The message of this prescient tale has never been more important: it takes one person, motivated by love, to reconnect many to their own native wisdom. From this place of connection, the natural world has infinite regenerative capacity.
I’ve spent the past decade in the trenches of pubmed.gov exploring the data that tells a grim story about how we are killing this planet and ourselves…death by 1000 paper cuts. There is data to support changes to your daily routine –ditching receipts, or choosing anew hair dye– but then there is data that makes us feel powerless and destined for decimation by The Man.
Here’s the kicker, though…
The dangers of toxicant exposures are highly personal.
Like everything else in our reframing of the human experience, we arede-standardizinghealth. We are bringing medicine back into the realm of the “N of 1” or the “study of You”. You are not a randomized clinical trial. You are aspecificsymphony of information.
This is why the old model of studying toxicity – the dose makes the poison – is antiquated. In thenewest literature, there is the potential for a synergistic process to emerge fromconcomitant exposures. I want to tell you about one of the more important recent papers that speaks to this issue.
I’m going to lay it on you and then we will figure out what can be done.
Toxic Co-Exposures
So, Houston…we have a problem. Let’s just look at our children. In 2008, our infant mortality rate in the first year of life left us ranking 46th in the world. By 2015, we had plummeted to 59th, and the unenviable position of having the highest rate in the world on the first day of life.
Given that we spend vastly more and have more doctors than our seeming competitors Guam and Cuba, it’s time to take a good look at the exposures driving this seeming epidemic of mortality and then the chronic diseases 1 in 6 of our children are now labeled with.
In this paper,Environmental Toxicants and Infant Mortality in the USA, Kennedy et al propose that we ask some big questions about the role of aluminum, mercury, silicofluoride, lead, fertilizers, and glyphosate. That’s a long list…because there isn’t just ONE smoking gun.
In this open access paper, they explore the history of how these agents have been supported by public policy and how they now interact, potentially synergistically, to keep us sick and in some cases, accelerate our deaths.
They write:
“A baby born in the U.S. with excess mercury derived from its mother’s mercury/silver amalgam tooth fillings is subject to further exposure to both mercury and aluminum from an aggressive vaccine schedule that requires more vaccinations than any other country in the world, including a Hep-B vaccine administered at birth that contains both mercury and aluminum. If the mother is unable to nurse the baby, and if economic considerations in uence her to choose a powdered formula reconstituted with tap water, then it is likely that the infant will also be chronically exposed to fluoridated water during the rst year of its life.”
While we are swimming in a chemical soup at any given moment, they focus their discussion to three major players…
Aluminum – Beyond Foil!
Foreign to the human system, embedded deep in the earth’s crust, aluminum is now a routine exposure through deodorants, baking powder, antacid drugs, inhaled particles, and injected vaccines. A known neurotoxin and potent immune stimulant (why it is used as an adjuvant in vaccines), aluminum appears to be a vector of autoimmunity and chronic neuroinflammation, particularly when exposure occurs during the sensitive window of neonatal development. Implicated in autism, Alzheimer’s, ADHD, and Parkinson’s neurological degeneration is on the rise in part due to this escalating exposure.
Fluoride – Great for Teeth?
Sixty five years ago, fluoride was introduced into municipal water supplies under the auspices of its potential to prevent dental decay. In fact, fluoride was waste from the notorious Manhattan Project, in which hydrofluorosilicic acid was used to separate uranium from phosphate rock in efforts toward the creation of the American atomic bomb. Despite its (sodium fluoride,notthe less studied more toxic hydrofluorsilicic acid) being framed by the CDC as one of the most important public health interventions of modern times, an examination of the literature on fluoride’s health effects supports quite another story. With tooth decay rates similar in fluoridated and unfluoridated regions, the epidemiologic signal ofharmincludes kidney failure, dental fluorosis, and 36 studies demonstrating lower IQs in children exposed systemically.
The authors discuss the “Petkau Effect” in which ‘harm from chronic low levels of exposure to one or more injurious factors turns out to be greater than from a single, much larger exposure’. For example, the combination of aluminum and fluoride exposure results in the compound aluminum fluoride which can penetrate the blood-brain barrier potentially delivering the complex to the delicate tissues of the brain. The authors state:
“As studies of “Autoimmune-in ammatory syndromes induced by adjuvants” (also called “ASIA”) have documented, the widespread use of aluminum “adjuvants” to augment the response of the human immune system during vaccination, combined with public water treated with silicofluorides being delivered to over 120 million Americans, can only make toxicants like silico uoride and aluminum more injurious than they might be in isolation.”
One of the authors, Senneff haspreviously publishedon the potential for glyphosate to similarly ferry aluminum into the brain. This trifecta is, unfortunately eluding exposure because of the intricate web of potential and highly personalized interactions.
The authors conclude that “in countries where vaccination, fluoridation, and herbicides applied to the food and water supply are being aggressively increased by policy-makers, it should not be surprising that disorders, diseases, and fatalities in early infancy are correspondingly rising.”
What to do?
1. Buy Organic
While there is concern about decimation of the complex web of life that is our soil and the informational properties of plants and animal foods, eliminating pesticide exposure from your diet is a powerful step as evidenced byassessment studies. Prioritize organic purchases for the dirty dozen according toEWG. Remember that washing produce does not remove glyphosate.
2. Filter Your Water
A major source of fluoride ingestion, invest in thefirst countertop reverse osmosisfor your 8 glasses a day! This will also help you avoid metals, hundreds of disinfectant byproducts, and even low dose medications exposures!
3. Think Long and Hard About Vaccination
WIth some of the prime aluminum culprits beingHep BandGardasil, learn the ingredient list of any and all pharmaceutical products you are considering. As we discover more about the near infinite sophistication of your interconnected bodily systems, and the hyper-individuality of any cause-and effect process resulting from a healthcare decision, the one-size-fits-all, indemnified vaccine program may begin to make less and less sense to you. Educate yourself before you make a choice that could change everything for you and your family. Trust your body. Invest in your immunity. And explore a mindset shift that offers you a fear-free way to understand health and wellness. For further research, check out nvic.org, fearlessparent.org, and greenmedinfo.com.
Further eliminate aluminum by swapping out your deodorant, cookware (for ceramic, glass, or stainless steel), and eliminating antacid medications and aluminum-containing baking products.
4. De-Stress
Wonder why two people can be exposed to the same toxic exposure with only one developing depression or cancer? The health of the stress response has a lot to do with it according torecent literature.Here is a powerful meditation for reversing stress damage.
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Remember, it takes one person, motivated by love, to reconnect many to their own native wisdom. From this place of connection, the natural world has infinite regenerative capacity.
Detoxification is a lifelong commitment. If you’re looking for a jumpstart, join our online healing community atVital Mind Reset!
More and more of us are bumping up against the glass ceiling of what conventional medicine has to offer as we doctors, get sick.
Dr. Stephanie Strozukand I have a lot in common, not the least of which is using the principles of lifestyle medicine to not only heal but vitalize and kindle our mission as holistic practitioners.
Listen to how our efforts toward eliminating psychiatric medication and healing depression naturally lit the path for her clinical practice.
Dr. Kelly Brogan: Hi, everyone. I am here with Dr. Stephanie Strozuk who I had the great fortunate privilege of crossing paths with. And I want to spend a little bit of time talking about her transformation journey which I feel so incredibly inspired me and so certain it’s going to reverberate powerfully in the lives of so many patients that she is currently working with and has yet to heal. I’m really blessed to have played any part in this.
I want to start, Stephanie, by sort of giving people a window into your journey which is so much like mine in that you’ve really come from a place of hardwork and dedication to a certain model of medicine that now you’ve begun to see the holes in.
So, tell us a bit about where you’re coming from and maybe how our paths crossed.
Dr. Stephanie Strozuk: Sure, absolutely! I have to say that as an adolescent medicine doctor, if you go all the way back, and I think about how I was during my teen and young adult years, I actually got through those years relatively well.
Did it really have many issues as far as like the anxiety, depression, medical issues? I think I was kind of lucky in comparison to a lot of patients that I see currently.
I went through college, went through medical school, and did relatively well medically, psychologically.
