Setting your Expectations when Transitioning to Natural Living

So you’ve decided that you want to live “naturally”. You want to incorporate homemade cleaning and beauty products into your life. You want to cut back on artificial fragrances, colors, and flavors. You are ready to go all in and get rid of anything that you see as unnatural. You are expecting all of these changes to completely transform your life. You are ready to live like Adam and Eve, your life will be as beautiful and free as it would be if we were back in Eden.

Then you try your first homemade product…and it sucks. Now, you have watched tons of natural youtube videos, you’ve got your own Natural Products page on pinterest. You are completely committed to this new life, you heard of how this DIY project made your friends everything more filled with joy and sparkles. So you are going to stay the course. You try something else, and…it’s another flop. Ok maybe you should take a little break on the DIY household and beauty products. You decide to make a new cooking recipe omitting the bad stuff and just using natural stuff with real food ingredients. But something tastes…funny. This is about the time that you question if this is really all worth it. Why don’t you have the same results that I had before going natural?

I have definitely had to make some adjustments when taking steps towards going natural. Here’s the thing. Living life more naturally can be pretty awesome. When your body becomes adjusted to the changes, it’s definitely a better way to live and it’s worth it. But it takes time, patience, and realistic expectations to really make the change successfully.

Don’t expect anything that you try to taste, smell, or feel exactly like the artificial, synthetic versions that you find in the store. How many of you had to take Dimetapp when you were a kid? Do you remember the disgusting “grape” flavor that it had? To this day I still cannot eat drink or even smell grape flavored anything, it makes me sick! Now think about what a real grape tastes like. The flavor is subtle but delicious and downright refreshing! This is a pretty great example of the adjustment that must be made when going from synthetic to natural. If your idea of what grapes taste like was based on grape dimetapp, you would probably be disappointed to taste the real thing. The same thing can be said for the “real” lemon lime flavor of Sierra Mist compared to fresh squeezed lemon and lime in sparkling water. There’s really no comparison.

Unfortunately our senses are so overstimulated by the man-made inferior imitations of what God has created in nature. Some people prefer the smell of “Lavender” Febreeze over the smell of a few drops of Lavender essential oil in distilled water. Yes the scent of Febreeze lasts longer. But that it because of the hazardous chemicals that are used to sustain that smell. These chemicals can cause hormone imbalances amongst other unsavory side effects.

Over time, your senses will adjust. Now, when I smell artificial fragrances it almost makes me sick and sometimes gives me a headache. When I use chemical laden toiletries and cleaning product, I have allergic reactions. When I taste foods or drinks with artificial dyes, I can literally taste the bitter flavor of the dye.

In addition homemade natural recipes, for food and products, require a willingness to adjust and some experimentation. When a new mainstream product is made there are numerous test groups, there’s lots of trial and error, people are paid solely for the purpose of coming up with the most widely accepted version of it. If it isn’t successful, it is canned after a short amount of time. When you see a new natural recipe on Pinterest with some rave reviews, you cannot expect to have the exact same feelings about that recipe. If works out for you right away, more power to you. But more than likely, you will have to work at it a bit to find the recipe and variation that works best for you and your family. The good thing is, most ingredients used for natural products are relatively inexpensive. Here’s the arsenal that I started with.

So get out there, start experimenting, be patient, set realistic expectations, and go natural!

What’s a recipe that you may have failed at before you succeeded? Are there any natural products that you can think of that did NOT work for you? Please share, we’re all growing and learning here. 🙂