Ep 88: Fame, Choice, and what is "Lekker" with Quinne Brown Huffman

Meet Quinne Brown-Huffman; doula, South African TV star, and leader of women's community circles in Santa Monica. This week she shares her metamorphosis from a car accident to becoming an actress and a birth coach.

She's here to talk about how we cannot choose what happens to us in life, but we can choose what we do with what happens to us. Trusting your inner compass and embracing that in whatever you want to become in this world, the choice is within you.

What you'll learn in this episode:

How chance meetings and unexpected events can lead to life-changing paths
The importance of recognizing choices and possibilities
The significance of community, vulnerability, and shared experiences in providing support and clarity of purpose
What is PLAY and its relation to finding your purpose

Quinne's Bio:
Meet Quinne Brown Huffman: healing catalyst, artist, and mother who has dedicated her life to serving her community in finding their unique identities in a chaotic world.

A catalyst in the world of energy healers, Quinne brings her expertise and passion to help others communicate effectively and find their unique voice. With a diverse background in industries ranging from travel to entertainment, Quinne is an observer of human behavior and anthropology, using her insights to tell powerful stories and create impactful messaging.

Mentioned in this episode:

How to connect with Marie:

JOIN THE BLOOM ROOM!
We'll take all these ideas and apply them to our lives. Follow me on Instagram at @the.bloom.coach to learn more and snag a spot in my group coaching program!

Welcome to the Bloom Your Mind podcast, where we take all of your ideas for what you want, and we turn them into real things. I'm your host, certified coach Marie McDonald. Let's get into it.

Well, hello everyone, and welcome to episode number 88 of the Bloom Your Mind podcast. I have someone that I'm so excited for you to meet today. I have a guest that you're going to hear an interview with, and I cannot wait to introduce you to the beloved, beautiful human, Quinne Brown-Huffman, and she's going to be here in a little bit.

But first I just got back, literal hours ago, from Palm Springs. I have a dear, really close friends that are from this beautiful family that has a home out in Palm Springs, and they let us stay out there. It was called the rainbow retreat, and the theme of this whole place was rainbows, and it was just so much fun to stay out there. Oh my gosh. I brought the kids out there on a Friday and stayed until today, which is Tuesday, and Max, my husband, came out for one of the nights with us, but it was me and the kids the rest of the time. And this home was so fun. I mean, the decoration is amazing. It was a mid-century modern with just the brightest flair Bricks that were painted fuchsia pink, and the other fireplace had bricks that were painted chartreuse, green. The swimming pool was a bunch of rainbow striped tiles that are so beautiful and I ended up getting my kids, you know, bought a bunch of groceries to cook at the place and one of the things I bought was Johnny Pops, which are these popsicles that are striped, and we realized once they were eating these tropical flavored Johnny Pops, and my son held up the popsicle and I was like, wait a minute. And it was the exact color scheme that these tiles were made to replicate. I don't know if that was intentional or not, but it was an exact match. And the pool had these lights that were every color, so you could choose, like an emerald rose, which was a combination of green and rose, a purple, a violet, a magenta, like all of these different colors. It was just magnificent.

And we also, on the day that my husband was spending with us, we played lots of Marco Polo, lots of swimming games, lots and lots of chill time. Like 90% of the time that we were there was just chilling. We did one thing, which was on a day that was 112 degrees. We went up and took a gondola to the top of this mountain range in Palm Springs where, by the time you know, you go up in elevation so much that by the time you pass like five different ecosystems on your way up this to the top of this mountain. And by the time you go up in elevation so much that you pass like five different ecosystems on your way up to the top of this mountain and by the time you get to the top it goes from like 112 degrees to like 88 degrees, so it's just like drops so much. And up at the top there are all of these pine trees and these hikes you can do at the top of this mountain that overlooks the entire desert, and in the tram as you go up and down, it is on a circular platform so everyone is standing in there, you know like 40 people at a time, and it's circling around so everyone gets to see all of the views of this. You know these treacherous falls and this breathtaking cliff side, and you go from the extreme heat all the way up to the cool top.