But I found it really wasn’t until I began my internship, my residency, my fellowship that things started to fall apart a bit for me.
I was extremely fatigued. I was getting very anxious. I was gaining weight. I was just really not feeling well at all.
I kind of felt, “Well, I’m at the hospital at six in the morning. And I am going to sleep really late at night and doing 30 hours shifts a couple of times a week. I didn’t really have much control over this. And that, I knew. I was really eating horribly because, especially you’re doing your training, I’m sure you remember, there’s no time to go and sit and have a nice lunch or have a nice meal. It’s kind of running to the gift shop and trying to grab something over there or running to the hospital cafeteria which doesn’t really have health food either.”
So, I was kind of in the cycle. I knew I wasn’t eating well. I’m telling my patients to do one thing and I was doing the complete opposite. And I was just really feeling miserable on multiple levels.
So, really, what did I do? I go into my primary care doctor. I said, “Listen, I’m not feeling well. I’m feeling really tired, really anxious. I’m gaining weight. What do I do? What am I missing here?” I wanted to be the patient instead of being the doctor for once and have somebody try to take care of me.
And so, basically, my primary care doctor ran some labs. He said, “Well, […] You’re your thyroids are okay. You’re a doctor and you’re busy. This is why you’re feeling the way you do.”
And it’s okay. I guess there’s not really much I can do about that at this point.
And then, as time went on, the answers started to become, “Well, now you’re a doctor and you’re a mother. And so you have that as well. That’s why you’re tired. That’s why you’re feeling anxious. And maybe going to see a psychiatrist might be something that can help you to help with your anxiety, at least with that piece.”
So me, being the good patient that I was, decided, “Okay. Well, this is what’s working. Maybe that’s what I need to do to feel better because I was just feeling so miserable.”
So I can say that for the better part of 15 years, I had gone down that path. I was basically told by multiple doctors, whether it be my primary care doctor or my Ob-Gyn or my psychiatrist that my answer is lying at the bottom of a prescription pill bottle.
That’s basically what I was told. I really wasn’t told anything about nutrition although in my mind, I knew I wasn’t doing the right thing. I wasn’t, as I was told, eating all my whole grains and eating a low fat diet and taking the meat out and doing all the things that I was telling my patients to do. And this is what I had learned.
So intuitively, I knew that the diet was a piece, so I embarked on that. Every morning, I made sure I had my whole grain cereals and I was bringing my sandwich to work with me, my whole wheat bread, making sure everything was low fat. And I was gaining more and more weight. I was feeling more and more anxious. I was feeling more and more fatigued. I just wasn’t getting the answers that I wanted for myself.
So, it was actually 2013 when I came to find you, Dr. Brogan. And I found you through a friend. I just kind of looked you up and looked at your website. And I found it very interesting that you were a women’s health holistic psychiatrist. I thought to myself, “Well, this is something I never tried before, somebody who does women’s health and psychiatry. I think this would be a good match.”
So, I went into my consultation back in 2013. And I have to say, from that point on, my life change in the best way possible.
When I came to see Dr. Brogan, we sat and we spoke for an hour and a half which I’ve never done with a doctor before. We went all the way back to when I was born. I went through all my medical history up until the point that I was sitting there. I really picked out and saw the things that have been happening over the years that I think were such a big deal, but wound up being an issue.
For example, dealing with acne from when I was a teenager up until I was 40 years old and being on multiple rounds of oral antibiotics and topical antibiotics and Acutane and all of these things and never truly getting better. That’s just one example of the things that were kind of uncovering.
So, when I left the visit, I left the visit with different kinds of prescriptions than I had gotten in the past. So, one of the prescriptions was a complete dietary change. Everything that I have been doing, off the table. We were really going towards more ancestral diets.
And I was completely onboard. Again, I’m just going to be that good patient. I was going to do what I was told to do. So, I went ahead and I did that. I was given prescription for some blood work that looked a lot deeper than anybody had ever looked before. My salivary cortisol testing was done. I was given a prescription for yoga movement and a prescription for meditation. These are things that I never embarked on before. I have to say, I dove in head first.
And within days, I would have to say, changing the diet, doing the meditation and then eventually coming to yoga, something shifted right away. There was a fog that was lifted from me. It was really astounding. I never experienced anything like that before.
We eventually got my lab reports. We saw some issues there. I was depleted of micronutrients. I had adrenal fatigue. I was estrogen dominant. I was actually iron deficient even though my hemoglobin looked normal on other labs.
So there were so many pieces that were coming together. And it was becoming very, very clear that my gut health was a mess as well—probably from all the other stress from my training and what I was eating, what I was putting in my body, what I was putting on my body, the antibiotic use.
So, like I said, I dove head first in and did all the things that were asked of me at the time. I came back, I think, to see you, Dr. Brogan in four to six weeks. And I felt like a different person. I really did. I mean, I felt vibrant. My skin was clear. I had lost 15 lbs. without counting a calorie (we’re always told it’s calories in, calories out. It’s got nothing to do with that).
It was a huge, huge shift. And I had been basically living my life this way ever since. It’s just been amazing.
Dr. Kelly: So, you’re such a good example of how little support people actually need when they’re ready. It’s like I just sort of gave you a little whisper or something and you ran with it and had this transformation that endures to this day.
Not everyone is like that. You described yourself as being constructive, as somebody who like to adhere to rules and expectations. And in so many ways, we’re a great fit.
Dr. Stephanie: Right!
Dr. Kelly: I often tend to rule with an iron fist I guess in the beginning in service of initiating people to their own self-authority.
But what if someone is not constructive the way you are and they find the number of commitments, the number of changes you made really overwhelming? How do you hold out a hand to that person? How do you let them know that there might be an early win, an early sign that they’re on the right path and that all of these effort and commitment is worth it?
I mean, in my description, you’ve certainly done more than just go from symptoms to no symptoms or meds to no bed. But there’s something else at play here. So how can you light the path a bit?
Dr. Stephanie: Right! Like you said, it is difficult for many people. And you could imagine working with teenagers how difficult it is. When I tell them, “Listen, I want you to do this type of diet and it’s really eliminating this, this and this,” their faces just completely drop. “What am I going to eat? How am I going to live? How am I going to go out with my friends? What am I going to do? What am I going to have for my breakfast? This is what I have every day?” And panic starts to set in.
And it’s funny. Many times, I actually use my daughter as an example because my daughter is 11 years old. And when she was nine, she was having migraines. And it’s funny because I used to actually run a headache clinic at one of the hospitals I was working at. So I kind of knew what to do.
But when it really came down to it, I was actually practicing looking through a different lens. And with my daughter, I found out that her two major issues that were driving her migraines were eating gluten and dairy. We removed those things and she doesn’t have migraines anymore.
And for my 17-year old that comes in and says, “No, there’s no way that I can do this,” I will use my daughter as an example. I’ll say, “Listen, when she was nine, we did this. And now, she’s 11. She’ll tell me, ‘You know what, mom? It’s not worth it for me to eat that because I feel sick after?’”
So, I put a challenge on them and say, “If an 11-year old can do this, I think it’s something that you can really do.”
I try to meet there where they are and tell them, “I’m going to give you this information. I don’t expect that tomorrow, you’re going to implement it. But I really truly feel that the things that I’m recommending to you can make a huge shift in how you’re feeling. And when you’re ready to start doing it, you’re ready and I’m going to be here to support you with any questions that you have and to support you along the way to get you where you need to be.”
That’s really the approach that I try to use with my patients.
Dr. Kelly: Absolutely! So now, you have really internalized the fact that you can’t change someone with information. You can provide information, but the change actually happens from an experiential shift. And so now, you’re paying that forward in your own practice. You even had the experience of healing your own daughter […] So, it’s incredible!
So, the experiential shift that you had (like the one that I had in the experience of my own Hashimoto’s), it’s a bodily knowing that there was something we didn’t learn with our training. And what comes with that bodily knowing that there’s a greater truth out there that we weren’t exposed to in our training is that you begin to question a lot of other things.
