riverside_copy_of heather rivers, secure... _ apr 17, 2025 _radical_massage the

4:00PM Apr 17, 2025

Speakers:

Krista Dicks

Keywords:

RMT workshop

secure practice

risk management

boundary setting

client safety

mental health support

evidence-based therapy

social media

client communication

policies and procedures

technology use

trusted person

action plan

professional development

healthcare industry.

Hello radical massage therapist, and welcome to another episode of the radical massage therapist podcast. My name is Krista. I am a registered massage therapist and clinic owner in auto Ontario, Canada. My guest today is Heather rivers. She is a registered massage therapist and clinic owner based in Durham Region, Ontario. This is the second time she's been on the podcast, but probably not the last. She's the founder of rivers massage therapy, where she dedicates her practice to injury rehabilitation, chronic pain and mental health support through evidence based Therapeutic Touch. Beyond the treatment room, Heather is passionate about helping RMTS create safer, more empowered workspaces. Her new workshop secure practice offers practical strategies for managing risk, setting boundaries with confidence and protecting your well being without compromising your care. For clients, if you would like to learn more or sign up, you can find the course at Rivers massage therapy.ca if you use code first class, you can get a special early bird discount. You can find Heather on Instagram at Rivers RMT or at the social RMT, and you can send Heather an email Heather at Rivers rmt.ca, I hope you enjoy this episode with Heather.

Heather. Welcome to the podcast

again. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Thank you for reaching out. Yeah,

my pleasure. Like just to start off with, I'm really proud of you. I really, truly am, and I know that this course has been on your heart for a long time, and so I am so proud of you for putting it out there. I know that it takes a lot of courage. I know it takes time, and so I'm just, yeah, really happy that you put it out there. What finally pushed you to bring it to life? Think

there was two things, honestly, you were part of it. Okay? We checked in at the massage conference back in the fall, and I think I had done a lot, but I kind of had gotten stuck, and our conversation really ignited another flame again under me. But honestly, it's conversations with other RMTS. It's kind of, it's the imposter syndrome where I am like, Okay, we're gonna do this. I'm gonna put this out. I'm gonna work on this. We're gonna pull steam ahead, and then the imposter syndrome kind of falls in. And you're like, I do people really want this? Is anybody gonna sign up? All those thoughts come in until I hear another story, or see on the Facebook groups, another incident that an RMT has to navigate as somebody being inappropriate in their treatment room. And that is probably the biggest fire that ignites within me of like, no, no. People need this, and it may take time, but people need this.

Yeah, absolutely jumping right into what so the course is called Secure your practice. And can you give a little outline as to what, what that is going to be about?

Yeah, so I want to sit down and create a space for RMTS to come specifically Ontario and Canada wide. We, I'm sure we'll get into why I that's part of why I started this that I want to sit down, and let's talk about how to keep yourself safe within your practice. The cmto does an amazing job and continues. Their priority is keeping the public safe from us. Who is keeping us safe from some of the public? So that's really what it's about. We're going to sit down, and first we're going to touch on the standards that Ontario or BC or whatever province you're in, what you are mandated to do, whether it be during discharge or your advertising, things like that, that might influence how you keep your practice safe, and so you have to follow those rules first. So we're going to touch on those and then go into the different parts of your practice, of how you can prepare your space, how you can market your space, and yourself to keep yourself safe and to try to keep any inappropriate behavior from entering your four walls. Yeah,

and I and then, as you also mentioned, like, and then, if it does like, you're trying to prevention is key, yeah, and all of the steps you can take to really maximize the prevention piece, but you also have strategies if and usually when something can occur. Yeah. Okay, excellent. One thing that really stood out for me from just the the course outline that you've put together. I love the quote, um, it's not your fault, but it is your responsibility. Can you share what this means to you and why it's such a powerful, powerful shift for RMTS? Can you explain a little bit more?

Yeah, so we're never at fault for somebody else's behavior. I think we've all been. Learning that more and more with, you know, boundary setting and all of this in our personal lives, but somebody's behavior or words or actions, whatever it may be, towards you, is not your fault. You don't take that on as RMTS, I find we probably got into this job because this career, because we are compassionate for people, we're empathetic. And what I find is a lot of us take on other people's emotions. We talk a lot about that in school, transference and stuff. So again, I always like to emphasize it's not your fault what people do, but it's your responsibility, you and yours alone, to keep yourself safe, it doesn't that's everybody in the entire world, like you may have a spouse or you may have parents, and yes, it's part of their, let's say, job or want to keep you safe. But ultimately, we're all individually responsible for our own safety in this world, whether it's in your career, in your personal life, does it have to be that way? Hopefully one day it won't be that way and but at this point it is,

yeah, yeah, absolutely. We've all had those uncomfortable situations or inappropriate comments, but many of us seem to freeze or brush it off. Do you have some common scenarios where RMTS are feeling blind, like blindsided or unprepared in certain situations, I

think it's just, there's so many situations, and with the blow up of social media, essentially, we're all on social media, and all marketing, our practices that way or should be. It's a free form of advertising, so why not? And I feel like the cmto is catching up on some restrictions, or their rules around advertising, but everything else is slow to catch up to this. So I think that's one of the biggest things. I'll be completely honest. I'm pretty open about what I've received and things where people are like, Oh, do you DO NAKED massage? You know, is there happy endings? Is there this or that? They're very blunt on social media. So I think that will catch you off guard, and might play into, again, us being caring, compassionate people play into now, we feel like we have to facilitate this conversation, and I've fully gotten into it. Sometimes it starts very innocently, and you don't know you're getting into that. So, excuse me, I had an instance when somebody messaged me and said, I have a question. Okay, sure, I'll, I'll see what I can answer for you. And immediately went into my genitalia is hard, and how do I fix it? Right? And I immediately went, Oh, I kind of, they threw out the fishing line and I grabbed the hook, right? So I just, from there, started like, this is not for me to determine. Like to work with you on, see your doctor, see your doctor, see your doctor. And then at some point, I just stopped responding and blocked them, right? But even we don't have to even answer those questions, like, even if somebody says, I have a question, you could put up on your social medias, and automatic responses like this is not monitored. Please email this if you would like to book an appointment or have any questions about the services and leave it at that. You could literally ignore it or just say no, no is a full sentence. Yeah, absolutely.

