Last week, it hit me...

Have you seen La La land yet? Well I've seen it about 4 times now and within the first scene I'm bawling. Mostly because I'm a sucker for musicals but secondly because even though I'm not an actor, I identify with the message of the film so much. In the opening scene there is this song and dance sequence to the song "Another day of sun" that any Los Angeleno will tell you feels very relatable. This city can eat you up and spit you out but then we wake up and do it all over again the next day.

Last week, it hit me...

I was reminded that our first Skin Food Talk was a year ago and I was hit with a wave of emotions. It's not just because of the success of this past year, it's because I had a lot of memories resurface and I realized that this last year taught me how to better cope with the challenges of this life.

Super old i-phone photo of me at milk + honey. My hair was up and I was in my super Austin hipster phase.

When I first moved to LA in the fall of 2012, I left a job that was everything I wanted. Leaving milk + honey spa in Austin, Texas was something I never thought I would do. Not only was that place my second home with coworkers who were my family but I became myself there. I was confronted with a lot when I worked there that molded me into the person and esthetician that I am today. When I first interviewed, I was 21 and knew it in my heart that if I just had a chance to work at this spa that I could prove to myself that I wasn't just a college dropout with a vocational trade. I was a healer. I was also a very young woman with low self confidence, but a willingness to learn and work long hours. I remember when I first interviewed and how crushed I was that I wasn’t offered the job. I knew it in my heart that I was going to work there, so I emailed the HR manager and asked what I could do to improve and she gave me another chance. After they finally offered me the position to the moment I left over 3 years later, I expressed my gratitude for that job every day. If anyone were to be having a bad day where they disagreed with management, clients or coworkers, I would remind them how much other people want this job and to try to find the gratitude in that. Never had I been more grateful or felt more at home.  

So when I moved to LA at 25, I naively assumed that I would find a job just like m+h. Low and behold, I didn't. I worked 5 jobs in 2 years and don't think I have ever been more depressed. If it weren't for my now husband James, I would have left and gone back to m+h. There were days that were so low that even he didn't feel like a strong enough reason to stay at times. But luckily, there were always signs. Tapping into my intuition at times like these is the ONLY thing that got me through. I knew that eventually I would find what I was looking for so I started just writing it down and manifesting. I started saying out loud how I wanted to feel when I worked. I went with feelings first because I had a spa director once tell me I was vibrating at such a low frequency that I might as well be dead. What she didn't know is working for her made me feel dead inside. This was not who I was and it felt like all the hard work I put into my time in Austin was just a waste.

That's until it wasn't. Every minute of my days off were consumed with me on craigslist, linked in, googling any business with the term "skincare" associated with it. Literally I would have worked at Sephora at this point. A seasoned, medically trained esthetician with impeccable sales and retention records - but it didn't matter. I had my resume and cover letters sent out to everything only to go on interviews and have to say "no". The feeling just wasn’t right.

My first Therapeutic Skin Coach space, in our living room of our old apartment.

Finally, when I felt like I was at one of my lowest points working retail and not even doing facials because my shingles virus had started shutting down my nervous system, I had time to rest and reflect. That's when "Therapeutic Skin Coach" was born. That's when "Skin Food Talk" was born. I let go and the universe finally heard me. To go from feeling like no one wanted me to creating my own path to success and abundance completely changed my perspective. So when I was met with challenges over the last year, I knew how hard I fought and how low I once was that I knew that I could handle it. Life is happening for you and the power of manifestation is real. It’s so real that you can literally change your skin, your finances, your life.

Now here I am, married to my best friend living in the neighborhood we dreamt about when we first moved to LA, and I am living in abundance of the type of work I am proud of. I was asked what I do the other day by a brand rep whom I met at an event and realized how hard it is to now describe it. I’m no longer just a facialist. I’m a writer, speaker, educator, content creator, business owner, manifesting machine. Whatever I want I am presented as long as I am clear, trusting and coming from my heart.

Last summer, speaking in Montauk for Skin Food Talk. How gorgeous!

So after my meltdown of tears when I was hit with emotion last week, I expressed my gratitude out loud once again. We are all worthy of our dreams and no matter what anyone says, the hard work pays off. The truth is that the hard work really has to come from within. Never stop believing in your intuition and work on fine tuning it. Whether this means ridding yourself of the people who cast a shadow on your light or simply shielding yourself from them. It could be a matter of saying out loud that you are worth a million (like I did). It’s about putting the belief out there that the universe and this life is here for you, you just have to listen and trust. You might just wake up like these people if you do. xo - Hayley

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