#it is so tempting to get a hotel room or an Airbnb or something short term
Text
I feel like crying
#I am trying my best to be nice#bc my grandparents are letting me live with them#and they’re not charging me rent or anything#but they are also driving me crazy and it hasn’t even been a week#and I know it’s not easy for them either#it is so tempting to get a hotel room or an Airbnb or something short term#because I hate it here#and I can’t focus#and I can’t relax#because I don’t have a safe area that is off limits and just for me#like at night my grandfather apparently only wears underwear and they aren’t briefs#and the ac is at 75 so I’m constantly sweaty#my grandma has tried to give my cat bread#and I just I don’t have any space#like I work retail I have to act nice for four to eight hours multiple times a week#and then I come back from that to here#and it’s like a subtype of customer service where I have to be nice#I just don’t know what to do
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Zeus raises $24M to make you a living-as-a-service landlord
Cookie-cutter corporate housing turns people into worker drones. When an employee needs to move to a new city for a few months, they’re either stuck in bland, giant apartment complexes or Airbnbs meant for shorter stays. But Zeus lets any homeowner get paid to host white-collar transient labor. Through its managed ownership model, Zeus takes on all the furnishing, upkeep, and risk of filling the home while its landlords sit back earning cash.
Zeus has quietly risen to a $45 million revenue run rate from renting out 900 homes in 23 cities. That’s up 5X in a year thanks to Zeus’ 150 employees. With a 90 percent occupancy rate, it’s proven employers and their talent want more unique, trustworthy, well-equipped multi-month residences that actually make them feel at home.
Now while Airbnb is distracted with its upcoming IPO, Zeus has raised $24 million to steal the corporate housing market. That includes a previous $2.5 million seed round from Bowery, the new $11.5 million Series A led by Initialized Capital whose partner Garry Tan has joined Zeus’ board, and $10 million in debt to pay fixed costs like furniture. The plan is to roll up more homes, build better landlord portal software, and hammer out partnerships or in-house divisions for cleaning and furnishing.
“In the first decade out of school people used to have two jobs. Now it’s four jobs and it’s trending to five” says Zeus co-founder and CEO Kulveer Taggar. “We think in 10 years, these people won’t be buying furniture.” He imagines they’ll pay a premium for hand-holding in housing, which judging by the explosion in popularity of zero-friction on-demand services, seems like an accurate assessment of our lazy future. Meanwhile, Zeus aims to be “the quantum leap improvement in the experience of trying to rent out your home” where you just punch in your address plus some details and you’re cashing checks 10 days later.
Buying Mom A House Was Step 1
“When I sold my first startup, I bought a home for my mom in Vancouver” Taggar recalls. It was payback for when she let him remortgage her old house while he was in college to buy a condo in Mumbai he’d rent out to earn money. “Despite not having much growing up, my mom was a travel agent and we got to travel a lot” which Taggar says inspired his goal to live nomadically in homes around the world. Zeus could let other live that dream.
Zeus co-founder and CEO Kulveer Taggar
After Oxford and working as an analyst at Deutsche Bank, Taggar built student marketplace Boso before moving to the United States. There, he co-founded auction tool Auctomatic with his cousin Harjeet Taggar and future Stripe co-founder Patrick Collison, went through Y Combinator, and sold it to Live Current Media for $5 million just 10 months later. That gave him the runway to gift a home to his mom and start tinkering on new ideas.
With Y Combinator’s backing again, Taggar started NFC-triggered task launcher Tagstand, which pivoted into app settings configurer Agent, which pivoted into automatic location sharing app Status. But when his co-founder Joe Wong had to move an hour south from San Francisco to Palo Alto, Taggar was dumbfounded by how distracting the process was. Listing and securing a new tenant was difficult, as was finding a medium-term rental without having to deal with exhorbitant prices or sketchy Cragislist. Having seen his former co-founder go on to great success with Stripe’s dead-simple payments integration, Taggar wanted to combine that vision with OpenDoor’s easy home sales to making renting or renting out a place instantaneous. That spawned Zeus.
Stripe Meets OpenDoor To Beat Airbnb
To become a Zeus landlord, you just type in your address, how many bedrooms and bathrooms, and some aesthetic specs, and you get a monthly price quote for what you’ll be paid. Zeus comes in and does a 250-point quality assessment, collects floor plans, furnishes the property, and handles cleaning and maintenance. It works with partners like Helix mattresses, Parachute sheets, and Simple Human trash cans to get bulk rates. “We raised debt because we had these fixed investments into furniture. It’s not as dilutive as selling pure equity” Taggar explains.
Zeus quickly finds a tenant thanks to listings in Airbnb and relationships with employers like Darktrace and ZS Associates with lots of employees moving around. After passing background checks, tenants get digital lock codes and access to 24/7 support in case something doesn’t look right. The goal is to get someone sleeping there in just 10 days. “Traditional corporate housing is $10,000 a month in SF in the summer or at extended stay hotels. Airbnb isn’t well suited [for multi-month stays]. ” Taggar claims. “We’re about half the price of traditional corporate housing for a better product and a better experience.”
Zeus signs minimum two-year leases with landlords and tries to extend them to five years when possible. It gets one free month of rent as is standard for property managers, but doesn’t charge an additional rate. For example, Zeus might lease your home for $4,000 per month but gets the first month free, and rent it out for $5,000 so it earns $60,000 but pays you $44,000. That’s a tidy margin if Zeus can get homes filled fast and hold down its upkeep costs.
“Zeus has been instrumental for my company to start the process of re-location to the Bay Area and to host our visiting employees from abroad now that we are settled” writes Zeus client Meitre’s Luis Caviglia. “I particularly like the ‘hard truths’ featured in every property, and the support we have received when issues arose during our stays.”
At Home, Anywhere
There’s no shortage of competitors chasing this $18 billion market in the US alone. There are the old-school corporations and chains like Oakwood and Barbary Coast that typically rent out apartments from vast, generic complexes at steep rates. Stays over 30 days made up 15 percent of Airbnb’s business last year, but the platform wasn’t designed for peace-of-mind around long-term stays. There are pure marketplaces like UrbanDoor that don’t always take care of everything for the landlord or provide consistent tenant experiences. And then there are direct competitors like $130 million-funded Sonder, $66 million-funded Domio, recently GV-backed 2nd Address, and European entants like MagicStay, AtHomeHotel, and Homelike.
Zeus’ property unit growth
There’s plenty of pie, though. With 330,000 housing units in SF alone, Zeus has plenty of room to grow. The rise of remote work means companies whose employee typically didn’t relocate may now need to bring in distant workers for a multi-month sprint. A recession could make companies more expense-cautious, leading them to rethink putting up staffers in hotels for months on end. Regulatory red tape and taxes could scare landlords away from short-term rentals and towards coprorate housing. And the need to expand into new businesses could tempt the big vacation rental platforms like Airbnb to make acquisitions in the space — or try to crush Zeus.
Winners will be determined in part by who has the widest and cheapest selection of properties, but also by which makes people most comfortable in a new city. That’s why Taggar is taking a cue from WeWork by trying to arrange more community events for its tenants. Often in need of friends, Zeus could become a favorite by helping people feel part of a neighborhood rather than a faceless inmate in a massive apartment block or hotel. That gives Zeus network effect if it can develop density in top markets.
Taggar says the biggest challenge is that “I feels like I’m running five startups at once. Pricing, supply chain, customer service, B2B. We’ve decided to make everything custom — our own property manager software, our own internal CRM. We think these advantages compound, but I could be wrong and they could be wasted effort.”
The benefits of Zeus‘ success would go beyond the founder’s bank account. “I’ve had friends in New York get great opportuntiies in San Francisco but not take them because of the friction of moving” Taggar says. Routing talent where it belongs could get more things built. And easy housing might make people more apt to live abroad temporarily. Taggar concludes, “I think it’s a great way to build empathy.”
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Zeus raises $24M to make you a living-as-a-service landlord
New Post has been published on https://www.readersforum.tk/zeus-raises-24m-to-make-you-a-living-as-a-service-landlord/
Zeus raises $24M to make you a living-as-a-service landlord
Cookie-cutter corporate housing turns people into worker drones. When an employee needs to move to a new city for a few months, they’re either stuck in bland, giant apartment complexes or Airbnbs meant for shorter stays. But Zeus lets any homeowner get paid to host white-collar transient labor. Through its managed ownership model, Zeus takes on all the furnishing, upkeep, and risk of filling the home while its landlords sit back earning cash.
Zeus has quietly risen to a $45 million revenue run rate from renting out 900 homes in 23 cities. That’s up 5X in a year thanks to Zeus’ 150 employees. With a 90 percent occupancy rate, it’s proven employers and their talent want more unique, trustworthy, well-equipped multi-month residences that actually make them feel at home.
