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Show Notes
In today’s episode, Shannon Rowan talks about what Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity is and its symptoms based on her study and personal experience as one who experienced EHS herself. We discuss her book, “Wifi Refugee; Plight of the Modern-day Canary,” and how to know if one is a “Canary” and how canaries could survive in the modern “coal mine” world through complete disconnection. We also talk about other toxic fields and sources of pollution that affect our physical and mental health and how we could remedy negative effects by shutting down electronic devices in our homes as much as possible.
In this episode, you will hear:
- The symptoms and signs that one has Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity.
- Technology isn’t natural, and we aren’t yet able to perfectly adapt to its adverse effects. The best we can do is to compensate for it and try our best to not be too affected by it.
- How people can heal from EHS by turning off electronics as much as possible and changing their environment.
- Aligning ourselves with the rising and the setting of the sun will result in our circadian rhythms being reestablished to their natural state.
Shannon Rowan is a “WiFi refugee,” social critic, freethinking fine artist, writer, geopolitical author and researcher, and EMF-awareness activist. She lives fully off-grid in the wilds of Northern California with her partner and their two cats and is an outdoor enthusiast, avid surfer, and sea kayaker. She is the author of “Wifi Refugee; Plight of the Modern-day Canary”, co-author of “Welcome to the Masquerade; Prelude to the Coming Reset” with geopolitical author John Hamer, and author and illustrator of the children’s book: “The Goldfish of Brandywine Farms.”
Shannon Rowan’s book:
Connect with Shannon Rowan:
Website: https://wifi-refugee.com/
Connect with R Blank and Stephanie Warner:
For more Healthier Tech Podcast episodes and to download our Healthier Tech Quick Start Guide, visit https://www.healthiertech.co and follow https://instagram.com/healthiertech
Additional Links:
- Shield Your Body website: https://ShieldYourBody.com
- Shield Your Body Youtube Channel: https://youtube.com/shieldyourbody
- Host R Blank on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rblank9/
- Shield Your Body on Instagram:https://instagram.com/shieldyourbody
Transcript
Shannon Rowan 0:00
So you want to tune yourself into the natural world, that natural rhythm, it’s healing. And so if you can get yourself into back into that, then a lot of things in your body are going to heal and right themselves once you like, reestablish that connection.
Announcer 0:17
Welcome to the healthier tech podcast, the show about building a healthier relationship with modern technology. Now here are your hosts R blank and Stephanie Warner.
R Blank 0:29
So Steph, today’s discussion with Shannon is highlights a really important topic one we’re asked a lot about, which is electromagnetic hypersensitivity or EHS, and she has a really compelling journey to describe not not just a personal one, but the one writing her book Wi Fi refugee plight of the modern day Canary I think this is a really good discussion.
Stephanie Warner 0:53
Yeah, absolutely. And I really like the specific advice that she gives for people who think they might be experiencing EHS or any level of sensitivity to electromagnetic waves.
R Blank 1:06
Great, so let’s get into it. Yeah, le t’s do it. living off the grid seems like it would be ultra scary for some, while for others, it would be a step towards freedom. Our guest today is Shannon Rowan, a Wi Fi refugee social critic, free thinking fine artist, writer, geopolitical author and researcher, and EMF awareness activist. She lives fully off grid in the wilds of Northern California. She’s the author of Wi Fi refugee plight of the modern day Canary. Let’s take a deep dive into disconnection today. Welcome to the healthier tech podcast, Ron.
Shannon Rowan 1:44
Thank you. Nice to be here. Thanks for having me
R Blank 1:46
on. Oh, of course. No, thank you for making the time. So just as a starting point for our listeners, we’ve covered EHS in several episodes of the healthier tech podcast, including in Episode Four with Lloyd Berle and an episode five with Cathy cook. And I’d encourage our listeners interested in this topic to check out those episodes as well, which will link in the show notes as a starting point. Can you explain to those listeners who might not know the term is kind of as simple a term as you feel comfortable expressing what is EHS?
Shannon Rowan 2:19
Well, I call it exploding head syndrome. No, that that’s a little joke I have with my partner be me. Because for me that was the primary symptom was my head felt like it was exploding, very painful, had pain, migraines. Chronic when I was in the soup, as I call it, so triggered by electromagnetic fields, artificial electromagnetic fields, mostly the radio frequency, higher frequency fields, were the primary trigger for me that led me to fleeing to the wilderness. But additionally, I found that lower frequency is like coming from appliances and power lines and things had a different kind of health impact. Also, you know, debilitating, but not the acute pain, I felt I felt more from the high frequency Wi Fi cell phones cell towers. So it’s actually electro sensitive. electro hypersensitivity is what the acronym stands for. Sometimes it’s called electro sensitivity or electromagnetic sensitivity. So there’s various terms that used to be called microwave syndrome, or MICROWAVE SICKNESS prior to these newer labels, and attributed mostly to like radar operators, people who had high level exposures before sort of the rest of us start having the same levels or greater levels of exposure with the ubiquity to this ubiquity, I think, is the right word of the of these wireless grids, you know that they’re all around us now.
