Born to Live Green shares your story of being failed by the modern medical system, which was ill-equipped to diagnose or treat your condition, and your journey of self-learning and self-healing. What inspired you to share your story and knowledge?

What inspired me to share my story and knowledge was the awareness that I could motivate others to create a more eco-conscious lifestyle. One, that with a holistic approach, would support them in nourishing wellness in their bodies and the earth.

What were some ideas that were important for you to share in this book?

Our earth is hurting, because we’ve lived unconscious of how our actions, choices, and behaviors have denigrated and polluted it.

Because we are an integral part of the earth’s ecological system, we are not immune from environmental illness.

In the same way that the earth’s terrestrial body carries a burden of toxicity, so do our human bodies.

To manage and heal the symptoms of environmental illness within our bodies and the earth, we must learn why and how to become consumers of a clean, green lifestyle production system, and adopt lifestyle habits that support clean, green, non-toxic living.

Healing our bodies requires us to be in a healthy relationship with our bodies, minds, hearts, and souls, –while healing the earth requires us to be in a healthy relationship with nature, plants, animals, insects, ecosystems, and the greater cosmos.

Relationships are the key to our health, happiness, and ecological well-being. Only when we discover how they govern our wholeness and what they require from us to be nourished, will we feel fulfilled as eco-stewards.

What was the most challenging part of writing your memoir, and what was the most rewarding?

The most challenging part of writing my memoir was, I suppose, sharing my vulnerabilities. I bared my heart and soul in my story because I wanted to create an intimate experience in which my readers could feel close to me during the years of my life (from puberty through menopause) to find health and enlightenment. While I sometimes felt naked in the writing process, I felt that being authentic was more important than guarding my privacy. The most rewarding part of writing my memoir was revisiting all the events in my life that led me to awaken my innate eco-intelligence and pave a path toward self-discovery and self-empowerment. As a writer, I’m part poet, and in the process of writing the second half of my memoir, I decided to weave metaphors into my story to illustrate the high points and the low points I experienced while emerging in the world as an Eco-Mentor. Because that process required me to create an eco-lifestyle curriculum for humanity, and because the creative process symbolized a decade-long labor of love in which I had to practice trusting (and giving voice to) my feminine wisdom, –I compare it to the act of conceiving a baby, being pregnant with it, giving birth to it, and even enduring the “postpartum blues” that so often follow labor.

Challenges I Faced (with Rewarding Learning Outcomes)

Challenge: In my story, I share past traumas, such as being exposed to toxic chemicals in my mother’s womb, which led me to experience life-long physical health issues and mental health stress. Reward: This led me to understand how toxins can be passed from one generation to the next, and how important it is to live a clean life if we want life to go on for future generations.

Challenge: I share the sense of confusion, shame, and disempowerment I often felt while in the presence of allopathically trained medical doctors who, because they were not trained in environmental medicine, didn’t understand my health issue and didn’t have the tools to treat it. Reward: This led me to study alternative medicine and embark on a path of natural healing, which supported me in becoming a self-healer.

Challenge: I share the insecurities and anxiety I faced while attending school as a child, because of the behavior of certain teachers in my educational life who abused their authority in the classroom and who didn’t recognize that students like me required a heart and soul-centered approach to learning vs. a brain-centric approach alone. Reward: I learned the value of becoming a sensitive, compassionate person who trusted the authority of every person I met on my life path, and who recognized that being a good teacher entails the ability to “draw out” the innate gifts that all people possess.

Challenge: I share my fear of becoming a feminine leader, which was precipitated by my socially conditioned belief that female leaders are highly visible, handsomely paid, and vocal, rather than women like myself, who, albeit introverted, possess a heartfelt passion for making a difference in the world. Reward: I plumbed the depths of my soul, listened to its guidance, tapped into my feminine wisdom, and bravely used my voice to pen a bold new eco-lifestyle curriculum whose framework for learning is grounded in the six steps to eco-intelligent living that my healing journey revealed to me.

What do you hope is one thing readers take away from your book?

I hope what readers take away from my book is the knowledge that pain offers to be a brilliant teacher in our lives. Through our pain, we can experience many “awakenings” that foster deeper self-knowledge and self-love. We can use this knowledge and love to imagine and discover our true sense of place, purpose, and belonging in the world. I found my sense of belonging and purpose when after entering into a loving relationship with Mother Earth and utilizing her wisdom to transform my health, I realized that my calling was to support others in doing the same. It’s a wonderful feeling when we can use our personal healing journeys as a catalyst for planetary transformation!

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