Archive for the ‘Environmental Toxins’ Category

Listening to the Whispers

November 28, 2021

It’s 3 years since I’ve written in this blog and like the character in the Paul Coelho book The Alchemist, I feel like I’ve been on a big and sometimes challenging journey and ended up back where I started, however altered and wiser for it. I’ve worked through various challenges and step by step I’ve been re-shaping my life to create more space for creating.

I’ve recently completed writing a chapter for a friend’s book about creating equality at work for women and men. My chapter is on the historical context and what I believe underpins our current patriarchal world and what we need to do to restore balance personally and planetarily. I’m about to share some photographs in a Brisbane exhibition titled ‘Restore: Re-enchanting Connection’ at Kepk Gallery in Brisbane 3rd-9th December. Both of these led me back to this blog and the importance of connection and ‘listening to the whispers’ is a key part of that.

‘Listening to the Whispers’ is a phrase that came to me many years ago, when I was writing about how to come back into balance and wellness both personally and planetarily as part of a Masters degree in Social Ecology, having recently left a corporate career that felt unhealthy, unsatisfying, and unsustainable.

Whilst sitting quietly in nature one day asking for clarity, I was guided to ‘listen to the whispers’, the quiet, wise voice inside us all that is connected to the source of all things. It shines a light on my circumstances when I access it by quietening my mind, asking a question and then listening and by that I mean being in a receptive state. When I ask for guidance or clarity about my current circumstances or challenges the answers I hear sometimes surprise me and always feels supportive.

I made a decision over 25 years ago to not only listen but to act on the knowing I receive. 

I quickly learned that listening to my feelings and acting on my intuition meant embracing uncertainty, letting go of perceived control whilst acknowledging but not catering to my fears. It required an act of faith to listen and then act, no matter what. I chose to, as Susan Jeffers advises in her book of the same name, “feel the fear and do it anyway”. David Whyte says, “that the price of our vitality is the sum of all our fears, that the price of our passion and commitment involves the shattering of deep personal illusions of immunity and safety.” I learned that life can be a dance between receiving and acting.

A brief synopsis of what happened for me personally as I took one intuitive, committed step at a time, was every aspect of my life changed and I continue to be led to more authenticity, creativity and connection.  I naturally moved toward connection to community, in a regional area rather than a city, connecting to the earth through regular time in nature and these both led to a deeper felt sense of spiritual connection, a direct experience of being connected to an intelligence greater than my own.

An unexpected outcome was that I became more conscious of the way I, and we humans collectively, are impacting the health of the planet and began modifying my consumer choices to reduce my consumption of resources. It was organic and visceral, I began to feel discomfort in my solar plexus if I reached to buy something in plastic packaging. The process continues to lead me toward a life that is more balanced, fulfilled and sustainable.

I say I was ‘led’ as I began to see a wisdom at play that inspired my choices with unexpected outcomes far superior to anything I could have or would have created through my limited understanding or logic alone. Quietening my busy and sometimes anxious mind and listening for inspiration became my mode of operating. My logical mind was now in healthy and supportive partnership with my intuitive knowing. I learned that my emotions when acknowledged and released in a healthy way, freed up this path of internal communication and connected me to my internal compass.

I believe the key to healing our societal and ecological issues is for individuals to foster a healthy relationship with their inner world; valuing and developing emotional intelligence, listening to and validating feelings and intuitions and acting wholistically from that internally connected place.  Like the natural world the soul is not controllable, however there is wisdom and wholeness to be found there, as I discovered when I made a commitment to listen to mine.

Everyone has access to their inner knowing, the quiet voice that speaks often with simple, yet clear directions on the path or action to take, the trick is to quieten our busy minds to hear it. I often hear mine when on walks in nature or engrossed in mundane tasks. We often ignore this voice because of a fear of the unknown. I have learned in living this way that often only the next step becomes clear and I have to take it faithfully without knowing what the step after that is to be. It requires trust that there is a greater and benevolent wisdom at play beyond my limited understanding.

Fear of the unknown and a lack of faith in the benevolence of life cuts us off from the very medicine we need; to listen to and act on our individual and collective inner wisdom and collaborate and enter into real partnership with each other and also with the natural world.

