimately, there’s a sales process that happens. There is a process by which someone finds out who you are, and then there’s a connection that starts to happen. And then out of that connection, there’s a realization of fit. The client notices there’s a fit, you notice that there’s a fit, and then there’s a transaction. And then voila, they become a client.
If, as I mentioned in the first episode, if you kind of, I’m going to put the words of mess it up a little bit, where you’re trying to convince someone to become a client, then how you are dictates what happens when they are a client.
So if you had to convince someone to become a client, chances are you’re gonna have to convince them when they are a client. Like convince them to do their homework, convince them to do their program, convince them to show up on time, convince them to even just pay attention to their body. Like there’s so many nuanced ways that this whole convincing thing shows up. Like you may even think you have to make things interesting and do something different every time they’re there. Like it’s all just blech.
There’s a whole nuance to this that if you simply begin with this idea of a healing relationship at the get-go, and you work with skills and tools to support at the get-go, earlier on in what I call the sales process, early on in that engagement, then you’ll find that there’s a better fit, and then you’ll find that they’re a better client. They’re just more ideal to what you are and who you are, and then the convincing just goes away.
You’ll find that clientele, it’s not that they’re not committed. Oh, I can’t think of the word. It’s the word that’s often used in the medical world. They’re not doing the work that they need to do, but you’ll find that that doesn’t happen anymore, that people are just showing up ready to go partly because of how you were in the earlier phases of the dialogue before they became the client.
Okay, so this episode really is to build upon that, and I’m going to direct it more to like you and some of the specific things you can do to support your own self-regulation, and I’m going to highlight it though with a client interaction once they are a client. And I’m also going to highlight a concept called the DIMs and the SIMs.
And the DIMs and the SIMs are a concept out of the NOI Institute in Australia, the work of Lorimer Moseley and David Butler. And David Butler is the primary person I’ve heard speak about DIMs and SIMs. DIM is danger in me. A SIM is safety in me.
And as it relates to pain, when we are feeling a symptom in our body and we interpret it as being something that is a threat, something we don’t have control over, something that is going to limit our life, metaphorically the mercury level so to speak, it’s heightened and we’ll feel it stronger and more as pain. If that same symptom is experienced and it’s like, hey, wait a second, I’ve got this, then the mercury level so to speak is going to be lower, it’s going to be less heightened.
When I’m working with a client, I’m very, very deliberate in terms of how I utilize this concept. And one of the ways that I do this is at their first session, typically a client will have reduced or eradicated symptoms of pain because people typically come to see me for private one-to-one sessions due to physical pain symptoms.
They’ll typically reduce or eradicate them in that hour, and then what I’ll say to them at the end of that session is, I would like you to pay attention to when the symptoms start to come back. See if you can notice how long this particular feeling lasts, and when it starts to fade. And you have your program that you can utilize to intervene. If you can even catch it earlier, that would be great. And if you miss it, that’s okay.
Part of the process is being able to recognize the ebb and the flow of these symptoms, what contributes to them, and things we can do to support you so that we build up the infrastructure and your ability to absorb and dissipate load so that you have more stability, more ability to absorb, more ability to dissipate, so then the symptoms just stop becoming a thing.
But there are some baby steps along the way, and the first one is you’re likely going to notice these symptoms to come back, and I would like you to tell me at what point they come back.
Now usually that leads someone to kind of look at me like, you know how sometimes a dog looks at their owner when the dog thinks? They’re kind of like, what are you talking about? The symptoms are gone. And I’ll say, yes, they’re gone, and this is a new pattern.
We need to build up this new pattern so that they stay gone longer and longer and longer. But I need to have an understanding. We need to evaluate how well we did here and understand what we’re working with, so let me know when they start to come back.
Now there’s a real deliberateness about why I do that. There’s a whole bunch of reasons why. One of them, as it pertains to the DIMs and the SIMs, is I am outlining this as a total SIM. I am outlining and expecting that these symptoms are going to come back. And I’m outlining in such a way of like, you’ve got this, I’ve got this, we’re good, just let me know when it comes back. No problem.
You’ve got some tools here you can utilize. This will help them reduce, but let me know, and then we build from there. Like I share the map step-by-step-by-step. So now if the symptoms start to come back, which they do because it’s a process to help someone reduce and eradicate pain long-term, but they’re not scared. They’re not fearful. They’re not, oh my god, this isn’t working. They’re expecting it and they know what to do.
That is the fundamental brilliance of a SIM, and it’s something that I do really, really, really, really well with my clientele. So now it’s like, all right, symptoms start to become these messengers. Isn’t this kind of cool? What are these actually letting us know? Now as we continue on with the process, we can go as deep or as surface as we want with that, but the point is that this is a SIM.
Okay, now how does this relate to a selling process? This is where I said in the introduction this is going to be about you now. We’re going to focus in on you. You might be someone who is terrified of the sales process, terrified of engaging with people, terrified of like, oh my gosh, I have to find clients.
Like even just saying that, think about where that lands in your body. Even just saying that makes my body kind of get in a heightened state. I can feel my gut sort of clench a little bit about that. It doesn’t feel good. I mean it makes sense it doesn’t feel good because no one wants to be gotten. No one wants to be found in that way.
So what becomes interesting is this experience that you can explore of DIMs and SIMs. And so the first step of this is this, notice what yours is. That’s it. Notice what yours is. Notice the statements that roll through your head. I’ve got to get a client. I’ve got to find customers. I’ve got to fill in the blank.