Now while Airbnb is distracted with its upcoming IPO, Zeus has raised $24 million to steal the corporate housing market. That includes a previous $2.5 million seed round from Bowery, the new $11.5 million Series A led by Initialized Capital whose partner Garry Tan has joined Zeus’ board, and $10 million in debt to pay fixed costs like furniture. The plan is to roll up more homes, build better landlord portal software, and hammer out partnerships or in-house divisions for cleaning and furnishing.
“In the first decade out of school people used to have two jobs. Now it’s four jobs and it’s trending to five” says Zeus co-founder and CEO Kulveer Taggar. “We think in 10 years, these people won’t be buying furniture.” He imagines they’ll pay a premium for hand-holding in housing, which judging by the explosion in popularity of zero-friction on-demand services, seems like an accurate assessment of our lazy future. Meanwhile, Zeus aims to be “the quantum leap improvement in the experience of trying to rent out your home” where you just punch in your address plus some details and you’re cashing checks 10 days later.
Buying Mom A House Was Step 1
“When I sold my first startup, I bought a home for my mom in Vancouver” Taggar recalls. It was payback for when she let him remortgage her old house while he was in college to buy a condo in Mumbai he’d rent out to earn money. “Despite not having much growing up, my mom was a travel agent and we got to travel a lot” which Taggar says inspired his goal to live nomadically in homes around the world. Zeus could let other live that dream.
Zeus co-founder and CEO Kulveer Taggar
After Oxford and working as an analyst at Deutsche Bank, Taggar built student marketplace Boso before moving to the United States. There, he co-founded auction tool Auctomatic with his cousin Harjeet Taggar and future Stripe co-founder Patrick Collison, went through Y Combinator, and sold it to Live Current Media for $5 million just 10 months later. That gave him the runway to gift a home to his mom and start tinkering on new ideas.
With Y Combinator’s backing again, Taggar started NFC-triggered task launcher Tagstand, which pivoted into app settings configurer Agent, which pivoted into automatic location sharing app Status. But when his co-founder Joe Wong had to move an hour south from San Francisco to Palo Alto, Taggar was dumbfounded by how distracting the process was. Listing and securing a new tenant was difficult, as was finding a medium-term rental without having to deal with exhorbitant prices or sketchy Cragislist. Having seen his former co-founder go on to great success with Stripe’s dead-simple payments integration, Taggar wanted to combine that vision with OpenDoor’s easy home sales to making renting or renting out a place instantaneous. That spawned Zeus.
Stripe Meets OpenDoor To Beat Airbnb
To become a Zeus landlord, you just type in your address, how many bedrooms and bathrooms, and some aesthetic specs, and you get a monthly price quote for what you’ll be paid. Zeus comes in and does a 250-point quality assessment, collects floor plans, furnishes the property, and handles cleaning and maintenance. It works with partners like Helix mattresses, Parachute sheets, and Simple Human trash cans to get bulk rates. “We raised debt because we had these fixed investments into furniture. It’s not as dilutive as selling pure equity” Taggar explains.
Zeus quickly finds a tenant thanks to listings in Airbnb and relationships with employers like Darktrace and ZS Associates with lots of employees moving around. After passing background checks, tenants get digital lock codes and access to 24/7 support in case something doesn’t look right. The goal is to get someone sleeping there in just 10 days. “Traditional corporate housing is $10,000 a month in SF in the summer or at extended stay hotels. Airbnb isn’t well suited [for multi-month stays]. ” Taggar claims. “We’re about half the price of traditional corporate housing for a better product and a better experience.”
Zeus signs minimum two-year leases with landlords and tries to extend them to five years when possible. It gets one free month of rent as is standard for property managers, but doesn’t charge an additional rate. For example, Zeus might lease your home for $4,000 per month but gets the first month free, and rent it out for $5,000 so it earns $60,000 but pays you $44,000. That’s a tidy margin if Zeus can get homes filled fast and hold down its upkeep costs.
“Zeus has been instrumental for my company to start the process of re-location to the Bay Area and to host our visiting employees from abroad now that we are settled” writes Zeus client Meitre’s Luis Caviglia. “I particularly like the ‘hard truths’ featured in every property, and the support we have received when issues arose during our stays.”
At Home, Anywhere
There’s no shortage of competitors chasing this $18 billion market in the US alone. There are the old-school corporations and chains like Oakwood and Barbary Coast that typically rent out apartments from vast, generic complexes at steep rates. Stays over 30 days made up 15 percent of Airbnb’s business last year, but the platform wasn’t designed for peace-of-mind around long-term stays. There are pure marketplaces like UrbanDoor that don’t always take care of everything for the landlord or provide consistent tenant experiences. And then there are direct competitors like $130 million-funded Sonder, $66 million-funded Domio, recently GV-backed 2nd Address, and European entants like MagicStay, AtHomeHotel, and Homelike.
Zeus’ property unit growth
There’s plenty of pie, though. With 330,000 housing units in SF alone, Zeus has plenty of room to grow. The rise of remote work means companies whose employee typically didn’t relocate may now need to bring in distant workers for a multi-month sprint. A recession could make companies more expense-cautious, leading them to rethink putting up staffers in hotels for months on end. Regulatory red tape and taxes could scare landlords away from short-term rentals and towards coprorate housing. And the need to expand into new businesses could tempt the big vacation rental platforms like Airbnb to make acquisitions in the space — or try to crush Zeus.
Winners will be determined in part by who has the widest and cheapest selection of properties, but also by which makes people most comfortable in a new city. That’s why Taggar is taking a cue from WeWork by trying to arrange more community events for its tenants. Often in need of friends, Zeus could become a favorite by helping people feel part of a neighborhood rather than a faceless inmate in a massive apartment block or hotel. That gives Zeus network effect if it can develop density in top markets.
Taggar says the biggest challenge is that “I feels like I’m running five startups at once. Pricing, supply chain, customer service, B2B. We’ve decided to make everything custom — our own property manager software, our own internal CRM. We think these advantages compound, but I could be wrong and they could be wasted effort.”
The benefits of Zeus‘ success would go beyond the founder’s bank account. “I’ve had friends in New York get great opportuntiies in San Francisco but not take them because of the friction of moving” Taggar says. Routing talent where it belongs could get more things built. And easy housing might make people more apt to live abroad temporarily. Taggar concludes, “I think it’s a great way to build empathy.”
0 notes
Text
Zeus raises $24M to make you a living-as-a-service landlord
Cookie-cutter corporate housing turns people into worker drones. When an employee needs to move to a new city for a few months, they’re either stuck in bland, giant apartment complexes or Airbnbs meant for shorter stays. But Zeus lets any homeowner get paid to host white-collar transient labor. Through its managed ownership model, Zeus takes on all the furnishing, upkeep, and risk of filling the home while its landlords sit back earning cash.
Zeus has quietly risen to a $45 million revenue run rate from renting out 900 homes in 23 cities. That’s up 5X in a year thanks to Zeus’ 150 employees. With a 90 percent occupancy rate, it’s proven employers and their talent want more unique, trustworthy, well-equipped multi-month residences that actually make them feel at home.
Now while Airbnb is distracted with its upcoming IPO, Zeus has raised $24 million to steal the corporate housing market. That includes a previous $2.5 million seed round from Bowery, the new $11.5 million Series A led by Initialized Capital whose partner Garry Tan has joined Zeus’ board, and $10 million in debt to pay fixed costs like furniture. The plan is to roll up more homes, build better landlord portal software, and hammer out partnerships or in-house divisions for cleaning and furnishing.
“In the first decade out of school people used to have two jobs. Now it’s four jobs and it’s trending to five” says Zeus co-founder and CEO Kulveer Taggar. “We think in 10 years, these people won’t be buying furniture.” He imagines they’ll pay a premium for hand-holding in housing, which judging by the explosion in popularity of zero-friction on-demand services, seems like an accurate assessment of our lazy future. Meanwhile, Zeus aims to be “the quantum leap improvement in the experience of trying to rent out your home” where you just punch in your address plus some details and you’re cashing checks 10 days later.
Buying Mom A House Was Step 1
“When I sold my first startup, I bought a home for my mom in Vancouver” Taggar recalls. It was payback for when she let him remortgage her old house while he was in college to buy a condo in Mumbai he’d rent out to earn money. “Despite not having much growing up, my mom was a travel agent and we got to travel a lot” which Taggar says inspired his goal to live nomadically in homes around the world. Zeus could let other live that dream.
Zeus co-founder and CEO Kulveer Taggar
After Oxford and working as an analyst at Deutsche Bank, Taggar built student marketplace Boso before moving to the United States. There, he co-founded auction tool Auctomatic with his cousin Harjeet Taggar and future Stripe co-founder Patrick Collison, went through Y Combinator, and sold it to Live Current Media for $5 million just 10 months later. That gave him the runway to gift a home to his mom and start tinkering on new ideas.