You begin to say, “Well, I also relied on this source for this, this and this piece of information. Perhaps I need to look elsewhere or look within myself for a different concept of how to proceed.”
So, tell us a bit about how—so you had this experience of dramatic healing within basically a month. How did that unfold or does there remain any difficulty integrating sort of old life/new life? As a professional, do you feel you know exactly what to do or you’re trying to synthesize?
That kind of a transformation, especially when it’s this rapid, can come with unexpected challenges.
Dr. Stephanie: I mean, it’s always a learning curve. There are always things that you can learn and incorporate. And of course , there are going to be hiccups along the way.
But in general, I feel, for me, really trying to adhere to a whole foods diet is what keeps me feeling well. I mean, absolutely, it’s going to be gluten-free, I need to be. I know my body. When I get a little bit of gluten, I just do not feel well.
So that is something that’s just been off the table. And like you’ve always said, being an Italian girl, that might be a little bit difficult. But we’ve managed and I don’t really miss it at all.
With some other foods like grains, I do have some grains here and there. But for the most part, I see how my body feels. And if I’m starting to feel like, “Well, I think I might be having a little bit too much of that white rice,” I back off.
So, for different people, it’s going to be a bit different. But for me, I definitely find that the dietary piece was the major shift for me. Not only was it healing my gut, it was stabilizing my blood sugar. It wasn’t putting me on the rollercoaster during the entire day. That’s the piece that I think was the most important for me.
And again, with teens, that can be difficult. I try to work with them and hold their hands along the way and try to come out with concrete options of what they can do to incorporate this new way of living. It’s not a diet.
I try to explain, “Just like you got used to drinking that diet soda and eating the way you’re eating in this way, you’ll become accustomed to this being your new normal.”
It takes time. Just like I said, they don’t go out the next day and incorporate it, but it can be done. And the way you will feel will be unlike anything you’re feeling now.
And not just from a psychiatric standpoint—I mean, for me, it’s patients that are coming in with polycystic ovarian syndrome, who are coming in with migraine or chronic abdominal pain or acne. It’s all the same thing at the end of the day, really getting to the bottom, the root of what is going on rather than, unfortunately, how I was practicing in the past with very short visits and putting the band-aid on things and trying to treat symptoms instead of getting to the bottom of what’s going on.
And it’s funny. Sometimes, when patients come in with ad irregular menstrual periods, they look at me quizzically and saying, “Why are you asking me about what I’m eating? Why are you asking me about how my stomach is feeling? Why are you asking me…?” and I said, “It’ll make sense at the end of the visit why we’re looking at everything.
Dr. Kelly: I love that. I love that.
Yeah! So you’ve alluded to your practice. I should mention that Stephanie has one of the very unique qualifications of being specialized in the treatment of not only pediatric patients, but specifically, adolescent patients. I mean, what more important time is there to help facilitate a healthy initiation to adulthood.
We certainly don’t have elders anymore. We don’t have tribes anymore. We’re barely a community. And so working with a healer such as yourself is potentially a life-altering experience for these patients.
We were talking earlier about the fact that you may be one of the only people in the country who is now taking a holistic approach largely thanks to your own experience of what’s possible.
So, you know my perspective on medications, obviously specifically pediatric medications. But my concern is that when we use medications the way we do reflexively from a peer-based place, we are interfering with the potential for a deeper investigation into imbalance, whether it’s physical, dietary, environmental, psychospiritual.
We certainly both were trained in a modality that really only offered us medication as an intervention, as a legitimate intervention for our patients. So, I wonder how that is evolving for you, what your perspective have come to on that.
Dr. Stephanie: I mean, I can tell you actually that my prescription pad is collecting a lot of dust. I’m not really prescribing anything at this point besides, really, changing your diet, moving, meditation. That’s most of what I’m prescribing.
And then I’m prescribing nutraceuticals as needed to correct whatever imbalances that we are uncovering.
But I have to say that most of the patients that are coming to see me (at least at this point) are patients that have been down the conventional path and they’re finding that it’s not working.
So, whether it be the 25- or 26-year old that’s coming and they’re realizing that it’s not working or it’s the parent of the 12-year old that’s saying, “This is not working for my child. What else can I do?” I’m kind of like one of the last steps.
I’m hoping at some point to actually be the first step for my patients so that they don’t have to go down this rabbit hole of one drug, be getting another drug, be getting another drug, and really, from the get-go healing instead of suppressing the symptoms.
That’s my ultimate goal.
Dr. Kelly: I love it! My smile can’t be bigger. It’s like taking over my face.
No, I’m so inspired. I’m so thrilled. I just obviously couldn’t feel that it’s—I don’t know. It’s auspicious, how important it feels to me to have played this, again, small part in your process to sort of take you off in the direction that you obviously needed to go and that you needed to go to impact the lives of so many other people at this very vulnerable window.
I’m going to be cheerleading from the sidelines for you from here until forever because I just think what you’re doing is so critical, it’s so important and it’s so needed.
You’re a perfect example of how essential sometimes mistakes are, sometimes going off the path or going down one route to get to another, a totally anticipated one. And really, you’re the archetype of the wounded healer, how you needed to have your own healing journey in order to really bring this wisdom to the patients that you are destined to heal.
Thank you so much for sharing this, first of all, for having the courage to come out of the closet on your own experience, which as doctors, we’re taught never to do. I know all about it. But it’s an essential part of the message that only you are here to share.
I’m so honored. Thank you so much for your time.
Dr. Stephanie: Absolutely!
Dr. Kelly: I’ll spread out a good word.
Dr. Stephanie: I’m so pleased that we have crossed paths. You lit the way for me. I mean, that’s exactly what happened. You lit the way. I’m just hoping to be able to pay that forward and do that for patients that I come across.
Dr. Kelly: Thank you.
Dr. Stephanie: It’s a great feeling when you truly are helping to heal somebody.
The End of Hiking in Finland as we know it and the start of something new.
Sometime last autumn I purchased a new domain. My mind is set, I need a fresh start. After eight years of blogging at Hiking in Finland I need a new challenge. It’s a bad time to do this, but if I don’t do it not now I never might. Hiking in Finland is the most-read English-language blog from Scandinavia, there’s over 30.000 Regular Readers a month, add in the close to 20.000 Followers and Fans on the different Social Media channels and you can understand the dilemma of changing something that’s so successful and generates part of my income (Yes, I work full time on the blog since 2014).
Things that led to this is that I do far more nowadays than hiking in Finland - just last year I was ski-touring in Norway & Switzerland, on adventure travel trips in Macedonia, Greece and Mexico, on active family holidays in Vorarlberg, backpacking in South Tyrol and cycle touring in Finland. So the name is out-dated and limits me, but I also moved away a bit from what this blog was about in the beginning - ultralight backpacking. While I maintain that Ultralight is Not Dead I also have started to look over the borders - I have entered a partnership with Helsport for example, and while I always try to carry as little as possible and use the lightest gear for the occasion it’s not the be all and end all of all things like it was more in the past.
But mostly I feel I have become complacent. The status quo is a dangerous place to get lazy and before other’s think It’s the same old I myself might just kill the status quo, reinvent and embark on a new journey. It might be rough on the edges at the beginning, some of you might not like it, but I am sure that with a new challenge I am able to grow myself and the blog to a new level that’s more creative & honest.
DESIGN or why does HiF look not like it used to?
Last November I managed to destroy the backend of Hiking in Finland - right before the #HiFAdventCalendar should have started and while I was in Mexico. Some bacteria or virus knocked me out for two weeks once I returned from Mexico and I barely was able to publish the daily doors on the ad-hoc blog I created. As I got healthy again I had a big hacking session and managed to get HiF back online the way you see it now - still not really how it used to look like or how I would like it to look, but better than a 404. During February and March I will try to update the layout and looks, but first there’s some other priorities.
Yeps, there’s gonna be a new blog
Hiking in Finland will continue & will be regularly updated in the future, but my new website Hike Climb Travel will see a lot more action. Hike Climb Travel is much broader in name as Hiking in Finland and reflects that I do much more than hiking & backpacking in Finland. Hiking in Finland will be home to my adventures at home and neighbouring countries, while Hike Climb Travel will be my outlet for everything that does take place outside of my beautiful home country. It will kick off some time in February, with a pretty, responsive layout, a great brand identity and some great stories to get you hooked. The best way to stay informed about when the new blog goes online is to subscribe to the Newsletter and follow me on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and Youtube, but no worries, I also will let it be known here.
