From trade union official to Shiatsu practitioner: Sylvia Thompson reports on Seamus Connolly's dramatic career change
For most people, what they work at is a big part of their identity and whether they like it or not, their work patterns have a potent influence on how they function in life both privately and publicly. So deciding to change your job or career is a big decision. Séamus Connolly (48) was doing very nicely, working as a trade union official with the ITGWU (now SIPTU) in Cork city in the 1980s.
His interest in student politics (and a one-year stint as president of the UCC Students Union in 1977-1978) while studying French and English at University College, Cork, seemed to lead him naturally to a career in a trade union. Unlike a lot of people in those high unemployment years, he had good pay, good promotion prospects and "an excellent pension scheme".
But he wasn't happy.
"The 1980s was a stultifying and difficult time in industrial relations and I felt I was plugging holes in dams rather than making any real progress. The work was very draining personally. My intellect was alive but I realised that my spirit was dying," explains Connolly.
His personal quest for a more balanced life began with classes in yoga and meditation. "I began to see that if I listened to my body, I experienced far deeper emotional states, deeper insights into myself, my relationships and life in general," he explains.
Soon, he found Shiatsu, the hands-on complementary therapy which shares its theoretical fundamentals with acupuncture and other therapies derived from Chinese medicine. Connolly partook in the first training course in Shiatsu in Ireland in 1989-1990, started to work as a Shiatsu practitioner in the evenings and gave up his job as a trade union official in 1992.
"First off, I needed a whole year to rest. I thought I was exhausted from the strains of work but now I realise that during that year, I was reconfiguring my whole energetic self and the way I processed my thoughts and emotions."
Connolly kept on a few clients during this time and also began studying psychotherapy before setting up his Shiatsu practise in Dublin.
His new career is strikingly different to his previous one but they share a strong focus on helping people. "I loved the cut and thrust of negotiations and the satisfaction of solving the problem. Most of all I loved helping to empower people - particularly female workers for whom there was a deep level of disrespect in the workplace during the 1980s."
Instead of "the pushing and forcing of negotiations", Connolly says his Shiatsu work is more of a partnership between the client and himself. "My job now is to help people find their own strength, a sense of their worth and to find the courage to recognise what is missing so that they can live in a healthier way. This is not always easy work but it is very satisfying. I get to have a very privileged and deep connection with people."
The biggest contrast between the two jobs is the changed working hours. "One of the illusions of conventional work is that of a linear existence, that we have regular rhythms and patterns to our lives but I have never worked a regular week since I left my job as a trade union official. Sometimes, I work four days a week. Sometimes, I don't and therefore one of my biggest challenges is that I have no security of income. It's easier when you know what you'll earn every week and month but, that said, I am earning a decent living from Shiatsu," says Connolly.
"Not every Shiatsu practitioner chooses to work like this but apart from seeing clients, I have also been developing the professional association for Shiatsu practitioners and was president of the European Shiatsu Federation for five years - which brought me to the European Parliament to negotiate for the inclusion of Shiatsu in a report on the regulation of complementary therapies in Europe which was adopted by the EP in 1996.
"One of the things Shiatsu does is that it encourages you to make space for your inner life. Also it allows you to follow your own motivations and rhythms and not be controlled by somebody's else's objectives and pressures which is a much healthier way to work and live.
"And it is this journey of health and growth and spiritual awareness that I believe life is really about."
• Séamus Connolly can be contacted on Tel: 01-6109110. See also www.shiatsuireland.com