Storyville Coffee Company
This week and next, I am cat sitting on Bainbridge Island. Today is the first day I have some time to get to a coffee shop for a few hours of work and I am very excited to have more than a couple hours to work on some items that need some attention. I am setting my intention of having my very own newsletter to start publishing by December of 2018. In the meantime, I am learning how to set that up as well as create the webpage for visitors to enroll in the Newsletter. The information I will be publishing each month will be tips and help to better connect with SELF - via Body, Heart, Mind (which is the name of my business) It is all still in the foundation stages, but I am very thankful to feel like I am finally moving in the direction of my dreams.
I am sitting at this lovely place called Storyville Coffee Company, they grow roast and distribute their own coffee (as well as serve it here), they have their very own baked goods (which I have not tried yet), but the coolest part of this place is that all proceeds go to help prevent human trafficking in our country. I am happy to spend my money on coffee here, but the vibe and beautiful interior are hands down worth a visit.
Last night Raquel and I led a meditation, hot vinyasa yoga class, and it ended with a crystal bowl sound bath meditation. We had 30 people in the studio and the energy and vibes felt so good. I absolutely love what is going on at the studio, there is so much warmth and community that has been built there by the energy that Raquel has attracted with her heart and I am happy to be a part of it. I am going to share a journal entry that I wrote a week ago while I was waiting on the ferry one day - I read it aloud to the class last night before we started and I had promised a friend that I would share it here on my blog. It has no title, only my heart felt words are shared below:
I can’t teach you how to love yourself. All I can do is love myself enough to not hide my realness, my flaws, my true emotions, and feelings. In turn, I hope this inspires you to love yourself enough to realize you don’t need to hide from how you feel or to feel ashamed of things that have happened to you in your life.
What I have grown to understand, is our biggest, sad and shameful stories are the true source of your purpose and strength in this lifetime. However, we can’t tap into that strength, power, and purpose if we constantly avoid our feelings or continue to have resentment or shame wrapped around those things to try and protect us.
The hiding and covering up the feelings of shame, guilt, or embarrassment make us numb. Not only does this make us numb to the feelings around that event we are hiding from, but when we don’t acknowledge sad, hurt, pain, or embarrassment over those things in our life, we can’t feel truly feel joy, love, happiness, and enthusiasm for life either.
************************************ My yoga practice was the thing that really helped me tap into my feelings that I had been hiding my entire life and every time I went on my yoga mat ( in North Carolina) I got to know myself a little bit better. We always had a fifteen minute meditation at the end of class and this is where I finally (at the age of 30) started to really acknowledge the feelings of sadness that I had been hiding from the world since I was a little girl. Since then, I have been able to understand that it is not healthy for me to hold back my feelings, acknowledge pain when it arises, let the tears run down my cheeks and let the feelings flow through me. If we are unable to allow the tears to run out of our eyes, the pain will transfer to other organs in our body and cause us to be sick and create disease as a way to tell us to pay attention. In our society it is not acknowledged fully that the emotions that we have not expressed cause disease, but I am a firm believer of this science and will continue to share with the world so we can connect with ourselves better, let our pain flow out of our eyes and out of our organs. In turn, I hope that people can live longer and happier lives - free from disease.