For some time I will try to work on both blogs, but time will show if that is possible & smart or if I just move everything over to the new website. Thus, if there’s a favourite article here on the Olde Blog, now is a good time to save it as a pdf for future references. Some content will will also be moved over, so no worries that it’s gonna be all lost down the aether.
TWIR is Death
A couple of weeks back I asked on Instagram and Facebook for one reason why you follow me and a large part of the answers included TWIR. But a lot has changed since I started The Week In Review six years ago: I got married, have two wonderful kids and a house that still needs a wee bit of renovation (not to mention the garden). I feel I have neglected my family the last years every Sunday for several hours while writing the TWIR, and with a little daughter of one year I (maybe too late) realised it is time to kill The Week in Review, reclaim my Sundays and spend them with the people that matter the most to me - my wife and kids.
Also, The Week In Review is a popular post but it never generated much of income for me. I tried to monetise it in some tasteful ways by affiliate links to offers that matter to you, and a couple of times the Packrafting Store sponsored an issue, but these were not putting enough €$£ into my pocket for the time I invest into the TWIR. Because I know that so many of you love the TWIR and rely on it to find new, relevant content that matters, I am open to suggestions on how we could keep the Week In Review alive - but it would be published then on Mondays as I want to have a weekend. Maybe a PayPal subscription would be an option, but that would mean some of you would need to start to pay for the TWIR content. If you think that’s something you’d be willing to do, leave a comment underneath - and also other ideas and feedback is welcome.
All in all I am very happy to have this off my chest. I felt bad leaving you loyal readers in the dark about this since last December, but now that I typed it down and re-read it a couple of times it feels good and I am happy to hit publish and see how you take these changes. Thus, comment away - here or on the Social Media channels you can find me on!
Having a high-end looking home can be difficult, especially if you have a tight decorating budget. Fortunately, there are ways window treatments can help make your living room better. Read on!
Floor-to-Ceiling Sophistication
Floor-to-ceiling drapes are in high demand right now. Long drapes are more prevalent as homes are being built with higher ceilings and loft spaces become more popular. These drapes offer a sophisticated look, and at many places, can be customized in bright, contemporary hues for an updated appearance. According to Janet Barragan, senior vice president of window design at Curtainworks, “Eighty-four-inch curtains are the U.S. standard, but we now offer 95-inch curtains, and get requests for even longer curtains, from 108 to 120 inches, to accommodate today’s homes.” If you’re searching for long curtains for your windows, don’t be afraid to go custom and get the perfect window treatments that truly fit the unique size of your space. Photo courtesy of Curtain works. Source:HGTV
Establish a Color Palette
The fabric you choose for window treatments helps establish a color palette for the entire room. In this case, the window panels are a solid aqua, but a patterned fabric could be just as influential. The watery shade coordinates with the celadon rug and concrete gray walls, providing a colorful backdrop that’s also soft enough to let bright accents in fuchsia, purple, and pumpkin stand out. Source:BHG
Swing Arm Curtains
Swing arm curtains are one of the more unique window treatment ideas, and they haven’t seen much use in the United States in recent years. They require a special hinged curtain rod that allows you to move the curtain to stand out at a 90-degree angle from the window. Swing arm curtains are a brilliant and surprisingly inexpensive solution for bedrooms where you want to be able to block light easily without having to worry about ruining a carefully pleated or artfully scrunched curtain fabric with daily adjustments. Source:Freshome
If you want to know more about window treatments that can best fit your home style, contact us now!
Content originally published and Shared from http://perfectbath.com
Remodeling your bathroom shower can completely change the look of your bathroom. Here are some shower designs ideas that you might want to consider!
Below are 4 shower design ideas:
Add Some Art This art deco bathroom has inset doors and handmade subway tile on the walls of the shower. The entire room serves as a shower floor, with blue and green tiles. Clear-glass shower deflectors contribute to the clean and open composition of the room. The built-in vanity and tall cabinet ensure personal care. Source:HGTV
Light Up
Nothing brightens your day like a refreshing shower, and this is one of the brightest — with a glass block exterior wall and a skylight, there’s plenty of daylight. Choose a skylight that opens to let humidity escape and help prevent problems with bathroom mold. Source:HouseLogic
Save Some Space
Want a bath and a shower but lack the space in a small bathroom? Rather than squeezing in separate fittings, look for an L-shaped shower bath with one wider end to give you more room for a comfortable shower. Source:IdealHome
Shower Plus Steam Room
A designer shower enclosures walk-in and a steam generator can be combined to create your very own steam room. It’s a simple way of making your own spa. The amenities are critical is this case. It would be wise to include a small window that can be opened when you use the shower alone to let the air circulate. You’ll be able to use this space both as a regular shower and a steam room and you can enjoy relaxing moments right there in your own home. Source:Homedit
Have you ever popped a Tylenol topush through that annoying headache and get on with your day? Most of us have. Each week, millions of Americans take one of the 600 medicines that contain acetaminophen, Tylenol’s active ingredient, for various aches and pains. Acetaminophen is the most common drug ingredient in the US, but this ‘harmless drug’ is linked to over110,000 injuries and deaths per year.
How can Tylenol, which is doled out like candy, be bad for you? Amazingly, no one really knows how acetaminophen works [1], but people do know that this druggets to your brain. Tylenol in your brain is concerning because it depletes glutathione [2], an antioxidant that is especially necessary forbrain health. Our bodies depend on antioxidants to balance oxidative damage and inflammation. If you’re popping a Tylenol with your morning antioxidant-richKB Smoothie, Tylenol may rob you of the smoothie’s benefits!
Beyond Liver Damage
Most people have heard that Tylenol can damage the liver (has anyone ever drunkenly warned you to take a Motrin, not a Tylenol, to prevent a hangover?). But since everything in our bodies is connected, it’s not surprising that Tylenol can do damage beyond your liver. A recent study showed that people who took Tylenol had increased risks of death, heart toxicity, gastrointestinal bleeding, and kidney damage [3]. Importantly, people who took more Tylenol suffered more damage.
It’s also scary how Tylenol affects mood. After swallowing 1000 mg of Tylenol, peopleexhibited less empathy and blunted positive emotions. For reference, 1000 mg is two extra-strength Tylenol tablets, and the ‘safe’ range is 3000 mg per day. This means that popping two Tylenols can affect you physically and emotionally!
Hopefully you’re convinced to think twice before taking a Tylenol, but what about other pain-relievers like Motrin, Aleve, or Advil? These non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) must be safe, since thirty million people take them every day! Not so fast…
Women who recognize the importance ofhormonal balanceshould be wary. NSAIDs can mess withovulation, especially progesterone levels, after only 10 days of use [4]. Additionally, NSAIDs injure the small intestine; in one study, 71% of NSAID users showed small intestinal damage, compared to 10% of non-users [5]. Damaged intestines can lead to intestinal permeability, or “leaky gut.” Leaky gut has been linked todepression, ADHD, and allergies. NSAIDs can cause leaky gut [6] and harm yourmicrobiome, the trillions of beneficial bacteria that live in and on us.Disrupting our bacteriacan do more damage than we realize!
How can I relieve my headache?!
Now that you know the surprising dangers of Tylenol and other NSAIDs, what should you take for headaches and other aches and pains? Turmeric, the yellow root found in curry powder, contains a powerful anti-inflammatory and pain reliever called curcumin. This has been used in Ayurvedic and Chinese medicine as a treatment for pain, digestive disorders, and wound healing for centuries. Many studies show thebeneficial effects of curcumin; curcumin works as well as ibuprofen to alleviate pain from knee osteoarthritis [7] and PMS [8]. Next time you have a headache, try 1-2 grams ofcurcumin– or aturmeric latte!
