This year, for Valentine's day, we decided to do a special collaboration with our friends over at Couples Cacao.
Together, Romany and Eduardo, the couple behind Couples Cacao, have been exploring mindful daily practices together with the help of pure ceremonial cacao!
Below, they share with us a beautiful gratitude practice for you and your partner (or friend/loved one) that you can partake in this Valentine's day!
We hope you enjoy it as much as we did :)
PS. In case you missed it, it's looking like we will have a fresh batch of Boundless Belize ready by the last week of February! ❤️🎉 Thank you all so much for your patience and understanding.
Connect Heart to Heart This Valentine's Day
Six years ago, my husband Eduardo and I found Cacao. Or perhaps I should say, we were found by Cacao! We quickly connected with the multidimensional, healing nature of Cacao as a ceremonial guide and way of living in greater love and harmony, with one another and with the world around us.
Through a process that was intuitive, playful, and quite magical, we found ourselves creating and practicing a particular structure as we drank cacao each morning, which we now call a Couple’s Cacao ceremony.
The beauty of this ceremony is its simplicity, heart-centeredness, and accessibility. It invites you and your partner (whether it’s a romantic partner, a friend, or a family member) to become present together in mindfulness and share in a practice of gratitude.
When we can find a sense of true gratitude for life and for the gift of love, we can touch a place of refuge from the intensity and confusion of the times we are living in.
“We are most human and most alive when we allow ourselves to be touched by the beauty of the world and when we allow ourselves to be touched by genuine gratitude for the life we have been given, no matter how hard or how dark the world around us has become.” - Michael Meade
Everything needs nourishment to live and to grow. This gratitude practice helps us nourish our love and nurture our sources of peace and joy. As the beloved monk and teacher Thich Nhat Hanh often reminds us in his numerous books – understanding is the nature of love. In order to truly love someone, we must first understand them. In this way, we draw upon the practice of deep listening and speaking with love in a Couple’s Cacao ceremony, in order to be fully present for our loved ones and to understand them – their deepest joys and suffering.
The Gratitude Practice
We invite you and your partner now to make some cacao, with all the spices and ingredients you love most, and drop in together with this simple practice:
- Sit comfortably facing one another. With both hands, lift up your mug of cacao to your heart space, the center of your chest, and close your eyes. Tune into the breath and allow your body and mind to relax.
- Mindfully smell your cacao, breathing it in deeply. Begin noticing all the sensations in and around your body. Notice how it feels to take a moment with your partner in silence, and simply savor the feeling of being in presence together. Take your first sip together in this spaciousness.
- When it feels right, either you or your partner will begin speaking aloud what you’re grateful for that day. Let your heart open and expand, filling up with the deepest thanks you feel for life, for love, for health, for the lessons you’re learning, the people you care for, and the mystery and miracles that may be showing up for you at this time. Whatever it may be, big or small, simply allow yourself to sink into your heart space and interconnectedness with all-that-is.
- When you complete your gratitude sharing, take a big, delicious and mindful sip of cacao. I like to imagine that after I offer my love and thanks to the world, I then receive love and thanks in return from cacao.
- After allowing a moment of space, it’s the other person’s turn to share.
- For the remaining time that you’re sipping your cacao, see what naturally arises in the space. Perhaps there’s more to be shared, and in this intentional space, you can take time to speak with love and listen with compassion to one another – to come into resonance and appreciation.
- When you’re ready to end, close the space by taking a moment to close your eyes and take a deep breath in together. As you exhale, a smile might arise on your lips, and you may like to open your eyes and give each other a hug and kiss. May your day be blessed!
“If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is ‘thank you’, it will be enough.” - Meister Eckhart
We're wishing you all a wonderful Valentine's day, may your hearts and cups be filled with cacao!
With love,
Jonas & The Ora Cacao Family
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