R Blank 3:58
Yeah. And so did I understand you correctly that you experience, maybe lack of a better term different flavours of symptoms from different natures of exposure?
Shannon Rowan 4:08
Absolutely. And once I kind of realised what was affecting me, why, you know, I was having these symptoms, what was triggering them, I became more aware of the triggers in the effects and did a lot of experimentation with that getting away from different things, seeing how I felt, you know, kind of did my own sort of science project, you know, experiments on myself a lot, especially in the early days of this when I was trying to figure out what was going on and what to do about it. So I definitely feel that things like low frequency fields would have a sort of chronic fatigue effect, more than sort of the acute symptoms like I was talking about, with the higher frequency it was like head pains, kind of tingly, electro electrocution and feelings through my body Got a chest pain, heart arrhythmia. So kind of more alarming symptoms, but the other symptoms can be, you know, affect us over time more in a kind of sneakier way. So like, I think a lot of there’s a lot of cancers have been attributed to, like dirty things like dirty electricity, living near powerlines, you know, higher incidence of childhood leukaemia, even asthma, you know, associated with living your, like high tension power lines. So there’s a lot of different research done into this and effects listed as to like, what can cause what? So it’s just as dangerous, really, to have the low frequency fields. And you know, what I want to say about living off grid as a caution to people because that’s not it seems like that could just be the answer. But a lot of off grid communities have really high levels of dirty electricity from generators. And I feel horrible. I went to visit one recently, and I did not feel good there. I was really having like, I just, like I said, I mean, I’m more sensitive, and more aware of this now. So I can tell, especially because I live in a place where I feel really good. And so then when you compare that to going somewhere, you don’t I can feel it more quickly, not as acutely. I mean, I wasn’t having sort of the high frequency reaction, but I did I do feel like this sort of overall malaise and sort of fatigue and oppression, if you will.
Stephanie Warner 6:20
So I think it’s really interesting that you kind of figured out that you were you had the sensitivity to different types of fields as well. Can you talk a little bit want to step back a little Can you talk about the process that you took to disk to kind of figure out which frequencies did what and even maybe even a step farther back to? What was it that made you realise that this is what this these frequencies that was actually causing you to feel? All these symptoms?
Shannon Rowan 6:51
Yeah, I started with my cell phone, I realised was causing me pain, I upgrade it to a smartphone, you know, and 2012. And but it took a couple years before I really started having those symptoms. And also, they put smart metres on our home and the same year. So I think it took I was having other symptoms like insomnia, night sweats, brain fog, things I didn’t know, I had no idea what was triggering it, it took a trip, I took to Bali, actually a really long journey to discover, first of all, that I was sleeping better there and realising the only difference that I could link to was the fact that there was no Wi Fi. I mean, it kind of just noticed that, like I stored it in my head for later, you know, for future reference, because I didn’t understand why I was sleeping better and feeling more refreshed when I was having like, asthma problems there from the trash burning, and I was waking with these coughs and I was having, you know, had this chronic like infection the whole time I was there. So but I was sleep, I felt more refreshed, I felt different. And I felt better in a way even with this cough. Right. So that kind of just was a you know, I just stored that away. And then when I got home, the 30 hours travelled back in the in the plains which is a horrible if you do you want to the horrors of electromagnetic fields travel in an aeroplane, you know, stay in an airport because you’ve got every possible kind of trigger, you know, you’ve got now with a Wi Fi onboard, people using their devices, the whole flight, the radar, and you’re in a metal cage, you know, it’s reflecting all over the place. There’s no way you can do anything about grounding or you know, doing you know, even trying to shield from that it’s very difficult. And so, so you’ve got chemicals sprayed everywhere. I mean, it’s just the it’s just the most absolutely, you know, kind of worst environment, it could be in, like health wise so I 30 hours of that with no real sleep. And then coming home from that I collapsed. I think I had adrenal collapse of some kind, I couldn’t get out of bed for about a week almost. I couldn’t go to work. And so when I kind of like finally kind of came out of that it felt like a coma or something. I was a I was more sensitive. And I was more aware of these feelings I was getting from these cell phones, you know, I hold my phone. And I remember I remember the moment I stood there and I thought, why am