About a year ago, when I first started working as the general manager in a deli/café, I decided I needed to do a coffee tasting. Coffee is a huge part of the business and as I hadn’t had any coffee for at least 4-5 years, I wanted to get an understanding of what it is that we sell. So I tried a decaf espresso, which was full-on.
FROM HIDEOUS TO REALLY TASTY
I hated it. Espresso, which is pure and neat in its extraction of the coffee, has nothing to disguise it and my reaction was immediate, as if my taste buds were saying to me: “What are you doing – are you crazy? This is hideous!”.
I then tried the espresso with some soya milk and this was not so invasive but still full on… I only managed to have a couple of sips of each and that was it. Then, an hour later, a headache appeared and my stomach started to feel weird.
The one thing that really shocked me though was the quick change from “What the heck are you doing, this is hideous” to (after a disguised, milky, soya flat white and a few sips of that) going “Hmmm… this is actually really tasty”.
How quickly it started to grow on me! It reminded me of when I first started to drink alcohol and started smoking. They were both naturally hideous and my body didn’t want to do either, but I overrode what I really felt so I could fit in, be accepted and look cool!
UPPING THE COFFEE ANTE – I GET SEDUCED…
My ‘romance’ with coffee didn’t end there – recently I had to choose a new blend of coffee for our customers.
So the coffee tasting began… I was having a look at the crèma, which looked perfect, and the smell was alive with lots of different scents – liquorice, almond and chocolate jumped out at me!
At that point I was slowly getting seduced all over again and I thought: “I’ll try it – I need to know what the coffee I have chosen for the deli tastes like.” Isn’t it interesting how the mind will quickly justify an action to make it OK to do! This was the start of the override again…
There were two types of blends so I had a couple of sips of each espresso and then another couple of sips of two flat whites.
By the end of the second espresso I could start to feel the change in my body… and by the end of the second flat white I was starting to like it, enjoying the flavours… I stopped there, knowing which blend was going to work best for the deli and the customers…
FEELING THE IMPACT OF COFFEE – THE HARD WAY
But for me, it was too late – by the end of the second flat white I was really starting to feel ‘off the wall’ and super-racy! “Oh my goodness! What have I just done?!” I’m thinking. It felt like I was on drugs big time… really bad speed, or something like that! My head felt really strange – like it was going to pop or explode. My heart was going super-fast, and I was completely off the wall in my behaviour – all the deli assistants were laughing at me, as they could all see the change in me.
It lasted for quite some time – we’d started the coffee tasting at 10.30am and I was still feeling traces of it at 8pm that night – and the following two days I had these really intense, full-on headaches that were hideous. I could see how people can get hooked – if I’d had another coffee, all those symptoms would have disappeared instantly.
This week I had another trip to the roastery, but this time I decided that I would spit the tasting – my body thanked me for this!
I LOVE MAKING COFFEES, BUT WHY WOULD I BE ANYTHING ELSE BUT ME?
I started making coffees when I was 15. I love making coffees, and I still do.
I love the smell of coffee and I still do, but I don’t like what it does to my body so I don’t drink it any more. It’s like some foods and how they taste and what they do to my body: I have decided to leave them out of my diet because I don’t like how I feel after I’ve eaten them, even if they taste amazing at the time – it’s not worth it!
However, this most recent coffee tasting experience really confirmed for me that I just don’t want to feel like that anymore. It also confirmed for me what happens when I let my mind override and ‘explain away’ what I’m really feeling in my body and know is right for me.
I feel so AMAZING when I’m just me – without anything else influencing me – and I know now: NOTHING ELSE is acceptable!
I’m at a point in my life where what I have chosen is SERIOUSLY AWESOME and I feel SERIOUSLY AMAZING for it. I feel so clear, on to it, light and consistent. I have so much respect for my body and myself that I am not prepared to compromise any more.
Inspired by the Awesome work of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine.
By Natalie Hawthorne, London, UK
853 Comments
Natalie this is such great blog exposing the not so good and wonderful side of coffee, blogs like these need to be more in the public eye for so many people in our society are addicted and think that it is normal.
