For years I’ve been curious about the link between meditation and reverse aging – the ability of our body to actually look and feel more vital as the years go on. My ears have perked up over the years hearing celebrities like Martha Beck talk about how they started looking younger when they tapped into the deep alpha and theta states of meditation. And then there are those unicorn stories about people who got a hug from Amma guru that made them look 15 years younger! In my day-to-day, it hasn’t escaped me that some of the most radiant people I know are in their 50’s and 60’s and also happen to have very deep spiritual practices. And while the beauty industry can be really fun, it’s not the most empowering place; the same time, who doesn’t want to look and feel radiant? Enter Gretchen Oppenheim, of Wildflower Beauty Bar, a holistic spa that offers energetic-approaches to skin beauty, including Face Reading, Facial Gua Sha, and Facial Reflexology. Gretchen’s known for teaching people about what the lines on their face say about their emotional patterns and personality traits – without a shred of judgment – AND she believes in ‘reverse aging’ – the idea that when we address the root cause of an emotional block we’ve been carrying, we are able to erase the corresponding lines that show up on the face. Which supports my theory about why long-time meditators looks so great!
‘Beauty’ is my word for this year, which is why I’m excited to share this beautiful and empowering Q&A with Gretchen Oppenheim about reverse aging, face reading, energy healing, and holistic skincare.
What do you think about reverse aging? Is it possible?
Yes, everything is possible. What we’ve been taught about beauty is that we have to buy it, inject it, and become somebody that we’re not. However, beauty is actually when we learn to go inwards, and look inside ourselves to define what beauty is. So yes, reverse aging is very possible but we’ve been given the wrong script. We’re always chasing after something but the perspective shift here is about how we see ourselves. Instead of being told what is beautiful, we decide for ourselves what we believe is beautiful (via inward contemplation and learning to read what our perceived flaws tell us about ourselves) . Yes, deep meditation, breathwork and great products can all support ‘reverse aging’ but the deeper shift behind the change is that we have to let go of other people’s ideas about what we should be or look like. This is how we shed the layers of energetic baggage that show up on our faces.
Have you seen clients who actually look like they’re getting younger?
Yes, many. For example,I have a client who’s in her late 70’s who started seeing me around the time she learned how to finally start caring for herself. She started walking, doing yoga, and splurging a bit on things she loved (which she hadn’t allowed herself to do in the past), including great skin products. She committed to herself, and started enjoying the sweetness of life. Along with the holistic facials and skin care, she started doing heart-opening work, where she learned to literally let go of so much baggage that her face became dramatically more radiant, youthful, and alive. I have many more examples, from clients of all ages, to my Qi Gong teachers, who look much younger than they are.
How would you explain reverse aging?
Reverse aging is just a concept. Whether you’re someone who feels old and dead and done or one of those people who feel young forever – your perspective on life and your belief about your age are a big part of what keeps you looking the way you do. When I share with people how to read their emotional and energetic state as a pathway to shifting their appearance, the real benefit is not about looking better, it’s about experiencing a shift in consciousness. And this doesn’t just happen with lines, it happens with all skin conditions. For example, a client of mine came in with severe rosacea- her whole face was very red, inflamed and super dry- and after reading her face and her sharing her story, we were able to weave her face reading into root causes that triggered her rosacea. It’s important to note, that I don’t pretend to be a counsellor. I draw strong boundaries around that. I simply share what I see from relatable human perspectives to help people realize on their own where they have blocks. They can then see a different professional to work those out on a deeper level if desired. With this client, her rosacea went away. While some conditions are genetic (which arguably via epigenetics could also be linked to emotional patterns carried in our DNA), many skin conditions can be healed via emotional rebalancing that supports the physical balancing. The opposite is typically true- most people begin addressing the issue by only treating the physical (acne, bumps, rosacea, wrinkles) only to end up discovering that what they’re experiencing physically can’t be fixed physically – it needs to be addressed at its deeper emotional and energetic layers.
Tell us how you work with Face Reading
I weave face reading into all of my holistic facials, as a way to teach people how to shift their perspective. Face reading invites us into a roadmap that explains how we can better care for ourselves, on all levels. For example, certain lines, like the nose line (sometimes looks like a bum on the end of the nose) is found in people who can tend to give too much of their energy to others i.e. ”bleeding hearts” who tend to lack of boundaries around how much they give of themselves- they tend to push themselves too far in caring for others. Similar to the wisdom found in The Body Keeps the Score, our skin also keeps the score. Another example is the lines between your brows, which tend to indicate frustration, irritation, anger, excessive doing, over concentration and patterns of not expressing your personal power. For a look at what most lines say about emotional patterns, I use Lillian Bridges’ Face Map, which is very similar to the one seen here. Why is this important? Because patterns are our life’s work. The patterns we navigate are always our opportunities to create transformation, and walk towards our Big Self.
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About Gretchen Oppenheim. A holistic beauty practitioner, energy healer, and educator, Gretchen’s mission is to help people consider beauty through the lens of how we can support ourselves more deeply, and learn to define our own standards and be empowered by them, vs. trying to reach the expectations of the industry and world around us. Learn more about Gretchen and her holistic beauty services here, and follow her on Instagram for some incredible Gua Sha tutorials and holistic care tips.
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