I ignoring my body’s signalling a pain, like I’m holding this thing, I’m feeling the pain shooting through my arm. You know, I feel it gets my head and I would just send one text of your ear, hold the phone for a few minutes, put it down and I’d feel this shooting kind of pain through my arm. Electrical like all I can relate it to is sort of like if you’ve ever been electrocuted, you put your finger in a socket or something and he felt that zapping through your arm and it continued and stayed there for about half an hour hour after, you know so I noticed that and I was like This is crazy. Why am I still doing this? Because I’m like, why am I ignoring my body seems signals that something’s wrong. And I thought I can’t ignore this anymore. This is really causing me pain. I have to find out more about this. So that was kind of the first step. I mean, I had an awareness from years before that cell phones weren’t good for you, but I didn’t really take it that seriously, I thought, well, as long as I don’t constantly use it or put it into my head all the time or sleep with it, then you know, it’s fine. So I really hadn’t investigated it thoroughly. So that prompted me to do research. I did find out about electro sensitivity pretty quickly after I started saying like, you know, researching, you know, symptoms from cell phones or something, whatever I put in, I tried to describe my symptoms, put it into a search engine. And I was like, wow, there’s all these people who have this same problem. And I found out about the EMF, there was a white a yahoo group, EMF refugee, that I got on, you know, the after a while, it wasn’t right away. But at first, I was like, okay, something the cell phones doing this to me. So that’s step number one. Step number two was like, let’s try using it less. But then I found that wasn’t really working well, because people kept trying to contact me on it, it was difficult to like have it and kind of just use it part of the time, eventually just said, after a few months of it, I was like, I’m just not getting rid of it, you know, which was a big, bold move. When I had my own business, I had a dog walking business, and I had to kind of retrain all my clients to call my landline, you know, leave me messages there, send me emails, it was actually really liberating. Because I wasn’t constantly getting texts from everybody all the time for my clients, when they didn’t really need to, you know, not emergencies, you don’t realise you’re being constantly harassed by being on call all the time like that, you know, and that you don’t have space for yourself. So actually, it was like, a huge relief. To me, even though it felt a little bit socially isolating, because a lot of my friends just kind of fell off the map, once they couldn’t text me. And that’s still the case, like, there’s people I meet, if they can’t text me, then they’re just not going to stay in touch with me. So that was a strange kind of thing to wake up to, you know, that that was happening with me, my friends, and socially, but interesting nonetheless. So that was like, the first step was dealing with my cell phone. But I noticed I didn’t want to accept this, I just want to say that I didn’t want to give up my cell phone. I didn’t want to be this, you know, social pariah. Like, I didn’t want to do this, you know, but it was so painful. And then I found that I was having trouble near Wi Fi routers, I didn’t actually have Wi Fi of my own. I never signed up for that. At the time. It was optional. You didn’t You didn’t just get it automatically. You had to pay extra or something, you know, so I didn’t have any Wi Fi with my modem or anything. I always had cable. And I was in the city though. And so it was an apartment, you know, building a house converted into apartment and so I had I what I found out after I talked to Neighbours was a Wi Fi router they had was under on a top shelf right under my bed, you know, for like years and I so I’ve been having this horrible sleep. So as could they turn it off at night, please. Because I started I can’t remember all the steps and like how I figured out well I thought of that thing in Bali, where I’m like, Okay, I sleep better without Wi Fi. I think that’s the thing, you know, so but what I really had said was the main thing was that my partner and I, we he stuck through with, you know, through this with me this whole time, which is really rare. We’re like talking nine years now straight. So we’ve had to move a lot everything. Well, we started going and renting cabins off grid in the like Shenandoah mountains. We were living in Washington, DC and so we went to these cabins on the Appalachian Trail that were no electricity, usually no cell phone reception, he had sometimes had to hike into them. And I just was like, let’s go and see what it feels like there. You know, I just need to like start testing this out. And oh my gosh, the relief is just so palpable and immediate that in so and it’s kind of like it wasn’t just that I was out of the pain, acute pain I felt like enlivened, and like a kid again, like a lot of energy, I felt joyful. I wanted to play you know, and I felt this in my partner too and it was like just the night and day difference was hard to ignore and we did this repeatedly.