With Y Combinator’s backing again, Taggar started NFC-triggered task launcher Tagstand, which pivoted into app settings configurer Agent, which pivoted into automatic location sharing app Status. But when his co-founder Joe Wong had to move an hour south from San Francisco to Palo Alto, Taggar was dumbfounded by how distracting the process was. Listing and securing a new tenant was difficult, as was finding a medium-term rental without having to deal with exhorbitant prices or sketchy Cragislist. Having seen his former co-founder go on to great success with Stripe’s dead-simple payments integration, Taggar wanted to combine that vision with OpenDoor’s easy home sales to making renting or renting out a place instantaneous. That spawned Zeus.
Stripe Meets OpenDoor To Beat Airbnb
To become a Zeus landlord, you just type in your address, how many bedrooms and bathrooms, and some aesthetic specs, and you get a monthly price quote for what you’ll be paid. Zeus comes in and does a 250-point quality assessment, collects floor plans, furnishes the property, and handles cleaning and maintenance. It works with partners like Helix mattresses, Parachute sheets, and Simple Human trash cans to get bulk rates. “We raised debt because we had these fixed investments into furniture. It’s not as dilutive as selling pure equity” Taggar explains.
Zeus quickly finds a tenant thanks to listings in Airbnb and relationships with employers like Darktrace and ZS Associates with lots of employees moving around. After passing background checks, tenants get digital lock codes and access to 24/7 support in case something doesn’t look right. The goal is to get someone sleeping there in just 10 days. “Traditional corporate housing is $10,000 a month in SF in the summer or at extended stay hotels. Airbnb isn’t well suited [for multi-month stays]. ” Taggar claims. “We’re about half the price of traditional corporate housing for a better product and a better experience.”
Zeus signs minimum two-year leases with landlords and tries to extend them to five years when possible. It gets one free month of rent as is standard for property managers, but doesn’t charge an additional rate. For example, Zeus might lease your home for $4,000 per month but gets the first month free, and rent it out for $5,000 so it earns $60,000 but pays you $44,000. That’s a tidy margin if Zeus can get homes filled fast and hold down its upkeep costs.
“Zeus has been instrumental for my company to start the process of re-location to the Bay Area and to host our visiting employees from abroad now that we are settled” writes Zeus client Meitre’s Luis Caviglia. “I particularly like the ‘hard truths’ featured in every property, and the support we have received when issues arose during our stays.”
At Home, Anywhere
There’s no shortage of competitors chasing this $18 billion market in the US alone. There are the old-school corporations and chains like Oakwood and Barbary Coast that typically rent out apartments from vast, generic complexes at steep rates. Stays over 30 days made up 15 percent of Airbnb’s business last year, but the platform wasn’t designed for peace-of-mind around long-term stays. There are pure marketplaces like UrbanDoor that don’t always take care of everything for the landlord or provide consistent tenant experiences. And then there are direct competitors like $130 million-funded Sonder, $66 million-funded Domio, recently GV-backed 2nd Address, and European entants like MagicStay, AtHomeHotel, and Homelike.
Zeus’ property unit growth
There’s plenty of pie, though. With 330,000 housing units in SF alone, Zeus has plenty of room to grow. The rise of remote work means companies whose employee typically didn’t relocate may now need to bring in distant workers for a multi-month sprint. A recession could make companies more expense-cautious, leading them to rethink putting up staffers in hotels for months on end. Regulatory red tape and taxes could scare landlords away from short-term rentals and towards coprorate housing. And the need to expand into new businesses could tempt the big vacation rental platforms like Airbnb to make acquisitions in the space — or try to crush Zeus.
Winners will be determined in part by who has the widest and cheapest selection of properties, but also by which makes people most comfortable in a new city. That’s why Taggar is taking a cue from WeWork by trying to arrange more community events for its tenants. Often in need of friends, Zeus could become a favorite by helping people feel part of a neighborhood rather than a faceless inmate in a massive apartment block or hotel. That gives Zeus network effect if it can develop density in top markets.
Taggar says the biggest challenge is that “I feels like I’m running five startups at once. Pricing, supply chain, customer service, B2B. We’ve decided to make everything custom — our own property manager software, our own internal CRM. We think these advantages compound, but I could be wrong and they could be wasted effort.”
The benefits of Zeus‘ success would go beyond the founder’s bank account. “I’ve had friends in New York get great opportuntiies in San Francisco but not take them because of the friction of moving” Taggar says. Routing talent where it belongs could get more things built. And easy housing might make people more apt to live abroad temporarily. Taggar concludes, “I think it’s a great way to build empathy.”
source https://techcrunch.com/2019/03/15/zeus-corporate-housing/
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Text
Zeus raises $24M to make you a living-as-a-service landlord
Cookie-cutter corporate housing turns people into worker drones. When an employee needs to move to a new city for a few months, they’re either stuck in bland, giant apartment complexes or Airbnbs meant for shorter stays. But Zeus lets any homeowner get paid to host white-collar transient labor. Through its managed ownership model, Zeus takes on all the furnishing, upkeep, and risk of filling the home while its landlords sit back earning cash.
Zeus has quietly risen to a $40 million revenue run rate from its target 30 percent margin on renting out 800 homes in 23 cities. That’s up 5X in a year thanks to Zeus’ 100 employees. With a 90 percent occupancy rate, it’s proven employers and their talent want more unique, trustworthy, well-equipped multi-month residences that actually make them feel at home.
Now while Airbnb is distracted with its upcoming IPO, Zeus has raised $24 million to steal the corporate housing market. That includes a previous $2.5 million seed round from Bowery, the new $11.5 million Series A led by Initialized Capital whose partner Garry Tan will join Zeus’ board, and $10 million in debt to pay fixed costs like furniture. The plan is to roll up more homes, build better landlord portal software, and hammer out partnerships or in-house divisions for cleaning and furnishing.
“In the first decade out of school people used to have two jobs. Now it’s four jobs and it’s trending to five” says Zeus co-founder and CEO Kulveer Taggar. “We think in 10 years, these people won’t be buying furniture.” He imagines they’ll pay a premium for hand-holding in housing, which judging by the explosion in popularity of zero-friction on-demand services, seems like an accurate assessment of our lazy future. Meanwhile, Zeus aims to be “the quantum leap improvement in the experience of trying to rent out your home” where you just punch in your address plus some details and you’re cashing checks 10 days later.
Buying Mom A House Was Step 1
“When I sold my first startup, a bought a home for my mom in Vancouver” Taggar recalls. It was payback for when she let him remortgage her old house while he was in college to buy a condo in Mumbai he’d rent out to earn money. “Despite not having much growing up, my mom was a travel agent and we got to travel a lot” which Taggar says inspired his goal to live nomadically in homes around the world. Zeus could let other live that dream.
Zeus co-founder and CEO Kulveer Taggar
After Oxford and working as an analyst at Deutsche Bank, Taggar built student marketplace Boso before moving to the United States. There, he co-founded auction tool Auctomatic with his cousin Harjeet Taggar and future Stripe co-founder Patrick Collison, went through Y Combinator, and sold it to Live Current Media for $5 million just 10 months later. That gave him the runway to gift a home to his mom and start tinkering on new ideas.
With Y Combinator’s backing again, Taggar started NFC-triggered task launcher Tagstand, which pivoted into app settings configurer Agent, which pivoted into automatic location sharing app Status. But when his co-founder Joe Wong had to move an hour south from San Francisco to Palo Alto, Taggar was dumbfounded by how distracting the process was. Listing and securing a new tenant was difficult, as was finding a medium-term rental without having to deal with exhorbitant prices or sketchy Cragislist. Having seen his former co-founder go on to great success with Stripe’s dead-simple payments integration, Taggar wanted to combine that vision with OpenDoor’s easy home sales to making renting or renting out a place instantaneous. That spawned Zeus.
Stripe Meets OpenDoor To Beat Airbnb
To become a Zeus landlord, you just type in your address, how many bedrooms and bathrooms, and some aesthetic specs, and you get a monthly price quote for what you’ll be paid. Zeus comes in and does a 250-point quality assessment, collects floor plans, furnishes the property, and handles cleaning and maintenance. It works with partners like Helix mattresses, Parachute sheets, and Simple Human trash cans to get bulk rates. “We raised debt because we had these fixed investments into furniture. It’s not as dilutive as selling pure equity” Taggar explains.
Zeus quickly finds a tenant thanks to listings in Airbnb and relationships with employers like Darktrace and ZS Associates with lots of employees moving around. After passing background checks, tenants get digital lock codes and access to 24/7 support in case something doesn’t look right. The goal is to get someone sleeping there in just 10 days. “Traditional corporate housing is $10,000 a month in SF in the summer or at extended stay hotels. Airbnb isn’t well suited [for multi-month stays]. ” Taggar claims. “We’re about half the price of traditional corporate housing for a better product and a better experience.”
Zeus signs minimum two-year leases with landlords and tries to extend them to five years when possible. It gets one free month of rent as is standard for property managers, but doesn’t charge an additional rate. For example, Zeus might lease your home for $4,000 per month but gets the first month free, and rent it out for $5,000 so it earns $60,000 but pays you $44,000. That’s a tidy margin if Zeus can get homes filled fast and hold down its upkeep costs.
