There is a tree in front of my window. I think it is a Weeping Willow. Yes, the names we humans give to things. 

Every morning, I sit in front of it with my tea. I eat, I meditate, I speak to you from in front of it. Almost every video I create for Instagram is filmed while I sit on my little green sofa looking at this tree. I even have long conversations with my cat, Fındık (Hazelnut), in front of this tree. He loves it, and for those asking. Yes, my cat understands both English and Turkish :).

And lately, if somebody asked me, “What inspires you the most, Ezgi?” I think my answer would be this tree. Wait! maybe not just this tree. Every Tree that I have ever seen. Because when I look at this tree, I see surrender. I see intelligence. I see homeostasis.

 

The wind arrives. The rain arrives. The sunlight pours through its leaves. Insects crawl across it. Wildlife moves around it. Foxes pass by it every day. I see them, and the tree stands still.

 

At first, you could say that is sad, Ezgi. You could say, “How unfortunate that the tree can not move.” But hold on, I think this is a blessing. Because the tree can not run away from its environment. It can not disconnect itself from nature. It can not resist life. It must surrender. And because it surrenders, it thrives.

 

Its microbiome is fed by the world around it. The insects. The rain. The soil. The changing seasons. The sunlight. The air itself. Nothing blocks its communication with life. And because nothing blocks this communication, photosynthesis happens beautifully and naturally. Light enters the tree directly. The tree transforms that light into life. And then we witness the result. The vibrant green leaves, beauty,  vitality. Not artificial or forced beauty. Living, natural beauty.

 

And what moves me the most is that the tree does not create beauty only for itself. It cools the earth beneath it. It creates shade for animals. It feeds insects and wildlife. Even the fox passing by benefits from the tree. The tree exists in relationship with everything around it. And I think this is what the human body is longing for, too. I personally want to live like this tree. I want to create homeostasis within myself and then surrender to life instead of fighting it.

 

This is exactly why I created our rituals. Not to force beauty onto the skin. But to help the skin remember balance. Homeostasis. To support sebum production. To nourish the microbiome. To help the skin adapt naturally to sunlight and seasonal changes.

 

When I meditate, when I use the Flow Ritual and Sun Elixir Face right now, when I spend time under the sunlight without fear, I feel myself returning to that same state of surrender. And I can see it on my own skin. I have started developing a soft, natural tan simply from living under the sunlight. No tanning products. No makeup. No SPF. Just adaptation. My skin is interacting with its environment again, like the tree.

 

And I want to say something important here, because there is a lot of misinformation online around tanning. Many people speak about tanning only through the lens of injury, damage, or burning. But they are not talking about homeostasis. They are not talking about adaptation. They are not talking about balance.

 

They are speaking about skin that is disconnected from itself. Skin that is stripped, suppressed, covered constantly. Skin without healthy sebum production. Skin without microbiome balance. And then that skin is placed under sunlight without adaptation. Of course, that creates stress.

 

But that is not what I am talking about. I am talking about the tree. I am talking about photosynthesis. I am talking about a living organism existing in balance with its environment. The tree does not fear sunlight because the tree is in a relationship with sunlight. And the human body, nature itself, is designed the same way.

 

When your skin is in homeostasis, when the microbiome is balanced, when sebum production is healthy, your skin begins communicating with the environment intelligently again. And part of that intelligence is melanin. Your body in homeostasis creating melanin is not the problem. It is your body adapting. Your own melanin is intelligent. It is protective. It is part of your body’s natural relationship with sunlight. There are studies discussing melanin itself as protection, but most conversations online completely skip the deeper conversation of homeostasis.

Read More Shining a Light on "Life Giving Sunlight"

 

And this is why what I speak about can not really be compared to most conventional advice online. Because most people are not talking about homeostasis at all. Unaware of it. This understanding is still very new. Epigenetics itself is now beginning to show how deeply the body responds to environment, stress, balance, perception, and internal regulation. The human body in Homeostasis, balance changes everything.

