Let's address sickness today, it's on my mind because it's in my home. Let's talk a little about what germs and sickies mean now versus our pre-oil life. One word comes to mind- FREEDOM. Let me explain...
Before we started using essential oils, my oldest daughter was getting sick a lot, like 3 days well between 10 day antibiotic treatments. When she would start the same symptoms in the middle of the night that she had just gotten over, I would just lay in bed with her and cry. I felt helpless, to my knowledge there was absolutely nothing I could do, I would send an email to the doctor at 2 am because that was all the power I had. Then, I would call as soon as their answering services opened the next morning, and beg and plead for something to make my baby well. If we went in to the doctor, I just wanted something to make her feel better. I was so ignorant as to what all of these antibiotics were doing to her little body, but for the next 7-8 days I would at least know she felt good. One day, I would want to go to medical school so I could write my own prescriptions and not want to be at the mercy of a doctor, appointment openings, and weekend clincs. The next day, I would want to go to pharmacy school so I could just get our own drugs (nothing illegal, you know what I'm saying :) ) I just wanted to feel like there was something in the world I could do for a miserable baby.
Then we found essential oils. Now, I'm not saying we never go to the doctor anymore or ever take antibiotics because sometimes we just have to, and I'm fine with that. My girls still get sick and get nasty germs that are floating around, but at least I have some power in healing their little bodies. The greatest term I read to ever classify an essential oil was "ANTI-VIRAL". If you have ever seen a doctor with a miserable, sick baby and told "I'm sorry, it's viral. You'll just have to let it run it's course" did you not want to throw that doctor clear across the room?! And it's totally NOT their fault, God love them. We can treat and reduce symptoms, we can shorten the duration of sickness, and we can avoid so many OTC and antibiotic drugs in our bodies.
Also, I should say I love doctors, I think they are wonderful and smart and completely necessary, but when my baby has a runny nose and can't sleep from the congestion, they can't fix it, but my oils can! I am so thankful we are nowhere near as sick as we used to be and that I feel like I can do something besides hold and comfort my little ones when they are under the weather. I can aggressively treat their symptoms and help their little bodies overcome the sickness without putting toxins in that can be found decades later. Sometimes we just need to go back to the basics. Just like our diets- how much better would be feel if we ate food straight from the Earth without a ton of processing and chemical additives- it's the same with essential oils. They have been here forever, put on Earth by our Creator Himself for their amazing healing powers. Science is great, but most of the time we are only creating something we already have...
Happy Wednesday!
My mom just left after an extended 3 week visit, it was longer than she had originally planned due to snow and ice but her visits always come to an end way too soon for us. She always seems to arrive when my nerves are a little frazzled and my patience is wearing thin. She has a way of always reminding me, in subtle ways, that my babies aren't going to be babies forever. They are growing up a little more everyday and learning new things, I can treasure the good seconds and the bad hours or I can walk around in cranky, sleep-deprived fog the majority of the day and let these times fly on by without capturing the beauty and innocence of these toddler years. Of course, the amount of time she gives me to re-charge is a great help, too :) Thanks, mom.
My goal everyday is to treasure my babies, whether it's treasuring the fits in the middle of the grocery store because they want the most processed and genetically modified cereal on the aisle because Anna and Elsa are on the front or if it's treasuring the moments when they ask for me to sing "Jesus Loves Me" while they fall asleep. It's every moment of everyday, and although the days are long, we all know the years are short.
So, let's pretend it's Friday and I'm right on time, because I'm so not. Here's what has been on my fitness heart this week- excuses. I hate them, and can be very un-sympathetic (is that a word?), but I want to be nice so let me encourage you to turn off that little voice that is always thinking of an excuse on why your health shouldn't be a TOP priority.
Excuses are such stumbling blocks, they come from OUR minds, though and we have the ability to shut them up every single day they start rearing their ugly heads. Sometimes we make the excuse we don't have time- let me tell you, everyone has at least 10-20 minutes to MOVE and if you start moving, I can almost guarantee you will find a few more minutes :) We use excuses for our age, our phase of life, and our lifestyle. "I'm too old", "I've had a baby", "I'll never look like (insert super model who's pictures have been ridiculously photoshopped) so why even try?" Stop it. Just don't even listen to that little demon telling you that you can't-for whatever reason, and hear my little cry on my little blog telling you that you CAN. Don't be afraid to try a class at the gym that looks way too advanced, you will be amazed at what your little body can do. Don't be afraid to hit the pavement when you are trying to start running, what's the worst that could happen? It's harder than you thought and you're a little more out of shape, so you walk. You're still moving, thumbs up from me.