At Home, Anywhere
There’s no shortage of competitors chasing this $18 billion market in the US alone. There are the old-school corporations and chains like Oakwood and Barbary Coast that typically rent out apartments from vast, generic complexes at steep rates. Airbnb For Work made up 15 percent of the unicorn’s business last year, but the platform wasn’t designed for peace-of-mind around long-term stays. There are pure marketplaces like UrbanDoor that don’t always take care of everything for the landlord or provide consistent tenant experiences. And then there are direct competitors like $130 million-funded Sonder, $66 million-funded Domio, recently GV-backed 2nd Address, and European entants like MagicStay, AtHomeHotel, and Homelike.
There’s plenty of pie, though. With 330,000 housing units in SF alone, Zeus has plenty of room to grow. The rise of remote work means companies whose employee typically didn’t relocate may now need to bring in distant workers for a multi-month sprint. A recession could make companies more expense-cautious, leading them to rethink putting up staffers in hotels for months on end. Regulatory red tape and taxes could scare landlords away from short-term rentals and towards coprorate housing. And the need to expand into new businesses could tempt the big vacation rental platforms like Airbnb to make acquisitions in the space — or try to crush Zeus
Winners will be determined in part by who has the widest and cheapest selection of properties, but also by which makes people most comfortable in a new city. That’s why Taggar is taking a cue from WeWork by trying to arrange more community events for its tenants. Often in need of friends, Zeus could become a favorite by helping people feel part of a neighborhood rather than a faceless inmate in a massive apartment block or hotel. That gives Zeus network effect if it can develop density in top markets.
Taggar says the biggest challenge is that “I feels like I’m running five startups at once. Pricing, supply chain, customer service, B2B. We’ve decided to make everything custom — our own property manager software, our own internal CRM. We think these advantages compound, but I could be wrong and they could be wasted effort.”
The benefits of Zeus‘ success would go beyond the founder’s bank account. “I’ve had friends in New York get great opportuntiies in San Francisco but not take them because of the friction of moving” Taggar says. Routing talent where it belongs could get more things built. And easy housing might make people more apt to live abroad temporarily. Taggar concludes, “I think it’s a great way to build empathy.”
Via Josh Constine https://techcrunch.com
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5 Ways to Use Your Yoga Practice to Help You Deal With Trauma
Learn more: http://goldenpinesrvresort.com
These five yoga tools and tips will help you retain a balanced mind and process your emotions after a traumatic event.
I travel nearly every weekend and I'm often staying in new places. Sometimes I stay in hotels, but sometimes I stay in private apartments and airbnbs. Last weekend I was staying in an airbnb and, when I was just finishing my evening meditation, I heard a rattling at the door. Whereas normally I would have screamed, my mind was tuned into the meditative state.
Much to my shock, I calmly got up, put on some clothes and walked to the door. Standing in the doorway was a large man who had let himself in with a key to the apartment. Confused to see me there, he informed me that he had booked a stay in the apartment and was given a key. I actually didn't have any answers since my host booked the accommodation for me. We decided to call the airbnb host. As they engaged in conversation, possible scenarios of searching for a hotel room or calling for help in case anything fishy went on flashed through my mind.
See also Let It All Go: 7 Poses to Release Trauma in the Body
Luckily, the airbnb host confirmed my reservation and expressed deep concern that this man had a key and was standing in the doorway asking to come in. The host asked him to give the key to me and leave, and luckily, he did without too much protesting.
Here are mindful ways to work through a traumatic event.
Working Through a Traumatic Event
I stood there alone, in an apartment that wasn't my own, in a city that I didn't know. I didn't realize it at the time, but the incident delivered a shock to my nervous system. After he left I drank some water, read a few lines in a book, sent a few emails, and scrolled through Instagram on my phone.
As I closed my eyes to sleep that night, I was rattled awake by the sound of doors or each time the air-conditioning kicked in. I woke up the next morning without the feeling of restfulness that sleep usually delivers for me.
I went through my morning sadhana of meditation and yoga but I still arrived at the venue to teach my class feeling a bit disturbed. I decided to meditate again during the break between my events. It was only then, close to 24 hours after the event, that I registered the trauma response. My body was shaking and my breathing was short and shallow. I felt like I could hardly breathe. Even when I tried to still my body, my hands would shake. I decided to sit in meditation again for another twenty minutes. I finally tuned into the reality of my nervous system: My body shook, my breath accelerated, and then I cried.
I observed the experience in my body without reacting to it. My body stopped shaking and my breath deepened after the last tears flowed down my cheeks. I felt lighter and more free, like the experience has lifted. That night I slept soundly and deeply. In hindsight, the first thing I should have done after the incident was to meditate. But in the midst of trauma, the most common responses are fight, flight, or freeze.
See also How to Work with Yoga Students Who've Experienced Trauma
How to Use Yoga to Work Through Trauma
There are so many layers to this experience that I want to unpack for you as a lesson for your yoga practice.
I credit the meditative mind for giving me the poise not to react immediately when the stranger walked into my airbnb. Without a cultivated attitude of observation and equanimity, I would have operated entirely from a fear response.
I startle easily and I always have. I'm a childhood trauma survivor, so that might have something to do with it. I surprised myself with how calm I was in the moment. But, that doesn't mean that I wasn't deeply impacted by the experience. The whole experience reminded me of the deer-in-head-lights response to danger. I initially froze my own emotional response. But then, having survived, I started to shake in the aftermath until I finally released everything in tears.
It took a good deal of time for me to register that my body and mind was impacted by the experience of a stranger walking in on me. It wasn't until I sat with all the arising sensations that I was able to be free of it. In the space between the incident and the meditation where I cried and released whatever pent up energy was in my body, I had a host of interactions that were less than ideal. I sent emails with unskillful communication and I taught a less-than-ideal class. In other words, I wasn't myself.
It makes reasonable sense that my feeling of safety was challenged after a stranger walked in uninvited. The process of healing and returning the mind to a state of love and trust is a more meandering and personal journey. I am so grateful that I had the tools of yoga and meditation to help me move through my triggers around this experience.
But, it got me thinking: How many of us take the time to process large and small traumatic incidents? It seems more likely that we put up a facade of strength and pretend to be OK when we are not. Or, worse yet, we begin to take action from a place of trauma-before the trauma has been processed within ourselves.
On an average day, there are so many things that could illicit a trauma response. Micro-aggressions expressed in casual racist or sexist comments, mean-spirited sarcasm from friends or family, or the negative self-talk that perpetuates cycles of abuse are some that come to mind.
See also What All Yoga Teachers Need to Know About Teaching Trauma Survivors
I now have tools to guide me through the inner work of my own process as a yogi. But I didn't always have those tools. When I was a little girl and I experienced sexual assault, I didn't have the tools to process what happened. It look me years to realize the extent of the damage done, and the violations that were perpetrated against me.
It's more often the case that we are ill-equipped to handle and process the hurt that we experience. It's less the case that we find the support needed to heal. That is, unless we engage in a devoted spiritual practice and have access to therapists and other healers that can help lead the way.
If you're sensitive like I am, you will probably register varying degrees of trauma every single day of your life. There are tools that will help you retain a balanced mind and process your emotions. Whether it's a cruel word spoken by an anonymous stranger on the internet or a careless comment by your partner, the tools outlined below will give you relief from what can sometimes be a stressful, traumatizing world.
See also 5 Ways to Create a Safe Yoga Space for Trauma Survivors
Try these 5 practices to help you calmly respond to trauma.
5 Yogic Ways to Respond to Trauma
1. Breathe
Keep the root of your attention grounded on your breath throughout the day. Notice when your breathing accelerates, tightens, or drastically changes. As soon as you notice a shift has happened, pause whatever you're doing and focus on your breath. If possible, come to a comfortable seated position and close your eyes. Count to 10 as you breathe in through your nose and count to ten as you breathe out through your nose. Repeat 10 times.
2. Feel all the Feels
The trauma response of fight, flight, or freeze is a response of disembodiment. There is an uncomfortable feeling in the body and instead of sitting with it, the habituated response is to either fight the world, run from the source of pain, or freeze and numb out. Choosing to feel everything is a courageous and brave choice.
So, get quiet and inquisitive. Turn on your creative mind and be receptive to the sensations of your body. Do not judge what you feel. If possible, come to a comfortable seated position and close your eyes. If you can't do that, do a body scan. Start at the top of your head, sweep down towards your toes, and then come back up again. Register all the sensations but refrain from assigning value or judgements to them.
For example, if you notice that your hand is shaking, simply observe that your hand is shaking. If you notice there is a pressure around your shoulders, simply observe that. Do not try and figure out why the sensation is there or make it go away. Just observe. Keep your mind engaged with scanning your body for at least 5 minutes, going up to 20 minutes if you can.
