Starter Stories: Crystal Brown — Combining Peace With Purpose

Written and photographed by Margee Stanfield

Starting a business while also being on a journey to peace and healing is a powerful thing to juggle. But Crystal Brown didn’t just juggle the two: she combined them. 

“Starting my business …  it was a little bit scary for me because I knew that I had to stand firm in my practices to be able to sustain my remission for my mental health. So that part scared me a lot … But starting a new journey, starting a new business was very exciting.

Like even to this day I still get excited that I get to come here and do everything that I love.”

Crystal Brown, owner of Crystal’s Zen and Juice, has been very involved in the Jackson Community and has touched every active branch of theCO. She’s instructed yoga for Downtown Jackson’s Yoga in the Park, been an Our Jackson Home temporary mural artist, has a business inside Soul Collective, been a ScaleUp Kitchen participant, and gone through CO.STARTERS.

“My business idea was just like a conglomerate of all of my healing modalities,” Crystal said. 

Crystal’s business stemmed from her journey with battling PTSD. 

“I didn't take the conventional route to healing. I just started studying meditation, mindfulness and then through meditation and mindfulness I discovered that I was an artist,” Crystal said.

This discovery came through healing art sessions and not only enjoying them, but receiving admiration for her art from those around her. She also started doing research on how diet affects mental health. When she started to incorporate these things into her lifestyle, she saw her symptoms begin to increase drastically. And then … 

“I just had the vision to bring all of the modalities into one space,” Crystal said. 

She had to do a lot of research about how to actually start a business after the initial vision came to her. And during that journey, she got connected with Trunetta Atwater. 

“CO.STARTERS came to me through Trunetta,” Crystal said. “It was one of the requirements for Soul Collective so we could just be knowledgeable about things like property loss and business taxes and it was very helpful and very informative so I’m really blessed I was able to go through that program.”

ScaleUp Kitchen came to her through an open call for food businesses to participate, she was selected and got to be a part of the first year of programming. She had the creative vision for her space, but ScaleUp helped Crystal explore another side of her business. 

“ They wanted to see the numbers. To scale. So that really gave me insight to think about the other side of business,” Crystal said. “If I'm going to be really serious about staying open and staying active and serving the community, I've really got to stick with the logical analytic side of my business.”

“ Who has supported you or been in your corner that's made a difference in your journey?” I asked Crystal.

“theCO especially,” she replied without a beat. “I feel like if it wasn't for theCO I wouldn't have even moved back to Jackson to even start this.  Because it would've taken years for me to obtain all the information on my own.  So they have been a very big catalyst for my journey and Soul Collective is right there, hand in hand with them.”

Additionally, Crystal is thankful for the Jackson community. She truly believes that without them, Crystal’s Zen and Juice wouldn't exist. Because there was a need for her business before she came to Jackson, she credits the community with creating Zen and Juice rather than herself. 

She got to share the peace she had experienced with others through her zen offerings. She explained to me that once you get a taste of that peace after going through trauma, you will do anything to keep chasing it. And now she gets to not only chase it but share it with others, intertwining it with her purpose.

One way this has been illuminated is through leading Open Art.

“It really gave me insight into everybody's daily lives. We're all battling something. So even if I'm not calling it art therapy, it is still therapeutic.”

Crystal’s Zen and Juice’s future is going to lean into this side of things more. 

“ Zen and Juice is taking a pivot. I'll be honest about it, just because I've experienced some issues with inflation, especially on fresh produce, and other food items. We have to pivot now. So I'm going to be focused more on the ‘zen’ part of my concept — the meditation, the sound bass, the art, or whatever just brings you calm. I'm gonna be focusing more on those offerings more than the food now,” she explained. 

If Crystal could give advice to someone just starting out in business she would say to pivot as many times as you need to.

“ Don't be afraid of change. Change doesn't mean that things are ending,” Crystal said. “Change just means things are getting better.”