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Hello friends! It’s full on Spring gardening season here in coastal NC. I’m filled with joy, inspiration, hope for all things growing and revealing themselves in more and more beauty with each day’s changes + new plantings in the garden! I am also just about one week home from a grand Texas adventure, seeing friends and going to my second incredible Confluence event. My well has been refilled from gathering with so many like-minded/hearted beings as well as being steeped in so many sharing their gifts and wisdom, being immersed, camping in the heart of the land that is Sovereignty Ranch, and being honored by all who created the event in spite of the muddy days of hardship they had to work through in the beginning to get it all set up… I’ve been inspired seeing what so many of the presenters shared and beyond what they said, I’m inspired by seeing how they’re showing up + offering their gifts in the world. This resonates with where I am now in my own life. So if you don’t know me, I’ll take it back a bit, to before I was a coach with being. This is a longer more personal newsletter which in general, I’m now sharing on substack in the Way of Being, but there is definitely crossover. ⭐️ I spent most of my career in the creative world of NYC - as a fashion editor straight out of school, a stylist, fashion designer and an interior/ terrace/ roof/ event landscaper. That was fun and included the opportunity to make a little slice of historic Bryant Square Park my very own to tend + garden. I created all of the garden rooms for the US Open tennis tournaments for years and spent my summers riding a gator around Flushing Meadows park prior to the September event. I worked for major fashion brands and even royalty for a while, and created two clothing brands. It all fed into me creating my own fashion brand where I built my own little world of beauty. I was inspired by a carefree spirit of trust and ease that most only have on vacation, but was the inspo for how I want to live; where every woman was celebrated for her own natural beauty and dressed in 100% organic cotton and natural fibers to enhance her own unique beauty. Our clothes nearly smelled like salty air and sandy toes. 😀 My life was structured on trusting my inner knowing and God, and I began my business not just to create the beauty I wanted to see in the world, but also as a spiritual experiment :: Could I stay in trust and let my inner knowing guide the way instead of following all of the ‘out there’ business rules? Only one way to find out… To begin Loup Charmant back in 2005, (named after a personal shamanic experience and the experience of dreaming in French when I was young and living in France) I was looking everywhere for Organic cottons, but they were scratchy, dull or poorly milled. Not the airy vibe I was searching for. When I finally found a beautiful heirloom quality cotton grown by a small collective of family farms in India I knew this was IT. They were about to stop growing this cotton, but I bought all they had at the time and said Keep Growing! and that’s how it all began! Over the years, I had the immense pleasure to work with some of the world’s finest mills as Organic became more of a trend and more available, but I always kept this original cotton as our core fabric for the 17 years I had the brand. We sold at the most beautiful boutiques and resorts around the world and I loved the whole ride…. until I didn’t. Some things you just know. And I had known since I was 18 that I would have 2 careers. Back then I called one creative/ design focused and the other would be in mind-body medicine. And omg that ITCH saying it was time had been getting LOUDER AND LOUDER for years, though I wasn’t leaning in + trusting it yet. Somehow I thought I had a “figure it out”+ that is literally NEVER the answer! 🤣 By the time convid hit everything coming to a dead stop was a very welcome relief. And though it shook up so many friendships and areas of my life that felt so difficult at the time, I am now grateful for all that it helped me release! My husband + I left NY summer of 2020 ‘cause we “might as well be at the beach” and everything began to cascade into unexpected places. Within a year we had left 30ish years of life, work and relationships in NY behind, moved to a tiny beach in NC, listed Loup Charmant for sale and I went back to school for a year-long coaching program. All things aligned so that I finished school, had a birthday and sold LC within just over a month. ⭐️ Women regularly ask me if I miss it. I don’t. That was perfect for that phase of my life and it was so satisfying to build what we built. I am so grateful for all of that experience. And I know that LC can no longer be what it was when I had her and that’s just the way it is. You know when it is time to move on! I want to be ALL IN on whatever it is that Im doing and that is where I am now! So, if you’re wondering about that original intent, choosing to run my business as a spiritual experiment led by God and my own inner knowing - well… it was done.. very imperfectly. I think that is the point. Throughout the ups and downs of falling into fear to resting in trust I had a north star to return to and ultimately, I credit that single intention for all of the success that we had! Some day, I definitely will share more of my business tips and strategies from this angle! Would you be interested in hearing more about this? And still…. just owning a creative business where you’re flipping between Left + Right brain skills, managing employees, manufacturing and suppliers in the fashion world and in NYC - I still found myself deeply immersed in hustle culture and it is not easy to turn it all off. I thought I was rather not in it. And probably by comparison of how I ran my business I wasn’t as much as many. But when I fully stopped. Wow. That FULL Stop lasted about a year + was so enlightening it needs it’s own post as well. So healing and revealing about the natural flow of life… the building and the resting in a dance.
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