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Are You Being Weighed Down by Toxins?

Don’t let heavy metals and microplastics weigh YOU down! If you haven’t heard, heavy metals and microplastics are toxic. They have no place in our daily life. Unfortunately, they are being found in things like baby powder, pesticides (also in wine, beer, and mosquito spray) and drinking water. These toxic endocrine disruptors are linked to ovarian cancer and mesothelioma to name a few.

What are Heavy Metals?

Heavy metals are elements like iron, zinc, lead, chromium, arsenic, and mercury. It’s necessary for us to have some of these in order to be healthy. However, some are toxic to living organisms at any level. It’s mind blowing, but the amount of minerals used to make everyday products that we and our families use are making us sick.

What are Microplastics?

Microplastics are pieces of plastics that come from all different sources. They can break off of larger plastic products. Or, they can be in the form of microbeads, which are tiny pieces of polyethylene plastic. Sometimes microbes are added to health and beauty products, like cleansers and toothpaste. These tiny particles keep ending up in the ocean and other bodies of water. We then end up eating them as well!

How to Minimize Exposure to Heavy Metals & Microplastics!

  • Buy organic
  • Read labels before buying any product
  • Pay attention to advisories for mercury levels in fish
  • Buy organic beer and wine (the heavy metals found in these products are 100% – 200% higher than what’s found in fish)
  • Install a water filtration system in your home.

Are you ready to clean up your water? Would you like to learn more on how you can steer clear of heavy metals and microplastics? Contact me, I have teamed up with a water filtration system company!

10 Sustainable Ways To Improve Your Health

It’s incredibly important to be mindful when on a journey to improve your health. I make it a point daily to think of ways to help our planet, and in turn the future of our children (or the future of those children who will be responsible for taking care of all of us). I decided to compile a list of things I do which might be helpful to incorporate in your daily life.

drinking water

10 ways to keep you, the Planet, and your children healthy:

  1. Buy recycled printer cartridges. Yep that’s right, all those little wasteful capsules are just creating waste. Guess what? You can buy them second hand- they have been fully filled and sealed and look like new.
  2. Use the back of paper for to do lists, calendars, game score tallies, and paper airplane contests. Or staple them together and make a notepad.
  3. Turn the water off in the shower while you are sudsing your hair and body. Really, this actually saves A LOT of water. It also  lowers your water  and electricity bill. And more importantly it teaches children a valuable lesson about the importance of water.
  4. Reuse glass jars to store things. All snacks, dry goods, and nuts go in jars in my cabinets. Not only are less chemicals leaking into your food, you are recycling the glass all on your own. I also drink from jars, use them as vases, crayon holders, cookie jars, you name it.
  5. Don’t wash your jeans. Yep I mean it, ask anyone in the denim industry and they will tell you, do not wash your jeans! They last longer, look and feel better unwashed. If they smell, put them in the freezer- a tip from Rag & Bone.
  6. Make your own nut milk- it is so easy, so cheap, and so delicious. You also know your ingredients. And, the left over nut pulp can be used to make cookies, or spread them on a pan, put it in the oven, and then grind for flour to pan fry chicken, fish, or veggies.
  7. Use a half cup of vinegar for smells in the washer. Don’t buy synthetic fragrance that causes cancer, hormone dysfunctions, mood swings, and migraines to name a few- just add the vinegar and see how the smells are neutralized.
  8. Use salt and peroxide for blood or wine stains instead of bleach. Bleach is highly toxic, particularly for marine life. It can cause blindness, and yet we still pour it down our drains, going into our water sources.
  9. Use a few drops of lavender oil and water in a spray bottle to clean your yoga mat. If you are a germaphobe, just use a drop of tea-tree oil as it is a natural disinfectant.
  10. Old newspaper cleans windows and mirrors better than anything. Simply use vinegar and water to clean windows. If you don’t like the smell of vinegar, use any essential oil in the mix.

Eliminating waste and toxins out of our environment is a collective win/win as everything ends up in our drinking water. Would you like to know more about sustainable living? Connect with me on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest, or you can connect with me here!