I slept better, I slept really well. We started to go camping we found a spot that wasn’t too far away and I was camping like until it got too cold I start camping most days a week because I found that I wasn’t functioning well without good sleep, which is kind of what I think most of us can relate to. If you don’t sleep well you don’t function well. You can kind of lose your mind. You can like emotionally be really unstable and angry at people and you know and so my sleep was like the key to this the only way I was able to survive and stay in the city as long as we did until we moved was getting better sleep. And what we ended up doing is building a Faraday cage around the bet. We built you know Sam built he got like aluminium screening and some wood and he made a kit you know, a little cage for us and it worked you know we got close all the gaps with like aluminium tape, and honestly I don’t think it would work as well today with like the 4g or watching the 4g Just start with 5g. I don’t think that works now, but it worked. Then we measured week I got a metre that was another one that first things I did when I start hearing understanding what was going on. And the metre helped me as well, because the metre helped me know where the things were coming from what frequencies, and then I could base like how I was feeling, you know, knowing what I know, we turn things off, we turned off breakers, turned back on breakers turn off appliances. So there was all these tests. And we did this repeatedly through different houses that we lived in and where we moved to. So I started to understand that like, on the dirty electricity metre, like the gramme steps, or you know, metres, when you plug them in, that anything over 100 on there, I just, I didn’t feel good, you know, felt tired, like chronically tired. And so under that, if it was under 50, I felt a lot better, you know, so and I’ve tested this on other people who don’t necessarily call themselves electro sensitive. I’ve just helped somebody recently who’s been experiencing chronic chronic Lyme, and like some, you know, serious problems, and I stepped into his home, and I was like, whoa, I’m like, it doesn’t feel good in here. I’m gonna give my book and everything and I was like, You got, I gotta check your dirty electricity. I mean, obviously had Wi Fi in everything, too. But I checked that and it was like, huge, spiking crazy. I mean, people have wiring problems to their house they’re not aware of. So it was going up, it was like 1000, something 3000 Something and one of them. And I’m like, this is really unhealthy. Like, this is very unhealthy in here. And he started having his health problems after he moved into his house to you know, which is interesting. Well, I got the filters, and he actually felt an immediate difference. And his dog did that was what was interesting is that he’s like my dog sensing something he’s like, can you tell the change and like, I’m like, not quite yet. Because it takes me a little time to get over the headache that started from the Wi Fi being on until we unplugged it. And, you know, and just feeling the dirty electricity. So once we kind of got all the filters in a test everything. And it was actually one of these situations where it’s easy to remediate, sometimes it isn’t, and it went way down really quickly, didn’t take that many filters. And after a few minutes, I was like, Yeah, you know, I feel better, I can sit here and talk to you. And he was like, I think I feel better. And the dog felt better. The dog was different, you know, so we’re all feels better in here. You know, right? So everybody is Lecture sensitive. And that’s kind of like, I’m always trying to get home to people. Like it’s not unique to me, I experienced it in a more drastic, dramatic way, just because of me, you know, like, whatever is going on with me maybe too much heavy. I mean, I have found that heavy metal detoxes helped or certain things of detoxing has helped. Because if you think about it, these are, these are toxic fields. And when you have like, thrash, you know, we see it as, like a tipping point with some people where their threshold level of what of tolerance, sort of like, you know, for electric load, yeah, toxic load, that’s a good way of putting it. So getting your toxic load down is obviously going to help. But also alleviating the triggers is going to help you know, like, it’s like reducing the toxins is obviously going to help. So there’s a lot of different ways of approaching like how to deal with this. But anyway, I know I’ve gone on and this is
R Blank 18:00
great. I definitely want to make sure we have time to talk about your book there. But right before we do the one thing you mentioned just a few minutes ago was you asked your your neighbour downstairs to maybe unplugged their Wi Fi at night. And, you know, I know from my conversations with others with EHS and by the way, I happen to agree with you that everyone is electro sensitive, it’s just a matter of degree. But but people who have have debilitating or severe EHS a big part of their suffering is that and it’s separate from the exposure part. It’s separate from the physiological response. It’s that people simply don’t even believe the condition is real. And even sometimes, I think as you hinted earlier, not in your case, but in many cases, even their own spouses. Yeah. So how is it that you yourself deal with doubt and disbelief and how do you advocate that others deal with doubt and disbelief?
Shannon Rowan 19:04
That’s a question. Yeah. Question. Well, I’ll tell you, in the case of the neighbour who was like, Okay, we’ll try but then it was like such a big deal for them to push at the time, you could push a button on the stupid thing and then you could push it back on but that was too inconvenient for them, you know, because then they had to wait for it to like load up again. I mean, amazing, right, and, and they wouldn’t reposition it anywhere in their house because that was just the place that worked for them. And they didn’t want to do that. And so I like they’re about to go out of town and I was like, Can you please remember to turn off before I go to town? I mean, it really it would be huge, you know, things for me if it was off for a week. And they forgot and I could tell like immediately I mean to laugh I’m sorry. Yeah, no, but but here’s the thing when she got back and I was like so yeah, I think you forgot to turn off your Wi Fi when you’re gone because I had migraines again and sudden she’s like, she kind of went like she went whoa. like kind of like that was To be real, like she actually right, like she could tell, you know, because yeah, she forgot. And another just quick story because this is when I’m talking about people everybody being electro sensitive and and not and they had degrees and also just not aware never like making the connection, right because yes, or having an opportunity to get out of these fields to even have a chance to see how you feel. I mean, because how many people are dealing with chronic fatigue and insomnia and brain fog? And like every I mean, when I started when I
