For the past few days, I’ve been about as “away from it all” as I’ve managed to achieve for ages. Not completely out of it, I should clarify (no off-grid experience this) but the best I’ve managed for a very long time, probably more than a decade when I think about it. We almost managed it a couple of years ago, but our plan went array (as written about before) and my health took a real knock as a result. This time we were away for slightly over a week, long enough for me to notice different things happening in my physical reponses to where we were staying (in fact, quite amazing how quickly the body responds to the more positive offering and begins to reboot) so it served as a real eye-opener.

As far as contrasts go, given how much I had been struggling with nerve pains (several weeks of occipital neuralgia!) and other EMF-worsened symptoms lately, it was very good timing for a trial of, you could say, our future life given the place we stayed was the kind of rural location we have in mind to move to at some point but “how soon?” being the golden question. How urgent is it? Would it really make any difference? I was about to find out…

This time, we were staying in a cottage on what I think of as a passive farm (as in, lots of animals, none of them harmed…) in a valley surrounded by woodland next to a small village with a stream running through it, plentiful country walks on the doorstep, no electrical exposures we couldn’t turn off (and we did, when it came to wifi and smart meter, etc), absolute darkness and quiet overnight if you don’t count the hooting of owls or coughing of donkeys, so we were able to pretty-much unplug and unwind our nervous systems for the week.

The proviso was that we were in that particular county at this particular time to help deal with a very difficult and saddening family situation involving my mother-in-law, who was discharged from hospital after 10 days during our stay, mainly because the hospital required the bed! This presented a very difficult, urgent situation regarding the desperate need for her to go into a care home and for my father-in-law to gain some respite. This was an awful, grief-stricken family situation framing our trip (the main reason for it), with repercussions and complications I won’t even attempt to convey except to say it is far from resolved.

So, in some ways, this wasn’t a true holiday but in others it met every truest definition of the word because it was a respite for me, from the untenable daily normal that feels like it is right at the core of all my physical problems. Yes, I have fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, PoTs and all that other stuff going on but all of those feel like effects and symptoms reliant on how exposed I am to modern EMFs, though its very hard to convince all the non-believers that these have such an impact (I’ve long-since stopped trying). So I knew, not so very deep-down, that I was also here, in this off-the-beaten-path location when we could have stayed in a hotel in town near my in-laws, to test out for myself how hard this everyday and assumed thing…living in the modern, urban, EMF-vomiting world…really is for me and how urgent it is that I get out of there, as far and as fast as I can.

High sensitivity is an evolutionary advantage, biology says so

Because I know, already, that I’m a textbook Highly Sensitive Person with a load of environmental sensory sensitivities to my name and, yes, that includes being highly sensitive to electromagnetic forces so this is something I needed to look at straight-on, so that I can make some all-important decisions about the direction of my life (and stop acting as though such decisions about exposures etc are taken out of everyone’s hands, decided for us by the powers that be). But here’s the thing…what I have truly come to believe these past few years:

I believe that every living-breathing human on this planet, and all the animals, birds and insects besides, are highly EMF sensitive, its just that we don’t all realise it yet!

In that sense, people like me (and there are a lot of us) are like the canary in the coal mine, which has been written about many times before so I’m not going to go there. My purpose here is to offer a direct comparison of one experience versus another, for other people who may consider themselves to be subtly or overtly sensitive to compare with their own experiences and thus make their own value call when it comes to asking how do I choose to live my life, what steps am I taking to live my best and healthiest life, with an eye to the future and longterm physical wellbeing (the longterm effects of modern EMF exposures on our health are not yet known, of course, but I am not particularly optimistic based on my own experiences).

And yes, maybe some of us need more respite from modern provocations than others, we are not all made the same, but first we have to identify ourselves as amongst this highly sensitive cohort if we are the ones that struggle and so many HSPs have no idea they are any different to other people, in some quite profound and demonstrable ways (see Elaine Aron‘s work as a starting point if interested). For the record, being an HSP isn’t a flaw but an evolutionary advantage, as has been amply demonstrated by science and history (Elaine covers this in her books). We were always meant to be the natural outliers of the community, by design, so that we could be the first to notice important things that others miss, picking up envornmental cues and alerting others to any danger that we sensed coming our way. Likewise, there are HSPs in the animal kingdom too and they always serve an important purpose in the herd, etc. because while all the other animals have their heads down grazing or engaging with one another, guess who alerts them to the preditor heading their way or the flood waters starting to rise?

