Subconscious Skin Sabotage
When I think about the problems that come up with skin conditions, the worst one I think of has nothing to do with the skin itself. Our emotional wellness is oftentimes compromised when we are dealing with a physical manifestation of an internal imbalance on our skin. This could lead us to eventually believing in the worst about ourselves which is we may not be deserving the skin we want. There is an epidemic of people who experience the psychological effects of having a problematic skin condition that they often have a hard time seeing past imbalance even when it’s resolved. Regardless of when you have had a skin issue, it can come back not only physically but also the emotional effects can too throughout different times in your life. So what do we do when we happen to be one of those people? How can we shift into believing we deserve great skin and actually achieve it? It all starts with the right mindset and the proper tools to help you heal from the experience of having an imbalanced skin condition. Today I want to talk about how to balance this so you are not left subconsciously sabotaging your skin.
Skin Solutions for the body
I have to admit that when I do a facial I mostly do consider what’s going directly on the face. But as you can imagine, since skin covers the whole body it isn’t the only place in which we can experience imbalance. The skin is a communicator of what is going on internally so it can be difficult to determine why we all of a sudden could be experiencing a rash or breakout in an odd place. Skin conditions that aren't on the face can be just as damaging to our self-esteem. With these weather shifts and increase in the holiday celebrating there are a few pesky skin conditions that most of us struggle with but never talk about. Today I want to talk about how to support your whole body for best body skin practices.
When the roles reversed...
Last week I had my first session with a health coach and within 10 minutes I was a sobbing mess. Many people may not make the connection of emotion and nutrition but for me the two go hand in hand. I have never really had a beautiful connection with my food even though I love food, cooking and everything about social dining. When you pretty much always feel shitty, are bloated and followed by a case of nausea or diarrhea - you start to dread your next meal. Over the last 5 or 6 years that started to change, and I thank my husband for that. James introduced me to a new style of cooking and meal prepping that I began looking forward to eating together and it’s one of our greatest past times. I finally felt a connection to food unlike I have before. And if you’ve ever eaten with me, you know that I eat well. I’m healthy and gravitate towards options that are balanced and not too heavy. It never mattered to me that my new relationship with food meant that there would be weight gain because I finally felt like I could eat and not suffer.
Sun Care SOS part 2
To follow up from last week’s post I wanted to discuss the most positive thing I noticed over Memorial Day weekend. Over the years I have heavily influenced my husband’s relationship with sunscreen. This is a man who grew up in Texas and can tolerate sun and heat unlike many other auburn haired, Irish descendants. Reason being is that his skin has been trained to tolerate heat because of where he grew up as well as having other heritage factors that make him more tolerant of heavy heat levels. So regardless of all these factors, James has unfortunately experienced some gnarly burns over the years and after enough wife nagging, he has shifted many of his old habits. During our camping trip he was the first person to apply sunscreen prior to heavy sun exposure and to reapply throughout the course of our time in the sun. He turned to me at one point and said “I think I just have to apply every 30 minutes in order to not burn”. I almost cried tears of joy in that very moment. YES! HE GETS IT! This type of attitude can infectiously spreads because once you see someone caring for their skin it triggers the thought that maybe you should do the same. As soon as the sunscreen was out, others would start asking for a round of cover up. When I talk about sun care, I don’t necessarily only mean sunscreen. Sun care to me means how you are caring for your skin from the sun. Sunscreen is a huge and non-negotiable factor but I am talking about extra preventative steps such as the following:
Retrograde Madness...
Ever feel like the universe is working against you? The answer is most likely yes and if not, I want to know your secret. No matter how zen we try to be sometimes it feels like no matter what is going on it can just feel extra difficult. For the last two months we have been experiencing some universal pulls because a couple of our planets have been in retrograde. If you are wondering what a planet being in retrograde means, it is when a planet decides to reverse its direction or simply move backwards. This universal pull messes with our typical flow and can mess with communication, relationships and tons of other important aspects of your day to day. Retrogrades are a concept that I was introduced to my very first month of working as an esthetician. I don’t know why folks in my industry are hyper aware of the shifts in our universe, but we are. I blame the fact that we need a reason for late cancellations, clients forgetting appointments or technology blunders. I admittedly have always been one of those typical retrograde weirdos that try to avoid certain behaviors during these shifts.
Reassessing our standards
I was in an energy session recently where I was faced with a question that hit me like a ton of bricks. “Are you standards too high for yourself?” is exactly what I needed to hear to let go of the physical anxiety holding me back from actualizing my goals. My standards for myself are astronomically high. They have been since I was a young girl because I showed signs of emotional depth, intelligence and empathy really early on. If someone was mean to someone else on the school playground, I would mediate. “How would you feel if you were in their shoes?” was the first question 6 year old Hayley would ask. Immediately I set my standards high and so did everyone else around, not leaving much space for me to crumble down if I needed to.
