Ten years ago I stood in an empty room holding a set of keys and a heart rate I wouldn’t wish on anyone.

Rewind a little further. During my divorce I sold my first spa, the one I’d bought at 26 and poured everything into. Then, in a plot twist nobody recommends, I stayed on and worked for the new owner. I lasted just over a year. Turns out watching someone else drive the car you built is its own kind of education. Mostly it teaches you that you’re not done driving.

So I started over. Terrified. Convinced lightning doesn’t strike twice and fairly certain I’d already used mine up.

Spoiler: it does. It did.

Enrapt turns ten this year. Ten years of heated blankets and hard lessons and clients who became something closer to family. And because I apparently can’t let a milestone pass without making a list, here are ten things a decade of starting over has taught me.

1. If you build it, they will come.

Nobody drives to Harley, Ontario by accident. Population: mostly cows and one very confident rooster. But good work travels farther than any billboard, and it turns out people will find quality wherever it lives.

2. Starting over is a chance to grow in ways the first version of you never could.

I thought starting again meant admitting the first chapter failed. It didn’t. It meant taking twelve years of lessons and building something with better bones. The first spa taught me how to run a business. Enrapt taught me how to build a life.

3. Slowing down changed everything.

Moving to a four day work week felt like breaking a rule. Who gave me permission? Nobody, it turns out. I gave it to myself. And here’s the part no one tells you: I didn’t get less done. I got better at everything I did. Three days of garden, kitchen, and quiet make the other four days better. For me and for you.

4. When you build strong relationships, the distance doesn’t seem as far.

People drive past plenty of spas to get to this one. Not because of the address. Because when you walk in here, someone knows your name, your skin, and probably what your kid is up to. That’s not marketing. That’s a decade of showing up.

5. Aging naturally isn’t scary. It keeps your uniqueness.

I’d rather look like me at every age than a Stepford wife at any of them. Your face has spent years learning how to laugh, squint at the sun, and raise one eyebrow at nonsense. I’m not in the business of erasing that. I’m in the business of supporting it.

6. Rituals make every day more interesting.

Not the Pinterest kind, the real kind….The morning coffee made slowly. The oil warmed in your hands before it touches your face. Ritual is just attention, dressed up. And attention is what makes an ordinary Tuesday feel like it mattered.

7. Romanticizing your life is a real thing.

And it’s free. The fresh sheets, the good mug, the walk you take like the main character you are. Nobody hands you a beautiful life. You notice one into existence.

8. Change is always good.

Look at the evidence. A divorce that had me selling my first spa. A pandemic that closed my second. Both felt like endings at the time. Both turned out to be doors. I didn’t walk through either of them gracefully, for the record. But I walked through.

9. Even a global pandemic couldn’t cancel skin.

When COVID closed my doors, I panicked for exactly one afternoon. My whole business is touch, and suddenly touch was illegal. So I got creative. Virtual facials, guided at-home rituals, skin advice through a screen. It wasn’t the same, but it taught me something I’ve never forgotten: what I really offer isn’t just my hands. It’s access, knowledge, and someone in your corner. The hands are the bonus. A very good bonus, but still.

10. You never stop learning. Ever.

Twenty-plus years in this industry and I still take courses, still read the research, still get genuinely giddy over a new technique. I’m not so egotistical to think I’ve got it all figured out. The day I stop being a student is the day I stop being good at this. Skin keeps evolving, science keeps evolving, and honestly, so do I. That’s the fun part.

So here I am, ten years, two builds, and one global pandemic later. At year five, after nearly a year of closed doors, I moved the whole thing home to the countryside. And this is the part I never could have built in town: the quiet. When your appointment ends here, you don’t step out into traffic and noise and a parking lot full of people. You step out into birdsong and open sky, and your nervous system gets to keep what we just gave it. The garden is a few steps away, growing things that end up in your treatments and on the veggie stand out front. Ten years ago I couldn’t have imagined any of it. Now I can’t imagine it any other way.