While everyone else is so intent upon forming into packs, sharing the same interests, being communal, desperate to connect, hook-up and hang out in crowds, we are the ones wired to stand aside and notice important things so that, in the long run, everyone gets to thrive!

Fringe

But when do we ever get a respite ourselves if that “environmental cue” telling us there is danger in the vicinity is actually coming from within the community, because everyone is so invested in it? What if the pervasive communal behaviour doesn’t suit us or feels all-wrong and unhealthy yet we can’t step away from it as easily as we used to because it is fast becoming the dominant norm? How can we stay on the fringe if our spaces are all gobbled up, even the air we operate in modified to the point it feels completely different and our well-honed senses turned back in on themselves because they are overwhelmed by artificial signals carried on the air. Everything these days is geared towards becoming uniform and we are all meant to comply with, or put up with, significant choices that are made, literally, on everyone’s behalf (5G coverage of the entire planet is a prime example) so that there are very few fringe places left and those are getting smaller by the minute.

That word respite, which has come up strongly this week in the context of trying to organise some for my struggling in-laws, has got me thinking more about how we all need respite from something…but what, if any, options are left for us whenever we reach that point, in a world that presses on with agendas for everything to be made the same, wherever we happen to be on the planet (reliable wifi coverage is valued more than fresh air in such a world)?

How does any degree of EMF sensitivity fit side-by-side with a world that is pressing ahead, with great urgency, along agenda routes intent upon filling all our spaces, yes rural ones too, with an EMF “smog” quite impossible to ignore? We are all about to find out.

Energetic hangover, the toxic “hit”

Thankfully, for now, there are still some small pockets left out of the loop and the place we were staying is one of them, for now (it was quite charming to find our phone signal so poor that the sending of a brief message depended on the level of the wind during what was a stormy few days). Yes, the nearby city was a visceral hotspot for me as we skimmed its edges. Then, the main “A” road through the county was a bit tricky in places, mainly along the stretch near the biggest market town, where my in-laws live, where I noticed a considerable amount of masts including a 5G monstrosity, looming on the fringes but, really, I only noticed them there because I felt them first, even on journeys when I had my eyes shut. We quickly learned a back route we could to take in and out of our village to visit the in-laws and, whenever we had the time or the road wasn’t flooded, we went that way instead!

I also felt systemically “hit”, like a monstrous hangover, by the one night we spent having a meal out with other family members. The pub was a popular gastro eatery, thus pretty crowded and stuffy on a Saturday night. I will never know if it was the food that “got me” or the EMF convergence of just so many people with “live” phones about their person (or just being in a room with more people than I have been close to for a while) but, starting from the journey home and building up into the following day, I felt as though I had been hit by a juggernaught. This was utterly galling, given I had noticed a marked and steady improvement in myself all week, enjoying my best, least painful, most energised day for MONTHS immediately prior to the evening out (you should have seen me stride out on our hike that morning). Following our meal, I had my one bad night of the trip and was in awful pain and PoTs symptoms for the whole of that day, nauseus and unsteady on my feet until I made myself breathe some sea air and go for a walk, and still purging the next.

It was an intresting juxtaposition. We were now four days into our trip and, I believe, the gradual detox of my system had started to show real benefits…until the pub, as it were, chopped me off at the knees, sending me a-tumble, straight into a visceral reminder of what “back home” generally feels like at its worse, and it was horrible. Thankfully, after another three days, I had recouped all the benefits and was feeling marvellous again…until I came home. Coincidence (though far from the first time I’ve made such observations), or have I just had a taster of my alter life, in some future rural location we have moved to, where (5G allowing) my experience of daily life feels very different?

Comparing how two very different enviroments feel

So, to keep things simple (this is pretty much a comparison post) here’s what I now notice after a day and a half back in the Thames Valley urban EMF “smog” I call home and, below that, my comparison list of how I felt while I was away from home staying in a wooded valley with next to no EMF exposure at all.

