How to Achieve Spiritual Enlightenment in 10 Days
How to Achieve Spiritual Enlightenment in 10 Days
This is MY 95 Theses!!!!!
One thing about me is that I will always swipe left on any dating profile that slanders astrology or any spiritual practice for three reasons.
First, because the only cyberbullying I tolerate is my own. Second, they’re also commonly Men Who Think The Office Is the Funniest Show Ever Created and Have Decided to Make This Opinion an Entire Personality Trait, which is gross. And third, why are you so mad at the stars? Which Capricorn Who hurt you so badly??
All of this is to say that spirituality often gets shat on by people who have done nothing to try to understand it. It’s also tricky because spirituality has been and continues to be misconstrued in our pop culture dialogue. On top of that, even as the popularity of TarotTok and manifestation hacks continue to stay on the rise, its followers are constantly apologizing for being too crazy or “woo-woo,” and articles as expansive and well-researched as Rebecca Jennings’ 2020 piece with Vox constantly undercut spiritual practice and anyone who is trying to see if it works for them.
What’s actually crazy is that spirituality is on the rise and has been for years: according to a 2020 podcast from Pew Research Center, 59% of Americans said “they regularly feel a deep sense of spiritual peace and well-being” as the country has continued to trend towards less religious but more spiritual. Additionally, a 2018 Pew study found that 62% of American adults of all faiths believe in at least one New Age-y spiritual concept.
I wanted to dive into this conversation so this week, I talked with Liz Moore about her personal spiritual journey, the impostor syndrome that has come along with it, and how skeptics can ease into the spiritual waters.
Liz is a Texas-born, currently-going-on-6-year New Yorker, who identifies strongly with Hannah Montana’s smash hit, “The Best of Both Worlds.” In her more well-known life, she’s a sarcastic, meme-loving, expert online shopper, and hot girl audiobook walk-obsessed gal who works in digital marketing at a startup coffee company that she randomly found in college. Subscribe to her ~fun coffee~ newsletter here (by scrolling to the bottom of the page) (and please click on all the links in the emails to pad her stats and help her get promoted!!!)
In her other life, she’s a sparkly star-seed child of the universe who loves to dance, collect pretty crystals, study all the important goddesses because #girlpower, frolic in nature, and ask big philosophical questions about herself and the world.
Spill the Spirituali-tea
Because spirituality is not something I’m personally well-versed in (although I do know a thing or two about a thing or two about manifesting) nor is it an easily searchable topic, I’m largely letting Liz’s phenomenal responses speak for themselves today.
Starting with the hardest one, of course:
Emily: How would you define spirituality?
Liz: I would define spirituality as the exploration of one’s relationship with and connection to the universe.
Emily: What started you on your spiritual journey?
Liz: I found spirituality after a long journey with anxiety that sort of began at the end of high school, which manifested mainly in social anxiety and sleeping difficulty.
Throughout college, my sleeping difficulties became more and more pronounced. I had tried melatonin and different supplements to sleep, but by senior year, I had so much trouble sleeping that I began taking my dad’s Ambien. I quickly started building a higher tolerance for it and dependence on it. Throughout the fall and winter of 2019, I had full blown insomnia—some nights I would take 6 melatonin, 4 Benadryl, 3 Z-Quil, and 3 Ambiens and still couldn’t fall asleep until 3 am. I’d wake up for class at 8 am, stumble around my apartment because I was high on prescription drugs, go to class, and feel everything wear off throughout the lecture.
I started working with a psychiatrist and a CBT sleep specialist but it honestly didn’t work. At the same time, my dad reached out to my aunt who he knew was familiar with the world of spirituality and asked, “Is there anything you can do to help my daughter?” Next thing I knew, I was on a plane to LA for a crash course in all things hippie.
Coming from a traditional upbringing in Texas, I had always sort of thought of spirituality as a joke, but at this point in my life, I felt that I had tried everything. I was making myself sick with prescription sleeping pills, and I felt this sort of resigned openness, like “Fuck it, why not? Let’s have an open mind and see what happens.”
Those four days in LA were some of the most transformational experiences of my life. Because I had an open mind and heart to accept whatever happened, I had so many revelations and mind-blowing learnings that I took away from the experience: a sense of self-compassion I had never before felt, a sense of hope that there was a path out of the darkness, and I finally understood that I was worthy of giving and receiving love.
