at some point during all of this i realized that the mirror work i was doing, the crying, the questions, the excavating, was only part of it. the other part was everything in between. the daily stuff. the moments where life was happening and i had to actually apply what i was learning in real time.

the biggest one was triggers. i made a decision that every time something upset me i was going to stop before i let the emotion take over and ask myself why. not in a suppressing way, the opposite actually. in a getting genuinely curious way. why is this bothering me? when did this feeling start? is this actually about what just happened or is it something older? is holding onto this keeping me safe or just keeping me stuck?

that last question changed everything for me. because a lot of what i was carrying around wasn't even mine to carry anymore. it was just familiar. and familiar can feel like safety even when it's making you sick.

i also had to do something that felt almost embarrassingly simple but was one of the hardest things i have ever committed to. i started writing down things i was grateful for every morning and every night. and not because i was trying to be positive but because i genuinely had to rewire my brain. i had spent so many years in negativity, not by choice but because of what i had lived through, being bullied, being told I was ugly, feeling alone, feeling like i was too much and not enough at the same time.so that became the default setting. and the default setting doesn't change unless you actively change it, repeatedly, for a long time, even when it feels fake at first.

and then there was the mirror.

not the sit in front of it and cry kind, though there was plenty of that too. i mean the every single day kind. i started saying three things out loud to myself while i did my skincare. i speak life over my body. every cell responds to love, safety, and healing. i am worthy of love, care, and softness without needing to struggle for it. my body is intelligent, safe, and always working with me.

and i would look at myself and say i love you. to my face. to my body. over and over until i actually started to feel it.

which took a while. because i had spent most of my life believing i was ugly. not just insecure, genuinely believing it, because enough people had told me so when i was young and i had never fully questioned whether they were right. the more i did the inner work the more i understood that i had been seeing myself through other people's eyes for years. eyes that were not kind. eyes that had nothing to do with who i actually was.

and here is the thing nobody tells you about loving yourself. we are taught that it is selfish. that caring about yourself that much, thinking you are beautiful, prioritizing your own healing, is somehow arrogant or self absorbed. but you cannot heal something you hate. i know that now with absolute certainty. every part of me that i had been ignoring or punishing or trying to fix from a place of disgust, none of it shifted until i learned to be soft and kind with it instead.

the skincare ritual became part of that. the act of putting something good on my skin, something i had chosen carefully, something that felt luxurious and intentional, while saying words of love to myself, became one of the most healing things i did every day. it sounds small. it was not small.

this is why sol e'Ciel has always been about more than the ingredients to me. the products matter. i will never stop caring about what goes into them. but what i really wanted to create was a reason to show up for yourself every single day. two minutes in the morning where you are not rushing, not performing, not producing. just present with yourself. saying something kind. paying attention.

the ritual is the healing. i really believe that.

xoxo, 

Brittney Capis