Effects are listed in no particular order, though the first bullet-point is something I realised within ten minutes of stepping into our house, on its busy road with its endless flow of traffic outside, close-proximity housing, small industrial units nearby and at least a dozen wifi routers detectable, even when we have ours permanently switched off. Bear in mind, these are symptoms I experience all the time “normally” but which feel all the more pronounced, thus conscious, because I have been away and not had them for a week so they sound extra dramatic, even to me, as I now list them. If you don’t want to read through these lists, you can scroll down to the summary and discussion below.

• “Acidic” stomach, vaguely nauseous or hungry sensation, all the time.
• Tingling “electric” feeling in face, lips, tongue, fingers and toes, skin, all-over body.
• Internal tremble of pulse or subtle hand tremor at certain times.
• Random eye nerve twitches.
• Feel “toxic”, headachy, inflammed, sore.
• Inentense occipital neuralgia or pressure and flashes of trigeminal neuralgia causing tooth and facial pain. Miraine type headeaches and aural flashes.
• Neck becomes stiff, painful and prone to spasm if not carefully stretched, kept warm and well supported (indoors hats and scarves).
• Itchy ears.
• Tinnitus (I always have) that takes on a much sharper tone and varies more than usual, with occasional rushes of sound or shrillness like phone interference.
• Vision blurring to the point of almost snow blindness (also noticed this in the pub and a coffee shop we went into, both times unable to see the menu properly, even with glasses).
• Regular blood pooling in hands and feet, alternating with Reynaud’s, red and white blotchy extremities, pressure and pain in lower abdoment and against bladder.
• Restless or twitchy legs.
• Feeling irritable, snappy, blunt (flight or fight mode behaviours).
• Generalised “low serotonin” feeling.
• Regular urges for a quick dopamine fix (comfort food and other compulsions).
• A thinking mode that easily becomes pushy and dogmatic, stuck in a rut, leaving little room or cope for just being aware, fully present or using intuition
• An active urge to ground the body, eg by standing with bare feet on the bare earth, if I ever remember to this simple thing for myself, because…
• At regular times, brain fog descends like a grey curtain of unclear thinking, thoughts acquire slippery sides, a mist of forgetfulness hangs over even those intentions set just a few moments ago, executive function suffers.
• OCD behaviours start to take hold, grown out of the sheer determination it takes to to stick to a given task (given the above challenges); the problem now being how to stop doing them.
• A profound longing for cool sensations and an intense dislike of stuffiness or heat (as a foil for an intense internal inflammation that feels ever-present) but, here’s the sting, also unable to bear the slightest sensation of cold because it significantly increases sensitivity and pain!
• Therefore, needing layers of clothes, socks and hats indoors, heating on, windows shut if there is any cold or wind-factor.
• Clothes feel cloying, annoying, some fabrics (nylon) irritate or seem to burn, even my own skin feels uncomfortable to be in at times.
• Itching, burning skin and dry discoloured eczema patches appear on torso.
• Burning/electric peripheral neuropathy to lower abdomen in line with computer tech, have to watch videos at 3 metres distance.
• Unable to tolerate live mobile phone for more than a couple of minutes, feels like a hot potato I have to put down and switch off.
• Hot flushes for no apparent reason, day and night.
• Stuffy sinuses, not to do with mucus so much as feeling of intense pressure as though nasal passages narrow and sinues are being squeezed. No doubt this is also provoked by other urban pollutants such as traffic…but I am also convinced by my own experience that EMFs trigger cellular inflammation and tissue laxity, especially around the neck and head region, a combination that leads to congestion and poor functioning of sinus sacs and lymph nodes.
• Feeling of intense intercranial pressure at certain times.
• Lymph gland pressure or feeling of fullness or tenderness in neck, behind ears and under armpits.
• Intense random tooth nerve pain, sensitive to cold and toothpaste.
• Joint stiffness or pains and widespread generalised tissue pain, prone to spasms or episodes of sudden connective tissue laxity.
• Unrestful sleep, even with no electricity or wifi on in the immediate vicinity (I use an isolator switch at night).
• Chronic fatigue syndrome ever present, worse when EMF exposures are strongest.
• Constantly craving carbs to refuel and because they feel like a pain buffer.
• Waking at a run, as though adrenalin-pumped, even if still tired in the morning.
• A profoundly defeated, disempowered feeling that hovers, like being a maimed animal waiting for the final blow without a struggle…disillusoned, as though my body is clearly signalling what is wrong but I am not able to take the necessary action to save myself.
• Interstitial cystitis, IBS and other dysautonomic glitches on a regular basis.
• Random PoTs symptoms such as dizziness, lightheadedness, nausea, spacial challenges, blood pooling, vision disturbances, heart palpitations, shallow breathing (have to remember to breathe properly!).
• Any dietary lapses such a a small amount of sugar (see below) profoundly increase pain levels in this environment; there is no margin of tolerance so I am back to a strict avoidance diet.
• Experience energy lows or outright crashes at regular intervals during the day and after every meal.
• More sensitive than ever (or, noticing it more)…cars that go by send a “whoosh” of energy through my system, nerve endings feel jangled, raw, over-stimulated, wired yet tired.
• Cloud cover (thus October weather!) tend to make the intensity of the feelings worse.
• Loads of visual noise in the dark of night or shadow areas of my vision (see below).
• As soon as I feel hypersensitive, I become tunnel visioned, fixated on what is right in front of me, unable to expand my consciousness to the wider scope (because awareness means more pain) so I close down into the narrowest version of my senses as self-protection (compare this with how expansive I felt last week…)
• Find I musn’t allow myself to stagnate in this energy as sitting too long etc worsens the toxic effect but then moving becomes progressively more difficult due to more pain, caught in catch-22.
• I start to become a self-doubter, negating my own experiences, telling myself that I’m imagining these effects, that its unrelated to EMFs, that its just something I have to put up with.
• My environment feels like an electric fence that zaps me if I unfurl my sensory awareness too far outside of my body; thus I learn to recoil, which reflects as rigidity in my body.

