Optimizing your facial
It’s pretty clear at the end of a treatment if someone will benefit from our time together or not. A facial is not just an opportunity to relax or a time to get your skin cleared up, it’s an opportunity for an updated education on your skin’s health by tuning into what your skin is telling us. If we miss out on our chance to listen in, there can be some confusion as to why our skin responds in the way that it does post-treatment. There are a few simple steps that I like to tune into in order to make sure my clients feel supported but the key is if they are ready to participate in what can optimize the facial’s potential. Here are a few key steps towards achieving that very important skin care goal.
Expanding your full health consciousness
I really thought that by the time I was going to be writing this post today that I would have some great personal news to excitedly share. And yet another month goes by where I’m convinced that I’ve done everything possible to become pregnant and sure enough I discover that I’m not. This month felt so different though. I decided to make some major shifts in my self-care, gave up having a glass or two of wine, honored each phase of my cycle more consciously than before, eliminated excess herbs and replaced them with prenatal formulas. I felt pregnant, I looked up potential due dates, and started crafting my summer plans accordingly. This might feel a bit preemptive, but I felt that different that I took every little sign as seriously as I could. As you can imagine, it’s a bit heartbreaking to get reminded once again that your body’s signaling was off. Or maybe I was just so convinced that I was doing everything right that I created a fun narrative in my mind that when you follow a specific formula, you can get the expected end result. That’s when it hit me. I have spent my entire career educating clients that it’s not that simple, yet I still couldn’t really comprehend it for my own ability to conceive. The parallel inspired me to share my story so it can hopefully inspire you when it seems like you’ve done everything for your skin but the result is still not what you expected.
Skincare SOS
Have you ever woken up to a face flared in hives, a scaly rash, white head infections bursting everywhere, or heated in a flush that feels hot to the touch? The majority of you will answer with a reluctant yes. The reasons why our skin transitions from a normal, seemingly forgettable part of our daily existence to a skincare SOS can’t be simply explained. Try as I might, there are just some things I can’t predict or over-communicate in a session to help people prepare for such a skincare predicament. The last thing I want to see in my inbox after caring for someone endlessly for 90 minutes session accompanied with an email follow up that can take up to 2 hours to research and write up, is a subject line that screams: SKINCARE SOS!
Taking accountability
Maybe it's because I am 30, maybe it's the start of a new year, or maybe it's an unknown universal shift but I have recently felt empowered to own up to a lot of my mistakes and start taking some accountability. I am the type of person who can admit when I'm wrong but often time it comes after a fit of defensiveness and a little bit of self-victimizing. Lately, I have recalled a couple of instances in which I needed to take accountability and didn't have the emotional intelligence to do so. It's difficult to look back and think "I should have done this better" but having grown up in this field I have to give myself a little credit for doing my best and learning along the way. As much as I can't help but cringe at some of my reactions in the past, I want to share a few of them with you. Hopefully, this can help shed some light on where we can oftentimes fall short as people, but recognize that there is always room to grow and get better.
Our emotions and their energetically paired organs
Over the last couple of months, I have found myself being able to immediately put into application some newfound knowledge. In the past, I may have learned something from a class or a program and any connection it would have for my life or work just didn't really click right away. I can’t even begin to tell you how my career path has been limited in the type of education that I have been seeking. Most classes were repetitive or sales-driven so my experience with clientele was my preferred form of continuing education. Each individual would have such a special case that I would find myself needing to do extensive research to help them get to the root of their case. From doing this type of custom care I found myself really getting to know the ins and outs of how the body works on a physical level. What recently clicked for me was the connection between emotion and your internal systems. So when you are experiencing a chronic emotion, what physical part of your body is out of balance?
Consistency might be key, but why do we sometimes drop off?
Last week I got my first facial in well over half a year. Mind you I take great care of my skin but a true facial is rare for me. I felt so incredible afterward that I actually said: “wow, this must be why I’m in business!” People ask me all the time, how often do you get a facial? And it’s sort of embarrassing that the answer is almost always never. The reason why comes in two parts;
1 - I don’t work in a spa setting anymore where I am able to get treatments with my coworkers on my downtime.
2 - I’m really not the best when it comes to consistency with services.
My hair seems to always be a few months out from when I should have gotten it cut, I am a little late on follow-ups with my healers, I don’t get massages nearly as often as I need to, my exercise schedule is never consistent and most of the time an appointment gets prompted by someone else who is bugging me to book. I’m truly grateful for those prompts and utilize them just as much in my practice because of my own failure to launch when it comes to active consistency. So why do we get stuck? I want to explore a little bit of that today since I’m right there with you and what to do to navigate it all.
My everyday skin hacks
Great skin comes from a few different factors. Good genes are ideal, a healthy lifestyle is always a plus, and some results-driven products can usually turn most conditions around. However, there are a few things that I do daily that can really take your skin from great to GRAND almost immediately. I like to call these my skin hacks, mostly because they are free and simple. Today I'm going to walk you through the few that I do pretty much every day and make the biggest difference in my skin's success.