About Me

 

Hi, my name is Sheila Marshall and welcome to my blog: Grow Eat Learn

I am a nurse by trade, with over 40 years' experience, and whilst I don't come from an agricultural background, my family does have a history in horticultural, growing carnations and Freesia commercially in glasshouses in the UK, and whilst I did not follow into the family horticultural business, I have always been a passionate gardener, which has been passed on through my grandmother and mother. 

I have lived and worked in various countries (UK, Germany, Cyprus, Australia), throughout my nursing career and have always managed to scrape together some form of garden, it may have been a container garden, or revamping an existing garden or starting a garden from scratch.

But in 2011 my husband and I decided to put down some roots and found ourselves living in a small rural town called St George in southwest Queensland, on 6.5 acres, with a semi-arid climate, and starting a journey into health and wellness, sustainable living and moving to becoming more self-reliant.  This blog is the story of our journey. It is amazing where fate can take you, if you are open to possibilities.

Why health, wellness, sustainability and self-reliance?

As a nurse I have become aware of the decline in societies' health and wellbeing especially in the last 15 to 20 years. When I had started my nursing career in the early 1980s, I had been taught that chronic diseases such as Type II Diabetes, Heart Disease, High Blood Pressure and High Cholesterol, where considered to be maturity onset diseases, that is something you developed in your 70's and 80's.  However, I have seen these diseases become more prevalent in 30 to 50 year olds, with Type II diabetes now showing up in children, which is horrifying, especially when you know what the long-term impact of these disease has, on a person's quality of life.

I had also noted my own declining health, as I entered into my 40's and 50's, old age I though, it is to be expected, but then I began to wonder what had happened to our health, what has happened to my health! 

With young adults and children getting what I had considered to be maturity onset illnesses, I began to ask, "so what had changed"? I took a critical look at how we live our lives, how I had been living my life? I noticed that our food was no longer being produced (grown), it was being manufactured. The ingredient list on the back of food packaging read like a chemistry lesson.  We no longer cooked our food from scratch, opting to buy pre-pared or highly processed foods, as we had all gotten so busy in our lives. As I started to delve a little deeper, I became horrified at to some of the elements that were being put in our food, and also in our skin and environmental cleaning products.

Even in the healthcare system in which I worked, we seemed to have shifted our focus on treating illness and reliving symptoms, and not on how to maintain our good health, promoting wellness and preventing lifestyle diseases. 

Becoming part of the solution, not part of the problem:

As a nurse and a clinical educator, I feel compelled to help people be the best they can, to help them to reach the best possible health outcomes for them, and to help them manage their health challenges in such a way that they have a quality of life that suits them. This means different things for different people and what wellness looks like for one person may be different for someone else.

I wanted to raise awareness around possible health choices, being able to provide real life examples, and through workshopping, showcasing, and demonstrating start a conversation around health and wellness, food production and preservation, and who to build resilience in individuals, families and communities.

Whilst I am on a journey to improve my own health and wellness, I also want to share what I learned with the wider community, to raise awareness of alternative choices and to ease the pain of making a change. I want to help people get started, and in my experience, this is the hardest part, getting started, and recognising that this is different for everyone.

Call to action!

This website is the story of a hobbyist and her reluctant spouse's ongoing journey into the world of sustainable living, warts and all. Looking at how to build resilience in communities and individuals. I do not claim to have all the answers; but for some of you, I might have a few that may work for you, your family and your community.

So, I invite you to join me on my journey, to share your thoughts and ideas, and to take those first steps to improving your own health and wellness, and that of your family and community, whilst starting to live a more sustainable lifestyle and build resiliency.