By comparison, this is how I felt during my time away, taken from notes in my journal:

• (A really stark comparison was) I could easily bear the cold, in fact I loved keeping the house just the right side of chill, with the heating mostly off and the window open at night, even during the storms we had (normally, as above, I have to keep the house hermetically sealed, dress in multi-layers, shawls, socks and hats indoors as the slightest hint of cold or wind makes my nerve pain unbearable and my muscles and joints seize-up).
• I slept on a “normal” firmer mattress without the topper I had brought with me and far preferred this (at home, I need a foam mattress to cushion my overnight pain levels but this also makes me hot and can worsen hypermobility issues).
• I was able to get out of bed nimbly, with no stiffness or limping, even in the middle of the night.
• No need for my usual pain relief supplements, except on the day after the pub.
• No need of hats and scarves indoors.
• No need for guided meditations to get me off to sleep or in the night.
• No prolonged night-time wakefulness or ruminating at 4am.
• Joint pain almost non-existent, except in relation to long walks and time spent on a shingle beach in a fresh wind (fingers and wrists fine, legs expectably sore from walking, so what I call honest pain, rather than systemic meltdown).
• No teeth pain in response to cold, food or toothpaste.
• No inconvenient sugar lows or energy dips to speak of, even on outings.
• Able to sit for longer (say, doing crafts) without toxic feeling building up in body.
• No occipital or trigeminal neuralgia, though I had had this intensively for 6 weeks prior to the trip!
• Complete absence of brain fog, thinking felt extra clear, wrote loads, chatted vivaciously.
• No PoTs head symptoms (spacial issues, wooly headed, dizzy, vision issues etc) apart from the day after the pub meal, when they were severe.
• Some blood pooling effects of PoTs when standing for longer periods but far less than usual and always with an obvious explanation such as an extra long walk (not completely random, as at home).
• No fizzy nerve sensations, tingling, crawling skin, eye tics or other random “energetic” sensations.
• Able to reboot with just a 10 min nap once or twice a day (not the usual sluggishness that tends to hang around).
• Clear thinking, able to prioritise, not obsessional or “stuck” in rumination.
• Creative! First time I had picked up a pencil to draw in a very long time, also did needlework, edited photos etc.
• No need for calming supplements (normally take several throughout the day/night), needing less calming herbal tea, even able to drink caffeine with no ill-effects.
• Able to eat some of my usual food avoidances such as refined sugar, in moderation, with no registerable adverse effects, which is extremely rare.
• No sinus issues, able to breathe freely day and night, no need whatsoever of the steam inhaler used daily at home to enable me to get through the night.
• Skin comfortable, clothes weren’t bothersome and in fact kept remarking how pleasant things such as fabric and the cut of my clothing felt.
• Able to sleep perfectly well without the isolator switch that I have at home (that removes electric current from the room) as long as wifi and phones were off.
• In spite of electrical overhead cables very close to the cottage, these didn’t bother me as they usually would and it felt as though the wide open spaces and low personal load of EMFs made all the difference.
• Able to go out straight after a meal without experiencing a sugar crash.
• Able to walk and go on excursions or spend time with family for longer, with quicker recovery times.
• Able to tolerate shops and crowds in small towns without crashing fatigue or other adverse effects.
• Able to use my phone on cellular and wifi for far longer times than normal if needed (usually manage a couple of minutes) because, once I turned them off, I was able to recover fully from the effect due to the electrically quiet location. Also, no doubt, because I wasn’t also getting exposed to many other routers and phones at the same time.
• Sleep felt replenishing and noticed I was feeling more recovered, by degrees, every day.
• No visual noise in the extremely dark nghts; dark looked dark, not loaded with sparkles (see below)!
• Able to stand for half an hour at a time with the donkeys, my mind quiet, lost in an impromptu meditation whereas I normally struggle to stand for more than a minute without intense pain and my mind is seldom still for that long.
• Cloud cover made no difference, I was fine on dull, rainy or damp days.
• My mind was generally calmer, clearer, able to be still for long periods of time so that I could be fully present with my surroundings (normally, my mind seems to have to keep itself hyper-busy because awareness of my surroundings causes aggitation and pain).
• Even when I could feel EMFs around, for instance if we put the wifi router on for half an hour, it felt as though the open spaces and, especially, trees were mitigating or absorbing them (those same trees councils are cutting down because they absorb/block 5G signals…).
• I felt open and expansive, able to unfurl my awarenesses to notice everything that was going on around me in my environment because it didn’t feel threatening or painful. So I was joyfully able to notice every nuance of the changeable weather, all the sights and sounds of nature and animals on the farm and become a broader version of myself than I can be back home, where I feel like I’m flinching in pain a lot of the time (the electric fence effect, as above).

