Here’s the thing about meeting a new age soul searcher: you’ve already painted a mental picture: flowing pants, dreadlocks, daisy tucked behind the ear – a soft, glazed expression across their smiley, happy face. Then you meet Emma Mildon, primed for superstardom as the ‘spiritual PA for the soul’, about to begin a global tour for her new-age book, and your preconceptions disappear in a second.
Mildon, 29, is indeed sunny and happy – but wearing a denim skirt and a leather jacket, she looks like a cool 20-something who’s nipped out for a lunch break. Which, in fact, she has – taking a break from her day job as Les Mills’ online editor to come and discuss her new book, The Soul Searcher’s Handbook: A Modern Girl’s Guide to the New Age World. It’s for people who are ‘spiritually hungry’, who want to know their holistic options – but without the patchouli-soaked airy-fairyness you might expect.
“It’s for people who want real, practical shit they can plug into their life that isn’t hard. Which crystal to chuck by your desk at the office. What oil to put on your pillow when you’re so stressed out you feel like you’re going to have a mental breakdown,” Mildon says. “This book is like a choose your own path – you take what you want and you leave the rest.”
Secret to success
The book, which has the same US publishing team who were behind the million-dollar hit The Secret, has been a lifetime in the making for Mildon. Being adopted at a young age played a big part, she believes, in giving her that ‘itch to be boundless’ and inspired a lot of travel in her teens and 20s, following ‘spiritual breadcrumbs’ around the world. Tea leaf readers in Ireland, numerologists in Asia, reiki practitioners in the Caribbean, a shaman in South America. But it was, ironically, serving the rich on superyachts that kicked her ambition into overdrive.
“In some ways it was quite a toxic world, but there was a common thread between everyone that crossed my path. They’d seen an opportunity, committed to it, and followed what I would call ‘a soul’s purpose.’”
It also, as Mildon drily points out, taught her the difference between ‘a successful person who was a good person, and a successful arsehole’. Luckily the latter are rare in what she calls the ‘namaste network’ of people operating in the holistic field. So how exactly do holistic people do business?
A natural path
“It’s that gut feeling where you know it’s good, and easy, and it just works. It’s rare in business you see someone who’s doing the same thing as you and you want to help. But there’s that attitude of ‘there’s more than enough to go around’. And there is.”
With The Soul Searcher’s Handbook being released in November in the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, Mildon’s a long way from where she was a few years ago, when her book was rejected by every publisher she sent it to. It was winning a writing competition with Hay House publishers, a leading ‘new thought and self-help’ company’, which changed her fortune. She was flown to New York and ended up standing on a platform with a microphone in front of a group of 300 people – which included the Hay House CEO. Mildon was there to introduce herself and her possible book. The previous hopefuls had announced themselves as spiritual guides and spiritual authors, only to be told to sit down. On the spot, waiting in line, Mildon had to create her title.
“I stood there and thought, ‘I’m not a guru. I do the homework for people, and I’m just giving them all the research I’d been searching for myself.’ It just came out: ‘I’m Emma Mildon, and I’m the spiritual assistant, aka PA for the soul. I create channels and resources for people to soul search.’ The CEO said, ‘Nailed it’, and I’ve never looked back.”
Keeping it real
What sets Mildon apart is a heavy dose of humour to balance out the holistic. She’s not at all holier than thou in her attitude – she drinks wine, she swears; during her chat with us she describes getting road rage at someone before realising they were driving an electric car, and having a moral dilemma about whether she could still be angry at them. The affirmations in her book aren’t all fluffy rainbows; one includes ‘People are dicks, love them anyway’. The book covers everything from astrology to numerology, charms, crystals and oils; an encyclopaedia of all things alternative from the pagan era through to today.
“It’s ironic we call it new age, because it’s really old school,” Mildon laughs. “It’s interesting how many people believe in soulmates, ghosts, fate – all of these things that belong in the world of the unknown.”
But how do you know if you are a soul searcher? Mildon says deep down, you already know you have questions you want answered. “Whether you’ve lost someone close to you, through a relationship ending or someone passing over, they’re all windows where your soul is singing out to you. They’re the ‘aha moments’ that keep repeating, that don’t go away. That little itch – that soul itch.”
Mildon’s own ‘soul itch’ intensified at 15, when her adoptive mother passed away and she had questions about the afterlife. “It opened a huge door to me becoming a lot more curious and having a lot of what some would call ‘taboo’ conversations: ‘Are you going to come back and haunt me?’”
Even without the questions a loss can bring, a lot of women will have had those introspective moments of ‘is this all there is?’ and wondered what else is out there.
“Holistic, spiritual, new age, woo woo – whatever you want to call it, it’s all about living well – body, mind, and soul,” Mildon says. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned on my soul search, it’s if you’re brave, and you follow that itch, you’re always rewarded. It’s hard for people who have been in their comfort zone for a long time but if you have the guts to do something for yourself, for your soul, that’s when the magic, awesome, cool shit happens.”
Words by: Emma Clifton
Photo: Supplied
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