A deep breath

Why I quit tech and became an emotional wellness coach 

(7 min read)

"We are all just walking each other home." --- RAM DASS  

That's the short version of it. 

The slightly longer version

I started a journey like most journeys, not knowing I even started one or what I was getting myself into. The destination is definitely not one I could have predicted. Like many foolish beings before me, I thought I knew how things would play out and where I was headed, but boy, did I get some unexpected twists and turns. 

This graph pretty much summarizes what happened in my life, without all the tedious details. The jest? Well, at one point, my life fell spectacularly apart. What I experienced was tremendous pressure, tremendous agony, tremendous hopelessness. But like all things, it changed. With great effort, I made it through my darkest night and at last, a new chapter awaits to be written. 

The precipice from despair to something different wasn't marked by any major instant joy. It was slow but sure, like eating spaghetti one strand at a time.   

Today I stand more connected to all living beings. I feel at times many emotions inside of me like an electric current. Yet there is an external peace to my being, the kind of peace that perhaps is the result of accepting the emotions from my experiences. I became familiar with feelings that many find unpleasant, repugnant, and unwanted. Surprisingly, as I sat with my unwanted feelings, the unbearable became less unbearable and I grew more comfortable with myself. It wasn't the version I wished others would like. It wasn't happy, positive, or understanding but it was undeniablly all the parts of me. 

The greatest gift I received from falling apart was an actual experiential understanding of what it is to feel a wider spectrum of emotions. Of course, I was familiar with the common ones.. happiness, excitement, anger, guilt, jealousy. But the truly gut-wrenching emotions like rage, despair, futility, desperation, grief, powerlessness, hopelessness, apathy, horror, injustice were concepts I only had a dictionary understanding of. 

Someone can describe what being on a roller coaster is like. However, until you experience those sensations yourself, can you truly say you know what riding a roller coaster is like? 

Somewhere in the depth of my being, I truly felt. 

Maybe from that place, I inextricably felt connected with other people because it's the commonality that every human is capable of knowing -- It's not what we fear, or what brings us joy, or what we lost, but it's those feelings themselves. That feeling of fear itself, that feeling of joyfulness itself, that feeling of loss itself.. is universally human. 

Every time I see intense emotions, I am reminded of our humanity, how exquisite and multifaceted we are. Only someone who loves knows grief. Only someone who knows oneness feels loneliness and separation. How much more beautiful can we be?

I don't know what I don't know, but I do know I want to guide others to reframe their relationship with themselves by accepting what is, finding peace with what was, and choosing differently because we are not bound by our past and the stories we keep telling ourselves whether we aware of it or not. 

In my opinion, people have to experience to learn. We don't learn life by hearing about it from others, if we did, we would have outstripped our limitations and learned from other people's mistakes as the next generation. But this is not the case. Why is that? My working theroy is that each of us has to feel it for ourselves, for it to ring true. With this realization, I can only say that each of us is here to simply experience and to feel so that we may live and learn, not for others, but for ourselves. 

This is no easy cake, but if we don't experience to feel fully, then what is there? There is simply nothing.. Of course, there's nothing wrong with that. Pun intended. With all seriousness, what's worse to me, is a life we wish we could have lived differently.

But my darling friends, you don't have to wish it to be different. You have all the power in you to do so one spaghetti strand at a time and I am here for you. 

With gratitude..

The best natural dish and hand soap

Have you heard of the saying, if you want to tell how old a women really is, look at her hands? 

I believe in aging naturally, but if there's something that allows me to feel like I'm aging more gracefully, why not give it a try if the effort is small and there's nothing really to loose by it (mmm... per request from the Mr... other than money off course).

Hands? Really?

I never cared what my hands looked or felt like in my 20s because they felt like, can you guess? Normal hands... there was just nothing to compare it against. A decade later, I'm actually feeling the difference especially after washing lots of dishes. Normal morphed into what felt a little like 100 grit sandpaper.  No more normal hands. 

Light Bulb Moment

Surprisingly, one fine recent day, I realized my hands no longer felt like 100 grit sandpaper, they felt like normal hands again. What could it be? I have hand lotion from just about every place you can get it from. But I knew that couldn't be it since I never remember to apply hand lotion. My stats for putting on hand lotion is about once every 2 weeks at the best. It dawned on me to look at the soaps around the house because that is something I use on my hands everyday. 