What supports you to access your inner knowing?

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This Canary Sings a Tale of Toxins

December 17, 2014

Chronic illness is on the increase. Why is it so? I first learned that multiple chronic illnesses have at least two common contributing factors over eleven years ago when I came across an arIMG_4246ticle in the Weekend Australian newspaper about Australian doctors getting significant improvements with autistic kids by using the same strategies my research had shown were successful in treating Chronic fatigue Syndrome (CFS); improving gut health and detoxifying environmental toxins like heavy metals and chemicals. Further research revealed that many other chronic illnesses have links to these same two factors. There are often also genetic and additional factors at play.

 

When the article was published on 22nd February 2003 it stated autism affected 1 in 500 to 1 in 1000 Australian children. Accelerating rapidly since then, a 2012 article puts the figure at 1 in 110. A startling increase. I’ll focus on environmental toxins in this blog post.

We’re all exposed to an increasing array of toxins and this can go part way to explaining the increase in chronic illness. IMG_3685Since the Industrial revolution billions of tonnes of toxic metals have been mined from the earth and used by humans to make things. They’ve been released into the air, water and soil and hence the food chain and there is a bio-accumulation effect in plants, animals and humans that has reached every corner of the earth. Seals, whales, polar bears and walruses, staples of the Arctic Inuit people’s diet have become deposits for the world’s 12 most toxic chemicals and they are passed on in breast milk. Toxic metals do not degrade into less harmful substances over time.

In the north of Greenland, where twice as many girl babies are being born to Inuit families than boys, scientists have discovered that toxic chemicals in their food are affecting their hormones and affecting the gender of the children being born.

 

We begin accumulating toxins in the womb. The Environmental Working Group in America (www.ewg.org) tested the umbilical cord blood of 10 newborn babies and found nearly 300 chemicals, including BPA, fire retardants, lead, PCBs and pesticides that were banned more than 30 years ago.IMG_4078

What do these heavy metals and chemicals do to our body? The short answer is damage it. They affect various enzyme systems, our excretory organs, liver and kidneys, our nervous, endocrine, immune and digestive systems and may contribute to allergies, chronic viral infections, Alzheimers disease and other neurological conditions like Parkinsons and Multiple Sclerosis. Genetic factors mean people with the same chemical exposure will manifest different symptoms .

Why are some people more affected ? It seems that some of us have a genetic predisposition to not excrete heavy metals and chemicals as well as others.

 

An article in the August Prevention magazine says “’We all have a IMG_3941different genetic ability to detoxify…it is not uncommon to be missing one or two detoxification genes or have a polymorphism (genetic variation) which may affect your ability to detoxify’…says Jan Purser, naturopathic nutritionist and clinical detoxification expert. ‘If someone says to me things like, ‘I can’t have more than a few drinks without getting a bad hangover’, or ‘I feel really unwell if I don’t eat vegetables every day’, I think to myself, ‘I bet they’ve got a polymorphism in their detoxification genes.’ “ .

A hair mineral analysis is one way to get information about the toxic heavy metals you have stored in your body. My hair analysis reveals that I still have high levels of mercIMG_3860ury, lead, arsenic, silver and uranium, despite years of detoxifying. I also used to have high levels of copper and aluminium. They all damage the human body.

The circumstantial evidence is strong that I, like many others, have genetic factors at play in dealing with the increasing amount of toxins we’re exposed to in our everyday lives.

When I was 18 I began going out to clubs with my friends, dancing, drinking, meeting boys and experimenting with this new freedom of being a ‘legal’ adult. One memorable ‘morning after’ saw me being  violently ill up until the next night. My friends who drank a similar amount to me had no significant side effecIMG_4218ts from our night out. Understandably I’ve been a cautious drinker ever since! Even one drink of alcohol can make me feel ill.

The other pointer to me possibly having a genetic pre-disposition to not excrete toxins so well is the fact that my sister Carole, the eldest of my 4 siblings, has also experienced Chronic Fatigue in her life and her daughter Fibromyalgia. When I told Carole earlier this year that I’d worked out the fumigation chemicals on the imported jewellery at work had been affecting my health, she recounted a story that I’d not heard before, which put another piece of the jigsaw in place for me.

