“I’d rather be naked.” These were the words on the t-shirt I saw in Walgreens. It was a size that could only be worn by a young child. I smiled, thinking how self-love comes so naturally for young children. We are born loving ourselves soul, mind, and body, but as the years go on, we tend to forget that unconditional love and acceptance.

For many, many years I did not love myself, especially my body. It was difficult for me to even look in the mirror. I did not re-learn how to love myself from church, my family, or traditional school. In fact, I learned the true meaning of self-love through conquering a raging addiction. I was not addicted to drugs, or alcohol, or men; I was addicted to dieting. I spent six years of my life in the throes of a nasty addiction to trend diets and compulsive exercise.

How did this addiction begin? In October of my freshman year in college, after a series of negative dating experiences, questionable “friend” choices, and a coke-addicted roommate with a habit of punching holes in the wall, I fell into a depression unlike any other I had previously experienced. This lasted about two excruciating months, where I did not leave my dorm except to eat and go to class. I lost touch with my center, gained a bit of weight, and was completely unmotivated.

Then, I took up jogging. This helped alleviate my depression. It didn’t happen overnight, but running each morning gave me a reason to wake up, allowed me to set attainable goals, and connected me to a community of others who shared my passion.

However, the passion soon took on obsession-like qualities. My fixation with exercise began to include restriction and fascination with food. The diet addiction was in full swing: I began to stand on the scale once a day, sometimes more. If the number went up, my day was ruined.

Whatever the trendiest diet craze, I became their most valuable customer. I jumped from Atkins, eating all protein and meat, to an unhealthy vegan diet, eating no protein and meat. I tried South Beach and the Zone. I never ate dessert. I completely lost touch with my inner wisdom, guidance, and sense of balance.

I was buying into everyone else’s money-making “Health Plan” and completely separating from my soul, which was the intuitive part of me that knew what I needed to be healthy, at peace, and truly in love with my body and self. Furthermore, I spent a lot of time and effort “feeding” this diet/body/weight obsession. I had no energy or time left for cultivating my creativity, my spirituality, my zest for life, and my love for myself.

Just when it felt like there was no hope, I began to read and learn about Intuitive Eating, Exercising, and Living. This was a revolutionary concept for me. With the help of authors like Dr. Dorie McCubbrey and Geneen Roth, I tapped into my own inner guide and began to follow these “anti-diet” guidelines:

-My body knows exactly what it wants to eat, how much, and when.
-I can trust my body’s wisdom, hunger, and full point.
-My body knows what type of activity it wants to do and for how long.
-Following someone else’s plan only leads me further from the wisdom of my authentic self.

The most important aspect of this newfound strategy was to LOVE MYSELF FIRST and love my body NOW; not after I lost ten pounds or fit into a smaller size. I practiced daily affirmations: “I am loving and accepting myself fully right now.” I made gratitude lists of everything about my body that I appreciated. “My legs carry me through amazing jogs through the park.” I threw away my scale, refusing to sacrifice my power to a random number. I spent time naked in front of a full length mirror and noticing the beautiful curves of my body. At first, I had to “fake it till I make it,” as the saying goes, but soon I was truly loving myself and practicing self-care to show my body and soul how much I appreciated them.

I can now say that I am done with diet addiction. My body has taught me what foods help me feel energetically alive. I eat dessert, and I usually eat just enough to feel satisfied. I recognize my full point, and I try not to eat too far past it.

Furthermore, as my mind/body/soul connection grew through intuitive living, other areas of my life were positively impacted. I finally allowed myself to accept the love of my best friend, the man of my dreams. My confidence grew and I was able to move on from an exhausting job and into owning my own business, one that feeds my soul and gives back to the world.

Sometimes I have the urge to go back to that time in my life and hug that 22 year old, tell her that she is fine the way she is and that no amount of diet/weight obsession will create self-acceptance and love. Sometimes, I wonder what my life would have been like without that war I waged against myself… but I trust there was a deeper, Divine purpose.

Also, I do embrace that young woman from the past in my own way, each time I work with a client or witness a friend as she searches for self-acceptance, for her inner wisdom, and begins to love her body and self more completely. Together, we are part of a revolution of women who are choosing to love ourselves fully mind, soul, and BODY! I’m going to check if they have the “I’d rather be naked” shirts in larger sizes…

Cora Poage lives in New York City with her incredible husband Ben (her “other” soulmate) and her two crazy kitties. She is the owner of Super Woman Health, a company offering wellness coaching for learning to eat, exercise, and live intuitively.

