How Slowing Down Brought Me Back to Life by Beau Dunn

I didn’t realize how tired I was until I finally stopped.

Not the “I need a weekend away” kind of tired. This was deeper. The kind that settles into your bones, the kind you carry from project to project no matter how many supplements you buy or how many goals you check off. I had built an entire life around creating, producing, performing, and somewhere along the way, I convinced myself it was still passion. But if I’m being honest, it had become pressure.

One day, my best friend Tash looked at me and said something I didn’t expect.

“I don’t think you’re enjoying work anymore.”

That stopped me in my tracks. Was that true? If so, when did that happen?  My career and my work wasn’t something I did, it’s deeply intertwined with who I am and who I see myself as - my identity. What did that mean? It was like being hit with a truth I’d been trying to outrun. Because when you’ve spent your whole life loving what you do, admitting that you’ve lost joy in it feels like failing. It feels like an identity crisis. But she was right. I wasn’t creating from inspiration and love anymore. I was reacting out of obligation, fighting for identity and sprinting on autopilot.

So for the first time in my life, I did something completely unfamiliar and completely terrifying.

I stopped.

I gave myself thirty days. No meetings. No deadlines. No work calls.  At first, it felt uncomfortable, almost like withdrawal. I didn’t know who I was without a to-do list or the busyness I was used to creating for myself. What was I distracting myself from? Why was I so afraid of the quiet?

It was only when I stopped I realised it wasn’t quiet at all. There was a noise inside me that I wasn’t listening to. A lot had happened personally over the past decade and I was so busy being in motion that I really hadn’t begun to process it all. 

I spent more time at our home in Utah, surrounded by mountains, animals, and a kind of silence that felt prescriptive. The air was different. Softer. Nobody cared what bag I was carrying or whether I brushed my hair (I mean I cared about brushing my hair, who are we kidding?!). The point is, I could just be. I had physical and emotional space to feel and be whoever I needed to be that day. 

I built bee hives. I made bracelets. I attempted sourdough, it collapsed… obviously. I laughed, ordered bread on Postmates, drowned it in butter and honey, and called it a win. I met new friends, women who despite the different upbringing and different cities shared so much in common. Something unexpected happened. I felt a warmth I hadn’t felt in a long time. I felt flow and eventually, the smallest spark. Not performative joy. Deep joy. Quiet, warm, steady joy.

And for me, that was the moment Beverly Hills Farm began,  not as a brand or a business idea, but as a feeling. 

I was born and raised in Beverly Hills. I love art, fashion, design, beauty, all the glossy things. But in Utah, barefoot in the grass, laughing with friends, covered in bee pollen and bread dough, I discovered a different kind of beauty,  a grounding, unfiltered, deeply human kind. It reminded me that happiness isn’t about choosing between the city and the country, or glamour and grit. It’s about exploring who you are on any given day without apology.

That’s what Beverly Hills Farm became for me: a bridge between worlds. A place where ambition can live next to stillness. Where you can love your gloss and still love your garden. Where you can glow and get a little dirt under your nails.

Tash and I created this community for people like us,  the overachievers, the feel-everything-deeply people, the ones who always give and rarely rest. The ones who want to reconnect with life again. We built it for the women who want to exhale, find the humor when things don’t go to plan, try new things simply because they feel good, and are brave enough to stop performing long enough to feel ‘real’ again.

Yes, we’ll share our favorite rituals, beautiful pieces, things that make life sweeter. But more importantly, we’ll share the stories. The honest ones. The messy ones. The human ones that remind us that none of us are alone in trying to find peace in the noise.

Because maybe happiness isn’t about chasing the next accomplishment. Maybe it’s about slowing down long enough to notice what’s already here. Maybe it’s about finding your spark again, not the spark you post about, but the spark you feel.

That’s what this next chapter is for me. The beginning of learning to glow from the inside out again. The beginning of Sparkle Back,  not just as a phrase, but as a way of living.

Here’s to connection, color, courage, community. To showing up as we are. To laughing, learning, softening, and finding our sparkle again, together.

xoxo, Beau