We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Stephanie Lee a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Stephanie, appreciate you joining us today. Owning a business isn’t always glamorous and so most business owners we’ve connected with have shared that on tough days they sometimes wonder what it would have been like to have just had a regular job instead of all the responsibility of running a business. Have you ever felt that way?

Am I happy as a business owner? Do I sometimes think about what it would be like to have a regular job?

As a Business Owner I do have a regular job. I’m guessing that the question is pondering the idea of having a 9-5 job with a lunch in the middle and weekends off. To me though, that’s irregular. Every one’s cycle of regularity is different, some people thrive in a 9-5 schedule, while others thrive on night shifts. I’m learning how to create and integrate the lifestyle I thrive in into regularity.

Any job that feeds your soul is a regular job. I think there’s a lot of judgement out there and separation of Artistry and Trade work as ‘real work’. That Artist’s are flimsy and will be stuck in an endless loop of barely making it and scraping gigs together to get rent paid. Or eventually succumb to a ~day job~. Which 1. isn’t a failure as an Artist and 2. isn’t true. The direction in which the collective is heading is that whatever your truth and passion is, is where you must spend your energy expressing and cultivating and perhaps profiting from. It’s normal to profit from passion.

Being in truth and deciding to choose the path that works best for you needs to be something that’s regular, normal, and just something everybody does. The idea of a regular job as I described above is dissolving as more and more people step into their purpose and live their life from it. People are literally creating jobs that have never been on the planet before now and profiting from it immensely. Because they find joy and purpose in it.

Is being a business owner challenging? Absolutely. Does it require diligence and organization? Totally. And so does being a surgeon, a bank teller, or a construction worker. Do I want to stop and rest frequently? Yes. Do I work that into my schedule? Definitely. Do I have additional jobs that I work as a business owner? I do.

As a Multi-Passionate Entrepreneur I’m geared for creative thinking, and participating in many branches. And everything I do, whether is employed or self-employed work, feeds each other and fills my purpose here. One isn’t greater or lesser than another, it all supports the sustaining of the life I want. For me travel is a piece of the work I do, it’s something that sustains and feeds my greater purpose, so I work it into my life now. Giving massage inspires me immensely and I found that working self-employed in this realm serves me best. Working in education is a deep return of purpose and service for me and this right now works best as being employed by a school.

So I am happy as a business owner. I do wonder what it would be like to give all this up and work a consistent, same schedule job. But that version of wondering is brief for me because I know I wouldn’t be fulfilled. I know that I create my own consistency; consistent differentiation. Where the cycle of my life flows pretty repetitively and the activities, offerings, and hats change in sequential nature. So yeah, I have a regular job, for me. I get up in the morning, do what I need to do that day, and come home glad I get to actively participate in my life.

Stephanie, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

When I was a baby, I was diagnosed with a Strawberry Hemageoma on my Forehead and ear. It’s basically a blood filled tumor that grows outwardly. I experienced what felt like touch trauma, medical trauma, and emotional trauma from surgeries, needles, and strangers handling my body. As I grew up, as the tumor left a scar on my forehead, I always felt like I needed to hide myself. I wore bangs, didn’t show my whole face in pictures, and went into the cosmetology industry in hopes to help validate beauty on the outside. A few wisps of myself were present as I was going through cosmetology school, I loved mixed colors, learning the color wheel, and wanted to own my own salon business.

I spent one year as a professional hairstylist at a high-end salon. I was still searching for beauty and I couldn’t find it. I instead found drugs, alcohol, and disordered eating. I lost everything that I knew and had trouble discerning what reality was. I had a piece of paper where I would write down what I knew for sure and the only things on it were: I have a mom, I have a dad, I have a sister, I have a brother, I have a cat named Phoebe. That year took me to a bottom that I desperately needed to get out of. I remember sitting in the bedroom I had then and saying, “there has to be something more than this.”

Indeed there is. That week I decided I needed a career change. I still had plans to stay at the salon & spa I worked at yet I wanted to move over to the spa side. And the only options were esthetician or massage therapist. I chose the latter. I found the school Institute for Massage Education on google, went to their massage as a profession workshop on a Wednesday, and was in classes by that Saturday. Yes it happened that fast, because for the first time, walking into that small school in an office suite, I felt the feeling of Home.

So I started to go to school for massage, and as I started learning boundaries, communication skills, and growing in confidence, everyone in my life at that time (outside of school) didn’t like it. After some unethical practices on the salon’s part, I quit the salon and got re-hired at two restaurants I’d once worked at. I went in confidently to those restaurants and gave them my ideal schedule, which included weekends off (which is like unheard of in restaurant land), and they agreed completely and said I can start next week.

As I started receiving touch therapy, learning more and more about myself, something amazing happened. I started becoming creative. I started painting, and drawing, and hula hooping, and cooking, and enjoying myself. I’d never had any art classes, in fact I always thought – I could never do that. I’m not an artist. No way is that something I can achieve. –

As I started expanding, my idea of Artistry starting expanding.

I graduated IME in 2017 with a plan to own my own practice.

That shit’s harder than expected.

I kept trying to work for other people and kept bumping into my entrepreneurial self who wanted the full keys to the castle. At this point I was dabbling in selling some art and decided to jump. I put in my notice at the west michigan cancer center, where I was giving massage to the patients receiving infusions and committed to my self-employed business.

Unwinding Movement.

Aspects of this name move as this practice and life moves. It’s both essential to me and to clients. To unwind is to relax, muscles and tissue literally lengthen when they unwind ~ and as they unwind, they move, soften, take up more space. Like ice transforming to water. Like hard butter that melts into liquid butter. And I as the practitioner move with the unwinding process, I stay with it and follow as it moves me and guides me.

