The Path to Body-Heart Resonance in Business
Hi, I’m Autumn :)
I’m a mother, a daughter, a sister, and a child of this beautiful earth. Welcome to my world of spiritual business consulting.
I created Reason for Being to help nurturers and creative, sensitive beings find a way to honor their softness and heart, while also tending to the needs of running a business.
Because running a business is hard. And when your inner design is meant to birth and tend to children, or think in new ways, paint, play music or daydream about world change, the very essence that makes you you, can easily be overridden by task lists, money to raise, customers to gain, employees to keep healthy, landlords and bankers to keep happy, money to make, spreadsheets to follow.
If you know, you know.
Not only is business hard, but it’s also a system that is inherently masculine. Masculine in its energy - of game and power. Power is the antithesis of creative and nurturing pursuit. But offering ones products of creativity for the exchange of money is quite tempting, as it is after all, our culture. So herein lies the conundrum of being a creative or a mother in the world of business - the action of doing business goes against the grain of your being.
So how do we do it? And should we be doing it in the first place?
I have driven my nervous system into the ground in my career as a business owner over the last 30 years. Adrenal fatigue, extreme weight loss, brain fog, confusion, loss of purpose, etc. My sweet, sweet body was up against too much, and while I knew it, I felt stuck - unable to make meaningful change because the people around me were too set in the way of the system, and I didn’t have enough trust in myself to stand up for my knowing.
But over the last 5 years, the spiritual internal work I had been doing my whole adulthood was starting to show up in much needed ways, and I was learning to trust my intuition in deeper ways, to listen. And to respond to myself in nurturing ways.
But truly, the real shift for me happened during pregnancy and after child birth. I felt first-hand, and was living the dysfunctional nightmare of a system of work that wasn’t created to support or nurture mothers and their children (or working fathers who also desired more time with their children). Especially as a business owner. And this enraged me, and my desire to really, actually make change in the structure of business became somewhat of an obsession. Up until becoming a mother, I assumed it was the food industry that was all wrong, and that my nervous system wasn’t cut out for it. But I began to see it is so much deeper than a specific type of work, and that feeding people is actually such an act of nurturing and I have been determined to help us move in a direction of a more heart-centered way of being in business - less about doing and more about providing.
And this is where our hearts come in - some of us, and I’ll argue all of us, cannot and should not leave our hearts at the door of our business just to do our job.
Because you know what? It’s really hard to put it back in the right place every time you come home to breast feed your child.
No, the heart belongs in the body of its being at all times, connected to the mind, collaborating, working with and not against nor toned down so the mind can be in control. The world needs more heart, now more than ever.
This is body-heart resonance in business.
It is my utmost honor and absolute pleasure to partner with people in creating a new way of relating to business, that is less about doing and more about being. I am here to help guide YOU in creating a NEW SYSTEM from which you can run your business - that is aligned with your heart and body so you can show up to your life feeling whole, connected, creative, soft and nurturing. Which has a ripple effect to everyone in your life, as you know. Employees, family, lovers, community members, etc.
So you can live full-heartedly from your Reason for Being.
About Me
Since I was a little girl, I’ve been thinking deeply on subjects existential and regarding the heart and interconnectivity of us all. I was 15 when I understood for the first time that I could feel other people’s energy, emotions and experiences. I had always known there was something happening in my body that wasn’t always mine, but it finally became clear and ever since then, I’ve been on a spiritual journey to be as close to this connection as possible, exploring in many ways our universal connection and, as it is so in the law of nature, also our separateness.
I grew up in Brier, WA, just down the street from my grandparents, where my mom grew up. My siblings and I could walk through the woods to their house (which eventually turned into culdesacs as it happens), and did so often. My other grandmother lived in Alderwood Manor, where my dad grew up, and we saw her so often as well. I grew up with loving parents, a stay-at-home dad and a working mom, who both gave us all of the freedom to explore our hearts and passions. Not only did they create freedom for our individuality, but they built whatever we needed to pursue our dreams. They lived their whole life for us children, for which, I am eternally grateful.
I am now a mother of one son, who is 5, and is my whole world. I live in Seattle, even though my heart lives in the country.
I am a triple Fire sign Projector, who feels deeply and thinks vastly, who can’t stop the faucet of ideas and philosophical thinking from flowing. I value an open schedule, time to sit and think, spontaneity, family, loving, days that move like honey, dancing, being in the forest, surfing, running as fast as I can, proactivity, snuggling, the sunlight through leaves of a tree, the smell of lilacs and ripe nectarines, warm sand on my naked body, the feel of my sons hand in mine, good architecture, well-made clothing, growing my own food, coffee, the smell of the wind on hair, old cars, anything analog, being ALIVE to it all that is available to us - the pain and the pleasure. To me, this is living.
In high school I was a glass lamp-worker (meaning I made glass beads via torch which my parents set up for me in my bedroom, ha!) and made elaborate beads which I then wove into hemp necklaces I sold at music festivals. This was my first “business”. I sewed my own clothes and was a music columnist for my high school newspaper, and spent my entire senior year in the pottery studio, where my teacher knew I was skipping classes to be there, but fully supported this as I was so totally meant to be there, sculpting clay. I wanted to be a practicing artist - a sculpture when I graduated. After high school I took a year off and moved to Lake Tahoe to be a snowboard bum, and it was there I fell in love with the professional kitchen. The dance of it moved me deeply, and I found myself conflicted - food or art? After moving back home, through my job at the beloved Honey Bear Bakery, I realized I could devote myself to food and art, together, by way of decorating cakes and sculpting chocolate. I became a pastry chef and felt for the first time in my life that I was in sync with my path.
I had the great fortune to begin my career as a young and green aspiring pastry chef at Canlis restaurant. I will forever be grateful for starting my career at such a grounded, well-mannered and vision-forward, deeply rooted business of service. The family and staff there truly set the tone for a healthy business that operated from a strong Reason for Being.
I have since devoted my life to the world of creativity and service in food, and have been blessed to work for outstanding establishments known for their deep-rooted service to the community and healthy food systems.
In 2008, after 5 years as the Head Chocolatier at Theo Chocolate, I created an organic dessert company called Hot Cakes. I started at the farmers markets with $200 in my pocket, and a deep desire to connect people to celebration by way of molten chocolate cake and other organic desserts. I should mention that in all of these years, I have, and still do, an undying commitment to organic farming and local food systems. I volunteered mMy own spirit to offer my creations has materialized in the founding of two companies (Hot Cakes and Frankie and Jo’s Ice Cream), each thriving and built on the principles of community service, tradition, and celebration.