Hey There, Mama!
I’m Lily,
the founder of Living Well Mama.
I fiddled with a short “about me” blurb for a while, and then thought it would be more adventurous to take you on the journey that is my life! So let’s start at the very beginning to help paint the picture of who I am today…
I was born on Christmas Day (breech, vbac, at home… yep, my moms a total rock star) and grew up as the middle of three daughters raised by a wellness doctor of chiropractic, and a holistic health guru. I was homeschooled k-12, vegetarian until about 10 years old, and totally rocked being the “weirdo” in my peer group! Herbal remedies, positive affirmations, and independent thinking were engrained in my bones since day one.
I began dancing at the age of 2 and that art was truly my first love and passion. It instilled in me confidence, a competitive edge, a solid work ethic, perfectionism (for better or worse), teamwork, soo much joy, and a love for makeup.
My parents were always thorough educators on the importance of being mindful of what went inside of, on top of, and around our bodies. We were totally the kids who would pinch our noses when we passed the candle isle of Meijers. Haha! Even doing as well as we could at the time… my consistent makeup use with dance wreaked havoc on my endocrine system.
It became a downward spiral of toxic makeup = horribly imbalanced hormones = angry skin = more toxic makeup to cover up my angry skin… It was such a difficult cycle to be stuck in for the better half of my life!
Years went on in this cycle and I stayed very busy as a young chiropractic assistant and dance teacher. I thought my entire life would be centered around dancing, but my second emergency knee surgery at the young age of 17 forced me to reevaluate. “You’ll be lucky to reach 30 and not need a total knee replacement.” was a brutal sentence for me to stomach… soon after I realized it was part of Gods divine redirection in my life.
When I was 18 I met the wild, reckless, intriguing man that is now my husband. I had no interest in meeting him… then my friend set me up. To this day we joke about my questionable judgement… but we both “just knew” we needed each other! He had a great full time position with the Army, and 4 short months after we met he got down on one knee on stage at an army ball and we were engaged. This is where life seems like a blur…
8 months after engagement we were married. 5 months after marriage we found out we were pregnant… which happened to be the SAME day we signed lease papers to move 8 hours away from everyone we knew and loved so Andrew could attend Chiropractic school. Woof!
We spent four years in Georgia while Andrew completed his doctorate
… 32 credit hours per quarter meant we hardly ever saw each other. We started and completed our family there, and grew exponentially as individuals and as a couple. I think back on those insanely difficult years with nothing but gratitude.
McPherson Hawk was our planned home birth turned emergency c-section, and MacGregor Noble was our vbac home birth. God knew little boys would humble me further.
Towards the end of our time in Georgia, I was introduced to the direct sales industry. I invested the LAST $99 dollars in our only bank account to join a company… totally inspired by the potential to help my family with a balance of financial freedom + a flexible schedule.
My business hit major peaks and major valleys but I loved learning and sharing! Plus the products were covering up my horrible skin… at this stage of my life my poor endocrine system hadn’t caught a break in decades and my skin was just an angry outward portrayal of inward imbalance.
We grew to rely on the income my business was providing, although Andrew was SO blessed to have an incredible associate doctor position right after graduation! I was proud, I was happy, and I could continue to turn a blind eye to the ingredients because nothing safer was available that actually worked.
Until I couldn’t turn a blind eye anymore. My hormones were a disaster and I KNEW my makeup and skincare were the only contributing factor since the rest of my lifestyle was toxin free. Divinely placed on my phone screen at 2:00AM one late night in March of 2017 while I was shopping for body wash was “Crunchi”… in all its toxin free glory, I INSTANTLY knew this was going to rock my world.
So I took another leap of faith and poured myself into a business venture with the sole focus on educating women that there ARE finally safe solutions!! That’s when Living Well Mama the Facebook community was born!
With the elimination of endocrine disrupters, my skin has absolutely transformed! And I am flooded with gratitude every day to receive incredible testimonies every day about women reducing their body burden through enlightened and educated decisions!
Along my journey of launching a personal brand, educating on safe solutions, and nerding out over ingredient research…
I’ve had the immense blessing of linking arms with over 2,600 other women to further this movement for clean beauty and clean living.
We quickly became the largest and fastest growing branch of the company, and it is such a privilege to work alongside such passionate educators! My time with my team is the majority of my focus and where I invest most of my “business hours”. Words can’t describe how grateful I am for each of them and their ability to stretch this mission far and wide!
Our life is so unique now compared to what it was 3.5 years ago before LWM was a thing…
My husband, Andrew, resigned about a year into me building my business and took on homeschooling our boys full time. We swapped roles almost entirely and feel wildly blessed by our unconventional life together!
I work up in my office, or my bed, or the couch, or Panera… and up until the launch of this blog have built 100% through social media doing what fills me with purpose… educating on truth.
Our boys are joyful, healthy, purpose-driven, free-thinking young men that are at the heart of every single thing we do as a family.
I am so full of gratitude for the wild ride that life has taken me on, and it is such an honor to walk alongside YOU as you take proactive steps towards a living well life!