Progress IS Success

Many many years ago I was feeling down.  Maybe depressed is the right word, but I hesitate to use that word because honestly, the memory is so foggy now.  At the time I was fortunate enough to have a very wise doctor (he was my internist) and out of the blue he asked me about my dreams (or maybe it wasn’t out of the blue, as I said…this was a long time ago.)

I  told him that it was funny that he asked because at the time I’d been having some very strange and vivid dreams and they all involved Tom Cruise.  I explained that to my doctor that part of what was strange about my dreams was that I don’t even like Tom Cruise.  “What does Tom Cruise symbolize to you,” he asked.  Well that was easy.  “He symbolizes success,” I replied.  “And is success something that you are concerned with right now,” he asked.  And I told him that yes, I had been feeling as though I had been spinning my wheels for years without getting anywhere.  He asked me what my goals were, I told him and he said, “wow, those are big goals.”  And then he said the words that I will never forget.  He said, “I think your problem is that you are only measuring success as the attainment of your  goals, but your goals are really big and are likely going to take many years to accomplish.  What if you chop up your large goal into little goals so that you can see your progress and you can celebrate the achievement of those smaller goals on the way to your large goals.”  HELLO LIGHTBULB!  It was a life-altering moment.  His words completely (and permanently) changed my perspective.

It’s so easy to get caught up in the idea that success has only been achieved when you’ve attained a goal, but if you measure your success by the progress that you make towards your goal, then everyday is successful!  Life (and goals) are a journey, not a destination.  Celebrate the progress that you make and know that PROGRESS IS SUCCESS.

We’ve moved our blog!

Hi friends,

Green-and-Greener.com is now exclusively an online store for non-toxic, effective make-up, bath and body products and our blog about all things sustainable, creative, concious, etc. has moved to EmberLiving.wordpress.com .  Our YouTube page is still YouTube.com/GreenAndGreenerStore 

Hope to see you “around!”

http://green-and-greener.blogspot.com

Even drinking too much water can kill you!

People often ask me to look at product labels for them, and I know from experience that many of us like to put ingredients into little boxes of “good” and “evil.”  However, as with most things, there is a lot of gray area.  The proportion of an ingredient in a product can make a huge difference as to whether it is benign or toxic, also, ingredients that may be “toxic” in a pure natural state can be made benign or even beneficial with a bit of chemistry.  Also, sometimes the ingredient itself may not be toxic, but I may caution someone to avoid it because it is derived from a nonrenewable resource (such as petroleum derivatives like mineral oil or petroleum jelly) or may have other “non-toxic” but not nice side effects (such as petroleum derivatives known side effect of inhibiting the body’s ability to produce its own moisture.)

Here are 3 examples to illustrate that natural can be toxic, chemistry can transform toxic into beneficial and that toxic can even be necessary.

1) You can drink too much water and it can kill you. It’s called water intoxication and what happens is your electrolytes get diluted to a point where brain function can be impaired. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1770067/

2) Speaking of electrolytes, a highly explosive metal and a deadly fatal gas become a very important electrolyte via the magic of chemistry. Sodium (the explosive metal) and chlorine (the deadly gas) makes salt, which our bodies need in order to function properly.  http://www.livestrong.com/article/424842-what-is-the-essential-role-of-salt-in-the-body/

3) Even substances as toxic as arsenic, which is highly poisonous but believed to aid in cardiac function in humans in trace amounts, are beneficial and necessary in the right proportions. http://www.wellnessjournal.net/Nutrition/Minerals/toxic_minerals/arsenic.html