FROM SICKNESS TO HEALTH
I was about to give up on life, wondering if I would ever find a cure for my skin. My eczema was completely out of control, taking over most of my body. From head to toe, I was covered in agonizing patches, hives, and wounds. This is the radical story of how I changed my life and healed my skin by learning how to love myself.
It seemed like we were trying everything to find an answer for my skin. After countless diets, doctors, and treatments, absolutely nothing was working. I didn’t know how much longer I could keep going. I was depressed, uncomfortable, frustrated, and beyond desperate for an answer. My skin was getting worse by the day. I longed for a way out of my situation and started to become extremely suicidal.
One day, as I was in an extremely depressed state, Bowen, with his gentle, and caring spirit decided to have a difficult conversation with me. He explained that in each moment, I had the choice of positivity or negativity (life or death). He explained that even though I was experiencing deep discomfort, I could try to be positive despite my situation. At first, this was extremely difficult to hear. I knew that I had make a change because my current state of mind was not helping! I thought to myself, “Well… maybe I could let go… and maybe I could make the best out of my situation!”. This pivotal moment of open-mindedness was the thing that saved my life.
From this point, a chain reaction of events started to occur. Without knowing it, I began steering my mind away from the idea that I was sick. I started believing that I was okay. I started eating what I wanted, doing what I wanted, and most importantly telling myself a new story. Even though I was still breaking out into hives, I would say out loud, “WOW, no way! The hives aren’t even that bad!”. Also, instead of usually thinking about how sick and uncomfortable I was, I became thankful for anything; the air in my lungs, listening to the birds chirp, or the ability to swallow food. I was taking the emphasis away from my old victim/sickness mindset and replacing it with a health/gratitude mindset. Was I perfect at this? Oh my goodness no! Did I have meltdowns? For sure! The difference this time was the understanding that I had to do things a new way if I wanted a new result.
Now, I was on a mission. I only cared about letting go of my old toxic headspace and replacing it with love, gratitude, wholeness, and positivity. Was I still bursting with eczema? Most definitely, but this time I was saying what I wanted to see, rather than what I was physically seeing.
THE VICTORY
With a bit of time, guess what started happening? I actually started to get better and better. This “new” story I was telling was becoming my reality. My eczema was improving as every day passed. Let me tell you, I was INSPIRED! Things were changing for me… and fast.
During this time, I came across the topic of self-love. I began to learn the power it has over your physical body and life. While learning about this, I started to realize how much I disliked myself. I had no idea that my mind was torturing me with negative thoughts and emotions of self-hatred. This startled me! To be honest, I couldn’t believe how subconscious (under our level of awareness) everything was! I realized that for the majority of my life, I was running a, “You are ugly. You are worthless.”, tape in the background of my life, WITHOUT NOTICING IT! I knew that if I wanted to transform my skin and life, I would have to change the way I viewed myself.
So, everyday I began my day looking in the mirror and saying how beautiful and wonderful I was. At first, this was an absolute joke as all I could think was, “Wow, what a liar you are!”. It felt so wrong to say something that I didn’t believe. But just like I started to see my skin transform by saying what I want to see instead of what I was physically seeing, I also wanted to change the way I viewed myself. To some degree, I could tell my self-hatred was causing eczema. Over time, as I kept at my self-love mirror work, I slowly started to believe that I actually was beautiful.
This transformation brought me revelation after revelation of why the eczema had been there in the first place. For me, eczema was caused by believing thoughts that weren’t in alignment with me. I started to piece together that I would only break out if I felt upset, frustrated, stressed, or believed a negative thought I didn’t like or want.
From this place, I started wondering how many other beautiful human beings also struggled with this same thing; self-love. From all the pain I had gone through I thought, “There has to be a purpose in all of my struggle!”. I so desperately wanted to remove ALL pain from humanity as a whole. I knew that if I ever wanted to make a difference for others, I would have to adjust my own state of mind and self-worth first.
This idea brought me to the most exciting chapter of my journey yet. I started realizing that by staying in a state of greater positivity, peace, happiness and gratitude; my skin began rapidly clearing. As a by-product of this, I was now experiencing a more incredible life too. It was so obvious to me that my skin was breaking out anytime I was not in a loving, positive, or peaceful state. I blurted out loud, “Oh my goodness… eczema is my body’s message to me that something is off, and out of alignment!”. I started using what little breakouts I had left to take a moment and to ask myself, “How can I make you feel at ease instead of stressed right now?”. HELLO SELF-CARE!
Fast forward to today, I have the most beautiful and clear skin. Eczema is virtually non-existent for me. If I do have a small breakout, it’s because I've lost sight of this new positive state I spend more and more of my time in. A breakout is now just a reminder for me to re-centre, take a deep breath, and get back into alignment.
We are so passionate about inspiring you to be your true self while providing natural, ethical products that give you a reason to self-love and self-care. You are a true beauty and It is our deepest hope that you fall in love with the person you are and the skin you're living in. Never stop being you… never stop loving who you are! Together, let’s unleash the beauty within.
-Lauren and Bowen Neufeld, Founders