Bringing Inner Beauty to the Surface

Many of you were drawn to the beauty industry because you like to make a difference in the lives of others. Even though you only touch the surface physically, the work you do makes a profound impact on the psyche of your clients. You can jump-start your clients’ confidence and self-esteem from the outside in by improving the appearance of the skin and enhancing their best features. How do you go so far as to bring inner beauty from the inside out?

Balance
True beauty comes from being balanced in body, mind and spirit and expressing oneself authentically to the world. When you are out of balance, you reflect the “bad” side of yourself. You act stressed, angry, impatient and controlling. When you are in balance, you reflect the “good” side of yourself; patient, accepting and fully present. One trait is the flip side of the other. To reveal the beauty within you must clear away the stress and negative energy to get to the true self. Your balanced self then automatically radiates your true essence, bringing inner beauty to the surface.

If, as an esthetician, you could provide both energy balancing and beauty enhancement, then you would be enhancing both inner and outer beauty. You already educate your clients on how to care for their skin and lead healthier lives. You can learn to create an environment that supports balancing all aspects of body mind and spirit. By adding energy management, you layer another level of wellness to your practice that is unique to you. Your clients will be transformed by the experience and become fiercely loyal to your services.

Reiki, a healing energy transmitted through the hands, flower essences, aromatherapy and Herbology are just a few energy-balancing techniques you might consider adding to your repertoire. Within each modality there is a multitude of possibilities to expose your clients to. Find a niche you enjoy and put your personality into it. Match that with an environment that is congruent with this expression and you will have a business that no one else can duplicate. Clients come to you not just for your ability to provide a great facial, but also for the entertainment factor you provide with your services and ambiance. Customize your business to reflect your essence, and clients will be drawn to experience your unique offerings. Your spa will reflect your signature services specializing in your area of expertise.

Involving the Senses
What kind of ambiance do you want to create? Everyone loves a place to get away from it all. Now more than ever, clients need a respite. Use your personality and imagination to create a space for this to occur, so that clients have a soothing multi-sensory experience. Music, scent, sight, taste and touch can each play a part.

Imagine your client coming in from a hectic day at work for her appointment with you. She arrives 15 minutes early and steps into the waiting area to hear Concerto, by James Cotton, playing on the stereo. She pours herself a cup of chilled Lemon Balm herbal tea to soothe her nerves and start the unwinding process. She amuses herself at your Mood Management Bar that is filled with wonderful potions and elixirs to target her specific emotional and mental needs. She selects from Flower Essences, Mood Mists, and Herbal Tinctures. She is feeling stressed, a little low on self esteem and her mind is racing with thoughts about work and the list of things she left incomplete at the office. She adds four drops each of White Chestnut and Borage flower essences to her tea to empty her mind and lift her spirits. She picks up a misting bottle and sprays a fine mist of lavender and chamomile into the air and takes a deep breath. She sits down in a plush chair and inserts the five-minute Yes Prayer, recorded by Barbara Van Diest, a Reiki master teacher, into the CD player and puts on the headphones. As she listens to Van Diest’s soothing, melodic voice, smells the aromas and tastes her tea, she forgets that she had any problems before she arrived.

When you enter to take her into the treatment room, she is feeling peaceful and connected to her true self. While you are giving her a mini-Reiki treatment during her facial, she benefits from the healing/balancing energy coming from your hands. During the treatment, she feels completely and totally at peace. She gets insights that she may not have received in her stressed out state. When the treatment is over, she walks out looking and feeling radiant from the experience, completely rejuvenated and revived. You have provided the space for balance to take place and she emerges radiating inner beauty to the surface.

I have experimented with energy balancing techniques for many years. I suffered from severe bouts of depression from my teens into my early thirties. I believe this was a learned behavior I adopted from watching my mother suffer from depression during my childhood. I watched helplessly as her will to live deteriorated. A month after my 13th birthday, she succeeded in taking her own life. I didn’t understand the cause of her depression at that time, but came to understand it when I suffered from it throughout my life. Since I did not want to follow in her path, I tried anything and everything to work my way through the pain and into the light. The things I teach today are what I used to heal myself from depression, connect to my true self and follow my life path. Everything I teach is based on personal experience.

To help your clients as best you can, sample various healing techniques and offer what has helped you. Provide the space for your clients to heal, and the ones who are ready will show up. There is plenty of room for healing these days so consider adding some of these energy balancing elements to your business.

Atmosphere
Turn your waiting room into a relaxation/meditation room. Dim the lights and provide comfortable chairs for clients to sit in while they listen to music that resonates with the heart, such as the movie soundtrack to Somewhere in Time. Select guided visualization and meditation CD’s that vary in length and mark the time on the CD cover. Let them try a different one each time. You can set up individual CD players with headphones, or play one visualization for everyone who comes in. For instance: 5 minutes – The Yes Prayer by Barbara Van Diest; 20 minutes – Meeting Your Future Self by Linda Bertaut; and Various lengths; Self Esteem Affirmations by Louise Hay. Clients may visit the relaxation room before or after their treatment.

Provide a Mood Management bar at your spa. Let clients sample and experience products that they may later purchase from you since they curious creatures who are intrigued with potions and special brews made with a purpose in mind. Provide simple instructions on how to use the products and then categorize everything according to the issue it addresses, such as stress reduction, clearing mental chatter or increasing self-esteem. You can design a program that includes any of the following.