Emily: Where are you on your journey now?
Liz: Now, spirituality for me is something very personal that I can turn to whenever I feel stressed, anxious, out of balance, or just when I’m looking to feel connected.
I have explored so many different healing modalities, tools, schools of thought etc. in this world, and I have picked up lessons from each and found certain preferred paths that I want to continue to explore further. Through my work with spirituality over the past two years, I have found so much healing and tons of personal breakthroughs. It’s all about curiosity for learning and revealing your shadows and patterns, noticing what needs to be let go, and uncovering who you are at your core.
It’s amazing—I have such a greater understanding of who I am now. It’s taught me a new perspective and framework for understanding myself and the world around me.
I’m not crazy about the fact that I’ve used an article from Repeller two weeks in a row now1, but this article from 2018 had one of the kindest (read: openminded) approaches to modern spirituality and offered this important paragraph:
Spirituality has a sprawling history, but as New Ageism developed in the West in the 1970s, some of the storied context was lost. Today, with the internet offering unlimited access to information — cultural, historical and scientific — spirituality is becoming freckled with modern nuance. Wrapped up in ancient methods and novel technology, it’s reaching new (albeit splintered) heights alongside the burgeoning wellness movement. Contemporary generations may be shifting further from the pew, but there is a notion that seems to linger in even the most secular people — a longing for something less corporeal. (X)
Building on this, I asked Liz:
Emily: Is there anything truly that differentiates spirituality and any organized religion? Besides having representation on Fleabag.
Liz: I grew up in the Protestant faith so I can only really speak to my experiences there, but I’d say that both practices seek to generate a greater connection to our higher purpose, our emotions, seeking answers for unanswered questions. Spirituality, in my opinion, offers so much more freedom on the journey.
Religion is so highly structured—there are so many rules and rituals that you must follow in order to feel like a good person. It never really made sense to me: does God really care if you recite all the prayers correctly and attend church every week? Does God really measure how devoted you are to the practices in order to determine if you’re worthy of salvation? Or does God care more if you live your life as a good, honest, loving, compassionate person?
I have left the organized, ritualistic practices of religion behind (with no ill will, I promise!), but have maintained my faith in a higher power—it’s just that my concept of what that power is is shifting. While spirituality does also contain its own rituals, it’s all about the individual. You’re free to explore whichever avenues pique your interest. It’s all about internal exploration, discovering who you are, letting go of patterns that don’t serve you on your journey, and connecting to the one source of love and energy that connects us all.
Emily: Why do you think spirituality is still seen as a taboo practice in society?
Liz: I think it’s probably a combination of things. I could certainly make the argument that nowadays, patriarchal and capitalistic forces seek to delegitimize these practices because they go against their interests—by working with spirituality, you end up seeing past all the bullshit, and what is more powerful than a woman who is motivated by the truth? You can’t dupe her into buying shit to be perfect, you can’t stop her from spreading the word.
But also, it all boils down to human fear. Humans fear what they don’t understand and over centuries, with all this focus on technological progress and increasing the world’s wealth and with Western regimes’ becoming more powerful, we’ve lost our connection with these practices and with the energy force that connects us to nature and each other. We no longer understand it and we fear that it may pose a threat to the structures we find comfortable, so we ridicule it.
We make fun of anything that doesn’t buy into our ways of thinking and we’re so closed off from it we don’t even have the possibility of learning anything from it.
Oh? What was that?? The patriarchy??? Is it… causing problems????
NFTs Actually Stand for Natal Fucking charTs
Returning to my absolutely brilliant intro line, something that is colloquially known but hard to capture is that a majority of straight men hate astrology for some reason. No one ever really asked their opinion so it’s weird that they have one at all.
But the reason men have such an aversion to the stars might have nothing to do with them being an air sign (problems)—across all faiths, women are more likely than men to align with a religion or religious practice. Research conducted in 2011 found that while there was no gender difference “in endorsement of spiritual experiences, religious practices, or congregational support,” women were more likely to correlate “religious/spiritual coping, religious support, daily spiritual experiences, forgiveness, and organizational religion” with their mental health, which we saw anecdotally from Liz.2
Regardless, I simply am a petty gal so I had to ask:
Emily: Do you think it's fair to mock NFTs and crypto the way men mock astrology?