Good honest pain as compared to systemic meltdown

This phrase rang out to me on one of the days I was enjoying a good stride-out with none of my usual, intense, pain and discomfort levels through all of my bodily systems (how I typically feel as a base-line), just the healthy, stiff aches of a fifty-something woman who had been on a few good hikes over recent days. Here’s the thing, I’m not adverse to pain, or a “wuss” or extra-feeble or anything like that (I think these criticisms are often aimed at people with chronic pain conditions by those who don’t try to understand), its just so hard to explain that the kind of pain I generally live with is on a whole other level to standard headaches or muscle gripes from doing some gardening…which I don’t mind at all, they are a fact of life…its this whole other layer of all pervading, toxic-feeling, systemic discomfort that reduces my quality of life every day of the week, and it simply wasn’t hanging around as much while we were staying in this quiet place.

I have to add (its now a day and a half since I got back) that, by contrast, I now feel aggitated and like I want to crawl out of my own skin if I pay my body any attention. That skin is itchy/burning in places, making me want to scratch my torso and losen my clothes, as though I am bathed in static. My knee joints are painful and spongy, fingers and wrists hurt as I type, I have back my stiff painful gait, difficulty climbing stairs, feel bloated and sore in my stomach, soft tissues feel irritated and I’m generally sore all over. In the night, though we do a good job of blocking the blue street lamp, my vision is noisy, the room seemingly full of sparkles, the same effect as I glance into the shadow areas of this room during the daytime; I never seem to see true darkness in this environment because it appears loaded with energy. I can’t settle to anything much, except for wrtiting this post, because it feels as though there is a fire that needs putting out and my body is sending out the alarm, day and night.

Beware complacency and self-doubt

If this is my old “normal” then, rather than continue to take it for granted or lapse into complacency, I now see it in the full light of day, in stark contrast to how I was a few days ago and that can’t be ignored. Yet, already, I feel that part of me that becomes defeated and self-doubting under these pressures wanting to give in, delete this post and put up with it all as inevitable. But for this brief moment of contrast, I still have my determination intact and I know I need to harness that while I still have the will.

