Becoming a first-time mother causes many changes: emotional, physical and mental. For me the most significant change was the way that I viewed the world. I suddenly began to question parts of my daily routine and the impact it was having on my body and the environment.
When you have newborn, so pure and innocent in your care, you realise that it is your responsibility to keep them that way as long as humanly possible and surround them with an environment conducive to doing so. For me that was the turning point when I decided to make the changes to living a clean, natural and sustainable life. Now fortunately, I had already been living a healthy lifestyle so the changes were not overly drastic. However, as I now continue my journey to natural living I am finding there are more and more ways in which I could improve and work towards my goal of creating a natural balanced life for my family.
So, where to begin? Anywhere! Just start.... start small and see if that change is suitable for you and your family. The key to making significant changes in your behaviour is to ensure that those changes are sustainable long term. I have made the mistake of trying to totally rid my household of any processed food. Well let me tell you, that did not last long. Sure we gave it a good go, but the fact of the matter is that no amount of fresh fruits, veggies and homemade snacks will satisfy the cravings of my four kids.
So no, we are not a processed food free house yet, but we do have a lot less of it and are constantly working towards that goal one bag of pretzels at a time. An example of where a change was easy to stick to was ditching plastic straws. Thanks to YouTube we had stumbled across a video of a sea turtle that had a plastic straw stuck up his nose! I may have scarred my children for life as they now believe that plastic straws kill animals, although that's not far from the truth it is an extreme view for four year olds to have. So we have happily replaced our plastic straws with stainless steel ones and have not looked back.
We have successfully manage to introduce natural remedies into our household as well. When I had my first child I just could not bring myself to spray bug repellent on or even around her pure untainted skin. So instead of vowing to spend all summer long trapped indoors to avoid contact with any pests, I began looking for natural remedies and inevitably found essential oils. After creating our family's chemical free bug repellent I was hooked on the effectiveness of essential oils and amazed at all of their healing properties. Again, I have not completely phased out all traditional medicine, but I have managed to transition to a much more natural approach when our lives become imbalanced or need a little extra support.
If everyone makes the conscious decision to make a few adjustments on how they live their everyday lives the effects could be astronomical. Not only does your immediate family benefit but the global family as well.
Like many of you I am a work in progress and it has been an undulating transition to a pure, natural and balanced lifestyle. However, I have a goal in mind on how I ultimately would like to raise my tribe and we are constantly working towards that goal. One of my favourite quotes at the moment is "Sustainability takes forever. And that's the point". The idea of being 100% pure, natural, balanced and sustainable may be unattainable but it's something to strive for.
It’s easy to forget and take the simple route. I too am a work-in-progress environmentalist mum. For me, it’s all about breaking old habits and creating new. Once the new kicks in, the old is forgotten. Until the habit changes, it’s easy to swing back. Persistence and the willingness to commit even in busy times helps.