And like you said that auto response be like, Oh, you have a question. Like, the system will pick up, pick that up question, and it'll give them an auto response, even, like, like said with the link to your page, maybe the FAQ page, like, here it is. And then, if you know, they keep messaging like you said, you just don't have, you just don't have to respond. It stopped. Yeah, it is totally fine, 100% one thing, one thing that you mentioned with social media, as far as, like, you know, it's, it is free advertising, and you're putting yourself out there. I mean, you're also putting, you know, you're putting yourself out there for more people to see. They see, you know, you they see where you work. And that type of environment. One neat thing that I've seen recently that just came to mind. I was filling out a health intake for physio clinic, and as part of the policies and procedures that I was agreeing to, one of the check boxes was I will not seek out this professional on social media. Like to like their personal like, to their personal page, like, each one of them had a professional page, and it was like agreeing, like, like, social media is, you know, explained like, it is a powerful platform, but this is, this is a separate, you know, you're not meant to follow them on, on your their personal profile. So that was really interesting as well, because it immediately creates you've agreed to that policy, and if they did try to message you, say on personal. I mean, the business is what you're going to be working with people on on how to respond. But it's an immediate like, you cannot, you cannot contact me on personal. And I feel like that's a gray area as well for massage therapist. I think we're getting much better at it now, but it is easy to. Find us and to follow us, both personally and professionally. And it seems innocent, but you know, there's there could be different reasons why they're following you as well. Totally.

I definitely have had some stories shared to me regarding that patients reaching out to practitioners on their personal and this practitioner, their personal name, like their name, they live their day to day life with is different than their working name. And I'm sure a lot of us do that when we get married or something like that. Yeah. And the person reached out, and it did get to a scary point, and then we did. They did share that. They did find out this person, there was some mental health challenges, and they were in a manic period, and so that made us have a bit more compassion, but at the same time, we have the compassion that this person is going through this difficult time for themselves, but we also have to keep ourselves safe, and so we had to do things to do to make sure of that right, and but I'm a big supporter in these things should be separate, compartmentalize your personal life and your work life. There might be some crossover where I allow crossover is maybe more colleagues than clients or patients, but make them different. Make the names different. I have seen a lot of RMT specifically, and not just RMTS, actually physios, doctors, anybody? Chiropractors, where the lines get blurred too much you want to have some allow some insight into your life, because it's part of the storytelling of your business, and especially, like the reason why you might be there, like a lot of my clients do, like seeing my dog. I'm soon to get married. They, you know, they want to see a little bit of that. So it's knowing what to share, but also keeping things very, very separate.

Yeah. And this leads into my next piece is like, why do you what you're going to teach? It's going to be proactive prevention or preparation. Sorry, proactive preparation. And why is that better than reactive panic,

just to keep it out so maybe you don't even have to deal with it. I'll be completely honest. I've been at this practice on my own for six years, and I haven't had anybody come through the door and caused me to feel uncomfortable, because I think I've put up a lot of lot of barriers, a lot of boundaries for people, honestly, a few hoops for people to jump through where I've not had to have that story. Knock on wood, I never do and this can continue. I think that's something I still need to work on. Is also okay if this happens, or this does get through all of my barriers, it happens in the clinic. What's my plan? I think part of my anxiety is I do catastrophize things and plan like that, something I'm working on with my therapist. But like so I do run through scenarios in my head, but I too, need to be more prepared for that instance, that that might actually happen in this space. And then how will I deal with it, and how will I deal with it afterwards as well? How will I grieve through it or process it too?

Yeah, I don't think that it's a bad thing to, you know, go to those extremes if you're using it for those planning purposes. And how am I going to react and prepare myself for this? Yeah, and it's, that's, it's in the, you know, the non, the not doing, and there's the anxiety building up and just worrying about that situation. Let's call out some of the risky habits that massage therapists are participating in in their practice, and I'll just read a few of them that I've seen you know you highlight. So some of the risky habits that massage therapists have in their practice are there being too available. They have poor communication. They are accepting everyone. There's a lack of policies and procedures, and they have a limitless online booking. So these are all things that sound like pretty standard in our practice. And so which one do you think gets overlooked the most, and why is it actually a risk?

That's really hard to pick from that, right? But I would say being too available, because I notice this could be a bad habit with new grads, as well as people who have been into the industry 1020 years, because we are only getting paid when we see people. So you have a cancelation, you're trying to fill that cancelation, and you're like, Oh, well, this new person reached out, maybe I'll reach out to them. And then they're like, Well, I can only come in at 8pm but maybe you typically are done at seven. That's me. I'm I can't, I don't really work past seven, 730 and then so you're like, Okay, well maybe I'll extend it, because, you know, I already had a cancelation this week or this month. If I extend it now, I. I'm going to get that money and I'm going to help that person, but you're also pushing your boundary to allow them in. So that's what I mean by being too available, or you're willing to come in seven days a week, or whatever it is, if you don't set that boundary of like, this is when I'm here, and this is when I'm at home, and if you can't fit into this, you'll either find a way, or I myself as a therapist. If they can't fit into my schedule, even when I was brand new, and I was seeing five people a week and they wanted in on a day I wasn't there, I would refer them to my colleague who was in on that day, or another person, another colleague in a different clinic and say, Hey, I know that they're in on Thursdays. I'm not in on Thursday I wasn't going to try to bend over backwards. I'll do what I can. But if you have a bit of a boundary, I think it's helpful in this instance to keep yourself safe, but in so many other things, your own mental health, burnout rate. We could go between you and I, Krista, we could probably list a whole bunch today. Yeah,

