Breaking free from beliefs that prevent Safer choices at home
What if it were discovered that arsenic was being used to clean your house or corrosive acid was added to your favorite perfume or lotion? What would you do to protect your family from it? My guess is that all of us would immediately stop using it and remove it from our homes. We’d want to protect ourselves from what we know causes harm.
Current knowledge of the everyday products used in our homes that are manufactured with chemicals tells us that these products are harmful to human life. You can learn more about this here, here and here. While they don’t necessarily contain arsenic and corrosive acid, they do corrode and poison us, especially when they exist together. Hundreds of unknown and unstudied chemicals are in the air you breathe, the surfaces you touch and the things you put on your body at home. The only person with the power and authority to remove them is you.
Perhaps it’s because they aren’t well-known like arsenic and corrosive acid or because they aren’t labeled as a hazard or because we’re taught that we need them, we allow them to stay in our house, offending our biology and disrupting our lives.
Just because we can’t immediately connect the dots – “this chemical causes that” – doesn’t mean it’s not taking its toll on our life.
I see dependence on these products for what it truly is, a trap, something holding us back, like chains. Dependence, or maybe call it loyalty, to products (perhaps due to marketing strategies and habit more than value) is a sad reason to allow wellness to drain away. Wellness serves us today, but also everyday of our future and our children’s future. The more wellness, the brighter and longer the future will likely be. That sounds good to me. How about you?
But we’re smart people, right? So why do we allow this to continue in the place of safety, the place we call “home”? What keeps us dependent? Why do we allow these chains to rest on us, instead of making the change that could free us to live a life of greater vitality? Here’s 6 reasons I see.
Too hard
When something is perceived as difficult, perhaps with multiple steps and unclear information we tend to avoid the problem. Making the change to safer products, with ingredients closer to nature can cause overwhelm to take over, clouding judgement…easier to stay where we are than to rock the boat.
Or perhaps the perceived challenge is that it’s too difficult to wade through ALL. THE. INFORMATION. online and to find the truth. Who has time for all of that?
Too expensive
In our current model for cleaning and personal care, buying products is the way to get the job done. Today, we have so many choices. When we turn to the “alternatives” on store shelves those natural looking products come with a much higher price tag. Would you believe me if I told you that most of the products marketed as the natural or safer alternative are likely to be just as much of a problem? Thankfully, for our wallet and health, we can side step all of that and still have a clean house.
Too natural
Some believe that natural products don’t work well. But think about this – a plastic cutting board is known to harbor bacteria even after it’s been washed while a wood cutting board is known to assert it’s own antimicrobial properties, making it a safer, natural choice in the kitchen. (Learn more here.) We can trust nature to do her job when we stop chemical warfare and allow balance to be restored. It is entirely possible to unwind our 20th century uptightness about microbes and embrace the value of natural materials, including salts, oils, vinegar and the old fashionedness of a good vacuum cleaner while being selective about modern products that actually serve us well.
Too sick
This is the link in the dependence chain that hurts my heart the most. Because I’ve been here. Sometimes the chains are simply too heavy to throw off, mostly because we’re so weak and sick already, allowing the things that contribute to illness to keep us there. When we’re chronically unwell it appears that the effort needed to make the change is too great. It’s also entirely possible that you are unwell enough not to know that you are unwell, making it difficult to see that a change needs to happen at all.
Too well (right now)
Change is always harder to make when it’s not urgent. When I’m well, I don’t feel the need to fix the problem or reduce the risk. But the risk is still there. Many people are able to keep going at their own pace of life even with chains, at least for now. Our bodies are simply amazing, but sooner or later the burden of toxicity catches up with everyone. Don’t believe me? Read Joe Pizzorno’s book The Toxin Solution.
Too smart ( or “I don’t believe it really matters”)
This is the person that’s decided that since products like this are sold in stores, have been used for a long time and aren’t causing an obvious problem, then everything must be fine and people who discourage their use are overreacting.
What most people don’t understand is that chemically based cleaning and personal care products have not been proven to be safe, are not regulated and aren’t required to label all ingredients. There’s so much we don’t know. When we “don’t know what we don’t know”, it makes us feel smart and safe, but the contrary is actually closer to the truth.
Manufactured chemicals have no safe place in our bodies. People who are obviously sensitive to them are not an exception in society, they are the canary in the coal mine warning others that the load of chemicals present today is overwhelming our body’s capacity to manage them.
Links in the chains of dependency on chemically based cleaning and personal care products
- Too hard
- Too expensive
- Too natural
- Too sick
- Too well
- Too smart
Change your mind about changing your products
Which of these links in the chain of dependence on chemically based products affect you? Can you put them in the order of relevance to you? What can you do to overcome these chains? Breaking free means greater opportunity to be all that you want to be – as in wellness, energy, clarity, creativity, peace. When we are truly well there is also more time and money to pursue what is most important. What are you willing to do to get there?
The bright side
The bright side of all of this is that once we become aware of the things that hold us back we can make better choices about what’s really important and what we are willing to do to move forward, unfettered.
I agree, changing all the cleaning and beauty products in your household can appear to be an expensive, time-consuming task. But when done right, it is always worth it. Guaranteed. Real solutions are quickly available when you know what to look for and the effort to make it happen can be minimized with a good plan. This is where LightenUp Simply comes in. Within a consultation I can help these chains melt away – learning what’s important to you and developing an actionable plan gets the job done without overwhelm and doubt. And it frees you to be more of who you want to be, every day.
Your life, your vitality, absolutely matters. Connect with me to let me know how I can assist you. www.LightenUpSimply.com