Christine Clais, Thank you

There is an ancient saying of origins unknown, that states “when the student is ready the teacher will appear”. 

Until today, I had no idea I was a student.

Until today, I had no idea I needed a teacher,

Until today, I had no idea there was even a lesson, and,

Until today I had no idea that I was already the most willing of students under the most loving instruction of a truly extraordinary teacher.

Who is this magnificent teacher you ask?  Is it a yoga teacher? A life coach maybe?  A herbalist? Or a practitioner?  This, most gorgeous and loving and purely unexpected teacher goes by the name of “The French Facialist” and the lesson, self love.

To love oneself is an act of true courage. 

To see beyond the veil of self doubt, judgement, hurt and criticism.

To see beauty in every moment

To forgive.

I first met Christine Clais aka ‘The French Facialist’  in September 2015 as the recipient of a competition prize pack.  Incredibly, I had won a photo competition earlier that year, with the major prize being a French themed pamper weekend in Melbourne.   This prize was all courtesy of a very prominent international skin care manufacturer.   Now, up until this day I was a splash your face with something in the shower every now and then, kind of skin care mum.  I rarely paid any attention to my skin, accept to criticise it and see its flaws.    Add into the mix the fact that somewhere in my teens and early twenties, I had picked up some really strong judgements about the beauty industry.  Now in my late thirties, and with these beliefs well ingrained, I ignored beauty products, treatments and its offerings completely.

I was firmly rooted in my judgements of the whole industry.  Then boom,  here I am, spending a weekend in  Melbourne completely immersed in moment after moment, gesture after gesture of beauty, skin care and self love all lovingly provided, arranged and delivered by the skin care industry.  Talk about questioning your beliefs.

This prize was so far our of my comfort zone, it was truly incredible.  Each moment seemed to melt away my contradictory beliefs about beauty, skin care and most incredibly what was an act of self love.  I truly believed that by ignoring and rejecting the industry I was being loving and accepting of myself.   I was giving myself permission and allowing my most natural body to simply be as I was.  Yet here I was completely immersed in living a weekend completely the opposite of that belief.   It was exciting, scary and sooo adventurous, and in no way something that I would ever have done of my own accord.   A whole weekend of putting your views aside and allowing yourself to be shown a new way of being.   Wow.      

Christine’s facial was a truly transformational experience.  With each gentle caress, my rigidness in thinking, beliefs and judgements softened, changed, shifted and ceased, forever.  I resisted, I cried and then finally, I allowed her to love me, I surrendered to the compassion of her touch, to feeling deeply beautiful and finally to the gift of healing.   I left Christine’s facial that day in September, forever changed,   My views of the industry completely diffused, nonexistent, proven false and eager to explore this new way of being. 

I now regularly visit ‘The French Faciallist’ as a gift of self love to myself.  Each visit is different and each facial reveals a new layer of myself.   The barriers to self love are receding and the view is most superbly spectacular.  I truly value self care and the deeper act of self love.   When friends are feeling low the words “oh go get a facial” flow from my lips with genuine compassion.  To my surprise they often tell me later how much of a difference that hour makes.

At my most recent visit, I came to realise that I have been ignoring myself for a very long time.  I have been ignoring my emotions, my needs and quite often denying myself self love.   Unconscious patterns repeated over and over, over a very long time and my skin is a very big reflection of that.  

Our skin is the external representation of our inner self.  It is the part of ourselves that we show to the world and how we feel about our skin, is a direct reflection to how we feel about ourselves.  There are many different representations of this, some may hide it, some may want to change it, others may have problems with it and a few truly love their skin.  I simply choose to ignore mine and this pattern is true to so many other areas of my life.    

I thank Christine with all the love of my being.   Because of our simple, chance meeting and her beautiful presence in my life,  I can now see.

I move forward in love and I make a new promise to myself today.  

I make a new promise to my skin and to my self.  

I promise to love you, to look after you, to be compassionate with you and to listen.   I will not ignore my most beautiful self and its extraordinary to know that all of this started with a most simple photo.  

Christine Clais.

Thank you.