Dawn Tardif, Founder BodiScience
This moment in time is unlike any other that most of us has had to live through. There is an over arching need for all of us to have a social contract with one another that supersedes anything else. We need to have concern for our fellow humans as we dip into the well of our own compassion and empathy reserves to deeply understand what is required to keep us all healthy.
When I embarked upon returning to BodiScience to reopen after our mandated closure in March, I continuously made an effort to keep myself informed as well as educate myself in the world immunology, virus mutation, virus spreading, supporting our immunity, technological advances with regards to air purification, PPE and other areas that would concern my business, clients, and their families. I made a social contract that day that also extended to my employees. We all came together to understand what needed to be present to allow us to deliver the quality treatments we had come to be known for. We have always been a “high touch” business not relying on machines, pods, or medical treatments.
This has not been any small undertaking. Our commitment to be here at BodiScience to provide services for you, our client, meant we needed to take personal responsibility for our own life interactions and our own ethos. We needed to take precautions with who we lived with, who we decided to go visit, who we surrounded ourselves with in our personal world each and every day.
The holidays were an interesting time this year as I did not have the opportunity to spend it with my honey. We decided he would drive to see his mom and spend it with her and upon his arrival back home he would quarantine until testing came back to allow us to know it was safe for me to be in our home together. We missed Christmas as planned, but we never thought testing would take 7-8 days – (well truth be told I did – having a business and going through 10 months of testing results for many reasons – I expected, but he did not) We missed New Years together. Our first New Year is in our home. He had no symptoms, there was no other reason why we did this, but to have some degree of certainty that he was not carrying the virus and that I could return and be with him and not place my mum, my employees, and my clients at risk.
Yes, many would not have made the choice to do what we did to keep their employees and clients safe. I hear and see this every day. Many would naively think that just quarantine is sufficient or that it does not matter he had no symptoms. Why then? It is my commitment to my team and to our clients. This is the hard stuff that makes us stronger together, makes us respect one another, allows for our TRUST to be built among us as a BodiScience Team.
We invited an intern into our team for 5 weeks and her commitment to us from Endicott College was exemplary! We explained our social contract and she was 100% on board practicing the same precautions understanding her behavior could cost us our business in many ways: time closed, impact on staff, impact on our health and our families, impact on our clients and their families and already had a foundation that was practiced within Endicott. I love their motto during this time, “Keep your beak covered and your wings tucked.” This time in our world is about caring for others beyond caring for yourself.
So… yesterday I received my first hug from a client. What an amazing gift! I have not hugged my own mumma in a long while as we keep our distance as well. Pre-Covid, I hugged clients all the time as we have shared so much with one another through the losses of loved ones to the diagnoses of our children, through the crisis of events that have touched our lives – a hug is a life saver at times when we may feel we wish to drop to our knees and someone else holds you up and absorbs the tears. My hugs are not some wimpy hugs. My hugs are the bear hugs that take your breath away. I want you to know “I’ve got you”!
As we step through these next months of uncertainty with this virus who has come to visit and stay a while. Please think about who “you’ve got”. As we all need one another’s humanness right now. We all need to do the right thing when no one is looking. We all need to overextend ourselves and give what we may need ourselves.
My favorite quote through the moments I have been in need but had to put my needs last to make it all work is: “Your greatest test, is when you are to bless someone else while you are going through your own storms.”
When what you have and need is the very thing someone else is in need of, and you know deep down what’s the right thing to do. That is the greatest challenge ever. But that is also the greatest blessing and door of opportunity that comes camouflaged knocking our door. That is the very key that will unlock the gates of Heaven over our lives if we just learn to listen, to be kind and to let go…”
This is the fabric that BodiScience is made of, and each thread has an intention that is intentionally woven to create our foundation.
Namaste,
Dawn