Shocking how caffeine has been incorporated into the fitness industry, as in its now quite normal to have coffee before and after training.
When we stop any addiction, we have put on/in our bodies and have overridden the bodies first reaction, could it be the bodies painful withdrawal is an amplified reminder of what it told us in the first place?
When I stopped drinking tea and coffee I was sick for two weeks as the toxins left my body, I swore I’d never drink them again and here I am 25 years later, very grateful for my choices to follow through on that. I’ve never even been tempted to drink them since.
I gave up drinking coffee while going through menopause, as each time I drank some my heart felt like it was going to jump out of my chest. So, I changed to decaf and had no further heart jumping issues, until one day within 10 minutes of finishing a cup in a local café I started to feel the old symptoms arise. I was shocked to say the least, until I realised that I had not been given a cup of decaf coffee but an ordinary caffeine filled one. A most unpleasant experience but at the same time a great confirmation of the ill effects of coffee on my body, and the last time I ever drank any sort of coffee, decaf included.
Having cut foods such as coffee and chocolate out of the diet and not having them for some time, is really a shock to the system if they are then introduced some years later, as you so clearly experienced Natalie. When the body is used to a clean simple and light diet, it becomes very quick to send signals to tell us something is not right when a food or substance that is no longer eaten or drunk is reintroduced. And it is this clarity that enables us to feel so much more, on so many levels.
It is so true how we can find exactly the right flavour to hide and override the bodies natural knowing and wisdom.
When we start to acknowledge that our body is a vehicle of expression, to express who we are, what we put in starts to change too. We all know coffee can be tasty in our mouth but what does it do with the quality we want to live in and the effects is has on our sensitive body.
Our body has actually all the wisdom we need. Some things might seem a great idea, might look and taste good, but what they actually do to the body is not supporting, This can be food, drinks, substances but also behaviors and thoughts. The world would be a different place if we all honored and treasured our body.
Our mind is more than willing to compromise the body and to close our hearts, just as it is super quick and easy in justifying an action where the body actually says ‘no, please, don’t do that. And the more we have made these choices the more difficult it is to hear the voice of the body loud and clear, although if we want to we can always start to listen again.
There are so many ways to be seduced in life textures, tastes, smells, visuals and sounds and yet the being wants to experience and experience life in its many variations.
One of the best ways to permanently have more energy in our life is not to have any caffeine and to live a lifestyle that makes this possible – the transition period is not easy but the energy levels are worth it.
I agree Christoph, it certainly is a process of being open and willing to feel and explore a different way, and when we choose to be all of who we are then Boom with out fail we are full of vitality and joy.
When we are stressed we tend to drink coffee but that only serves to make us even more stressed. What is required in those times is to allow ourselves to be still rather than racy.
I have never ever considered the effect of caffeine on those around us until today. We all know that when someone lights up a cigarette, that we all inhale the smoke but we don’t discuss the effect of a person’s caffeine intake on those around them. Ok, so it’s not quite the same, as in those around a coffee drinker don’t somehow imbibe caffeine too but whilst I sat with someone today, who had had a few coffees, I was very aware that it felt quite an assault on my body, I felt energetically bombarded by the intensity that they were speaking with!
When we have a foundation of love in our body, it is easier to listen to our body and honour what it is telling us. Thank you for sharing how your body was with, and then without coffee, our body is so wise.
Correct Lorraine our bodies are very wise and when we surrender to it and let go what it is communicating to us is gold.
What a gorgeous example of how certain food and drinks have a negative effect on us. Which we one day will no longer take based on how we feel from it more than its pleasant taste.
What I love about this writing, is how sensitive your body was to the caffeine, because you allowed it to be so.
Correct Shami, it has always been sensitive but going through the motions of life and growing up I shut down that sensitivity. So it has been a process of letting go and through it I am able to feel the things that are not supporting me also.
