The Last Time I Drank Soda

My journey to non-toxic happened about 17 years ago, I read an article on high fructose corn syrup and it literally changed my life as well as my families.  But it didn’t happen overnight, I became neurotic about cleaning up our diet and was quickly introduced to Whole Foods and the education began. I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact I felt like we were being poisoned by food companies and people were accepting this, I could get pretty intense about these type of things, prior to Yoga but that’s for another blog.

Every time I went to a regular grocery store all I could see was poison, it was like the blinders came off, and now food that I used to eat or worse fed my children were filled with chemicals, white sugar, and tortured animals. It was around this time that I also became an active member of Green Peace and became very aware of GMO’s, environmental and cruelty issues regarding factory farming practices. I started to wake up before I was asleep, conditioned by my environment, food companies.and I was about to find out beauty companies. My parents thought I had lost my mind I began lecturing my family at our Italian Sunday dinners, criticizing the way they ate. I was convinced they were being poisoned and just a little education would make them shift their eating habits. Well not so much, I didn’t know what I know now, Yoga again helped me to understand why but I wouldn’t get to Yoga for another 6 years. I refused to eat the Turkey for Thanksgiving insisting on buying the 200$ free-range, cruelty-free one for the family. I stopped eating the food my parents and grandmother prepared basically the food I grew up on. Once the light was turned on there was no going back for me, and my kids and husband were along for the ride.

What I wasn’t prepared for was the way my parents and extended family would feel when one person basically starts to awaken before everyone else. It’s a lonely road, but I was convinced and I’m very headstrong once I make up my mind no one can shift me unless they have facts, and the facts were telling me that the commercial food industry is killing people.

Through the awakening of the food, I was eating I began to wander the aisles of Whole Foods and Natural Grocer, eventually landing in the supplement and beauty aisle. Totally lost,  I mean at the time I was a red card holder at Sephora with so many points I think they thought I was waiting to buy a car with them. I buy Le Mer foundation at 200$ a bottle and wear Mac and Nars. I was truly by definition into labels like nobodies business. I mean I was born in Miami and we do love our designers and our status. So once I fought off the idea that maybe my new granola styled skincare products wouldn’t look so cool in my Balenciaga I decided to dive in. I had to shake off years and years of what I thought was quality, was, in fact, causing most of my imbalanced skin conditions.  I had breaks outs around my chin area on my chest, sometimes on my back. I was just a giant manifestation of inflammation, and although I had starting eating better, I was still holding on to some weird idea that chemicals were somehow better when it came to skincare. Where in the world did this come from? This idea that having chemicals in your life make sense instead of plants? So I get it I understand because I was once there too.

So the testing began, I still wasn’t touching green make up back then the choices were very limited. I started to see some improvements, I was like maybe natural is better, then I switched my cleaning products out, then the laundry detergent still with this idea in the back of my mind maybe they are not as good. The conditioning runs deep. I mean those Mr.Clean commercials have been out, my whole life. I was reading more and learning about parabens, and PEG’s and endocrine disruptors, what’s an endocrine disruptor I thought, thank God for google. I was like what is going on? They are poisoning us with food and our products. Head spinning, angry, my whole world is crashing in on me everything I had loved I could no longer look at the same way. What to do? What products would this bonified product junkie use now! Confused and alarmed I went through another transition that now I attribute to maintaining my health, and profoundly life-changing.

I found that I didn’t need 18 products, you mean to tell me I just needed a simple cleaner, some jojoba and rosehip seed oil, and a rose hydrolat. WHAT! I really lost my mind now no Retin A, no peels, nothing with acid in it, but how, and why? I had to give up LaMer and the status it represented, I mean nothing says you made it like a Channel compact in your purse to show your friends look I’m cool and I can afford these things, so much ego around this, I was at the time very in love with my identity (ego) and had a really hard time letting go of things that I had learned were not good for me. Again Yoga would show me the way but I’m still not there yet I’ve got another 6 years before I really wake up. But to be honest, keeping up with the status was wearing me down it’s exhausting to keep up with all the designer things. I started to let go and dive into this new granola way of living. And I thought maybe I should try some yoga? I used to joke with my friends saying in a few years I’ll be a tofu eating vegetarian, wearing organic cotton clothes and refusing to carry leather handbags, this actually did happen but not until much, much later. Yoga what can I say it changes you profoundly.

The point of me sharing all this with you is that I don’t want to give the impression that I can’t relate. That I’ve always been this Green Conscious Goddess sitting on the throne of KHUS+KHUS I wasn’t. I was just like many of you confused and concerned and not totally understanding why my skin was reacting to things I thought were good only to find out that they caused me all the issues I was trying to fix. We all start somewhere and the road that is created through awareness is like a light switch where all of a sudden the things you think you know are suddenly challenged and you are forced to awaken.  We must evolve past the conditioning and the concepts of what it means to attain health and wellness, for real. And if you didn’t grow up in a holistic household there are changes that will have to be made but be gentle with yourself because there’s a learning curve. But have faith that on this side it’s better, you’re awake and moving towards a better way to live. And it’s possible that your friends and family might think you’ve lost your mind but in fact, you’ve just become aware that we’ve been conditioned and poisoned by companies who don’t care about us only profit. And once this becomes intrinsically part of you there’s no going back. So go ahead remove the toxins out of your life and come on over we welcome you here.

Changes require choices and every day we can take steps to enhance our wellness, but we have been manipulated and it goes deep into the psychology of the mind and impairs the way we think and look at things, what I went through many years ago was an intense shedding of this conditioning. It takes time to break free from the bondage that has been created through advertising. They’ve done a good job at convincing the masses that chemicals are not only okay but better for you, this false information has been predicated on our society for too long. But we have support now and are going to move in a healthier direction because the masses are now full of awareness, we just need to keep moving forward together.

Peace Dear Ones

Kristi