absolutely. I think those are great examples, and I'm really glad that you implemented that early, early on in your career. And I don't think it is it's not only new grads and new massage massage therapists that are out there kind of having that too much availability. I feel like a lot of veteran massage therapists still fall into that. And, yeah, it's just really helpful to to have those boundaries. And I have you always been in solo practice, but

had a colleague. Yeah, my little quick elevator of my story. I started treating back in 2013 I was in a few massage clinics, multi disciplinary clinics, just some really great clinics didn't really pan out. There's a whole lot of reasons. There's other podcasts where we go into those details. And I left for three years, and I worked as an administrator, waitress, a whole bunch of different things. And then I came back in 2019 and my colleague Nicole, she I started working with her then, and we had a one treatment room clinic throughout COVID and everything. So we kind of split the week up. I was in like, Monday, Wednesday, Friday. She was in Tuesday, Thursdays. I color covered her second mat leave things like that. And then we grew and now we're in a true treatment room clinic, and we each have our own room, but a lot of the things that we started at the other clinic. We've brought here, we also implement here. And to say to that, like now, I'm six years in of solo practice or office share practice, we say, and I'm finding it more difficult now to keep the time boundaries than ever, because now my client tell has grown and I have formed, you know, professional bonds with these people that I'm seeing them through treatments. I'm seeing them through a pregnancy or they just had surgery or loss of family member, all these changes in life. And so when they reach out and say, Hey, I slept wrong and my neck hurts or whatever it is, I just had somebody just finished a training for their job. It's a pretty intensive physical job, physical training job, and they're like, I am, my body is beat up. I need to get in. And I'm and they're asking for today that I'm not typically in the clinic. And the thought of, well, maybe I can just come in that day. I have my own room. Why can't I come in? Has crossed my mind, but from and I the safety thing isn't an issue with this person, but, but yeah, if I start, start creating fuzzy lines that will just get fuzzier and fuzzier and completely disappear. So I have to keep those in as well for my own mental health and burnout rate and all of that too. Yeah,

yeah. I appreciate you sharing your story as well there and and I agree that owning like, when you are your your own, like, in charge of your own schedule, it definitely gets more challenging to say, No, I'm completely guilty of it, just not even on Saturday, I was going into the clinic anyway to do like a DIY project. And I was like, someone asked, and I said, if you can come in an hour before I want to start on this project, we can make it happen like otherwise. But again, like, did I have to No? Should I, you know, it is really challenging going back to, like, multi disciplinary clinics as well, or a clinic owned by somebody else. I think again, as somebody was new in practice, I worked for a chiropractor first, and I really felt pressured. And I feel like it's really important for new grads to kind of armor themselves against like clinic owners that do pressure them into more hours, or coming in on days, or just putting people on the like extending their day without like them, like consenting, yep, there's, there's, the schedules are much busier now. There's more massage therapists that are available. So it might not happen as much, but it still might be out there. And I certainly, yeah, I I've just come out of treatment that someone else was added onto my schedule, and I thought that I was like. On for the day, and you're like, okay, so yeah, I was learning to have those boundaries so that you can have those conversations with clinic owners makes a big difference as well. And I know that you're also looking right now, I don't know if, if we can cut this out, if I need to, but you're potentially looking for somebody else to work in your your room, you know, part time, so based on what you're going to be teaching in the course, and you know, what you've already implemented, I assume you're going to want that person to maintain those same standards that you've had for your own practice as

well. Oh, definitely. And I want it to be, you know, it's got to be the right fit person. I think that's important. So again, that's back to not accepting everybody that comes, you know, knocking. We'll sit down have a chat, but we do, like I do have a kinesiologist who already shares this room with me, and we had a whole chat. And he I previously knew him as well, so I felt comfortable and but I said to him as well. We're going to meet first, and we're going to have a chat. It's not really an interview, like I'm just not just, let's chat. Let's get to know each other. What are your thoughts, dreams, hopes, blah, blah, blah, and let's see how we might connect on that, right? And I said, before we can sign any contract, I'm going to have you come into the clinic and you're going to and we're going to have a meeting with Nicole too, because typically, you're going to be working more alongside Nicole than you are with me. Since you're renting my room, I have to make sure Nicole is comfortable with you being in this space and sharing this space, and feel that you too can communicate comfortably, whether, even though I'm going to be the point person, if Nicole has an issue, she's going to come to me and let me know. And let me know, or vice versa, I'm the point person. But they still need to be able to communicate, and they hit it off, and it's totally fine. So the same thing will need to happen with the next RMT. And we also ran him through like these are some of the things, like, if you see this or that in the clinic, for instance, Nicole and I have a whiteboard in our laundry office, laundry, staff room, lunch room, whatever, combo room, yeah, and we write up our schedules. Even here, I'm here by myself today, I have my schedule up there because this is things that are little things that I include in the course. I take a photo of that and I send it to my safety person, my spouse, he knows when I'm in and out. There's no names. Literally, it says 12 to 161, 15 to 215, 60. I write my break this time to this time because, for instance, he wouldn't pick something up from the store for us, and he knew when my break was, so he came at that time to bring it to us. It's a safety thing in that regard, but it also is he knows what time I'm done work at night, and he'll have dinner ready for that time. There's been quite a few times, yeah, that the day ends and he I haven't left yet. Or he's like, okay, she should be home now and texting me again. So I run them through. This is what we do. We would like for you to join us in continuing this, but if you have tweaks or anything too, we're open to that. Yeah,

amazing. That was a really helpful, yeah, explanation. So you already mentioned, like, one of the biggest pillars is how unsupported RMTS often feel. The cmto is there for the public, and who is there? You know, for for us. So in handling difficult situations. Where do you, where do you think that gap begins? And like, can, like, Have you felt that gap? And how can, how can we work together to close that gap?

