A new journey: The Forest Doula's beginning with cacao

When I first started working with cacao, I don’t think I realised the magnitude of magic that it could bring with it.

I went into using ceremonial cacao as a tool to help cope with (postnatal) depression. I’d stumbled across it in Glastonbury one day and ended up buying cacao from Elements for life. It sat in my cupboard for a week or so before I decided to step out of the bubble I was in, and decided to step into the earthy cacao bubble for a moment.

The first time I used it, the texture didn’t come out quite as I had expected and I really had no idea what I was doing, but I did a bit of googling, lit a candle, and took a few deep breaths before trying it. I tried it just with water and a pinch of salt because that’s what everyone on the internet seemed to recommend and made sure I had a quiet, undisturbed moment whilst my newborn slept peacefully across the room.

What I found was that simply the act of taking out a quiet pause with the cacao, made space for me to open up a whole plethora of things I could do to explore this drink even more. Then the more deeply I breathed and listened to my carefully chosen playlist, the more my chest started to ache, then came a tear. Just a single tear rolling down my cheek. And I realised why they called it a heart opening medicine. All the ‘stuff’ that I had been locking away in my heart started to slowly leak out, unintentionally.

From that day, I spent the next 25(ish) days having cacao everyday, sometimes larger, ceremonie doses, but mostly smaller 'daily' doses, but always with some level of ceremony to it.

And everyday my heart opened a little more, after years and years of fiercely keeping it shut.

Some days tears, some days laughter but always with love.

Some months later, I started to learn the importance of my heart in connection with my womb and how I could share this medicine with other women.

This is why I work so closely with cacao, in 1-1 ceremony, in massage, personally and in circles.

Cacao helped me come home to myself. ☕🙏🏻❤️