Massage for Women Who Aren't Yet Comfortable in Their Bodies

CC Image by susivinh from Flickr

I'm taking a business class right now, through the amazing not-for-profit MercyCorpsNW, because I want to be better able to serve my clients. I already give a great massage ("Best massage I've ever had." - Emily M.), but in order to be able to do the massage I love, I need to have the scaffolding of good business practices in place. And, frankly, I love being a small business owner, and have been having so much fun learning and connecting with other local people who are or want to be self-employed.

It's a great class, and I'm incredibly lucky to be taking it with Rebecca and Wade, owners of Santeria, Portland's best Mexican restaurant. This week we practiced a fifteen word "unique value proposition", which is a very business-y phrase to mean "what you do". During the break this week they each, separately, came up to me afterward to compliment me on mine. Here's it is:

"I help women who aren't yet comfortable in their bodies, through massage and radical acceptance."

(Count it!)

I'm not entirely sure this is correct, though it is definitely a large portion of what I do. I'm still working on it.

But I wanted to talk about the word "yet", which is my favorite part of this sentence. I love "yet". "Yet" is such a full word, both acknowledging the reality of now and creating space for the future. "Yet" is hope, is opportunity, is potential. "Yet" is mindful, is accepting, is compassionate. "Yet" is the space between pessimism, which closes itself off to any good in the future, and optimism, which dishonors the darkness of now.

I haven't finished putting my website together yet.

I haven't figured out how to communicate the wholeness of what I do in fifteen words yet.

I haven't yet made my entry way as beautiful as I know it can be.

But I will.

What are you holding the space for in your life right now? What are some of your "yets"?