"Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors where there were only walls."

                                                                                Joseph Campbell

 

It was a really long journey. Over three years to get to HUM.  Many lessons learned, challenges overcome, much joy found, beautiful people appearing to help and inspire along the way.  And yet the journey is just beginning.

 

 “SO HUM” is a powerful mantra that means “I AM THAT”.   And yet…who AM I?  This is the fundamental existential question for all of us, and a life’s work to answer.  To know who we are is to know where we are going and why.  And each of us is the only one who can answer this question for ourselves.  

We all have stories of ourselves that we tell, the stories that help us to survive and advance in this world.  These stories, conditioned by society, culture, traditions, rules, do not necessarily represent our true self, and often we don’t even know our own true story.  It’s the story of this inner “I” that would be the most interesting to tell.  Yet we need to find it first.  Who am I?

I am Sarah, a wife, a daughter, a sister, an aunt, a friend, a Canadian. I fiercely value authenticity, integrity, generosity, creativity, quality, curiosity.  I’ve lived in three different countries: Canada, France and the US. And traveled many parts of the world, 40 countries so far, exploring cultures, cuisines, art, architecture and landscapes.  I was most profoundly touched by the mysteries and desert landscapes of Egypt, the golden temples and the kind people of Myanmar, the unique cultures and the artistry of Morocco.

For many years, I have expressed myself through my work in the beauty industry, building brands and managing teams in big international corporations.  It was glamorous, exciting, inspiring, fascinating and fun - filled with opportunities to learn and grow.  But it was also a life of overwork, un-balance, high pressure, extreme stress.  Long, long days packed with meetings, driving teams and striving for results.  My mind whirred, worried, rehearsed, planned and solved non-stop, day and night.  There was beauty and fulfillment as well as pain and disappointment.  And it was all about outer beauty.    

Then my life turned upside down and inside out.  It doesn’t really matter how or why—upheavals and challenges, both big and small, happen to all of us.  What really matters is how we choose to use these challenges and build on them moving forward.

 

 

 I chose to use this as an opportunity for positive growth and transformation.  It’s as though I finally woke up, and I realized that I had been striving so long towards goals that I really didn’t want to achieve after all.  As I struggled to manage this major change, as I endeavoured to reinvent my life to find more fulfillment, serenity and satisfaction, yoga became my guide and my way back from all the useless toxic stress I had long been living with, meditation is where I found my answers.  Mindfulness was my way out of my head and back to my heart, it grounded me in the present moment, heightened all my senses giving me an unexpected perspective on my world.  My home practice became my therapy, and my practice space (which at the time was against a wall at the end of my bed) became my safe haven from all my emotions.  Breathing space.  Sanctuary.

My passion for yoga, meditation and mindfulness grew and I began my search for information and answers to my many questions.  In the process, I have spent thousands of hours digging into the roots and exploring the modern practices of yoga and meditation.  I’ve researched and read hundreds of websites, articles and books, looked for teachers and teacher training programs around the world, tried products, studios, styles, online courses, and retreats.   I have deepened my practice by taking mindfulness yoga teacher training from Bodhi Yoga International in Spain, and I am a certified meditation facilitator from Naturality Meditation here in Canada.

The more I searched, experienced and learned, the more I found an overwhelming amount of often-confusing information, opinions and possible experiences.  It was a challenge to find what felt authentic and credible.  Who to believe?  What to practice?  What products to use?

 

 

That part of my journey sparked an idea to create a business that would allow me to share my learnings and provide a sort of short cut to confidence and clarity for others looking to deepen their understanding of these ancient practices.  From my thousands of hours of research, experiences and teacher trainings I have created an ever-growing library of what I hope is insightful, useful content focusing on authenticity, clarity and quality.  And after searching for the best products to use in my practice, and with all the sensitivity developed through my creative work in the beauty industry, I have created a streamlined collection of high quality products that are beautiful, useful for your practice as well as socially and environmentally conscious.

And so HUM was born, designed to empower and inspire you to make these powerful practices accessible and easy to integrate into your very busy life, to help you build your daily regimen of yoga and meditation, to help you to create your home practice sanctuary.  It's been a long journey, over three years to bring it all to life.  And worth every step and every detour.

Now, I am walking my own path, taking all of my experiences with me.  I am the same person with the same values (authenticity, integrity, generosity, creativity, quality), now I seek them and express them differently.  I am still expressing myself through my work.  And now, it’s my own agenda, my own vision.  Instead of being an outer-beauty-executive, I am an inner-beauty-junkie, a soul-seeker, a journeyer, searching for ways to allow the inner I to come to the forefront.  I am finally following my bliss, living by inspiration.   And the universe has opened so many doors where there were only walls...

“Hum” is a powerful Sanskrit mantra that invokes creativity, great passion and fiery brilliance.  It gives power to the heart.  I've called my brand HUM in honour of that mantra and to invoke its spirit of enlightenment. “So Hum” is a mantra that means “I AM”.    “I AM” HUM.

HUM is dedicated to ALL OF YOU who wish to bring yoga, meditation and mindfulness into your daily lives as a part of your transformational journey - whoever you are, wherever you are on your path.  So that you can find your highest vibration, get harmonic, follow your own hum.