Where Downtown Meets Yaletown
Canadian developer, Amacon, has proposed to redevelop the site of the Northern Electric Company Building at 118-150 Robson Street into a mixed-use building containing a 120-room hotel, 4,635 sq ft of commercial space, and a residential tower with 125 condominiums. The Art Moderne façade of the heritage building will be restored and re-purposed into retail shops and a hotel, above which a new luxury residential tower will be constructed.
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Located where Downtown Vancouver transitions into the residential neighbourhoods surrounding the north shore of False Creek, you’ll have within mere steps of your front door an exceptional range of eateries, shops, professional services, and leisure activities for unparalleled convenience. Revel in the nightlife of Granville Street or cheer on the home team at a BC Lions game in BC Place. Survey the brand name boutiques along Robson Street or enjoy a fine dining experience in one of Yaletown’s eclectic restaurants. Living more is driving less.
Pricing for 118-150 Robson
As this project is in the development application stage, pricing has not yet been finalized. To ensure you are kept up-to-date on this excellent purchase opportunity, we strongly recommend signing up to our VIP list above.
Floor Plans for 118-150 Robson
Current plans envision 125 residential suites, ranging from studios to 3-bedrooms, making this property suitable for families.
Amenities at 118-150 Robson
Residents will enjoy shared use of a fifth floor indoor amenity room and an outdoor area to enjoy fine summer days with family and friends. Have out-of-town guests visiting? What’s more convenient than staying at the attached 120-room hotel and have use of its amenities? So many more conveniences are located just outside your door.
Parking and Storage
Approximately 280 underground parking and 250 bicycle stalls have been proposed for residents, hotel guests, and retail customers. Of these, 56 will be electric vehicle charging stations.
Maintenance Fees at 118-150 Robson
Will be included with release of pricing information.
Developer Team for 118-150 Robson
Amacon, developer of prestigious properties such as Modern on Burrard Street, has partnered with GBL Architects to redevelop the former Downtown Vancouver Catholic Archdiocese property. For over four decades, Amacon has been one of the most influential real estate development and construction firms in Canada. With a spectacular portfolio of landmark developments in Vancouver and Toronto, Amacon has established a highly-regarded reputation for setting the standard in the development industry.
Amacon is driven by passion to design with architectural innovation; a commitment to constructing uncompromising standards of quality and superior craftsmanship; and offering responsive customer care and proven satisfaction. These are the building blocks that define Amacon’s signature developments and new communities.
GBL Architects is a comprehensive, energetic, and diverse firm of architects providing a full range of architectural services to the private and public sectors. The firm has built its reputation on high quality design, tight project management, technical proficiency, financial responsibility, and keen administrative skills.
Each project design is based upon our knowledge of traditional and innovative construction techniques, materials and methods, and our familiarity with the appropriate local codes and approval processes. The considerable number of projects successfully realized by GBL have helped to shape the form and development of communities and neighbourhoods throughout British Columbia.
Expected Completion for 118-150 Robson
TBA.
Are you interested in learning more about other homes in Yaletown, Southeast False Creek, or Chinatown?
Content originally published and Shared from http://perfectbath.com
Saunas are extremely popular today, and you can find one to visit virtually anywhere. However, the same concerns that crop up with a pool tend to pop up with saunas as well. Is it clean enough? Will there be too many people there? That is why saunas for the home have suddenly become extremely popular as well. With that being said, keep on reading to find out four of the top reasons you need a sauna in your home today.
You Get to Wear Whatever You Feel Like
If you go to a gym, a spa, or any other public place, then they are going to have rules about what you are allowed to wear. If you have one of the saunas for the home, then you don’t have to worry about what you wear. You can wear shorts, a bikini, or nothing at all if the feeling strikes you and no one can say a word about it.
You Know that The Sauna is Clean
In today’s world, germs aren’t just something that can make you sick, in many cases, they can give you something that will kill you. If you have your own sauna in your home, then you don’t have to worry about how clean, or how dirty, the sauna is. You can also control who comes in and out of your sauna, so that you know if they may be sick when they come.
Private Saunas Are Easier to Get too
How many times have you passed on going to the sauna because the weather was bad or you were just too tired? Having your own private sauna means that you don’t have to go out in the snow or rain to get there and that you can just walk a couple of feet when you’re tired and then not have to drive that whole long way back home.
You Can Control the Noise
In a public sauna, you can’t control who comes in and out or how much they talk. If you want to be alone with your own home sauna, then you can just tell everyone to get out. It’s just that simple!
These are just a few of the reasons that you might want to consider getting a sauna installed in your home. For more information on just how to get that done, contact the professionals at Perfectbath today.
Choosing which type of window treatments you’d like for your home can be a bit daunting because of the number of options available. However, there is something special about roman blinds which makes them so popular. Below are 3 reasons why roman blinds may be your best bet:
The Goods on Style
Roman blinds come in an array of materials and styles, making them a good window treatment for many spaces. For the industrial or minimalist home, you might choose sleek, solid-colored linen blinds, or opt for satin weave with a subtle stripe or check pattern. For a traditional, country or shabby chic abode, consider blinds in rich tweed or woven jacquard with high cotton content for warmth; embossed faux silk filters light and offers a subtler look. Lined, light-blocking versions allow you to darken bedrooms or enjoy living room privacy from passersby. In damp areas, such as the kitchen, laundry room or bathroom, Roman blinds made from easy-to-wipe-clean synthetic material that’s less vulnerable to mold are a smart choice. Source:Homeguides.SFGate
Privacy
Roman shades offer a large amount of privacy and light blockage. The full fabric panels filter sunlight as it enters the room and prevent outside passersby from seeing into the home. For even more light blockage, most special order Roman blind manufacturers offer a blackout shade, constructed with a special lining that blocks out all light from rooms that need a complete room-darkening feature. The room darkening option also keeps shadows from being cast to the exterior at night when lights are on in the room. Source:eHow
Timelessness
One of the biggest advantages to using Roman shades on your windows is their timeless style. Romans have been around for decades (in their present form) and tend not to cycle in and out of popularity with the latest trend. A wise fabric selection will extend the life of your shade by keeping it from becoming too trendy. Source:ALittleDesignHelp
If you’re still not convinced, we can help you pick out the best window treatment option that has all the characteristics you are looking for. Contact us!
Content originally published and Shared from http://perfectbath.com
Getting a steam shower for your home is a great choice because you get to experience an in-house spa retreat that offers a lot of benefits for your body. Before you choose which steam shower to get, consider the things listed below:
Be sure to install the steam shower generator within 20 to 25 feet of the steam shower enclosure.
The steam shower generator should be able to quickly boil water to produce an adequate amount of steam within a few minutes.
The steam shower generator should run quietly and produce steam evenly on a consistent basis. Source: Homebuilding
Make sure you have sufficient room. Space requirements are not to be overlooked when considering a steam enclosure. This is particularly true with modular units that you’re planning on installing in an existing bathroom or some other location. Make sure you fully comprehend their footprint size so that you’re not overcrowding the existing space you have.
Health benefits & health cautions too. A steam enclosure provides a number of beneficial health effects from deep skin cleansing and respiratory benefits to deep relaxation. But they’re also not for everyone. Manufacturers note that if you have prevailing heart conditions, high blood pressure or are pregnant you should avoid steam showers. Your physician will be able to advise you on whether you’re fit for a steam room.
Get the right size steam generator. Steam generators are available in 120-volt and 240-volt capacities. Look at it like steam generating “horsepower”. A 120-volt steam generator may be okay for small steam enclosures but larger steam rooms might need the capacity of a 240-volt unit. The other point this raises is whether your bathroom (or wherever you’re going to locate the unit) has access to the right voltage feed. Check with a certified electrician if you have questions. Source: Home-Style-Choices
There can’t be any exposed plaster or drywall in the area or the steam will make it soggy.
The door to the shower must be sealed tight.
Make sure there aren’t any holes in the grout around the shower. If there are, fill in the holes with silicone sealer and finish with a grout sealer. Source: DIYNetwork
Indulge in the relaxation brought about by taking a steam shower. We can help you choose the right one to fit your needs. Contact us!