Photo Credit: insearchofbalance

“Remember sadness is always temporary. This, too, shall pass.” -Chuck T. Falcon

It has been said that creative persons, such as authors, artists, actors, musicians, performers and poets are more often plagued with the demon of depression than the general population. One of the possible explanations for this is that creative types tend to feel powerful emotions which aid their creative endeavors. In other words, some experts believe that being sensitive to one’s surroundings, including sounds, colors and people’s emotions, has been associated with both creativity and depression. Such hypersensitivity can lead people to worry about things with which other people aren’t typically as concerned, thereby increasing the potential for depression.

If we examine the lives of accomplished artists, we will observe that many battled depression at some point in their lives. A few prominent examples are Vincent Van Gogh, Charles Darwin, Virginia Woolf, William Styron, Anne Sexton, Emily Dickinson and Sylvia Plath. If you’ve ever been depressed, you probably understand the sense of helplessness and numbness which accompanies this illness. Sometimes this sense of helplessness drives creative individuals to the drawing or writing pad, but other times, it can be immobilizing.

The life of writer David Foster Wallace offers a more recent example, as he committed suicide secondary to depression. Experts have identified certain characteristics in his writing—such as hypersensitivity, constant rumination, and persistent contemplation—which researchers say can connect creativity with mental illness, especially bipolar disorder and depression. In this case, mental illness does not necessarily cause creativity, but a certain ruminating personality type may contribute to both mental health issues and artistic ability.

Some Theories Linking Depression and Creativity

First, some artists and writers admit to engaging in their craft as a kind of self-therapy for depression. In this way, their efforts to avoid depression may provide an incentive for their creative work that wards off melancholy.
Second, the experience of depression provides subject matter for artistic creations: Edvard Munch’s famous painting “The Scream” and Emily Dickinson’s poem “There’s a Certain Slant of Light” are two examples.

Third, some believe that one cannot truly comprehend or convey the human condition unless one has experienced the highest emotional highs and the lowest lows. Thus, depression provides the existential angst from which great art arises.

Approximately seven percent of the general population is affected by depression or bipolar disorder, and studies have shown that this number tends to be higher among creative types. Bipolar disorder is characterized by episodes of mania and major depression. Typically, someone who is manic depressive tends to swing from excessive highs (mania) to profound hopelessness (depression). In between these episodes, they experience feelings of normalcy. Some people can also have mixed symptoms of both mania and depression simultaneously, while others may have manic symptoms that are more moderate.

In his book “Van Gogh Blues,” Eric Maisel proclaims that virtually one hundred percent of creative people suffer from episodes of depression. He supports this claim by asserting that every creative person came out of the womb ready to interrogate life and determine for herself what life would mean, could mean, and should mean. He believes that depression in creative individuals is thought of as a crisis caused by chronic, persistent uneasiness, irritation, anger, and sadness about the facts of existence and life’s apparent lack of meaning. In fact, those who try to understand the reason for their own existence will most likely be more prone to depression.

Kay Redfield Jamison, a foremost expert on bipolar disorder who has also suffered from the disease since childhood, believes that most artistic geniuses are manic depressive. Jamison is the author of “Touched with Fire” and a professor of psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Her book makes a powerful link between depression and creativity.

When a writer is depressed, he or she may turn to their craft to ease the pain. The writing process can help the creative person make sense of their lives and  validate what they are feeling. Writing brings us face-to-face with reality. The act of moving the pen across the page or the fingers on the keyboard can be meditative and calming.  Expressing feelings helps to give meaning to life, which is helpful for us all!

Personally, I have found writing to be very therapeutic during tumultuous periods in my life. Writing my own recent memoir/self-help book, “Healing with Words: A Writer’s Cancer Journey,” proved to me that in times of depression, it is very helpful to try to be creative. Pick up a notebook and just start writing!

If you haven’t tried this before, here are ten things to keep in mind:

1. Find a quiet, uninterrupted time and place to write.

2. Choose an inspiring notebook and pen.

3. Create a centering ritual (light a candle, meditate, play music, stretch).

4. Breathe deeply.

5. Put aside your inner critic.

6. Date your entry.

7. Begin by writing your feelings and sensations.

8. Write nonstop for 15-20 minutes.

9. Save what you have written.

10. Write regularly.

Diana Raab is a author of eight books and teaches in the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program and in various conferences around the country. She frequently writes and speaks about journaling and her most recent memoir is Healing With Words: A Writer’s Breast Cancer Journey (June 2010).

Photo Credit: Derek Gavey

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!