Dear Brett,

I’m taking what I call a Lobster Bath. The kind that’s hot enough to last for a while so I can get the feelings out. The kind where when I get out my skin is so red I debate warming up a big vat of garlic butter. Enya is on in the background and I could give zero hoots if my neighbours hear it because I need her kind of magic and I need it loud. I light a candle. I take a simple brown package down from my bathroom shelf and rip the top, pouring the contents into my bath: a waterfall of salt meets steam and I am suddenly in the middle of a eucalyptus forest. There might be a lazy koala munching on leaves nearby it’s that potent. I sink slowly into the bath uttering a staccato stream of choice expletives in counterpoint to Enya’s melancholic “May it Be.”

The bath salts are one of your creations. I met you via Instagram and was struck by your passion and determination to start a natural aromatherapy bath & beauty line while still in university. I resonate deeply with anyone whose business emerges from a place of needing to create the antidote to one’s own struggles and then lighting the path for others. Such is the case with you, whose journey with stress and anxiety introduced you to the healing world of plant essences. I love that you were your own unwitting first client – that your business literally grew out of your own healing journey as people took note of the palpable difference in you and how lit up you were by your own passion. Now, you have a successful line of candles, bath products, diffuser blends and oils available online and in stores across the province. It’s incredible!

I can feel the passion in everything you do. When you popped by in person to drop off your bath salt offering for our Nurture Self Care Starter Kits for our fall retreat, we exchanged life stories like old friends. You spoke of moving in with your grandma up North to minimize living expenses so you could best support your company; you spoke of mixing everything by hand yourself; you spoke of specifically choosing scents whose healing properties reflected the particular journeys the women attending Nurture might find themselves on.

Turns out I am on a journey I don’t expect myself to be on this particular November evening: one where I reach for your eucalyptus salts like they might have the medicine I require. What is frozen in my heart – the reason I don’t turn even bother to turn the cold tap on my bath –  is that I have lost an old friend to an inexplicable accident and I am numb. As Enya soothes and my limbs boil, I think to myself: Brett, did you know when you made this that each bath would have a story? We so often tell only one story with bath products: The One About The Girl Who Pampers. Tonight I remember I need to take care of myself in a safe space to let the grief out. It’s a different story and there’s nothing surface or girly or pampering about it. I do not feel soothed: I feel my pain, and, in this moment, THAT is the real self care. In my mind that can barely string two thoughts together, I see your brown package on my shelf and something logical in me is like: Brett loves her job. She made these eucalyptus bath salts herself. So if I pour that into my bath I might smell eucalyptus but what I’m actually pouring is love. And I’m going to need some love if I’m facing the reality of this loss.

Thank you for being there for me that night even though had you actually been there that would have been rather weird and a bit crowded, what with Enya and all. Thank you for your generosity in offering your blends to those who attended our retreat, whose personal bath stories using your salts, I imagine, run the full spectrum of emotions (and water temperature)! Thank you for who you are and for bringing that to what you do.

Much love,

Sonja

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There is nothing I love so much as being witness to others following their calling and creating delicious spaces for you to connect and be inspired. You’ll find a series of love letters to creative kindreds I’ve discovered whose passion, talent and depth of spirit are palpable on the blog, and who generously donated their products to the women attending our retreat. Does this describe you or someone you know? Feel free to learn more about our partnership model here for our upcoming retreats. Want to attend a retreat in person? We have our Spring retreat coming up March 22-24th. Sign up to our waiting list here!

To learn more about Brett and StressLess Natural Solutions:

Website: www.stresslessnaturalsolutions.com

Instagram: @stresslessnatural

Product Photo by: Jodianne Beckford