I was “healthy”.
When I was in publishing, I loved what I did and my entertainment was more writing, reading — bedtime for me was putting on my earphones to “zen out” to the latest news and podcasts. What was interesting is that to “offset” my heavy use of the tech devices, I spent my after-work hours doing yoga and swimming, and I ate ‘green’.
By my late 20s, my lifelong dizzy spells began to feel debilitating. It seemed to occur most regularly on my morning train commute. Unable to concentrate and feeling fatigued all the time, I felt like I was losing my ability to even weave sentences together. Mistakes at work began to happen. Pretty embarrassing for an editor.
By the time 30 rolled around, I was feeling miserable. As my energy flagged, I upped the hot yoga and ate even greener.
Being pregnant with baby.
When I got pregnant, I thought I was becoming gravely ill instead. I was always sensitive to my environment, but within days, I became hyper-reactive to what seemed like everything.
The heart palpitations, tinnitus, and insomnia worsened. My bowels stopped. My dizzy spells were so bad that I could barely stand long enough to hold a toothbrush (or hold it well enough for that matter). I remember holding it with trembling numb hands as my head and entire body felt abuzz.
I struggled with going out at all as it zapped my energy, taking days for me to recover. Combined with the nausea, it took all my strength to just lie in bed, with little as possible external stimuli.
The gynaecologist assured me all pregnant women feel bad. One doctor diagnosed me with vertigo, which didn’t seem to be the root cause.
At the same time, I noticed I was forming odd moles, and one erupted and bled spontaneously in the office. I went to see a dermatologist for a referral; she dismissed the concern as “aesthetic”.
Finally, a naturopath took the time to listen to me, and he said:
“Your body is stressed and toxic. Even looking at your phone is a form of stress.”
My phone? I thought of how it, and other innocuous devices, were my whole life.
His herbs, pills, lifestyle advice helped me regain some balance.
I began to wonder about this “stress and toxicity” that he was talking about…
Our invisible environment.
Most days all I could do was to lie in bed, so I did just that. Reading made me nauseous so I listened instead—if other babies listened to Baby Mozart, mine was racking up hours of health interviews and lectures with me.
Even though the “pregnancy nausea” persisted after giving birth, I soon noticed a pattern to my symptoms.
Certain places made me feel worse. It took me hours at best, days at worst, to regain balance.
During this time I began working from home and also commuted lots as I co-founded an arts platform and made many online connections... At the same time, I was adjusting to a new home. These combined experiences propelled my journey into understanding how our space affects our health.
A chance podcast about environmental pollutants rang another bell. What environmental stressors were around me?
Turns out it was a lot. I began obsessively tracking everything in my environment that could be “stressful or toxic”.
This was what I found:
We spend 90% of our lives indoors today. Our homes are 2 to 5 times more toxic than the external environment.
The biggest exposure, and most exponential growth, of pollutant is to wireless radiation.
Our exposure to EMFs / wireless radiation has increased dramatically. Especially since the 1990s as wireless devices became ubiquitous.
Babies are being born pre-polluted due to exposure to toxic environmental chemicals. Tests find more than 200 chemicals in newborn cord blood.
Millions of children (US data) receive up to 35 percent of their estimated lifetime dose of some carcinogenic pesticides by age five through food, contaminated drinking water, household use, and pesticide drift.
The average home contains about 40 litres of synthetic chemical products. Including indoor use of pesticides, cleansers, paints and varnishes and air fresheners (including candles and incense). None of these are regulated.
The current generation of children will, on average, for the first time in centuries, “live less healthy and possibly even shorter lives than their parents”.
The incidence of ADHD, Autism, and Asthma have skyrocketed in the last decade. All three have been linked to exposure to electromagnetic fields (EMFs), which has also risen dramatically in the same time period.
While 3-8 percent of populations in developed countries experience serious electrohypersensitivity symptoms, almost 1 in 3 experience mild symptoms.
The quest for safe spaces.
All these had such an impact on me that I decided to learn about building biology, specialising in electromagnetic radiation. How I came across it amongst the reams of information I went through, I do not know — but it struck a deep chord.
I felt it was my imperative to make our nest safe for our new daughter.
My husband was onboard. So we flew/drove our way to New Mexico in the US—three transatlantic trips with baby in one year. It was an adventure!
The seminars are held at a monastery compound with little to no EMFs to accommodate some of the more sensitive people in the course.
In that environment, I felt different. I could pay attention in class AM to PM, even with whole-family-&-baby-jet-lag, and I could stand without feeling dizzy or nauseous—no small feat as I suffered near blackout spells my entire life. The teachers warned about altitude sickness as we were at 7,000 feet, but I was chuffed that I didn’t even feel the slightest bit of nausea.
I felt like a brand new person, jet lag notwithstanding.
The lab experiments astounded me— one designed various “walk-in” EMF scenarios for us to assess. Walking into each field triggered the same symptoms I had been battling—on tap! I remember touching my aching throat and throbbing head in amazement.
I began to see buildings and homes are more than shelter or aesthetic. They can aid or impede our health. I began healing and clearing my environment, at the same time as my daughter was crawling and toddling learning about hers.
I am eternally grateful to have found my teachers and mentors at the Institute. Fellow course-mates—engineers, architects, researchers, doctors, mothers, spouses—were generous with what they knew about managing exposure to environmental pollutants.
Through my work, I hope to share with you the deep knowledge and passion about how our health and environment are so deeply linked.
create space to heal
Is this an all too familiar story?
We think: “We’re putting in the work and getting in the help and/or supplements we need. We got the house and our favourite things. Maybe now I want a family, I will spend the rest of my years in good health.”
But we don’t think about what we have accumulated. Do you have true health and energy? How does your home really nourish you? How do you ensure that you are living in harmony with Nature and are passing on these lessons to your children in an ever disjointed world?
All of your efforts at ‘fixing’ or bettering yourself is an uphill if you are out of sync with Nature.
You can avoid futility in diet and exercise and avert chronic illnesses, from neurological diseases, weight issues, to cancer. By intentionally creating spaces to thrive, you can experience a profound improvement in how you feel and think.
Your children and grandchildren will have a much safer and healthier world, and a deeper, more meaningful relationship with their environment.
Otherwise, we will keep chasing health externally because you know nothing else to do, but you'll be on an unsustainable slippery slope or your home will never know true calm.”