I was completely covered over in my gardener chic Audrey Hepburn silky shawl around me with a big hat, and because I just really am careful of the sun getting on my very light skin and giving me all these freckles. I'm always very aware of skin cancer and so it was just really fun. And my kids ate scorpion lollipops most of them anyways and it was just delightful. So by the end of this time, in this incredible home that we were so grateful for and made all of these memories in, we were checking out my kids and I today, this morning, and we were walking around and I always have my kids do this thing right before we leave the cars all packed up, we've taken our sheets off the bed, we've left the space really nicely. And then I said kids come here and they run out. And we all put our feet in the pool one last time and we said thank you pool, thanks for this time, and we think that the space for very specific things.

Everybody says something, so it's like thank you for playing Marco polo, turning all the pool lights off and playing Marco polo, thank you for playing hide and go seek in this pool with the rainbow lights right. So, each person says something and then we go through the house and in each room, we express gratitude, like thank you. We turn around and we saw the mountain range Thank you for that crazy hike and the gondola looking down from wild Heights. Thank you for that. And we walked into the home and there's the bedroom that I slept in, and we laughed, and each person said thank you for whatever for watching movies in there, for sleeping in this room. It had like a Rolling Stones mouth with its tongue sticking out neon sign. That was so fun.

We thanked the room, we walked down and everybody says thank you and it's so funny because the things that you hear it's like thank you shower for all the ways that, all the days that I got to get clean and all the times I almost slipped because the floor was so slippery. Thank you shower for that one time I turned on the water and it went shooting into my face. Thank you, you know, to one of the bedrooms for that time where I was the Mandalorian. One of the beds was the planet and the other bed was, you know, the spaceship that I was coming to the planet to land on. So, you hear all of these experiences that you didn't know that the rest of your family had. That's the experience that I have, where I get to have this little snapshot of their time that we just spent there.

But the other two functions of this, the reason I do it is because it's a gratitude practice, right, it has us literally, like a blessing, say thank you to the space and not take it for granted and sort of bless each room with this memory, this recognition of what it meant to us. And even, like the laundry room, you know it has the controller for the pool, so we were cracking up about how that's our favorite room because it has all the cleaning supplies, but that's the room where you get to change the colors of lights on the pool or turn the fountain on or whatever you know. So, it was just really fun. But you also get this glimpse into their world.

And the third thing that happens is that it sort of anchors in the memories for us, right, when we say things out loud, when we stop to recognize what we experienced, it anchors in the moments. So, for them it's like a mnemonic device, a memory device, where they're saying it out loud and saying it to other people and they're more likely to remember the great things that were their favorite things about each one of the spaces that we were in. And it does that, of course, for me too, it is a gratitude practice for me. You're never too old for a gratitude practice. You're never too old whether you say thank you room or whether you just walk through and acknowledge what you experienced in spaces. We do this every day with sort of like what were the things you're most grateful for the moment you felt most alive today, we do those things as a family, but I thought I'd mention doing this in spaces because it's a real wonderful way to be grateful and sort of have the CliffsNotes version at the end of an experience with the people that you love, where you all kind of acknowledge the little moments that were really special for all of you.

So that was this weekend. That's what I wanted to share with you, and now I'm going to introduce you to an incredible person named Quinne.

Marie

Okay, hello, everyone I have in front of me and I have to say that I've never done this before, I've never had a guest sitting right in front of me before, and it's the best that the person that I'm interviewing today is also the first person that I've ever interviewed in person and is also Quinne Brown Huffman. So welcome, Quinne, to the podcast.

08:44 - Quinne

This is such a pleasure. Oh, my goodness, I'm excited.

08:49 - Marie

So, Quinne is one of my favorite people on the planet and she knows it, I hope. And I have to tell you, although Quinn's story is like the most magnificent rainbow of a human experience, we met each other in a very specific way. So I was, you know, in my mid-thirties and early thirties and I was pregnant with my first child and my husband, and Max and I had come down from orange County. I lived in the Bay area for a long time, then came down to orange County I'd lived there for six months Wasn't my favorite place and I came down to have my baby in San Diego and Max and I started looking for a doula and we looked, we like Googled all these people. I think we only found you through Googling and I saw all of these people. And then I saw Quinn's picture. I saw her picture and I read her bio, and I knew like a lightning bolt that this was my person, and I just was like I don't know if I've ever told you that, but I knew that.

