Life, Values & Legacy: Our Chat with Amy (Todisco) Hartshorn

Amy (Todisco) Hartshorn shared their story and experiences with us recently and you can find our conversation below.

Good morning Amy, we’re so happy to have you here with us and we’d love to explore your story and how you think about life and legacy and so much more. So let’s start with a question we often ask: Are you walking a path—or wandering?
I’m walking a path—very much on purpose.
But it didn’t start out that way.

For years I wandered through the same overwhelm and confusion that so many women feel.
Trying to sort truth from marketing.
Trying to detox my home, nourish my family, and stay healthy in a toxic world that profits from our uncertainty.

And then it shifted.

The more I learned, the more I paid attention, the more I experimented and lived this work…the more I realized it wasn’t just interest.

It was a passion—and eventually, a calling.

Not the kind of calling that arrives as one big lightning bolt, but the kind that builds over a few years: in the soil of my garden, in the research I couldn’t stop diving into, in the women who kept coming to me for help, in the truth I couldn’t unsee.

That’s when the wandering ended and the path began to take shape.

Today, I walk a clear intentional path grounded in lived experience, real wellness, and clarity.
And I help other women find their path—so they don’t have to wander as long as I did.

Because once you hear the truth, you can’t un-hear it.
And once you feel real wellness, you can’t go back.

Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
I’m Amy (Todisco) Hartshorn, and my work began long before “clean living” became a trend.

I grew up in a kitchen where my stepfather — a chef — taught me how to cook from scratch before most kids could boil water. My mother was committed to nutrition before it was fashionable, and my great-aunt JoJo grew her own food, made her own soap, and lived the kind of grounded, intentional life most people are now trying to reclaim.

But my real turning point — my whiplash moment — came in 1992, when I was pregnant and browsing a health food store. I picked up a book called The Nontoxic Baby… and expected practical advice about healthy beginnings.

Instead, I stumbled into a truth I wasn’t prepared for:

Everyday household products — the “normal” things we all bought — were filled with toxic chemicals.
And no one was protecting us.

Not the government.
Not the companies.
Not the regulators.

That moment cracked something open in me.

I couldn’t unknow it.
I couldn’t go back to “business as usual.”
And I absolutely could not raise a child inside that illusion.

So, I did what I’ve done ever since:

I started researching.
I started asking the questions no one wanted asked.
I started speaking up.

A simple letter to the editor turned into a community Earth Day celebration…

which became the Marblehead Cancer Prevention Project…

which led to co-creating the Household Toxins Institute with the founder of Seventh Generation,
which led to years of national media features, including HGTV, Vermont Public TV & Radio…
and now, an invitation to give a TEDx talk.

But through all of it, the thread has always been the same:

Truth.
Discernment.
And the fierce belief that women deserve clarity — not confusion — when it comes to their health.

Today, I run Green Living Now, host the Green Living Now podcast, write Notes from the Rebellion, and lead The Circle — a private community for women who want real wellness without trends, fear, or overwhelm.

What makes my work different?

I didn’t wait to get sick
I don’t teach theory.
I teach what I’ve lived for more than 30 years.
I don’t greenwash, sugarcoat, or promote products I don’t understand and haven’t tried myself.
I tell the truth, even when it’s inconvenient, and especially when it matters.

Because real wellness isn’t a lifestyle aesthetic.
It’s a rebellion.
And women are waking up.

Amazing, so let’s take a moment to go back in time. What was your earliest memory of feeling powerful?
I was thirteen, in a teen actors’ workshop in New York City — the kind that didn’t just teach performance but pulled emotions out of you like threads.

We had just done an exercise where three of us stood on stage: one had to embody love, one hate, and one fear — all at the same time.

Imagine trying to tell someone you love them while another person is screaming that they hate you.
It was messy, chaotic, disorienting… and strangely revealing.

You learn quickly that the only way to stay grounded is to stay rooted in your own truth, no matter what’s being thrown at you.

Then came the assignment:
“Go create a character. You have twenty minutes.”

I remember thinking twenty minutes was an eternity — and that whatever I created had to be real.
This wasn’t a group that tolerated fluff.

I’d decided to be a ballerina — an easy leap from my gymnastics background — until the girl before me walked on stage and beat me to it.

Suddenly, I had nothing.

So, I stepped on stage with a blank slate… and the strangest idea flashed through my mind:

Be a televangelist.

I had just enough exposure from the evangelical side of my family — and from the characters I’d seen on TV — to tap into the cadence, the intensity, the strange emotional electricity of it.

So, I tried it.

I lifted my hands, dropped into the voice, channeled a conviction I didn’t know I had… and something shocking happened:

The entire audience got down on their knees.
Praying.
Responding.
Following.

For a moment, I froze.
I couldn’t believe I had catalyzed a room full of teenagers and adults into collective movement.
It was like watching energy travel through me rather than from me.

And then the teachers yelled from the back:

“Stay in character! Keep going!”

So, I did.

And that was the first time I felt real power — not over people, but through connection, through presence, through a kind of emotional truth that moved others without force.

