From the outside, you might think I have it all. But here's the truth - I've struggled with self-esteem and a feeling of low value my whole life.

The beauty of my twenties and thirties?

I couldn't even enjoy it. Not really.

Because I couldn't see and feel it for myself unless someone else reflected it back to me. 

By the time forty knocked on my door, I was white-knuckling my youth, holding on for dear life.

Each year brought this deep, gnawing fear of decay and degeneration. After all, I had swallowed that toxic lie we've all been fed - that women somehow depreciate with age.

That's when I recognized it - the *downward beauty value spiral*. It's a term I coined because I needed words to describe this thing that was happening, this feeling most women know in their bones - this sense that we're somehow decaying and losing value with every tick of the clock.

And oh, the irony. There I was, a beauty expert, facing this spiral not just in my own mirror but in my work every single day.

I started seeing it everywhere - how I was actually helping my clients judge and control the aging process through my "anti-aging" treatments and products. 

The pain and confusion hit hard. This career I had chosen, this thing that was supposed to be about 'beauty,' started feeling like a contradiction. In the facial room, my clients and I would laugh about "fighting the good fight," but underneath that laughter? Pure fear. Resistance. It became the elephant in the room that nobody wanted to name.

This *downward beauty value spiral* didn't just stay on the surface. It created ripples - no, waves - through every corner of my life:

I found myself:
* buying products and clothing I didn't need, trying to fill some bottomless hole
* getting caught up in low-value activities and toxic behaviors that didn't serve me
* always running short on time, especially for real self-care
* chasing quick-fix beauty treatments, desperately trying to freeze myself in time
* ignoring the foods and ideas my body and soul were actually craving
* throwing money and time into a void, completely unconsciously

But the hardest part? I was running on empty. Completely empty. And in that emptiness, I was desperately searching for something to fill me up.

The *downward beauty value spiral* is sneaky like that. It shows up as an empty well across all facets of our lives, and if we don't catch it - if we don't reverse it in its tracks - it can tear us apart from the inside.

I was deep in the descent when I found it. The one thing that would change everything.

The thing that would reverse the spiral, fill me up, and let me experience overflow in all areas of my life.

Are you ready?

Drumroll, please! 🥁

Here's what changed everything for me - it's the act of resisting and fearing age that places us on the downward beauty value spiral. That resistance, that fear - it's what lets all our enoughness run out. It's what stops us from appreciating in value each and every year.

Truth bomb: There isn't a morning routine, supplement, exercise regimen, cold plunge, fasting program, serum, moisturizer, or mask that can fill you up with radiance and well-th if you're doing these things to resist and arrest the changes that come with age.

But here's the beautiful paradox, as psychologist Carl Rogers said: "THE CURIOUS PARADOX IS THAT WHEN I ACCEPT MYSELF JUST AS I AM, THEN I CHANGE."

So this becomes our work (actually, let's call it *play*) - to love ourselves so fiercely, exactly as we are in this very moment. 

No fear. No projection. No rejection. No separation. No limitation. No conclusion about what is or isn't possible with regenerating vitality.

When we practice this?

Magic happens. We become filled to the brim with our own enoughness and light. We can finally experience the joy and beauty that comes with each stage of our lives.

And from this place - this place of overflowing enoughness - something shifts. Skincare products, regimens, routines, and rituals? They transform. They have this remarkable effect on both our psychology and physiology. 

That moment when you touch your face while looking in the mirror becomes sacred. Feeding the living fabric of your being becomes an act of reverence and love, not judgment and control.

This shift can calm inflammation, lengthen your telomeres, improve your self-image, and restore your radiance and glow. All without freezing, injecting, or cutting.

I know - it's the road less traveled in the beauty world. But if you join me here? We widen the path. Not just for ourselves, but for every woman who came before us, and every girl who's coming behind.

This is my truth. This is my story. And maybe, just maybe, it's yours too.