About the house that we rented, I saw a picture of it when I saw the listings and I was like that's my house and I drove down from Orange County to San Diego at six in the morning and met with the person and said this is my house. What do you need to give me this house? Andy got six in the morning and met with the person and said this is my house. What do you need to give me this house? That we had Luke in and the same experience with you. I was like, saw your bio and your photo and was like this is my person. She's going to help me bring my child into the world and I didn't know if you would accept us or what that was like.

But after that, Quinne became our doula, and she helped us along this pathway of our first experience of becoming parents. The whole time. She knew baby Marie and baby Max before we had baby Luca, guided us through all of that, including a 36-hour birth, and that just was the most amazing. So, Quinne, welcome. Is there anything else, before we get more into that, that you want to tell everyone else about who you are?

10:46 - Quinne

I just want to talk about that knowing that person when you see them and I didn't know that about our meeting, but that was for me, the same reaction and that's what steers me is that sensation, and I just got chills all over again because we are meant to be in each other's lives.

11:05 - Marie

Yes, it is so magical, wow you know I was telling Quinne that one thing we've never talked about is she has been through all of these births. Right when I met you, you were a doula a birth doula and you were doing red tent events. Can you tell everybody what that is?

11:25 - Quinne

it's a basically a gathering of women in a sacred space. So, I loved doing that, I loved creating the actual red tent and I would do that. We had a birth boutique in Carlsbad yeah, is it actually a red tent?

I made a red tent. I actually created a red tent, so you step into this space and it's circle space, safe space for women just to let their hair down, to talk about things. That's from the heart, and it was because I'd come from doing manifesting circles with creatives in San Francisco and then when I became a doula, it turned into the red tent and so, yeah, I love holding people in circle and in red tent do women tell their birth story.

12:11 - Marie

Is that one of them? Yeah, it's one of the things.

12:13 - Quinne

Yes, yes, that was a birth story, right, taint. Yeah, I would do that, and then it would have different themes, as every month.

12:20 - Marie

I would do something. Okay, so you have seen many births. What called you to do that? Actually, how did you know that's what you wanted to do?

12:30 - Quinne

I was in San Francisco in circle and one of the new women that entered there. I was, at that point, not even thinking I was going to be a mother, because I was in performance, I was an actress up there. And then she came from New York and she's like I'm sorry I'm so late, I was just busy with my doula training and I'm what is a doula? Then she went into explaining it and everything in my body went oh, there's a name for what I'm doing. Because I worked in metamorphosis, which is my practice preconception through birth, understanding the prenatal period, working with people through those patterns, and so this was opening up, this other word, this other way of supporting people.

I knew it was going to be part of my life somehow, I didn't know how. When I gave birth to Charlotte, I, of course then called in a doula for me, and that first year becoming a mom, I was like, okay, what am I doing with life now? And that was doula. Doula-ing was then the next call to action my life, let's go be a doula.

Marie

What do you remember about our experience together?

Quinne

I remember meeting Max first at a coffee shop and just going. Oh, I got really, really excited, because when the partner is that cool, then the woman is going to be next level.

13:51 - Marie

I get really excited when I see Max too.

13:54 - Quinne

Yeah, it's really cool and we just had this easy rapport, like immediate, just ease of being. It was incredible. And so, when I walked in your front door and basil, wasn't it basil?

14:06 - Marie

no, it's Alabama. We called her Bama. She was a little boston terrier. She's my girl, oh my gosh, little red and white boston terrier. Yeah, Bama, lama ding dong.

14:15 - Quinne

That greeting by the two of you and it was instantaneous. I just remember this spark. Like you spoke about the lightning ball. Yeah, yeah, that's how it felt and I just this is my person. Yes, they're my people, yes and thrilled because San Diego was a hard move for me. Oh, right from the Bay Area right it was hard for me, into there you were. I was like, okay, everything's going to be okay yeah, amazing.

