Being My Green Best

I was over at Michele's site, Healing with (Raw) Juices, and she had this great post about how we tend to label ourselves. It's about how for her, putting those labels on how she eats actually took the joy out of the food she was eating. How being a “vegan” or “raw foodist” just made her feel guilty if she decided she wanted to eat eggs (free roaming, just like I like 'em) or have a Greek yogurt. Both are healthy, good for you choices but because they didn't fit into one of those labels, they became “bad” food.

She found a way to deal with by not worrying about what label she falls into as long as she's always eating healthy. It's a great post and it really spoke to me.

I think that same kind of thing happens a lot with being “green”. I know it does for me anyways.

I say I'm green, but more of a light green. I reduce, reuse and recycle....most of the time.

The way Michele was talking about eating is how I feel about being green sometimes. Even though this site is all about being what ever shade of green is comfortable for you, I feel like since I know about all these different things, I should be living a lot darker of a green life then I do.

I know, it sounds pretty silly. I'm totally cool with you for only being light green or even less, but I feel all guilty and bad if I'm not being all super green.

So I'm switching my thinking from “being” to just simply “living”.

I'm going back to what I first said when I started this blog, that instead of feeling bad about what I don't do, I'm going to feel great and celebrate what I do.

I'm going to be proud when I wash out the plastic container the sour cream came in to use again. But, more importantly, I'm not going to beat myself up when I don't wash the container out (because we have a crazy amount already) and I just put it in the recycle box.

I'm going to feel great when I shop at the farmers market because I know it helps the planet, the farmers and well, it just makes me happy.

I'm not going to feel guilty about driving a Highlander instead of Prius because with 2 boys and 2 dogs that's just the right vehicle for us so that we can all go out together.

And I'm still going to dream of owning a home with solar panels on the roof and having my very own organic garden.

I'm not perfect and I'll never live off grid. I'm just a girl trying to live a little more consciously and hopefully, leave things a little better then I found them.

And at the end of each day I'll be happy with the choices I made, knowing no matter what they were, they were right for that day.