Here's what I found - In the bathroom we have Dr. Bronner's Castile Liquid Soap and 365 Whole Foods Foaming Hand Soap in the guest bathroom (we are in the process of switching it to Castile Soap but 1 gallon is a lot to go through first). In the kitchen we have Trader Joe's Mandarin Orange Next to Godliness Liquid Dish Soap and Environne Purely Essential Fruit and Vegetable Wash. 

The BEEST Soap Discovery  

Dr. Bronner's Organic Castile Liquid Soap, Lavender - 16 fl oz bottle

$10.79 from 25+ stores

4,306 product reviews

Dr. Bronner’s

Family soapmakers since 1858. Certified Fair Trade. Made with organic oils. 100% post-consumer recycled plastic bottle! 2-3x more concentrated ...

Other options: Almond - 1 Gallon ($58) Almond - 2 oz ($2)More

The eventual switch to Castile Soap actually started for economical reasons. I used to buy method brand and Bath & Body Works liquid hand soap. I adored the scents from B&BW and really fell in love when they came out with the foam dispenser. The scents were a bonus but the ready foamed up soap sealed the deal. Yep my laziness is astounding. While happily using these soaps, the empty bottles started to accumulate. I recycled a bunch, then, one fine day some years ago, decided to see if I can make foamy dish soap using the empty bottles. I thought to my self wouldn't it be nice to have ready foamed up dish soap for the kitchen sponge and scrubber. 

Oh snap, it worked! I got the same rich foamy consistency by pouring half an inch of liquid dish soap into the foam bottle dispenser and filling the rest with warm water and a good shake. 

It shocked me though to see how little liquid dish soap it took! 

My honeymoon period with B&BW soon ended. After using up the last bottles from our "doomsday" stock pile from some holiday sale (which still cost over 50 bucks) I haven't purchased another. I searched for a versatile liquid hand soap because the Mr. use it everyday to wash his face and saw something about how good Castile soap is. So I checked it out next time I was in the grocery story and loved how most of the ingredients were recognizable. We poured it into our used dispenser and can still dilute it with water for foamy experience that's gentle enough for the face. We are now on our second bottle and purchased a third for the guest bathroom when the 365 foam refill one is used up.

Onto Dish Soap

I continued to make foamy dish soap for years with whatever liquid dish soap was around. My go to brand was method or Meyers but last time when I needed dish soap, I was at Trader Joe's and picked up the Mandarin Orange on a whim. Our bigger sized kitchen foam soap dispenser broke after years of usage so I've been using this dish soap straight from the bottle. 

There was less grease cutting power to this dish soap and at times I had to wash things twice to get that greasy feeling off of meat prep plates, cutting boards and surprisingly, or not so surprisingly, my hands. I checked the ingredients, never having cared about the ingredients in dish soap before and it was short and sweet. 

The main ingredient is surfactants derived from coconut which isn't the best from the research I did but this was so gentle on my hands, better than any other liquid dish soaps plus no allergic reaction. The price is $3 per bottle. You can see the empty bottle from our kitchen. Since writing this post I've become obsessed soap ingredients because I feel it really can dry out "older" hands. 

If you want to feel the difference in your hands as compared to using conventional liquid hand soap and dish soap, give this these awesome combos a try. 

We are using some other brand of dish soap right now because I kept forgetting to get it at TJ's but finally bought a replacement bottle yesterday. I may switch to Castile Soap in the future because I had no idea it could be used for dish soap. Will keep you updated!

Wishing you all the BEEst!

The best natural anti frizz and curl definition product

If I had to pick a character that embodied my natural hair, I would pick Alice from Dilbert. Yeah you know, the girl with the triangle hair. My hair is all volume and wavy. The worst part is that it's frizzy. If I just blow dry it, it turns into a gigantic puffy triangular fuzzy creature of the wild. If I air dry it, there are curls but they are enveloped by an atmosphere of fuzziness.

I rejoiced when I first discovered the flat iron in middle school. It changed my life! Then as I got older and lazier, and not necessarily wiser, I wanted to go all natural more and more. It's so much easier than spending precious morning minutes blow drying and straightening. So begins my journey to find that magical unicorn to tame my frizz.

The BEEst frizz tame, curl definer

I don't quite remember how I finally found this use, but I swear by it. Cold-pressed Castor Oil!

