A lot of people comment that they really like the name of my business, Tao and Zen Healing. Thanks -- I do too! :) But where did the name come from?
When I was finishing up my first qigong teacher training program, I needed to get in 25 hours of student teaching time. I had looked for some space to use for classes, connecting with a lot of organizations in the area where I lived. Finally I settled on the library, which had just been renovated and had a beautiful multi-purpose room. It also happened to be fee free, which was nice because I was not charging for these initial classes.
I figured I might be able to convince them to let me teach one class a week there. At an hour each, that's almost six months before I had to have my business details finalized -- like a location where I could charge for classes (the library didn't allow that), a logo, business cards...and a name for my business.
As it turned out, several students approached me after my very first class, asking where I taught my "regular" classes. I tried to explain that I didn't -- yet -- and referred them to the studio nearby where I had done some training. "No," they said, "We want to learn from you."
What a nice thing for a novice teacher to hear! But after that, the panic set in. Thank goodness I had already reached out to so many places about their spaces! I found space to rent at a local church, reached out to the group of students who wanted to continue learning so we could settle on a day and time, and pulled together all the millions of details that needed to be in place so I could be legit. One of those was my business name. In only a couple weeks, the class was up and running.
OK, but why Tao and Zen?
I am not the type of person who makes decisions spontaneously. In fact, it's usually the opposite. Think "ready, aim, aim, aim...," and I need to force myself to pull the trigger. I certainly don't make them without any thought at all. But in this case I did. The name came to me, and I went with it.
And it fit well. I'm trained in several different types of qigong, some of which have Buddhist (Zen) roots and others that come from a Taoist tradition. Plus, there's the subtle play on words. As much as I'm a numbers person, I love wordplay, and if it's clever, that's even better. It was all a happy accident...if you believe in accidents! :)