Alice Grist

When I started to write a book about spirituality for modern women the last thing I expected was to have my own lifestyle and personality overhaul. Though lord knows I needed it! Even the spirits, guides, angels and fairies at the bottom of my garden knew I needed it. Everybody knew I needed it, except, of course for little old me! Two years ago I was living a late twenties alcohol-fueled path of denial. I happily partied the nights away as though I were still a twenty-one-year-old freshly unleashed in the world, whilst simultaneously making it through the working weeks without losing my job or collapsing of exhaustion. However it was becoming apparent that massive self-indulgence was no longer working out to my advantage.

Once the fun truly vanished, I spiraled into utter gloominess. As far as I was concerned it was everyone and everything else that was causing my heartache and mental trauma. In my hazy opinion my boyfriend was to blame, my job was to blame, my friends were to blame, my teachers at school ten years previously were to blame…anybody but me.

Many people continue to live this way not realizing something is badly wrong. Other people scrape their way out of this ego induced misery through a stiff stint of counseling, hefty self help books, or embarking on a life changing world voyage. My route was somewhat different. Having spent my childhood surrounded by a patchwork quilt of religion and spiritual thought, I somehow ended up digging out that quilt and turning it into my very own comfort blanket. And what a difference it has made to my life. My boyfriend is now my husband, my book is published and I live a sane and stress free existence with my cats and chickens!

So how did spirituality catapult me out of the very big and dark rut I had dug myself into? First, I awoke one morning with an overwhelming urge to learn about Buddhism, and then Reiki, and then revisit my father’s pagan religion of Wicca. I continually wanted to know more and I literally embraced my own version of spirituality. I explored ancient belief systems and I took what felt right to me and experimented with it. I watched my life slowly transform from monotonous to marvelous in less than a year.

The examples of benefits for the modern woman are endless. One of my personal favorites happened close to the beginning of my journey. With the cynic in me still firmly in place I had attended a number of events and courses. I was enrolled on a nine month Spiritualism course, and it was here that I met my ‘spirit guide’. Like many people I have several guides, but my first one was exceptional! His name is Celebrielle and he is a big, white, winged horse. He was the one who helped me to believe, my prince charming so to speak (of the Equestrian nature!). He was everywhere in the months following our first meeting during a mediation session. His image turned up on the sides of lorries, on stationary, in my crystal therapists’ therapy room, on my holidays and in my handbag. It was a Cellebrielle onslaught! His presence in my life was uncanny and incredible. He was my introductory guide and he eased me into spirituality gently, almost like Sesame Street introduces a child to spelling and numbers! He showed me that spirituality will always be there for me. He introduced me to ‘signs’ by being my constant sign, showing up on a daily basis and taking my breath away. He gave softness and light to a spiritual study that had come from darkness and that eventually grew into something deeper, complex and utterly life changing!

It was from a cushy Celebrielle enhanced start that I continued my exploration of spirituality, unafraid and protected. My life took on new meaning and my previous habits, desires, vices and sadness dropped away. Through spiritual growth I quelled my lusts and desires for bigger, better material objects such as cars, handbags or sofas. I realized that weight, looks, bad hair days, fashion, and possessions did not reflect anything meaningful about me. They were accessories, and ones that could cause too much mental stress. As a result, Buddha’s teachings taught me how to live happily in my own skin and without the need to bitch and moan my way through the day. Shamanism helped me to see the bigger picture and to incorporate my innate love for nature and the environment into my spiritual beliefs. Attending a Sweatlodge was the pinnacle of this and brought nature into my very soul. Whilst Kabbalah had some darned good advice on ways to behave that minimize the darker influences of my human character. It gave me balance, a calm soul and showed me how to be a better person. Divination and healing techniques added intrigue to my life, and helped to show that there is life beyond the conventions of modern science and time as we perceive it.

Spiritual salvation has been the most incredible thing that has happened to me. Spirituality for a modern female is a tool kit of wonders and here are my top tips to get you started…

Quick Spirit Boosters

-Shut the noise off. Turn off TV’s, radios, cell phones and I-Pods and listen to the world around you. See what inspirations or intriguing thoughts come to you when you give your mind a chance to be itself.

-Try one alternative healing technique in place of your usual beauty treat. Swap a massage for reiki, or your facial for a crystal healing session.

-Read something spiritual. It need not be a religious tome or the Dead Sea scrolls. There are plenty of interesting modern day writers catering to all kinds of spiritual tastes, go with your ‘little voice’ and see what the ‘world as you don’t know it’ has to say.

-Be in nature, see nature, and appreciate nature. It’s so easy in our urban jungles to forget that nature exists or that we are guests here on this wonderful planet. Take an hour a week to prune your plants, watch the sky or sit in a field. Be in nature and breathe.

-Think positive and picture your life as you wish it to be. I do this regularly and have found that as I set my intent for the kind of life I would like, so it happens.

