You won’t get that at _________________
The unconscious conscious
Glad tidings, New Day! I hope you are wrapping up a lovely weekend.
Dr. Virginia, the New Day team, and I (and you I’m sure!) continue to ride the waves of this interesting, “fluxed up” time we live in. Plenty of ups and downs, that’s for sure!
This week a few of the downs felt very pronounced.
First, as many of you know, our entire scheduling/note-taking/payments system has been completely down for more than a week, thanks to a broken piece of hardware on the server computer (the part is coming in on Tuesday THANK GOD).
So that’s been a real adventure, working every day with no ability to schedule or even SEE the schedule.
In the meantime, the backdrop, despite the amazing weather, has felt particularly bleak.
Grocery shopping, an experience much altered now in the time of covid, seemed worse than ever.
Where at one time Whole Foods was a feast for the senses, it is now an austere, impersonal place where zombie-like amazon shoppers fill the store, marching lifelessly along as they stare at their phones.
On Thursday, a cheery email from Chicago Athletic Clubs “welcomed” me “back.” (“We’re all wearing masks, but we see you smiling with your eyes!”) Group fitness classes in the reopening gyms will be capped at 10 participants, said the email. 🙁
It has felt like the ability to be social, to touch and be touched, to enjoy for the sake of enjoyment, and to seek and experience community outside one’s home and nuclear family has been permanently rendered non-essential. Is this what the future has in store for us?
Our IT guy, Damon, was recently at New Day helping me figure out how to solve our computer problem.
As he was leaving, we were standing in the adjusting room chatting, and he suddenly stared up at the wall displaying our “Bright Lights.” He expressed that he really liked the artwork and asked where we got it.
And so I told him and I explained the idea behind it and what each piece represents.
“So each one is a PERSON?!” He was incredulous. Literally dumbfounded.
In ending the conversation, he commented, “That’s the problem now. No one cares.” As he walked out of the room, he gestured toward the wall and said, “You won’t get that at Walmart!”
Indeed you won’t get that at Walmart. Or, right now, seemingly anywhere.
I read an article about marketing a long, long time ago, maybe a year or so after I opened New Day.
The author said that when we market our product or service, we market to our potential clients “conscious” and “unconscious” needs and desires.
When it comes to care at New Day, a conscious need would be pain relief, the ability to run again, or the ability to sleep at night, etc.
The unconscious need, I knew immediately as I read the article, is the need to belong. The care and the community we provide help us all meet that need of community and belonging.
In the time of covid, for all it’s challenges, the unconscious is becoming conscious. We need to be touched. We need to be welcomed. We need to be seen. It is natural to seek to feel like part of something larger than a household or a nuclear family. And we are beginning to know, more than ever, how much we need that.
I am so incredibly happy that we are able to help meet that need, especially at this time when so many businesses and institutions are unwilling, or more often simply unable, to do so. THANK YOU thank you thank you for for helping us create that experience at New Day now.
Do you know someone who might be looking for our care, for it’s conscious, and unconscious (but right now conscious?) benefits? I know that starting something new, spending the time and the money, always feels risky, ESPECIALLY now.
Click here now to send them a free gift certificate to encourage them to try out our care risk-free <3
