Biography

Hello, I’m Grace Quantock, former sick chick turned wellness provocateur, I blazed my own trail to healing and now help others to do the same. 

I am telling my story here, but this site, this movement really isn't about me, it's about you and what you need to reclaim your life and learn to live well with your challenges. My story was just the catalyst, the first spark. 

I help people that are chronically sick and want to heal. With my years of experience living with serious illness I created and navigated my own Healing Journey and studied hard at self-taught “Healing University.” In the last 3 years I have moved from surviving to thriving! And now I help others heal and remove obstacles that block their sparkle.

Why Sick Chick to Trail Blazer will help you transform your challenges.

If you have a chronic illness or health challenge, you are in the right place.

If you are barely surviving and feel far from thriving, you are so in the right place. 

If you are hurting, and dreaming of a time when you can reclaim your life from all the struggles that feel like they stole your possibilities, then this site is for you. 

I have learned how to live well with the struggles and challenges that came into my life and I've studied under many world renowned experts along the way. I began from the premise that I can't possibly be the only person to struggle with chronic pain, long-term illness and being a young disabled woman. Therefore I could find the other people who have lived through this and lived well and ask them to share their wisdom with me. That is exactly what happened and now I'm living my dreams in sharing our hard-won experience with you. 

When you know how to manage challenges, after you have the basic toolkit you can deconstruct and navigate whatever comes your way. It's like the skeleton key to thriving and I want to help you build the wellness blueprint that will give you that. 

Sounds interesting? 

Enter your email address below and click 'subscribe' to get free updates and our beloved Trail Blazing Times Newsletter - the how to guide to living well with illness in your inbox weekly. 

What other people are saying about GraceQuantock.com

Grace Quantock is a brilliant new voice in the world of wellness. Keep your eye on this trailblazer--her life-changing work is driven by a magnetic healing energy and an endless compassion for all beings. 

- Kris Carr, New York Times best selling author | KrisCarr.com

I recommend Grace to all my clients who need help when action doesn’t solve it.

– Erika Lyremark | DailyWhip.com

Grace is truly a force of light in this world, and I can't recommend her highly enough.

- Jen Seda M.D. | JenSeda.com

Skills & talents aside, Grace truly embodies what it means to care for the miracle that is your human form, no matter what’s going on around you — or within you.

– Alexandra Franzen | AlexandraFranzen.com

Grace is going to be the Rock Star of the healing world. She embodies the name given to her at birth and yet she also possesses a feisty ‘You ain’t see the best of me yet’ type attitude and I love her for it. She is a true testament to the fact that if you desire it enough, nothing will get in your way.

– Genna McWhinnie | GennaMcWhinnie.com

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Passion behind the product. The story of how I developed my work.*

I am from Wales, where I live today, and I studied in Berkshire. I practically lived in the library and would be there still if the Universe had not decided otherwise. After a childhood of mostly reading and running around on mountains I became ill in my teens. Getting ill isn’t the story… it’s what I did with it!

From illness, striving, studying at University, where I read History (gaining a BA) – specialising in medieval women’s history. Even when I was bed-bound and in too much pain to even have my hair washed, I still wore body glitter every day. I would lie in bed and look at my arms shining.

I live the proof that we don’t have to lose ourselves when a health challenge comes to stay.

In another life….

I was an activist for the animals. Yes, with everything that entails; protests, banners, placards, even arrest, court rooms and a prosecution. I’ve known how it feels to hold newly rescued, and now wholly-free animals in my arms.

However I also learned tenacity, bravery, how to write a press release, how to design a leaflet, negotiation, managing the media, photography, and a whole host of other useful skills which I didn’t realise at the time. I love animals. I was 17 and fighting for them.

I am now gracefully retired at the advice of my solicitors. It’s no big secret but it’s one of the many aspects of the remarkable life which I am blessed to live.

Life, love and wheelchair access

My first real kiss was when I met Linus… it was his too. We grow together every day. I married my husband in my heart when we met – on a political demonstration as it happens. We were married before I was 21. He is my whole world.

I was extenuating circumstances girl. In Uni, if you had to have an extension on an essay or couldn’t attend a lesson you had to fill out an extenuating circumstances form… it was top of my favourites list. It was all we did.

Linus and I are told a lot (believe me) how unusual we are to live how we live and have dived head first into research. We ordered all the books from all the libraries. We were studying healing further than most. When we bring up our ideas the Doctors and the Occupational Therapists say “we are not sure, no one has ever tried but let us know how it works” or “no-one ever asked that before” and “well, the equipment doesn’t exist because most people as sick as you just watch TV all day, they don’t fight like this.”