No one becomes a fitness machine overnight, everyone in the industry has worked their tails off for their rocking bods. I'm not even concerned with that, though. Just be healthy. Make one positive decision for your health, and your family's health, today. Make two decisions tomorrow. Slowly take the excuses, and show them where the door is. I can do it. you can do it, we can all do it. Little by little, day by day. Get those tennis shoes on, and exercise because you are never too old or too out of shape. Put down the candy bar and grab a Cliff bar because eating healthy isn't disgusting or it won't be too hard to change your habits.
Embrace health, just embrace it.
Happy hump day, it's Wednesday and we are back on track with an oily word. I seriously just love oils, love them to pieces. You will, too, you just have to know where to start.
This is totally my opinion, it's how my family approached oils and where I have seen friends and family have the most success using essential oils. Most of you reading this know that Young Living has an amazingly awesome deal where you can purchase a starter kit of 11 essential oils, a diffuser, and samples for a fraction of the retail price if you were to buy it all separately. And, if you know a little bit about oils and it's not a completely foreign idea to you, start there- dive on in and embrace it! However, if you are just hearing about essential oils and the thought of having ELEVEN oils to think about just blows your mind, start small. It's perfectly fine, no sin in the oil world= I encourage this. Find one oil you think could really help you; for instance, if you have headaches and have to pop an OTC med to get through the day, try peppermint- just peppermint. Hold it, smell it, use it and get comfortable with it. Maybe you want to try one or two more and get comfortable with how to use them safely, then go for all 11 oils and a diffuser. It will change your life and you will appreciate these little pieces of heaven so much. No one should have a box of oils sitting on a shelf and not using them, and I am seeing this happen way too often. It breaks my heart, really.
I don't like to use the phrase "I sell oils". I don't like it one bit, actually. My job is to get an oil in your home, every home of every person that I love and care about because we all need it. I hate toxins, I hate the diseases they are linked to and the disruptions they cause to our body's natural chemistry, and I hate seeing people I know and love dealing with effects of toxins. So here I am, "sharing" oils with you because I care about YOUR health and well-being. One oil, eleven oils, or a hundred, just embrace it and start somewhere :)
If you are reading this and are on Facebook, I have an oil page. "Like" it for more frequent posts than Wednesdays on the blog! Follow this link:
https://www.facebook.com/OilsandgraceYL?ref=aymt_homepage_panel
I have been MIA from the blog for a little over a week, thankfully now the stomach virus is gone and I am back :) We had our first big stomach virus about a week ago, like Satan in the form of a stomach virus. It was awful, and I know it could have been worse. Everyone is all better now, and I will always remember the stomach bug of 2015.
Now, we have snow on the ground, and it's a super cold day in Missouri. You can find us snuggling together and trying to keep warm!
I'll get back on the "organized blog posts" on Wednesday- oil post day :) Stay warm, my friends! (And if it IS warm where you are, I am VERY jealous!)
Over a year ago, I began to throw around the idea of using essential oils to help our daughter's immune system and respiratory issues. I had been introduced to essential oils about 4 years earlier when I was working in a health food store in the health and beauty department- where essential oils were sold. Company reps came in and their spill would go something like this " This is ___ essential oil and it is used for headaches. This is ___ essential oil and it is uplifting. This is ___ essential oil and it helps scrapes and cuts." Ok? I was never blown away by these presentations, we were never told the chemistry behind oils and about the farms these companies use to grow the plants that are used to extract these precious oils. Well, I realize now that's probably because most everything we were shown, from the liquid in the bottles to the label on the outside, was all created in a lab. It has an expiration date and a warning not to be taken internally- as does the label around poisonous cleaning products.
Back to my search for an oil company! We are going to barely touch the surface here, there is SO much information that Young Living makes available to it's customers. If I miss something or you have questions and want to go deeper, let me know- we can so go there. I knew if this was going to be something I was going to try on my fragile, precious daughter, it had to be something that was going to work. I didn't want controversy, I wanted purity. I researched and learned about how essential oils work in the body and how their purity can be compromised, I wasn't willing to compromise and I wanted a company that felt the same. Over and over again, I landed back at Young Living. I was, and still am, amazed at their dedication to control, purity, and education.