See also Yoga for First Responders: 5 Strategies for Stress + Trauma
3. Pause
Even if you aren't immediately aware of a trauma response to a difficult situation, give yourself at least a few hours to decompress before you take any action or make any big decisions. It's very common to displace anger or fear onto the people closest to you, or to make a bad decision in the period of time after a traumatic event. Pressing pause and practicing patience can be an extremely useful tool in maintaining balance through difficult times.
4. Practice
Sometimes in the midst of traumatic experiences it can be tempting to stay away from your yoga mat. This is exactly the time when you need practice the most. The yoga poses encourage a sense of embodied presence and help you reconnect to all the feelings and sensations in your body. This is exactly what is needed to heal and process trauma. Remember that just 5 minutes of yoga each day counts as consistent practice.
See also 5 Trauma-Sensitive Tips for Speaking to Your Yoga Students
5. Forgiveness
After the incident has passed, you will probably need to work through your grievances and judgements about it. In order to be really honest with yourself, try journaling and allowing yourself to rant uncensored about the experience. You may find that you judge yourself for not responding in the way that you would have liked. You may find that you hold a grudge against the perpetrator and have a hard time letting it go.
Once you get honest about your judgements and grievances, you can forgive yourself, everyone, and everything else, too. Even if you find it hard to say, try writing out this sentence: “Even though I didn't respond as I would have liked and I caused pain, I forgive myself. Even though I feel violated by this person, I chose to forgive them. They are also wounded, imperfect beings, and I forgive them.”
About the Author
Kino MacGregor is a Miami native and the founder of Omstars, the world's first yoga TV network. (For a free month, click here. With over 1 million followers on Instagram and over 500,000 subscribers on YouTube and Facebook, Kino's message of spiritual strength reaches people all over the world. Sought after as an expert in yoga worldwide, Kino is an international yoga teacher, inspirational speaker, author of four books, producer of six Ashtanga Yoga DVDs, writer, vlogger, world traveler, and co-founder of Miami Life Center. Learn more at www.kinoyoga.com.
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5 Ways to Use Your Yoga Practice to Help You Deal With Trauma
Learn more: http://goldenpinesrvresort.com
These five yoga tools and tips will help you retain a balanced mind and process your emotions after a traumatic event.
I travel nearly every weekend and I'm often staying in new places. Sometimes I stay in hotels, but sometimes I stay in private apartments and airbnbs. Last weekend I was staying in an airbnb and, when I was just finishing my evening meditation, I heard a rattling at the door. Whereas normally I would have screamed, my mind was tuned into the meditative state.
Much to my shock, I calmly got up, put on some clothes and walked to the door. Standing in the doorway was a large man who had let himself in with a key to the apartment. Confused to see me there, he informed me that he had booked a stay in the apartment and was given a key. I actually didn't have any answers since my host booked the accommodation for me. We decided to call the airbnb host. As they engaged in conversation, possible scenarios of searching for a hotel room or calling for help in case anything fishy went on flashed through my mind.
See also Let It All Go: 7 Poses to Release Trauma in the Body
Luckily, the airbnb host confirmed my reservation and expressed deep concern that this man had a key and was standing in the doorway asking to come in. The host asked him to give the key to me and leave, and luckily, he did without too much protesting.
Here are mindful ways to work through a traumatic event.
Working Through a Traumatic Event
I stood there alone, in an apartment that wasn't my own, in a city that I didn't know. I didn't realize it at the time, but the incident delivered a shock to my nervous system. After he left I drank some water, read a few lines in a book, sent a few emails, and scrolled through Instagram on my phone.
As I closed my eyes to sleep that night, I was rattled awake by the sound of doors or each time the air-conditioning kicked in. I woke up the next morning without the feeling of restfulness that sleep usually delivers for me.
I went through my morning sadhana of meditation and yoga but I still arrived at the venue to teach my class feeling a bit disturbed. I decided to meditate again during the break between my events. It was only then, close to 24 hours after the event, that I registered the trauma response. My body was shaking and my breathing was short and shallow. I felt like I could hardly breathe. Even when I tried to still my body, my hands would shake. I decided to sit in meditation again for another twenty minutes. I finally tuned into the reality of my nervous system: My body shook, my breath accelerated, and then I cried.
I observed the experience in my body without reacting to it. My body stopped shaking and my breath deepened after the last tears flowed down my cheeks. I felt lighter and more free, like the experience has lifted. That night I slept soundly and deeply. In hindsight, the first thing I should have done after the incident was to meditate. But in the midst of trauma, the most common responses are fight, flight, or freeze.
See also How to Work with Yoga Students Who've Experienced Trauma
How to Use Yoga to Work Through Trauma
There are so many layers to this experience that I want to unpack for you as a lesson for your yoga practice.
I credit the meditative mind for giving me the poise not to react immediately when the stranger walked into my airbnb. Without a cultivated attitude of observation and equanimity, I would have operated entirely from a fear response.
I startle easily and I always have. I'm a childhood trauma survivor, so that might have something to do with it. I surprised myself with how calm I was in the moment. But, that doesn't mean that I wasn't deeply impacted by the experience. The whole experience reminded me of the deer-in-head-lights response to danger. I initially froze my own emotional response. But then, having survived, I started to shake in the aftermath until I finally released everything in tears.
It took a good deal of time for me to register that my body and mind was impacted by the experience of a stranger walking in on me. It wasn't until I sat with all the arising sensations that I was able to be free of it. In the space between the incident and the meditation where I cried and released whatever pent up energy was in my body, I had a host of interactions that were less than ideal. I sent emails with unskillful communication and I taught a less-than-ideal class. In other words, I wasn't myself.
It makes reasonable sense that my feeling of safety was challenged after a stranger walked in uninvited. The process of healing and returning the mind to a state of love and trust is a more meandering and personal journey. I am so grateful that I had the tools of yoga and meditation to help me move through my triggers around this experience.
But, it got me thinking: How many of us take the time to process large and small traumatic incidents? It seems more likely that we put up a facade of strength and pretend to be OK when we are not. Or, worse yet, we begin to take action from a place of trauma-before the trauma has been processed within ourselves.
On an average day, there are so many things that could illicit a trauma response. Micro-aggressions expressed in casual racist or sexist comments, mean-spirited sarcasm from friends or family, or the negative self-talk that perpetuates cycles of abuse are some that come to mind.
See also What All Yoga Teachers Need to Know About Teaching Trauma Survivors
I now have tools to guide me through the inner work of my own process as a yogi. But I didn't always have those tools. When I was a little girl and I experienced sexual assault, I didn't have the tools to process what happened. It look me years to realize the extent of the damage done, and the violations that were perpetrated against me.
It's more often the case that we are ill-equipped to handle and process the hurt that we experience. It's less the case that we find the support needed to heal. That is, unless we engage in a devoted spiritual practice and have access to therapists and other healers that can help lead the way.
If you're sensitive like I am, you will probably register varying degrees of trauma every single day of your life. There are tools that will help you retain a balanced mind and process your emotions. Whether it's a cruel word spoken by an anonymous stranger on the internet or a careless comment by your partner, the tools outlined below will give you relief from what can sometimes be a stressful, traumatizing world.
See also 5 Ways to Create a Safe Yoga Space for Trauma Survivors
Try these 5 practices to help you calmly respond to trauma.
5 Yogic Ways to Respond to Trauma
1. Breathe
Keep the root of your attention grounded on your breath throughout the day. Notice when your breathing accelerates, tightens, or drastically changes. As soon as you notice a shift has happened, pause whatever you're doing and focus on your breath. If possible, come to a comfortable seated position and close your eyes. Count to 10 as you breathe in through your nose and count to ten as you breathe out through your nose. Repeat 10 times.
2. Feel all the Feels
The trauma response of fight, flight, or freeze is a response of disembodiment. There is an uncomfortable feeling in the body and instead of sitting with it, the habituated response is to either fight the world, run from the source of pain, or freeze and numb out. Choosing to feel everything is a courageous and brave choice.
So, get quiet and inquisitive. Turn on your creative mind and be receptive to the sensations of your body. Do not judge what you feel. If possible, come to a comfortable seated position and close your eyes. If you can't do that, do a body scan. Start at the top of your head, sweep down towards your toes, and then come back up again. Register all the sensations but refrain from assigning value or judgements to them.
For example, if you notice that your hand is shaking, simply observe that your hand is shaking. If you notice there is a pressure around your shoulders, simply observe that. Do not try and figure out why the sensation is there or make it go away. Just observe. Keep your mind engaged with scanning your body for at least 5 minutes, going up to 20 minutes if you can.
See also Yoga for First Responders: 5 Strategies for Stress + Trauma
3. Pause
Even if you aren't immediately aware of a trauma response to a difficult situation, give yourself at least a few hours to decompress before you take any action or make any big decisions. It's very common to displace anger or fear onto the people closest to you, or to make a bad decision in the period of time after a traumatic event. Pressing pause and practicing patience can be an extremely useful tool in maintaining balance through difficult times.
