It has been so fun to look back over part 1 and part 2 of this story. Now as I think about where I am at one year in, so much has changed over the last few months!
2019 went right along with a slow steady increase in patients. I continued teaching fitness but really backed away from health coaching as I simply didn’t have time for it. In November 2019 the Lord gave me the idea to begin an online class for women. As I continued to share about women’s health issues, I was receiving so many messages from women who were struggling with these issues that I call “common but not normal,” and they had never been told that there was something they could do about it! However, I was not seeing them in the clinic. They needed help but weren’t pursuing it.
Why? Because they are busy! They are busy women who have coped with their symptoms for so long and didn’t have time to make an appointment. It’s not that they liked it, but it wasn’t concerning enough that they were going to actually make the time to change it.
ENTER: Pelvic Core – an online program that you can do in the comfort of your own home, on your own timeline, with built-in accountability and full access to myself as the instructor. This course now answered the problem of “no time,” and gives women the opportunity to work on these issues, but without changing up their work or home life schedule. It’s also been an awesome opportunity to meet women all over North America – especially women who do not have or know of a women’s health PT in their area.
I continued to teach this course for a few months while teaching fitness classes and seeing patients in person, and then…March of 2020 came and COVID hit. Just as my business was starting to gain momentum, 2 of the 3 parts of my business were completely shut down, and I was home with all 5 of my kids each day trying to help 4 through online learning while a toddler was tearing apart my house.
This was a very hard time. It was a realization that I not only really enjoy my work, but I probably had started to find some of my value in it as well (thank-you Lord for that conviction). I was able to keep teaching Pelvic Core and had a great class turn-out, but it made me stop and pause and actually provided the opportunity to pivot my business a bit, revamp some things, and figure out what direction I wanted to head in with services, time, finances, etc.
Right before COVID hit, I had hired a business consultant to help me. It seemed like a foolish thing to spend money on when I realized that I would no longer have the cash flow that I was used to, but honestly, it was a great time for me to work on key aspects of my business b/c I had some extra time to do it. The first need we identified was that I needed to hire someone ASAP. This was a BIG step, but when I started writing down all the things that take me SO much time to do in a day, that could instead be delegated to someone else, I knew she was right. God gave me a name of someone who I knew might be perfect for the job, but I wasn’t sure if she had the space to take on an additional 5-10 hrs/week of work. I decided I could at least reach out to her and she could always tell me no. 🙂 I contacted Jennie, and PRAISE GOD she said YES!! Hiring Jennie has been SO helpful not just for the work that she does for me, or all the ways she is more efficient than me, 🙂 she also is a great person to bounce ideas off of – I love that I have someone I can say, “What do you think about this?” There are so many things I am not sure about as an entrepreneur and I LOVE having another opinion or someone to generate new ideas I didn’t think of!
My business consultant also helped me narrow down my focus and my services. At the time, especially with COVID, we were thinking about branching into the online world of fitness as well. And why not? I was already in the online space, I already TAUGHT fitness, and it would be another way to bring people to the “doors” of my women’s health business, so it SEEMED to make a lot of sense! But here’s what I found out: it wasn’t right for ME. Just because it made sense, doesn’t mean it was my BEST yes, and I discovered that it would take a lot of time that I didn’t have, and I really didn’t enjoy taping workouts and posting them online. I LOVED helping people and I loved that the workouts blessed others, but the whole process of it was not enjoyable at all. Just because you CAN do something, doesn’t mean you’re CALLED to do it.
Finally, I decided a name change was necessary. It was time to be done with Refining Wellness as I focused in on my women’s health PT services and wanted people to know what my business was actually about. Wellness can be used for fitness, naturopathic health, chiropractic care, nutrition services, etc. It’s a wonderful term but really has become very vague. So I decided to keep the phrase refine (coming from 1 Peter 1:7) and add physical therapy. Refine means to make small changes in order to make better, but biblically it also refers to how heat is used to burn off impurities to reveal the beauty of the property beneath. Isn’t that so true of us – How God uses hard time and situations to refine us for our good and His glory? This is the journey I’ve experienced, and the one I want to get to experience as I walk beside other women too. I want to be a part of His refining process in making us look more like Himself, in pursuing His best for our lives, and in giving Him all the glory for the work He does. It’s not without work. It’s not easy. But it certainly is the path that brings the most JOY and LIFE.
I have no idea what the future is for Refine PT. When I started it, I had no expectations – on the number of patients I’d see, who I’d get to see, or how it might change or grow. But if you are still reading, 🙂 I want to PRAISE HIM for the work He has done! None of this would have happened if it weren’t for Him. Every single person who felt better, who got stronger, who had improvement, who experienced His Freedom, who sensed His Love – it’s all Him. I’m not a healer – He is THE Healer. Every single woman who I’ve gotten to meet was a gift from Him. May anything that appears like earthly success be known as His hand at work. All praise and honor and glory to Him, forever and ever!