Being sick so young and so seriously scares a lot of people.

I got so fed up of always being ‘other’, of people staring at my wheelchair or coming up in the street and asking what is “wrong” with me, or what my prognosis is, or will I ever walk again. Or the fact that my life with multiple disabilities was the main talking point for many people.

Not everyone can see that I am LIVING with the health challenges. They are the foot notes, I am the adventure story.

It became a strain some days, when all I heard was ‘no cure, no cure’, having to work things out ourselves, being healing-freaks. So we flipped it, don’t be an outcast, be a Trail Blazer!

Sick Chick to Trail Blazer came to be…

How do you stay yourself and keep hold of your life when a diagnosis turns you upside down and your life suddenly becomes Occupational Therapists and General Practitioner’s?

Is there room for you and your love of avocados, climbing and Bill Bryson in this life any more? – We created our Healing Journey. We had to make our own manual on how to LIVE this way. So I wrote it down and ‘From Sick Chick to Trail Blazer: Reclaiming Your World’ came to be.

Check out our wildly popular blog-projects:

Healing Boxes…

A few years ago I had a bone scan. The doctors were rather concerned and thought for a time I may 

have had sarcoma (cancer of the bones). Myriad blood tests proved I do not, I have osteoporosis instead. While I waited for the results, some things, as often do in these situations, became clarified.

I decided I would no longer be scared and would live my dreams. Cue camping in the woods, writing Blaze, no more to-do lists, creating my Social Enterprise; Healing Boxes and this website!

I love and believe in…

I love and believe in words, love, healing, wonderful novels, roobois tea, that there is always a creative
way around a challenge. That healing and recovery are separate things but that everyone can heal – from the dying to the flying high, to you reading this right now.

I believe in the Divine. I feel the magic which exists invisibly in our world but closer than breath and living right up against our skin.

I believe in a Straight Edge and a Punk DIY ethic and a life free from chemicals and EMFs. I believe this need not make us outcasts.

I am a life long veggie and a vegan since 15. I believe in compassion, living without cruelty, listening to my intuition, living my flow and my truth.

I believe that you need to Blaze Your Own Trail, live in full colour and wear body glitter every day.

I delight in sharing with friends, connecting with people, charity shops, old books and new paints.

I adore notebooks and journals, praying in the garden in the morning, letters with airmail stickers and (wheelchair) dancing.

I love exercise, joy, altars, space, peace, art, daisies with pink tipped petals, dappled sunlight, purple pebbles, forests.

I admire…

Vidyamala Burch, Callie Broussard, Hermione Granger, Amma, Christine de Pizan, Erika Lyremark, Kris Carr, Danielle Laporte, Emmeline Pankhurst and Jill Moss

….for their bravery, strength, revolutionary ideas and world-shifting compassion.

Facts and sharing…

Awards: I am delighted to be a recipent of a Future Young Leaders of Wales Award from UnLtd and the Fairwood Trust. Much gratitude. I am also totally happy to be Head Girl of The Morning Whip! I am further honoured to be a Teach Now Champion at Jen Louden and Michele Lisenbury Christensen's Teach Now Course. 

Anthem: currently Florence and the Machine, ‘The Dog Days are Over’…. or anything on after 6pm on Classic FM

Fantasy Mentor: Patti Digh

Deep Dark Secret Dream: To save the world

Core Word: Love

Call to Action: Your email

Three non-guilty Pleasures…

1. Delicious novels

2. Socca bread. You must try some. Yum!

3. Vintage 1930s' hats.

Four things you don't know about me (till now)

1. I have journals dating back from when I was 5 years old. I love journalling that much. 

2. I am totally obsessed with Alabama, so that when I go there to visit Callie I will be all ready. This may slightly have gone overboard into me buying and reading 1950's southern belle primers and falling in love with the True Blood novels. Maybe, I can't confirm anything here. Shhh.

3. I really like fanfiction, I'm a Harry Potter and a Marvel Girl. Tell me your ships and share your fave fics....

4. I plan to write a semi-autobigraphical novel. I've already got the title. It's called "The Girl, the Bear and the Getaway Car". You want to read it already don't you?

I live in a little village in Wales with my beloved husband, our rescue dog, a prolific organic vegetable garden (adapted and accessible thanks to the Gardening for the Disabled Trust) and far, far too many books.

If you want to learn the tools and tactics I've used just enter your email below and get the healing goodies. 

*Inspired by the words by Danielle Laporte in the fabulous (retired) Spark Kit & The Desire Map. Get your copy here.

Photo Credit: Pazazed Photography.