Our son has a band-aid obsession. Every boo-boo, scratch, bite and mark warrants a band-aid whether it’s bleeding or not. He loves to cover up with a band-aid so much so that I usually put a character pack of band-aids in his stocking each holiday. Seeing the latest wrappers of a band-aid on my bathroom counter the other day reminded me of this habit he has and of something bigger. How often do we as adults also apply bandages in our life. Maybe the band-aid isn’t a physical bandage but we too are so good at covering up something we hope goes away, that we don’t want to acknowledge or deal with because maybe it hurts or we failed at it before. It’s just easier to brush it off, cover it up and ignore it. Better yet we can say from this experience it didn’t work or we didn’t like it and then never have to try it again.
Why do hone in on the one little thing that’s wrong and make it a mountain of pain in our life? In my experience it’s because it’s uncomfortable and it hurts like stubbing your toe and you feel it rush up through your body. While pain and fear a big deal even in small doses we also do the complete opposite when it’s a good thing. We intentionally try to limit good stuff and keep it small and contained to just one area? We cover both the good and bad and build barriers all the way around it to keep it inside, tucked away and held tight. We admire it not realizing the limitation and even potential. It’s safer where it is. We don’t have to deal with it if we have it tucked away. It prevents us from doing something we didn’t want to anyway or that wouldn’t work out to our benefit. In both situations, the emotions of keeping things small and covered up leaves us with unfulfilled needs and wants in other areas of our life that we start comparing everything else against and tearing down the little bit of good we have found. Soon nothing becomes good enough and we’ve tried it all so why bother trying again? It hurt, failed, broke, was scary, etc. last time so best not do that again.
When I began a natural living transition in my family I truly thought it was about just using better products to clean our clothes and house only. I thought essential oils were good for making things smell good and that was it. They were novelties that I didn’t hold much expectation for in the long run. As I ripped off the band-aids of my own limited thinking, I started to realize what it meant to live naturally and how wide that view could be. I was covering up in band-aids that were limiting how I moved, how I thought about something, what I did and where I was going. I realized it was preventing me from living my best life using these natural tools. I had a limited perception covered with a band-aid of what I had heard from others about how these things didn’t work and were expensive to maintain.
The truth is when I was brave enough to look deeper I realized those perceptions were wrong. I wasn’t realizing the full benefit of using these tools and there was a lot more to them than I had allowed in. It was different and special than anything I’d done or used before so it had uncertainty, fear and doubt tied to it. However I saw something that called me deeper into looking at what was possible and not at all what I thought it would be about. Living natural became simplicity in what I used around the house and a lot more. It became about happiness, feeling good and about wealth. It touched everything once I let it be free to take over and quit letting my mind and others opinions drive me.
I think too often we get stuck in this idea that happiness, good feelings, money, living well and feeling good are isolated things. Money can only happen through the work of earning it and work cannot be happy. Wealth is for the rich only and we cannot be rich if we didn’t start out that way. Health is a state of being but we have to sacrifice to achieve it. If you’re going to live natural it means letting your armpit hair grow long. We limit ourselves by how they should look, feel and be in our life and never let them integrate outside these containers. These limiting beliefs dictate our journey, how we behave and even how we respond when we achieve success, health, wealth and more! The sad result is we very often forfeit the enjoyment for the adventure of the journey seeing it as only drudgery and burdens as a result becoming chained to what is not possible.
Our minds are so powerful at controlling us but when we being to align with a deeper draw of our soul and physical being messages to counteract the mind making fear less a barrier. The should and should not of life boundaries become less important too. We begin to see life in a
new way that is uplifting, positive and supportive of where we truly want to be and go.
Do you take a daily vitamin? The vitamin industry is one of the largest in the US so I’m betting you do. We pop a vitamin believing it is going to give us what we need in delivering good things to our body. We’ll be healthier as a result. We’ll be protected. We spend hundreds and thousands of dollars on supplements and vitamins each year and yet those vitamins don’t do a thing to improve our health. The majority of them are wasted in our body and in our wallets. Why you ask? Because we aren’t also doing the other things that support living healthy and well. We pop that vitamin each morning then we push down food that is laden with preservatives, chemicals and things are body can’t process to support and generate health. The vitamin we took can’t do much if we’re not also making other changes to build health. We’ve just limited what is possible in our health.
We impose barriers like that in our life everywhere! We want to do healthy and good things yet we continue the same habits and behaviors that are holding us back. We want to have more freedom, creativity and money in our life but we’re afraid to pursue opportunities that may provide that. Granted there is probably work involved to achieve these things and change can be hard. Then there’s the mindset that kicks in that further tells us why it’s not possible and doesn’t work. We tried it before and failed so it definitely doesn’t work now. We heard someone else tried it and failed and we believe them. We aren’t sure if we can do it so we don’t try. Look, I’m going to be brutally truthful here. We can’t apply an essential oil and claim it doesn’t work if we’re also not willing to do the work of what we’re expecting that oil to do for us. Of course that oil, vitamin or whatever natural products you’re trying won’t work in that situation!
When you use natural products as a band-aid, you’re limiting their potential. Living naturally means ripping off the excuses and band-aids of what we are covering up because it’s uncomfortable to have seen by us and others. It’s working to create the change and using natural products as the support and tools to help us get there. It’s us putting in the work to make that happen. The beauty is we can remove them one at a time, slowly even and within what we are comfortable with trying, exploring and learning. That however all starts with recognizing we deserve better and can have it. We don’t need to hide behind the band-aids of excuses and fear thinking it impossible or unattainable for us. We can learn from prior experience and figure out
better ways.
If you’re ready to explore what this can mean in your life, I invite you to complete the free Lifestyle & Wellness Questionnaire. The report you will receive will provide you with the resources, support and tools to remove the band-aids and start living your best life naturally. https://forms.gle/pvMtBroviz6GVSi6A