 

I know this not only philosophically, but personally. I am living proof of what returning the body to homeostasis can do. I reversed MS by changing the environment within my own body. Through meditation. Through nervous system regulation. Through coherence. Through surrender instead of constant internal war. And because of this, I see the human body differently now. I see us like the tree. Like the fox. Like every living creature on this earth, adapting intelligently to life. And suddenly, sunlight becomes different too. Sunlight is no longer the enemy. It becomes information. Communication. Adaptation.

 

Think of it like this:

The people who trigger us the most in life are sometimes also our sunlight. Not because pain itself is good, but because life reveals to us what still lives unhealed inside our bodies. If you meditate every day, regulate your nervous system, and return yourself to homeostasis internally, then when somebody triggers you, you begin to see something extraordinary happen. You become aware. You notice your anger. Your fear. The dependency. The wound. And awareness itself becomes healing. The trigger becomes sunlight. Without challenge, without interaction, without life touching us, we remain asleep to ourselves.

 

The tree grows because it exists exposed to life. And we evolve the same way. Everything becomes an opportunity for awareness. The sunlight. The wind. The difficult person. The fear. The discomfort.

 

Everything becomes an opportunity to return to balance. And because this way of living is still so new, many people do not understand it yet. People fear what has not yet become common. But every new understanding begins this way. Somebody has to live it first. Somebody has to become the new evidence. And that is exactly what we are doing here. We are creating a new statistic.

 

A new relationship with the body. A new relationship with skin and beauty. A new relationship with sunlight. A new relationship with health itself. And maybe most importantly, a new relationship with ourselves.

 

When the skin is balanced, it knows how to communicate with the world around it. It knows how to adapt. It knows how to protect itself intelligently. But modern skincare, and especially makeup other than lipstick or a simple mascara that covers the skin, interrupts this communication.

 

When we constantly cover the skin, strip the skin, suppress the skin, sterilise the skin, we are no longer living like the tree. We are resisting our own biology. And resistance always creates imbalance.

 

Especially during sunny seasons, I encourage you to skip anything that completely or partly covers the skin, such as foundations, powders, and concealers, especially if you are trying to prevent pigmentation. Your skin needs freedom.

 

Your skin needs moments where nothing blocks its interaction with light, air, heat, wind, and the living world around it. Think about the leaves of the tree. Imagine covering every leaf with a layer that blocks communication with sunlight. Photosynthesis would struggle. The tree would slowly lose vitality. Our skin is not separate from nature. It is nature.

 

And makeup particles can also accumulate unevenly on the skin over time, especially powders, contributing to congestion, uneven tone, and pigmentation. Your skin deserves space to breathe, adapt, regulate, and heal.

 

And if you are feeling self-conscious reading this, if you don’t like being seen without makeup because your skin is still healing or still uneven, I want to offer you a different perspective. The people who truly love us are not loving us because of foundation on our skin. They feel our energy. They love our presence. Our spirit. Our aliveness.

 

I didn’t speak much growing up. I was very sensitive, very emotional, thinking deeply and therefore feeling deeply too. I was the child who felt the room, sensed people. Every little emotion people were feeling was in my body. And if you were like me, you don’t really feel like speaking. I thought I had nothing to say, but I was afaid to speak. Staying quiet and keeping yourself to yourself feels safe. Isn't it? But that also means your authentic self stays asleep.

 

And that was me not living fully. Now I speak to 7,000 of you every week. You have absolutely no idea what a transformation this is for me. And you are still here. That means you seem to like what I am saying. I am finally living as my authentic self, and it has been the most healing act of self-love I have ever given myself. 

 

So pausing the foundation, the concealers, the powders… it is similar to me finally speaking. You and I are saying the same thing.

“This is me.” 

 

And we are healing every moment we allow ourselves to be seen truly. You let your skin interact with its environment and with light. And I say everything I once never felt safe enough to say. And choosing ourselves, choosing our healing, our balance, our long-term health, is the deepest act of self-love we can practice.

 

Even if it feels vulnerable at first. Especially if it feels vulnerable at first. The tree does not apologise for standing honestly beneath the sunlight. And maybe you and I should stop apologising too. What do you think? Would you join me?

 

 

With all our love,
Ezgi and The Tree