Going Tribal

We are a group of mamas on a long journey of healing for children and ourselves. This journey is some sort of slippery slope that seems to lead to an unlikely destination for this group of city dwellers. The running joke between us is it seems more and more likely that our healing journey may end with us living in some sort of tribal village. Wearing loincloths. Although perhaps somewhere besides Richmond, VA since it is a bit chilly in the winter here!

I remember a day when the "craziest" thing in my medicine cabinet was a neti pot. Many of my friends or family had not heard of it and I loved to tell them how well it kicked out a pending cold. That was exotic. But that was then... ah, the blissful nature of naivete.

Now my medicine cabinet contains homemade toothpaste, a rock for deodorant, baking soda and apple cider vinegar for washing hair, and various essential oils. My kitchen pantry has taken a funny turn as well. Luckily, if you met me on the street you would have no idea. Well, perhaps you would start asking questions when you noticed I was carrying a bunch of food in a cooler because we don't eat anything prepared outside our home.

An intuitive person once said, "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing." When it comes to food, ingredients, and chemicals a little knowledge should be a required thing. Hospitals should be teaching THESE items to expectant mothers rather than "how to pant." The primal part of my brain would have figured out how to birth. That only took a day out of my life. It's the day after the birth when the rest of it all started. A ton of new decisions to make: which mattresses are safe, what food is healthy / safe, which chemicals are okay to use for soap, is BPA toxic or not, can I put fruit but not meat products in plastic if I *have* to, etc..

Once you know a little more about the food and chemicals being sold (even at great chains like Trader Joes / Whole Foods and possibly even your town's natural foods store) you will realize you have inadvertently been coating yourself and your babies in questionable substances. Then if you spend a few minutes with your BFF Google, you determine the alternatives are simple. Next you find yourself whipping up a batch of toothpaste and before you know it, you realize almost everything can be better and cheaper and we just don't need what we thought we needed. Then you start looking around for more things to replace, and before you know it... you are GOING TRIBAL. Or at least on the slow path to crazy! Or, as a friend's husband once said, "You are a scientist who reviewed the evidence and ended up a hippy." I love that one!

So, what kicked off this journey for our families? Why do we choose to spend time researching better ways of cooking broth and other such nonsense? Each of us is using a healing diet (either the Specific Carbohydrate Diet or Gut and Psychology Syndrome's revision of SCD) to heal our children and ourselves from a long list of health issues. Our chosen lifestyle doesn't feel quite so much like a choice as it does a requirement of motherhood. Our kids need us. We just try to laugh and stay semi-sane while on this journey.

The medical issues many children and families face today are HUGE and amongst our seemingly "normal" crew these issues include:

Adrenal Fatigue
ADHD
Allergies
Anxiety
Autism
Autism Spectrum Disorder
Autoimmune Conditions (Celiac Disease, Hashimoto's Thyroid, and others)
Chronic Ear Infections
Depression
Eczema
Gastroparesis
IBD / IBS

A pretty impressive range of medical maladies, no? We are currently about 8 families strong in Richmond, Virginia. We have huddled together to ride out this storm and are bonding together every step of the way. Because our results are pretty outstanding (who KNEW that food could be so incredibly powerful???) we find friends and strangers interested in finding out about our shenanigans. We have put together a wonderful set of collective knowledge and would like to share what we have found (good, bad, and the ugly) with others in our city and anywhere else. Join us on this amazing road to recovery.

If you knew a little more about the foods and other products you eat, spray, and rub into your body every day, you would make different choices. I guarantee it!