Summary

This week we are in our spirituality bag. Alicja and Dee are joined by Akia Merritt host of ⁠Stop Waiting For Friday podcast⁠ and they discuss everything from Akia’s design career to her decision to live abroad. The key takeaways from this episode are

1. Why waiting for Friday is a waste of time and energy.

2. How to treat emotions like a guest? “How sway?”

3. Why acceptance and allowance will help you feel at home anywhere.

Grab your favorite sip and share this episode with a friend. Also please answer what you think of this episode on Spotify. Rate us ⁠here⁠ and be sure to check out part 2 of this episode.

Consider supporting this podcast ⁠here.⁠

Check out transcriptions on our ⁠website.

Transcription- Generated By Descript – Errors may occur

 

  I’m Dee

and I’m Alicia.

And welcome back to another exciting episode, Of Tea Over Interiors Today, Alicia, we are joined by a special guest, Akia mm-hmm. And she is a travel expert. Akia, how would

you describe yourself?

Oh, that’s a difficult question. I would describe myself as a human that is being, but for the sake of a, a title.

Mm. A creator. I do travel, but yeah, I think overall, just a creator out here, creating and travel happens to be a part of that journey.

what would you say you’re creating? Are you creating new memories

for yourself or what are you creating? Yeah. Creating unraveling this life, , creating through experience, creating through design.

My design here and there, I’ve always been a designer and just designed different things in my life. Creating, like you said, memories, creating beautiful friendships creating beautiful relationships, creating and unlocking new parts of myself. Yeah, creating my, my story.

All right. Excellent.

So before we get to that, you know, ladies, I always need to know what you’re sipping on. Alicia, let’s.

So this morning I decided I wanted cold ginger tea. It’s been a little warm and I decided that I always have ginger tea, you know, that Dee in the refrigerator. So I decided that I would ice it with some lemon and that’s it.

I’m just having a glass of ice. Ginger tea.

Mm-hmm. Okay.

And akea, what are you sipping on over there? Right now I

have infused water with some oranges and some cucumbers. I just came from sound healing session, so I wanna hydrate myself properly.

Yeah, hydration is very, very important. So this morning I’m act actually sipping on something that I had brewed for a while.

And I’ve been drinking it almost every day this week. It is a cucumber, melon green tea. Mm-hmm. And it’s hydrating and it’s, it’s for summer, it’s a detox tea it has refreshing, crisp flavor. And of course I’m drinking it cold, so. Mm. That is what I’m having today. Let’s move on to today’s topic ladies.

Today we are speaking with Akia. And Akia she’s a traveler, creating experiences for her life and unravel and learning, but she’s also a designer. So tell us about the type of designs that you do.

Ooh, so I started off designing. I actually went to design school. I graduated from the Fashion Institute in New York.

And. Yeah, I used to design clothing, so I had my own clothing brand for a while called Art Dow and that was very fun. But yeah, then I went into designing jewelry for Macy’s private brands for a while, and that was like my, a big part of my adult life and actually pivoted me into like, oh, is this really what I wanna do?

And yeah, now in Bali, I’m out here designing around my brand Stop Waiting for Friday, which started off from me traveling and that was what kind of birth stopped waiting for Friday. Just not waiting to live life, getting outside and, and being in the moment. And yeah, so now I’m designing bags around that.

And I have a card game at the moment that I’ve designed and the card game is designed to ask questions that invoke us to go a little bit deeper within ourselves. So, I don’t know how I went from clothing to card games, but that’s what life does, what life does, and that’s just what’s, that’s the creation that’s coming outta me at the moment.

But, yeah.

How do you make yourself available for the spirit or inspired action? Mm-hmm. What is it that you do to prepare and make yourself ready? Mm-hmm. For creativity,

I take care of myself every day. I pour into myself every day. So it’s not really a, instead of it being at this particular time, Every day I am intentionally nourishing myself, whether it be with my morning prayers or my hour sits, I sit in meditation for about an hour to two hours a day or yeah, the sound healing, like I said, I just came from sound healing and I do, I chant mantras every day.

And every day I’m doing something, drinking caca journaling, reading, listening to my teacher, being in my soga practicing deep listening. All these things are constantly, yeah, are constantly putting me in the space to shed things that are no longer needed and create space for new things to be able to come.

So, yeah, every day it is a working progress.

How did you get to this level of understanding? Do you have like, you know, like your evolution if you will?

You know what, it’s funny because when I decided to travel, it was during the pandemic actually. I’d always traveled, but the pandemic was where I’m like moving away from the United States.

I’m like, I’m not planning on living here anymore. And when I left, I didn’t think of like spirituality. That was not in my scope of like anything spiritual, the word. I didn’t know the word. Not to say that, to even label them as anything, but these acts of care, these acts of, showing up for myself and doing, doing the work to yeah.

You know, be. Spacious and healthy. And so I didn’t know any of that. And I, I got to Bali and I was like, I’m gonna be a travel blogger, so I was just running around all the time, like just doing, doing, doing. And my friend Chelsea I remember sitting with her one day and I was doing all of this stuff, but yet I’d always had this question about what’s my purpose?