14:42 - Marie

And then we go through this amazing experience together and then we have this friendship in San Diego. That was this is my people deep knowing that it's like chosen family. We're together for life. This is done deal. And then my dear, dear friend Quinne says I have to tell you that I'm moving back home to South Africa. I'm like what You're leaving me and why? And then y'all, I found out about Quinn's other life, wildly.

This reminds me so much of this story about Max. We had been dating each other for six months. I may have told the story on the podcast before, but who cares, cause it's so good. We'd been dating each other for six months and he had this like this incredible music that he was making, but it was a solo project, right, and it was kind of not that many people knew about it. It was a solo project.

And then we had been dating for six months and we're sitting down having lunch at a restaurant in Ventura County and we're finishing up, we're paying the bill, and somebody walks up and says, and he says yes. She says can I have your autograph? And I'm like what is happening right now. And he just is like oh yeah, sure. And then she walks away and I'm like what is happening. He said, oh, I used to be in this little band, like obviously, if someone is asking for your autograph, and I find out that he his whole 10, 15 years between, like when he was like 15 years old to almost 30, he was in this incredible band that has like a cult following.

They toured nationally and then internationally at times and they're just this incredible. He had this whole life of just a touring musician that I had no idea right, ever happened and he got recognized that day. So I have the same experience for the second time in my life with you and I find out that you're super famous soap opera star in South Africa and I literally earlier today, found out that this all kind of started with the moment that you woke up with another bolt of lightning at the age of 19, understanding what choice means to people. So, can you talk a little bit about that story? I know you don't like to retell stories but however, however it comes to you is good for us.

17:09 - Quinne

I love to share it because I think it's it opens up freedom for us all, when we can land, and if my story can land for anybody. So how to tell it? I was 19. I had had an incredible year 1998, traveling, really following my inner guidance, stepping into who I was. I just knew this was who I am.

I think you know we all grow up with certain cultures, certain ways of structure in our societies, and so the call is to come back home and go to college or university, get a degree, set yourself up. And so I go into a science degree because environmental science, because I all I've ever wanted was to be barefoot on the ground and sitting in soil and just like pretend I'm a tree or something, like I just always was under bushes in trees baking mud cakes, and then I wanted to be like a game ranger or someone that just walked and taught. Yeah, and so I thought, let me go learn. It's really boring. And so, yeah, it really bores me. Personally, the way they taught it like science now doesn't bore me, because there's so many ways, we can look at it and this is all in South Africa this is in South Africa.

So, I wake up one morning after nine months of depression, anxiety, panic attacks, just being desperately unhappy, not knowing how to get through the days. I think we've all, yeah, completely, and so you just don't want to really be there. When this morning, the sun shone through my window and I woke up and I sat straight up in my bed and I went, like that gasp of breath going I have a choice and the drop into my entire, that visual feeling to every cell of my body going yes, you choose this. Can you accept where you are now? Look at all the pieces and recognize the choice of it and how you feel and experience. This is the choice. Yeah, yeah, right, I can't choose what happens to me in life, but I can choose what I do with what happens to me and how I feel about this.

19:30 - Marie

This is, like all of the basis of my work with people. Right, is this separation of perception from circumstance in life and then on from there? But that's the foundation of all of it. Right Because it takes a lifetime and maybe many lifetimes, depending on what you believe to learn this. Right Because we can know it. But we make the same mistake of, instead of watching the thinker, believing what our brain perceives as we think it's real all the time. Right, so this is our work. You've done this work. Two rounds of the bloom room, right, and Eckhart Tolle talks about this. Watching the thinker and his big awakening Interestingly reminds me of that story. Have you heard him tell that story? I think so. Out of a great deal of pain and anxiety, he woke up like a lightning bolt in a moment like that and realized, oh my gosh to be out of this present moment is insanity, which sounds like that moment.

20:24 - Quinne

That was the moment yeah, like what is happening, and it was so divine because the sense of relief that poured over me got me to go. Okay, well, in this case I don't have to do it this way. If I recognize the choice in me, then the next step is also my choice. How am I placing one foot in front of the other? And so, I walked, and I changed my degree to a BA in anthropology, in anthropology, and a week later, and in that moment of acceptance, before I say that next piece is ultimately the question I always coach into is what else is possible?