-Choose not to react and always live in the moment, find some space for unconditional love in your life. Above all listen to your inner voice, make her your guide.

Alice Grist is author of The High Heeled Guide to Enlightenment, a practicing Intuitive Tarot Card Advisor and a Reiki Practitioner. She lives happily with her musician husband, James, their two cats and two chickens and is partial to a spot of gardening, giggles with the girls and indulgent hot baths!

Maria Mooney

Hello, Happy Healers! My name is Maria Mooney, and I am a proud, mostly raw, vegan graduate student munching and working my way toward a clinical M.S.W. in mental health therapy. Did I mention I also have a rare, progressive neurological disease, which has no known current cause or cure? It’s true! I have been blessed and cursed with Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy (RSD), also known as Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS), a progressive neurological disease with the main symptom being chronic, burning, stinging, shooting neurological pain. Lucky me, all four limbs happen to be affected, with the most disabling pain in my lower legs and feet, and I daringly fight each day for my mobility.

While many people diagnosed with RSD/CRPS are forced to use wheel chairs, crutches, or other mobility enhancing devices, I have evaded the aforementioned and even obtained a 4.0 GPA in my first year of graduate school with Kris Carr’s raw, vegan diet, strong opiate medications (a.k.a. “leg juice”), a strong support system, and an even stronger desire to live a joyful, fulfilling life.

I picked up Kris’ documentary, Crazy Sexy Cancer, during my first hospital stay two years ago, and quickly followed suite reaping the benefits of a diet high in anti-inflammatory fruits and veggies and low in inflammation causing animal products and processed foods. This is of infinite importance for an illness where incredible swelling, which I have little to none of, is a major symptom and mobility/spirit stealer. It also provided me with a sense of empowerment that I could make a significant and strategic difference in my health, despite the grim prognosis. I could beat the odds! Not to mention, it has kept my weight low and healthy, which plays a vital role in allowing me to, well, stand at all! Think about it, the more weight a set of painful legs and feet has to bear, the worse the pain will be.

Let’s rewind several years ago to when the first signs and symptoms of RSD/CRPS developed. I was running 40+ miles a week for a division one university and was perpetually in motion. You couldn’t catch me in one place for very long, and if you did, you better have been able to keep up with me as I moved onto the next location.

As the symptoms progressed, the amount of time I could stand lessened until it became a few excruciatingly painful minutes, and not long after, I fell into a deep, reactive depression. A depression I now know is very common and quite normal for those experiencing chronic pain, but the stigma around mental illness affects a suffering individual’s access to care and, ultimately, his/her right to happiness. Chronic pain has the ability to wipe out any sense of self you possessed before and replaces it with a never-ending black hole of self-loathing and a clear disdain for life as you now know it. This is when we must enlist the help of a knowledgeable professional to bring us back to center and point us in the right direction of health and happiness.

Two years of intensive mental health therapy later, I possessed the proper and effective coping tools to deal with my altered existence, but it wasn’t until I freed myself of the notion that life is supposed to be “perfect,” without pain and suffering, that I began to really live. Once I embraced pain in my life, I could sit with it, feel it, be it for some time, ultimately, let it go, but most importantly, LEARN from it. The pain no longer had the power to ruin my days and make my decisions for me, and with that, I closed out fear and opened myself up to the healing powers of love in all of its splendid forms. Most importantly, I opened myself up to a love and acceptance for my unique, empowered self as I am in this moment, and I saw my disease as a vehicle for my personal growth and development. I discovered I have something to offer this world.

A friend once told me I was a special and unique individual, a single unicorn among many horses, and cleverly used what I now call the “unicorn analogy.” The unicorn analogy celebrates our individual uniqueness and our ability to understand that we are special, no matter what illness or burden we carry, no matter what size or color we are, and what infectious power comes with this realization. Each one of us is one of a kind, an alluringly beautiful creature, strong, wild, fierce, and impossible to tame with exceptional endurance, perseverance, and wisdom, might I add? A symbol of hope, love, and faith with an unconquerable nature! Did I mention beauty?! Inside and out. With a sharp wit that only a lucky few possess, my friend once uttered with the best of intentions, “Feel lucky you are a unicorn. They put down horses with bad legs.” And, to that, I say, “AMEN!” Embrace the uniqueness in you and share it with the world as part of your healing journey, your illness evolution, and you will touch the lives of others while self-actualizing, personally developing, and healing yourself, mind, body, and spirit. I can guarantee it. And, isn’t that the purpose of it all?

Happy Healing, Unicorns!

<3 Maria

Maria is a 25 year old, vegan graduate student living with a progressive neurological disease, Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy (RSD). Follow along as Maria reflects on lessons learned through her health challenges, shares her experiences with alternative and traditional treatments, and enjoys life to its fullest at her blog!