She told me that when she worked as the Manager of a shoe store many years ago IMG_3808she became very sick and worked out that it was due to the chemicals used on the leather products. Leather tanning is one of the most toxic industries in the world because of the chemicals involved. She felt sick when she opened the shop door in the morning, as the off-gassed toxins had built up in the air in the shop overnight. It was the onset of many years of debilitating chronic fatigue. I asked her ‘when did you recover?’ and she said, ‘ I don’t think I ever have fully’.

Genetic predispositions to detoxifying may explain why Carole and I have both been affected by toxins in our work environments, whilst others working in the same or similar environments are not. Perhaps genetic pre-dispositions to detoxification may partly explain why some people develop chronic illnesses, from autism to MS and Parkinsons and some do not.

I was fortunate to find a doctor many years ago who diagnosed my illness correctly after one doctor told me my ill health was psychological, a common and distressing occurrence for people with these type of conditionsIMG_4247 and two other doctors shrugged their shoulders, having no idea how to help me.

That doctor explained to me the exponential affect of having multiple heavy metals in the body. Apparently adding one more heavy metal or chemical has the effect of times 10 or times 100 rather than plus 10 or plus 100.  One recent GP who had no understanding of environmental toxins on health said to me ‘Megan we are not taught about this in medical school’.

 

The Australasian College of Nutritional and Environmental Medicine provides training and education in this field. Anyone looking for a doctor with awareness about these issues can look at a practitioner list on the ACNEM website.

Those of us with genetic issues impacting detoxifying can be considered to be the ‘canary in the coal mine’. Canaries were once regularly used in coal mining as an early warning system. Toxic gases in the mine would kill the bird before affecting the miners. Signs of distress from the bird indicated to the miners that conditions were unsafe. The use of miners’ canaries in British mines was only phased out in 1987.IMG_4158

There are things we can all do to support our body to detoxify, like eating foods that support our liver and support detoxification, including fresh green foods. We can have saunas and take herbs and nutritional supplements. I recovered my health this year, as I did previously, by following a comprehensive and extended detoxification program with a skilled and experienced practitioner and  I recommend getting professional support from a detoxification expert, especially if you have a chronic condition.

There are also ways to limit our exposure to toxins in the first place, like eating organic foods and using chemical free personal and cleaning products. The first step is becoming aware of what chemicals and toxins are in our environment, in products we use or eat and in environments we spend time in. There will be more than you think. You may already know about mercury in dental amalgams and aluminium in dIMG_4079eoderants for example but did you know there is often lead in lipsticks and mercury in eye drops?  Do you cook food in non stick or aluminium pans? We are surrounded by them in our homes and work places.

 

There are many resources available on this topic, one resource on my bookshelf is called Invisible Killers. It is an invisible but very real factor that contributes to a lot of ill health. I’ve learnt to trust my instincts and act on this when the tangible evidence is hard to find and when there is little awareness of these issues amongst medical professionals. When the word ‘neurotoxin’ popped into my mind during a massage earlier this year as my health was declining I listened and acted.

We can all make a positive impact on our own health as well as the health of the world by the consumer choices we make. It’s become much easier to source organic and chemical free products due to higher demand from a more aware populace.  As an Inuit leader said ‘We are the land and the land is us. When our land and animals are poisoned, so are we.’  Awareness is the first step.

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A Bird’s-Eye View

November 27, 2014

 

The last 6 months for me have been a period of change; healing, enlivening and sometimes challenging.

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Recently I went to the local Spa to relax and detoxify. I felt the end of week tension gradually leave and a sense of spaciousness and ease come in. I felt myself rise up above all the detail of my life and get a bird’s-eye view, an eagle’s view and gain a deeper understanding.

When I’m in my day to day life I sometimes feel uncomfortable about what I perceive as uncertainty around my work and income. Taking time out to relax through a long walk or a long soak at the spa helps reconnect me to the bigger picture of my life.

 

At the spa I became aware of the spaciousness of uncertainty and how it leaves room for change, transformation and growth. Gradually my circumstances have been changing and I’ve been changing.

