If you or your family has ever faced a health scare from mold, Lyme disease, or other chronic illness, it’s likely shaken your sense of safety. You might feel blindsided by new discoveries like toxic load, and if you’ve turned to friends and family for support, you may feel like they think it’s in your head or you’re overreacting, even if they didn’t say so.
If this is you, it’s not your fault.
The truth is, there’s always something affecting your health, and it’s not possible to fix it all. To try, it’s just overwhelming, not to mention costly. That’s why in this blog post, I’m going to show you the three things you can do now to make smarter decisions and not go down an expensive and unnecessary rabbit hole.
1. Get buy-in by focusing on a few things
The number one problem I see when someone learns their home is affecting them is that they worry about everyone else and how they’re being affected. It comes from a place of care, but it’s never well-received. It’s also a problem discussing all the ways you’re being affected and everything you need to do with your spouse, because to them, it’s too overwhelming, making it hard for them to buy in.
Before you go any further, I want you to know that you’ll never be able to fix everything, and if you think you can or even try, you’ll come across as unhinged and get overwhelmed. Look for the most obvious culprits first, and usually, just one or two major things make the biggest difference, so focus on quick wins with the biggest impact. If your spouse sees a positive change in you, they’re much more likely to support changes if you’re only suggesting one or two things.
There is no better example than Alana. She came to me feeling hopeless as her health deteriorated despite her efforts. Twelve years after her MS diagnosis, she was thriving. But then “mystery symptoms” appeared, including tiredness, brain fog, and feeling “off,” which had spiraled out of control. Fearful of her health issues returning, she jumped into action, exploring every possibility and rabbit hole, with tests, practitioners, and treatments. Everything appeared “normal” even though she knew things were NOT normal. One of her doctors told her to see a psychiatrist, making her feel dismissed and belittled. By the time she thought of addressing her home, she was ready to completely overhaul it, which created friction with her husband since they had just remodeled. It was about this time we connected, and she immediately saw the value in looking for obvious culprits. It became clear what the key issue was. Being safety-conscious, they had installed a security camera, one floor beneath the bedroom window, around the time her symptoms started. She never would have guessed it was the issue. She removed it immediately, and the next morning, her brain fog started lifting, and her life got better. Now she didn’t need to spend thousands of dollars on high-priced items. For many people, it can be something as simple as that. You may not have a camera; it could be a forgotten tablet, which is just as simple. And that is why you may not need to fix everything.
So before you go looking for everything you could do, which is an endless and expensive list, start with the obvious things. Look at what is in the vicinity where you spend your time and what may have changed, because this is something most people overlook. And while yes, you could benefit from other solutions, focusing on one or two major factors that affect you can save you time and money. This simplifies it for everybody, and it makes it easier for your spouse to get on board with the changes you’re suggesting.
2. Focus on reducing your exposure
Now that I’ve told you to look for simple fixes, you might be saying to yourself “What if it’s not obvious?” which could send you back down a rabbit hole of trying to fix everything. Some people, to avoid this, tell themselves, “I know, I’ll buy a device that will help me,” and then, when they start looking at the readings, well, let’s just say they become even more terrified than before.
While I love meters myself, to avoid guessing, it’s important to choose the right type and, more importantly, consider the readings in the context of exposure time. For example, if your extra bedroom has wireless devices, it’s less concerning than a security camera near a bedroom window where you sleep. The reason is that the amount of time you spend in the extra bedroom room is less than the bedroom you sleep in. However, if you do have meters, the right ones are great and can provide valuable information, as long as you include the other data points.
Kaci is a great example of this. She and her husband had experienced a devastating mold problem in their previous home, and her health plummeted with dizziness, headaches, heightened sensitivities, and months of testing and treatments before feeling better. They were excited about a fresh start and avoiding another mold nightmare. But soon after moving into their new home, she noticed subtle symptoms. As they worsened, she realized they were tied to specific areas and affected her in different ways. To make things worse, she found mold under the eaves and decided to be proactive. Remembering her panicked and scattered approach last time, she decided to be smarter this time and use data to understand exactly what was happening. She and her husband purchased meters, but when they saw the readings, it felt like their house was out to get them. As she got to work, she realized she was prioritizing the high readings without any real context, while de-prioritizing how she was affected by her symptoms, how long she spent in those areas, how often it happened, and how long it took her to feel better. Once she categorized all that information, she was able to prioritize and fix her home, and use both her meter data and her symptoms to measure the impact of her changes. While her husband was supportive and on board, he felt better about investing in fixes where she spent much of her time, and isn’t triggered in those spaces anymore.
If you think you need to go out and buy meters, remember that they offer only a single data point, and you should look at multiple data points before choosing the best solution. Take a moment to consider where you’re spending time, how you feel, what you believe the problem is, and then think of different ways to reduce your exposure and select a solution.
3. Break it into phases
The third problem I see is that people create a massive list and become fixated on checking everything off, even if the returns are minimal for the items at the bottom. Or worse, new things have quietly appeared in the home that are far more important to prioritize, and they go unnoticed because the attention is on the original list.
The solution, borrowing from the tech world, is to adopt an agile approach, which means working in small, focused phases by prioritizing the entire list and addressing the highest-impact items. After each phase, wait a few weeks and revisit your goals, assess any changes, what no longer needs attention, and add new items. Then reprioritize the list and identify the next few items to address. That’s the approach I would suggest for you, so you can relax a bit and evaluate between each phase, rather than committing to a daunting static list you never revisit.
Melissa is a perfect example of this. See, she had, over the years, developed a significant chronic condition that kept her from working. As she recovered, she returned to work as a consultant and quickly noticed she was getting completely drained at work and exhausted at home, and it was becoming too much. Her husband was always incredibly supportive and wanted to help, but didn’t know what he could do. Once we created her report and plan with all the data we collected, it was an intimidating list that would have been costly and taken weeks to fix every single item, and she felt completely overwhelmed at the thought of tackling it all. Using a phased approach made it much more manageable. She and her husband quickly identified the key items to address for the first phase, and since he was part of the decision-making process, he was fully on board with the changes. After the first phase of changes, she felt so much better with more mental clarity and energy throughout the day; they felt confident scaling back for the second phase, saving time, money, and stress. Within a week after the second phase, her energy levels and sleep drastically improved, and even her husband’s sleep tracker showed his sleep improved! She felt confident holding off on the remaining items, knowing from the data that they had prioritized and addressed the most important issues without wasting weeks on implementing everything on their original list.
If you have a long list and feel like you’re not done until every single thing is done, you can let go of those feelings of guilt and obligation. That massive list is going to burn you out, and let’s face it, there’s always something changing or something new coming into your home. Breaking this into phases keeps the scope small, ensures you’re always focusing on the top priorities, and makes it easier to get buy-in from the rest of the household. And, you can stop when you feel you’ve done enough, even if you’ve only completed one phase.
This is how you can keep toxins from making you crazy.
You can absolutely live in a healthy home, and you deserve it, too. I understand what it’s like; I have been where you are, and finding solutions was tough. Now that I’ve found these solutions, I’m passionate about helping people feel empowered and relieved by helping them understand how they’re being impacted, and meaningful actions they can take to get their environment under control and feel safer.
If you’d like a little bit of free guidance on how to hit the ground running to get rid of these things with customized advice and steps you can take immediately, then feel free to schedule a call with me here.
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