something nobody ever mentioned to me in 15 years of appointments is that your body is always communicating with you. literally, specifically, physically telling you something. and most of us are so focused on fixing or putting a bandaid on whatever is showing up that we never actually stop to ask why it's there.

my list was long. acne, bloating, hand pain, lower back pain, bags under my eyes that no amount of sleep touched, a swollen face, hypothyroidism, high blood pressure, hormonal issues... i had a different remedy for every single one and it never once crossed my mind to ask why they were all showing up at the same time.

when i started doing the inner work something happened that i genuinely was not expecting. i wasn't treating any of it. no new products, no supplements, nothing targeted at any of those symptoms. i was just sitting in front of a mirror working through emotional patterns i had been carrying for years. and slowly, one by one, all of it started going away.

because it was all the same thing. the inflammation, the acne, the puffiness, the pain. all of it connected to the same root. the sadness i had been shrinking down since i was a kid, the anger i never let myself feel, the unworthiness i had been carrying around so long it just felt like personality. my body wasn't breaking down. it was just done waiting for me to deal with it.

i also started noticing that almost all of my problems were on the right side of my body. and when i learned that the right side is associated with masculine energy, the constant doing, managing, controlling, holding everything together, it made complete sense. that was exactly how i had been living. the softer side of me, the left side, the feminine, the receiving and resting and just being, had completely checked out.

so i started paying attention to that too. where i was forcing when i could have waited. where i was doing when i could have just been still.

but the mirror work was honestly only part of it. because you can sit in front of a mirror and work through everything and then go back into your life and do the exact same things you always did. the real work was taking what i learned in that room and actually applying it out in the world. in real conversations, real situations, real moments where the old pattern would come up and i had to choose something different.

so much of what i was dealing with pointed back to not saying what i actually meant. hypothyroidism is so connected to the throat, to swallowing your words, to constantly editing yourself down so nobody gets uncomfortable. i had been doing that my whole life.  so i just stopped. I started saying the thing i would have kept to myself. having the conversation i would have avoided. it was scary and uncomfortable at first and then it started feeling like relief.

the hand pain was connected to how tightly i was gripping everything. trying to control every outcome, manage every situation, make sure nothing went wrong. once i actually saw that in myself i started noticing every time i was doing it in real life and just choosing to let go of it. I would practice noticing the tension and decide in real time to not to hold it anymore. over time this got easier and I got better at it and the chronic hand pain I had for 4 years eventually fully went away. 

your body starts to heal when you give it something actually different to respond to. not a new product or a new supplement. just you, showing up differently than you used to.

this is why the ritual matters so much to me with sol e'Ciel. clean ingredients are a given, i will never compromise on that. but the two minutes you spend actually present with yourself in the morning, paying attention to how your skin feels, what your body needs, what's going on underneath everything, that is not nothing. that is actually the whole point.

your body is not your enemy. it has just been trying to talk to you for a while.

xx,

Brittney Capis