Virtual Meditation in the Midst of COVID-19

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

[Music]

Hey there, what's up? Welcome to Sida School School. Welcome friends, listeners, community. So glad you were here. I'm wondering if you have heard about any unique or interesting online meetings and digital experiences that have started or ramped up during the age of COVID-19.

Just to name a couple of examples, I have heard of support groups like AA and other support groups going online, yoga classes, other exercise classes, book clubs. By the way, I have a book that you might wanna consider for your book club, it's called "The Money Tree." Also telehealth, online therapy, online belly dancing lessons. It's one of the things I've mentioned a couple of times because I'm just like, well, if that can be online, then anything can be online. Family meetings, I'm actually doing family meetings with my parents once in a while. He's gonna like hop on Zoom and say hello.

And of course, I'm sure there are many other examples. This time has shown us that maybe some of the stuff that we thought could not be digital or could not be replicated in some virtual way, in fact, can be. What is that old expression about necessity being the mother of invention? Well, today I will share the behind the scenes of an online meditation community. A professional body worker starts this community in February, 2019, and then it takes an unexpected turn for the better with the arrival of the coronavirus.

So let's dive into this, hear how it came to be, what's happening now and what you might take away from this example because there really is something out there that everybody can do to create more income and freedom for themselves. That's what we're all about here on Side Hustle School. So this story, virtual meditation in the midst of COVID-19 is coming right up. [Music]

The bodywork practice known as Rolfing began nearly a century ago in the United States. It was invented by Dr. Ida P. Rolfer,

a biochemist who was searching for a way to help solve her son's health problems. Decades later, a 20 something named Brooke Thomas found her way to Rolfing to manage her own chronic pain. All she was hoping for was to find relief from that pain, but she also found a whole new vocation. Brooke was stunned at how well this practice worked for her. She had been dealing with physical and neurological injuries since birth.

In her words, getting rid of the pain was euphoric to the point where it felt disorienting. And so began her journey with connecting her body and her mind. She began to do Rolfing, also called bodyworking as a professional. Eventually, Brooke decided that she wanted to start a podcast for people involved with the manual and movement therapy fields called Liberated Being. For years, she interviewed all kinds of people in the field and she kept hearing about embodiment and somatic meditation.

Essentially that's meditation based more on bodily awareness and sensation. Over her years of podcasting, Brooke kept hearing her listeners say that while the podcast made them feel less alone, they were still craving even more of a community. These people wanted to find others with similar experiences and Brooke wanted to feel that need. She reconfigured Liberated Being into an online community that offered live meditations on Sundays, one class every month from a guest teacher and a social network where members could stay connected. Startup costs were less than $100 a month, mostly in the form of subscriptions to services like Zoom, lead pages and Crowdcast.

She got the design work for her logo and social media templates from a friend who's also a podcast listener, which she traded for a lifetime membership. In determining the price, Brooke looked at what meditation apps and continuing education groups were charging for monthly access to their programming. She wanted to give her customers a support network that was affordable enough that it could be consistent for them, yet also enough to where if enough people subscribed, she could make some real money. She settled on $20 a month and officially launched on February 1, 2020. Well, you probably know now, but at the time, Brooke could never have anticipated that in just a month and a half after launching, a pandemic would be running rampant all over the world.

More than ever, people would be relying on virtual connections. And with the added stress everyone was feeling, she quickly decided to go from group meditation just once a week to group meditation six days a week. She also decided to have two to three guest teachers a month instead of just one. And the topics would center around dealing with the crisis at hand. Not only that, but Brooke quickly expanded the community.

Originally, she only planned to open it up to new members once per quarter for about two weeks. She wanted the group to feel more integrated without new members joining all the time. However, after the crisis began, she decided to rethink that decision. And now it's open for new members to join as soon as they discover it. For Brooke, this side hustle came at just the right time.

Her main career in rolfing requires physical touch. And at the time of this recording, it's still unclear when she'll be able to resume. As a single mother, she's now able to support both herself and her son through liberated being. Because already she's bringing in $2,700 a month from this project. That's not as much as her day job, but it's brought a much needed boost.

All while allowing her to be more mindful and connect with people wherever they are. [Music]

Awesome, congratulations to Brooke. I love how she is making a difference in people's lives. And she's also found a way to make it sustainable, economically viable for herself, especially in this challenging time where someone who is doing this kind of hands-on work essentially can't do it. And, you know, there's still a lot of uncertainty about when she can resume and if she can resume, like is she going to have to stop again at some point?

Like, you know, I really feel for anybody out there in that situation. And also I would suggest, like even if you're not doing, you know, the physical touch that's so limited, if you are doing primarily one-on-one work in any field, maybe consider what kind of group experience you could create, because this provides built-in diversification, as you can hear from this story. And if your field requires in-person visits, maybe you've already thought about how you can retool or regroup. So it's always good to say, okay, if I'm doing something for one person, how can I do it for a lot of people? And also if you're doing something in person, how could you also do it virtually?

Doesn't mean you can't do the in-person work, at least whenever it is safe to do so. So that's what diversification is all about, providing you protection in the event of uncertainty. Okay, listeners, I hope you enjoyed this one. I enjoyed working on it. Inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is so much better.

What can you take away from this? How can this kind of give you a little bit of a nudge towards something you are working on? If you'd like to see the show notes for today, just go to sidehustleschool.com/12351235. We're going to link up Brooke's work, "Liberated" being anything else I mentioned in the episode. And of course, I hope you'll also come back tomorrow.

We've got more stories coming up, more questions and answers, more resources for you to be able to create this kind of diversification, to be better protected no matter what happens. Okay, that's the goal. My name is Chris Guillebeau and the show is called "Side Hustle School." [Music]

From the "Onward Project."