I get it. When we find out that something upsetting, like how petroleum-based products that we've always used our whole life are actually bad for us, we become scared and overwhelmed. We can feel anxious, and worry that we've already done the damage because we've been using those products for a long time. It's okay. Now that we know what's better for us, we can focus on making healthy changes from this point on. There's always time to start over! Each minute is a new opportunity to try again.
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What is Petroleum
Petroleum—paraffin, petrolatum, mineral oil—is created through the oil refining process that turns crude oil into the same liquid that we put in our lawnmowers and machinery. Crude oil is toxic and though petroleum is refined crude oil, it is not any less toxic in this respect. We, then, put it in all sorts of products from our shampoo to baby bath soap. We put it on our lips and eyelids, bringing it precariously close to vulnerable parts of our bodies.

Stress. It’s a single, seemingly harmless word but it invokes potent emotions: fear, failure, pressure, anxiety and more. All are powerful, and all of them negative.

“How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours.” ~ Wayne W. Dyer

We have been conditioned to view stress as detrimental to our life and health whether it’s mental, emotional or physical. We have been taught to fear stress and to remove it as quickly as we can. If it doesn’t go away, we must go at it like battering rams, fighting the stress itself while feeling guilty for failing to remove it.

Stress takes on a life of its own. It is a malleable, changing creature. Stress is sensitive to our thoughts and behaviors and it slowly covers us with a finely woven net of frustration and despair. We end up battling stress itself rather than focusing on its root cause. We can't solve problems because we become distracted with it.