Because its one thing to accept “this is my lot in life” due to some chronic condition that I may have to face up to living with for the rest of my life because its apparently not fixable, but quite another to realise that it can be switched on or off (or at least down) according to the kind of environment I place myself in and the exposures I accept as normal. Its a whole other matter to realise that a version of the world touted as that so called “normal” (rapidly being rolled-out as the new “everywhere”…) can make a person feel like this, versus a far more natural environment, while such a thing exists. If I am the canary around here then surely other people should want to be made aware of this.

Determination

So what is my take-away here and what is the point of making a note of it while these observations are still fresh in my mind?

Well, I’m a person who has lived with chronic pain since about 2006…that fact remains…and many of the contributing factors to that still remain valid. For instance, gluten, glutamates, sugar, sulphites and oxalates all make my condition much worse, true, but I don’t believe its these food substances (in moderation) per se that my body rejects. What they all have in common is their effect on the nervous system. They all make a sensitive person (I would argue, any person) a whole lot more sensitive and therefore susceptible to the effects of EMFs; ironic, since modern day lifestyle advocates them all, to excess. We sit in crowded places, bathed in EMFs, and we gorge on the hidden sugar, added sulphites, modified wheat products and bottomless flavour enhancers that lurk in nine tenths of the food served up by commercial eateries and supermarkets, and this is deemed normal, by most people.

I know from direct experience, the healthier my body is (fuelled by a home-prepared organic diet), the easier I can cope with EMFs and, when my symptoms are at their very worse, I languish in a state of abject helplessness because I can’t even gather the energy or the brain power to do or think anything about it (this week away has given me SUCH clarity when it comes to acknowledging this one terrifying realisation about my predicament). Having made all the most dramatic lifestyle and diet adjustments possible over the past few years, and helpful though they are, yet still finding myself in severe pain, I can attest that these tweaks are just not enough to see me through another load of years living where there is no respite from the current, or ever increasing, EMF exposure at the same time as going through the inevitable aging process of my later decades. As it stands, the odds are stacked against me.

This week has shown me, I can be around technology, on my terms and in moderation but when I am bathed in it with no respite, I become severely unwell. If I can dip in and out of such exposures, I can manage my health reasonably. However, the opportunity for any of us to experience such a respite is fast becoming a figment of the past as there are very few places or situations left out of the scope of hefty EMF pollution.

The precarious situation I am in feels akin to holding a a tray of rolling pingpong balls, somewhat steadily, above my head on one hand, which takes all of my effort and focus yet knowing (not so deep down) that one day, fatigued as I am becoming, I will inevitably drop some or all of those balls…if I continue living this way. I can’t ignore the direct route from the kind of cellular inflammation, endocrine meltdown and nerve damage I am currently prone to, towards diabetes, dementia, Parkinson’s, Alzheimers, stroke and so on, especially post-menopause (since which my symptoms have increased hugely), and I have already had enough warning signs to alarm me. I am engaged in a constant juggle of precious, overlapping, self-managed symptoms…but, having now known what it might start to feel like if they were to abate, at least to some degree, I am left wondering how I might have felt if I had stayed living in that quiet location for weeks or even months. How could my experience be reinvented, like choosing a different timeline (which is, effctively, what I am talking about)?

Following my week away, I know I have to take action to move myself to a place with far less EMF exposure, pretty much NOW to have a chance of bouncing back from the worsening effects. This presents its own shed-load of problems and we have our family fill of those at the moment but I also know I have to apply my own oxygen mask first.

I have to garner this new found clarity and determination and give it form in these words and other reminders to myself, so that it lasts beyond the point where the depletion of my energy kicks in more regularly (as it will after a few more days back into so called “normality”), so that I continue to do something about the situation and MAKE the life-affirming choice that needs to be made, though it can be all too easy to surrender to the familiar. Without this provocation, we would be unlikely to move house for a handful of years as we love our house…but I have to make it all far more urgent than that, and I need to remember the importance of this, daily and without complacency.

