Welcome to The Greener Living Blog! Let’s grow greener together!
Welcome to The Greener Living Blog - a facet of The Greener Gift!
In addition to finding blog posts here, you will also discover the show notes, transcripts and links for The Greener Living Podcast - yet another facet of The Greener Gift.
As you may (or may not) already know, The Greener Gift is a woman-owned business that is focussed on sustainability and greener living. We sustainably produce earth-friendly products that are designed to make greener living more fun and easy. Our primary focus is on products that are made from fabric (which we responsibly source) and are designed to be low maintenance, durable, and versatile. Examples include reusable, laundry-safe snack & sandwich bags, as well as paperless towels.
This blog will cover everything from product features and business updates, to educational and inspirational topics, with and without guests. But rest assured, it will all be aligned with a passion for sustainability and our mission to support you on your journey to a greener lifestyle.
That said, know that this corner of the internet may not be for everyone, and that’s okay. We aim for transparency and authenticity at all times. For us, this includes swearing/cussing, activism, support for human, animal, and environmental rights, potentially politically charged topics, passion, occasional indignant rage, and occasionally rubbing folks the wrong way. But we’re also always open to learning, hearing the “other side” (so long as it’s done respectfully), and potentially changing our minds about things should reasonably convincing information be presented or discovered. If that sounds like something you can jive with - then you’re in the right place!
Now a little bit about me, Lolly, the primary voice behind the blog and podcast. I’m the founder and owner of The Greener Gift, though I have support from some badass team members and am gratefully not going it alone anymore! I joke that The Greener Gift is what happens when you monetize your personality. Living a more sustainable and eco-conscious lifestyle has become a part of who I am, I ooze and exude it as I walk through my day to day. I’ll admit, I used to be rather aggressive about it and put on the pressure, guilt, and shame to try to get people to be more green. But I learned that that’s not actually an effective way to encourage change. Fear and stress can only do so much for motivation. In my experience, I’ve found that fear may create a short term result, but for lasting results, folks are much more prone to success when they’re fueled by passion, hope, or inspiration.
For this reason, I do my best to avoid the fear mongering, shame, and blame, (though like all habits, it’s hard to break and sometimes slips back in.) Instead, I turn toward the more positive motivators and focus on encouragement and support to help us create a wave of positive change. So that’s what you’ll find here: A place of imperfect progress, where we can learn together about growing a greener lifestyle, while caring for both people and planet.
Diving into this virtual friendship, I feel it’s important from day one to let you know that you’re doing great!
I bet you feel like you’re not doing enough for the earth or to preserve the planet for future generations… And that the world is burning around you. Is that right?
Well, I’m here to assure you that your imperfect actions are excellent. Keep doing what you’re doing! Now take a deep breath… and as you release your breath, release the tension in your body. Yes, both people and planet are suffering, there’s no denying that. However, your stressing about it, and my stressing about it, isn’t gonna change that. What it will do though, is burn us out a heck of a lot faster. Instead, I find it beneficial to acknowledge that the shitty stuff exists, and then tuck it to the side of our brain and know that it can be used as fuel to inspire us to do better!
What we can also do is create massive change to combat the shite. It’s been done before, and it will be done again. The cliche (attributed to Aristotle, though apparently an oversimplification of his actual words) “The whole is greater than the sum of the parts” is pertinent is this case, as demonstrated in activism regularly. When many individuals push for change, that’s great. But when we come together in lockstep, the impact we can make, and the attention we command is so much greater! This is one of my motivations for creating The Greener Living Blog and The Greener Living Podcast: to bring us together as a team to implement and affect greater change in the world.
Now that may sound a little grandiose, and sure, it may be. And yet, I am a true believer that many small and manageable actions combined are how we create great change. The goal here on both the podcast and blog is to offer bite size chunks of information and inspiration that we can implement at will, which will interweave into our daily lives and become a part of our habits. That then becomes the foundation for us to further build our legacies and better our world. Each layer of habit implemented and action taken then compounds to strengthen your foundation and further support your goals of stewarding our earth.
I’m so excited to embark on this journey of growth and discovery with you! And when things get challenging, please give yourself grace to be perfectly imperfect. Know that I’m cheering you on, and that I believe you’re doing great already!
And with that…
Let’s start this journey!
Let’s grow greener together!