People have asked me why I question so many things.
The truth is that it didn't happen overnight. It was years of experiences that slowly changed the way I looked at the world.
One of the biggest turning points in my life was going through the criminal justice system.
Being in jail, prison, and on parole gave me a perspective I never would've had otherwise. For the first time, I was surrounded by people battling addiction, trauma, abuse, mental illness, and poverty. It completely changed the way I viewed people. Instead of seeing "criminals," I saw human beings. People who had made mistakes. People who had been dealt terrible hands. People who desperately wanted help. It gave me a level of empathy I don't think I would've developed otherwise.
Long before that, I'd always been fascinated by movies based on true stories like Blow and American Gangster. Eventually that curiosity led me to documentaries. One of the first that really stuck with me was The American Drug War: The Last White Hope, a documentary about the Iran-Contra scandal and our own government selling crack to its citizens. Later, while I was in the Justice Center awaiting transfer to prison, one of our classes showed Loose Change, a documentary about 9/11 being an inside job. While earning my college degree in prison, I also gave a public speaking presentation on how marijuana became illegal in the United States. Researching the history behind prohibition and the propaganda used made me realize there was so much I had never learned. More than anything, those experiences taught me to not trust the government, and to start asking more questions.
Years later, life gave me an entirely different reason to keep asking them.
My husband was diagnosed with psoriatic arthritis and had to give himself injections every other week. We experienced three miscarriages in less than a year while trying to grow our family. I was chronically exhausted, depressed, and desperately searching for answers of my own.
Around that same time, I started working as the social media manager for a certified functional medicine health coach. Every day I was learning about nutrition, ingredients, microplastics, personal care products, cleaning products, environmental exposures, and how lifestyle choices can affect our health. Our fertility specialist also encouraged us to focus on eating whole, nutrient-dense foods while trying to conceive.
Then I became pregnant with Charlotte.
Like so many first-time moms, I wanted to make the best decisions I could for my baby. I started researching pregnancy, childbirth, infant products, and vaccines. This all happened in 2020, when COVID was changing the world, and every answer seemed to lead to ten more questions.
Then COVID itself gave me even more to think about.
Watching my grandmother spend the end of her life alone in a nursing home broke my heart. Around that same time, I lost my dad to alcoholism. Just two months later, I lost my brother-in-law to drug addiction. I also knew other people struggling with addiction who suddenly lost access to recovery meetings and support systems because everything had shut down.
At the same time, I watched liquor stores remain open while many recovery resources, small businesses, and community programs were closed. Small businesses closed while big box stores remained open. Free cheeseburgers in exchange for getting the new vaccine that was rushed to market.
From there, every rabbit hole led to another.
Health led to food.
Food led to ingredients.
Ingredients led to personal care products.
Personal care products led to environmental exposures.
That led to government agencies, regulations, politics, and eventually questioning many of the assumptions I'd accepted my entire life without much thought.
I'll be honest. That stage was overwhelming and I had many sleepless nights lying awake in fear. Especially as a new mom!
There was a point where I felt like everything was dangerous, everything was connected, and my brain was going to explode. It felt like every day I was learning something new that completely changed how I looked at the world.
Eventually, though, I realized something just as important.
You can't live in fear forever.
I still ask questions. I still read studies, dig into ingredients, and change my mind when I learn something new. But I also learned that you will never do everything perfectly. You can spend your entire life chasing perfection, and you'll never find it.
At some point, I realized chronic stress wasn't making me healthier. It was just stealing my peace.
So these days, I focus on what I can actually control. I cook more meals from scratch. I pay attention to ingredients. I spend more time outside. I choose products I feel good about bringing into my home. And I keep learning.
I also became much more intentional about what I allow into my mind. I stopped watching the news. I unfollowed celebrities because I realized I was tired of constantly being pulled into politics and outrage. I limit my time scrolling, and whenever I see content that's political or clearly designed to make me fearful, I hit "Not Interested." I don't want algorithms deciding what occupies my thoughts all day.
There are countless problems in the world that I have no power to fix. Instead of carrying the weight of all of them, I've chosen to spend more time with my family, enjoy the little things, and focus on creating a peaceful home. History has taught me that information isn't always as straightforward as it seems, so I've become comfortable admitting that I don't have all the answers. and I don't need to.
I don't expect everyone to agree with the conclusions I've reached over the years, and that's okay.
This isn't a blog meant to tell you what to believe.
It's simply the story of how I became someone who started asking questions and eventually realized that protecting my peace is just as important as searching for the truth.