The previous update until i recently started to breathe a little more life into this blog was just before I came to Thailand in 2015. I came out here with a sincere wish to create a space for people of all nationalities to come and holistically improve their health and relax. I also wanted to provide a way for the local people to earn an honest income without stress to themselves or the environment. That wish started almost ten earlier when I left a one year cloistered retreat on a remote Scottish Island.
When I left the retreat, I had nothing of serious value as far as an accountant would appraise me. I did have a few skills based around meditation and spirituality and experiences of the mind I am not sure I am allowed to express. I needed money as there were no sponsors for a monk who was no longer a monk. Instigating a leaning towards my previous profession as a Studio/Yoga/Fitness/Nutritional Instructor, I found that I needed to re-certificate my skills for legal reasons. Trying to cut a long and ridiculous life story short, I then continued on a much lower level of employment than I should have done, where I was introduced to the joys of working a full working week to have to dip into saved money just to pay my basic needs.
One of the events that pushed me back to freelancing was when the Inland Revenue dragged me into their offices in Waterloo. I was interviewed by an agent for the tax office who had one of the worse 'potty mouths' I had heard in years. She was also attempting to charge me tax based on my life as a monk during my cloistered retreat. The final claims she was making were that the benefits 'in kind' for having accommodation and food, lighting/heating, etc., should be paid to the government. This was on top of already being in a situation where my full-time working wages didn't cover the expenses of working.
Once I went freelance it was different. I had to think on my feet, but the quality I could give my clients went up immensely. I focused on that quality primarily as my initial goal. Giving my clients a lot more than any of my competition were doing. Before I went into retreat this had also been my main goal. The great thing was that as my quality increased, I found I had more confidence to charge more. I was finally in a position to start saving. My next move was to start looking towards the dream I had when I left retreat. I started to look for a place I could use as a base for sharing the knowledge gained over the last eight years of intensive yoga and meditation practice. I also had to try to find a way to communicate what I had learnt correctly. This was about 2008.
When I left the retreat, I had nothing of serious value as far as an accountant would appraise me. I did have a few skills based around meditation and spirituality and experiences of the mind I am not sure I am allowed to express. I needed money as there were no sponsors for a monk who was no longer a monk. Instigating a leaning towards my previous profession as a Studio/Yoga/Fitness/Nutritional Instructor, I found that I needed to re-certificate my skills for legal reasons. Trying to cut a long and ridiculous life story short, I then continued on a much lower level of employment than I should have done, where I was introduced to the joys of working a full working week to have to dip into saved money just to pay my basic needs.
One of the events that pushed me back to freelancing was when the Inland Revenue dragged me into their offices in Waterloo. I was interviewed by an agent for the tax office who had one of the worse 'potty mouths' I had heard in years. She was also attempting to charge me tax based on my life as a monk during my cloistered retreat. The final claims she was making were that the benefits 'in kind' for having accommodation and food, lighting/heating, etc., should be paid to the government. This was on top of already being in a situation where my full-time working wages didn't cover the expenses of working.
Once I went freelance it was different. I had to think on my feet, but the quality I could give my clients went up immensely. I focused on that quality primarily as my initial goal. Giving my clients a lot more than any of my competition were doing. Before I went into retreat this had also been my main goal. The great thing was that as my quality increased, I found I had more confidence to charge more. I was finally in a position to start saving. My next move was to start looking towards the dream I had when I left retreat. I started to look for a place I could use as a base for sharing the knowledge gained over the last eight years of intensive yoga and meditation practice. I also had to try to find a way to communicate what I had learnt correctly. This was about 2008.
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