When I first discovered gua sha, I really did not understand how purposefully stroking my face with a smooth stone could make a noticeable difference in my appearance. But fast forward to today, and I can't imagine my beauty routine without it – it's been that effective.

In our "quick-fix" culture, we're often led to believe that only medical interventions can create noticeable changes in our appearance. So how does face yoga compare? The first thing to understand is that it isn’t about competing with injectables—it's about offering a different path entirely.

It started on a Saturday afternoon when I was trying to find space under my bathroom counter for a new hairdryer. As I pushed and shoved things around causing various bottles and jars to tumble out onto the floor, I asked myself in frustration: Do I really need all this stuff??

A lot of modern "beauty routines" seem to be rooted in a kind of subtle aggression toward ourselves—scrubbing, stripping, peeling, freezing, burning, injecting. Procedures and products that essentially say, "Your natural state is SOOO not good enough. Let's scrape it off and start over!"

You may value simplicity, environmental stewardship, health, authenticity, or compassion. But do your daily beauty routines actually support these core values?

Have you noticed how many of the most innovative "new" wellness practices we're seeing on social media and elsewhere these days are actually rooted in ancient wisdom?

Have you ever stopped to calculate how much you actually spend on beauty products each year? I did this myself a few years ago and was genuinely shocked.

I was standing in a section of high-end skin care products in Ulta, holding a $247 facial serum that was supposed to "reverse the signs of aging" and "turn back the clock" on my skin. And suddenly, I had this thought…

In our youth-obsessed culture, aging is typically positioned as something to fear, fight, and hide. But what if we've been looking at it all wrong?

If you had told me ten year ago that I would be a face yoga instructor, I would probably have choked on my tea and said something like "Face what? Is this a joke?"

For decades, I bought into the beauty industry's biggest lie. It's the one that whispers (and sometimes shouts) that our worth is tied to looking younger. That aging is the enemy. That we should spend countless dollars and hours fighting against the natural flow of time.