A crowded place isn’t my place because I’m simply not wired that way

I know that part of this problem, for me, is that I also “feel people” as part of my sensitivity (and Myers Briggs stack as an INFJ – I am an Extroverted Feeler, and then some). In other words, its not just a sensory problem (Extroverted Sensing) and I do pick up on people in proximity. Yet somehow these two components are not disimilar to each other because they both amount to a version of “crowded”, whether I am crowded by the energy of people or the energy of their mobile devices. Either way, being crowded is not something that feels comfortable to my introverted nature and modern life has a tendency to bring those crowds right into your personal living space, something that makes my whole system scream for help. What helped me thrive on the farm was the proximity of animals, particularly two donkeys I formed a close bond with, and this is something important to know and accept about myself…I thrive far more when around animals and birds than around hordes of people, especially strangers frenetically charging past my door on their daily commute. This isn’t something to ignore or apoligise for; it needs to be factored into my vision of the future, as an essential component of my health plan, as for any introvert, especially the most introverted.

Proactive and positive

If, by thinking these thoughts aloud, I happen to assist one other person with these sensitivities to rememeber that they, too, have a choice and can stand by their own traits by curating their own life experience, stepping out of mainstream to claim their own unique corner of comfort in this world, before it is all gobbled up by sameness, then it will have be worth the sharing.

Meanwhile, if changes can’t be made immediately, there are things we can do to mitigate the worse effects. Yes, get out into wide open spaces, into Nature, as much as possible, regardless of the weather (this healthy habit can slip for me as the weather turns cold and my body goes into more pain…I need to make sure it doesn’t). I can get away more often, and we already have plans to do so, approximately once a month if we can. I can get stricter about my diet where I have let some of those foods that make sensitivity worse (such as sugar!) slip back in over the summer, and can stick to a light and healthy, plant-based diet with fresh organic produce, regardless of the autumn/winter season, and plenty of water, so that inflammation and excess fat storage are kept at bay as these really don’t help.

I can work with energy to mitigate the effects, for instance I have a course from Prune Harris called EMFs, 5G and You just sitting there unplayed in my stash of things to catch up on so its time that I sat down and listened to her material so I can make it part of my daily routine. I can use “devices” around my home (this is where you need to do your homework, many of them are bogus) to mitigate the effect; I always use the Memon plug-in, even in my car, but also one that isn’t really a device at all, called Focused Life-Force Energy (FLFE) which factors EMF mitigation into its packages for the home and as a portable solution. I have used this for over a year and the immediate, noticeable effect was astonishing, as was the adverse effect when I accidentally turned it off for a day and felt awful. There are lots of studies shared on their website so I suggest you explore for yourself. There are so many more resources appearing all the time as more people notice the detrimental effects of EMFs on their bodies and quality of life, you just have to scout around.

The summary of all the above is that I have to stop panicing and stay proactive!

There is a distinct point, right after we turn that all-important corner by heading towards something we really want, instead of running away or shrinking back from what we don’t want, that something magical and potential-filled starts to happen. Its is as though we are presented with the opportunity to harness an incredible new source of energy that we never even dared imagine existed, let alone that we would have direct access to it. In fact, we had probably reached the point of assuming we had no personal power left at all and were on the verge of putting up or giving up.

That’s the point I am at, today, as I both notice what I am sliding back into but, also, recognise that I have known…and felt… something quite different, which is all that it takes to break through the hard ceiling of a stuck paradigm. And this is key for me to acknowledge because, by nature, I am an Intuitive first and a Feeler second (INFJ), so once I start to listen to these sources of information I really know that I am coming home to myself and harnessing my gifts, speaking my truth. If other people don’t want to listen, well, that’s up to them and we each have our own journey but I know what I feel and what my intuition is telling me about that, and I am taking direct action, not by trying to change the world but by doing what I can for myself, modelling that potential, leading by example because its what I have to do for my own long term wellbeing.

Due to this unplanned experiment in life choices, I have rediscovered my morale, pumped up my determination, polished all my hopes of achieving a different daily experience than the one I generally make-do with, and this is the key. At this precise moment (in spite of the fact I feel all the physical effects described above) and largely because I still carry visceral memories of my week away in the very cells of my body, held as memories that warm my heart and make me smile when I think back to them, I have been reminded that we each have a choice; we don’t have to languish in any situation that is wearing us down, which is a universal truth applicable to many more of the so-called “stuck” or “inevitable” situations of our world than I could possibly count; we are only stuck for as long as we believe that we are.

Disclaimer: This blog, it’s content and any material linked to it are presented for autobiographical, anecdotal purposes only. They are not a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis, treatment, or prescribing. This article does not constitute a recommendation or lifestyle advice. Opinions are my own based on personal experience.