Heritage Products, Organic Castor Oil, 16 fl oz (480 ml)

$12.43 from 25+ stores

55 product reviews

Organic

Heritage Organic Castor Oil is the highest quality you can find. Heritage has always offered pure castor oil tested to be free of solvents and ...

Other size options: 32 oz ($24)

You have to practice getting the right amount for your hair type and length. It works like a natural leave in conditioner, frizz tamer, curl definer, moose, gel, you name it. I'll tell you later all the other things I've tried.

You might think that it would be oily because Castor Oil is highly viscose. Sure it can, but that's only if you use too much of it in your hair. You might think it would not work on thin hair. Well...I have even gotten the Mr. to use it to instead of the gels and pastes he used to style his hair with. He was pretty skeptical at first, especially with his thi**ing hair, but he was surprised it worked as well as it did for him. The hold isn't as strong as normal gel products but it does hold the curls like a pomade.

I use it right out of the shower after lightly towel drying my hair. Don't go crazy with the towel when drying, because you might destroy the curls. Pour the castor oil in your palms or finger tips rub it so it's evenly spread on your hands, then rub through your hair. I try to get it into my scalp as well because it's really good for your hair follicles. If you look at DYI eyelash growth serums for example, people recommend recipes that contain some combination of castor oil, coconut oil, vitamin E, almond oil etc.

Can you blow dry with castor oil and have hair that looks like it's been through hours of curling or hot roller work? Absolutely!

When blow drying, follow the same steps of putting the castor oil in your hair, then blow dry the top portion of your hair straight then follow the direction of the curls while twirling the hair so the hot air actually helps to set the curl. It will be frizz free, non-puffy and amazing!

I haven't tried it out with long hair, that's only because for the last 3 years I've had shoulder length or shorter. I chopped my waist length hair one hot summer day and haven't missed it enough to grow it out again.

All that stuff

Since I have such frizzy puffy hair, I started with after shower products. Every commercial brand of anti-frizz product on the grocery shelf I have pretty much tried. Garnier, John Frieda, Bedhead. Some less known brands. Matrix Biolage, Keratin, stuff I got from salons. None of those products really worked very well. All through college I pretty much either put my hair up or straightened it or gotten it permed straight.  But as I morphed into a lazy bum, I moved on to products that targeted wavy hair right from the shower like Ouidad and serums so I didn't have to spend so much time on my hair. But alas, the improvements just weren't all that noticeable.

My next experimentation phase was with oils. I first tried coconut oil, in the shower but it was too hard to wash out. But I was on a oil roll, I tried everything from jojoba oil to argon oil, almond oil, to even apple cider vinegar (I know it's not an oil, but you know how well vinegar pairs with oils). They were better at taming the beast but for whatever reason I was still looking for something better.

Finally on a total separate quest I ordered Castor oil for castor pack, it didn't really work out for that purpose and just sat there in my bathroom for a while. I started to see eyelash related castor oil uses, gave that a try and it sat there a while longer. Then one day I thought heck, if it conditions your eyelashes why not your hair. The rest was history. So give it try, experiment with the amount, and I bet you'll be pleasantly surprised.

Wishing you all the BEEST!

The beginning

How this blog got its wings. 

First you have to understand a little about me. I am pretty much like a human canary bird. In my life's journey I've become increasingly more sensitive to ingredients all around me. Unfortunately, in terms of efficacy, my body falls into the stubborn and yet adaptive category. I know, I know, what do I mean by stubborn yet adaptive? Well, many things that work for other people just don't work for me aka the stubborn and if it does work, my body adapts quickly or I self sabotage and whatever was working, no longer works aka the adaptive. 

As I discover throughout the years what works, what doesn't I've cumulated hundreds of solutions/products/ideas and really wished there was something out there I could have referenced. So the spark for this blog was born. Enjoy my trials and tribulations. I hope, at the very least, it lightens your day and at the very best, you find your everyday's best! 

If you have suggestion for things you want me to try send me a request.

:O 

Entry criteria:

For anything to have made it onto this blog, I setup some criteria so you do get the best possible advice. 

1. Have to have tried at least 5 different types. 
2. Have to be as natural and organic as possible. 
3. Had to have worked for more than 6 months. That is off course unless, it is just the best thing I've every encountered!
4. No affiliation or discounts from any company or products unless it is a sale.  I want to make sure there is no bias other than how things worked out for me.   

Wish you all the BEEST!