R Blank 20:30
realised it society, depression, eczema depression, yeah,
Shannon Rowan 20:34
right. And it’s like, and so when I realised what was triggering it for me, and a lot of this was like mysterious stuff for me for a couple years before I made the links. I started noticing all my friends had these problems. And I was trying to tell them like, hey, it’s this, but they thought it was crazy. But this woman I met when we were doing Airbnb, when we were moving cross country to Arizona, which is where we ended up going at first. I asked you know him in advance, ladies. And I did Airbnb, because I’m like, Why can’t stay in a regular hotel, they’re not going to turn off the Wi Fi. And they’re not going to do these things for me. So at least on Airbnb, I could request could you turn off Wi Fi at night, so I could sleep, you know, I’ve got this issue and, and so she admitted to me the next day, she thought I was a little crazy. But she didn’t think I was crazy anymore. When she slept the best she slept, she’d had in two years, she ran to me and hugged me was like in tears. Oh my god, I slept. Wow, like you solve this problem. Had for two years. She didn’t know. And so she didn’t display me anymore. And that’s what’s gonna take for people to believe you as their own experience, you know, and it’s really like, you can give them all the information you want. But if they don’t, and that’s gonna be up to them, you know, because it’s like, I’ve had to really let go a lot of personal investment in like, how people perceive me or how they respond to me. It’s been very trying, but also character building, I guess you could say, I mean, I’ve got a lot tougher skin. Now, you know, I’ve been ridiculed enough. At this point. You know, Dr. Ali Johansson, who’s I have an interview in my book with him, you know, that I did exclusively with him years ago. And he said, You know, I found not only are electro sensitive people, very highly intelligent, they’re not definitely not crazy. And there have been like psychological tests and psychiatrists test them, they all test it, like, they’re just absolutely sane, instead of anything. They’re like, they’re more sane, or they’re more tolerant, they’re more able to handle abuse than everybody else. Because they, they have to, you know, they, like they have to get used to that. And they have to know how to handle that. So I think it’s really I mean, it’s been difficult for me, I’ve had a few members of my family that are finally kind of coming around and admitting that they just didn’t understand what this was like for me, or really believe it. You know, and it’s taken like this many years, I’ve had good friends finally admit the same, like they didn’t really believe it. And now, there’s more awareness, you know, out there, the more people I meet, now, when I tell them, there’s a huge difference between now nine years later, when I tell a stranger about it. And their reaction, then my response, nine years ago, people I’m sure, I’m sure, I’m sure either heard of it, or they have experienced it themselves. And they have a friend who has because of course, as we increase all these fields, like there’s going to be more people reacting and figuring this out.
Stephanie Warner 23:20
Yeah. And kind of speaking of awareness, I think this is a good time to kind of segue into your book a little bit. So I wanted to ask, so what you use this metaphor in the book, what is the canary in the coal mine? And why did you choose it as kind of the central metaphor of your of your book? Sure.
Shannon Rowan 23:41
Well, in the late 19th century, early 20th century, coal miners used Canary birds in the minds as a like early warning system for reduced oxygen levels, you know, higher levels of other gases, because the canary birds are extra sensitive to their oxygen needs are higher than even other birds. So they would normally be singing or on the upgrade on their purchase, purchase. But as long as like, as soon as like the oxygen levels declined, then the carbon monoxide levels raised, they would stop singing or fall off their perch, like if they fall off their purchase, then it’s really bad and they gotta get right out of there, you know, out of that mind quickly. So I see. And this has been, it’s not just me using this metaphor, often, you know, people who are sensitive, extra sensitive are called canaries are people who are so basically people who are affected first by a new toxin or the Canaries. And what people should be doing is listening to them, rather than ignoring them and saying, oh, like what’s happening is we’re being marginalised rather than sort of just just listening to me, I’m just taking seriously because if we were in a healthier society, well maybe if we were in a healthier society, all this wouldn’t all be happening in the first place. But because like industries are running the show, you know They want to vilify the Canaries and make give them psychological labels, anything to kind of deflect away from attention on to the Canaries as, as actually being relevant to like, go wider to the wider group. Because in my mind, and what I try to bring home in the book is to say that, that it’s what people need to be doing is realising that, okay, the Canaries are the ones getting affected first, we’re next. And we need to pay attention to this, because it’s not like we’re not going to be affected. We’re all humans, we’re all the same kind of biological organisms, we all get affected by the same things, and it is going to be by degrees. But to just think that, like, you’re immune to this, and somebody else isn’t, you know, I mean, it just nonsense, you know, utter nonsense. There’s enough proof now that we none of this is healthy for anybody. It’s not native to the planet, it’s not something that we can you can maybe we could adapt. You could argue the adaption thing, but that would take a while evolution doesn’t Yeah, it doesn’t happen overnight. Yeah, but a couple of
R Blank 26:03
questions. Like, yeah, if you’re if you if you’re thrown into the ocean, you don’t develop gills by the next day.
