Maria Gaian, healed her wounded soul with magick!

In this post, I talk about how Spiritual practices such as Soul Healing and Rituals helped me to Ditch the Black Dog of Depression. 

Do you feel cynical when I suggest that getting in touch with your Spiritual side could help you feel healthy, happy, and whole?

Not everyone who struggles with their mental health wants to start a spiritual practice to help them heal. 

And that’s fine.

Cos neither did I when I set out to heal my own mind, heart and Soul.

Before I started exploring the therapeutic benefits of green witchcraft, I was living in mental hell. 

The black dog of depression hounded me every waking moment!

I didn’t feel like I was enough or unconditionally loved, no matter what I did.

There was a gaping void inside of me that nothing could ever fill.

And boy, did I try my best to fill that hole.

I tried to fill it with:

• toxic romantic relationships;

• having children;

• animal companions;

• and overeating til I felt sick!

But no matter how much chocolate I swallowed, I still felt empty inside.

It never occurred to me that connecting with a Higher Power could be helpful.  

But everything changed when I discovered the healing power of green witchcraft. 

I won’t lie, getting involved in spiritual and magickal stuff came as a massive shock to me!

Why?

Because when I was 8 years old my mother and stepfather joined a cult that put the fear of ‘god’ into me with their teachings.

When I questioned them about the things they said that didn’t make sense, I was beaten, or shut down and told that what they said was the absolute truth.

My parents abused me in every way you can think of in the name of their ‘god’.

I reported this abuse time after time to their leaders, but they did nothing. They conspired to keep the abuse hidden when outside agencies such as social services got involved.

As you can probably imagine, it put me off religion for life.

So you can totally understand when I tell you that the idea of starting a spiritual practice made me feel ill.

This patriarchal, murderous, judgemental and cruel god I’d been taught about didn’t exist to me.

How could a good god allow and encourage the abuse of innocent children? Why would this god hate gay people? Encourage division and wars? Believe women belong to men? I had no truck with this god. He didn’t feel very loving and compassionate to me.

As I grew older, I understood that this ‘god’ my parents worship was a vehicle for men to get vulnerable people to give them money and power.

For me there isn’t anything spiritual about THAT!

Believe it, or not, horses opened the door into Spirituality for me.

I loved horses from the moment I saw an episode of Black Beauty on TV. I’ve always been drawn to be around horses. Not specifically to ride them, but to be in a space with them.

It was when I stood in a paddock with a herd of fifteen horses grazing around me that I understood Spirituality.

The horses allowed me to tap into their collective energy and I felt what it meant to be part of something greater. I’ll talk more about horses in future posts, but for now my point is that horses taught me a valuable lesson:-

You don’t have to follow organised religion or believe in a particular god or goddess to be spiritual.

This made me feel a little more open minded and relaxed about Spirituality.

I could finally separate the religion from the belief in a higher power.

Suddenly, there were no rules, no restrictions, no one else telling me how I should feel. I was free to explore what Spirituality meant to me.  

Spirituality is unique to everyone. Through connection with Mother Nature I found my magick and miracles.

I love exploring Green witchcraft and find it includes so many things that I loved doing as a child.

I’ve been making flower essences since I was tiny, but I didn’t know what I was doing back then!

Reconnecting with my childhood affinity for nature and animals brings me a great deal of joy.

But could magick really be the answer to ending my lifelong battle with the ‘black dog’ of depression?

Turns out it could.

I started small with a Full Moon ritual. It helped me to let go of a lot of trauma I’d been holding onto for far too long. No one was as surprised as I was at the effectiveness of this one monthly ritual!

And it didn’t just work for me. People I met that also practiced witchcraft told me it had helped them manage their mental health and wellness, too.

I began incorporating soul journeys, rituals and ceremonies into my ecotherapy sessions and watched my clients begin to heal and thrive.

I’m not alone in discovering that Spiritual practices can heal your wounded soul.

There’s been a LOT of research that shows that spirituality (NOT to be confused with religion) has a positive effect on our mental health and wellness.

Dr Katherine Jackson, Licensed Psychologist and Board-Certified Neurotherapist, says in her article ‘Can spirituality help depression?’

Most research shows spirituality, not religion, helps lower depressive symptoms. Spirituality and belief in a higher power serves as a protective factor against depression…..

I have seen depression and other mental health conditions improve as a result of the inclusion of spirituality in treatment…….

those who incorporated holistic health practices including spirituality appear to show quicker and more long-lasting symptom improvements.

Connecting with spirituality can even change the physiology of our brain! How cool is that?

Apparently, the prefrontal cortex of the brain thickens when you take part in spiritual practices such as meditation, being in nature, performing spells and rituals or joining a Sacred Circle.

This part of the brain is linked to intelligence, impulse control and cognitive function, so it’s important.

Another plus to this is that thickening the prefrontal cortex is anti-aging!

The thickness usually decreases over time, which may explain why older people tend to be more anxious. My mother gets anxious if she has nothing to worry about, so she seems to look for the daftest things to get stressed over! 

Spiritual people are also more likely to find new coping mechanisms when they feel stressed.

When we’re depressed, we tend to ruminate and go over and over things in our minds.

Spiritual practices give us something else to focus on, which in turn reduces anxiety and depression.

Leaning on a Higher Power and giving our problems over to them makes us feel more optimistic and less likely to dwell on things we can’t change.

Letting go of our stresses in a moon ritual or saying a prayer or blessing can make us feel calmer and more relaxed.

Spirituality usually promotes self acceptance, self love and self forgiveness. This is another positive aspect as depression and anxiety are often rooted in feelings of guilt, shame and not feeling like you’re lovable or good enough.

So there you have it.

Spiritual practices are good for you and can help you to ditch the black dog of depression and unleash your passion for life!

So how do you get started exploring Spirituality and bringing more magick into your life?

For me it all started with Google! I found a full moon ritual that I did all by myself. Then I found myself digging deeper, reading books and watching presentations online by other witches. I began to meditate.

Beautiful mentors took me on soul healing journeys into the liminal space and I LOVED it.

None of these spaces were specifically designed to help people who struggle with depression. I began to create my own rituals, ceremonies, Soul journeys and mind rewilding meditations.

It was fun, but sometimes lonely doing everything on my own. I discovered that there was more power in gathering with others in Sacred space.

So here I am holding my own Sacred circles to help people suffering from depression to find the healing that I did.

Let me be your Guide into the world of Therapeutic Witchcraft.

If you’d love to learn more about how creating your own Spiritual practices can help you heal and thrive as if by magick, stick with me!

Over the coming weeks and months, I’ll be talking about simple things you can do to feel healthy, happy, and whole.

If you’re a Substack subscriber, I’ll be inviting you to take part in some of my rituals and ceremonies with me so you can find out for yourself how effective they can be!

Are you ready to sprinkle some Gaian Magick in your life so you can ditch the black dog of depression and unleash your passion for life?

If you’d like to learn more about the science behind Therapeutic Witchcraft, read this post next: 

Is Ditch the Black Dog Too Woo Woo for You?