Yeah, yeah. I think school does a little bit at least where like I went, where I went. And that's, that's maybe another thing we did, some scenario things and some things happen to students in student clinic. And so the teachers, obviously, we immediately, they immediately helped that student. And we also had a health care mental health worker at our school, so you could book time with that person and go in and have a little counseling session. Whether you're having issues with peers or you're feeling stressed with workload, anything. So I think that needs to happen at more schools, too. I think that's extremely important. And having a sort of like debrief after but running through scenarios I just don't know, because I'm not in every school. I'm not sure how much that happens and how in depth. I think that is seriously important thing that could be lacking in some schools. It might be amazing in other schools. So maybe that's an issue. Like we said the cmto, their only mandate is to protect the public from us, and I think, I think that's sometimes confusing to us as well as the public. Like I've had so many conversations here with my staff, family and friends, and friends, and they're like, What do you mean the cmto doesn't protect you. What do you mean if something like this happens, you can't report it. That's one thing people are and I even have clients who are police officers, and they're like, Well, who do you report that to? Because it's not might not necessarily be a crime, but it needs to be reported. We have nobody to report. We have so many statistics with the cmto of sexual abuse, where the therapist was the perpetrator and the client was the victim, but we have no data. The other way around, no data. And I think that's that's one way we're lacking support is to have that data, because if you're not paying attention to it, you're never it doesn't need to be addressed, right? Because we don't have that information. So think that might be one thing, and that is in the back of my mind with this is doing some research, collecting that data.

Yeah, absolutely. And then you were then you're presenting a solution as well, which is always, is always helpful when you're presenting those facts that look, you know, scary, and this is, like the deal, but like, I'm also trying to provide a solution. And can we work, you know, together on this? So that's really important. One part about being a registered massage therapist is that we are part of healthcare and we are also part of the service industry. So how can we in this weird in between? We're treated like service workers, we're healthcare professionals. What challenges does this create? How can we navigate that?

That I think is a very complex way to figure out how to navigate my perception and people chatting with public and my own clients and things like that. People really see us. The public really sees us more as a service than as a health care I think there's a lot of people out there, especially if you have really good clients that really respect you, they understand the health care aspect you provide. But I think the fact that we have so many different avenues, which is amazing as an RMT to get into, but having something, as far as being able to be in a spa, and as far as soon hospital, the rmto is working on getting us into the hospitals, Olivia is out there doing hospice care. Like, yeah, there's so many people like that. Like, those are so far different extremes, which is amazing for us, but it also poses a challenge. And I'm not saying I'm against spa industry or anything, but I think that does make it difficult, because the public's going well, what are you like? I don't understand, right? So that is really difficult, and I don't know how fully to move forward out of that, right? But it also, I say, of a lot of things, it can be a blessing and a curse. So this could be our superhero power, and it also could be our Krista night, right? So how do we minimize the challenges, which could, I think, is just more awareness, more communication to the public. And then, how do we make the superpower better for people? Yeah,

because it certainly does seem to be like, as you said, the public perception is that we are service. And, you know, even going back to social media, the media in general, anything TV, movie wise, and I know the RMT ao does work on this on our behalf, but then they really flag things that are just not true to massage therapy, and they try to re educate that media source as well. Yeah, it really. It really is. We've got a lot of of work to do, to, you know, to retrain the public perception based on what keeps being put out there as what is massage. And in some instances, my my clients have watched something and they really, they really feel for what we do. They're like, Oh my oh my gosh. Like, this is what you have to go through. And even, like, a, you know, a mobile massage visit where you're you're lugging that table, they're like, I never, I never thought about that struggle. You know that you have to to do. But, and I think that by even just having this, course, each individual, as you said, it's our responsibility. So if we are each out there representing more of the healthcare perception of massage therapy, a registered massage therapist, then that makes a big difference as well. We're just in one grain of sand, but we're, you know, just keep plugging away at it.

I think, yeah, you saying with the the media and the social media aspect, so much of American media is pushed towards us as well, right in any aspect of our lives, and that's a big thing. So, you know, thinking of Jennifer, was it Jennifer Love Hewitt in her show, the client list like that, you know what I mean. So that's a big show that people were drawn to, which is not the full side of massage therapy. I don't want sex work is a completely different thing, valid in its own way. I don't want to degrade anybody in that world, but, but it's not what. I'm doing or not what you're doing, right? So we need some differential. So that makes it difficult, because also, for the fact is we're getting pushed a lot of American media, whether it's TV shows, I'm not just talking in the news, especially TV shows, movies, social media, putting things out, but all the states have very different regulations and standards than we do here in Canada. So that was one of my things. There's an amazing course in the states on this. I took it six years ago, fantastic. But while taking it, I noticed there were gaps that, oh, this wouldn't work for us because we have this standard, or this wouldn't work in Canada because of XYZ. So that was another motivating factor to making this. So I think that's key as well. Maybe just as Canadian artists need to get more about it there. I was really happy. Other day I watched a YouTube show, Mythical Morning, if anybody watches that, and they did a whole segment on they rated different massage techniques, and they had Swedish hot stone for Thai massage, Filipino massage, like all these different ones that some of them I hadn't even heard of either. And the entire time, the producer and the cast referred to everybody as a massage therapist. And I was like, this is fantastic, because that's one of the biggest things, and people might not understand masseuse versus massage therapists and other people, it's this. It's interchangeable, but to us in the world who have done the work to be where we are, it's important. It's a very distinguishing, important title. Yeah, absolutely.

