Today on The Mag we are featuring Allison Mathis Jones. Allison is a mama of one, a brain tumor survivor, a content creator and founder of Kintsugi Candles. Learn more about Allison and her family, how her experience with a brain tumor led to her starting her business, balancing life abroad in Japan and in Atlanta (with a baby!) and much more.

Tell us your story! We’d love to hear a little bit about yourself, your family and your brand.

I’m Allison: Believer, wife, mama, expat, mental health expert, millennial, AKA, self-care advocate, content creator, and so much more! Thanks to my husband’s basketball career, we’ve lived in 5 different countries and a few different U.S. cities, but Atlanta is and will always be home. My husband, DeQuan, and I met just before our freshmen year at the University of Miami and have been married since 2014. We welcomed our little broke bestie, Harper, in 2019, and being a mom has been my favorite adventure yet. Momming is my main job these days, but I’m also a small business owner. My company, Kintsugi Candle Co, was born out of my own experience with a brain tumor.

What inspired you to start making candles? What is something that makes your brand so memorable?

It was in the middle of March, 2018 when I had my first migraine. My husband and I were living in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where he was playing that basketball season, and we had decided a month or so prior to start trying for our first child. It was a beautiful spring day, and although I wanted to get out and about and enjoy it, I knew something wasn't right from the moment I woke up. Later on that day, I was hit with dizziness, numbness and tingling in my hand, and a terrible headache. These symptoms are all normal migraine symptoms, and I assumed that the hormonal changes of coming off of birth control had triggered migraines (especially because my mom is plagued with chronic migraines herself). I continued to have these headaches off and on, once a week or so over the next month, and when we returned to Atlanta in April, I decided to go ahead and see doctor just to hopefully get medication that would keep the migraines at bay. My doctor reassured me that these were probably just your normal migraine, but she ordered an MRI just to be safe.

About a week later, I got a scan done, and the technician informed me right away that something wasn't right - she couldn't tell me the details but she did see a mass on the scan and I should contact my doctor right away. I found out that I had a brain tumor, and just a few days later, on April 26, 2018 at just 27 years old, I had a craniotomy to remove a benign meningioma. During my recovery, I made my protecting my mental and emotional peace a priority like I never had before. I was all about self-care, and I realized quickly that aromatherapy played a huge role in my personal regimen. Because of my personal experience, Kintsugi Candle Co. was born to honor the beauty in the broken and inspire others to share their personal stories of resilience.

Kintsugi Candle Co. is a brand that is devoted to honoring the beauty in the broken. A few years ago, when my husband and I lived in Japan for a basketball season, I was first introduced to the concept of kintsugi. Kintsugi is the Japanese practice of repairing broken pottery with gold. My interpretation of kintsugi is that items are made more beautiful because of their cracks, and not in spite of them, and I feel that this is something that can be applied to people as well. Like broken pottery put back together with gold, we are made whole again in spite of our trials and tribulations and are more beautiful and unique having been broken.

It was because of my desire to help others honor the beauty in their brokenness that my newest endeavor, Kintsugi Candle Co. was born. During my recovery from brain surgery, I started to prioritize self-care like never before. While I’ve always been a self-care advocate, during this time, it wasn’t just something that I practiced because I wanted to, it was something that I literally had to practice in order to survive. The two things that proved monumental for me were 1) owning my story and sharing it in order to take control of the narrative and 2) aromatherapy. I began using a variety of essential oils and fragrances that helped me to reach whatever mood I was looking for. If I was feeling keyed up, I chose something relaxing, like lavender. If I was feeling down, I chose something uplifting, like patchouli. If I needed something comforting, I turned to a scent like fig or clove. I experienced first hand how a fragrance can transform your outlook in an instant and make a bad day a little bit better, and that was something that I wanted to share with the world. I joined my newfound love for aromatherapy with my desire to help others honor the beauty in their brokenness and own their stories of resilience, and Kintsugi Candle Co. was born.

Has the journey back to health after surviving a brain tumor been difficult?

I’m very blessed in that my personal health journey post-tumor has not been difficult at all. Of course, any surgery comes with its own unique recovery, but once I got through that initial period, I haven’t had and issues or setbacks. My tumor was benign so I did not require any ongoing treatment.

With your husband being a professional basketball player in Japan, what do your lives look like when he’s away and how do you stay connected? (Do you connect a lot on FaceTime/send care packages, have help from parents etc?)

My husband’s professional basketball career has taken us all over the country and the world and it has been such a cool experience getting to travel the world alongside him while he plays the game he loves. Now with a daughter joining us for the ride, we love that we get to introduce her to so many different cultures. We’ve been thankful that we’ve usually been able to travel as a family. We usually spend 6-9 months abroad and are home for his off-season during the summer. We rely on FaceTime to stay connected with friends and family while we are away and always welcome visitors. Sometimes my husband has had to travel ahead of us, but luckily, we’ve always been able to join him shortly thereafter. We will be joining him in Nishinomiya, Japan in a few weeks and are looking forward to exploring the area as a family. FaceTime dates have been our saving grace during the few weeks we’ve been apart.