Herbology
Plants and flowers have long been used for nutritive value as well as for medicinal purposes. Herbs taken as a tea, herbal tincture – herbs extracted into alcohol and taken internally or as a supplement – work on the physical body to provide nutritive value, immune system support or to bring the body into balance. Check for any contraindications before serving any herbs to your clients.

Teas
Incorporate herbal teas to gently calm and sooth nervous tension. Any herb from the mint family is refreshing and aids in digestion. Try one alone or a combination, including peppermint, spearmint and wintergreen. Large, empty tea bags are available at your local herb store. One side of the bag is open so you can add the herbs and then you seal the bag with a hot iron.

Tinctures
You may incorporate single herbs or herbal blends which work together to focus on a similar purpose. With tinctures, you will add 10 to 20 drops of the tincture to a small amount of water and take 1 – 3 times a day. Check for contraindications before using them on clients. Check for contraindications before using them on clients. Herbs that tend to be safe for most people include:

• Mood elevators and nervines to calm nervous tension: scullcap, use in moderation, unless you plan on going to sleep; lemon balm; oatstraw; and St. Johns wort that produces photosensitivity and may interfere with effectiveness of birth control pills.
• Memory and circulatory stimulants: ginko biloba, gota kola, and rosemary
• Nutritive: alfalfa, nettles, oatstraw and horsetail that is especially good for hair and nails.
• Improving liver function and appearance of the skin: dandelion root, dandelion leaf, milk thistle, and burdock root.

Flower Essences
Flower essences are different from essential oils and herbs. They are the vibrational extracts of flowers that work on healing the energy body, rather than the physical body. According to Patricia Kaminski, Director of the Flower Essence Society, flower essences are used to address issues of emotional well-being, soul development, and mind-body health. They are subtle energies that work over time. The benefit to using flower essences is that they are not contraindicated as are some herbs and essential oils.

Clients may take flower essences orally – four drops up to four times a day – under the tongue or in water; on the pulse points of the wrist, in skin care products or in an atomizer to mist in the room. It may be necessary for clients to take two, three or more bottles of a specific flower essence to reprogram negative behavior.

Use flower essences in your mood management bar or incorporate them into the facial treatment itself. I have designed a twelve-remedy kit for the esthetician to use in daily practice. The selection includes the most common concerns clients may experience. Here is a sampling:

• Rock water is for clients who measures themselves and others against unattainable standards. Let rock water soften and help release your client from their high expectations.
• White chestnut encourages inner quiet, calmness and a clear mind. Use this for clients who are talkative.
• Impatiens is for the client who is always in a hurry. Help her to stay in the flow, instead of creating tension.
• Borage is excellent for uplifting the heart and generating optimism and enthusiasm. Use this for clients who are lacking self confidence, or experiencing depression due to difficult times

Essential Oils
Use of essential oils is a common practice in the industry today. Clients experience emotional and physical benefits due to the sense of smell being directly linked to the limbic region of the brain, influencing physiological changes. In addition to your current use of aromatherapy, try including hydrosols or simple sprays formulated with distilled water and a few drops of your favorite essential oils or blends. Here are some popular blends:
• For stress reduction: lemon balm, lavender and chamomile
• For mental alertness: rosemary, peppermint
• Aphrodisiacs: ylang ylang, damask rose, jasmine
• To uplift spirits: jasmine, orange blossom, ylang ylang, bergamot

Reiki
Reiki is universal, life-force energy that provides healing and balancing through the hands. You already use your hands for healing – during facials and other services, your hands are the primary tool used in the treatment. Imagine that you could balance your client’s energy while doing a facial. Not only do your clients benefit, you do too. Proper Reiki training is required for anyone interested in offering it to clients.

It was after receiving my 2nd degree attunement and training that I banished drama and depression from my life. While I experience the usual mood swings from time to time, I haven’t suffered from bouts of depression since my attunement.

Reiki involves three levels of energy activation. It is recommended that you wait at least two weeks between activations in order to acclimate to the new energy level:

First degree Reiki allows you to provide hands-on treatments on yourself and others. This first level activation of energy is very balancing. You may find that certain habits or practices that you used before the attunement will not resonate with your new energy level and that these things will naturally find their way out of your life.

Second degree Reiki includes the previous level plus it acclimates the healing energy to include long-distance healing. You will be trained to provide a Reiki treatment to a client or friend from a distance. You will learn to clear emotional and mental energy and physical spaces as well. Second degree Reiki has a profound effect on your overall well-being, bringing more balance to the body/mind/spirit connection.

Third degree or Reiki Master allows you to teach and activate others to all three degrees of Reiki. This is the most powerful level and is not for everyone. Good Reiki masters will make sure her student is ready for this step before proceeding.

Van Diest says, “By honoring your body, mind and spirit, you are in harmony with all life. Reiki is an easy way to bring body mind and spirit into balance. Seek a teacher that is harmonious with you. You will know.”

I see the best in my clients and support their true self to come forth. Holding the space for someone to be their best gives them permission to be true to themselves. I have watched clients change careers, relationships, and their lives to match their true essence. My mother lost her identity and her will to live by living her life for someone else. Through my mother’s death, I learned about life. By learning to be true to myself, I discovered what makes life worth living. My work now centers on teaching others to connect with their true self and follow their unique life path.

Create the environment for clients to clear their minds and balance their energy and you allow them to connect to their true selves. Allowing them to purchase the products they use in your spa to use at home helps them to anchor the feelings of connection they reached when they were in your environment. Through continuous, positive reinforcement and use of energy management, clients find a way home to their true self and what makes their life worth living. They delight in experiencing their inner beauty coming to the surface.

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