A lot of RMTS worry about sounding rude when they set those boundaries. Yes, and but you what? Like, what would you what would you say to them if you're trying to set a boundary and then you're like, Oh no, that's not me. I don't want to hurt anybody's feeling. Or I'm a, you know, good person,

from a recovering people pleaser to sounds like people pleasing, and you need to protect yourself. And it's really I love that you just said good person, because it brings me this quote. I it was kind of nice on it's social media, Louis Howe, but it was from Mr. Alex Wolf. And there's a difference between being a nice person and being a good person, a nice person, you get used. You get stressed out. Disrespected. People stomp on your boundaries. A good person is you're being kind, you're honest, you're setting your boundaries, you're taking care of yourself, but without compromising those boundaries. And I think that's the key thing. You're not being you can be not being rude. If you're being a good person, you're you're, you know, Oh, I'm so sorry that time is not available or whatever. However you want to respond, you're still being a good person, but you're not allowing them to disrespect, you stress, you guys, stomp on your boundaries and all of that. So I think that's an important thing, and I will definitely share this social, this post, I wrote it all out the quote, because there's so many different aspects even in my personal life that I'm like, right? I want to be nice, not good. Nice, not good in this context, sure. Yeah.

No, absolutely. Now that that is a really great distinction, for sure. Do you have a specific scenario or a lie, like in a line that you would go to if you wanted, if somebody did cross a line, and you have, like, a go to phrase, I guess it depends on each scenario, and you're probably going to expand that more in the course, of course. But do you have anything off the top of your head that's,

I always, I think it's, yeah, like you said, it's really hard when it's not a scenario based thing. A lot of the times I find it again, back to this time, this time boundary. I do have this time, and I don't have this appointment, even just me there, I have, I have, I think that's the important thing that I really touch on in this course, is you got to be the third person. You especially as a solo practitioner, you are the business, but you also, when you're communicating to people, have to remove yourself out. So instead of, you know, somebody saying, Do you have Thursday at 6pm available? Instead of, oh, sorry, I don't have that available. I have this. I already have somebody in there, you know, I have to go pick up the kids. I have, I have, I have, it's story. Sorry, that appointment, that appointment is no longer available. However, these appointments are available, I think is super important. Yes, do I sometimes say, Oh, I have this available? Those are usually with like clients I've set. They respect my boundaries. So I kind of can let that, but if it's a new person, or no, we're still getting to know each other. I try to make a very big distinction with that. Remove the eye out of things and keep sentences short. They don't need to know my whole life story. They don't need to know why it's not available. I even today, I have, do have to move an appointment in a few weeks due to my own doctor's appointments. And hey, I'm. Reaching out today, because I unfortunately have to move this appointment. Something came up. Are these appointments available? You know, I'm sorry for the inconvenience, but I unfortunately have to move this appointment. There's no Oh, would you be okay if we moved this appointment? Yeah, yeah.

I love I love that. I think that was a great, a great response. And like you said, even a solar product like practitioner, you are the business. You are You are the RMT. And I don't think it would hurt either if you did still feel like you were using those personal words and not taking yourself out of it, like you could also pretend that, like you have an assistant or you have a receptionist who like, I'm sorry, Heather's not available that day, but this appointment is available, and you're responding from the business account. So, you know, who knows that it was actually you writing, and that sort of creates this bigger picture, like, Oh, I'm not just dealing with, you know, Heather and Gina might be out in the waiting room as well, and Jean is the gatekeeper, and she's gonna keep Heather safe, these kinds of things. So I think that that perception really makes a difference. But I I'm so fascinated by the language that we we should be using, one as females these days, absolutely, and then two as RMTS who want to stay stay safe. And I love that you said they do not need to know the reason why I also don't need to know the reason why a client cancels, and I respect that reason. And so, yeah, I think that those that's a really helpful communication point, and then we can head into our lack of policies and procedures as one of your key areas that you're going to touch on so many of us wing it until something happens. Yep. Why do you think we avoid writing down policies or planning for tough situations?

They're boring. They really are. That could be one reason you might not even know where to start. How do you even write a policy like we're not policy makers. You know, there are a lot of templates out there, and that is one thing I will be including, is some templates in the course, if you join, you get those for free. But I think that's one of the things. Don't know where to start well, how do I even write this? To make it legal in a sense or sound legal or professional? They're boring to write, but they're also, once you write one, it's not 100% set in stone, they can evolve. I probably, on a yearly basis, rewrite policies and update them, because while I had something in place, something I didn't think of, popped up. Oh, okay, now we can include that, and it feels a little less scary, a little less stressful when maybe 80% 90% of or the policy covers 80 to 90% of scenarios, and then just a little one pops up here, a little one pops up and then you can tweak them, versus this thing out of left field has happened, and I am not prepared in any way, so, so I think one, yeah, those would be The reason. So maybe you're in a multidisciplinary and the clinic already has policies set up and in but you may see, oh, maybe we could tweak this one, or this one didn't think about this, or this policy over here hasn't even been included. How do I approach the clinic owner and say, can I implement this? Can we talk about this? That could be a massive boundary as well, especially the owners not open to that discussion? Yeah,

absolutely, and and. And just educating the RMTS that at the end of the day, we are still like our own own business, and our registration is attached to us. And if you feel that that is a strong policy that you want to have in place. You're still allowed to have it, you know, inside, like the treatment room, if you want to, and have them sign something separate that goes in their profile. So that's really important as well. Yeah, they are boring. But I love how you also say you just gotta, if you can just start somewhere, like with a template, or if you just get something on the go, then you add to it. It's not as scary, and you can't, you can't imagine every scenario, but like, then something happens, and you're like, Okay, I'm gonna add this in here. And going back to my experience filling out that health intake for the physio clinic, I think if you get out there and you get treated, and you have more experience from different different types of registered healthcare professionals, you can start to see like, Oh, that's a really, that's a really good one. And I never thought about that before, and I would like to include that in my policies as well. And then we're, we're only helping each other.