How?IMG_1304

To my surprise my paid work has continued and evolved and a new part-time home-based sales role was created for me by my existing employer, working half the hours I was before.

As I relaxed in the spa, I felt like I was watching a movie trailer of my life as a synopsis of the last 6 months passed gently through my mind. I’m much more creatively satisfied than I was 6 months ago, having developed IMG_1586creative outlets through writing and photography.

 

I’ve been learning how to relax and switch off my nervous system through daily or twice daily deep rest and relaxation times.

 

I’ve brought more pleasure into my life through weekly Nia dance classes and beach walks with friends.

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At the local Farmers Market I buy my weekly organic vegetables and eggs from happy chooks, and enjoy relaxing in the company of friends and listening to the music. Weekly trips to the Farmers market used to be something to cross off my ‘to do’ list as I raced off to work and it took months to break my task driven habit of rushing.

 

I recently attended a Connecting to Your Pleasure workshop to see what I could learn there and it helped re-ignite my relationship to my senses through stopping and noticing and savouring mindfully what I’m experiencing in each moment of the day.

Having this eagle’s awareness come to me in the spa was a relief as recently anxiety had got a hold of me. As I’ve pared back my work hours I’ve been faced with what’s left. Me. No place to IMG_2045hide.

 

What’s revealed when I stop?

When I resist the urge to fill the space things begin to percolate up from inside and are revealed to me. Inner voices tell me, ‘You should get a more secure job’ and ‘You should be earning more money’. Another chides me, ‘Surely if you have nothing else constructive to do then you should be working on your next blog right now.’ Apparently rest and relaxation are not permitted activities! I dig a bit deeper, what’s under this?

 

I reveal inner voices that whisper I’m unsafe, that life is a struggle, that I can’t be REALLY healthy and on it goes.

 

On occasion I’ve been ‘shoulding’ on myself,  future tripping, ‘what if’ ing and worrying. Unhelpful pastimes. It’s no wonder I’ve been feeling anxiety as I come up against old limiting beliefs.

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Where do these voices come from?

 

Often out of our mouths or into our minds come voices we heard when we were young. It may not even be something a parent or teacher said, but something we told ourselves and came to believe as a truth due to the circumstances we experienced. Levering out these little hidden nuggets and shining light on them I can begin to question how true they are and decide whether I want to believe or follow their directives anymore. They begin losing their power to influence my life.

 

Issues of anxiety and depression have been present through my life, through watching my mother and other family members deal with them and through my own experience of themIMG_2167. My mother suffered from crippling anxiety and depression throughout her life and it was never diagnosed or treated. As a child I didn’t realise she had an illness, I just came to know life through the prism of anxiety.

 

Due to my recent anxious thinking I’d begun to feel my health sliding backwards and with some external help turned that around. Central to my healing journey over the past 14 years has been identifying, releasing and healing old emotional wounds that hijack my health.  It is by no means the only factor and it is an important one. I’ve been blessed to have a skilled facilitator to guide this process utilising Kinesiology at the Byron Bay Wellness Centre.

 

Our mental and emotional states directly affect our physical health through our etheric body and meridian system and not only our current emotional state, but emotional states we’ve experienced in the past that can be triggered by current circumstances. I’ve discovered first hand that our bodies store emotional memories and have habituated ways of responding to certain emotional triggers and they can be re-trained.

 

IMG_0964How can I feel secure in the midst of change and uncertainty?

Connecting to my higher awareness and guidance through listening to the quiet, still voice within provides me with a feeling of security, and that’s what I connected to when I was in the spa. We all have the ability to tap into ‘all that is’, the mystery of life that we are an aspect of. There are resources and wisdom available there which are not available when I am just connected to my small, fearful, anxious ‘I’ self.

I listened to my intuition earlier in the year as I wrote in my journal:

 

“23/4/14 – I am launching myself into the abyss, the fertile void, the place of all possibility once more. A path of uncertainty, of opening and expansion. My soul calls me forwardIMG_3031. A desire to expand and experience more aspects of life, beyond logic. An impulse to free up constraints and express more of my intrinsic nature, to more deeply connect with the source of all things. What’s next? Self care and self kindness, enrichment and release, listening and allowing, opening and trusting. Emerging clarity. “

 

Lao Tsu said, ‘ Do you have the patience to wait until the mud settles and the water is clear. Can you remain unmoving until the right action arises by itself ? ‘. I’ve chosen to listen to my soul, stay in the uncertainty and allow the unravelling. I know that change takes time.

