About

     At first, our family was not doing well. Obesity, chronic illness, poor nutrition, addiction… you name it. After a long period of self reflection (after an even longer period of self indulgence, excuses, and procrastination), we came together and decided something had to change. It was hard in the beginning, with many setbacks and failures and a whole lot of learning experiences, but once we began to make real long term life changes by investing in our health – not just physically, but mentally and emotionally as well – the results were astounding.

When our focus shifted from responding to the consequences of our lifestyles,  to preventing them by making better choices, we began asking ourselves questions.

What builds a Healthy Body?

What builds a Healthy Mind?

What builds a Healthy Soul?

     So, what does build a healthy body? Looking back the answers were simple. Paying attention to what we were putting in and on our bodies was key. We began making our own natural body products – soaps, body butters, soaks and salves. No detergents or preservatives, no unpronounceable ingredients, no pesticides or toxic chemicals. We began researching the benefits(and dangers!) that are abundantly provided to us by Nature and incorporating them into our lives. The body is an amazing machine, and just like a car it needs proper maintenance and additives to perform its best. Yes, you can limp along in a car beaten and battered by misuse and neglect for a while, but it will fail much faster than a well kept and cared for one, and besides, wouldn’t you be more comfortable driving the nicer one while you can? Your body is no different. We made herbal blends and supplements focused on supporting and improving our health and wellbeing, cut out the processed foods and learned how to address our own issues in a more holistic way.

     What about a healthy mind? Here the answer was simple as well, but not so easily achieved. Honesty was truly the key. Being honest with ourselves about our good and bad habits, being straightforward and transparent with others in every aspect of our lives, and approaching everything with that outlook going forward. This was easier said than done! The easiest person to lie to is yourself, but once we embraced honesty as a core purpose life in general got a lot better. Gone were the excuses that led to self loathing, the justifications that led to escapism, and the lack of personal accountability that led to perpetual victimhood status. When things could be our fault, then things could also be in our power to change. 

     But how do you build a healthy soul? This was more complicated to answer, but what we finally realized was that community is our soul, and our soul creates our community. Ask most people what they want to do with their lives, and they will usually respond along the lines of “I want to help people”. Everyone wants to help others, and needs help themselves sometimes. Due to the modern hyper-fixation on wealth and status, most people view “helping others” as curing cancer or ending world hunger or starting a huge philanthropic endeavor of some sort, but you don’t have to be a big-shot doctor or lawyer or billionaire to help people. Help comes from sincerity in your actions(there’s that honesty again). Just smiling at someone can be help. Telling someone how to get to the place they need to go is help. Being really good at your job is help, no matter what job it is. Approaching every interaction with a sincere desire to help, without the expectation of being rewarded for it, builds a community that rewards you many times over. If you are genuine with your interactions with others, then they will be genuine with you, and your life becomes far more fulfilling than anything money can buy.

     Once we had applied these things to ourselves, we agreed to risk everything and put it into action in the real world. We opened a small family business selling the products that we were making and using for ourselves. Over the last decade we have slowly added new facets to it (if you are ever in Tallahassee Florida stop by our tea house for lunch!) and built an amazing community of people. We apply these concepts to everything we do – we offer high quality hand made products at a fair price with a sincere focus on helping others improve their health and wellbeing. We are finally expanding to this online store to try and reach a broader community, and we are happy to help anyone with any special restrictions, requirements, or requests by consulting and customizing solutions that are right for you. If you don’t see what you are looking for in our online shop, please call us or send us an email and we will be happy to help! (note: please be patient with response times, and if no one answers the phone call back until we do. there are only three of us and it can get very busy!)

     So, that’s us in a nutshell. Just a few broken people trying to better ourselves one cup of tea at a time. We strive to make an honest living for our family by providing a space for our local community to enjoy and supplying quality products for our customers. We appreciate every dollar spent as it allows us to continue our vision for another day, and we hope that is reflected in the quality and care that we put into our products. Thank you so much!

Sincerely,

The Honest Living Family

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