I've already responded on that one, because that's a fantastic Yeah, yeah.

I took a screenshot. I took a screenshot of it. I'll, I'll share it with you, because I think there was a couple other, Oh, I love that points to it. That was like, This is good, yeah, yeah, amazing. All right. Moving on to empowerment through preparedness. I mean, we touched on why being prepared is better than than panic. Yeah, that's kind of tough. Buy things all together here, we're not about it's not about fear. You're not You're not running this course because it's not fear, fear based. You really want to help massage therapists feel in control, yeah, in these situations. So what kind of shifts Do you want to see in massage therapists who are going to go through

your course, just building that confidence and feeling empowered that like I can do this, I can I can protect myself. I can put implement these things. I'm somebody that doesn't like conflict and I don't like confrontation, so that's one of my motivating factors of having all these things, like people have to jump through hoops to come see me, and that could be frustrating to some people, but I don't care, because then that avoids me having to have that conversation like face to face. So I'm hoping to empower and build the courage help people feel like, okay, if you're somebody like me and you don't like that confrontation, what can we do to just minimize the risk, minimize the risk, minimize the risk, and then also to can leave continuing. I want everybody to leave with an action plan. Really, you're coming. Yes, we're going to talk about some things. I'm going to give you ideas. I don't have all the answers to this every like we said before, there's so many different ways to practice. There's I can't have all the answers for you. And I don't want to be the like, oh, well, Heather said this. No, no, I want this to be a true like, workshop. We're going to work through your scenarios, and by the time you leave, you have an action plan. And then I want you to leave also continuing to like, Okay, how do I tweak this a little more? How do I tweak this, and continuing to reflect like that throughout your practice. Yeah, yeah. Amazing.

Let's talk about some simple first steps. So you're talking about action plan. So some simple first steps a therapist can take to make their practice safer. I'm gonna give you the five actions, and you're gonna give me your like, rapid fire answer on it, yeah. Let's see if I can keep it to one line. All right, that's not it's all good. Okay? So five actions, at least for now that you to protect your practice, vetting new clients.

Yes, that them. I If somebody emails and says, Do you have I'm looking for this appointment, or can I have an appointment? They don't get an appointment time or day in the first email, you have to answer all these questions. It's going to protect me. It's going to protect the client, and it tells me what you need. One of those questions is even accessibility. Do you have accessibility accommodations or needs? I'm on the second floor. We have a chair lift, but I want people to know that maybe they are hard of hearing or visually impaired. How can I or using a ambulatory device? How can I then, if I know that ahead of time, I can also prepare my room and everything to accommodate them and make them feel comfortable. So there's many pillars to this as well. Yeah, vetting clients is number one.

Okay, and have a trusted person. You mentioned that when you write your schedule on the board, you take a picture of it, you send it to your your partner. Any other thoughts on having a trusted person?

Another super important thing. It could be a friend, a parent, it could be your colleague. It could have it could be Nicole, even if I'm could have been I'm leaving work now Nicole on Wednesday, because she's not in and then when I get home, I'm home like it's something as simple as that, or having so many apps now have like friends share where you can see each other's location, and maybe, again, you might not have a parent or partner, somebody that lives with you, having somebody, or some sort of we might, we're going to get to it technology, so that's another part of it, but super important to have somebody that you trust to make sure you're okay.

Yeah, absolutely. Like, I do love that. I mean, I, I only live a six minute walk away from the clinic, but I still text my husband on the way. One is because dinner will be on the table when I head home, and that's amazing. But the other one is like, yeah, like, if I'm not home in like, eight minutes, you know, he does start to, you know, get a little bit and some and then it's my fault, because I might have texted on my way, and then I turn and then, like, I forgot to take out the garbage, or one of the another massage therapist has a question, and then I'm there for like, 10 minutes chatting him. And I'm like, yeah, sorry, yeah, you know. Then he gets he gets upset, and he gets concerned, and this is all good things, because they love us, yes, but yeah, I agree with that trusted person. The next one is lock the clinic door. Yes,

I so I'm not necessarily saying your treatment room door. And again, every setup is different, but for us, it's the hall door. That door is locked. I'm not even gonna lie, it's locked right now, while we're in this podcast, it's locked. I come an hour before because I prefer to do all my stuff before and honestly, 10 minutes after a client leaves, I met the door. It's locked during that time. It's locked during my lunch break because and we have a sign, like an open close sign, and it says our contact information and that we're by appointment only, no walk in, so there should be nobody walking in, even our landlords, they know, send us an email or slip a note under the door. Will get back to you, but our doors locked a lot of the time. And I had a story of a colleague around here who was treating and somebody was knocking on their treatment room door, and it was a multi room. Her husband also works with them, so she was like, Oh, I go and check on this. I know somebody's like, I want a massage right now. Why are you? Why aren't you answering the phone I called, and that's not appropriate because you have a vulnerable person on the other side of where you have to protect and now you're also hunting to protect yourself. So I highly suggest every clinic is different. You decide what works best for you. Even our clients, it says, if you have an appointment, just wait. We'll be right with you. Some wait in their car, and we'll send a text, hey, you can come up now too, right? We just know who does and who doesn't. I just think it's super important. You also don't want people want people out there sitting out there. You don't know who they are. You have stuff out there. My computer's out there for that too, right? Yeah,

