Amandine Ayala talks about how tranquility creates space for change

Amandine and I are in the same coaching program and I’m so excited that Amandine agreed to be on my podcast. We had the most wonderful conversation about Amandine’s business as a tea alchemist (tune in to find out what that is : )), about her transformation from burning out in the corporate world to creating her days with intention and lots of space for herself and being creative and why it’s so important to actively listen to your inner voice.

Amandine introduces herself with the following three statements:

“I’m a crazy cat lady. I feel like my love for cats comes from my childhood, growing up in a family, where it wasn’t really accepted to express your feelings, so I felt like the cats were really a safe space for me and I have a really strong connection to them”.

“I’m a big cannabis lover and consumer and advocate and believe that people who need it should have access to that amazing plant that has amazing benefits for different reasons”.

“I’m a tea alchemist and also the founder and CEO of my business “Bloem et Moi” where I create organic, luxurious tea blends to help busy people like us to create more time and space for self care”.

What an introduction! I love it and it’s so wonderful to see Amandine spark pure joy talking about these things.

One thing that Amandine does with her company is creating bespoke tea blends for businesses who want to elevate their clients’ experience with a touch of luxury. These customized teas embody the work that you do, your business values, how you want your clients to feel… It can prepare them for a retreat or take them back to a certain place or feeling they experienced while worling with you. “It can be anything because it’s fully customized and I love that work”.

I think this is such a great business idea, because scents and tastes are so connected to experiences and memories and can spark so much joy.

“My teas, they are the way that they are in order to create a multisensory experience”, Amandine

Amandine shows an example of her tea in the video, so make sure to check it out. I wish it was possible to smell the tea through the screen! : )

To Amandine it’s super important that you actually see the colors, the flowers and the herbs. Her luxurious range of hemp-based teas is to die for. The example that Amandine shows is made with hemp, lavender, verbena and melissa. “When I smell it, it smells like home to me, it smells like the South of France”, Amandine says.

“It brings me so much joy, blending and creating new blends”, Amandine

In her online store, Amandine sells her four flagship blends and one seasonal blend that is always changing. But her bespoke offer is where the magic happens (even more).

“What you’re going to tell me about your business and your clients and how you want them to feel, I’m going to translate that into a herbal recipe and that is so much fun, that brings me joy”, Amandine explains beaming.

I ask Amandine, what the story is behind “Bloem et Moi”. Amandine answers that she grew up in the South of France. Her family had a big garden, she was always around herbs and her mother used to collect fresh leaves like verbena to make herbal tea.

Until almost five years ago, Amandine was a career woman, working corporate in sales, selling and traveling around Europe, “I was working really hard to get external validation, to sign new contracts. I felt my third burnout come along, because I’m a workaholic and it has happened before and I decided, this is not life, this is not it.”

Amandine quit her job with no savings, “I had known for years that I wanted to start my own business, I just didn’t know what or how, it’s really scary, especially when you come from a family who really doesn’t do that”. Amandine explains that security is very important to her family and that they were even worried when Amandine changed job and started working at another place.

“I needed something that brings me joy and my job didn’t do that for me anymore, it was the opposite, it was killing me from the inside”. Amandine fell into a deep depression, not having somebody to check in on her work, not having somebody who cared if she woke up in the morning, not having opportunities for external validation all the time, like you do in a job, especially sales. Amandine says: “You do your job well, you get money, you get contracts, you get clients, you know that you’re a ‘good worker’”.

“I decided to take action about my mental health. That included a coach and a therapist, and I started blending herbs. My first blend was “Respire” - the one I was talking about - that I created to help with my anxiety, to help with my depression, to help with my stress levels. I realized that when you pair the right intention - by right intention I just mean what’s right for you in the moment - when you pair an intention with the benefits of plants, it’s so powerful. It’s not just something warm and nice anymore, it’s something that becomes a tool for your well-being and it also turned out to be a wonderful creative outlet for me”, Amandine says and adds, that she used to say that she wasn’t a creative person. “Now when I think about that I think “this is crazy”,

Amandine started sharing her hemp tea blends with people around her. Some of her friends told her of this or that problem and asked if she could make a blend for that specifically, and that’s how it started. All of Amandine’s teas contain legal hemp. She says: “It’s a great way to open up to the plant if you don’t know it, hey it’s just a plant, this is just a tea, you’re not going to get high, you’ll just feel really good with the right intention. It’s an introduction to that”.

“Usually everything is fun for me in the beginning, I love trying new things, but after a while, if there isn’t a bigger meaning to things, some significance, an opportunity for impact and to change the world, because I really belief that with our businesses we are changing the world, then it’s not for me and I’m gonna lose interest”, Amandine

“Listening to the messages you get from the inside, that is so important”, Ronja

Amandine says that she has realized how many of the voices in her head are actually what she thinks her parents would say from when Amandine was a kid and that it’s all being brought up, because she’s currently staying with them. “We are conditioned”. Amandine recalls that she was terrified of telling her parents that she left her job and waited for three months. Realizing that their daughter dreaded their reaction so much at least led to some understanding from her parents.

