Pursuing Health AND Beauty
/I’m starting my first blog post with a caveat and it goes like this: I truly love and completely adore my parents. I believe, with all my heart, that they did such an incredible job raising myself and my two siblings that they should be given a giant trophy made of pure gold that proclaims, loudly and boldly, that they are the World’s Best Parents.
Why, you might ask, am I clearly stating this in the very beginning of this post? Let me clarify. I wasn’t raised in a family that placed a whole lot of value on physical appearance. We were taught to work hard, whine little, treat all people kindly, and love wholly. Those were the values instilled in me my entire life, and they are still the values I hold in the highest esteem. I believe I work hard, earning too many degrees and starting a business. I whine little, but I give myself permission to vent because, hell, I’m only human. I live my life empathetically and treat all people with equal respect, and I love my family and my friends with every ounce of my being.
My career took a drastic turn when I was 26 and I decided to up and leave a rare job in the arts that had a regular salary, health benefits, and was usually held by people twice my age. I went back to school. At some point during my graduate education, it really hit me- I had found the reason I was put on this earth. I’m incredibly blessed to truly, wholly, and completely love what I do. I was born to help people, and clearly Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine was how I was supposed to do it.
I interned at a Children’s hospital and an oncology clinic. I started a master’s program in human nutrition and functional medicine and conducted my doctoral research on PTSD related insomnia in a U.S. combat veteran. I took medicine very seriously and set myself on a path of healing individuals who were significantly past the point of just needing a little help.
After working for a bit, something unexpected came my way.
The first few times a patient said to me “I don’t look good and I don’t feel good,” I brushed it off. When I started hearing it more, I assured these women that they looked amazing. I made jokes that they were already married, they’d found someone who’d grow wrinkly with them. I commented that wrinkles meant they’d lived, that they’d laughed. I told them they were wise and beautiful. Wrinkles are earned.
I stand by all those statements. But after hearing enough patient concerns about their outward appearance, I started to realize that my insistence that our looks are not important was clouding my judgement. I realized I was brushing off these comments because in my mind, it didn’t matter. Appearances are superficial, right? I’d been raised to believe there are more important concerns in life but little by little I started to realize that maybe there isn’t as much of a difference between health and beauty as I’d once believed. While I’m endlessly grateful that my incredible mother raised me to be strong, happy, and healthy without obsessing over my appearance, maybe I should have realized health and beauty aren’t mutually exclusive. Perhaps it was time to acknowledge the fact that whatever is happening on the inside, sure as shit effects the outside. Same is true of the opposite. I shouldn’t be embarrassed by wanting to both look good and feel good. Since when is it shallow or embarrassing to want longer eyelashes, shinier hair, a trimmer waist, or smoother skin? While I’d been raised right (in my possibly bias opinion), maybe my desire to be strong, happy, healthy, smart, funny, and hard-working made me think I couldn’t also want to be pretty. I prided myself on taking only 10 minutes to get ready in the morning, owning no lipstick, mastering the top-knot, and never splurging on something as superficial as a manicure. And after brushing off beauty for 30 years, I’m starting to realize that when I look good, damn do I feel good.
It’s really that simple, you’d think I would have figured that out a little sooner.
Another little tid-bit about me- when I decide to do something, I go all in. I mean 150%, balls-to-the-wall, full speed ahead style. Go big or go home. If something is worth doing at all, it’s worth doing well. Etc. Etc. So I did. I took my fancy education, learned about acupuncture for beauty, and created a program where a patient doesn’t have to choose between looking good or feeling good. I no longer differentiate between health and beauty. In my opinion, they’re the same thing. Also, I got a manicure. And I freaking loved it.
Here is my promise to myself: I will take care of my mind and my body, inside and out. I will invest in my health and give myself permission to care about my appearance. While I always saw the importance of feeling my best, I will no longer be embarrassed about also investing in how I look.
Here is my promise to my patients: I will take care of your body, inside and out. I will do everything in my power to make you feel your best, and if you’d like, I’ll also try my hardest to make you look as good as I hope to make you feel. Whether your concerns are purely health or only beauty, I will tackle each case with an open mind, an empathetic approach to healing, and that same balls-to-the-wall, full speed ahead mentality that I just can’t seem to shake. Because you should be smart, funny, happy, healthy, hard-working, and absolutely fucking gorgeous.