Check your toxic levels

Did you know that an emotionally toxic environment can make you ill and run down your immune system? It can. Not just when you're frail and old or battling a lingering and fatal disease but when you're seemingly healthy.

Do you get frequent colds, flu, etc? Are you always worn down and tired, can't sleep, feel edgy and don't know why? It could be your home environment, the place where you spend most of your time. Tension, unresolved emotional issues and discord in the home affect your immune system as though it is fighting a constant battle against a barrage of bacteria and viruses -- because it is. It also helps to have the furnace vents blown out and cleaned annually to get rid of the accumulated dust, bacteria and gunk that cycles through the air every time the furnace kicks on. It wouldn't hurt to blow out and clear the air by opening the windows, burning sage and sweet grass, cleaning with Chinese wash or some other natural herbal/resin cleaner and getting rid of the negativity in your household by ousting emotional parasites and vampires. Think I'm kidding? I'm not.

I live alone but have a lot of contact with the outside world. Even when my three boys were in school and bringing home the usual childhood diseases and bacteria, I was seldom ill, which meant I didn't get to use paid sick days for myself, just for the boys. Kids pick up everything, especially germs, bacteria, viruses and disease (the little typhoids Marys and Moes), but if you're ill all the time and blaming the kids you need to start looking in another direction. That smiling face across the breakfast table or sitting on the couch across the room could be the reason for your chronic cycle of illness.

Yes, the spouse holding the pillow you think is to put behind your back and raise you up so you can breathe better is really wondering whether or not an autopsy would show you were smothered instead of suffocating from congestion or a build-up of fluid in your lungs. Planning on surgery? Your spouse is trying to figure out how to make sure you die on the operating table and how long it will take before your insurance will be paid out. It might even be your lover or house mate or companion, if they're in your will or beneficiaries on your insurance policy. Or maybe that is the only way the can think of getting rid of you. All those negative thoughts and emotions may be hidden from view, but the effect isn't gone. It's circulating through the air and in the environment where you live, causing you to be ill and run down your immune system, taking its toll on your emotional and physical reserves until you run out of reserves and give up the ghost.

Check your toxic levels. There is more to health than antiseptic wipes and cleaners. What's wrong with you could be sleeping next to you or in the next room, sharing your food and your space, and sucking your energy dry.

That is all. Disperse.