A heated year for Metro Vancouver real estate draws to a close
The Metro Vancouver housing market had its third highest selling year on record in 2016, behind only 2015 and 2005.
Sales of detached, attached and apartment properties in the region reached 39,943 in 2016, a 5.6 per cent decrease from the 42,326 sales recorded in 2015, and a 20.6 per cent increase over the 33,116 residential sales in 2014.
“It was an eventful year for real estate in Metro Vancouver. Escalating prices caused by low supply and strong home buyer demand brought more attention to the market than ever before,” Dan Morrison, Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver (REBGV) president said.
“As prices rose in the first half of the year, public debate waged about what was fuelling demand and what should be done to stop it. This led to multiple government interventions into the market. The long-term effects of these actions won’t be fully understood for some time.”
Residential properties listed for sale on the Multiple Listing Service® (MLS®) in Metro Vancouver reached 57,596 in 2016. This is an increase of 0.6 per cent compared to the 57,249 properties listed in 2015 and a 2.6 per cent increase compared to the 56,066 properties listed in 2014.
“The supply of homes for sale couldn’t keep up with home buyer demand for much of 2016. This allowed home sellers to raise their asking price. It wasn’t until the last half of the year that prices began to show modest declines.”
The MLS® Home Price Index (HPI) composite benchmark price for all residential properties in Metro Vancouver ends the year at $897,600. This represents a 2.2 per cent decrease over the past six months and a 17.8 per cent increase compared to December 2015.
December summary
Residential property sales in the region totalled 1,714 in December 2016, a decrease of 39.4 per cent from the 2,827 sales recorded in December 2015 and a decrease of 22.6 per cent compared to November 2016 when 2,214 homes sold.
Last month’s sales were 8.1 per cent below the 10-year sales average for the month.
New listings for detached, attached and apartment properties in Metro Vancouver totalled 1,312 in December 2016. This represents a decrease of 35.1 per cent compared to the 2,021 units listed in December 2015 and a 58.3 per cent decrease compared to November 2016 when 3,147 properties were listed.
The total number of properties currently listed for sale on the MLS® in Metro Vancouver is 6,345, a 5.3 per cent increase compared to December 2015 (6,024) and a 24.3 per cent decrease compared to November 2016 (8,385).
Sales of detached properties in December 2016 reached 541, a decrease of 52.4 per cent from the 1,136 detached sales recorded in December 2015. The benchmark price for detached properties is $1,483,500. This represents an 18.6 per cent increase compared to December 2015 and a 1.8 per cent decrease compared to November 2016.
Sales of apartment properties reached 915 in December 2016, a decrease of 25.3 per cent compared to the 1,225 sales in December 2015.The benchmark price of an apartment property is $510,300. This represents a 17.3 per cent increase compared to December 2015 and a 0.3 per cent decrease compared to November 2016.
Attached property sales in December 2016 totalled 258, a decrease of 44.6 per cent compared to the 466 sales in December 2015. The benchmark price of an attached unit is $661,800. This represents a 20.4 per cent increase compared to December 2015 and a 0.8 per cent decrease compared to November 2016.
Living proof. That’s what this story is about. Shauna’s healing and redemptive recovery from years of disability, suicide attempts, and near homelessness makes clear one simple message: healing and recovering from mental illness and psychiatric medication injury are possible for anyone. No doctor required.
This is what I now know: people require basic tools, simple truths, and community. Add in the tincture of commitment and epic stories of healing are possible.
Shauna completed the first cycle of Vital Mind Reset, and here’s what she had to say:
Learn about how she did this program on food stamps, why she thinks volunteering was a major element in her process, and how she now is med free and has had the diagnosis of Bipolar scrubbed from her medical record. Also get ready to watch me cry beginning with the introduction ; )
Transcript
Dr. Kelly Brogan: Hi, everyone. I am here today with Shauna. I have been looking forward to this interview for many, many weeks now. I think this is probably going to be one of the most important conversations of my career.
And the reason is because this is living proof of what I have always known in my heart was possible. And I think the realness and authenticity that Shauna brings to this experience will be very evident to you.
So, I want to just preface this by saying that when I began my work, bringing women off of psychiatric medication, I began to see a pattern over and over again of a kind of transformation that I never knew was even possible. My goal was just to get them safely and efficiently off of their medication.
But of course, the unintended consequences were that many, many of these women were reborn. They took on a whole different set of beliefs. Their life possibilities and potential began to expand almost exponentially. They began to take on literally almost like radiance and glow from the inside out that inspired me literally daily.
So, I knew that there had to be a way to get these simple, basic tools to women who were not coming to my office. Obviously, coming to my office is very prohibitive not only time-wise, financially, travel-wise. And it’s just honestly not necessary.
So, it was with that in mind that I wrote a book. And even before writing the book, I began to create—well, it took three years—this online program, The Vital Mind Reset.
My intention was to just see if it was possible, to put these tools in the hands of people that I wouldn’t necessarily directly interact with. So, it’s true self-initiated healing.
And my goal—honestly, many people ask me when am I going to train doctors and other clinicians. It’s not at the top of my list because my intention is really to cut out the middleman and to activate this self-healing potential in individuals directly.
So, this is where Shauna and I crossed paths. We did a beta launch in June. And honestly, we were just hoping it would make sense to people. I don’t know whether my expectations were even that high. But we put I think 200 people through the initial run.
And Shauna’s experience and the articulate way that she’s able to express herself in the written word, it was like a lighthouse radiating from the Internet, calling me towards it. I was so inspired.
I remember reading one of your commentaries on this closed Facebook group that we started back then. And literally—I could cry talking about it—I was crying in my kitchen because I just never knew it was possible.
So, with that, I’m really, really excited to learn more about you because you’re not a patient of mine and don’t need to be a patient of mine. I’m so honored to learn more about what this process looked like when it comes from the inside out and to learn more about you as a woman.
So, with that, I will pass the mic on to you. And I hope to learn a bit about really what your experience consisted of, what brought you to this shifts, and what you think maybe were the most important ingredients of your personal transformation.
Shauna: Well, I had a pretty long mental health journey before I even found your work. I really started back I’d say probably as a teenager. I had experienced quite a bit of trauma and some pretty extreme traumas.
And I think when I went off to boarding school to finish the last years of high school, I didn’t have any support, I didn’t have any counseling, I would keep myself awake for days at a time because I was afraid to sleep because I would have nightmares. And so, I drank copious amounts of coffee and diet soda.
And then, it sort of took on a life of its own. I started having periods where I didn’t really need the caffeine to stay awake for days at a time. I think that was sort of the first time that the manias really started.
And then, usually, with the manias, there was a bit of disconnection with reality, especially towards the end of it. It could probably be defined as psychotic symptoms. I would just lose touch with what was real.
And then, eventually, I crashed into depression.
I guess in my mind, it was really the depression that was the problem because I felt pretty good at the beginning of the manias. My creativity really came out. I would write, I would paint, I would draw.
And by the time I got to college, that was the first opportunity I had to go to counseling in trying to deal with some of the experiences that I have had. I really didn’t know how to deal with the magnitude of what had happened to me. I was really struggling with the depression and everything coming up. And so that was the first time that it was suggested to me that I try an anti-depressant.
I don’t react like most people react to anti-depressants. They trigger mania in me. And then, every time I’ve been on an anti-depressant, since then, I’ve become manic and then psychotic and then attempted suicide.
So, that was my first experience at the beginning of college. I actually ended up in the hospital first. That was my first visit to a psychiatric unit. They threw a bunch of meds at me and were just trying to make me sleep, basically. So, it was the anti-depressant and then some tranquilizers and sleeping pills.
And then, about a month after I got out of the hospital, I was still on medication, that was when I had my first suicide attempt.
I remember I overdosed. I took handful of pills.
And then, right after, I had a friend show up and I told him what I had done. He got me to the hospital and they ended up pumping my stomach.
And I remember, when they were discharging me, the nurse handed me a referral to the psychiatrist and said, “Well, here, you can go meet with this doctor and they can put you on something for your depression.”
I remember just looking at her and I was like, “But I was on something.” No one had asked me what meds.
