On a Friday night in Cocoa, Florida, massage therapist Mike Bloom wears a meticulously starched and pressed uniform. He’s capping a 40-hour week by inspecting a fireworks display at a large sporting event. When he’s not doing massages, Bloom fights fires. “I’ll be out of here at about 11:00 p.m., and then I’ve got a massage client at 8:00 a.m.,” he says. His Saturday schedule will include two one-hour massages and two 90-minute sessions. Bloom rarely sits still, and one quickly gets the sense that inactivity isn’t in his nature. In fact, he loves his schedule. “You never know what the day’s going to bring. That’s the great thing about my jobs: different people, different places, every day.”
Massage therapist Carol Laverriere runs a housecleaning business. Bruce Austin provides dental care to people without insurance. As diverse as these careers might sound, these practitioners have something in common with many of their massage colleagues. Across the profession, more than one-third of massage therapists have two or more jobs. Careers range from part time to more than full time, from health care to the arts, from education to hospitality. Through the seemingly endless variety of careers, it’s possible to trace one unifying thread: an abiding passion for massage therapy that inspires therapists to brave the demands of dual careers.
A Spirit of Service
For Austin, the idea of becoming a massage therapist arose unexpectedly in his quest for more fulfilling and impactful work. Two years ago, he walked away from a secure and lucrative position as a dentist for a large health-care corporation. “I truly jumped off a cliff without a safety net,” he remembers. “I didn’t have a plan.” Now, just six months into his new career, he’s a locally respected expert in providing massage therapy for temporomandibular joint dysfunction (TMJD). Also a dedicated long-distance runner, he’s recently been recruited to provide sports massage for the Oregon State University women’s track team and work on athletes in the upcoming Olympic trials.
Rather than abandon his dental career, he has also infused it with a spirit of service. He works part time for a nonprofit, two-seat clinic that serves the uninsured, and which allows organizers to study a community-based model to reduce hospital emergency room visits for dental emergencies. “I can’t believe how many people have tears in their eyes and give me a hug, especially the HIV patients. This is lovely work. I can do truly medically necessary treatment and be appreciated for it, instead of working for a private practice and having to promote certain services to pay the bills. Both in massage and dentistry, I feel very good about what I’m doing now.”
Making Ends Meet
Second jobs often are a financial necessity. Lavierriere practices massage and runs her housekeeping business in Buxton, Maine. “I need both businesses right now to survive,” she says. “It’s a necessity.” Given a choice, she would practice massage full time and clean houses for just a few special clients, but for now, the two jobs keep her afloat and even strengthen each other. “I can clean two houses in a day and do two massages afterward, and sometimes a cleaning client decides to become a massage client and vice versa.” Unable to afford medical insurance, Laverriere feels fortunate and resourceful when she’s able to barter for medical and dental services, but she knows she’d be stuck with a big bill if she needed extensive or emergency care.
Austin, on the other hand, gave up a level of financial security for gains in passion and fulfillment. “Now I pay my own health-care benefits and cover my own liability insurance both for dentistry and massage. It wasn’t the wisest decision on paper,” he says, “but it was the healthiest decision for me.” Austin does express some sadness about the improbability that his new career will ever provide as much financial security as his last. “I’d do this work for free if I could. But at the same time, I definitely have paid for my training, and my skills are worth something.” He offers sliding-scale fees in an effort to make massage affordable for more people, but it’s a challenging balance. “I don’t want to sell myself short, but I want to make it available to everyone, too. That’s where dentistry comes in and helps me support myself.”
While the benefits that came with Bloom’s firefighting job were welcome, the pay didn’t exactly thrill him. Fortunately, the combination of his two careers affords him a more comfortable lifestyle than either one could alone. “My day job pays my bills and my massage money goes in the bank,” he says. Plus, the two incomes have made it easier for him to afford his favorite toy—a beloved Harley-Davidson motorcycle.
Layers of Insight
Bloom, who has experience at everything from tending bar to cutting quarry stone, could do any number of jobs to earn extra money, but massage offers much more than a payday. Like firefighting, it’s a helping profession. And the experience of doing two types of work that are both physically and emotionally taxing gives him insight he can take into each workplace. He hopes to see more firefighters in his massage office so he can show them that even a “big, tough firefighter” can benefit from massage. “And I do their job, so I know where they’ll have knots,” he adds.
As a licensed dentist, Austin brings more to his new career than the extensive knowledge that has made him a trusted expert in TMJD treatment. “There’s a lot of psychology in dentistry,” he says. “You’re working closely to the center of people’s being all day, and some people have phobias about it.” Most people look forward to seeing their massage therapist much more than seeing their dentist, which puts Austin more at ease. But years of working through people’s fears have given him a tableside manner that puts clients at ease as well.
Melissa Cortes, a teacher, debate coach, and massage therapist, enjoys the moments when her careers meld together—especially at debate competitions, “because it’s a competitive and stressful environment and it’s difficult on the coaches. So I bring my chair to competitions and the teachers and coaches in our tabulation room are so much happier now that we can manage stress. It’s also nice to be able to do it for teacher appreciation day after school. They are the people who need it the most and can afford it the least, I think.”
The Self-Care Shuffle
Massage therapists inevitably face some sort of self-care shuffle, and a second career—with its added demands and 14-hour days—increases the challenge and pace of the dance. Practitioners learn, though, that good self-care is both a practical necessity and a professional responsibility. Just as patients wouldn’t want a dentist who neglects his own dental hygiene, clients count on their massage therapists to model good wellness habits.
Austin, whose personal routine includes running, woodworking, and gardening, learned about the importance of self-care from his years in dentistry. “People who go into a helping profession want to help. If I was a plumber and my neighbor had a leak in the middle of the night, I’d be happy to go help fix the problem,” he says. As a fairly new massage therapist, Austin usually has the time and energy to see clients on short notice or at odd hours, though he can foresee a time when he might need to be more protective of his sleep and self-care time. “It’s a fine line between doing everything we can and also taking care of ourselves. I would expect most conscientious providers feel that.”
Bloom continues the yoga practice he started three decades ago as a 16-year-old exchange student to India, and the rest of his wellness routine is as action-packed as his work life. “I also do qigong. I try to get to the gym three or four times a week. I run about one 5K a month—usually a charity event—and when I go on vacation, I get a massage every day. I’ve actually planned vacations around where I know there’s a good massage therapist.”
Laverriere says she heeds the calling by working with a nutritionist, lifting weights, and receiving regular massage and Rolfing treatments. The self-care not only maintains her stamina for running her businesses, but, “it’s unbelievable how a person can just feel so whole with that, and it’s what I want to share with my clients. It’s well-being.”
Rewards
The money is an advantage, but the biggest advantage of having dual careers is being able to make people happy, Laverriere says. “I’m grateful for it all. I’m not someone who just goes to work because I have to do it to make money. When I get up and go to work, I don’t feel like it’s work.”
This is a common sentiment among these dual-career practitioners. Long hours aside, each will say massage offers almost as many rewards for the therapist as for the client, which is what helps them maintain their stamina through 12- and 14-hour days. “One day I had a really challenging day of kids’ dentistry,” Austin says. “And I was driving home in the pouring rain thinking, this is a really good day to appreciate having two very good jobs.”
Michelle Blake, MAIS, LMT, has a private practice in Salem, Oregon, and teaches at the Oregon School of Massage. She is passionate about the interchange of social change and personal action. She can be reached at mblake@massagetherapy.com.