 

I’m seeing that more is drawn forth from you when you create space in your life. Both more soulful expression and sometimes obstacles to tIMG_2692hat expression. Anxious voices from within or others about what you ‘should’ do or be doing may come in and tempt you to fill the space. Wait and see if it feels right. If it doesn’t, don’t. More of you will be revealed and reflected back to you if you can stand the pressure and wait, listen and be and only act when ‘the right action arises by itself’.

 

Mindfulness, having your awareness in this present moment and responding from there, is  an antidote to anxiety. When we are mindful in each moment we are not future or past tripping or worrying about ‘what ifs’. It is an act of self-kindness and is good for our mental health, our emotional health and our physical heath and it’s something I’m cultivating.

I’m finding on my days off, when the ‘sRIMG0283hould’ voices tell me to do something that I now stop, check inside with how I’m feeling and ask myself, ‘what do I need right now?’ and ‘what do I feel drawn to do right now?’. I often find that what I really need or want in that moment is to prepare some food or have a nap!

 

 

For $15 for an hour’s soak and deep relaxation at the local Spa I got more than I was expecting. I gained a bird’s-eye view and a deeper understanding and acceptance of how my life is right now. I rose above my anxious inner voices and I was reminded that life is unfolding and taking care of me and enriching me, one moment at a time.

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Peace One Day

September 19, 2014

Who inspires you? Jeremy Gilley inspires me. Have you heard of him? He’s a British Filmmaker who not only has a vision for a better world, but has taken considerable and consistent action toward creating it. In 1999 he started an organisation called Peace One Day and began talking to world leaders, including Kofi Annan, Nelson Mandala, Mary Robertson, the Dalai Lama and then the leaders of 76 countries to gain support for his proposal.

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His proposal? An annual international ceasefire day. An International Day of Peace was established in 1981 by the United Nations ‘as a day devoted to commemorating and strengthening the ideals of peace, both within and among all nations and peoples’.

Jeremy’s goal was to make the day practical rather than just symbolic. On 7th September 2001, following 2 years of international lobbying by Jeremy and his team, the member states of the United Nations unanimously adopted that the International Day of Peace would be set at 21st September annually from 2002, and it would be an annual day of global ceasefire and non-violence…a cessation of hostilities. Literally one day of global peace each year.IMG_1992

At the time the UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan noted the ceasefire meant that ‘Where respected, it will have practical effect. Where truces are observed, medical and developmental agencies can provide vital services to civilian victims in safety. And even a one-day pause in the fighting gives us something to build on in the work to end conflict.’

It’s a day to pause, to think, to immunise children, to move supplies, to experience what a world without war looks and feels like. Hundreds of organisations carry out life-saving activities in areas of conflict on 21st September. In 2007 1.6 million children in Afghanistan were vaccinated against polio on Peace Day after the Taliban and the government agreed to cease hostilities and in the years since more gains have been made in Afghanistan thanks to International Peace Day. I wonder what they’ll achieve this year ?

On September 11th 2001, which was International Peace Day that year and 4 days after the vote, a prIMG_1365ess conference was planned in New York to announce this incredibly important commitment to the world. As Jeremy waited for Kofi Annan to arrive at the press conference an aeroplane flew into the building behind him, and he unwittingly caught it on film. The press conference and the announcement of an annual International ceasefire day never happened, however the seed of international peace had been sown 4 days before and I believe that’s significant.

Shocked by the events he witnessed, it’s been Jeremy’s mission ever since to turn that day into a reality. The goal of Peace One Day now is to make 3 billion people aware of the International Day of Peace by 2016, from 280 million people in 2012, and to make it a real day of global truce. Despite its overshadowed beginnings, the awareness and gains are growing every year due to the efforts of an increasing number of people and organisations.

