"My Skin Story" by Georgia Gibbs
“Hey guys!
Let me introduce myself, my names Georgia Gibbs, I’m an activist for self love and female empowerment, the founder of JOY by Georgia Gibbs my wellness app encouraging health to start with the mind and follow with the body. Creator or Any BODY, a platform designed to bring women together, quit the comparisons and love the skin they’re in and finally, a model made in Australia!
I wanted to share something with all of you with the up and coming Miami Swim Week.
There’s honestly not much more daunting than stripping down to your bikini and walking in front of hundreds of strangers… Now I know, models sign up for this but this goes for everyone… Bikini’s and the constant stress over “do I have a bikini body’ ridicules so many of us daily so I wanted to bring a little REAL into your feed and a little reminder that when you look at my pictures online, photos in the magazine or strutting my stuff on the runway, I’m just a human too, with insecurities, human problems and a life that doesn’t always look how it does on social media.
Here’s my skin story from how it started, to how I healed it and my advice for all of you xx
In November 2017 I got diagnosed with Chronic fatigue, I was traveling, working and putting everyone else’s needs before my own.
In January 2018 my long term bf and I broke up and I moved to LA, distracting myself I threw myself into work again, continued traveling, ignored the anxiety and daily panic attacks and kept going…
In April 2018 I got an infection that lasted 4.5 months, by August I had taken 8 rounds of antibiotics and completely trashed my immune system and my gut health.
More than this, I continued to get more depressed, constantly anxious but just felt really low… Did you know Serotonin (our happy hormone) is produced in the gut? Yet we don’t connect the over prescription of antibiotics to our mental health. *sigh
By the start of September my skin went from being clear and calm to looking this this.
All my dermatologists told me I had basically developed Rosacea seemingly overnight. My skin became severely allergic to heat or sun and I stopped going outside, it was itchy and painful.
End of September my skin developed to this;
I began breaking out all over my face, as someone that had never struggled with their skin to this severity it really caught me off guard and knocked my confidence. This was my body disposing of toxins (antibiotics, stress build up etc).
My skin just continued spreading all over my face and down my neck, by this point I hadn’t socialized in three months and avoided seeing my bf, I also refused to face time my mum, just so ashamed… Which to me now is so confronting because seeing someone like this I would never look twice so why did I feel so ashamed? I felt ashamed because of the connotations of acne being “dirty” “pizza face” being a model who always had clear skin I felt judged and was determined to change and normalize acne. I also couldn’t work which knocked my confidence too. I remember one day walking into my beautician and her saying “wow, what happened to your face?” and I didn’t go out again after that… An advocate for loving yourself beyond your appearance I really had to walk the walk and talk the talk and practice self love beyond my current situation.So I really hit rock bottom, I was struggling with auto immune, became hyper sensitive to so many types of food including fructose, gluten, dairy, certain oils, caffeine. I had an eye infection I was prescribed antibiotic eye drops later realizing it was a fungal eye infection so the drops made it worse, half my hair had fallen out and my hormones were completely out of whack. I was told my only option was more antibiotics, an Estrogen replacement pill, and topical antibiotics, all of which contributed to getting me hear in the first place so I gave up with medicine and starting practicing a large variety of natural therapies December to now.
This was my body screaming out for love. Looking after my mental health was my number one healer, operating in my parasympathetic nervous system, a state of calm and peace. The only way I achieved that was accepting this was my situation, it’s temporary and accept it was a learning curve, and that was when I started creating JOY.
Mid December I started Traditional Chinese Medicine and acupuncture, by January my skin looked like the above, active break outs gone just a lot of scarring. TCM has been used for thousands years, my practitioner makes herbal mixtures for me to drink every day, they don’t treat the skin they treat the toxicity levels in the body and gut healing, and by treating the route cause they also begin healing the skin.
I began practicing meditation every day and every night for just ten minutes to start and gradually building to half an hour, by doing this I lowered cortisol levels in my body, and calmed my sympathetic nervous system which allowed my body to begin healing and helped my adrenal fatigue. I believe this, nutrition with the TCM were my biggest healers as they didn’t just help my skin, they helped my anxiety, I stopped having panic attacks and I started feeling less depressed.
I slowed down my exercise and just focused on yoga, at this stage of my healing everything was focused on slowing down and helping the body heal, starting with healing the mind and emotional / internal healing too.
Have you ever heard of Food is medicine?
Food was one of my biggest healers! I can’t express enough the power of what we put in our bodies. It’s definitely NOT about being obsessive, counting calories or spending your life on a diet its far the opposite. Eating for healing, for me it was eating whole foods without preservatives, added hormones, as natural as possible. I became sensitive to all sugars, including fructose so I cut that out and ate higher fat foods like coconut, cocoa and avocado. I ate a lot of fresh vegetables, tree nuts and wild caught fish (tip buy it frozen its usually fresher and half the price.) It was amazing the difference food had on my mental health too because it was also healing my gut and therefore boosting my mood and helping my hormones.
Lastly, I discovered DMK skincare and Sandra @skin_guardian - this was the icing on top of my healing cake, it treated skin hypersensitive to everything after nothing else worked and I’m super grateful to have found them!
All in all, yes it takes time healing your body naturally, 6 months on and I’m still at it but I’m 80% better than I was 6 months ago and I’m healing long term, not going for a quick fix that leads me back to where I started. I promise you it’s worth it.
In short this experience taught me the power our minds have over us. Or the power we can have over our minds. You are the product of what you tell yourself and the way you speak about yourself. Your mental health is so taxing on the body I truly believe it contributes to much illness and I know first hand it contributed to mine, so begin looking after it now, don’t wait until it needs “fixing” start now, it will really build the strongest, happiest version of you.
Sending all my love and gratitude to every one of you,
You can find me at:
@georgiagibbs_
@any.body_co
And you can #CreateJOY with me @joybygeorgiagibbs with a week free for all of you.
Love,
G x”