4. Practice
Sometimes in the midst of traumatic experiences it can be tempting to stay away from your yoga mat. This is exactly the time when you need practice the most. The yoga poses encourage a sense of embodied presence and help you reconnect to all the feelings and sensations in your body. This is exactly what is needed to heal and process trauma. Remember that just 5 minutes of yoga each day counts as consistent practice.
See also 5 Trauma-Sensitive Tips for Speaking to Your Yoga Students
5. Forgiveness
After the incident has passed, you will probably need to work through your grievances and judgements about it. In order to be really honest with yourself, try journaling and allowing yourself to rant uncensored about the experience. You may find that you judge yourself for not responding in the way that you would have liked. You may find that you hold a grudge against the perpetrator and have a hard time letting it go.
Once you get honest about your judgements and grievances, you can forgive yourself, everyone, and everything else, too. Even if you find it hard to say, try writing out this sentence: “Even though I didn't respond as I would have liked and I caused pain, I forgive myself. Even though I feel violated by this person, I chose to forgive them. They are also wounded, imperfect beings, and I forgive them.”
About the Author
Kino MacGregor is a Miami native and the founder of Omstars, the world's first yoga TV network. (For a free month, click here. With over 1 million followers on Instagram and over 500,000 subscribers on YouTube and Facebook, Kino's message of spiritual strength reaches people all over the world. Sought after as an expert in yoga worldwide, Kino is an international yoga teacher, inspirational speaker, author of four books, producer of six Ashtanga Yoga DVDs, writer, vlogger, world traveler, and co-founder of Miami Life Center. Learn more at www.kinoyoga.com.
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5 Ways to Use Your Yoga Practice to Help You Deal With Trauma
5 Ways to Use Your Yoga Practice to Help You Deal With Trauma:
These five yoga tools and tips will help you retain a balanced mind and process your emotions after a traumatic event.
I travel nearly every weekend and I’m often staying in new places. Sometimes I stay in hotels, but sometimes I stay in private apartments and airbnbs. Last weekend I was staying in an airbnb and, when I was just finishing my evening meditation, I heard a rattling at the door. Whereas normally I would have screamed, my mind was tuned into the meditative state.
Much to my shock, I calmly got up, put on some clothes and walked to the door. Standing in the doorway was a large man who had let himself in with a key to the apartment. Confused to see me there, he informed me that he had booked a stay in the apartment and was given a key. I actually didn’t have any answers since my host booked the accommodation for me. We decided to call the airbnb host. As they engaged in conversation, possible scenarios of searching for a hotel room or calling for help in case anything fishy went on flashed through my mind.
See also Let It All Go: 7 Poses to Release Trauma in the Body
Luckily, the airbnb host confirmed my reservation and expressed deep concern that this man had a key and was standing in the doorway asking to come in. The host asked him to give the key to me and leave, and luckily, he did without too much protesting.
Here are mindful ways to work through a traumatic event.
Working Through a Traumatic Event
I stood there alone, in an apartment that wasn’t my own, in a city that I didn’t know. I didn’t realize it at the time, but the incident delivered a shock to my nervous system. After he left I drank some water, read a few lines in a book, sent a few emails, and scrolled through Instagram on my phone.
As I closed my eyes to sleep that night, I was rattled awake by the sound of doors or each time the air-conditioning kicked in. I woke up the next morning without the feeling of restfulness that sleep usually delivers for me.
I went through my morning sadhana of meditation and yoga but I still arrived at the venue to teach my class feeling a bit disturbed. I decided to meditate again during the break between my events. It was only then, close to 24 hours after the event, that I registered the trauma response. My body was shaking and my breathing was short and shallow. I felt like I could hardly breathe. Even when I tried to still my body, my hands would shake. I decided to sit in meditation again for another twenty minutes. I finally tuned into the reality of my nervous system: My body shook, my breath accelerated, and then I cried.
I observed the experience in my body without reacting to it. My body stopped shaking and my breath deepened after the last tears flowed down my cheeks. I felt lighter and more free, like the experience has lifted. That night I slept soundly and deeply. In hindsight, the first thing I should have done after the incident was to meditate. But in the midst of trauma, the most common responses are fight, flight, or freeze.
See also How to Work with Yoga Students Who’ve Experienced Trauma
How to Use Yoga to Work Through Trauma
There are so many layers to this experience that I want to unpack for you as a lesson for your yoga practice.
I credit the meditative mind for giving me the poise not to react immediately when the stranger walked into my airbnb. Without a cultivated attitude of observation and equanimity, I would have operated entirely from a fear response.
I startle easily and I always have. I’m a childhood trauma survivor, so that might have something to do with it. I surprised myself with how calm I was in the moment. But, that doesn’t mean that I wasn’t deeply impacted by the experience. The whole experience reminded me of the deer-in-head-lights response to danger. I initially froze my own emotional response. But then, having survived, I started to shake in the aftermath until I finally released everything in tears.
It took a good deal of time for me to register that my body and mind was impacted by the experience of a stranger walking in on me. It wasn’t until I sat with all the arising sensations that I was able to be free of it. In the space between the incident and the meditation where I cried and released whatever pent up energy was in my body, I had a host of interactions that were less than ideal. I sent emails with unskillful communication and I taught a less-than-ideal class. In other words, I wasn’t myself.
It makes reasonable sense that my feeling of safety was challenged after a stranger walked in uninvited. The process of healing and returning the mind to a state of love and trust is a more meandering and personal journey. I am so grateful that I had the tools of yoga and meditation to help me move through my triggers around this experience.
But, it got me thinking: How many of us take the time to process large and small traumatic incidents? It seems more likely that we put up a facade of strength and pretend to be OK when we are not. Or, worse yet, we begin to take action from a place of trauma—before the trauma has been processed within ourselves.
On an average day, there are so many things that could illicit a trauma response. Micro-aggressions expressed in casual racist or sexist comments, mean-spirited sarcasm from friends or family, or the negative self-talk that perpetuates cycles of abuse are some that come to mind.
See also What All Yoga Teachers Need to Know About Teaching Trauma Survivors
I now have tools to guide me through the inner work of my own process as a yogi. But I didn’t always have those tools. When I was a little girl and I experienced sexual assault, I didn’t have the tools to process what happened. It look me years to realize the extent of the damage done, and the violations that were perpetrated against me.
It’s more often the case that we are ill-equipped to handle and process the hurt that we experience. It’s less the case that we find the support needed to heal. That is, unless we engage in a devoted spiritual practice and have access to therapists and other healers that can help lead the way.
If you’re sensitive like I am, you will probably register varying degrees of trauma every single day of your life. There are tools that will help you retain a balanced mind and process your emotions. Whether it’s a cruel word spoken by an anonymous stranger on the internet or a careless comment by your partner, the tools outlined below will give you relief from what can sometimes be a stressful, traumatizing world.
See also 5 Ways to Create a Safe Yoga Space for Trauma Survivors
Try these 5 practices to help you calmly respond to trauma.
5 Yogic Ways to Respond to Trauma
1. Breathe
Keep the root of your attention grounded on your breath throughout the day. Notice when your breathing accelerates, tightens, or drastically changes. As soon as you notice a shift has happened, pause whatever you’re doing and focus on your breath. If possible, come to a comfortable seated position and close your eyes. Count to 10 as you breathe in through your nose and count to ten as you breathe out through your nose. Repeat 10 times.
2. Feel all the Feels
The trauma response of fight, flight, or freeze is a response of disembodiment. There is an uncomfortable feeling in the body and instead of sitting with it, the habituated response is to either fight the world, run from the source of pain, or freeze and numb out. Choosing to feel everything is a courageous and brave choice.
So, get quiet and inquisitive. Turn on your creative mind and be receptive to the sensations of your body. Do not judge what you feel. If possible, come to a comfortable seated position and close your eyes. If you can’t do that, do a body scan. Start at the top of your head, sweep down towards your toes, and then come back up again. Register all the sensations but refrain from assigning value or judgements to them.
For example, if you notice that your hand is shaking, simply observe that your hand is shaking. If you notice there is a pressure around your shoulders, simply observe that. Do not try and figure out why the sensation is there or make it go away. Just observe. Keep your mind engaged with scanning your body for at least 5 minutes, going up to 20 minutes if you can.
See also Yoga for First Responders: 5 Strategies for Stress + Trauma
3. Pause
Even if you aren’t immediately aware of a trauma response to a difficult situation, give yourself at least a few hours to decompress before you take any action or make any big decisions. It’s very common to displace anger or fear onto the people closest to you, or to make a bad decision in the period of time after a traumatic event. Pressing pause and practicing patience can be an extremely useful tool in maintaining balance through difficult times.