What can I do? Peace beginIMG_2007s with each of us cultivating peace in our own lives. We’re all connected, so anything we do individually affects everyone else. If we’re enmeshed in relationships or situations that generate angst for ourselves or others then taking positive steps toward relieving that is going to benefit all. We can’t change anyone else, but we can change our own thoughts and actions.

Peace Day is also about reducing violence in homes, communities and schools. The Peace One Day website invites us all to think about ”What can you say to make peace with someone? What can you do to make peace with someone?…who will you make peace with? “

For me peace begins with listening. Listening to myself and listening to others. Respecting myself and respecting others. Being kind to myself and being kind to others. Caring for myself and caring for others. Imagine if there were deep listeIMG_1926ning in the places in the world where conflict is occurring.  Asking, ‘What do you need?’ and ‘How can we move forward together ?’. Hearing the pain of the other and saying ‘I’m sorry’ if my actions contributed to your pain.

Listening, empathy, acknowledgement, negotiating and forgiveness are the tools of peace.   It’s been through negotiation that the Taliban and the Afghanistan government agreed to stop hostilities for one day a year to allow life saving work to take place. It’s a start.

This is why the apology by Australian Prime Minister Rudd to the Stolen Generations of Aboriginal Australians was necessary. It involved listening, acknowledging and saying ‘I’m sincerely sorry’. We could not begin to move forward without it, eIMG_1146ven though we still have a long way to go to bring about peace in my own country.

On the same day, September 21st this year, a global day of climate action is also planned to bring to the attention of world leaders, who are meeting 2 days later at the UN (except Australia’s Prime Minister!), that many of us are concerned we’re not taking action quickly enough to combat climate change. Many thousands will gather globally to signal to our leaders that this issue is above politics and religion and the differences that create conflict and war. This is an issue that highlights our common humanity and may end up being the issue that unites us all.

I’ll be attending one of the climate change rallies and joining a global meditation for peace organised as part of International Peace day. We have been invited by Be The Peace, a group of collaborating organisations, to arrange or join a meditation at 12 noon in our local time zone on 21st September and be involved in a global synchronized meditation and prayer for peace at 12 noon PST, which is 5am-6am September 22nd on the east coIMG_0574ast of Australia. I’ll also be thinking about who I need to forgive, who I am harbouring any resentment toward and commit to letting it go.

Jeremy Gilley has demonstrated what just one person can achieve when they’re REALLY passionate about something. What are you REALLY passionate about? He’s also demonstrated that every single person has the power to effect major change in the world and that we can’t and don’t need to leave it up to the governments of the world to bring about peace and change. I subscribe to the leading by example, ‘be the peace’, theory. Peace starts with me… and you.

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STOPPING BUSY

August 21, 2014

“Hi. How have you been?“. “Busy”, is an often heard response. I caught myself saying it recently and felt a slight twinge of something as I said it.  Justification? Pride? Our society has become addicted to ‘busy’, our worth is measured by activity or output, doing has become more valued than being. An excellent article in the New York Times in 2012 called it ‘The Busy Trap‘. We are in a rush to…where? I’ve found that being busy is not necessarily related to how much I have to do in a day. Stopping can be  scary. What’s left when I stop?  I’m on a quest to find and restore my lost ‘off button’. I’ve learned good health depends on it.

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In our modern world we’re all exposed to an increasing amount of environmental toxins that accumulate in our bodies if not released and this toxic load underpins many chronic health conditions. Constant busyness creates stress that gets in the way of that release as many essential and restorative bodily functions are put on hold. When we don’t deeply relax and switch off regularly in healthy ways,  it means in essence we wear ourselves out.

 

My highest health priority is to detoxify my body after being exposed to chemicals at work, and supporting my liver, kidneys and cells through nutritional, herbal and other natural methods is only part of the picture. At an early age my fight and flight response was triggered and whilst any threat is long gone my system does not naturally switch ‘off’ and this is  exacerbated by living in a society that values constant doing.IMG_1223

I’m feeling grateful for the choice I have made to work at half pace from home right now and the time this is giving me to reconnect with myself and delve inside, to loosen up the edges and identify ways of being in the world that are toxic and unhelpful… even damaging. I’m noticing the tension that I create for myself, even when there aren’t a lot of demands on my time.