Problems Solved with this 5 Minute Meditation

There is a special style of meditation that I practice. 5 minutes of it a day can help to minimize stress and improve your overall wellness. Over seven years ago I embarked on a journey that changed my life forever: Vipassana.

Vipassana (Insight Meditation) was first taught by Buddha 25 centuries ago and now can be practiced all over the world. I encourage everyone to go through a vipassana practice at least once. Being 10 days with yourself in silence is one of the best things you can do for yourself and those around you: http://www.dhamma.org/en/vipassana.shtml. The gist of Insight Meditation is to use your own breath and become aware of the daily sensations (vibration or frequency) your body transmits. Through this you can relieve yourself of misery, pain, disappointment, expectation, impatience, jealousy, to name a few. It allows you to become capably aware when you are about to subject yourself to these feelings merely by witnessing sensations. Considering we are one big bundle of energy made of stardust, Vipassana enables you to feel those vibrations inside of you, while cleansing the mind.

meditation

It took me 5 years until the time was right for me to attend the retreat. However, after seeing 6 other friends complete the course and witness a positive change in their lives, my curiosity prompted me to go. And next to childbirth, it was the most painful, yet most rewarding thing I have ever done in my life.

Just to get an idea of what it’s like. Try being by yourself all day. You want to flee, you want to give up, and some do. Your body starts making excuses for sitting 10-12 hours a day. Then suddenly, you finally feel exactly where the breath from your nostrils touches your face. I had been breathing all my life, 20,000 times a day, and it took a silent meditation retreat and 36 years for me at that time to actually be aware of the location of my exhalation.

To Summarize What I Gained

  • All conditioned things are in a constant state of flux.
  • Everything is impermanent, nothing ever stays the same, so observe it and enjoy life.
  • Letting go of attachment paves the way for a flow of love and compassion I was unaware of obtaining through the devotion of my own breath.
  • If you recall something that has bothered you or angered you in the past, you discover that these feelings stem from longing, craving, or attachment to something or someone.
  • We are obsessed with our own ego.
  • We want recognition for our efforts, our skills, our talents.
  • We want money, love, and we want more and more and more of it.

Once you are able to release this mainstream conditioning, the misery dissipates. Of course, it’s not that simple. But sitting 12 hours a day focusing on your breath for 10 days while remaining silent, and not eating dinner, definitely brings you back to the real essence of being.

Meditation is beneficial for everyone, regardless of whether it is TM, Zen, in between your yoga pranas, or whether a mantra is used. But vipassana is different. Think of a tree- when the branches become unruly, you prune it to keep it calm. Meditation is a pair of shears used on the mind. But with vipassana, the tree is not only trimmed, but it is also uprooted so that a new sapling can grow. Perhaps you can’t tear yourself away for 10 days, but give yourself the gift of 5 minutes a day, which perhaps can be lengthened as you continue your practice.

balance

How to Reset Your Brain in 5 Minutes

  1. Find a quiet spot, I normally wake up and go straight to my meditation stool. However, you can simply roll out of bed and sit up straight.
  2. Close your eyes and allow any thoughts to come in, do not suppress them. But think of them like helium balloons- let them come in, and let them float away.
  3. Focus on your breath. Take a deep breath in your nose fill your abdomen with air, and exhale to push all the air out of your abdomen. Repeat. And repeat. And repeat.

Start there.

Once you are able to go a few more minutes, add it to your alarm.

Then start focusing on your vibration. The easiest places for you to feel yourself vibrating is at the crown of the head and in the feet and fingertips. Once you have gotten comfortable with sitting in silence, focusing on your breath, focus on those vibrations.

I promise, if you invite meditation to your day, everything will begin to flow smoother. If you’re ready to take your mindfulness practice to the next level, I’d love to connect, contact me today!

New Post

Nature was my first love. I grew up in the countryside and spent most of my childhood at the beach or on the lake. Being from the South my grandmother was a huge influence on me through her cooking and gardening (albeit with a lot of chemicals). After studying abroad in Europe, I fostered a new relationship to food and nature. Everything was fresh from the market or backyard, without pesticides and eventually composted. Read more >