My mom was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2015. Luckily it was caught before it spread and this is not a sob story. Instead it’s the story of how I was introduced to CBD and why our CBD products perform the way they do.

When it all went down with my mom — Win is her name — I knew she had excellent doctors and all the latest advancements in western medicine behind her. When I asked her though about how she was planning on changing her diet and what sort of alternative health practices she was using or considering all I got was a blank look. It was then that I took it upon myself to take a deep dive into this world and make sure my mom had the best of both conventional and alternative health care.

Living in Boulder, CO where nutrition is religion and everyone is just begging for the opportunity to proclaim their stance on their favorite superfood/adaptogen/tree frog poison/shamanic journey/etc, it was not hard to find advice. The one thing that kept coming up from the people I trusted most was CBD.

Since I couldn’t picture my mom becoming a regular at the local weed dispensary, I was relieved to learn hemp derived CBD could be purchased at our local health food store. I cruised over there and picked up two bottles of what the saleswoman, Jahna recommended. One bottle for my mom, the other for me. Jahna explained it would not only help with my mom’s issues, but also with the pain and inflammation I was experiencing as an endurance athlete. Also, I had promised my mom that whatever I was going to advise her to do to be healthier, I would do as well.

When I brought it home that night to my mom who was staying with me, she was apprehensive. “I’ve never gotten high before,” she said. “Is it legal?” she asked. I told her she was about to get stoned beyond belief and that the cops would be at the door any minute. Then I told her the truth, that CBD will not get you high, that I had bought it at the grocery store and that it is most famous for helping kids with seizures.

We made a toast to good health and the pursuit thereof and swallowed it down.

The next morning, my mom reported feeling much better. Her pain had dissipated, she felt an easy sense of calm and she had slept well for the first time in a while. I had not told her what the specific effects of CBD were likely to be and yet there she was describing each of them to me. She took to it immediately and began using it morning and night.

With CBD as one pillar, movement and exercise as another (walking and running as many as ten miles per day), and an extremely healthy plant based nutrition plan in place, my mom made the difficult decision to forego chemotherapy. It seemed counterintuitive to her to purposely subject herself to such sickness. Instead, her plan was to double down on the very best foods, vitamins, minerals, adaptogens, movement and thought patterns we could come up with.

My sisters and I were concerned. We were all for anything that would even slightly reduce the chances of the cancer returning and chemo was what the doctors were recommending. We’ve always been pretty hip to the powers of a healthy lifestyle though, partly because of our mom, and we got behind her for better or for worse.

She’s kept that healthy lifestyle up in the years since, refining and improving it along the way and I’m thrilled to report she is cancer-free. Not only that, but she’s super healthy and kicking butt! She founded a running club in the U.A.E. where she is a professor and ran the Ras Al Khaima Half Marathon a few months ago. I spoke with her today on her 65th birthday and she tells me she feels twenty years younger. Her doctors have come around and she’s been advised to keep doing whatever it is she’s doing.

And so, my quest to find the best natural remedies started as many good things do, out of necessity and love. I see my mom’s face and feel her energy in everything we are attempting at Ned. She is every one of our customers, and every one of them is her. This is why we hold ourselves and our products to such high standards. Its why we refuse to cut corners, and in fact go to extreme extra lengths to create the very best, mom-worthy products.

In the end, the same promise I made to her, I make to my business and each of its customers. Although this can make things more difficult, as long as we continue to lead with love and accept nothing but the best, the healthier I know our business and customers will be.

“Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.” — Albert Einstein

What would our lives be like if our days and nights were as immersed in nature as they are in technology? How would we feel if we consistently moved our bodies as is written in our DNA? What if we knew exactly which foods and even which thoughts would fuel performance at our highest level? Just what is our highest level?

Over the past ten years these are the questions that have intrigued me most. Exploring them has become my greatest passion and has led to some of the most fun and enlightening moments of my life.

Through it all, I’ve uncovered a number of simple yet extremely powerful truths. At the root of these truths is nature. Our health, well-being and ability to thrive are all determined by the extent to which we are connected with it.

This is not a new understanding. From the dawn of mankind our ancestors have been down with this. We in the Western world, however, are at a moment in time when we’ve never been more disconnected. Tempted by the lure of technology and the ease of the artificial, in many ways we’ve come to be defined by the symptoms of affluenza and an entirely new crop of health and societal issues we feel ill-equipped to solve.

Then there are those, entire industries even that would lead us deeper down this path. Ironically the health care sector is one of them. By and large, it places irresponsible emphasis on “modern medicine” while forsaking and even contradicting the three other pillars of health: nature, nutrition and movement.

Of course modern medicine holds tremendous value. It cannot, however, stand alone. The further it gets from nature’s answers, the more it will be forced to find solutions to the issues it and the others that would lead us from nature create.

On a far more positive note (phew!), good people around the world are doing great things to integrate nature into our modern lives. Smart people, companies and organizations are seeing the benefits and a movement to reconnect is taking root.

I myself am redoubling my efforts to explore these truths and uncover others. I’ll use this blog to share my findings. It will become a clearing house for the reasons why and the ways how to tap into the powers of nature, nutrition and movement. My aim here is to help as many people as possible reclaim their vitality and live truly high performance lives.

What it takes to do so is out there. Each week, I’ll explore new ways: how to ingrain health into the rest of your life, achieve flow, “green” your space, reach peak creativity, and on. Over time this blog will contain the road map to a life defined not by our aches and pains or our fears and addictions, but by one in which we are thriving, reconnected and performing at a level we never thought possible.

Onward!!!

Hi, I’m Ret Taylor. Every week or two, I’ll be publishing an article on the powers of nature, nutrition and movement, how to tap into each and live a happier, healthier and richer life. If you or someone you know could benefit from this please recommend and share. Thanks!

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