And then, I had a period where I wasn’t actually on medication. And that was mostly just because I didn’t have insurance at the time, so I quit taking the medications that they had prescribed.
And then, I began self-medicating. I’m a recovering alcoholic, but I’ve been sober for about 9 ½ years now. So I experimented with drugs and alcohol, and then eventually got myself sober.
And then, when I got sober, it came back to “I needed to deal with the things that had happened to me” and I began struggling with that, which again, landed me in the office of a psychiatrist. And that was when they started putting me back on medications.
And it took several anti-depressants for them to realize that that was how I reacted to anti-depressants.
So, I had—gosh, I don’t even know. I think I’ve lost count of the number of hospitalizations I had and the number of suicide attempts to—I don’t know, it’s probably about half a dozen of each. And not all of the suicide attempts—I didn’t always end up in the emergency room. Some of them, I just didn’t die. I just sort of woke up a day or two later and was really sick.
But one of those hospitalizations is when somebody finally put it together that that was how I reacted to anti-depressants. They were like, “Oh, well, you must be bipolar. That explains why you don’t react normally to these medications.”
And then, looking back on it, I had a history of pretty distinct manias and depressions even prior to going on medications. It was just the manias triggered by the anti-depressants. They looked a bit different than the manias I had just on my own.
So, at the point that I got labeled with bipolar 1, I was so manic that time when I landed in the hospital. And again, they just threw meds at me trying to knock me out, trying to get me to come down.
And by the time I left the hospital, around that time—and my memory is a little fuzzy because of all the medications I was on. But around that time, I was probably at the worst. I was on probably 10 to 12 different medications, most of them psychiatric medications.
I was a complete zombie when I left. It was a struggle just to get out of bed to get a glass of water. I had trouble standing up long enough to take even a 5-minute shower. Sometimes, I’d have to take a break and sit down in the middle of the shower because I couldn’t stand long enough. I just didn’t feel human.
I don’t really know what I did for all those years. I pretty much lived in bed. I would leave the house to go to appointments, and then sometimes the grocery store. But I would just lie in bed with my cats.
I couldn’t read. I lost the ability to read. And I was a voracious reader back in the day. I would devour a book on my day off. I totally lost that ability.
I couldn’t watch TV or movies because I couldn’t focus. Everything was overwhelming to me. I couldn’t listen to music because it was too much.
So I think I pretty much just laid in bed for several years by myself just staring at the wall.
I had such trouble with just small daily tasks. I couldn’t handle washing the dishes. I would just use paper plates or I pretty much just ate microwaveable meals. And then, I even buzzed off all of my hair because I couldn’t handle washing and styling my hair. It was just too much especially when I was struggling just to stand up in the shower.
So, the last couple of years that I was on medication, I pretty much had no hair. That was one thing I could literally cut out of my routine.
Dr. Kelly: So, this is a lot like what Robert Whittaker speaks to in the Anatomy of an Epidemic where he talks about how an otherwise healthy potentially functional person can slide down this slope into disability through the backdoor of medication. It sounds very much like that’s what you—you were one of those statistics that he called through his presentation.
Shauna: Absolutely! That book really spoke to me when I read it.
Dr. Kelly: Yeah, I can imagine.
Shauna: I could relate to it quite a bit.
And then, the point that I decided to come off of medication, the best way I can really describe it is that I just—I think my survival instinct just started screaming at me. I knew I couldn’t keep going, and I knew that I had to try something. And that seems like a direction that I could go in. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to if I just kept medicating myself and stayed in bed.
So, I began discussing with my psychiatrist how to taper. And my psychiatrist, thankfully, he was a very open-minded psychiatrist especially for a conventional one. But I remember, I wasn’t sure how to even approach this with him because he knew I wasn’t doing well, and I didn’t want to just bounce into his office and be like, “I want off all my meds.” I didn’t think that would really go over very well.
But I sort of started testing the waters. I picked one medication and was talking to him about coming off of that. And I remember, he said at one point to me that he was fine with whatever I decided to do, whether that was more medication, less medication or no medication.
The fact that he gave me no medication as an option opened the door for me to be able to have that discussion with him about the fact that I wanted to come off of my meds. And then, he was able to suggest what order we should do it in and give me a taper schedule and all of that.
So, last year, last summer, I started tapering off the remaining meds that I was on. I had come off of a number of them. So, I was probably on about five or six at the point that I started tapering.
And the tapers were way too fast. I didn’t know any better at the time. I had to balance wanting to come off of the meds and wanting to do it correctly with just the fact that I was done. I just wanted to get done with the medications. And I think so many people are so eager when they make that decision to come off.
Dr. Kelly: Understandably so, yeah.
Shauna: They just want it to be over with. And honestly, if I could go back in time and slow down what I did, I absolutely would even if it took ten times as long as it did because I think I would’ve come out a little more intact right after.
But it was while I was in bed sick from the withdrawals that I actually discovered your work. It was like my whole world just came to a stop because I realized through a number of those interviews that not only were there other people out there who felt the same way that I did, that there had to be a better way to do this, but listening to you talk, I realized that there’s actually science to back it up, to back up what I knew in my heart to be true, that these meds are not the answer and that they can often cause more damage than help.
So, I heard that you recommend certain dietary changes to your patients. And so I started making changes slowly. And then, when your book came out, I had it in my hands the day it came out. I had not read a full book in years at that point. A Mind of Your Own was the first book I read all the way through in years. And I finished it the day after it came out.
I’ve been practicing. I sort of had to re-learn how to read. But I had been practicing reading magazine articles out loud to my cats. They loved it. And so I was getting better at it. But yeah, that was the first book that I read all the way through.
And then, I started the reset from the book the following day and felt great doing it.
And then, when The Vital Mind Reset came out and I had the chance to join the beta group, I jumped at the opportunity. I feel like that program really sort of added some of the other components that were missing from my healing journey—specifically like meditation and detox. Meditations have been wonderful.
Dr. Kelly: Yeah, I’ve witnessed that you’ve really taken the meditation component and ran with it. You have developed your own practice. You have a seemingly deep curiosity. You have a relationship to this practice that I think any of the women that I work with would attest to being paramount.
So, the dietary piece is certainly foundational, detox is an amplifier. But if you really want to knock it out of the park, the meditation piece is really key.
And here’s the thing about Kundalini specifically. It either hits or it doesn’t. And when it does, it feels like a remembrance. It feels like, “Oh, here’s that entire toolkit that I forgot about.” And then, it ends up being—
I mean, I think of my practice as like my best friend. It’s what I turn to first when I’m struggling. And what is more valuable than that? It’s really an exercise in a different kind of self-reliance.
And you speak to one of these. One of the principal tenets that I have come upon—I certainly wasn’t born knowing this—is that suffering and struggle and pain and sadness and grief, in many ways, these are the ties that bind.
Like you’re saying, for you to have been to the depth that you’ve been to, explored what it feels like to feel totally hopeless, abandoned, bereft, unlovable, whatever it was, it’s almost a universal current that we all touch at some point in our lives through different portals whether it’s the death of a child or a sexual violation or some kind of loss (of a beloved, of a job). We can be directly plugged into this almost universal experience of pain.
You know what I mean? It’s not like we each get a version. It’s really a universal thing. And so, once you’ve touched that, then you can, as you’ve said, tell someone, “I’ve been there.” Even if you don’t say it, they feel it through your empathy.
And so you had mentioned in our group something about how valuable volunteering has been for you. And I think most of us would hear—even what we’re hearing about your experience at this point—and say, “I thought volunteering was for like rich people who are bored.” Now, it is you. You figured out that that was something in your state of whether it was disability or financial challenge or whatever it was that volunteering was for you.
And you said, in fact, it’s been a major part of your healing. So, I would love for you to say a word about that because I don’t know that it’s very intuitive to many of us.
Shauna: Yeah, I actually started volunteering a month after I took my last dose of my last medication. So I was still pretty sick at that point. But I just felt like I needed to be doing something—and not only in the sense that it got me out of bed and it got me out of the house, but I think there’s something very healing when you can be of service to others.
