I really feel strongly that this is a season of personal growth for our entire world.... an awakening of sorts. Even tho I'm still working more than 40hrs/week from home or as an "essential worker" at the pharmacy during our "time alone together", I'm trying to carve out time to seek knowledge as I am led to it.

Today, after lunch, I spent about 35 minutes at one of my favorite quickie education sources: https://www.prageru.com/ .

Today's dive into being better versed in the world of current events have left me 😭😭😭😭 . I may be worthless now for the rest of the day 😭, but this was information we ALL need to know exists so that we can put a stop to it collectively.

Child Sex Trafficking. (I hate even typing those words out 😭 ). I first learned about this industry (for sadly, it IS that) in 2016, and it hasn't left my mind since.

Here are some quick stats:
👤 8 Million children are trafficked each year
👤 Child trafficking is the fastest growing "industry" in the world today.
👤 There's been a 5000% increase in "dark web" child rape videos in the last few years (little kids... under the age of 12)👤 There are currently an estimated 250,000 children actively trafficked in the USA.
👤 The USA is the NUMBER 1 consumer of child rape videos in the world.  😭
👤 There are more people (30 million adults and children) currently being trafficked in the world than there has ever been in any time in history.

" It takes guts to listen, and it takes guts to engage."

https://www.prageru.com/…/the-candace-owens-show-tim-ball…/…

I encourage everyone to take a listen to this video and be changed forever. Ignorance is not bliss. Collective ignorance is a large part of why this beast exists and it must stop.

Join me, won't you? If we all take an hour or so out of our "at home experience" to work on something that will improve other people's lives...... imagine how much better the 🌎world will be when we all step outside collectively, and breathe a big sigh of relief. Even if we were to have to stay cooped up for a month or two.... it's a small price to pay if we collectively make the world better when it's all over.... isn't it?

hugs and love friends~ liz

#knowbetterdobetter
#useQuarantinetimewell
#bethehandsandfeetofJesus

Have you ever felt like you were at a crossroads in your life? I’m not talking about a midlife crisis, but rather something bigger and more profound.

About 3 years ago, we took a pretty long road trip to pick up a bull in a remote (VERY REMOTE) area in West Texas. I mean…… drive to the very edge of civilization and then head 3 hours further…..the kind of remote that requires a physical map instead of cell phone/ GPS service. Without a map or good navigational tools, you’re sunk kind of remote. As you might guess, we confidently drove down the road….. in the wrong direction because we thought we knew where we were going. It cost us about 3 extra hours that day. We were reminded the value of an old school map and a dose of intuition!

This kind of parallels the last 15+ years of my life. I have been a pharmacist since 1991. I graduated, and like most health professionals…. upon graduation…… was pretty sure I had a really good grasp of the profession. I’m not saying I was God’s gift to pharmacy (hardly!), but I certainly thought I knew enough to make a difference in people’s lives. I toodled along in pharmacy doing the absolute best job I could do (because that’s my nature….. never tackle anything halfway).

When I was in my 30’s I thought we were living the dream. Charlie and I both had good jobs, had bought our farm, and had begun building our home (by hand, ourselves…. because that’s how we do things…. with all our heart and soul). We worked super hard…. 40-60 hrs a week at our respective jobs and then swung hammers and wielded paint brushes on nights and weekends for about 3 years before completing our home. It was somewhere during that time that I broke my wrist, was subsequently diagnosed with osteopenia , and both Charlie and I were diagnosed with high cholesterol.  In hindsight, that broken wrist was probably the best thing that could have ever happened to me. I won’t go into great detail (you can read more about that journey here and the second half here), but it was a big fat hairy road sign to stop and assess what I thought I knew.

That broken wrist reopened a different avenue of education for me…. only this time, it was not subsidized by the pharmaceutical industry and there was some skin in the game…. my own. When you are a pharmacist, you’re in the business of knowing side effects of meds. The good news is…. you know the potential side effects. The bad news is…. you know the potential side effects. I wasn’t willing to go down that road given the med options they were dangling in front of me. My gut said no way, and once my research started it changed my life forever. It all began with raw milk. From there, my research extended into finding access to truly healthy and healing foods. Each time I thought I knew enough, I found that more pieces to health puzzles were MIA…. not just my puzzle, but everyone else’s too.

About the same time, I went to work at a pharmacy that specialized in rare diseases, oncology, auto-immune disorders, and infertility (which frequently has an auto-immune component). Sadly, this pharmacy represented the outcome of people living in toxin filled environments. Silly me. I still thought I was helping people. I guess I was. Kindness matters, especially when you are dealing with life altering body dysfunctions….. but kindness and pharmaceuticals don’t dissolve the problems these patients face every day.

Another personal puzzle piece fell into place after I was diagnosed with something called interstitial cystitis and discovered (after 9 years of no REM sleep and frequent trips to the bathroom), that it could be managed well with a fresh and healthy, but limited, diet. Expensive medication and daily catheterization are the common treatments. Ummm, no thank you. I would later learn that IC is part of the autoimmune disorder family. Not surprisingly, approximately 1 in 5 adults in the USA are card carrying autoimmune disorder patients. I had been given my card.

Eight years ago, my dad was diagnosed with dementia. It made no sense to me and we had no family history of dementia. I backtracked the onset to a statin drug (commonly prescribed for high cholesterol). In the finest of the fine print of this class of drugs you will find information alluding to possible memory loss with these drugs. Dig deeply and you’ll find it. I thank God for leading me to raw milk to lower my cholesterol instead of that which stole my dad’s memory. I don’t blame the pharmaceutical industry for burying the whole ‘memory loss’ side effect in the fine print. I mean, would you want to take a drug that could potentially rob you of your memory as a side effect? Ummmm, no thank you.

By now, I’ve truly begun second guessing pharmaceuticals. I began educating myself on everything I could get my hands on that gave honest and documented proof that maybe what I knew wasn’t EVERYTHING…… that perhaps there were some gaps in my education and knowledge base. I dug deep deep deep into gut health and discovered the link to most autoimmune disorders. I studied sleep patterns, herbs, thyroid and hormones. I picked up yoga and began healing my posture and my stress level. That led to my recent certification (7 years later) as a Christian yoga instructor. ​