My truth | What I've been hiding all along...
TSC journey Hayley Wood TSC journey Hayley Wood

My truth | What I've been hiding all along...

“Your eyes look brighter”, “You look so much healthier”, “Your energy level is so different” are just a few of the comments I’ve received over the last month from my clients, friends, and family. And I’m so grateful to be finally feeling this way post-surgery after feeling quite dim the last few years. But another important piece of feedback that’s worth addressing is how most people had no idea I was suffering. This is something I have to get off my chest because I grew up doing this work and it’s really exposing to break the 4th wall of my industry’s standards I couldn’t keep up with. I got hired for my first job as an esthetician days before my 19th birthday and have been consistently working in this title ever since so it’s safe to say that I know nothing else but this world. Some of the lessons I have learned have been from outside help breaking the conditioning that I allowed myself to trust. I’ve gone through my first heartbreak, phases of partying, and every type of common sickness while working like food poisoning, the flu, an allergic reaction, or even a chronic cyst in my wrist that prevented me from actually flexing my joints - all while caring for clients the past 13 years. 

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if healing is what we're striving for, then why is it so triggering?
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if healing is what we're striving for, then why is it so triggering?

It’s taken me some time to determine how I can reintroduce myself on the blog after my Hayley hiatus. I’ve started by trying to write a recap blog and filming myself sharing the experience but nothing really felt - for lack of a better word - authentic. Mostly because I would feel myself spiraling when reliving the experience. I start to word vomit some not so nice things about myself or sob in front of my camera about how uncomfortable I am with all of this. You don’t want to see that footage, I promise you…

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My love letter to the TSC team...
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My love letter to the TSC team...

I don’t often like to write about my “success” because it makes me feel as though I think that I’m holier than thou or that I think I’ve made it. Which is false but there is a fine line I am going to dance on today because I have to acknowledge certain people that have really supported me and helped make TSC what it is today. Which is far more of a success than I ever anticipated it to be. And if you’re reading this thinking; “How is your company successful Hayley?”, I’ll break it down: 

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Year of Yin check in...
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Year of Yin check in...

Some of you may remember that I proclaimed 2019 to be my year of Yin. A year that I would surrender more, go with the flow, not over-criticize or control, and just aspire to tap into my intuitive voice a little more deeply. Since we are already in June (how did that happen???) I felt like it was appropriate for me to do a little self-reflecting check-in and share what’s been going on and what I’ve learned so far. It dawned on me during the last week of May that everything I sought out to do in 2019, I have already accomplished so far. To have my years worth of to-dos already crossed off doing really resonate with the intention I set up for myself to just take it easy but there is a beauty about the space that I’m in now. I’ve taken classes, traveled, created more content, upgraded my offerings, did some events, and still managed to Marie Kondo at least a few rooms in my apartment. Now that the rest of the year is a bit of a blank slate, I really want to allow what I created and expanded to within the first 6 months to have some time to sink in. Especially the advanced education I invested in. Which leads me to a valuable item of discovery that I want to share with all of you today….

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To all the estheticians I was before...
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To all the estheticians I was before...

2019 marks the 13th year of my career as an esthetician. I don’t know how it happened but somehow my entire adulthood has been dedicated to serving people with some fresh skin. I don’t have any possible way to break down the number of people that I’ve seen but upwards of 20,000 people is my estimate based on some fast math. Many of these clients I saw once, many I kept as forever clients, and then there’s every circumstance in between in which I managed to get to know, help, and connect with someone even for just a short time together. I think about each day I’ve been able to have doing this job since my days back in beauty school. The consistency of it is that I wake up and know that at some point in the day, I get to expand my knowledge by learning something new about someone new and keeping in my heart that my responsibility is to just make them feel worthy and comfortable with exactly who they are. I discovered early on that there are little and big ways to accomplish this and my success rate is only equal to how worthy and comfortable I feel with myself as well. There are versions of the esthetician that I am now that I’ve always had in me but with a little time, and a lot of experience, all the estheticians I was before are the layers of who I get to be today.

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Happy New Year!
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Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

This very date, January 1st, is when many of us feel inspired to commit to whatever the necessary changes we need to make in order to experience our "best year yet". We often push ourselves to break bad habits and form new routines like jumping into a new exercise routine, eliminating all bad foods, or starting a new 10-step skin regimen. These extreme changes can end up shocking our systems that our bodies end up quitting before we have a choice in the matter.

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Giving the gift of self-care
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Giving the gift of self-care

Every year my clients comment on how easy it must be for me to come up with gift ideas for family members because I could just restock all of their skincare. But the truth is that buying skincare for someone may seem like a great gift, but not everyone on the receiving end finds it to be as useful or thoughtful as you may think. Buying someone anything that has to do with their self-care, healthcare, or beauty care can be a little tricky. If you’re not careful, the gift can come off a bit offensive regardless of how well thought out you may feel the intent was. There are a few things I’ve learned over the years that may help you navigate giving the gift of self-care this year.