Thanks for sharing this – I dont think we appreciate as a society the extent to which we need coffee. It has become an industry that is like wine – where people seek the best. And are totally hooked. In fact, it can be seen as a hangover cure to lots of wine the night before, It goes to show how we can get really sucked into things and addicted.
The smell and atmosphere in coffee shops is very alluring, it goes with dark chocolate and beautifully presented pattisseries it’s no wonder that we are drawn to the drink. The sad thing is it is a drug like any other which took me years to finally give up.
A great exposure of how we so quickly normalise what is not true for us when we override and dishonour the truth we initially feel. And so, with all that is abusive in this world, how we are with ourselves and what we have allowed to be normalised, what is so beautifully shared and offered here is the way we can restore a loving and honouring way of being and living for ourselves and together through honoring our truth, the truth we feel in our bodies.
Very good point. We numb part of our experience so that we can then enjoy that sharpness of the kick and the raciness of the experience rather than feel it as a big disruption for the body.
I gave up coffee 30 years ago as it was making me sick, I also gave up tea at the same time. I was sick with flu symptoms for 2 weeks. What kind of addiction did I have to give myself such a toxic over load. I never went back – thank God.
It can be really intense and full on when we stop taking a poison that we have been drowning ourselves in. To be able to come to the surface and breath our own breath again instead of the influence of the poison feels em-powering and life changing not only on a physical but also on an energetic level as well.
I can remember experiencing the same ill effects when I stopped eating sugar. I was incredibly ‘ill’ for six weeks as decades of accumulated toxins poured out of my body. It was shocking to feel but at the same time it made so much sense; the toxins we feed our body, whether it be food, drink or chemical substances do build up, as our bodies are simply not equipped to deal with them. Six weeks on I began to feel so much more alive and energetic than I had ever felt in my life, so to continue to live sugar free was a no brainer, as the saying goes.
The worst drug for our bodies is the way our spirit controls us so we need to have the ‘off the wall in my behaviours’ episodes and raciness with no physical drugs needed just the manifestation from our spirit, which feels absolutely terrible in the body creating some of the worst hang-over ever.
I have been making a lot of coffees at work recently (I haven’t tried it because I know I’d also be very unwell!!) and it’s something I really enjoy, but I can really feel the seduction of coffee, the rich smell and the the creaminess – you can a 100% tell it’s a drug. It feels amazing when we begin to put the quality we feel within us above our desires for food or drink that may alter that quality.
I love and agree with your suggestion ‘to begin to put the quality we feel within us above our desires for food or drink that may alter that quality.’
I agree Meg it sure is super cool when you come to a point within yourself where you know that the flavours, textures and deliciousness of certain things are just simply not worth it any more.
So many people don’t have a connection to how amazing they are within, so reaching for foods, drinks or experiences to bring a sense of stimulation, distraction, excitement, etc, is a way to fill the void of not being connected to ourselves. Once we reconnect to our essence and feel who we are again there is nothing outside of ourselves that can be greater than the feeling of who we are, so letting go of anything that is harmful or not supporting us becomes much easier, we just cannot help loving ourselves. That’s definitely been my experience.
Yes that is what I have found Melinda, it becomes a lot easier when we are coming from a place of truly loving ourselves and experimenting and listening to how our body responds to things. Making a loving choice from here and honouring what the body is communicating to us.
We can still be tempted for a long time whenever we feel low but gradually raise our minimum standard so we are damaging ourselves less and less in the process.
Yesterday at work I had an amazing conversation with my work colleagues about coffee and how the industry has grown so fast and how supermarkets are using it as a leverage to get customers by giving away free coffee. Maybe next time we could go the next step and talk about what it does to the body and why we drink it.
Julie yes that would be great, I have had several conversations with my customers, ones that are up for understanding their addiction and it has been awesome how honest some can be, I know for me at first I didn’t want to look at my exhaustion because I knew I would have to look at my choices. Today though the felt marker of making choices that are self-nurturing and feeling vital from not holding back and contracting the thought of putting coffee into my system is an absolute no way ho say.
