Why I Quit Young Living

                       Why I Quit Young Living

I have promoted Young Living publicly for over five years now.  So, this is the only reason that I am choosing to share why our family has decided to quit.  I love YL’s products, and we use a ton of different ones in our home on a daily basis. There are a couple reasons that I’m not going to disclose publicly either.  This is in no way to give YL a black eye or the MLM businesses.  I’m not writing for either of those reasons.  This is a long story so if you want to find out why , keep reading. :)

Back in the fall 2021, I decided that in January 2022 it would be one of my goals to really focus on my YL business and get it up and running more than I had ever done before.  I had spoken to quite a few people who told me that after I got it back up in January that they would join me.  One person I know for sure would’ve taken it and ran with it and built her a good business too.  So, there was a little extra added pressure that I put on myself. (I did personally talk to the people who I had previously talked to).

While the same I was feeling this weird tug to get out of Young Living completely. Which I ignored, well not completely. I kinda thought it was my own nervousness about kicking it into high gear.  Around mid/late fall a big social media influencer quit her Young Living business. She was making six figures a year, and completely walked away from it without second thought, it seemed.  She never publicly gave her reason why she left.  I liked that. She kept it classy, but that made the curiosity all the more.  Just for information, I’m not the kind of person who jumps on the bandwagon to either start or stop something just because someone else is or is not, just not me.  But it did give me pause for thought. “Lord is this the nudge I’m feeling?”.  

So, I began causally researching different essential oil companies. No, rush just a starting point.

Young Living changed upper leadership again. This is the second or third time in the five years that I have been a brand partner.  The changes that were made just didn’t align with my thoughts or beliefs. The shipping flat out sucks. I don’t care if you’re in the business or not. It sucks. There were some things that I felt needed some transparency and that was not given.  YL offered a statement but no clarification nor an apology.  I felt like that was just flat out shady.  Especially from a company that prided itself on transparency. And the price point, they’re so expensive.  

Then, later on in the year another social media influencer was fired from her business account. She lost everything (within her business) her paycheck, her downline, etc. With no severance or anything. Nothing. She just got axed.  She didn’t indulge YL’s reasons for firing her account publicly either.  But by that time, I was uber curious and felt like all this was small confirmations of what I needed to do as well.  I ended up sending her a private message to ask what happened.  She was gracious enough to answer. 

Life goes on. It's January now, and I’m still ordering and using products.  All of a sudden out of nowhere this crazy book came out and was sent to down lines (much higher than I). The book was talking about all kinds of new-agey stuff. Garbage that I feel like Christians should not participate in.  But still. I wasn’t using the oils and other products in those ways. 

All of this stuff going on, I felt like I needed to give Young Living a shot to answer some of my questions instead of just listening to one sided conversation. I didn’t waste time running up the chain. I didn’t want to hear a parroted story.  I emailed YL corporate directly. I wanted to hear straight from the horse’s mouth.   I laid out my thoughts and concerns.  Now there was nothing else I could do but wait for a response.  They did email me back.  I was very glad about that.  Customer service always helps to show you some integrity of a company.  Their response really irritated me. They gave me a couple choices which I felt were both stupid and didn’t resolve any of my issues.   After their response it sealed the deal for me. I started kicking my search into other oil companies into high gear.  We spend money with them every month. I know a company of its size isn’t going to make everyone happy. There are some things that I can control with my dollars and that’s exactly what I’ll do.  I will continue to use the products we currently have. And I will miss the couple of products that are Young Living’s exclusives. But we will find replacements for those.  I have learned several lessons from my experience, not all bad either.  One lesson that I will also share with you is not to put all of your eggs in one basket.  I did this with a ton of our everyday products.  I thought I was doing the best for my family.  I was also earning points/commission on everything I spent. So, I counted it a win. I was buying all of our soaps, lotions, dish soaps, toothpaste, household cleaner, etc., and our oils from Young Living. Now,  not only am I looking for a different essential oil company, but I’m also now looking these for clean products for my family.

This goes further, showing that God does care about EVERY single detail of our lives.  In hindsight, I should’ve listened and obeyed sooner. My bad. But the Lord knew it would take me a little longer.  He isn’t surprised or even upset with me.  He knew that staying longer with that company I was using resources that I could have been using in a better way.  

At one point I even found myself grieving this loss. I know it sounds lame now, but it's true. I had to really check myself and ask  “why am I grieving something that I know the Lord is telling me to loose?”  That made me feel all types of ways.  First of all, there were some unhealthy ties to it.  I don’t want to feel that way about anything. Especially something as trivial as essential oils. Secondly, it made me glad that I was hearing and obeying the Lord. It's not hard to do that. We're the one who puts restrictions on the voice of God. Thirdly, I don’t think God was telling me that I couldn’t use essential oils anymore; it was the company that He didn’t want me involved in.  There may be things we never know or find out whys on, but if you lean into the Lord’s leading you can’t go wrong.

I have found another company that I will be purchasing oils and other products from.  It is not a MLM. It’s a direct-to-consumer business. No mark ups and free shipping for every sale! That’s a plus to me.  Still looking for different products and different companies to purchase these things from.

The moral of the story is, if you feel that tug to do or not to do. Pay attention and get there a little sooner than I did, friends.