 

For example, a health practitioner recently recommended that I spend some time relaxing after my morning walk. Relax? Normally I get back home and get straight into hastily preparing and eating breakfast, then immediately launch into whatever I’m doing that day, often rushing out the door. Rest and relax? Gosh that feels challenging. IMG_0713I’m gradually retraining myself.

On some mornings I’ve allowed myself to lay down and deeply relax after my walk and I feel much more energised, relaxed and focussed afterwards. More present. I’ll confess that the insistent list of things that I believe need my immediate attention beckon me on other mornings. It’s a work in progress.

Tuesdays and Thursdays have been my days ‘off’, unstructured days with all possibilities, yet my mind gets busy, wanting to work out what to ‘do’ in that day to get the most value from that precious time. A few weeks ago I even had a day off ‘to do list’. Oh No! A list of things to DO on my day off. Then I felt the pressure to decide what to do first! A relaxing day suddenly became unrelaxed. How can I retrain myself when my habits are so ingrained? Time to call in a specialist. Enter Kylie Martin.

 

I’ve started going to Kylie’s deep rest therapy classes. She says she ‘is a specialist in stress related illness and body-mind conditions’ and has healed herself using these methods. HIMG_0270er two hour classes are about deep release and relaxation, switching off the nervous system, to help release old patterns of holding that we may have carried for a lifetime. I found myself in the first class thinking impatiently, ‘well there’s not much going on, we’re just laying here, and I am paying for this and how many people are in the room? That means….!’. Of course stopping was the point, physically and mentally and I eventually got there.

Kylie’s given me homework, including inviting me to gift myself every day with a modified Shavasana relaxation.   Shavasana relaxation is the integrative period of stillness at the end of a yoga class. I’m noticing the accumulated effects weaving into my everyday life and a sense of stillness beginning to infiltrate my body. Let me talk you through the process in case you’d like to try it. I’ve been doing it at the end of the day before I cook dinner.

 

Grab a towel, an eye pillow and some blankets and put some nice relaxing music on. Because it’s winter and a bit chilly and it’s part of the process to have weight on top of you, I lay on my bed under my doona with my feet wrapped in a blanket and pushed up against the bed head (or wall). Having your feet against a wall helps your nervous system to feel safe to relax. You could also lay on a mat on the floor. Having your knees slightly bent over a cushion is optional and IIMG_0398 prefer it that way.  Having weight on top of you in the form of blankets also helps your nervous system relax, so lay some folded blankets over you.

Put the towel around your neck like you are carrying it to the shower and then lift the ends up and cross them over your forehead and wrap the ends behind your head. You are wrapping your head up so it feels nice and cosy and held. Extremely relaxing for the nervous system. Put an eye pillow on your eyes and lay with your hands, palm upwards, by your side. Now relax. It feels like you’re cocooned. Focus on noticing and letting go of any holding, notice your breathing and scan through your body, releasing tension, bit by bit by bit. It feels delicious. I do it for 15 to 40 minutes.

 

A popular quote doing the rounds is ‘stop the glorification of busy’. Let’s replace it with the power of stopping and the miracle of being. I am beginning to re-program myself to cure my busy habit and develop new nourishing habits. I am learning how to deeply relax and literally switch off to build a healthy and resilient body and to connect to what’s important ratheIMG_1133r than what I might have thought was urgent. Many years ago I wrote a poem about this topic unsurprisingly called Stop!. The last stanza says:

I stand within the stillness of stopping

Peace and joy permeate the space

I feel excitement, joy, the urge to create

Everything is possible…when I stop.

 

Kylie told me that she gives herself a period of deep rest every day and she is able to achieve a lot without depleting herself. She is now productive, energised and relaxed rather than busy and exhausted. Sounds good to me.  So how have you been?

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Recovering

July 6, 2014

Yay, I am feeling better! Thank goodness for that. A couple of months ago I was feeling quite unwell, fatigued and needing to have 2 hour naps everyday.  I had that ‘sick’ feeling like when you have a hangover and you feel toxic and unwell. With a hangover it goes away in a day or so, however the unwellness I was experiencing did not go away.