4. Practice
Sometimes in the midst of traumatic experiences it can be tempting to stay away from your yoga mat. This is exactly the time when you need practice the most. The yoga poses encourage a sense of embodied presence and help you reconnect to all the feelings and sensations in your body. This is exactly what is needed to heal and process trauma. Remember that just 5 minutes of yoga each day counts as consistent practice.
See also 5 Trauma-Sensitive Tips for Speaking to Your Yoga Students
5. Forgiveness
After the incident has passed, you will probably need to work through your grievances and judgements about it. In order to be really honest with yourself, try journaling and allowing yourself to rant uncensored about the experience. You may find that you judge yourself for not responding in the way that you would have liked. You may find that you hold a grudge against the perpetrator and have a hard time letting it go.
Once you get honest about your judgements and grievances, you can forgive yourself, everyone, and everything else, too. Even if you find it hard to say, try writing out this sentence: “Even though I didn’t respond as I would have liked and I caused pain, I forgive myself. Even though I feel violated by this person, I chose to forgive them. They are also wounded, imperfect beings, and I forgive them.”
About the Author
Kino MacGregor is a Miami native and the founder of Omstars, the world’s first yoga TV network. (For a free month, click here. With over 1 million followers on Instagram and over 500,000 subscribers on YouTube and Facebook, Kino’s message of spiritual strength reaches people all over the world. Sought after as an expert in yoga worldwide, Kino is an international yoga teacher, inspirational speaker, author of four books, producer of six Ashtanga Yoga DVDs, writer, vlogger, world traveler, and co-founder of Miami Life Center. Learn more at www.kinoyoga.com.
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These five yoga tools and tips will help you retain a balanced mind and process your emotions after a traumatic event.
I travel nearly every weekend and I’m often staying in new places. Sometimes I stay in hotels, but sometimes I stay in private apartments and airbnbs. Last weekend I was staying in an airbnb and, when I was just finishing my evening meditation, I heard a rattling at the door. Whereas normally I would have screamed, my mind was tuned into the meditative state.
Much to my shock, I calmly got up, put on some clothes and walked to the door. Standing in the doorway was a large man who had let himself in with a key to the apartment. Confused to see me there, he informed me that he had booked a stay in the apartment and was given a key. I actually didn’t have any answers since my host booked the accommodation for me. We decided to call the airbnb host. As they engaged in conversation, possible scenarios of searching for a hotel room or calling for help in case anything fishy went on flashed through my mind.
See also Let It All Go: 7 Poses to Release Trauma in the Body
Luckily, the airbnb host confirmed my reservation and expressed deep concern that this man had a key and was standing in the doorway asking to come in. The host asked him to give the key to me and leave, and luckily, he did without too much protesting.
Here are mindful ways to work through a traumatic event.
Working Through a Traumatic Event
I stood there alone, in an apartment that wasn’t my own, in a city that I didn’t know. I didn’t realize it at the time, but the incident delivered a shock to my nervous system. After he left I drank some water, read a few lines in a book, sent a few emails, and scrolled through Instagram on my phone.
As I closed my eyes to sleep that night, I was rattled awake by the sound of doors or each time the air-conditioning kicked in. I woke up the next morning without the feeling of restfulness that sleep usually delivers for me.
I went through my morning sadhana of meditation and yoga but I still arrived at the venue to teach my class feeling a bit disturbed. I decided to meditate again during the break between my events. It was only then, close to 24 hours after the event, that I registered the trauma response. My body was shaking and my breathing was short and shallow. I felt like I could hardly breathe. Even when I tried to still my body, my hands would shake. I decided to sit in meditation again for another twenty minutes. I finally tuned into the reality of my nervous system: My body shook, my breath accelerated, and then I cried.
I observed the experience in my body without reacting to it. My body stopped shaking and my breath deepened after the last tears flowed down my cheeks. I felt lighter and more free, like the experience has lifted. That night I slept soundly and deeply. In hindsight, the first thing I should have done after the incident was to meditate. But in the midst of trauma, the most common responses are fight, flight, or freeze.
See also How to Work with Yoga Students Who've Experienced Trauma
How to Use Yoga to Work Through Trauma
There are so many layers to this experience that I want to unpack for you as a lesson for your yoga practice.
I credit the meditative mind for giving me the poise not to react immediately when the stranger walked into my airbnb. Without a cultivated attitude of observation and equanimity, I would have operated entirely from a fear response.
I startle easily and I always have. I’m a childhood trauma survivor, so that might have something to do with it. I surprised myself with how calm I was in the moment. But, that doesn’t mean that I wasn’t deeply impacted by the experience. The whole experience reminded me of the deer-in-head-lights response to danger. I initially froze my own emotional response. But then, having survived, I started to shake in the aftermath until I finally released everything in tears.
It took a good deal of time for me to register that my body and mind was impacted by the experience of a stranger walking in on me. It wasn’t until I sat with all the arising sensations that I was able to be free of it. In the space between the incident and the meditation where I cried and released whatever pent up energy was in my body, I had a host of interactions that were less than ideal. I sent emails with unskillful communication and I taught a less-than-ideal class. In other words, I wasn’t myself.
It makes reasonable sense that my feeling of safety was challenged after a stranger walked in uninvited. The process of healing and returning the mind to a state of love and trust is a more meandering and personal journey. I am so grateful that I had the tools of yoga and meditation to help me move through my triggers around this experience.
But, it got me thinking: How many of us take the time to process large and small traumatic incidents? It seems more likely that we put up a facade of strength and pretend to be OK when we are not. Or, worse yet, we begin to take action from a place of trauma—before the trauma has been processed within ourselves.
On an average day, there are so many things that could illicit a trauma response. Micro-aggressions expressed in casual racist or sexist comments, mean-spirited sarcasm from friends or family, or the negative self-talk that perpetuates cycles of abuse are some that come to mind.
See also What All Yoga Teachers Need to Know About Teaching Trauma Survivors
I now have tools to guide me through the inner work of my own process as a yogi. But I didn’t always have those tools. When I was a little girl and I experienced sexual assault, I didn’t have the tools to process what happened. It look me years to realize the extent of the damage done, and the violations that were perpetrated against me.
It’s more often the case that we are ill-equipped to handle and process the hurt that we experience. It’s less the case that we find the support needed to heal. That is, unless we engage in a devoted spiritual practice and have access to therapists and other healers that can help lead the way.
If you’re sensitive like I am, you will probably register varying degrees of trauma every single day of your life. There are tools that will help you retain a balanced mind and process your emotions. Whether it’s a cruel word spoken by an anonymous stranger on the internet or a careless comment by your partner, the tools outlined below will give you relief from what can sometimes be a stressful, traumatizing world.
See also 5 Ways to Create a Safe Yoga Space for Trauma Survivors
Try these 5 practices to help you calmly respond to trauma.
5 Yogic Ways to Respond to Trauma
1. Breathe
Keep the root of your attention grounded on your breath throughout the day. Notice when your breathing accelerates, tightens, or drastically changes. As soon as you notice a shift has happened, pause whatever you’re doing and focus on your breath. If possible, come to a comfortable seated position and close your eyes. Count to 10 as you breathe in through your nose and count to ten as you breathe out through your nose. Repeat 10 times.
2. Feel all the Feels
The trauma response of fight, flight, or freeze is a response of disembodiment. There is an uncomfortable feeling in the body and instead of sitting with it, the habituated response is to either fight the world, run from the source of pain, or freeze and numb out. Choosing to feel everything is a courageous and brave choice.
So, get quiet and inquisitive. Turn on your creative mind and be receptive to the sensations of your body. Do not judge what you feel. If possible, come to a comfortable seated position and close your eyes. If you can't do that, do a body scan. Start at the top of your head, sweep down towards your toes, and then come back up again. Register all the sensations but refrain from assigning value or judgements to them.
For example, if you notice that your hand is shaking, simply observe that your hand is shaking. If you notice there is a pressure around your shoulders, simply observe that. Do not try and figure out why the sensation is there or make it go away. Just observe. Keep your mind engaged with scanning your body for at least 5 minutes, going up to 20 minutes if you can.
See also Yoga for First Responders: 5 Strategies for Stress + Trauma
3. Pause
Even if you aren’t immediately aware of a trauma response to a difficult situation, give yourself at least a few hours to decompress before you take any action or make any big decisions. It’s very common to displace anger or fear onto the people closest to you, or to make a bad decision in the period of time after a traumatic event. Pressing pause and practicing patience can be an extremely useful tool in maintaining balance through difficult times.
4. Practice
Sometimes in the midst of traumatic experiences it can be tempting to stay away from your yoga mat. This is exactly the time when you need practice the most. The yoga poses encourage a sense of embodied presence and help you reconnect to all the feelings and sensations in your body. This is exactly what is needed to heal and process trauma. Remember that just 5 minutes of yoga each day counts as consistent practice.