Its a beautiful picture – with the heart shape in the froth. And we have so many ways to disguise it, the flat white, the Americano, my favorite – the Mocha, or with sugar, syrups etc. But when you get to the bottom of it, caffeine is a drug that is used to treat exhaustion… the number 1 epidemic in the world!
Yes Simon no.1 epidemic in the world yet we are the ones that are demanding such volumes and variations. What if we stopped felt and looked at our exhaustion.
Giving up coffee is basically impossible if you are exhausted – how would you work otherwise. However, if you are really well, then coffee feels like an aggressive intrusion and not drinking coffee is much easier.
It is such an aggressive drug, like A class drugs, once you are taking it there is the roller coaster of being up and then the massive drop of feeling down, so you reach for the pick me up and so it goes on. Sugar and alcohol is also the same… they are all exhausting and which we don’t want to feel and avoid the emptiness inside that is what we are longing for. How twisted and corrupt is that yet so easy to get sucked into. Breaking these cycles and behaviours are needless to say life changing which comes from us making the choice to break them and not be locked in them.
This is a brilliant blog about how coffee affects our body. I learned a lot reading it so thank you.
Like any drug that slowly gets a hold on you, coffee is something that we can become quite dependant on to get us going but the trouble is the body being the most amazing thing that it is will try its best to rid itself of something that is foreign to it, so it is not long before you need more and more. The more coffee that we drink the more we need because it exhausts us as well as everything else in life that is not true, so it becomes a vicious circle that we just don’t need in the first place.
It is an interesting mix – the most active, alive and vibrant people I know are the ones that really look after their diet, the way they live. They treat themselves like a high performance car, taking deep care, the right inputs, regular servicing and the results are clear to see. This is quite the opposite to forcing our bodies to do what we need them to do, throwing in whatever we think will keep that force going.
It sure is a vicious cycle as you say Kevin and what is crazy also is that we have accepted this as a normal way to be where it is so far away from being our normal, vibrant and harmonious selves that we are. But with the force and impact of the caffeine you can’t even truly feel or connect with our inner truth.
“I feel so AMAZING when I’m just me – without anything else influencing me – and I know now: NOTHING ELSE is acceptable!” The statement is so cool Natalie — its a statement that says to me this person is a person who is truly successful.
Yes Sam. I never would have thought that this would be what we could base success on but the reality is if we have this honouring and loving relationship with ourselves then of course this is absolutely a successful way of living.
It is lovely to return to this blog knowing that the desire to drink coffee has completely gone from my body because that racy feeling that I once lived with is no longer something I am interested in feeling in my body.
I had that the other day Fiona with Sugar, being offered some and not an ounce in my body was wanting any as I simply prefer feeling steady, still and relaxed in my body.
A great confirmation that the habit has not been broken but the choice to bring more love to the body has.
Exactly Nattalija, as tempting and as inviting as it all looks, body love is way more my focus and now for me it doesn’t even look tasty or inviting. Such a great transformation and honestly not an ounce of me has considered what weight I was and over sheer will power would I not eat it. It has come over a period of time Loving myself more and more and bringing more awareness, so when I did eat it I couldn’t handle the effects that it had on my body. This I have noticed is changing and deepening as well so we can never feel we are at a point of mastering. Simply always checking in and feeling how the body feels and the quality of your being after you have eaten.
Yes, this is becoming stronger for myself too. I can only handle very small amounts of sugar because if I eat certain foods where the sugar content is too high I’m left feeling nauseous and exhausted both of which are feelings I don’t enjoy and I’m valuing how I feel more over the quick fix of the sugar. I am also feeling that my body actually prefers the taste in foods which are good for my body, it’s like my body craves for greens if I’m not eating enough and even the taste of cakes and sweet delights is far less appealing.
It is simply life changing when we come to the realisation that what we have been eating and drinking has been harming us, the next step from this realisation is to then take action and to say no to that type of abuse – this can take time but is so so very worth it.
Yes Sam it can take a while and what I have come to appreciate is when we deal with the issues as to why we go to such foods then it can be truly healed and naturally without any force or trying you let go of the food or drink that doesn’t serve the body.