Always. This is what always come up for me. I would have these moments where I would feel like I’m doing all these things when I’m really doing nothing. And I remember her saying, what if your purpose is just being right here, right now, eating a soup? Cause we’re eating soup at a cafe. Literally just something inside of me was like, actually, yeah, what if that’s my purpose?

You know, just being where I am. And after that I just start , going heavily into yoga and I, I started to learn a bit about the vonta and just like Hinduism and like that realm of things. And then I actually went back into like, learning things about the Bible. So it just became like a playground for me of just exploring all of these things that I didn’t know.

And it, it is crazy because I was not like actually looking for any of it. And I, I definitely think being in a place like Bali has allowed me the space. I will say that , I’m so grateful because the one thing that I’ve really gained from it is just the space to be able to receive these type of things.

I don’t think I could have done it, you know, living in the States for sure. So for sure life had a plan for me to come out here in the first place. Cause I came out here and I was like, okay, I’m just gonna travel. And it was just like, yeah, I just really had the space to explore all of these things in the space to.

To listen, to learn, to have more of an open mind, to be willing to understand things that I didn’t understand. So,

yeah. Yeah. That’s really good. Mm-hmm.

So I actually found you Akia through your podcast. Stop waiting for Friday. I think I found it. I wanna say maybe like two

years ago.

Mm.

And this is when you, I think, first started. Mm-hmm.

Search your podcast. I don’t even know, but about, probably about two years ago. So when you first started, it was, it was different, right?

Yes. I listened to it because you were like, stop waiting for Friday and just get out there. And I was like, you know, I love that.

I love that. I love that. And so I

watched your evolution. Mm-hmm.

I had just started my own podcast. With, we started TE Interiors two years ago, I started looking for more things that I thought might be relevant to what we talk about.

Mm-hmm. And just to watch

you evolve from how you were to now, I’m like,

I wanna talk to her about her journey because, you know, we’re trying to get there every day. And I’m like, I don’t know if it’s because I have so many distractions here. Mm. So many fears around just like getting up and going.

Like One of the episodes where you said that, you know, you decided to travel more and not really so much live here. Mm-hmm. I was just like, ah, I couldn’t do that.

You feel like it’s distractions.

I feel

like, yeah, there’s pressures here that I don’t wanna think

about.

You know, the whole thing of like making the podcast successful, making my businesses successful just doing everything, mm-hmm. Just

to make ends meet, you

know? So when I, was listening to you and I watch you evolve and things like that, I was just like, huh, I need to clear my mind at some point.

Like, sometime I go to me, clear my mind, I feel good, and then I come back to the same noise in my head,

One thing I’ve learned for sure, and I think this is A very important thing. We can’t run from ourselves. Let’s do the first thing.

, I definitely do believe in that there is like certain spaces that nourish us and allow us to be able to go into places, but I don’t wanna discourage people that you can’t do it everywhere because I truly do believe you can, like, you can do the work everywhere.

Even in places that seem quite distracting, will it be maybe some more effort on one’s behalf? , in my experience, I believe so because when I go back home, I notice it is triggering. It’s, it’s what I know. It’s like old habits come up and all these different things come up. So when I’m in a place like Bali or if I go to India or what, what have you not, it, it facilitates a space where it is easier to have that space of surrender.

And to actually be with myself in a more clear way. But I just think, especially living in a state some, , I actually now feel like, we always hear you should be able to be home anywhere. Mm-hmm. To feel at home because the home is not as beautiful as we can make our space.

And they absolutely do, like I said, facilitate. It, the space has to be clean for us to be able to receive. I definitely do think you can do it at home. You just have to

really be willing to show up and do the, work of, I’m trying to heal. I don’t wanna be distracted, so I’m intentionally gonna take this amount of time to not be distracted and I’m gonna commit. To that, you know I’m not going to use this app for whatever time or I’m going to sit and once a week I am going to meditate.

This is a A devotion and even I still have to check myself sometimes. Like, show up, show up, I gotta show up. You speak about just the journey, I didn’t even consider the fact that when I started the podcast to now, and without even listening to it, like Worlds of heart.

I think definitely , I’ve allowed myself to surrender and I’ve allowed myself to be where I am and I’ve allowed myself to

To be.

Just allowing in general, that word, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Embodying the word and accepting the fullness of that. I remember you saying, I’m just being, .

It’s just that process of being, for many people, that doesn’t sound like you’ve said anything. And in actuality you’ve said everything.

Yeah. Definitely hard thing, it’s so simple. This is life, right? It’s so simple, but it’s like, I’m a, I’m in a human body.

I’m a human. Things happen. Like I get sad, I get angry, I get happy. I experience all these things. I’m just let it be, like letting it be in. There’ll be moments where I do feel very spacious and there’ll be moments where I don’t. And just like working with accepting that and being with that

I’m still learning that too. I’m actually just learning in the last few months to accept all emotions. Yeah. Like, you know just learning that and not trying to be in this false state of I’m happy, I’m happy, I’m happy, I’m happy when I’m sad or when I’m angry or whatever. Oh, okay.

