I’m not doing my regular newsletter today because I’ve literally been sick in bed with a flu since I sent the last newsletter.

I rarely get contagious illnesses, and this one was very unusual. It actually started at the beginning of February, but it was so subtle I didn’t recognize it as the flu. What I felt was exhaustion. So much exhaustion I couldn’t get up out of bed in the morning and couldn’t think enough to work unless I drank a cup of coffee (organic, of course!).

Then I started not thinking straight and just forgetting whole sections of time. Like forgetting to enter expenditures in my checking account register (something I routinely do every morning) and not noticing for four days.

And then I started to just feel unbalanced, like my body would just start tipping over when I was standing and I couldn’t walk a straight line.

I went to my Obamacare medical doctor and she just said I needed more sleep. So I slept more hours but the symptoms just kept getting worse and worse over two months until finally last Tuesday my body suddenly burst into aches and fever and coughing and runny nose and sleeping all day and night and can barely get out of bed or eat.

Yesterday was my first day out of bed where I could actually get up and do anything. And my body is no longer exhausted, I can think clearly and walk straight.

But I had some interesting insights.
 

WHOLEFOOD VITAMIN C

I had the idea I should take a a lot of vitamin C, but I didn’t want to take industrial vitamin C. Instead I kept a big bowl of those baby mandarin oranges by my bed. You know, the kind that are so popular now that are easy to peel and eat, don’t drip and are very sweet. I had just purchased five pound of these, organic, at my local farmer’s market, so I had a great whole food source of vitamin C the was really easy to eat in bed.
 

THE IMPORTANCE OF PRODUCT PERFORMANCE

Back in 1990, when I was was hired to do research and development for the founding of a green company, we had a formula we used for product development that we found to be true: first make the product work as well or better as the usual product, then make it green. And if you could also give it a competitive price, then it was a green product that would sell.

I also remembered a moment way back in the beginning when I was first coming to terms with the fact that I needed to now live without toxic chemicals to save my life. I didn’t want to give up my favorite things. Like my signature shade of red lipstick that took me so many years to find (ah, what was important to me then!) I made a decision right then that I not only needed to find things that were nontoxic, they also had to be beautiful and pleasurable. Little did I know at that moment that to open the door to the world of things nontoxic was also opening the door to the pleasures of natural fibers against my skin, the deliciousness of organic food and many other delightful experiences of life.

You may remember last week I wrote a post about The Best Toxic Free Toilet Paper. I went to my local independent supermarket and looked on the shelf and purchased two brands that looked similar because they were each made with what looked at first glance to be the same materials from a toxic viewpoint. So I bought a package of each one and brought it home. One turned out to be the best toilet paper I could find. The other turned out to have so many problems I didn’t even include it in the post.

But here’s the kicker for me. The best toilet paper turned out to be soft and lovely to use. The other one was rough and had no consideration of user experience at all.

For me, really, as I pick products I’m looking for products that meet my nontoxic criteria, but they also bring me into living in this whole different delightful world that I love and feel happy in every day. And I don’t tell you that enough.
 

SOURCES OF SYMPTOMS

In my work I write a lot about the association between symptoms and exposure to toxic chemicals. In this case symptoms are a signal from the body that something has entered the body that it doesn’t like and we need to stop doing that.

But this week in bed with the flue reminded me there are other reasons for symptoms.

The symptoms I was experiencing from the flu virus were actually indicators that my body was hard at work fighting the virus. Symptoms that remove body wastes quickly—like sneezing, coughing, runny nose, diarrhea, vomiting, and the like—are trying to get foreign invaders out of your body so your body can heal. These are symptoms we want to have, which benefit us, and should not be suppressed.

Then there are allergic reactions, which operate in an entirely different way than toxic poisoning. And individual sensitivities.

And finally, symptoms may develop when your body is detoxing to remove toxic chemicals that your body has stored to keep them out of it’s bloodstream. Sleepiness and headaches are often indicators that detox is happening a little too fast.

As uncomfortable as I was, I just waited out my symptoms and let my body do it’s job. And while I could get out of bed today and write this, I’m going to take it easy for the rest of the week so I can full recover and get back to my regular schedule.
 

ILLNESS AS A TIME OF HEALING AND REST

We tend to think of illness as “something wrong” with our bodies, but this past week, I’ve been realizing how right it has been to be sick right now.

For the past year I’ve been going and going and going from one thing to the next, making major life changes bac-to-back without slowing down for a second.

And my body finally said, “Enough! Rest! Let us heal and restore!”

Our bodies need a balance of activity and rest. It’s during sleep and rest that our bodies repair everything.
 

THE GIFT OF THIS WEEK’S ILLNESS

The truly amazing part of this experience was to observe that even though my body and mind were being ravaged by this virus, my creative side came out in full force.

I’ve been working on re-imagining my work and designing a new website and while my body was burning up with fever and my mind couldn’t put two sentences together, creative ideas and realizations were coming through just fine day and night. I’ve been keeping a pad of paper next to my bed and it’s full of scribbles and drawings.

It’s like having my body be sick right now is part of the greater creative process, so I can take my attention off everything else I usually do and just have creative time.

I am just getting so much clarity on everything. Wow! I really can’t wait to show this to you.
 

SEE YOU SOON!

OK, OK, enough for now.

I expect to be back next Tuesday with my usual newsletter and MUCH more very soon.