The Problem
We live in a world of health crisis. The overburdened health care system often doesn’t offer good solutions for our problems: sometimes there are no solutions at all, or the solutions offered come at great cost (side effects, pocketbook, toxic load, etc.). More and more people are overweight, unhealthy, uninsured, addicted to prescriptions, and not getting better.
I’m NOT anti-medicine, when absolutely needed. And I think doctors have a place only they can fill. But things are out of control.
Every year, just in the USA, Americans spent over 4.5 trillion dollars on their health care. To wrap your head around how much 4.5 trillion dollars actually is, consider these numbers:
4.5 trillion dollars is almost 10 years’ worth of wages 64,186,004 minimum wage earners.
If you stacked $1,000 bills on top of each other, it would tower 360 miles high to reach 4.5 trillion.
If a person worked 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, they’d have to make $900,000 PER MINUTE to earn 4.5 trillion in 40 years.
If each of the roughly 314 million people in the USA were paid an equal amount, everyone would receive a nice $14,335,775.72 payment.
In 40 years, NASA has only spent $600 BILLION on their budget.
No matter how you look at it, 4.5 trillion dollars is a lot of money.
Are we better off for it? Generally, no.
We’re the most overweight, overburdened, tired, toxic, medicated, frustrated, stressed and depressed we’ve ever been. And, many times we feel helpless.
Our Food
One problem is our food and how it is grown, raised, processed and depleted of important nutrients. Massive amounts chemicals, soils depleted of their nutrients, GMOs, questionable growing, raising and processing practices lead to unhealthy, nutrient deplete toxic food. And that’s just the food considered ‘healthy’ food—fruits, vegetables and grains.
On top of that, sugar, GMO corn and/or soy, and other chemicals added to pretty much everything. The average American consumes 152 pounds of sugar per year (or 6 cups per week), much of it hidden in the foods they eat (often in the form of high fructose corn syrup, an industrialized food product that damages the body and even contains mercury). Nearly all soy and corn grown in the USA (that’s not organic) is genetically modified. Almost all not-from-scratch food contains sugar, corn and/or soy. The majority of Americans eat this food daily.
The list of bad food stuff goes on and on and reaches the media in the form of investigations about pink slime being fed to kids, meat glue gluing bits of meat together to form ‘steak’ without consumers knowing, sawdust and carcinogens added as fillers, food coloring, food texturing, food faking. We’re surrounded by terrible, bad for us, fake food that we’re told is good to eat.
The food topic alone could take up a book (and has taken up many). We are what we eat, and it’s killing us.
Our Environment
The environment in which we live plays a part in our health and wellbeing. Pollution, toxic dumping, toxic waste leakage, jobs that expose some to higher levels of bad for us chemicals, etc.
Within our home environment do we get enough sleep, exercise several times per week, and strive for balance? Or are we like the average American who gets 6.9 hours of sleep, works nearly a month’s worth more hours each year than in 1970, and is part of the 8 out of 10 who claim to get no exercise at all while struggling with things like depression and stress?
On top of that, we clean ourselves and our houses, cars, kids, and pets with products filled with toxic materials. And fill our lawns with toxins to keep them green and beautiful, while killing our bees and other helpful insects, as well as increasing our own toxic load.
We will always be surrounded by some sort of less than optimal situations and environments, but there are aspects of every situation that are within our grasp to change.
Our Health
Obesity (and its related complications) claims $147 billion dollars and approximately 300,000 people in the USA each year. And the United States (as well as many other countries) is growing fatter and fatter. For example, the CDC says in 1980, 15% of the US population was overweight. Now, our obesity rate is higher than 35% (with an additional 20% obesity in children).
In correlation, in 1980, there were 5.5 million people with type-2 diabetes, compared to 25.6 million in 2009. It has been estimated that if the average overweight American would lose enough weight to be in a normal weight range, it would save them $1400/year in medications alone. Not to mention possibly saving their lives.
Cancer is on the rise, along with lots of other diseases and issues. It was estimated that in 2012, 1,500 people a day died from cancer, with over 1,600,000 new diagnoses in the same year.
Without healthy food, proper nutrition, exercise, sleep, stress reduction, toxic load reduction, and over medicating our problems, the numbers will surely grow.
Our Doctoring
There was a time when doctors weren’t the first place we went for advice. Don’t get me wrong, I’m NOT against the medical world. There is definitely a place for doctors in our society. But, they don’t have all the answers. They are just a piece of a very complex puzzle on how to take care of a very intricate human body, in an overburdened and often failing system in our society. And they are only human themselves. They can’t have all the answers.
Home remedies, at one point, were the only option. (And yes, I know, modern medicine has completely wiped out some diseases that used to kill huge quantities of people. Again, I’m not anti-doctor. My point is, in our looking to a doctor for every single need, we’ve given our power away too. And here are some things that we can ‘fix’ and even ‘cure’ on our own, possibly even BETTER than doctors.)
Somewhere along the line, it seemed more logical to abandon natural health in favor of synthetic drugs on the promise that the solutions would be cheaper and quicker to fix problems. And, truly, it might have been the case. But in the process, our health has slowly been given over to others to take care of. And we’ve had to deal with over-medication that has led to addictions, terrible side effects, and strains of bacteria that are resistant to treatment, along with a body that stops responding positively to drugs.
I’m NOT advocating for the demise of doctors. And I know sometimes there are times when medication is completely unavoidable. But I’m talking about daily life, where we’re programed to grab a drug to take away our headache, and a drug to help us sleep, and a drug to keep us happy, and a drug to control our weight, cholesterol, heart, everything. And then, drugs on top of that to deal with side effects of the drugs we’re taking.
It’s completely out of control.
But what if it didn’t have to be that way?
Our Mindset
What if we learned how to take care of ourselves and went to doctors for emergencies? What if we learned ways to naturally work for and with our bodies instead of handing our health over to someone else to decide what to do? What if we used natural means to stay (or get) as healthy as possible and weaned ourselves off of drugs, addiction, junk food, lethargy and a sense of helplessness?
What if we learned to listen to and work with our bodies and became our own healers? What if doctors became our second opinions instead of our only ones? What if we gave up toxic practices and learned how to live healthier? What if we changed our mindset, our lifestyle and our practices in an effort to give ourselves better health and a better life?
It’s possible.
Sure, we can’t fix everything. We are stuck with the genes we were given at birth. We might have grown up in toxic places or been immersed in toxic practices (with or without our knowledge). There ARE things out of our control. And eventually, we’re all going to die from something.
But that doesn’t mean we can’t improve our lives, our chances, our health and the health of our families. Even in little baby steps, one day at a time, in ways that work for each of us.
This Website and Blog
We are not doctors and don’t pretend to have all the answers. We can’t treat, diagnose, prescribe or otherwise advise anyone on any of their health issues, nor would we want to.
But, we can tell you our stories—what we’re doing, what others are doing, and what’s changing lives. We can offer baby steps in taking toxins out of our lives and environment. We can introduce you to therapeutic grade essential oils (and at wholesale prices) and help you take back control of your health and your life. We can even offer financial solutions for those of you in need.
If you’re interested in buying certified pure therapeutic grade oils at a wholesale discount, building your own oil business or have any questions please or fill out this short form.
Are you ready for change? Us, too.
Here’s to all our health and wellbeing!
Shelly and Kerrie
PS: You might not agree with everything we say, and that’s totally cool. But even if you DO agree, do your research. We don’t have insight into your personal situation and we don’t know what’s best for you. We also can’t offer medical advice. Talk to your doctor before stopping any current medication and be wise.
