Graduate Spotlight
Joan Abernathy, M.S. in Natural Health Creating Non-Toxic Home Environments
Although many people dread house-cleaning, Joan Abernath’ warns that we should worry more about our commercial cleaning products and less about dust and dirt. After all…what sense does it make, for seekers of natural health to voluntarily expose their loved ones to hundreds of poisons?
“I’m on a mission, to raise awareness about what we choose to bring into our homes,” she says, “because our own ‘safe haven’ can be almost as toxic as a landfill if we don’t safeguard our families from health-destroying chemicals and contaminants.”
Joan Abernathy is now on her fourth successful career, and she credits many of her life enhancements to Clayton College coursework, particularly a detoxification book entitled Tired or Toxic?
Originally a high school health teacher, for Joan it’s only natural to help others develop exercise habits, set fitness goals and choose nutritious foods. Her career took a couple of “scenic routes” when she worked for several years as an interior designer and then in the fashion industry. Although these jobs were stimulating and rewarding, deep in her heart Joan felt something was missing.
“I’ve always been a student of health and over the years I observed, time and time again, that people focus a great deal of time and energy on the wrong things.
“We spend hundreds of dollars on the fashion of the day and thousands more on trendy furnishings, without making any effort to understand the relationship between what we’re buying and why our child has ADD, why our spouse can’t breathe, what could be the real cause of debilitating migraines or even cancer. Often, the things that make people sick are things we choose to bring into the home environment.”
An A-Z list of typical home contaminants, combustibles and carcinogic compounds would be so exhaustive that we’ll use only “c-words” as an example: candles, carpet, caulking, ceramics, cleaners, creams, computers, cosmetics, on and on. Even when manufacturers know their chemical components are dangerous, some manage to avoid disclosing the toxic ingredients comprising a “proprietary blend.”
Joan observes that skin is our largest organ of absorption and elimination, and that air-borne and food-borne toxins also invade through the immune, neurological and endocrine systems, accumulating throughout our lifetime in various layers of tissue.
Most insidious of all, she adds, are endocrine disrupters that mimic estrogen. “By confusing cellular messengers, endocrine disrupters lead to chronic irritation, then inflammation, even cancer.
“Traditional Chinese medicine teaches that during our resting/sleep cycles, the detox pathways must have time to open, cleanse and renew. This won’t happen if we’re surrounded by irritants such as soap residue on our sheets and dry-cleaning chemicals in our drapes. It’s all about our air and water, which is why we must detox our homes.”
Concentrated irritants within our home and under our roof are actually even more toxic than the diffused pollutants in our outer environment, she concludes.
“We completely detoxed our home, from attic to basement. Then, after each of us had our own internal cleansing and healing crisis, my life-long allergies are gone and so are my husband’s chronic skin rashes. We traded in persistent fatigue for vibrant energy.
“If you’ll read The Ecology of Commerce, it’s very clear that the earth is challenged. Only we can clean up our act, bit by bit, to clean up our environment.”
For more information: http://YourInnerImage.HealthyHomeTour.com
This article was based on an interview with the graduate.
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