With paint, I’m a fluid artist (first hint on my gender). I work with nature and liquid paint. It moves and I move and I see colors unwind in real time. I’m a traveler and use this to sustain and support my work. Movement is essential for me and the process of relaxing into movement and moving into relaxation is a core principle in my business.

It’s a name that is continuously filling it’s own shoes.

So I decided to commit to this vision I had (and still have) – and that was March of 2020. And we allllll know what happened in March of 2020.

At this point I’d been working for 2 years as a massage instructor at the very school I’d graduated from. I learned my deep fascination for the human body through teaching Anatomy & Physiology. Through this process, I recalled from my childhood a wonder and an eye for bodies, shapes, and how people move. This was shamed as I was growing up because it was deemed ‘inappropriate’. As I expanded into additional possibilities, I realized it’s because I’m deeply inspired by the intelligence in which created the design that is human beings and bodies. And teaching massage and AP really supported me in going off on my own because the movement that I’d been cultivating really needed to be shared into the world.

So I committed fully to my business in the middle of a global pandemic. I built a website, learned about copy, and started selling my art and massage full time. I started traveling more frequently and realized it really feeds my purpose.

And as I’ve struggled and thrived and struggled less and less and thrive more and more, I realize that with everything that I do, whether it’s teaching, massage, painting, writing, the common thread is: I serve people space. Space for you to connect with your own inner place. I serve connection and relentless listening. I serve resonance to parts of you that desperately want to be seen yet don’t quite know how to be. To gritty and beautiful pieces of you that can only be felt in community.

As I forge this path for myself I offer the camaraderie that ‘yes, life doesn’t let up. it’s hard and soft and easy and painful all simultaneously at all times. And I’m here too, with you.’

And with my Anatomy & Physiology background, I offer a grounded awareness with the tissues in your body. And a connected sense of humans as nature.

And now I’m learning how to create a system and lifestyle where I travel and share space, and art, and massage on the road while also sustaining a practice and life in Kalamazoo, MI. Learning how to do this really supports my confidence within myself and the fact that I’m capable of achieving and creating far more than I think I can. And it’s this energy that I want to spread and integrate with you.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

I’ve made a lot of mistakes as I’ve grown my business. A mistake that’s present for me right now is taking leaps of faith without a stable, grounded foundation to back me up, especially financially. A big part of when getting a 40 hour a week job is tempting is when it comes to income. Because of the nature of my work, I have almost 100% variable income every month. I’ve used this as an excuse in the past to not plan or get real with my finances. Yet as I double down and remember that I really can have the life I want, I realize I’d been standing in my own way. It can be challenging to determine how to handle bills, the lifestyle I appreciate, and traveling part-time and I find it can also be interesting and full of curiosity because I can use my creative brain to figure things out.

Last summer I took a trip and although I learned a lot on this trip and made meaningful business connections, I didn’t have a handle on my finances and ended up needed to move apartments due to being behind on rent. Instead of playing a victim card, I used it as a wake up call to double down on grounding into the reality of what it takes to be an entrepreneur and an Established Artist. I worked a lot of side gigs while simultaneously taking myself more seriously as an Artist and business owner. I realized that working a lot and working hard are two different energies. I can work a lot of hours in a week and for me, when I know it’s feeding my passion and purpose albeit directly like with massage or indirectly with door dash, it’s all ultimately supporting me long-term in cultivating sustainable abundance. And when I find myself working ‘hard’ I’m starting to get that as a que that that work isn’t aligned with my purpose.

So now I live in a nicer apartment than I did, I’m financially independent, am now practicing massage in a more aligned treatment room space, and have actually expanded my Artisty skills and educational opportunities that niche and weave even more specifically into each other than they did before.

It was a very humbling and embarrassing experience. I used it to rapidly mature and ask for help from a responsible, empowered place rather than from a wounded child. And now I’m learning how to get more of what I want without creating a pressurized/urgent scenario for myself, because wow! I’m such a powerful creator to have attracted this experience. :)

Have you ever had to pivot?

I really feel like I need to pivot everyday. This is something I’ve really been paying attention to lately. As an entrepreneur (and human, really), I’m starting to think of life as a constant experiment. This helps me stay diligent and motivated because I can create a plan and see how the plan does.

For example, if I make a plan to make $600 dollars in a week and divide this number between the flows of income I experience, I start to get a picture of what it could look like to reach that goal. And then 2 clients cancel and a night in door dash isn’t as busy as expected.

Pivot.

Then instead of feeling discouraged and self-sabotaging by overspending, I’m like: “Okay that experience worked up until here and now what can I do to continue on track or do I need to re-estabilsh a new goal?” This happens seriously every week.

And so I re-imagine what it could look like and how I can get my needs met. And I find that staying in the energy of curiosity and adaptability, the easier another options comes through. Because I can have a goal and a plan and also stay unattached to the plan incase an even better option is available. And it’s so much more fun this way! I find the easier I can manage the subtle everyday pivots, the less likely a huge pivot becomes necessary in the future. Also, just so you know I’m learning more about this real-time as I’m typing these words. :D

And if larger pivots are necessary, like moving a space or re-establishing a brand, I feel like I have more of a decision in this process and can see it coming and can make more grounded choices rather than being surprised and revert to panic. It really is in the subtle/ little things that support the ability to manage bigger choices.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.unwindingmovement.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/unwindingmovement
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/unwindingmovement
• Youtube: www.youtube.com/unwindingmovement7288