I had the pleasure of interviewing Peter Nguyen, entrepreneur, advocate and co-founder of yoga and wellness brand, Indigo Lab LA, as well as the alchemist and founder of clean luxury skincare line Recherche Beauté.
Thank you so much for joining us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path as a doctor or healer?
When I started college, I developed severe cystic acne, which became one of the most difficult periods of my life. Like any young adult trying to find their way and identity, it was difficult for me to look at myself in the mirror every day and accept my own reflection. I fell into a deep depression as a result of my unwillingness to accept myself, and the acne that had overrun my life. It was a sharp contrast from where I was prior to this period in high school, where I was happy, and confident.
Being in a place of darkness for several years, I finally woke up one day exhausted from feeling like an eternal victim of my circumstance, I decided that I was no longer going to be the victim anymore and embarked on a path of self-healing & determination to win my war against acne. And while on my path, I studied vigorously to find a remedy to cure my acne from the inside out, exploring and educating myself in all the modalities and remedies that existed. And fortunately for me, my grandmother, a renowned eastern medicinal herbalist became a starting point for me to understand how to heal myself from within with medicinal plants and botanicals. I finally came to a place where the attainment of all of the knowledge, wisdom and education I had immersed myself in began to pay off, as my acne began to fade away, and my self-confidence and self-acceptance re-emerged.
I went onto graduating from law school, started a fashion design, manufacturing and distribution company and eventually started my yoga, meditation and wellness brand Indigo Lab LA, inspired by my own connection and love for the practice of yoga and meditation. Through my practice of yoga and meditation, I have been able to heal and accept the side of myself that was wounded and scarred from the darkest hours of my life. And I wanted to share this gift with others by creating a space for everyone to come and experience the same healing and acceptance within themselves. Skin and accepting myself within my own skin has been one of the biggest learning lessons in my life, so I wanted to use my experience and knowledge to help
others from the inside with Indigo Lab LA, to the outside with the creation of my clean luxury skincare line Recherche Beauté which is formulated with the purest, highest quality ingredients curated by me to ensure optimum skin health and vitality to reveal your innate radiance.
How have your personal challenges informed your career path?
My challenges led to my determination to heal myself. I had reached a fork in the road where I could have chosen to remain the victim of my circumstances and continued on in a downward spiral, or make the decision to stand up to it, learn from it and overcome it. I chose the latter, as I understood there was something to be learned from my experience and I was meant to go through what I was meant to go through for a reason, and that reason is to help others that are experiencing what I had experienced, as I understand how much acne and problematic skin can dim one’s light and affect one’s self-esteem on the deepest level. The remedy starts first from within, by accepting yourself in the mirror and understanding there is hope, integrating a diet and ingestible nutrition that is suitable for you, and topically applying skin care that is suitable for you as well to help you achieve the healthiest skin possible.
Can you share your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Became a Doctor”
The 5 things I wish someone told me are:
- If you are prone to acne & breakouts, you should not use any products that have algae or seaweed as the iodine content within these ingredients can aggravate and stimulate acne.
- If you are prone to acne & breakouts, ingesting a lot of seaweed & algae can also aggravate and stimulate acne.
- Coconut oil is one of the most pore clogging ingredients. Some coconut oil based product lines claim that coconut oil will alleviate or get rid of acne, but that is absolutely not the case.
- Most people know that stress can cause breakouts, but I wish I would have learned about meditation sooner, as it is the best remedy to relieve stress and calm your nervous system. When your nervous system is calm everything else within your body will remain calm.
- I wish Anthony Williams, the Medical Medium was around back then, as I have been actively following his celery juice protocol for 6 months now, I swear by it. It is the best thing you can do for your gut health. A healthy gut = healthy radiant skin!
Social media and reality TV create a venue for people to share their personal stories. Do you think more transparency about your personal story can help or harm your field of work? Can you explain?
I do believe transparency is necessary for progress in the realm of health, beauty and wellness. We are inundated with so much information because of social media that in order to connect with the genuine authentic voices that are truly seeking instigate change, that transparency is required to convey authenticity.
I do however feel like at times some people who believe that they are being transparent fall into a cycle of victimhood and use their social media platforms to seek sympathy and to validate themselves while embroiled in their victimhood, which I feel can pose as a detriment to everyone.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Do you have a story about how that was relevant to your life?
Growing up, my parents continually reiterated, “You need to learn from our experiences”. Of course when I was young and immature, I believed that my experiences were uniquely mine, which they were, but there is definitely truth in what they said as I have become older, wiser and more experienced in my existence. We are different, but as human beings we are ultimately still all the same. We all experience love, heartbreak, loss, happiness and persevere the same way. We can learn from one another and each other’s experiences and apply them to our own lives, as those experiences are all gifts we can give one another to help elevate one another.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
I truly believe that if we all integrated meditation into our daily lives, the world would definitely be a better place. For us to be able to reserve that piece of time for ourselves daily to reconnect with ourselves, peeling off the layers of our day is the best gift of self-love and self-reverence we can give ourselves, alleviating the stressors and pressures that we are confronted with. To feel centered within ourselves is the best thing we can do for our nervous system. If we all had calm nervous systems, the world would be a much calmer, peaceful and heart-centered place.
How can our readers follow you on social media?
Instagram: @indigolabyogi Instagram: @indigoyogalab Instagram: @recherche_beaute
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!