Yes, yes and life shows up that way. So, I landed in a way in life that I never even would have dreamt of, didn’t even consider as a part of my path. It's never. I became an actress, I got asked to audition for a big show and the next minute my life is on a whole new trajectory that I got to say yes to.

21:26 - Marie

Yes.

21:27 - Quinne

Or I could have said no.

21:29 - Marie

Yeah, I loved learning that she didn't know. Someone said, hey, will you audition? And she said, what's an audition? Sure, let's do this. This feels right. Sure, let's do this. And then what happened? Because I know something else big in your life came in between that kind of changed things.

21:44 - Quinne

Yeah, I think that life and this is the thing life keeps happening. I had a big accident. I ran into a big lamppost and my car was lit on fire and I was just. You know, I could have died. I almost did. My face got smashed in, my leg was broken, and that's when I realized that we have great guidance.

There's some force in life that we are here playing with. There's something else that we are here with, and because it was a tangible hand that lifted me out of that car that I can't explain and I don't know how I got out of the car, but I know there was no one else physically around and I was suddenly not inside the car anymore and there was no door that opened. I couldn't open the door. I was outside of it and sitting on the curb when people started coming down. Four in the morning, sober experience and a sobering experience of what is possible and miracles. And what are we in collaboration here with? What, what, what do we name that? I remember people questioning me from all religions and I'm like I just know that we're here with some force which is amazing, and I don't like to name it because it's the mystery of life.

It's the life force. Yeah, you've got tears in your eyes.

23:17 - Marie

Oh, I'm just so glad you're here. Oh, that just hit me, you know, just yeah, you had work to do. I'm just so glad whatever happened, happened and I never knew this story before today, which is wild, yeah. And then I was also just thinking in that moment that I can feel that on you. You know that awareness of the preciousness of life. It's very tangible. When you walked in my door with me and Bama Lama ding dong running up to you, you know that is what we can feel, right, this like preciousness, this magic, this presence, this awareness, this consciousness, this life is happening right now. That's just tangible. And so, then you became famous.

I just have to tell you all, like we would meet in these little you know mom and pop coffee shops and like sit under trees and parks, and just the depth of the humility of Quinne, of this person. They're just normal magical people, but I didn't know. Everybody else knew she was magical too, and then she goes back. Okay, so tell, actually I'll tell that part a little bit later, but talk a little bit about why this television show became such a big deal in South Africa.

24:44 - Quinne

So, the year 2000 was a big year. It's kind of, you know, we became the new South Africa and so this TV show was mirroring what the new South Africa looks like, which is diverse and cultures and languages and people really just being in life together. So, it's like a coffee shop and a boutique and students living together working in the coffee shop. The owner of the coffee shop is like from the brown community and the and her partner is from this old white man, and then there's this rich family and so really beautifully showing that I was excited to be part of that and it gave a lot of feedback to our society in South Africa of what look, this is what's possible, and that always excites me to be part of that kind of storytelling. So, my character was very quirky and funny and she what's possible, and that always excites me to be part of that kind of storytelling. So, and my character is very quirky and funny, and I was she Connie, yeah, so I'm, if I'm in South Africa, that's what I'm known, I'm known as Connie. So, and it astounds me because so many years later that's how familiar we were for everyone in their living rooms, because it was five days a week, half an hour, yeah, dinner time, and “7de Laan”. So yeah, it was wild. And it was wild to step into that where people know you and you don't know them. And “7de Laan”, seventh avenue, yeah, I jump in, like they say there's the. I won't jump in headfirst, I won't bash my head, but I will just jump in and go, let's swim. Yeah, okay, let me see what this is about. I'm definitely that kind of person and I didn't realize what I was getting myself into. So, three months after we started filming and it's now going on air, we're in the studio 12 hours a day. We're not in the streets, and I walk in the mall one day and suddenly someone is going on. Oh, you're good, how are you who? You know, connie, and I completely was lost in the moment of. I don't understand what's happening right now. How do you know me? Is the show on the TV what's happening?