If you could spend a little bit of time right now or even after you listen to this, ponder it when you’re driving along, so long as it’s safe to do that. What are the things that bubble up for you about connecting with people who could be your clients? What comes up?
If you can name these things and recognize them as merely things that are in your head, the ways that you’re thinking about this process, then we can actually start working with them. It’s very much similar to when I start helping someone move their body and I help them see where they’re moving well and where they’re compensating. Then we get to actually start working with improving, moving them better and reducing that compensation.
This is the same thing. We’re now just noticing what you’re thinking and your beliefs about this whole process of connecting with people who could potentially become your clients and getting really clear on what that is. You might not get all of them at first. That’s okay. Just get a few of them. The ones that sort of come up, the ones that clench your heart a little bit, the ones that make your mouth dry.
You might notice that your butt cheeks really start to clench or your breath starts to get shallow. It’s this idea of what thoughts are you thinking that has a very discernible DIM kind of experience in your body. And then can you allow yourself to recognize that this is what’s present? And that’s it.
Can you breathe and actually honor yourself for naming these things and know that it’s completely normal. 100% normal. And there’s a way out. But for now, this first step is can you simply recognize what comes up when you think about connecting with people who could become your clients? And then can you just begin to breathe? Find your feet and breathe.
There’s this idea in yoga where, and in mindfulness and a lot of different meditation practices about the witness. The witness can often be considered, for me anyway, I like to think about the witness is sort of outside of me looking in. I can witness myself and my experience. I can be in the experience and then I can witness myself in the experience.
This way, I’m not shoving an experience away. I can simply experience it. I can experience the heightenedness of it. And then I can also zoom out a little bit and go, okay, hold on a second. I can actually watch myself in the experience. I can be in it and I can be separate from it. And then I can move back and forth between those.
And as I do, something begins to settle. I can’t tell you how powerful it is to simply recognize the way that we are about certain things. That’s the start of something new happening. Because I wouldn’t want to teach you some skills and tools about connecting with people and then seeing if there’s a fit and they see if there’s a fit and then you guys make an agreement and then they become a client if these beliefs and thoughts are there.
It doesn’t mean you need to get rid of them. Please don’t interpret that. But if we didn’t take the time to notice what was there, and then you started to learn a bunch of skills and tools, but those are still there, it’s the same sort of thing as me teaching someone about strengthening and stability exercises, but we haven’t done anything to improve the compensatory patterns that they have.
Because then all we do is put stability and stabilizing and strength exercises on top of a poor foundation, a compensated foundation. So they might get stronger and more stable for a period of time, but the undercurrent of their movement patterns is still there. The neuromuscular patterning is still there. The motor control patterns are still there and that’s why so many people circle around in pain, occasional pain, and when it comes back, it comes back hard.
So you can learn some ideas and some tools and some techniques and you can put them on top of these heart palpitating types of experiences, but if we don’t at least notice what’s there and honor it, then all the skills and the tools aren’t going to really help. So that’s why I just say, and that’s why I’m pausing a bunch and letting this piece of this episode linger a little bit. Because if you can be okay and love yourself here, we can make so much gain.
The sales process is not always easy. Sometimes it can feel very uncomfortable and even inside of that, it can be great. It can be connected. It can be aligned. I find for me when it gets uncomfortable is when I know I can really, really help somebody. Like I really know I can help somebody.
And for me I can sort of jump and get almost too excited sometimes. And I’ve learned over time that’s part of who I am and sometimes it can come across as being a little overwhelming. So I’ve learned how to tune into when that is coming up and if that’s coming up as a compensation or if that’s actually really truly aligned.
People can feel it too, right? They can feel it. And so the more I can just tune into that and recognize those experiences, the process becomes more of a SIM. Much, much more of a SIM. And it starts to even become fun because what you begin to realize is that these are connections between two human beings. You and a human, another person who’s reached out potentially to work with you and both of you are discovering if there’s a fit. And then from that discovery they then might become a client.
The aim is not to get everybody to say yes. It’s to connect with those who truly resonate with what you’re up to and you truly resonate with what they’re seeking. It’s the nuts and bolts of the healing relationship. But if you’re not able to regulate yourself, it makes it a bit tricky. So the first step of this is to just recognize what are those thoughts that bubble up?
What comes up? And can you be with those thoughts? Being in them, feeling them resonate through you, and then zooming out a bit and being the witness and watching yourself having those thoughts. And does that kind of take some of the tightness or strain or dry mouth or heart palpitations, does that start to move it a little bit?
And then begin to breathe because you know that you are talented and you are skilled. And it took you some time to grow that talent and skill. For those of you who are yoga teachers you did a 200 hour teacher training, perhaps a 500 hour teacher training and you might be considering my certification program. There are skills and tools that you’ve learned along the way.
You didn’t start off being a yoga teacher. There was a first yoga class that you taught that may have had you sweating a little bit, dry mouth, heart pounding, and then you went and you did it and it got better and easier and better. Some of those classes were uncomfortable, some of them were straightforward and super fun, some of them were both. This is no different.
So step one, recognize what thoughts are coming up and can you simply be with them and can you zoom out and notice yourself with them? So you’re able to witness, you’re able to be in them, you can recognize you can be in them, you can be out of them, they are not necessarily you.
All right, so a really fun way, can I say, to explore this experiencing of regulation, of tuning in with your nervous system, playing with this concept of DIMs and SIMs. I will see you next time for the next episode of Safety and Selling. Take good care.