yeah, I agree. And so we lock our clinic door as well, but our front door is right on the main street, and for some we don't have reception, you know? So for some clients, they it's very inconvenient for them that they had to stand outside and but we all, we also try to prepare them. And you know, if you're showing up for your appointment 20 minutes early, maybe you want to, you know, step it back a little bit and show up. Show up five minutes early, then the door should be unlocked. But I will, I think that goes back to boundaries. It goes back to like, just being true to yourself and not letting like the client, that one client out of like 100 being upset that the door was locked when they turned up. We also have a ring camera as well, so I can see what's coming and going, and then if they do want to if they are waiting outside, they then they can ring, and if I'm available, then that goes to me. I can answer questions. I can book appointments in the very rare cases that I can yell over that ring camera but or I can explain to somebody, like, I'm sorry the door is locked right now, but the therapist will be down in in a minute right at least. You're, like, you're inside on the second floor, on the second floor, and, no, I mean, nobody should be upset for your safety. Like, if they're going to be upset that the door was locked when they arrived, you know, too early for their appointment, then, yeah, that's now, you know, that's

the first thing I lead that's what I lead with, is it's for our safety. And then immediately everybody goes, Oh, that makes sense. You're here alone. You're this, you know? And I'm like, you don't want everybody walking in while you're on the table. And they're like, oh, yeah, that'd be weird. And I'm like, I worked at a clinic where we were on a main level, on and a lot of traffic. We were in a plaza, and the expectation there was a bell on the door, which was so it opened. We heard the expectation was to leave the clinic, leave the treatment room, and go see who was out there. And I didn't like that, from a safety point of view, as well as this person is paid for my time 100% they deserve my attention. And so that was number one, when I left and came out on my own and started working with Nicole. She's like, Oh no, I locked the door. I'm like, perfect. We're

gonna vibe. Yeah, amazing. It's good. And you mentioned it a little bit earlier. Using technology, yes,

just like you did the ring camera, fantastic. Our landlords put cameras in the hall. That's for a different reason. But when we had an issue, they immediately came, yeah, using technology, whether that's like your phone, whether that's you know, I think you use Jane, we use notero. It's even just like the email correspondence of things is very helpful. There is some wearable technology that's out there that you hit the button a couple times. It will send your location to trusted people that you've already set up. It'll send it to the police security, like just having active security, not necessarily ring cam, but you can, you know, those security things where you can call and they're right there for you, anything like that. Use technology to your advantage in that way. Even having this could be like a controversial and, I'm sure debated, but even having, like, a Alexa or Google Home, hopefully that won't turn on. I, like I did, look up and the recordings, it's in like 10 seconds outs, and as soon after 20 seconds that recording is then deleted, so that that could be up to a debate with recording device. But if I needed to say, call 911 sure it'll call nine one if somebody's got me cornered and I could yell out or anything, right? So, yeah, I love sorry. I had another one. Our landlords own a lot of buildings one, and one of the family members has an office, and their spouse is a therapist, a like a mental health worker, and they built their offices so the husband knows where to break through the wall, and they she has a doorbell button, panic button on her desk. If she hits that, an alarm sets off for him. I think it goes to his phone, so it doesn't matter where he is. And he said, I have the keys to the door. And I know we're in the wall, I have to break through the wall. I will break through the wall. So again, a little doorbell thing like that too could be helpful. I know it's a little extreme to picture, but you're gonna do what you

have to do. Yeah, I love the Alexa idea. Mine's off, so it's all good. But like, I do love that we do use those in our treatment rooms, just because they're easy to access music, but I never thought about it as that emergency. And you know, some of the therapists do put it on, do not disturb, so that it doesn't listen out on conversations. That's fine, but if you did need it, because our phones are usually not in our treatment room, and it's just yeah, there could be a situation going back to that, we still have one more, but going back to that husband and wife team, I mean, your course, like, that was a very female specific, like, the husband was gonna break through the door, yeah, well, this doesn't we're not just isolating female RMTS here, either. Both genders do experience, you know, this mistrust from that, you know from the healthcare perspective and the service and we do all run into these issues. So the course is certainly not focused on like one over the other. It's for everyone who is an RMT who wants to learn how to secure their practice. I think that they are completely accessible to everybody and should be implemented. And then the last one is setting your boundaries. Again.

We've talked, I think that's been the whole podcast. Set the boundaries, whether it's your physical boundaries, your time boundaries, the way somebody communicates with you. That's a big thing. That was one thing from that other course that I originally took that was like, I don't know if that's gonna work. They were very much encouraging of get people on the phone, get people talking. You don't, don't do appointments through text or email, because you can hear the underlying you can hear their tone. 100% agree. I'm just somebody. If you get me on the phone, I'm probably gonna be like, Yeah, okay, okay. And I get very again, it's that confrontation for me, my preferred method is email or text, because, again, from a safety point of view, most people aren't going to put they're not going to reach out through email, because it's, it's written, essentially evidence that they've done this. Yeah, I feel I can give you more information that you can reflect back on if you have questions, you can go back to versus, wait, what did she say? I didn't write that down. What this or that? I also do all my intakes through the online anyway, so it makes more sense. So but again, I respect people who they might be like, No, I need to be on the phone with somebody. And if you're in the workshop and you're somebody that that's your preference, all right, how does that look. How can you set up boundaries for yourself? So when you get somebody on the phone, do you have a script, maybe near little things, key things to remind yourself of, so that you feel confident, prepared and empowered on that phone, that if somebody does take it into an inappropriate place, you can just say, Nope, this conversation is over, and I will be hanging up now. Yeah,