And it took me a long time to get used to what that meant for people and the way they would be so familiar, and I was. It was very jarring. I didn't know what to do. I was so young, I was so little, I was such an innocent in that, and it took some friends who had wanted this in the first place. So, they kind of prepared their foundation for the fame factor. And I said, how do you do that? Like, what do you do when this mass of people come to you? Because they would come, masses of people, busloads at you, at your little person. It's a lot.

And this one friend said, you know it's about them. So, the moment you understand that it's about them, it turns into a different gift. And it was the greatest gift he gave me because it was like, oh, of course, of course it's not about me. And that was wonderful because I ended up choosing the work six months after starting it, you know. So, you start the work and then it's like a testing ground and I went, okay, do I really want to make this choice? And I go, had a great teacher and something he said made me realize that it's a healing art, there's a lot to learn here, and that made me make the choice to do the work. Then I stepped into it fully. I really got great teachers, and I stepped into it into it fully.

28:16 - Marie

I really got great teachers, and I stepped into it, and isn't that I experienced that so often as the answer that just creates lightness and ease and releases the ego and creates joy and presence in so many things is being up on in any kind of public eye and speaking and posting on social media and writing emails. I write emails to this list of tons of people right and lead groups, or when I do big public speaking events, the key is always it's not about me at all, that's not about me. This is about them and it's about the message and it's about what they need from me. How can I be a window to let whatever they need come through, to be a conduit for some healing, some connection, some love, some community? Yeah, that's so cool.

29:08 - Quinne

That's exactly it, and I think that's to me, your work and what I do come together is landing in this how is what I'm doing and being serving the greater good, my community, the next person, the ground I walk on, how am I in service of that? And if I, yeah, otherwise I don't know what I'm doing If it's not with that thought.

29:31 - Marie

Yes, talk a little bit about what you're doing now. And you know, we just talked a little bit about community, about bringing people together, about serving. So, you're back now and you live in Santa Monica, and so when I experienced you going to South Africa, you were actually I don't even know the answer to this how did the soap opera get revived? Has it been going the entire time, and did they reach out to you, or did you reach out to them? What happened?

29:59 - Quinne

So, we decided to go back to South Africa because I got the call. I literally went again. It was a beam of sunlight, driving. We were visiting South Africa. We would go every year, driving across the bridge to one of our favorite spots, and I looked at Ryan, I'm like it's time for me to come home. We needed to come back, and I knew it was just time. It took three years to make that reality, so I just knew it was time to go back.

When I started putting word out that I was going back to South Africa my agent and everyone they started talking and the show was still going on. It was had changed a lot. It had gone from more comedy to more drama. They had to kind of move into a new genre almost, which was exciting to me. I didn't want to go back to the same old thing, and so when they invited me back, I was excited. It was like you know, there was an ease to it. It was familiar.

I went back because I wanted to be on South African soil with my family, with community, that I wanted my kids to have that experience being on that land, and so it was an easy and wonderful community to go back to and the character had grown 10 years later. Yeah, this was 10 years later. She goes back. She was fleeing an abusive American husband that had abducted her, so she was with a suitcase in this diamond ring trying to flee, and so she comes knocking on this old man's house that she knew from back in the day. So that's how she re-enters the show from comedy to drama, indeed.

31:31 - Marie

But what I'm realizing is that Sunbeam brought you home to spend time with your mom yes, at just the right time and to give your daughters time with your mom.

31:44 - Quinne

Indeed, yeah, yeah. And so that guidance is just so clear. It's like when it's just no doubt. That's the feeling that I know. It's that strong, yes, I'm like this is what needs to happen. There's just no doubt. That's the feeling that I know. It's that strong, yes, I'm like this is what needs to happen. It's just no doubt. It's just this absoluteness. It's a hard thing to always explain because it just it drops into me like the clearest message, like a pebble that just drops right into the right space, and it just goes straight through. So it's almost as if all three of my minds I know you talked about that is suddenly in sync and they're all getting the same message and they're just going.

32:19 - Marie

She's pointing from her mind, to her heart, to her gut. There's an episode, if you haven't heard it yet, that's your three brains and their hormones that she's talking about. She's referencing there.