Don't worry I don't have any affiliation with anything mentioned in these posts, they are the discoveries I have made on my own. 

The best natural deodorant

This is the best out there. I have literally tried dozens or of natural deodorants. Read The gory details section below to find out why I need something that works the best.

The holy grail...

This particular Schmidt's fragrant line works! I have used their others lines and found it not that good. So make sure you check out the Charcoal Magnesium line.  

I can apply in the morning and wear it all day without having to reapply to ensure I'm smelling fresh as a bee. 

Schmidt's Natural Deodorant® - Charcoal + Magnesium, 3.25 oz. Stick for Women & Men - Combats Odor & Wetness

$9.99 from 5+ stores

Solid · Organic · 3.2 ounce

Description Award-winning formula naturally and effectively neutralizes odor and wetness. Non-greasy, non-sticky feel. Free of aluminum, propylene ...

I'm listing out some of the brands I used in the past that touted their effectiveness as natural deodorants. I tried all of them in good faith hoping their marketing blurb is more than just creative writing. How did I discover all these products? I did minor online research and mostly was sucked into the package labels at WholeFoods, PCC, Trader Joes, or whatever natural health store I happen to poke my head into. 

Alba, Lavanila, Crystal, Jason, Nourish, EO, Tom's, Vichy, Kiss My Face...

Many of them sit somewhere in our house gathering dust because it just didn't keep me fresh. After almost every meeting, I would have to reapply. I ended up having one in my office drawer, one in my backpack, one in the car...you get the idea. Before I started leaving these other natural deodorants all over the place I've had days where I had to drive to Target to get a new shirt and blame it on something silly like, "oh yeah I spilt coffee". Yes people, it was that bad. The one I used before for years is from Herban Cowboy, but this one doesn't last. At work, I have to reapply at least 3/4 times a day, when we moved into open office space, it was a pain. I felt like I was on mission impossible sneaking my deodorant from my backpack to my back pocket without anyone seeing.  

Herban Cowboy - Natural For Her Deodorant Stick Blossom - 2.8 oz.

$4.79 from 50+ stores

46 product reviews#2 in Herban Cowboy Deodorant & Anti-Perspirant

Herban Cowboy · Solid · Men's · Organic · 2.8 ounce

Long Lasting Formula. Free of Propylene Glycol, Aluminum and Triclosan.

The thing with natural deodorants is that it won't stop your sweating :(  This is still the case with Schmidt's but it's really really REALLY amazing at all day odor control, I take night classes once a week so I go from 7 am till 10 pm and I don't have to worry! I can't tell you how amazing that is.   

If you want something that stops sweating then read the below. I even tell you what antiperspirant worked for me. Although I highly recommend natural deodorants.

The gory details...

I sweat like a pig under my arms. It's no joke and it smells bad! I mean capitalized BAD, the kind you can't possibly image for a girl. When I workout, it actually doesn't smell, but going through school and then onto work just stressed me out on a different level. Anyway, I have been on this quest since middle school. For a long time, I only used antiperspirants and I used all kinds. Dove, Secrete, Degree, Speed Stick, Arm and Hammer.  They worked to cover the smell, but still not the actual sweat.

Then I moved onto the clinical levels strength of antiperspirants when those came out to grocery stores that contained the active ingredient Aluminum Zirconium Trichorohydrex Gly. I would get somewhere between 20 - 22%. With this increase though, I didn't really notice much difference in the amount of sweating. I considered surgery at one point to remove the sweat glands but didn't want to deal with all the hassles of surgery. 

Then came college days and through rush, I learned of a product called CertainDry. I mean you don't want a bunch of college girls with pit stains trying to impress each other. CertainDry was pretty amazing, it actually worked by stopping my sweat by at least half if not more. It contained this ingredient, Aluminum Chloride at 12%. 

Canary alert: you're supposed to use it at night when you're sleeping. I did that, next day no sweating at all, but the more I used it, I started to develop rashes under my arms. They were itchy, red and hurt. I figured that's probably not the best thing for my body, so I stopped using it and only used it on occasion and went back to normal antiperspirants. 

Then I learned all the correlation between these aluminum based ingredients and illnesses, because what happened to me with the rashes it wasn't hard for me to believe it could have some negative health effects. So begins my search for natural product. 

Give Schmidt's Charcoal a try and I promise if you're struggling like I was this will make a huge difference. 

Wishing you all the BEEST!