Liz: Ok so I minored in Economics at NYU so while I don’t claim to be an expert, I at least know a little bit about the way finànce works.
Anything whose value is determined by market forces, that value is MADE UP (to a certain extent). The value of any cryptocurrency or an NFT literally only exists to the extent that investors THINK it is or WILL BE valuable, and that’s why you see such crazy fluctuations. To a certain extent, even the value of equity on the stock market, futures, options, and derivatives are all driven by people’s expectations on how something will perform. So to be reductive: that shit’s made up and bros make the same argument for spiritual practices, such as astrology.
Look, do you have to live and die by the stars every day of your life and let the stars guide your every decision? No, but that’s the way they joke about it. It’s literally just a framework for understanding ourselves, our relationships, our driving forces better, and I will say that most of my friends tend to align personality-wise with their chart.
NYU: sponsor her.
While I can go on forever about astrology and, by default, astrology slander, I wanted to reel it back in and focus on what these absolute bosses of men are really playing into when they pass judgment on spiritual practices. Religious skepticism is as old as the day is long, a true “been-there-done-that” practice since Martin Luther wrote all those theses.3 But Emily For President is nothing if not my 95 theses so we’re going to have THAT conversation:
Emily: Have you had any experiences or connections within your spiritual practice that have led you to believe spirituality is not as far-fetched as other people perceive it to be?
Liz: There are a LOT of really highly educated and intelligent people in the spiritual community. I know a number of highly impressive and accomplished scientists and doctors who have been trained in the Western world but are now sharing incredible teachings and scientifically-backed research on alternative healing modalities and schools of thought.
One of my aunt’s close friends is a shaman who administers bufo alvarius, or toad venom. It is a very powerful healing medicine which studies have shown can significantly help with serious depression, anxiety, and even addiction (it has had significant success with heroin addiction patients and all it takes is one sitting with the medicine). He used to be a doctor at a psychiatric hospital in New York and over time he realized that the medicine he was administering actually wasn’t doing anything to help anyone. Now, he’s literally helping people have breakthroughs in healing addictions and mental health challenges.
I also worked with this amazing nutritionist who used remote muscle testing to see what vitamins my body needed. She admitted that she understood why I would be skeptical but she told me: “There is no doubt in physics that all matter is made of energy. Everything is energetic. We all are conditioned to exist in this reality of duality where the ‘I’ is completely separate from everything else, but that is not the case. If you can tune into the energy fields of the particles around us, you can learn a lot of the same things that blood tests will tell you.” She sent me a lot of scientific papers with decades of research behind them to explain some of her nutritional philosophies, too. And all I’ll say is, I’ve felt a huge improvement in myself from working with her!
I actually think the whole topic of energy fields is really fascinating—people tend to write off talk about energy as B.S. but it’s literally physics??? I highly recommend watching this TED talk by a neuroscientist who experienced having a stroke and it totally shifted her understanding of the energy of matter and how the brain makes sense of it all.
And finally, if you believe nothing else, I am the proof. I have changed so drastically as a person since I started my spiritual journey. Even after my first weekend in California, I felt that I was a different person. And since then, I swear, EVERYONE I know has remarked “Wow Liz you seem totally different! You seem so insanely confident now!” Through this work, my entire being changed, and clearly this shift in energy is noticeable.
Emily: What would you say to someone who is close-minded to your beliefs, if anything?
Liz: I would say everything is a sliding scale. Spirituality practices exist to help you exist in the world more easily, so just take what you need.
I’ll admit that anything I say down here will probably sound hypocritical because I did just explicitly state heavily imply that I like to mock crypto-heads but maybe… we all just need to mind our own business. (Hear that, Justice Alito?4)
Impostor? I Hardly Even Know Her!
Of course, with something that is as universal as it is unbelievably personal, it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that you’re not doing spirituality right. Even Liz finds herself there:
Emily: What is your relationship between spirituality and impostor syndrome?
Liz: Truthfully, when you approached me about doing this, I had a little internal freak out. I thought, “I can’t talk about spirituality! I don’t know enough about anything! I can’t even remember all 12 astrological signs off the top of my head, and when Emily posts this online, there’s going to be some troll who comes and calls me out for not being educated enough to speak on this topic. Or a troll who calls me a dumb hippy-dippy living in la la land. Or both.”
