by Danika Deva, NACWE Education Coordinator

What flits through your mind when we mention Environmental Wellness?

The theme of the year 2020 for the National Association fo Christian Women Entrepreneurs  is ENTREPRENEUR WELLNESS!

The theme of July 2020 is Environmental Wellness!

Environmental Wellness – Is Everything Unclean?

I never filtered my water–I didn’t care. I thought it tasted great right out of the tap.  After all, I wasn’t in a third-world country where amoebas abound; I was in America.

I used shampoo that made my hair look great.  I never paid attention to the unpronounceable chemicals on the back of the bottle that would soon be in my hair and flow over my skin entering my pores from every direction.

And food, well, I was all about being frugal and I didn’t realize the preservatives on our food could harm our lives and wreak havoc on our hormones and immune system.

I smelled and saw mildew in my office building, but it was an old building, so what!  Old buildings are everywhere. That’s a fact!

I never thought these things would hurt me.  

But they did! 

They completely turned my life upside down and inside out.  

Environmental Wellness – Unclean Can Turn Your Life Inside Out

In 2017, my body decided to flip a switch and my Mast Cells, the alarm cells in our bodies, went haywire! Suddenly, I became allergic/reactive to everything including the sun, cats and dogs, mold, most foods, perfumes, dust, chemicals, and more.  Yes, even to chocolate!

Everything set me off. Why? Because my body had become toxic from the lack of environmental wellness in my life!

This was partly my responsibility and partly from where I worked. The overload on my system from chemicals, unclean air, preservative laden food, mold, and more set me off.

I had to isolate as I found myself with a myriad of symptoms ranging from headaches, cardiovascular issues, tissue swelling, vomiting, hives, bone and joint pain similar to the flu, cognitive dysfunction, respiratory issues, and more. Honestly, there were too many symptoms, so I stopped counting.

Environmental Wellness vs. “Unwellness”

Yes, folks, environmental “unwellness” played a big part in my life and I was forced to choose environmental wellness just to survive.

I had to:

• Stop using all dyes or I would die (true– as I became allergic to them).  As a woman that meant I had to go gray at 48.
• Buy air filters and start filtering my air.
• Eat clean by shopping for organic products and washing all fruits and veggies with special cleaners.
• Filter my water to get the dangerous chemicals out.
• Start making my own shampoo and conditioner, deodorant, laundry soap, lotion, etc. (You can find these easy recipes on my website.)
• Avoid all dusty and moldy buildings
• Steer clear of all but 10-20 foods to limit reactions.
• Carry an umbrella, rain or shine. (Sun exposure made me sleep for hours.)
• Begin taking many medicines to compensate for the Mast Cell issues in my body.
• Deal with immense pain and swelling and other related medical conditions while I tried to survive.
• Begin a 1 ½ year detox protocol to help detoxify my body.

Folks, this was brutal!  

My whole life collided to a stop while I tried to manage my symptoms and hold on.

Environmental Wellness – I was Healed!

Then, in 2018, I was miraculously healed in church during prayer. I had reminded God on the way to church that Proverbs 3:5-6 says to “trust in him” and not “understand in him,” and I apologized for trying to understand it all and surrendered.  I kept trying to figure out this crazy rare illness and couldn’t.

At the end of church, God reset my body and it was amazing. I could go anywhere without a mask, eat most foods, and walk in the sun. It was beautiful!  It was freeing!  It was a miracle!

Did I still filter my air? Yes!

Did I still eat clean? Of course!

Did I still use chemical free products? Absolutely!

Did I still filter my water?  Definitely!

Why, because all of these environmental aspects contributed to my wellness.

Yes FOLKS, IT MATTERS!

Environmental Wellness Matters!

Environmental wellness is more than just dodging one or two environmental bullets in life. It means you take action for your life by observing your environment and then make adjustments to make it better.

We do this each morning when we get dressed and look in the mirror and then adjust our hair or outfit.

This correction helps us look and feel better, and so does the correction of the area of our environmental wellness.

Environmental Wellness – 10 ways to Increase Environmental Wellness

– in your life and the lives of those around you.

1. Dust regularly, even when you don’t want to.
2. Change your house filters every month or every other month.
3. Eat foods that you can pronounce the ingredients on the back! If you can’t pronounce it, you probably shouldn’t eat it.  Stay away from processed food, too.
4. Wash your fruits and veggies in a special cleaner to get the wax and preservatives off before eating them.
5. Use shampoos and conditioners, soaps, deodorants, and cleaners that are chemical free.
6. Make sure your makeup is natural and non-toxic.
7. Stay out of old, moldy buildings as mold can really damage your lungs and cells over time.
8. Filter your water.
9. Use natural hair dye. It might not last as long, but you are not putting harsh chemicals in your body.
10. Do what you can! And do it NOW!

Let me repeat that. Do what you can! And do it NOW!

Danika Deva

NACWE Education Coordinator

DanikaDeva.com

Danika Deva is a life and hope coach, writer, speaker and educator.  You can find her at DanikaDeva.com.

I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit. Romans 15:13