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
818 Comments
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.