We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Brittney R & Jules G a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Brittney R & Jules G, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.
Individually, and together, we took the risk of following the threads of our passions. There is a lot here to try to condense. The essential pieces are that we wanted to breathe hope into the dream of divesting from jobs that were draining our life forces.
The big risks here for Britt were leaning into advocating for herself, and taking care of herself in terms of pain management, and saying no to jobs that did not show care for her wellbeing. She also took the brave step of reaching out to her community and loved-ones for help.
The risks for Jules were financial and time related. This meant working full-time, attending evening classes full-time, and taking out loans.”
How’d it all turn out? Its still becoming! We both completed our education and are currently practicing. We’ve put a lot of energy and intention into building and curating a studio space that feels genuine to our values and aesthetic visions. We continue to feel hopeful and inspired by this path, and experience wholeheartedness while caring for ourselves, and our community.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
As queer neurodivergent humans, we are very proud to offer space and services that are catering to the diverse needs of neuro-expansive people! We understand the challenge of navigating the world with sensory issues, and make an effort to meet the needs of our clients in order to give folks an experience that is considerate and sensitive. We value sustainability for this planet and its human and-non-human lifeforms. We want to co-create care routines and rituals that extend beyond our service space, that can support our clients in their daily lives.
We currently offer a variety of skincare treatments, somatic body work, energy work, and astrology chart readings. We’ve put a lot of intention into planning and launching our soft-open menu. It’s really exciting! We know that like us, it is ever-evolving. It feels really special to open a space where community members can engage in wellness practices in a way that feels approachable, inclusive, and whole bodied.
Jules Talking:
“Britt had been practicing as an SFX makeup artist when the pandemic kicked-off. 2020 was the origin point of our relationship. With lockdown in place, she lost her part-time coffee gig, and being a person who lives with chronic pain, sustainable options were basically non-existent. She was interested in quality plant-based skin care, partly from her own personal witchy routines, but also because she had already developed so much skill in prepping skin for makeup application. She really dropped-into herself and said ‘I want to build my own skincare practice that is vegan, queer, trauma-informed, accessible, and something that feels authentic to me!’ I feel like my flaming pom-poms came out immediately when I heard her say this!!! I’ve watched her overcome every mile-stone along her path, and she is making that vision come to form in a really beautiful way.
What sets Britt apart from others in this field is her focus on helping to create simple and effective care rituals, especially for folks that are neurodiverse or overwhelmed by how daunting self-care can feel.”
Britt Talking:
“Jules had been working as a Radiology Tech for nearly a decade, and while they love caring for folks, they were experiencing the detriment of being in healthcare during the beginning of a global pandemic. For about five years, they had been dreaming of working for themself. What ultimately lead to them pursuing the education for that was their commitment to going deep into their own shadow work, and seeking community with others who practiced astrology and energy work. Investing in these ways lead them to seeking attunements and mentorship in Reiki energy work. When I was about 2 months into my Esthetician Program, they told me ‘Seeing you take this initiative and do this is really inspiring me to finally go to massage school.’ And so they did! And that’s when we realized how much alignment we had in our individual desires to serve our community.
What sets Jules apart is their desire to center somatic work that is accessible and welcoming of all-bodies. They are passionate about combining energy, frequency and body-work techniques that focus more on nervous system regulation and relaxation than on trigger-point and deep tissue massage. They want to offer a space that is trauma-informed and compassionate towards the ways in which oppressive systems perpetuate dis-ease in the body.”
We’d love to hear about how you met your business partner.
How we met felt very cosmically designed. We seemed to be on parallel trajectories, and landed together as roommates. Roommates turned to lovers, as the gay-agenda doth commends. Years later, after a lot of nurturing, growing, and supporting each others’ passions, we decided to have a baby. And that baby is Wellness Rituals.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
Britt:
I feel like this has been a year of unlearning and growing pains. A couple of lessons I have been working on unlearning are around perfection and the need to have “all your ducks in a row” before beginning something new.
As a queer person of color, living with chronic pain and mental illness, it should come as no surprise that my inner landscape contains a lot of complex stories around ableism and enough-ness. I internalized a lot of rules about capitalism and what success looks like that are simply not sustainable!
I have experienced extreme burnout, depression, and physical pain from working, since the age of 16. In these various jobs the common theme was that I had little to no physical recovery time, let alone time for passions or community. That is how most people are taught to work and live in western society.
As I have gotten older, I have started unmasking. I no longer try and behave like a robot. I advocate for my needs and have a greater understanding of my capacity, physically and mentally. As a person who has also been working-poor most of my life, its really easy to feel trapped in that. In many ways, I still am. Society has a lot to unlearn/dismantle, too. However; embracing the unknown and asking for help from community has been very liberating. It’s definitely a privilege to get further education and follow a dream and see where it leads. This experience has given me renewed faith in folks creating the futures we want to see for ourselves.
Jules:
The lessons I am still working to unlearn are imposter syndrome, coupled with the idea that I will be stuck in my career as an x-ray tech, without other options, due to late-stage capitalism. Working in the medical industrial complex has taught me so many practical skills, and has also made me realize: I want to be a part of the collective dismantling of harmful structures in healthcare. In my profession as an x-ray tech, and as a somatic practitioner, I want to help share information and resources about self-advocacy, self-determination, distributive justice, and the right that every body has to dignified care.
I’m having to build a lot of new skills, and step-into my confidence. I am detangling from the conditioning, and the stories around enough-ness, doubting myself, and down-playing my inherent gifts. I am a multi-faceted human, with so much to offer. A part of unlearning these things means learning to really embrace my true nature. I want to create, I want to care, and I want to be curious about exploring and sharing about my many interests.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.wellnessritualspractice.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wellnessritualspractice/
- Other: https://g.page/r/CWAZKV67bjnwEBM/review Google reviews
Image Credits
Jules Goings and Britt Reed