My journey into health didn't begin in a hospital. It began when my son was a baby.
At around six months old, after introducing solids, his little body became covered in eczema. The skin around his joints was raw, his sleep was disrupted, and despite appointment after appointment, I felt like I was no closer to understanding why.
At the time, I was studying Public Health, majoring in Nutrition and Health Promotion. As I learned more about the body, I couldn’t help but connect what I was studying with what I was witnessing in my own baby boy.
"Everything in me felt there had to be more to the story."
The turning point
For over a year, I searched for answers. We followed the conventional path and were prescribed creams to manage the symptoms. They helped temporarily, but the eczema always returned.
Everything in me felt there had to be more to the story.
So I stopped looking solely at the skin and started looking at the whole body.
Through further testing and research, I learned that my son wasn’t dealing with food allergies, but food intolerances — particularly to salicylates, amines and glutamates. That distinction changed everything. Unlike an allergy, intolerances are often dose-dependent. The body can cope until it can’t, and eventually symptoms begin to appear.
Once I understood what his body was reacting to, I adjusted his diet and focused on reducing the inflammatory burden rather than simply treating what was showing up on the surface.
Within two weeks, his skin completely cleared.
The body wasn't working against him. It was trying to tell me something.
It was the first time I truly understood that symptoms aren’t always the problem. Often, they’re the body’s attempt to communicate that something deeper needs attention.
Not long after, I trained as a registered nurse, following a long line of healthcare practitioners in my family. And while I’m deeply grateful for my years in conventional medicine and the incredible role it plays in acute care, it also reinforced the questions that had first emerged through my son’s healing journey.
I found myself increasingly curious about what sits beneath symptoms. What influences them. What drives them. Why they appear in the first place.
Those questions eventually led me into the world of integrative health and functional medicine, where I continued exploring the connection between lifestyle, environment, nutrition, stress and the body’s remarkable capacity to adapt and heal.
Looking back now, I can see that my son’s eczema was never the beginning of a problem.
It was the beginning of a conversation.
One that completely changed the way I understand health, healing and the wisdom of the human body.
Why this matters for ritual
Möxche tools aren't a cure. They're not a treatment. They're a daily practice of listening — to skin, to fluid, to fascia, to the rhythms the body holds.
When you brush in the morning, you're not just exfoliating. You're checking in. When you gua sha at night, you're not just sculpting. You're noticing what's tense, where there's holding, what the day did to your face.
Ritual is paying attention. And the body, when it's paid attention to, will tell you what it needs.
"Because true safety, love and healing aren't found outside of you. They've always been within you."
— Jess, founder & integrative health practitioner