For the past 18 months I had been observing that it was more and more difficult for me to maintain my state of wellness which I had worked so hard to create. I was experiencing increasing fatigue and issues with my liver, nervous system, breathing and digestive issues that diIMG_0838d not respond to herbs as they normally would. Like piecing together the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, I finally realised in April this year that the gradual deterioration I had been experiencing was due to breathing in toxic fumes off gassing from fumigated boxes imported from overseas. Can I prove it? No. Whilst my two co-workers did not appear to be affected I had to trust both my logic and more importantly I had to trust my intuition, which was giving me ever increasing insistent messages.

For the past three years I have worked in a warehouse breathing in those fumes, invisible, but no less toxic. The toxins, my logic told me, would have accumulated in my system, a system already weighed down by heavy metals and chemicals, a key contributor to the chronic fatigue I experienced for seven years from 1999 to 2006, after a general anaesthetic tipped me into debilitating illness. Hair analysis still reveals high levels of arsenic, lead, mercury, lead and uranium in my system despite all the detoxifying I have done over the last 15 years. A doctor I saw many years ago explained to me that having multiple toxins has an exponential effect, so the stress to the body of adding in one more is not like plus one it is more like times one hundred.

As two more shipments arrived early thIMG_1344is year my deterioration accelerated and my alarm bells went off. In the midst of a massage, during which I had prayed to receive healing, the word ‘neurotoxin’ popped into my clear quiet mind. It was as if it was being whispered insistently into my ear. It got my attention. I began investigating the fumigation chemical Methyl Bromide and found it affects the nervous system, respiratory system and liver. Aha!

Since leaving the warehouse on 22nd April I have been doing everything I can possibly think of to restore my body, to regenerate, to detoxify and nourish myself. I knew from my previous journey of healing that chronic fatigue type illnesses are multi-factorial and require a multi-pronged approach and that identifying and removing the causes of stress supports our bodies to return to equilibrium. What have I been doing?

I have been eating a clean diet high in organic vegetables and protein and no sugar or alcohol,  I have rested and taken long luxurious napIMG_0498s, regular walks and time in nature, Kinesiology and Neuro Cranio Restructuring sessions to help soothe my stressed nervous system, deep rest yoga classes to teach my body how to relax and unwind, tapping on meridian points with EFT (emotional freedom technique), taking supplements; liver herbs, parasite herbs, vitamins, minerals and especially a detoxification product. Natural Cellular Defense, made from the mineral zeolite that helped me get well in 2006, oil pulling; swishing organic sesame oil in my mouth every morning for 20 minutes which helps detoxify the body, listening to meditation tapes, doing breathing exercises, rubbing neuro emotional points on my body, visiting Kiva Spa to relax and detoxify via the use of the sauna, dance classes to connect me to my life force, to my joy, as a release. Two months ago I was laying on the floor in the class crying because I felt so unwell, now I can not only complete a whole class, I feel uplifted by it.

So what has worked? Most probably a combination of everything, not least of which was removing myself from the source of the exposure. After two months I am breathing easier, I have more energy, the fatigue has lifted, my nervous system has begun to calm down, the colour has come back into my face and I no longer need two hour naps to get through the day.  While I continue to detoxify I am very grateful to be feeling better in such a short amount of time.  Compared to the seven years it took me to recover from CFS this is the blink of an  eye.

IMG_0575We are all exposed to an increasing number of invisible toxins, heavy metals and chemicals, in our modern world and some of us are the ‘canaries’ signalling their presence. A doctor I saw who supported my decision to leave the workplace told me ‘it is hard to prove’ and yes if I am looking for scientific validation then it is.  I have found that many doctors don’t understand  the factors that contribute to chronic fatigue type illnesses or understand the impact of the increasing toxic load we are all accumulating and living with. Some of us are genetically pre-disposed to not excrete environmental toxins as well as others.

Leaving the security of a job was scary and I am grateful that I heard and trusted my intuition and removed myself from the source of the exposure. Where did the ‘neuro toxin’ lead that dropped into my awareness in that massage come from? A message from my higher self or a spirit guide perhaps. ? Wherever it came from, I am very grateful that it came.

 

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