But the thing is, for me, spirituality is all about taking whatever tools and teachings you need to help you more easily navigate the world, interpersonal relationships, and larger questions about purpose and meaning. Every single person’s journey with spirituality is different, no two people will have the same story. And if there’s one thing I can speak to with confidence, it’s my own story.
And my story is that I just started this journey in 2020 and I’m still learning!
Emily: If it is your spiritual journey, does it matter what anyone else thinks?
Liz: I feel like this question really speaks to this sort of dichotomy that I’m experiencing in my own life.
The reality is I live in a very traditional-thinking, capitalist, consumerist, mainstream, judgemental society, and if I show up at brunch or work in a loose flowy dress with 7 crystal necklaces, I’m going to get some judgemental comments. People will change their perceptions of me. And while I’m all for being true to yourself, you have to determine, “Do I want to keep this life/ this job/ these friends?” And if so, to what extent am I comfortable being vulnerable and revealing this side of me knowing that so many people laugh it off as malarkey?
To clarify, it’s not like I’m living my life in NYC hating every second feeling like I’m living a lie. The aforementioned dichotomy is that I feel like I live comfortably in two worlds—I like my world in NYC with my marketing job and exploring new restaurants, and taking shopping trips in SoHo.
But I also love when I’m in my aunt’s world full of incredibly thoughtful people with unique gifts who really let me be my authentic self and I never once have to think about whatever mask I’m putting up to the world.
I guess my answer is I haven’t found the perfect balance yet.
The beautiful thing about a journey is that it is just that. So often, we prioritize where we want to be over how we get there (note the use of the word we), but isn’t the essence of spirituality finding our way towards a deeper understanding of ourselves?
With that, I asked Liz:
Emily: What advice/resources do you have for anyone interested in spirituality?
Liz: First off, just have an open mind and have FUN. Learn your birth chart and laugh at the weirdly random advice it gives you. Choose an oracle card deck and see what it says. Buy a crystal because it looks pretty.
The first weekend when I dove headfirst into this stuff, my aunt took me to an intuitive oracle card reader who communicates with angels and I decided: I have no idea if I believe that this is real or not, but either way, this is going to be a fun experience. Whether or not the woman actually was speaking to the angels during that reading, she did give me really valuable advice!
I’d also recommend thinking about what you’re hoping to get out of it: are you hoping to just do some introspective thinking? Maybe explore learning about the chakras or astrology, or if these seem too intense, just start with mindfulness and self-compassion practices. If you’re feeling discomfort in the body, seek out a reiki healer, acupuncturist, or energy worker. If you’re struggling with mental health, try researching the transformational healing power of different psychedelic medicines and find a group or a center where you can sit with the medicine in a safe, healing-focused space.
For me, just knowing one person who can introduce me to other people in this world is hugely important.
Of course, I had to ask:
Emily: What are your big three? Do they feel accurate?
Liz: Virgo sun, Capricorn moon, Scorpio rising.
My sun and moon definitely feel super accurate—I’m very meticulous, cerebral, thoughtful, but I’m also very sensitive and emotional. The Scorpio is interesting because most Scorpio suns make me nervous.
After a bit of drama (my dad made up a birth time when I asked years ago), I am very secure in my Aquarius sun, Scorpio Moon, and Scorpio rising placements.
Thank you to Liz for being an E4P stan and loving it like frat bros love cartoon monkeys!!!!
I just wanted to use this twee space to highlight Connecticut’s recent bill to protect anyone seeking an abortion from out of state. Remember: abortions happened before Roe and they will happen after—it’s safe abortions that have always been on the line.
For those who haven’t kept up with the drama, it’s a bit of a ride.
The results state: “In addition, subsequent regression analyses revealed a significant interaction between gender and use of religious/spiritual coping, which indicated that improved mental health was associated with increased religiosity/spirituality among women but not among men. This finding of a potentially stronger relationship between spirituality and mental health among women is generally consistent with previous research, which has suggested that women rely more on spiritual experiences and social support to help them cope with stress.”
Yeah, I studied European history, too!! I’ve got layers, bitch!! I’m an Aquarius!!!!
Bitchass.