And so I started volunteering at the local food pantry here in town […] I did their energy assistance appointments too. But just getting to really help in my community which is such a wonderful community—
And the volunteers there have become my family. I don’t have family up here. I have a few really good friends. But most of them didn’t even know what was really going on with me.
And so, the folks where I volunteered have really seen me from the point when I was really, really sick. And then, they’ve seen me kind of blossom over the last year.
Yeah, it’s just been amazing. I don’t think that I would have made the progress in my healing that I have had I not been volunteering, had I not been trying to put my energy towards something else and had the opportunity to just kind of get out of my own head for a while.
Dr. Kelly: Totally! And I think what you illustrate is that it’s not—this kind of service isn’t something that you do when you feel like you’re sick, and then you have a surplus of energy to give to other people.
Obviously, you have a very strong inner compass. I study this like an anthropologist. I come from a place of being all mind, all my decisions being made from my intellect, having really no sense of what it is to just be drawn to something like the way you were drawn from your bed basically to begin to volunteer.
It’s so fascinating for me because I think that that’s what we need to get to particularly as women. Just the sense of being led by an internal knowing, I love that.
So, this knowing also made possible for you the execution of the different steps of the Vital Mind Reset that I think many people would feel very daunted by—whether it was planning or putting together the different kinds of ingredients or replacing products that you were potentially using.
And you made it work “on a shoestring” and that’s probably a generous statement. I think we have so much to learn from you, but I’d love to just learn about the mindset that led you to believe it was possible to even do this on the kind of financial budget that was available to you at the time.
Shauna: Yeah. So, because I ended up on disability on this journey, my monthly income had been literally less than half of what’s considered even the poverty line. I was barely getting by. I barely had a roof over my head. I was grateful just to have a roof over my head.
And so I have not had disposable income. I haven’t had any extra money to spend on anything extra. And when I did, the food portion of the Reset, my food budget was only what I received in SNAP or food stamps.
I was really determined to make this work because, in my heart, I just knew that this was the path I needed to be on. And so I knew what my resources were, and I knew that I had to figure out how to make it work.
So, with the food, definitely, I got better at it as I went along. But I picked certain things that I would not compromise on—so the quality of meat, I wouldn’t compromise on. I used the Environmental Working Group’s Dirty Dozen and Clean 15. I wouldn’t compromise on those.
And then, with everything else, I really just did the best that I could because I think when your reality is a food budget that’s a few dollars a day—I think the average in this country is $4 a day per person for food stamps—when that’s the reality you’re facing, you really do the best that you can.
But I figured out little tricks as I went along and I got better at doing it.
And then, when it came to looking at all of the other aspects of the program, I obviously didn’t have a lot of money that I could go out and spend. I couldn’t just clear out my bathroom and all of my homecare products in one day and replace everything because, honestly, it was a struggle just to buy a tube of toothpaste. So, that was something that took some time.
Although now, I make my own products and it’s actually cheaper than the conventional stuff I was buying before. And it’s not nearly as hard as you would think.
I wasn’t able to go out and buy an air filter. I still don’t have one. I can’t afford one. But I open my windows on a regular basis. And I try and get outside. You don’t have to go out and buy a $300 water filter. I mean, filtering your water is extremely important, but they actually sell fairly inexpensive water bottles that filter and even some countertop pitchers that actually work. You have some great links on your website.
And everything else, I just kind of done the best that I can. Replacing my cookware, I’m barely into that. But I shop Salvation Army on their 50% off days. And eventually, I’m going to collect everything I need.
So, it’s just taking some time.
And I think one of the things that I had to face in the beginning is that I can be a bit of a perfectionist. And sometimes, when I’m confronted with making changes, my view is “Well, if I can’t do this 100%, then I’m just not going to do it.” And I really had to get over that in the beginning because there was no way for me to just automatically be able to do everything at once. This has been a journey.
And I think once I was able to get past that, and kind of prioritized where I was going to make changes, it’s been working. I don’t feel like I’ve missed out on the benefits of this program because I haven’t had a lot of money to throw at it.
And as I continue to make little changes, I continue to see the benefits of it. So, it’s been a journey, but I’ve been enjoying it. It’s been almost fun sometimes to try and figure out how to make this work.
Dr. Kelly: Yes. It really strips away any of the potential for you to delude yourself about points of resistance. We’re talking about how time and money are the very available sources of resistance. It’s very easy for us to say, “It’s so expensive” or “I don’t have the time.” But the kind of creativity that stems from a deep desire for an experience is unstoppable, right?
So, what you’re talking about when you paint this picture of what you crafted over the month is creativity. I mean, you literally applied your creative mind to a dilemma and you made it work.
I find it so inspirational because it’s, again, driven home to me once again that mindset is the most critical ingredient for healing. It’s really all that matters. Again, everything that we do in Vital Mind Reset, everything I do in my practice, who’s to say that it’s not just an elaborate ritual that, again, activates your own inner potential for self-correction and self-repair? I don’t know.
But I do know that the stories that have come out of this very basic toolkit are so incredible. And what these women all have in common is that they decided to believe it was possible, and they chose to commit and there was some current of faith that ran through even the challenges and struggles and many, many obstacles that others might have taken as a sign to just abandon ship.
So, I can literally talk to you all day. And I’m sure I’m leaving people hanging with many, many questions about your tremendously fascinating experience. But I would love to paint for people, Shauna, just sort of what’s become possible for you.
Where are you at now? And what would you say to someone who is in places that you’ve been, sort of in the birth canal, so to speak, sort of thinking about crawling back up into the uterus and how familiar that place was? How might you paint for them a picture of what’s possible out in the world?
Shauna: I’ve said this before, but I think when I started this journey, I really would’ve just been content to just not be depressed all the time. That really was only my initial goal with all of this, to just not feel depressed all the time.
And now that I’ve come this far, this is about so much more than just not feeling depressed. I feel alive for the first time possibly my whole life. I feel like I’m actually living my life. I had lost the feeling of hope. I didn’t know what hope felt like when I was medicated, when I was sick, when I was in bed. And now, I feel like my life can really be anything that I want it to be. It’s like I’m getting to re-create my life.
I’m confident when I leave the house. I feel comfortable in my body, in my skin. I’m a better friend to my friends. I communicate better with people. I can connect with people. I don’t feel like I’m on the outside of life kind of looking in which is what I always felt like. I never felt connected with the universe or with society or with my community. And now, I feel like I’m a vital part of all of that.
I think when you start to wake up, when you start to really feel that hope and feel like, “There’s got to be something better out there,” hold on to it. Hold on to it and it will grow. I think anyone is capable of finding that inner determination if they just hold on to even the tiniest spark of hope.
Dr. Kelly: So inspirational, truly. For me, this experience of knowing you is game-changing because I wasn’t sure that—who knows? I didn’t know that it wasn’t just something in the air of my office that was making this possible. You were really like the early sign to me that this kind of awakening is available to anyone and everyone with no exceptions.
And that is such an important message. Otherwise, people will use the orthodoxy to tell themselves, “Well, that experience of life is for someone else. It’s not for me.”
And so you’re the most inspirational living proof. There’s such great stuff coming from you. And I tell you that every day because you’re such a native healer and you have such tremendous compassion and you’re so articulate. I can envision 400 conscious businesses that you could start today.
And so the tail of your trajectory just makes it all the more poignant. But really, the truth is that you are one person lighting this path for others. And isn’t that pretty much what we’re here to do?
Shauna: And I’m so grateful to you that you’ve put this information out there in other forms that are accessible to people whose situations might be more similar to mine than the people who are able to see you as patients. The fact that your book is out there, that the online program is out there, that you write blogs on it all the time, I’m just so grateful that you’ve been putting this information out there.
Dr. Kelly: Well, we’re doing it together. And I’m just super honored, Shauna. So thank you for your time and for the bravery that is necessary to sort of get real on this level because it’s the greatest act of service. Thank you. I’ll see you on the interwebs and give you a digital hug.
Alright, Shauna, ciao!
Shauna: Bye!
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allowed to wear. If you have one of the saunas for the home, then you don’t have to worry about what you wear. You can wear shorts, a bikini, or nothing at all if the feeling strikes you and no one can say a word about it.