What constitutes an expert?
Over the last few years I have seen an incredible growth in the wellness community. We have evolved our hippie, woowoo reputation to a reliable source of transparency and natural health care. Since I’ve been in the game for over a decade, and that may just be long enough to recognize patterns, I’ve realized the most extreme pattern is how sick people are getting. With the amount of knowledge I’ve acquired over the years, I feel as though I constantly have to research and ask questions. I’m lucky to have a great group of wellness practitioners that I collaborate with so we can create a whole health wellness plan for just about any case. If a case gets a little tricky for me to solve on my own I have many estheticians who I can reach out to for advice. The collaborative effort creates a safe space to explore endless possibilities and potentially help catch something I would have normally missed in an assessment. So if it takes a village and a decade of experience among the leaders of this community for me to find success, than how come everyone is all of a sudden an expert?
Happy Spring Equinox...now mix it up!
When I was a young girl I use to be obsessed with drawing. I always had a pencil and sketch pad with me for road trips, play dates and would even draw during family movie night. I was fascinated with drawing people and their faces. It gave me a chance to be creative because I had never met two people who were identical. I can even differentiate between identical twins because I can pay that close attention to minute detail. I normally have to take a deep breath when someone tells me that they have been using the same skincare since high school. Unless you only graduated a year ago that really terrifies me. There are so many common misconception of how we need to treat our skin but one that seems to be recurring is the concept that your skin needs never change. We eat different foods seasonally, we mix up our workouts, we change shampoos and other body care often so why don’t we apply that same concept to our skin. Our skin can help us determine what is going on internally and our face is our most recognizable feature. We each develop unique facial features that evolve over time and can help develop character as well as become part of your personality.
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.
Unsolicited advice from uber drivers
Not having a car in LA means that most of my days I have to take uber or lyft to get around. I tend to get car sick so I often sit in the front seat and this opens up an opportunity for my drivers to ask me many questions. I totally get it, most people treat these drivers like they would a taxi driver or bus driver and don’t dive into dialogue other than basic chit chat. The first questions are always related to what I do or where I’m going. Over the last few weeks I have been prepping for my upcoming wedding by taking classes at a local yoga studio (Set and Flow if you're interested! I highly recommend!) so naturally the conversation leads to why I’m doing yoga and how I like it. Throughout this dialogue I have been advised to try the “lemonade” diet (this is not a Beyonce diet either...it’s a version of the master cleanse I guess) and to download an “anorexia” app (not an actual anorexia app, but those were the words it was presented to me by). This is when I started paying attention, not because I was interested in the suggestions but because I was startled to think who else gets this kind of advice.
Time Management and Self Care
Over the last few weeks I have had family visiting so I apologize for the delay in my newsletters. Time management is always a bit of a challenge for most, including myself. This can lead to frustrations and anxiety regardless of the seriousness of a task. Most of the time we feel like we are running out of time and don’t seem to have the mindfulness to achieve our daily goals. The glorification of busy is so overdone in our culture so what tends to happen is self care goes out the window. How can you feel productive without the anxiety of procrastination or being overwhelmed by too many tasks? It’s simple and here is my guide to managing the “busy” stress so you don’t let your self care go.
My Self Care Practices
Many people ask me what I do with my skincare routine. They literally want to know everything I use and assume that a few skincare products is all it takes to accomplish great skin. This is simply not the case. A lot of the work comes from a lot of self care. Self care is so different for everyone too. That’s the most beautiful part about it all. The tools I’ve developed in order to fill my cup are catered to my health and wellness. Here is some insight into my self care practices and the people who help keep me accountable for my well being.
Keeping up with Skin Food Talk
I have been blown away with the response my partner in crime, Tara Curran and I have received since our first "SKINFOOD" talk at SOHO House in West Hollywood. We have been working together for so long and we were finally able to create something really special. I would really love to invite you all to come to our first ever "Beauty and the Belly" brunch on Sunday March 6th at 12. The brunch is a great way to share our "SKINFOOD" talk and create a conversation about your skin, nutrition and overall health. Please RSVP now and we look forward to brunching with you soon! xo
What to do: Your skincare rules for exercise!
One of the most common issues I have with my clients is their confusion with exercise and skincare. The statement that makes me cringe the most when I get done with a facial is “I’m going to go workout after this”. It feels wrong to tell someone no because I truly encourage everyone to live their healthiest life. There are a few reasons why exercise and skincare often don’t get along. Our initial instincts with it are sort of off. This isn’t anyone’s fault, there is just no clear information out there. Here are a few ways to avoid some skincare sins while implementing exercise in your daily routine.