32:38 - Quinne

I love how you talked about that. Oh, such good language too for me. So that's what it feels like. And the big thing is there's just no doubt. It's just. One thing leads to the other, and if that thing is that clear, I know I cannot doubt it. There's just, there isn't even a thought of doubt. It's just that I have to go and drink that glass of water now or go whatever. It's as simple as that. It's not big, it's just so clear. It's kind of effortless.

32:58 - Marie

And that allowed you to have this time with your mom, who you lost last year very suddenly, and now you have reinvented again in the absence of this huge pillar in your life. Is there anything that you want to say about that?

33:17 - Quinne

I know this is. It's such a potent point in time when you grieve how life is, it's almost everything dials up a notch, everything is extra vibrant and it's just you're so aware of life when death is right there and took something so precious. And it's interesting because she's such a big part of where I am today, she's the one who brought a mentor into my life and went. You have to watch this woman who led me to Costa Rica, who opened up and gave me such permission to do the work that I do in the way that I'm doing it now. So, I left South Africa at the end of 2021, um, to everyone's shock and horror, because again, it was Ryan got the call and it was a. It was a yes for me. It was a reluctant yes because it was like a hard one to explain to my beloveds, and yet it was undoubtedly what we needed to do. So, I would go back every year, and my mom and I would. She had written a children's book, and we would go and read it to communities underprivileged communities that didn't have enough books and just bring story to them. And because they knew me as Connie, it was made her book accessible. So, it was just this wonderful.

We had such amazing times because when I would go back now on summers, it was quality time, intense times. We would travel, we would drive 6,000 kilometers around the country and have this quality time together. So, even though I'd left, we still had that. And then December yeah, she just suddenly got sick and in the hospital. And then Thanksgiving I was like, oh shoot, I have to go home now, and I didn't like what I had to go home to.

That was hard and it's been very hard, and yet hard in the most beautiful way because it's just life and we are in such a time of honoring life. Death cycles again, one does not go without the other. There's no life without death. One does not go without the other. There's no life without death and I see that in me and my siblings lives, how we showered in blessings and in just quality of life. It just shows up. So, as we move through this time it's really also my time in South Africa highlighted what community is about and how absolutely we cannot do life without it. It's like water. We've talked about that.

35:59 - Marie

We were just sitting on the couch talking about our shared belief that we have sort of dislodged this fundamental human need from its place at the core of our lives, which is to be in constant community with people who see us when we are looking wonderful and are impressive and are succeeding, and when people who hold, with people who hold us when we are not, when we are falling and when we are losing ourselves and just walking through life and death and walking through laughter and tears and walking through making meals and dancing and just being in community to hold each other. It's like food, water, shelter community, and it has turned into something that's digitized and it's turned into something that's alienating and it's turned into something that we're seeing the depression and anxiety, the effects of how this has been decentralized as a core human need. It's not seen as that anymore, and so we share this real priority to create communities, and I do it through the Bloom Room. Can you tell everybody how you're doing that?

36:58 - Quinne

now it's so exciting and I'm so in love with what I'm doing. Sunset Park Revisions is where it's happened, but it's all in a circle. So, when I came back to the States, I understood that I can't breathe without community and the way I call them in in order to create exactly what you said that holding and celebrating and just being is in circle. And celebrating the moon, magic and cacao is my two allies in calling people in to resonate with, and I would just be in my living room. I would meet moms, I would meet people at places and say I do this, do you want to come? And if they would want to come, I knew we were going to be community. And from that I found my partner now at Sunset Park Revisions, where we now hold space in this way.

Our main thing is connection to self, community and the earth and how that is so vital to our thriving and being on this planet, and so we hold cacao ceremony in and with the moon and with people going through transformation or transition and just it's incredible to see the ripple of that and how people then meet each other in a coffee shop and I have this whole new dynamic of depth and vulnerability and just authentic. I see you. Even that hello is not hey, what's up, it's hello. I know you. How are you today? We don't have to weigh each other down with things. That's what I think people are scared of. When we talk about vulnerability or things like that, people get scared, and they isolate more instead of going. I'm not going to be broken by your vulnerability. We are actually more real to each other in this way. It's a power. It's an uplifting thing.