Looking back, that moment was the earliest expression of something I still do now:
helping people wake up, pay attention, feel something real, and move from it.

If you could say one kind thing to your younger self, what would it be?
I’d tell her: “Trust what you’re sensing — it’s leading you somewhere important.”

Because I was never lost.
I was never wandering.
I was following my curiosity, my intuition, and that quiet inner pull that always seemed to nudge me toward what was real — even when no one else was paying attention yet.

I’d remind her that her kindness and empathy didn’t cancel out her strength.
That she could be warm and collaborative and still refuse to play along with anything that violated her values.

I’d tell her:

“You don’t have to make yourself smaller to be liked.”

That being elected captain of the high school gymnastics team, co-captain of volleyball, and sports rep wasn’t an accident — it was early proof that people trusted her leadership, even before she fully trusted it herself.

And I’d remind her of something she already knew deep down:

Speaking up — even to professors who misused their power — wasn’t rebellion. It was integrity.

She wasn’t causing trouble.
She was telling the truth.

I’d tell her:

“You’re not ahead because you’re different. You’re ahead because you’re paying attention.”

And I’d leave her with this:

“Keep following those intuitive nudges.
They’re not distractions — they’re breadcrumbs.
They’ll lead you exactly where you’re meant to go.”

Sure, so let’s go deeper into your values and how you think. Where are smart people getting it totally wrong today?
Smart people aren’t getting it wrong because they’re careless — they’re getting it wrong because they’re busy, overwhelmed, and being misled by systems designed to confuse them.

The biggest mistake I see is this:

They trust the wrong sources.
Not because they’re naive, but because the marketplace rewards:

compliance over truth

appearance over substance

unaware confidence over actual competence

Even the smartest, most well-intentioned people are falling for:

“clean” brands that aren’t actually clean

influencers who genuinely mean well but don’t understand what they’re recommending

wellness hacks that are more marketing than science

labels that sound safe but hide loopholes

trends that feel empowering but create dependency

detox promises that overwhelm more than they liberate

They’re also outsourcing their intuition to authorities who haven’t earned that trust.

Smart people get it wrong when they assume:

if it’s in a natural store, it must be healthy

if a label says “non-toxic,” it must be true

if an influencer uses it, it must be vetted

if regulators allow it, it must be safe

if everyone’s doing it, it must work

But the truth is:

Most products marketed as “clean” are greenwashed.
Most wellness advice is recycled.
Most trends are distractions.
And most people have never been taught how to discern any of it.

And it’s not their fault.

The system is designed to keep them overwhelmed — because confused people don’t question things. They just buy.

What smart people are missing isn’t intelligence; it’s discernment.

It’s not about finding the perfect product.
It’s about learning to trust your own body, your instincts, your critical thinking, and the wisdom that’s been drowned out by noise.

Smart people aren’t wrong because they’re uninformed.
They’re wrong because they’ve been listening to the loudest voices, not the truest ones.

Okay, we’ve made it essentially to the end. One last question before you go. What do you understand deeply that most people don’t?
I understand that the future of our health isn’t hidden in another chemical or manufactured solution — it’s rooted in remembering what humans always knew.

We’ve drifted so far from the way we lived for thousands of years that we’ve forgotten a fundamental truth:

Our bodies and the earth are designed to work together — and everything falls apart when we separate them.

I understand that real wellness begins when we return to the practices that sustained us long before ag chemicals, GMOs, petroleum-based fertilizers, and toxic synthetic pesticides took over our food system.

When food was grown in real soil.
When we ate seasonally.
When we cleaned with things like vinegar, castile soap, sunshine, and intention — not endocrine disruptors in pretty packaging.
When we preserved food simply, traded with neighbors, knew our farmers, and understood that community wasn’t optional — it was the backbone of health.

And while I believe deeply in going back to these roots, I also understand that the path forward includes modern holistic technologies that work with nature rather than against it — light therapies, frequency devices, energy-based modalities, and innovations that support the body’s innate healing intelligence.

These are not replacements for nature.
They’re extensions of it.
Tools that amplify what the body already knows how to do.

What concerns me is not these technologies — it’s the worldview that says humans can improve nature through domination:

Weather modification

Lab-created food

Synthetic biology

Industrialized farming

Genetic manipulation

These approaches don’t honor life — they control it.
And when we try to override natural systems, we sever ourselves from the very forces that keep us healthy.

What I understand deeply is that real health comes from reconnection, not control.

Reverence, not domination.
Partnership, not hierarchy.
A return to what is simple, real, wise — paired with innovations that respect natural laws rather than violate them.

And beneath all of it is one truth:

Every person — every soul — is an expression of something sacred.
And when we live as though we are interconnected, everything improves.

We choose better.
We care for the land.
We feed our families differently.
We honor our bodies and intuition.
We remember how to live.

This isn’t nostalgia.
It’s the map forward.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.greenlivingnow.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amytodisco/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amytodisco/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/amy.d.todisco
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@greenlivingnow

Image Credits
Amy (Todisco) Hartshorn & ChatGPT