We were lucky to catch up with Eileen Dada recently and have shared our conversation below.

Eileen, appreciate you joining us today. What did your parents do right and how has that impacted you in your life and career?

My parents have always told me that I can do anything I set my mind to. This teaching combined with their great example helped me believe in myself and gave me the confidence to be able to open up my own business – creating something by myself in order to help the world in the way that I am gifted to. My mom owns a pharmacy that her and my father started together. I know it took a lot of hard work coming from Africa to now owning a business here in America; so seeing that process is inspiring and exudes the belief that you can make it regardless which walk of life you come from. They have always supported me in trying new things – even by keeping me enrolled in camps which is where I first learned how to make jewelry. It was brief, but those beginner skills were learned then and have now been expanded upon to make the jewelry I know how to create today. They have also supported me financially, giving me the first $200 I needed to buy the supplies for my first design. Before then, they used to buy me craft supplies as I grew up which kept me busy and encouraged my creative side to grow. As my biggest supporter, my mom also wanted to be my first customer and has been spreading the word about my business for me every chance she gets. My mom is also very spiritual and religious herself which was helpful when I started getting into spirituality on my own. Since I was already exposed to many similar concepts, I did not fear of the spiritual journey I had ahead of me.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My name is Eileen Dada, I am 23 years old with a degree in psychology, and I started Spirit Stones after seeing that there is spirituality and energy in everything. I have been collecting crystals throughout my life, they have always found me one way or another, and I never knew what they could be used for until a couple of years ago. After understanding numerology, my spirituality expanded as it opened me up to the many different possibilities of energy that could be involved. I began exploring psychic abilities (including the five clairs – claircognizence, clairvoyance, clairaudience, etc.), then meditation, chakras, energetic healing, and lastly, crystals as they are a great supplemental tool for healing that supports each of these spiritual and energetic practices. I wanted to practice using them and, fortunately for me, crystals have already been reaching out to me and I had plenty to begin with as I discovered their properties and abilities. With these discoveries, I wanted to find wholesome and holistic ways to benefit mental health rather than medicating people with substances that often hinder your life with their side effects. After deciding that I would no longer want to be a psychiatrist, I still wanted to be in a field that promotes the healing others. I began making jewelry that helps you place specific crystals on their respective chakra points while sitting up to remain conscious during a meditation or crystal healing. As I gained more knowledge about crystal healing, I began to incorporate their healing properties and what they resonate with into my designs which allowed me to further expand my possible crystal jewelry creations. For example, I learned that there are different chakra points through each of our fingers so I started making crystal rings that resonate with those chakras – they have actually turned out to be our best selling item.

I do custom orders which provides my customers with something unique and meaningful for wherever they may be on their journey or even for a thoughtful gift. During the design process, I get to know my customers including what they are going through, what they would like to improve on, and what kind of energy they need or are trying to present with the crystals. On my platforms, I educate people on crystals and different topics surrounding spirituality and energetic healing. I would soon like to expand Spirit Stones to host informative crystal healing events, crystal and energetic healing sessions, counseling, and jewelry making classes.

Besides my unique designs, my intentions behind the business set me apart from others. My designs are all handcrafted as original pieces of jewelry which are created with a specific energetic goal that compliments each of the crystals involved. The fact that I taught myself how to make all of this allows me to make things outside of the box. I can think of various possible ways to design a piece that would best reflect the crystals’ energy and bring it to life. Having this ability and knowledge, my intentions are to provide people with clean crystal energy and counseling at an affordable price and help get others to where they would like to be in life mentally, physically, emotionally & spiritually.

We’d love to hear about you met your business partner.

I met my business partner in college, as we were both getting our pre-requisites done for medical school. We were in the same organic chemistry class where she became my lab partner and eventually, my girlfriend. She is a large reason this business exists and why I am no longer pursuing a career as a psychiatrist. She was on medication for various issues when I first met her and I saw firsthand the negative effects they had on her. She wanted to stop taking them and I supported her in that. After coming off the medicine, we searched for other things that could help and crystals were one of those things. We started practicing some energy work with the crystals I had, and then, the first design for spirit stones was born. I already had experience in jewelry making and we wanted to create something that would help us meditate with the crystals being held at the various chakra points.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

Spirit Stones has been running for a little over a year, about 15 months, and within that time I have dealt with months of homelessness and the loss of my father. During the time that I was homeless, I was with my partner and we stayed in my car while still running the business. We would go to libraries to have a space to create the jewelry and work on the website as well as hotels on certain days to continue hosting our live sales on Instagram. I also held photoshoots outside and continued shipping orders out regularly.

When my father passed away I had to take the biggest break I have had from the business so far. I had to relocate from Colorado back to Maryland to live with my mom and help her through this time. She owns the pharmacy her and my dad worked at, and I started to work there in his place after he passed. This was a huge change for my life because the hours I work now are Monday-Friday, 9 am to 6 pm. I end up being away from the house for 12 hours of the day which made it really hard to still fulfill my dreams of running and expanding Spirit Stones. However, it’s my passion, so I still found the time to make posts, hold live sales, start vending in-person, and keep up with the business’ needs.

I show my resilience by not allowing anything to stop me from doing what needs to be done for my business. In these examples, I was not at my best in any aspect – mentally, emotionally, or physically – yet I was strong enough to keep going. No matter how much was thrown on my plate – living circumstances, losing someone close to me, working 45+ hours a week – I am always able to find a way to ensure there will be no downfall of the business.

Contact Info:

• Website: spiritstones1111.com
• Instagram: @spiritstones1111
• Facebook: facebook.com/spiritstones1111
• Other: Tiktok: @spiritstones1111 Twitter: @spiritstones111 (1111 was taken)

Image Credits
Patrick Dada Eileen Dada