Anger is here, sadness is here. And I was also saying like just when I was starting off the last thing I was saying, you can’t run from yourself. It’s like you can be in paradise. I meet so many people. We’re in paradise. Bali is literally a paradise. Right. So many people still going through all of this stuff inside.

So that’s why I was saying like you can also do the work at home and it’s probably better to do it there cause. It is probably tenfold when you come to Paradise and you’re sitting in the most beautiful place and all of this stuff is still happening. You don’t know how to be, then other things start coming up,

I feel guilty because I’m in this beautiful place and I can’t enjoy it, and I’m still going through this and I’m still going through that, and I don’t know how to be with myself and all these things, you know? So,

yeah. I liked something you said in a podcast. It may have been your teacher who told you mm-hmm.

To receive all of those emotions the same way to receiving a guest. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Right. If a guest comes to your house, are you angry with the guest? Do you get disgusted? Are you unkind? You want them to leave? No. Be present. You would be fully present with the guest until the time has come for that to pass and to leave.

Yes. Yeah. Yes. I love that.

For me, that shift is so much because it’s like a weight got taken off my shoulder when I did just that. Like yeah. Accepting letting the guest come, Hey, how you doing? Like, what can I get for you? That’s right.

How can we be here together? And then once it’s gone, it’s gone. Like that really rocked my world just to Yeah. Accept that, you know? I’m so grateful. Cause I know that’s not easy to accept. We live in a world that literally tells us we should be in a state of happiness all the time.

So when any other emotion comes, we don’t know how to deal with it, or we suppress it, or we try to do whatever . With what’s happening, the reality of what’s actually happening. And while I do believe in you can transform emotions, I do believe that is a also on this journey, a process.

But I think accepting it and allowing it comes first. So before we can transform our anger into this or transform our sadness into this and being a constant state of joy, I think accepting it is a very good first step.

Accepting those things, then you can work with it.

I love it. I love that.

So

let’s get back to like the home aspect of it. So you’ve left your home. Where’s your hometown? I’m

from Miami.

You’re from a warm place.

How has it been leaving your home and then going to different places that have different amenities and different styles? How is that fitting in with your aesthetic in the way that you like to live life? Or do you not mind? Do you just welcome the different changes or do you find yourself getting little things to tweak your space?

Do you always stay in a hotel? Do you stay in Airbnbs? How do you move around when you’re out in

the world? When I first started to travel, I would just bounce like every other day. And then it got to a point where I was like, okay, I do kind of need a more spacious stay, where I can ground a little bit and not just be everywhere all the time.

So I started to. Stay in places for a month long or two months in some places. If I like it enough, I’ll stay six months at a time. So now I’ve stopped with just the needing to go. What feels right? I just stay. But when it comes to what type of spaces I stay in, everything from hostels to four or five bedroom places alone.

Like in Sri Lanka, I stayed in a pretty big mansion just alone in the middle of nowhere. I’ve stayed in guest homes. Right now, I’m actually staying in a guest house in Bali as I prepare to go, I’m going to India at the end of this month, and I, I love staying in unique states for sure. I’ve stayed in tree houses and I stayed with families like I.

In their homes. When I first started to travel though, it definitely was a bit harder coming from a Western mindset especially in like living in Miami and then certain toilets, and I was like, oh, I don’t really wanna, especially in Asia where they have the squatting toilets, of course they have regular toilets too, but like, if you actually are going outside of tourism zones, you get, .

They’re real life, you know, you get the reality of these people’s lives and they use the squatting toilets for very practical reasons, obviously. But for me, when I first started to travel, things like that were like, ooh. I don’t really know, or like, bathrooms are always a big thing for me. I could be okay with like a little shabby room, but the bathroom was like, ah, well now I’m fine with everything now.

It’s been so many places, it’s just like, you really can never 100% unless you are gonna like, stay somewhere for a long time. But when you’re going, going, you can never 100% have everything how exactly you would want it. So I do, I take my Palo Santo with me. I take my sage with me

I take a little incense and I do what I can with that and just make the space feel home in that way. But otherwise I just take it as it comes. And I love outdoor stuff though, for sure. Like if I did have my way, I love the place to be mostly. Outside, like, I love outside bathrooms. I’m okay if there’s no aircon.

And it’s like a place for the natural air to come in. Like the last place I stayed at for about six months, there was no aircon. It was almost like anything could probably come into the place, although it didn’t what it was opening, that was to get fresh air. The kitchen was outside, the bathroom was inside outside.

It was in the middle of a rice field. So I really like to be outside. Was that in Bali? Yeah, that was in Bali.

So we’re going to end here for now. If you’d like to hear more of the interview, then I will be releasing a part two later on today. If you want to continue to listen to our amazing conversation. Thank you so much for joining us today. And if you enjoyed this episode and you’re listening on Spotify,

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