Our Story Part 5: KYN
At the end of September, 2020, Laura and I returned home. It was surreal to return to normal life, business as usual, after 2 years of caring for our mom. Everything had changed for us.
Our beloved cafe and studio had managed through the summer and a pandemic without us–just barely. Our yoga classes were still mostly online and the cafe opened only one day per week, Saturdays.
As much as people loved our classes, our spaces and our food, we couldn’t make the numbers work amidst a pandemic. We needed full yoga classes and we needed a buzzing cafe. But the world had changed so much. If we were going to continue, we needed help figuring out how.
It must have been divine timing when Aimee and John came through our doors. As we poured them each a coffee, we shared our concerns and our vision for our personal and professional lives. After listening to us, Aimee smiled and said, “I think I can help you.”
Within a few weeks we were sitting down to meetings with Aimee. She helped us hone in on exactly what we wanted. The meetings were creative, focused, inspiring and very productive. Aimee brought her experience, her business sense and her creative marketing skills to the table and we brought our ideas, our dreams, our stories and our knowledge. Together, we created KYN.
“Retreat” was the perfect name for the businesses and the spaces we created in Turks and Caicos, and changing our brand was a true lesson in letting go. We were creating something with a wider lens, a brand that wasn’t just a place.
KYN represents the relationship between Laura and I as sisters. It means ‘family’ and speaks to the community we want to build. KYN is also an acronym for Know Your Nature, inviting you to be your own teacher, calling you to listen to yourself. The more we can learn about ourselves, the better we can care for ourselves. We want to guide you back to yourself in every movement class, in every discussion about nutrition, in each guided meditation, through breath-work and all the modalities we teach.
KYN is based in our island home, Turks and Caicos. We offer private yoga classes, retreats and Wellness Immersions to those residing and visiting here. At the inception of KYN we launched an online platform, KYN On-demand - a space for us to share movement, mindfulness, and nutrition classes that expands beyond the shores of these small islands. We want to share our message and our philosophy with the world, and with over 50 hours of content and a growing membership, we can see the KYN community taking shape. We also share free classes on Youtube and meditations, interviews and discovery sessions on our Podcast. We share in a way that continues to direct you toward your own authentic self. True holistic health and well-being isn’t dictated by the latest wellness trends, but is deeply in tune with your own unique and individual path.
It’s been just over a year since we founded KYN. We have grown and learned so much, as we always seem to with each new endeavor together. In the beginning, navigating the tech involved in creating and sharing content through an online platform, seemed so daunting to us. As we look back we can see just how far we have come. It’s truly quite something to start with an idea and watch it come to life. We have done this before, with our studio and cafe, but with KYN, the road is wide and the possibilities are vast. We can see how the evolution of our lives, personally and professionally, have paved this path forward in a truly authentic way.