Shannon Rowan 26:13
It’s not it’s not adaptation, it’s compensate. What’s happening now is people are compensating, and you’re mistaking it for adaptation. So your body’s doing something to come compensate. And so maybe you don’t directly feel it while you’re compensating. But that’s a compromised condition you’re putting your body into, and it’s going to manifest at some point at some way, you know, possibly,
R Blank 26:33
you know, or, or, you know, you have these feelings, like, oh, I have really high anxiety, or oh, I’m not sleeping well. And it just doesn’t occur to you that, you know, it’s your cell phone, or your neighbor’s Wi Fi, that’s a contributing factor to it. And you’re like, Oh, it’s just my job sucks, or the world is so crazy. And so you kind of just put it off. Yes, that is a form of adaptation now. So your book takes an interesting approach to this topic, because I, I’ve read a lot about this. And I’ve talked to a lot of people about this. And so in your book, you tell your story. And you have some great interviews, like you mentioned the one with with Professor Johansson. But more than that, you tell the story of nine other canaries. So how did you how or why did you choose this format to tell this story?
Shannon Rowan 27:27
Well, because I want to obviously bring home the point that it’s not just me, there are others and to make it more personalised, because I think storytelling is very powerful. And, you know, I do interleave the scientific information for people who want like, well, what’s the mechanism? Why, why is it happened, you know, but, but really, what is going to reach people is stories, and personal stories, and I want a variety and also a variety of demographics, because it’s not just, you know, middle aged women, or, or middle aged man, or old men or young people, or, you know, it’s like all ages, all sexes, different races, different nationalities, and it wasn’t able to get like a huge sampling that way. But it was mostly because those people I personally encountered, or were or were sent to me, you know, three people I knew. So I met people along the way with my own journey. And of course, got to know them and their own stories and got permission to tell them.
R Blank 28:24
That’s great. And was that was that I’m just wondering, was that hard or easy to get them to share this, this experience with you?
Shannon Rowan 28:32
Well, it’s interesting at first, we were trying to do documentary film. My partner and I, he was a documentary filmmaker. I mean, he just graduated study, you know, his, his, like, masters in that, you know, in a programme with documentary filmmaking, so he was thinking like, he was filming me during all this, you know, I encouraged him, I was willing to do that. But it just wasn’t happening because it was too hard for him to be caretaking me and trying to make a film about me and about us, and then not having other help to do that we finally abandoned it. But in that process, we recorded interviews. You know, I talked to people so the whole time we were we had this documentary mind, I eventually thought, you know, I’ll put this into a book. That’s what I’ll do with this. So I already had that permission. I had all this a lot of these interviews, a lot of these stories, where I have, I’m sort of interviewing people in them are from actual, like film footage, you know, recordings that we have. So I think a lot of people really appreciate it being having their stories told and they really, like regretful I mean, the ones who came through a few who didn’t want to they want it more privacy, you know, but a lot of that now the ones who obviously agreed we’re happy to and, and really moved by, like how I presented them, you know, felt they were given a voice and felt validated that way. Yeah, it’s important I think people need because these are marginalised people who don’t have a voice Basically, and I’m just trying to give them one, you know, as long as obviously, and to tell my story, because like I said, even some my own family before reading my book didn’t understand as much as I tried to explain to them, you know, sometimes it takes like, seeing a movie or reading a book or something, you know, yeah.
Stephanie Warner 30:19
Or, or, you know, was sharing enough stories, there’s the opportunity for people who may not understand the extreme side of it to also be able to go I do have that symptom, or Oh, sometimes I do. I like, I don’t know why I don’t sleep very well. And I’ve never really thought about it. So I yeah, I think that’s great. I just kind of so I just wanted to ask, for our listeners who maybe think they’re they have VHS, or maybe they’re just there, they’re not sure. What would be the your recommendation for the first steps to kind of figure out if they are sensitive, whether it’s extreme or, or light, or kind of a lower variation of sensitivity?
Shannon Rowan 31:04
Yeah, well, kind of doing what I did initially, which was, well, even just turning your phone off more often, or putting on aeroplane mode, don’t stop sleeping with it, change some of your habits, see how you feel. Do it long enough, you know, because I’ve had people sort of turn Wi Fi off for the night or two and then say, well, it wasn’t that big of a difference. But you need to do it a little bit more than that, and probably turn off more things, anything, I mean, the first thing would be getting an Electrosmog metre, so that you actually know what sources you’re being exposed to. Because there’s the obvious ones, like your cell phone, and your Wi Fi, but there’s a lot of other things you have may have no awareness of and would never have thought about, like an electric heater, or an electric brake blanket, or like even a clock radio next to
R Blank 31:52
the wire and the wall that you see there. Yeah.
