A New Path
“Don’t be afraid to wander.
Sometimes, getting lost is the best way to find yourself.”
– Paula Coelho, The Alchemist
I had a new client this week that found me through google (thank you for leaving reviews!). She moved here from California and was looking for a new esthetician and was intrigued by the holistic approach. My exchange with her and what she was seeking out, is a perfect example of why I'm doing skin care differently now. She asked how long and why I was doing “holistic' skincare, and the first thing that came to my mind was how my own healing journey opened my eyes.
About six years ago, I invested in working with a coach who works with women that are struggling with disordered eating and body image issues. After attempting once again to do extreme dieting and excercise (since I was 13), I was on a rower at the gym one day, and the thought came to me, “no matter what size I have been, even when I was very thin and very fit, I didn't feel good enough”. I had some body dysmorphia, meaning even when my body looked the way culture tells me I should look in order to be an attractive person, I didn't see it. And I had been up and down this rollercoaster of body changes because it always correlated with my mental health.
So here I am at the gym, about to “punish myself” to try and change my body, and wondering if I even get to my goal, will I even see it?? Would I even appreciate what I achieved? I never did before. I knew something was missing. And it was around that time that I started to see accounts on Instagram of “body positivity"… women in different shaped bodies that loved themselves. They weren't promoting unhealthy living, but just loving and accepting their bodies that didn't fit cultural beauty standards. As I'm remembering this, my heart feels the tug I felt when I saw them. There was something about loving oneself, but I didn't understand how they had that confidence and assurance when they don't fit the mold. The has always been an energy of fear is in the ether that our bodies looking a certain way is tied to being valued, loved, and wanted.
And then I found Lu, a life coach for women who are struggling with body unacceptance and disordered eating. She is one of the most badass women I have ever met, who feels passionate about helping others learn to have a new relationship with their body and to learn intuitive eating, because she had her own experience of food and body disorder. Her tagline was to "ditch dieting and move on to live your damn life”. So I chose to invest in myself and work with her over the course of six months, and it changed my life.
Learning to love and accept yourself, even when your body is not in the shape you want, or experiencing illness, transformed me. Do I still love healthy diet and exercise? Absolutely! And I do it now because I love my vessel and want to take care of it, but not because I have to do it to prove that I have value as a human being or woman…and that goes against the message of mainstream society.
As my mind was getting blown with these revelations about the diet industry, it pulled the veil off of my eyes to see the beauty/skin care industry that I work in, in a whole new way. The way I had been taught to look at the skin and how to treat the skin didn't quite align or feel right for me anymore.
Just like Dorothy pulled back the curtain to see “the great and powerful OZ”, only to find out it was nothing but deceit, I could now see the shadow side to the beauty/skin care industry, and I couldn't unsee it.