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Why is receiving so difficult?
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Why is receiving so difficult?

Each year during the season of giving, I find it to be so difficult for many of us to be on the receiving end of gifts. Like many of you, I find it much easier to be the nurturer and giver because I feel so wonderfully fulfilled by helping others. But the sneaky other side of that statement is that I often equate receiving with worthiness and I feel greedy if I take too much. So much so that I have seemingly no problem pouring from an empty cup? It just goes to show that many of us have some work to do before we go into potentially stressful holiday dynamics with colleagues and family.

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The benefits of Yin listening
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The benefits of Yin listening

These last few weeks have been so wonderfully busy that I found myself feeling intensely inspired to write again. As I sit down to word vomit out all of my thoughts, I discovered that today is the social media holiday that I will indulge in gladly; National Esthetician Day! I think we all know by now that this is the only career that I’ve had and that regardless of the years that have gone by, I’m still equally as obsessed with my work as ever. To celebrate this with a quick post on social media would not do justice to the people I want to continuously honor during my time as an esthetician. The clients, my fellow estis, my apprentices, and not to sound like a social media influencers, but my followers have all given me the platform to honor what I love to do every day and without this mix of beautiful people I somehow manifested into my life, who knows where I would be.

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The Rebirth of Therapeutic Skin Coach
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The Rebirth of Therapeutic Skin Coach

Just like anyone else who owns a business, it’s very common to have to exercise your elevator pitch of what your business is. I was used to having to try and put my business into a category and would become increasingly frustrated when people wouldn’t fully understand the all-encompassing work that comes out of me in order to make this dream of mine come true. Therapeutic Skin Coach has become something greater than I expected and when it started to become its own entity, I got really scared because it felt like I was exposing myself to the world. At the end of the day, Therapeutic Skin Coach isn’t just my blog, my facial practice, my social media presence...Therapeutic Skin Coach is me. It’s my philosophies, my teachings, my blood, sweat, and tears, and my nurturing. After all, I came up with the name when asked how I would describe myself. Coming back to that reality is something that felt like I couldn’t hide from and in order to truly honor everything I had built, I needed to get to the root of what it is that I want to represent and share.

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The evolution of my practice
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The evolution of my practice

Many of you have been on this newsletter subscription of mine for almost exactly 3 years. You get to read up on my weekly skin topics, check out my most updated features, and perhaps book a last minute appointment with me. However, I am sometimes a little struck when people ask me about how a part of my business is doing when I am so immersed in it that I thought the answer was much more obvious. Behind the scenes of my work life is not what people expect because I wear so many hats that all the moving parts are really mostly obvious to me. Starting out my practice almost 4 years ago, I had no idea what I was doing. And to be quite honest, I still kind of don’t know what I’m doing almost every day. The only thing that has really changed is my understanding that the surrender is the part that is most important to trust. Not that I have all the answers within my hour long facials with clients everyday. The practice that I created is based on non-toxic skincare rituals and teachings that I am fortunate enough to make accessible through one on one custom facials, teaching events, and also through my conscious content portals of the blog and youtube channel. What I first created were very simplified facials that began the discussion of custom, integrated, whole care, but what it’s become is a little more specific than that. I want to share a few of the evolutions of my practice so that you can get a better idea of what the heck this is all about.

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My week in review...
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My week in review...

I feel like I’ve had a total reset over the last week. Over the last decade-plus, I have faced a lot of the same issues that I feel like I was able to overcome three major ones last week alone. First, there is such a lack of support and resources out in the esthetician world, especially for those of us who are seeking to break the mold and provide more integrated care. All of the new education that I’ve been getting certified in has just reignited my creativity and confidence in supporting my client’s health journeys. Second, I’ve gained my confidence again for events and public speaking. And lastly, I put myself first when my health took an unexpected plunge. Here’s my week in review.

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Expanding your full health consciousness
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Expanding your full health consciousness

I really thought that by the time I was going to be writing this post today that I would have some great personal news to excitedly share. And yet another month goes by where I’m convinced that I’ve done everything possible to become pregnant and sure enough I discover that I’m not. This month felt so different though. I decided to make some major shifts in my self-care, gave up having a glass or two of wine, honored each phase of my cycle more consciously than before, eliminated excess herbs and replaced them with prenatal formulas. I felt pregnant, I looked up potential due dates, and started crafting my summer plans accordingly. This might feel a bit preemptive, but I felt that different that I took every little sign as seriously as I could. As you can imagine, it’s a bit heartbreaking to get reminded once again that your body’s signaling was off. Or maybe I was just so convinced that I was doing everything right that I created a fun narrative in my mind that when you follow a specific formula, you can get the expected end result. That’s when it hit me. I have spent my entire career educating clients that it’s not that simple, yet I still couldn’t really comprehend it for my own ability to conceive. The parallel inspired me to share my story so it can hopefully inspire you when it seems like you’ve done everything for your skin but the result is still not what you expected.

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