Shannon Rowan 31:55
So you got to check those things, because you’re not going to be able to do an efficient test without knowing what’s, what’s there, what’s on, if you’ve got a smart metre, that’s gonna be really hard, because if you’re especially if it’s like, right on the other side of your bed, because you can’t turn that off. So even if you turn off everything else, you’ve got a smart metre, that’s very powerful. A lot of people who don’t feel they react to Wi Fi, or cell phones react to smart metres, because it’s a much more powerful source of this pulsing, you know, so that I would say, go to a different location, you know, try to get away, couldn’t go camping, especially if you can go camping without Wi Fi at the campground without a cell tower at the campground, you know, wilderness camping, divert, dispersed camping, and this is something to that’s interesting, if you’re feeling horrible, like, I mean, emotionally, like depressed, suicidal, change your environment, like go somewhere else, because you’d be amazed at how different you might feel about everything in your life and everything. And it’s because we’re interconnected with our environment, we can’t separate ourselves from that, you know, this is everything influences us in our environments. So to not take that seriously. I mean, it’s like, we kind of get trained in this mechanistic thinking of like, our bodies and the world, like, we have this sort of shell like as if we’re robots or something. And we’re not influenced by anything around us. But we are so influenced. And so, you know, there’s a lot of things. It’s not just electromagnetic fields. I mean, I focus on that, and this book, but there’s other sources and that, I mean, it’s an important one that people don’t think about, they might think about other things like other sources of pollution, air pollution, you know, chemicals, perfumes, and things like that, but those definitely play a part. And I think that health and the body and environment is a complex topic. So I don’t mean to simplify anything and make it too simplistic. But definitely the first step would be turning off as much of everything your electronics is possible, and not just at night, because at night is really important. But during the day, it’s you don’t only make melatonin at night, you make it all day long. And so the light cycling from morning till night, getting as close to natural light cycling as possible is really important. And that’s one of the things that’s really helped me to heal. I get up with the sun, I go down with the sun all year round. I don’t use clocks or alarms, I’m up with the sun. And I’m so that circadian rhythm has been so reestablished in myself that my sleep patterns are amazing. You know, I mean, I sleep really well now, not just because I’m away from the fields that that makes a big difference for me. Because those fields are basically light frequencies. So you want to, you know, tune yourself into the natural world in that natural rhythm. It’s it’s healing. And so if you can get yourself into back into that then a lot of things in your body you’re gonna heal and right themselves once you like, reestablish that connection.
R Blank 34:54
So I guess this My next question is gonna be slightly off topic, but it’s up I obviously don’t directly tied to the subject you’re at, because I was listening to another interview that you gave. And you mentioned that the changes that you’ve made with your, particularly regarding the Internet access situation in your off grid home, have something of a cost and part of you wants to change that. But it’s also shifted your, your relationship with communication, and technology in general. And that’s a key theme of this podcast. So I was hoping you could share a little bit about your experience, and maybe for the term is liberation that you feel from this, like, how, what does that experience been for
Shannon Rowan 35:37
you? That’s right, you know, and I really appreciate your articles are in that you appreciate that aspect of this, you know, that technology’s influences in other ways. Besides the actual direct health impacts of the fields, you’ve got the whole addictive part of it. And yeah, so I’m going off grid and not having internet at my house. I’m actually up. I’m luckily right now today able to use like a neighbour space with, because it’s pouring rain out, I’ve been having no more normally, I’m at my vehicle. And it’s, it’s just kind of hard in the ranks at sea here than rain and everything. But I was able to use a neighbour space today, but but I don’t, I have to travel to get internet, you know, and the phone so that once I’m back in my home, I can’t just look things up, I can’t be distracted by it, it’s impossible. Like I have to make a big effort to do that. And so I have to schedule my internet time, I have to schedule my phone calls. And what that’s done is created this boundary, a healthier boundary around that, because internet is basically designed to lure you in and keep you trapped in there. I mean, everything about it is designed, it’s not designed as just a research tool. It’s designed as a distraction tool. It is designed to like rob you of your time. And I start to get resentful that once you get enough of a break from it, and you realise that’s what’s happening, I get actually kind of angry that like my time is being stolen from me, this is my life, my one life and it’s robbing all my hours. And suddenly your life is gone. And everybody has the same complaint right now no matter what age you are, or anything. You’re too busy. Why is everybody too busy? They don’t have time anymore. Why is there anything so fast paced? All these technologies that are supposed to save time for us and provide more leisure time have done the opposite? Who has more leisure time? They don’t? Because now that you can work anytime, anywhere? You’re expected to work anytime, anywhere?
Stephanie Warner 37:34
Or now that somebody can reach you anytime on your phone? Yeah. But no, I love that because it’s I use this with the phone all the time, you know, just because my phone can ring to me any time does not mean that I have to answer. And that’s, that’s something I’m trying to teach my my nieces and nephews like, you don’t have to answer that now you can actually finish what you’re doing. And talk to them later. You’re not there was a time?
Shannon Rowan 38:03
Yeah, there was, it wasn’t that long ago.
Stephanie Warner 38:05
Yeah, it really wasn’t.