yeah, absolutely, yeah. We've got some great examples on the podcast as well, of vetting clients by having that, that personal phone call first. We've got even Ashley Culp is one RMT who, like, it's a 15 minute free consultation. So that's the that's one way that you're, you're vetting clients. So, yeah, so setting those boundaries is really important. I love all of those, anything else that you want to talk about for your course, specifically that that people need to know before they make a decision. So

yeah, it's a one day workshop trying to keep it to one day, like a six hour six eight hour window, you'll get a certificate at the end. I know for a lot of Ontario rmcs, that's not really CEUs, but you'll still have a certificate, proof that you participated. You know, we're going to keep it really relaxed. I'm not somebody that likes everything to be a production. So super relaxed. If we get it done in five hours, it's totally fine, like, whatever the people there need. And I just, again, want people to leave with an action plan. I also want you to leave with some templates that I've used. I'm sure that piece will also build. I do have thoughts and ideas of, you know, then maybe, do we have some sort of community, whether that's Facebook group, a discord or something, you can always check back in and, you know, this other scenario came back. Okay, let's come back to this group that has taken this course, or, you know, we're starting to build and how help them navigate. Like, continue to help coaching and navigating, not just by me, but the community as well. Because, again, I can't have all the answers. I don't do mobile massage, right? So we do touch on mobile massage in here. But again, I'm gonna be coming at things like that, of like, okay, tell me this scenario. And like, let's work through it. Technology. Can you bring in? How can you vet them better? How can you set your boundaries more? Tara just released something too for mobile massage services. Back to technology. How can that you utilize that? So I want people to come in not feeling that they're going to be lectured at and that. You have to write everything down and leave if this is a collaborative approach,

yeah, and there's no, there's also no judgment that, because you're probably going to be sharing scenarios that have really happened to RMTS, and there it has to be a judgment free zone, because we're all we're all here to learn. And maybe you feel like it wouldn't happen to you, but you never you just you never know. Well, let's see. How can people get in touch with you to in order to sign up for this course or learn more information? Sure, the

best place to find me and all the links is my Instagram, rivers, RMT I work. I'm going to share the link to my website for the secure practice. It's also going to be you can probably find it on my website. I'll have a link there, rivers, massage therapy.ca, by email, again, emails the best way. These are my boundaries with social media. If it client that's reaching out through socials, I probably won't respond and say, Please email me. If you're a colleague and you're like, hey, I'm interested in this. Course, you can find me there. I've also been slowly setting up another account, trying to again, separate it again as well. This course, there's going to be some time because, but the social RMT on Instagram is also mine, and I'm kind of cross posting on there, and hopefully everything will move over there for this course and any other future support for RMT. So today, the best

way, amazing as a bonus. Do you have a few minutes again? As I said, I'm super proud of you for creating this course. I know that it wasn't easy to do you created a course while we're still running a practice. Yes. Can you give some encouragement practitioners who have a course that they really feel would be helpful to the community, but they're just getting in their their own way about it?

Yeah, talk to people who are in doing things like you and I spoke, and you're doing big things, making big moves, and so got sent, and I respect a lot, and you're running a practice too. So it was a very great perspective when I got stuck at a certain spot and didn't know how to move forward. And I'll be honest, I was stuck at that spot for months, probably six months. This course, took me probably two years to get through. And I don't even think it's perfect. I'm just at the point of, we just got to start. I just got to do this, and it'll again, just like the policies got to start somewhere, and we'll perfect it and fine tune it. Talk to other people who are also running courses. I talked to Mark and Amanda too, and had a meeting with them, of like, how do I even do this? Spoke to another person who actually works at a college, not even in massage therapy, a friend that works at Durham College, and she gave me some information and some links to help build it. So I think, write down your thoughts. Write down what the goal of this course is and what a bit of what the content is, and start somewhere. Because, like I said, I started this two years ago and got stuck, and then redid pretty well the whole thing with a different direction, the same content, just a different direction on it. But the bases were there have more of a workshop and have an action plan at the end that we build throughout the course. Yeah, and then, and then, just start. It's just yeah, the heart's The hardest thing is just start, and you don't have to be perfect, yeah, you'll figure it out along the

way. Yep, exactly. And this, this course in itself, like you said, it's just the the beginning, and things will evolve and change as you go. And I mean, this episode as well is just a sneak peek into what you're going to learn in the course. So I highly recommend that you contact Heather for more information, to sign up. Anything else that you would like to to say as a parting, parting gift to our listeners,

if you sign up, if you head over, feel free to sign up off the website that I have for secure practice to a newsletter. I'm not going to spam you your inboxes every day, but you know you might get a couple emails here and there throughout the month if you want to sign up right now. The next one is May. 2. I might be also launching one another course in June, another workshop. So one might be Friday, one might be Monday, C which works better for people's schedule. And then if you're going to sign up, I'm only taking five per day at this point right now, just to get the ball rolling, a little soft lunch. Feel free to use first class when you sign up for the main one, and you'll get a pretty significant discount. Oh, okay, yeah, sweet, yeah. And I just look forward to meeting people and just helping people feel more confident and empowered. And so if they can succeed better in their business,

Yeah, amazing. Thank you for your time, Heather. Thank you for sharing secure your practice. And I encourage everybody to go check it out. And yeah, follow Heather for good stuff on social media as well.

And. Sure you're following Krista and the radical. Thank you again. It's always great to sit down and chat with

you. Likewise,

you