JUST LIKE A PLANET | There are many layers to an individual, much like the soil in the ground or the planet as a whole. My journey to sustainable living isn’t straightforward and pretty but instead came from a beautiful mess I call life.
THE BEGINNING | I was born in Wrocław, Poland in 1987. When I was only 6 months old we left Poland for Germany and then by the time I was 4 and started school, we were in Canada.
Like every parent, mine wanted everything for our family. We weren’t wealthy but we had what was important. We even had a camper up in cottage country were we spent many years going to. I must have caught hundreds of frogs in my childhood and walked just as many kilometers to the local general store for 5 cent candies.
EARLY YEARS | From very early on I loved knowing how things worked and why. I explored the world through a creative lens, reading, making and building. I had this desire to know it all – something about everything. This trait still lives on strong in me today. Spending a lot of time outdoors, my playmates were the trees, grass, sky and dirt.
I have no clear memory of when I first started applying sustainable habits. I believe it was in Grade 1 when you begin to have choices in what materials you could use for school projects or topics you can pick for reports. I always went for re-purposing and reusing items and choosing topics related to nature and science.
DREAMS | I met my boyfriend, now husband, during my last year of University and it is because of him I applied to design school two weeks before classes and my journey began from there. I embarked on this creative journey which led me to a dream job working alongside a celebrity TV designer as Jr. Designer and Personal Assistant – I was the whole team. This was perfect. I did it! I got that dream job. I commuted to the city for about 4 hours daily, worked around the clock with no breaks all day every day, ate out on the regular, had a shopping addiction and the more convenient something was the more I needed it. This went on for about 6 years. I lived a life completely opposite of how I approach life today. The design industry had cut me off from that creative outlet and my ever present obsession with perfection lead me to abandon my own creativity. I needed more so in an attempt to fuel my creativity I began working 1-3 weddings a weekend in the city and co-founded Sweet Table; custom one of a kind dessert tables. At the same time, Izabela Busby Design was officially born.
Moving into Dufferin County brought us back to basics and the outdoors where both Brandon and I spent most of our childhood. Up until that point I was making the choices for our home in terms of holistic living and it mostly due to wanting to get our health under control. Then I got pregnant with our first girl two months later and this was our entry into a more sustainable, mindful, green lifestyle. Two years later our second daughter joined us for the ride. Then we sold our home amidst the start of a global pandemic and moved into a 26-foot RV trailer while building our forever home in West Grey, Ontario. Oh, did I mention I got pregnant with our son while this was all happening? Creating a happy healthy home was important to me and not being perfect at it was something I had to quickly learn to be okay with. Shit happens. It’s okay. Let it go and embrace the mess of life. Everybody’s life is different and every approach to sustainable living will be different.
GOING GREEN | Being mindful, sustainable and green is so personal and so individual and different for everyone. I started out by tackling various areas of our life in and around the home – our lifestyle. Then tackling larger principles that associate with zero waste. And I prioritized them. Then when I thought I had control in those areas of my life, I started working on getting involved in the local community. This is an ongoing journey with many layers but it sure is wonderful knowing we have this huge community of like-minded green heroes. Today I’m green enough which means I am far from perfect but better than before.
SKILLS | I don’t have a degree in science and I don’t pretend that I do. What I do have is schooling from University of Toronto for Biology, Anthropology and Linguistics, an Interior Design diploma from Humber College, extensive experience in the design industry, public relations, social media, public health, design and build, event planning, project managing and organizing large groups of folks to do amazing things. People with my background are used all over to communicate scientific information. Businesses, communities and families work with me to better understand the science of everyday that is hazardous to our health. I break it down for you into an understandable way that empowers you to make the decisions within your life that are clean enough to be healthy and dirty enough to be happy.
Whatever way you want to look at it (mother, wife, friend, sister, designer, creative director, artist, speaker, maker, activist), I am a creative in every aspect of my life. My background in sustainability and green practices is entirely self-taught. Reading all the content I could find, listening to all the podcasts available, watching as many videos and documentaries created as one can watch in their lifetime, I slowly began to apply a more mindful, sustainable, green lifestyle in and around our home.
Education and creativity paved the way for me to understand my connection with the Earth. But it took me some time to realize that modern society doesn’t have the same context. It also took me a while to realize how my daily habits, especially my shopping addiction, food waste and hunger for convenience was tied into systems that are destroying our Earth. I want to help raise awareness of those habits that are harming the environment. I want to let you into my life and show you what I do on a daily basis to live in a more mindful and sustainable manner that is more in alignment with the Earth and with myself. Because I believe each of us has the power to find our own alignment and love the life we have. We should look at sustainability on a holistic level as good for Earth and bodies.
FUTURE | My journey has led me to a point in my life now were I teach and talk about sustainable, mindful Earthy living to anyone that is willing to listen. I’m not a green living expert – far from it. I’m just trying to do the best job possible to raise my family to be healthy, loving and aware. Gather the tools and make informed decisions. Talk to your kids, tell them what’s up, educate them. They want to know and learn. They are the future, the key to change and inspiration behind my values.
Sometimes the wake up call is once you get sick which is why we need a holistic approach when we make new personal choices. Companies are doing a better job and policies are being put into place. This is a fight we will fight, it’s a direction many companies are already going. As long as we can hit critical mass then change happens in time.
GOALS | When I started my journey there was a lot of information about the eco-friendly lifestyle however it came in a form of information overload and I was looking for simple, actionable steps that were easily accessible but hard to find. It may all be scary, discouraging and you may want to give up already but here’s what you have to do instead: Try to get out there and stick up for the environment in whatever ways you can. This can be activism, start refusing and only second hand shopping, start walking more, support more local businesses and farms, boycott products from companies with not so sustainable practices, contact your local municipal office and tell them your thoughts or all of the above and even more. The planet needs you now more than ever.