The process of growing and extracting an oil from a plant is a very delicate process. It blows my mind at how delicate this process is, factors ranging from the soil, the amount of sun, the time of year, the humidity, the amount of frost free days, and so much more dictate the best place to grow certain plants. Distilling is another huge factor, some plants need to be distilled right away while others need to rest for a specific amount of time. These factors are important because if you grow a plant in a sub-par area, harvest it at the wrong time of the year, then are inconsiderate with it's distillation, it won't exhibit it's highest potential for therapeutic properties. If all of this is well understood and a company educates it's workers on the art form that begins with choosing seeds to plant in the ground, you are going to get essential oils full of therapeutic constituents. Young Living does all of this and more, it's called their Seed to Seal process and you can learn all about it here. Pure, amazing, knowledgeable, simply wonderful.
It can go even further as to the machines used to test oil samples. Young Living uses Gas Chromatography coupled with Mass Spectrometry to test their oils as well as a chiral column to test for adulterations that may not be found with the first two machines. The column on the GC/MS is almost twice as long as other labs, allowing for maximum separation of molecules to determine the presence of chemical constituents. If any oil does not meet Young Living standards, it is thrown out. Have I lost you yet? That's fine, I became familiar with these units while my husband was finishing his PhD. I heard them over and over and my mind was in la-la land, then when I started learning about Young Living, I impressed him by recalling his dissertation :) Bottom line- this company goes over and beyond any standards that have been set in not only the US, but European nations that actually do have tighter controls on essential oils. They allow the FDA to inspect so that their oils safe for ingesting can have a nutrition label printed on them. Although, here's my opinion- if anything has passed Young Living's strict standards, I would not think twice about putting it in my body; however, if it's passed the FDA's standards, I'm still going to think about a hundred more times and research it to great extents before it even touches my lips.
Everyone wants to talk money when you bring up essential oils. I paid almost $80 for a 15 mL bottle of sacred frankincense to un-do damage done to my daughter's lungs, and guess what? It did just that. Worth every stinking penny spent, in my opinion. This frankincense comes from the Middle East, and was limited to Saudi royals until Young Living was able to partner with them, it's also believed to be the same species of frankincense brought to baby Jesus by the Wise Men. I look at it as a privilege to be able to buy it for my family, and we've saved well over $800 in medical costs since using essential oils. I've also used an $11 bottle of lemon oil to help a congested baby breathe through her nose, if you've been there, you understand the value in that. There's definitely a range in price, but just another example in the realm of "you get what you pay for." I am happy to be able to purchase essential oils for my family from a company that is so knowledgeable in the world of essential oils and goes to such lengths to make sure the bottle that arrives at my doorstep is pure, unadulterated and going to help, never harm my family. Thank you, Young Living for your commitment to awesome essential oils!
No, it's not Monday, I can explain. Last week, I showed my husband some paint swatches and said, "I like these for the main level." That turned into a trip to Home Depot this weekend and I was in a little over my head renovating our living room. It's finished now and I love it, but there were times I thought I may never live to see the finished product. We went from a muddy brown shade and brass finishes to bronze accents and pastel jade walls, I'm a color girl- I love color on walls.
Anyways, I've had one reminder heavy on my mothering heart the past few days. My 3 year old has been in quite the imitating mood lately, not in a direct, I repeat everything you say kind of imitation but more of showing me in simple moments how she is watching everything I do and wanting to repeat it. Instead of feeling flattered, which of course I do since she wants to be just like mom, I feel very humbled and loudly reminded of the example I am setting for her. She's done everything recently from pretending to drive my car while wearing my sunglasses to nursing her sad babies and cooking me snacks then telling me it's too late and may give me a tummy ache, she makes my heart smile. She has been repeating phrases and loving on her sister just like I do. She's such a sweet reminder that every word I utter, she hears and every motion I make, she sees. She keeps me honest, overwhelmed, and humble and I am so thankful for her little spirit. She's actually in my lap as I type this blog "reading" every word, and counting. Oh, motherhood, thank you for your humility.