We talk about the plans that Amandine has with “Bloem et Moi”.

“When you’re a creative person, the next step is just calling you”, Ronja

Amandine says that she recently had the call to do more. “I love doing tea but I want more, that’s why I love the bespoke offer that I have”. Amandine adds that although it’s a bit scary, she wants to move towards coaching, where she can use her tea as a tool. I have such a clear vision of Amandine working with corporate women that want to create their own business! I see so much potential.

I’d like to work more with corporate women and younger women myself, because if you are learning all these boundaries and how you want your life to look and feel and how to be absolutely authentically you, there is so much magic in that. If you learn it early, you have more time for the coolest life ever. But of course it’s never too late! Any point in your life is worth working on yourself and figuring out what YOU want!

I ask Amandine how a typical day in her life looks like.

“When I wake up, I make a point of having positive thoughts, usually gratitude, abundance… I have this mantra: Abundance comes into my life in the most wonderful and unexpected ways every day. I try to remember that because my mind can go in a second into a horrible place and so I try to cultivate that throughout the day”.

After getting up, the first thing Amandine does is go see the cats and cuddle them, followed by a walk in the garden and putting the guinea pigs outside.

The first drink in the morning is hot water lemon.

“For me in my day, it’s about space and freedom. I want to do the things I want to do at the pace I want to do them, that’s important. When I have space, I am a lot more productive than when I feel cramped or restricted”, Amandine

Amandine says that she usually tries to keep her mornings for self-care; Meditating, tapping, yoga… Just before lunch or right after lunch she starts working. “My mornings are a bit slow, I’m not a morning person, I need that space”. Being more of a night owl, Amandine doesn’t mind working late but adds: “Throughout the day I need to take breaks, kitty breaks, walk breaks, speak to a friend breaks, I do different things that bring me joy like having a really nice cup of tea. It’s really important that I give myself space”.

Amandine says that when she doesn’t have a lot of time, already a 5 minute walk in the garden helps to shift her energy.

It really couldn’t be more different than a corporate work day and it is so awesome how Amandine shifted her life, even though it was a scary journey at times.

Amandine’s message to women in corporate that know that they want to change something is: “I’d say, it doesn’t have to be the way that I did it, like BAM I quit. It doesn’t have to be such a change, because that’s really scary and I think that’s what really shut my system”. Amandine says that that’s what she needed, because she’s an all or nothing person and if she dwells too long on something, her brain will find many reasons not to do it. “I would say that there’s a way to introduce pieces in your life that bring you joy and to explore what you want to do without throwing away your life as you know it now.”

You can either get a new job and hope that it’s going to be better or start creating that for yourself. 

What’s the first step, where can people even start?

“I think it’s all about strengthening the connection to something that brings you joy”. To Amandine that’s nature. You can start by taking a walk by lunch time or when you go home. Or take a day trip on the weekend. Just breathing in nature.

“I’m a big fan of spending time on your own, because you have to listen to what’s around you, you have to listen to yourself”, Amandine

If you loved riding horses as a kid, try that again. If you enjoy dancing, sign up for a dance class. Maybe you have to try out different things, but eventually you’ll figure out what it is for you. Do something that’s just for you, it’s not about showing up for someone, it’s not about anybody else, it’s just for you.

“It’s not just spending time with ourselves, it’s actually enjoying it and learning to love ourselves”, Amandine

“I’ve been cultivating self-love, it’s so important. And it’s work if you’re not used to that and used to numb yourself with different behaviors or whatever it was for you”, Amandine says. “You want to be able to distract yourself forever but I think we all hit a point in our lives where we need to heal that inner child, we need to heal and love ourselves”.

“We don’t need the big crisis to change. We can decide today that we want to change something”, Ronja

Amandine’s message to the world:

“Learn to love all the parts of you. Self-care is different for everyone and on a different day it’s gonna be different. At the time for me it was feeding myself properly and now self-care is different for me, it’s taking a walk or showing up in my business with courage, speaking my truth. Explore self-care practices that feel good, because that leads to self-love and that leads to a better world. I really believe that with more self-love we’re going to be changing the world. That’s why I really want to work with women entrepreneurs, because when we love ourselves we can pass that on, we can make a bigger impact and yes we’re changing the world, absolutely”.

With this powerful message another wonderful conversation ends. I hope that you feel as inspired by Amandine as I do, we’d love to hear about it in the reviews or on instagram @joyismycompass and @bloemetmoi. See you there!

Website: https://www.bloemetmoi.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bloemetmoi/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BloemetMoi/