Kombucha Bubbles

Sustainable Fashion

Look great, and be great for the environment.

As one of the biggest international industries, fashion has shaped how we see history. However, as times have become more modern, fashion has started taking it’s toll; on the environment, not just our collective bank accounts and credit cards.

The fast-fashion industry is seen as efficient. A ton of cheaply-made clothes are produced quickly, and incredibly cheaply. Companies produce garments for just pennies and reap the profits of their under-paid workers.

The conditions of the workers are horrendous. Many of them are under-age thanks to lax child labor laws. They work long, grueling hours for insubstantial pay.

Not only does the fast-fashion industry mistreat it’s employees, but the cheap materials are often plastic based. This means that they create harmful emissions when produced, and they don’t break down when disposed of.

Now, more people than ever realize that they shouldn’t support these industries, so here are some very easy ways to lessen your support of fast-fashion.

Thrift: buying used clothing is the easier (and usually cheaper) of the two alternatives to mass-produced clothing. Most clothing still has a lot of life in it when it’s owner decides they don’t need it anymore. So, when you feel that your wardrobe needs some changing up, consider swinging by your local Goodwill or Salvation Army and see what you can find! Same goes for when you feel like getting rid of clothes, donate them to a thrift store (if they’re still in wearable condition, of course.) Some stores (Like Plato’s Closet) will even give you cash or credit for your donations.
Invest in hand-made clothes: You heard me, and I know what you’re thinking – “But hand-made clothes are SO expensive!” Well, they can be. Unlike a sweatshop seamstress, the people who make hand-made clothing are paid livable wages, therefore the prices have to reflect that. Remember that the quality will almost always (like 99% of the time) be FAR superior to mass produced clothing; that’s why it’s called an investment.

Those are just the ways that I personally try to keep my fashion sustainable, let me know what you do in the comments!

Overcoming the anxieties of Daily Life

We all have them

Today was my first day of early college. I got up at 6 am., sure that I would be able to handle this with no problem. I helped my mother and little brother get ready for their school days, I said goodbye to them and my father as he left for work. And suddenly, I was alone. Not just physically alone, after all, I had my cats and my turtle in the house with me. But so deeply alone that I felt like I had fallen into a pit I would never be able to work my way out of.

I haven’t felt this existential-type-of-alone-feeling in at least two years. This used to be my normal. The fear and the dread and the self-doubt and the little angry voice screaming “how could you be so stupid, you shouldn’t have left high school you aren’t ready for this.” I had almost forgotten the sound of that tiny voice.

About two years ago, I started therapy to help me deal with this tiny voice; to help keep me level-headed while it screamed and shrieked until it slowly faded away. So, here are some tips I learned in my time in therapy.

I am NOT a professional, I still suggest counseling or therapy on top of these coping skills.

Diet: I know that I’m about to sound like a Preachy Vegan to some of you, but I firmly believe this. If you are sensitive to certain foods, and continue to consume them, your body can stop showing physical reactions to them, and start showing mental signs instead. As soon as I went vegan (which, I’ll admit, should have been sooner.) I felt significantly better.
Try to understand the voice, and question it. Just ask it why. You aren’t good enough, “Why?” Of course for a while, it’ll have answers. But after some time they stop making sense. That’s when I realized the voice was full of shit. (Sorry for the profanity.)
Art: My therapist told me to draw something whenever I heard the voice. Something that made me happy, like a picture of a bud on my watermelon plant or one of my pets. She told me that it would help me to combat the voice, because after a while I would associate it with things I liked. (It actually worked, weirdly enough.)

I know that some of these are, questionable at best. These are just the coping skills that work for ME personally. I also refused to be prescribed medication for my depression/anxiety (not for any particular reason, I was just stubborn and cheap.) which is why I used some of these weird coping skills. Feel free to tell me your coping skills in the comments!

Minimalism

Why less can sometimes be more

We, in America, live in a fast-paced and consumer-based society. Everyone is seemingly obsessed with what’s in and what’s out, what you should have in your cart and what is SO last season. We have created a harmful, borderline toxic environment for ourselves based on nothing more than the opinions of others.

And that’s where the accumulation begins. We become so obsessed with keeping up with current trends that be virtually bury ourselves in material possessions to avoid ridicule from our peers. We use these items to blend in with the crowd, because feeling like part of the pack feels good. We make the connection that new things = feeling better.

Now, if you can’t tell this post is mostly about clothing, shoes, hats, bags, etc. This also may not apply to anyone, after all I’m a teenage girl, I doubt that I would be able to write much that would be relatable to a middle-aged man, and that’s okay.

Recently, I have left high-school in favor of early college, and through the journey of relinquishing my childhood, I have learned that less truly does feel like more.

In the previous years of my life, I was messy; honestly I was a borderline hoarder. I had a lot of trouble letting go of things, but absolutely no problem accumulating more. My room was constantly a mess, and it was depressing. I constantly felt the need to get the new “it” thing, even when I wasn’t interested in it whatsoever, I had allowed myself to become dependent on little bits of fabric or plastic for my happiness. My possessions dictated my personality.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been exploring the concept of minimalism, and how clarity of the home can assist in creating clarity of the mind, body, and spirit. I liked this idea.

So, I did some research on how to start decluttering my life, starting with things I hadn’t used, or clothes I hadn’t worn, in the past three-to-six months. Before I knew it, I had bagged up four kitchen trash bags of clothes, shoes, hats, and general miscellaneous items from around my room. I felt better already.

I then moved on to decluttering my social media, unfollowing things that didn’t help me grow or make me happy. I feel like an entirely new person now, and my journey has really just begun.

(I know that this will most likely seem like useless blabbering, but this is my first ever blog, so I’m sure it will improve.)