38:50 - Marie

And that vulnerability, like you said, doesn't have to have words, don't hate me. It can just be presence, to be eye contact, Exactly Breath, like just being with a person as yourself and not trying to project what you think they want to see or what you need them to see in order for you to be comfortable, right.

39:14 - Quinne

And that's the thing. Just the look in the eye.

And I always. There's two main things is we are witnessing for witnesses for one another the power of witness which creates accountability, which creates this network of a net that will attach you no matter what, and dropping agenda, that's a great one right agenda that you need something from someone else.

39:37 - Marie

That being in that space, sharing space, is what it's about and that can be so internalized from our culture that it can be hard to even recognize that you're doing it right. Yeah, yeah, I could talk to you. I have had the thought a couple times where I'm like I could do like a four hour interview, but I feel like you know, if anybody is up in Santa Monica or wants to go experience cacao up there and your circles, we will put the link in the show notes and also Quinne has done a cacao circle here with me in San Diego. Reach out to me if you know me or want to know me and know me, or want to know me and San Diego, or want to know Quinne, and we can host some of those. We definitely someday should do a retreat together. Yeah, that's a lightning bolt. Yes, moment, pull in some other women. Yes, somewhere beautiful, somewhere amazing.

40:27 - Quinne

Yeah, okay can we talk about the magic of the bloom room for a moment? What do you want to say?

40:33 - Marie

Oh my gosh. I had the incredible privilege of having Quinne in the bloom room for two rounds, which was amazing. It was in the first round. You weren't able to complete the end of it because that was when you lost. That's when my mom died, and we were all towards the end, but you had almost completed it and then you, you came back and in that second round you know, between them and in that second round which happened started right afterwards, you created this whole cacao brand. That is your name.

41:02 - Quinne

This is the magic of it, because now that we track it like that, we started and shortly it was during the first Bloom Room that provisions happened.

Yes happened, yes, that that landed in the second one, Quinta Cacao was born. So that is the power of being witnessed, being held by values, by being asked the right questions. The way you just asked them was such brilliance and your way of holding unconditional space where we can feel so seen and so it's easy to show up there. It's incredible what you're creating and how you're holding. That is a gift, and I am the one that's privileged to have received it twice and anything that connects me and allows me to play with you, because playing and you know this is one thing that maybe I can end on, because this is going to go on one of my t-shirts play, play is what I'm here to do, so play for me is productive, loving action your way. Amazing, so that's what we're here to do.

42:18 - Marie

That's ikigai, everybody, right? It’s like your heart's deep longing meets the world's deep need. It's all the things we talk about, right, when you are in alignment and integrity with the little girl. Who's all? What did you say? You're always under a bush in the mud, so much like you can connect with that authentic version of yourself before all the layers of you know harmful programming that we had. That was nobody's intention, right, but we got to unpeel that and find that little girl that's always in the mud and always playing, and then let her guide right and let her lead with all the wisdom we've gained along the way. But that is the play. It is yeah and getting that yes. And then earlier we were standing and talking about the no's too and saying no to the things that she's not down for.

43:03 - Quinne

Yes, and honoring that, that's really the big work.

43:07 - Marie

Yeah, it really is.

43:15 - Quinne

What idea are you working on now on making real a book? Yeah, finally, it's got to happen. It's got to happen now. The call is strong. It got all the affirmation, so there, I put it out there. Now I really have to do it, it's out there it is now it's the third draft will be the one that I can share thank you so much for being here.

Marie

Lekker? Tell everyone what that means.

43:43 - Quinne

It means very good. Lekker is Afrikaans word. That's just all goodness, everything that's delicious, everything that's good company, everything, Lekker is the word.

Thanks for hanging out with me, friends. If you like today's episode and you want more of them, please take two minutes right now to subscribe and give me a five-star review on Apple Podcasts. Then send this episode to a friend. See you next time.

Bloom Your Mind

Ep 88: Fame, Choice, and what is "Lekker" with Quinne Brown Huffman

Listen to this podcast on