Shannon Rowan 38:06
And you’re not the emergency services. You know, people have to understand that. Like, they’re like, well, there could be an emergency, I’m like, Well, what are you even gonna be able to do in an emergency for somebody, you know, nothing, like you’re not the, there’s a number for that, you know,
Stephanie Warner 38:21
I love that, and I’m gonna borrow it, I’m not 911 I’m going to put it on a shirt.
R Blank 38:28
So you’ve done a obviously a lot of work personally, in your own life, and then writing this this, this great, this great book on this really, really serious issue. At the same time, you know, we all see the direction that technology is going in. And I guess the question I want to ask, and it’s one that I’m often asked myself when I’m interviewed, so I’m really keen to hear your answer. Do you have hope?
Shannon Rowan 39:01
Yeah, that’s the question.
R Blank 39:04
That’s the whole question.
Shannon Rowan 39:07
I think Well, I do because I don’t know if it’s a trick of nature. Because I think we have always have hope, if we want to survive, you know, like, that’s drives us right. Like, I’m going to, I keep living in facing the new day with with hope, right? Because, like, am I correct to believe, you know, to have this is it naive of me? I hope not. I hope not. I don’t know. It’s hard when I asked, you know, because in some ways, it’s like, you can relate this to other things we’ve all gone through with, with like, the tobacco industry and in cigarette smoke and like, I would never believe that we could have banned it everywhere. I mean, I was I was the canary in that case, too, you know, and life was hell going places with cigarette smoke everywhere for me. So that gives me hope it gives me hope that you know, Wi Fi has been banned I’m from like preschools and in France, you know, and, and I think people are like, Stephanie was saying, just even like, I don’t need to answer the phone, a lot of people are starting to feel that way. I don’t need to answer every frickin call every text every second of every day. Yeah, I’m tired of it. Like, I’m tired of it, you know, and people are feeling tired of it. You know, kids are sort of nostalgic for a time they never lived. They want to they like the shows about the 80s and stuff when people had landline phones and things because, because they are tired of it, too. You know, so I think people are resisting. And then I think the plants could really fall through, you know, that are in store for us just because, you know, we are we’re not robots, I don’t think you can make us into robots. I think they can try and try and try and do whatever they want. But we’re not We’re way beyond that. And we’re spiritual beings as well, you know, manifesting in this flesh, reality, whatever. So I think that that there’s a part of us that says no, and that will continue to say no, and that just won’t accept it. And so that was that’s the bottom end of the day. It was it was giving me hope. I mean, I don’t always have hope that like say we’re going to stop 5g in town or whatever, quickly. Things like that. But I think the bid on the bigger picture, and in the end of it, I think I do think we’ll win, you know, if you want to put it that way. That’s good.
R Blank 41:24
Yeah, like that. So so the book is called Wi Fi refugee plight of the modern day Canary. It’s a fantastic read full of really useful information. Who cares about EMF exposure, EMF, science, EHS, and the personal lived experiences of people with EHS it can be found on Amazon and Barnes and Noble, and we have those links in the show notes go out and buy it. Beyond that, Shannon, how would you like our listeners to connect with you?
Shannon Rowan 41:53
Well, you can come to my website, which is wi fi refugee.com, with a hyphen between the Wi Fi and a refugee. So Wi Fi hyphen refugee.com. And join my mailing list for updates on books. I’m writing other books. I mean, I co authored another book, prior to Wi Fi refugee called Welcome to the Masquerade. It does have a chapter on 5g in, you know, in this topic in it, that’s pretty lengthy. But yeah, I’m doing so it’s more medically, you know, I have interests in medical topics as well. So, but I do and I plan on writing a book about addiction and technology, which I know I’m definitely going to use your articles and your website are as a resource for that for sure.
R Blank 42:34
Yeah, that sounds great. I’d like to, I’d like to read a copy of that too. And that, you know, that that’s, that, to me is a it’s an incredibly because you even if you’re really you don’t care about what tech addiction is doing to our minds. But if you care about EMF, you can’t separate those out, because you’re not going to be able to get people to reduce their EMF exposure until you get them to confront their behaviours and relationships with technology. So that to me, it’s a really important topic. I’m glad to hear that you’re tackling that next.
Shannon Rowan 43:06
Yeah, it is. I agree. And I want to say that it’s one other way of reaching out to people who don’t believe in the physical harm. I think a lot of people can more easily see the social damage and addiction.
Stephanie Warner 43:19
Yeah, absolutely.
R Blank 43:21
Well, Shannon, thank you so much for taking the time today and thank your neighbour for giving you the space to be access to join us. This has been a really great conversation. I really appreciate it.
Shannon Rowan 43:34
Thank you. It’s been great. Thank you for coming on. Thanks. Definitely. Thanks, sir.
Announcer 43:40
Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the healthier tech podcast. Remember to check the show notes for all the links and resources mentioned in the show. Please like and subscribe to the healthier tech podcast on Apple, Spotify or your podcast platform of choice. Get your free quickstart guide to building a healthy relationship with technology and our latest information at healthier tech.co
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