See also 5 Trauma-Sensitive Tips for Speaking to Your Yoga Students
5. Forgiveness
After the incident has passed, you will probably need to work through your grievances and judgements about it. In order to be really honest with yourself, try journaling and allowing yourself to rant uncensored about the experience. You may find that you judge yourself for not responding in the way that you would have liked. You may find that you hold a grudge against the perpetrator and have a hard time letting it go.
Once you get honest about your judgements and grievances, you can forgive yourself, everyone, and everything else, too. Even if you find it hard to say, try writing out this sentence: “Even though I didn’t respond as I would have liked and I caused pain, I forgive myself. Even though I feel violated by this person, I chose to forgive them. They are also wounded, imperfect beings, and I forgive them.”
About the Author
Kino MacGregor is a Miami native and the founder of Omstars, the world’s first yoga TV network. (For a free month, click here. With over 1 million followers on Instagram and over 500,000 subscribers on YouTube and Facebook, Kino’s message of spiritual strength reaches people all over the world. Sought after as an expert in yoga worldwide, Kino is an international yoga teacher, inspirational speaker, author of four books, producer of six Ashtanga Yoga DVDs, writer, vlogger, world traveler, and co-founder of Miami Life Center. Learn more at www.kinoyoga.com.
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These five yoga tools and tips will help you retain a balanced mind and process your emotions after a traumatic event.
I travel nearly every weekend and I’m often staying in new places. Sometimes I stay in hotels, but sometimes I stay in private apartments and airbnbs. Last weekend I was staying in an airbnb and, when I was just finishing my evening meditation, I heard a rattling at the door. Whereas normally I would have screamed, my mind was tuned into the meditative state.
Much to my shock, I calmly got up, put on some clothes and walked to the door. Standing in the doorway was a large man who had let himself in with a key to the apartment. Confused to see me there, he informed me that he had booked a stay in the apartment and was given a key. I actually didn’t have any answers since my host booked the accommodation for me. We decided to call the airbnb host. As they engaged in conversation, possible scenarios of searching for a hotel room or calling for help in case anything fishy went on flashed through my mind.
See also Let It All Go: 7 Poses to Release Trauma in the Body
Luckily, the airbnb host confirmed my reservation and expressed deep concern that this man had a key and was standing in the doorway asking to come in. The host asked him to give the key to me and leave, and luckily, he did without too much protesting.
Here are mindful ways to work through a traumatic event.
Working Through a Traumatic Event
I stood there alone, in an apartment that wasn’t my own, in a city that I didn’t know. I didn’t realize it at the time, but the incident delivered a shock to my nervous system. After he left I drank some water, read a few lines in a book, sent a few emails, and scrolled through Instagram on my phone.
As I closed my eyes to sleep that night, I was rattled awake by the sound of doors or each time the air-conditioning kicked in. I woke up the next morning without the feeling of restfulness that sleep usually delivers for me.
I went through my morning sadhana of meditation and yoga but I still arrived at the venue to teach my class feeling a bit disturbed. I decided to meditate again during the break between my events. It was only then, close to 24 hours after the event, that I registered the trauma response. My body was shaking and my breathing was short and shallow. I felt like I could hardly breathe. Even when I tried to still my body, my hands would shake. I decided to sit in meditation again for another twenty minutes. I finally tuned into the reality of my nervous system: My body shook, my breath accelerated, and then I cried.
I observed the experience in my body without reacting to it. My body stopped shaking and my breath deepened after the last tears flowed down my cheeks. I felt lighter and more free, like the experience has lifted. That night I slept soundly and deeply. In hindsight, the first thing I should have done after the incident was to meditate. But in the midst of trauma, the most common responses are fight, flight, or freeze.
See also How to Work with Yoga Students Who've Experienced Trauma
How to Use Yoga to Work Through Trauma
There are so many layers to this experience that I want to unpack for you as a lesson for your yoga practice.
I credit the meditative mind for giving me the poise not to react immediately when the stranger walked into my airbnb. Without a cultivated attitude of observation and equanimity, I would have operated entirely from a fear response.
I startle easily and I always have. I’m a childhood trauma survivor, so that might have something to do with it. I surprised myself with how calm I was in the moment. But, that doesn’t mean that I wasn’t deeply impacted by the experience. The whole experience reminded me of the deer-in-head-lights response to danger. I initially froze my own emotional response. But then, having survived, I started to shake in the aftermath until I finally released everything in tears.
It took a good deal of time for me to register that my body and mind was impacted by the experience of a stranger walking in on me. It wasn’t until I sat with all the arising sensations that I was able to be free of it. In the space between the incident and the meditation where I cried and released whatever pent up energy was in my body, I had a host of interactions that were less than ideal. I sent emails with unskillful communication and I taught a less-than-ideal class. In other words, I wasn’t myself.
It makes reasonable sense that my feeling of safety was challenged after a stranger walked in uninvited. The process of healing and returning the mind to a state of love and trust is a more meandering and personal journey. I am so grateful that I had the tools of yoga and meditation to help me move through my triggers around this experience.
But, it got me thinking: How many of us take the time to process large and small traumatic incidents? It seems more likely that we put up a facade of strength and pretend to be OK when we are not. Or, worse yet, we begin to take action from a place of trauma—before the trauma has been processed within ourselves.
On an average day, there are so many things that could illicit a trauma response. Micro-aggressions expressed in casual racist or sexist comments, mean-spirited sarcasm from friends or family, or the negative self-talk that perpetuates cycles of abuse are some that come to mind.
See also What All Yoga Teachers Need to Know About Teaching Trauma Survivors
I now have tools to guide me through the inner work of my own process as a yogi. But I didn’t always have those tools. When I was a little girl and I experienced sexual assault, I didn’t have the tools to process what happened. It look me years to realize the extent of the damage done, and the violations that were perpetrated against me.
It’s more often the case that we are ill-equipped to handle and process the hurt that we experience. It’s less the case that we find the support needed to heal. That is, unless we engage in a devoted spiritual practice and have access to therapists and other healers that can help lead the way.
If you’re sensitive like I am, you will probably register varying degrees of trauma every single day of your life. There are tools that will help you retain a balanced mind and process your emotions. Whether it’s a cruel word spoken by an anonymous stranger on the internet or a careless comment by your partner, the tools outlined below will give you relief from what can sometimes be a stressful, traumatizing world.
See also 5 Ways to Create a Safe Yoga Space for Trauma Survivors
Try these 5 practices to help you calmly respond to trauma.
5 Yogic Ways to Respond to Trauma
1. Breathe
Keep the root of your attention grounded on your breath throughout the day. Notice when your breathing accelerates, tightens, or drastically changes. As soon as you notice a shift has happened, pause whatever you’re doing and focus on your breath. If possible, come to a comfortable seated position and close your eyes. Count to 10 as you breathe in through your nose and count to ten as you breathe out through your nose. Repeat 10 times.
2. Feel all the Feels
The trauma response of fight, flight, or freeze is a response of disembodiment. There is an uncomfortable feeling in the body and instead of sitting with it, the habituated response is to either fight the world, run from the source of pain, or freeze and numb out. Choosing to feel everything is a courageous and brave choice.
So, get quiet and inquisitive. Turn on your creative mind and be receptive to the sensations of your body. Do not judge what you feel. If possible, come to a comfortable seated position and close your eyes. If you can't do that, do a body scan. Start at the top of your head, sweep down towards your toes, and then come back up again. Register all the sensations but refrain from assigning value or judgements to them.
For example, if you notice that your hand is shaking, simply observe that your hand is shaking. If you notice there is a pressure around your shoulders, simply observe that. Do not try and figure out why the sensation is there or make it go away. Just observe. Keep your mind engaged with scanning your body for at least 5 minutes, going up to 20 minutes if you can.
See also Yoga for First Responders: 5 Strategies for Stress + Trauma
3. Pause
Even if you aren’t immediately aware of a trauma response to a difficult situation, give yourself at least a few hours to decompress before you take any action or make any big decisions. It’s very common to displace anger or fear onto the people closest to you, or to make a bad decision in the period of time after a traumatic event. Pressing pause and practicing patience can be an extremely useful tool in maintaining balance through difficult times.
4. Practice
Sometimes in the midst of traumatic experiences it can be tempting to stay away from your yoga mat. This is exactly the time when you need practice the most. The yoga poses encourage a sense of embodied presence and help you reconnect to all the feelings and sensations in your body. This is exactly what is needed to heal and process trauma. Remember that just 5 minutes of yoga each day counts as consistent practice.
See also 5 Trauma-Sensitive Tips for Speaking to Your Yoga Students
5. Forgiveness
After the incident has passed, you will probably need to work through your grievances and judgements about it. In order to be really honest with yourself, try journaling and allowing yourself to rant uncensored about the experience. You may find that you judge yourself for not responding in the way that you would have liked. You may find that you hold a grudge against the perpetrator and have a hard time letting it go.
Once you get honest about your judgements and grievances, you can forgive yourself, everyone, and everything else, too. Even if you find it hard to say, try writing out this sentence: “Even though I didn’t respond as I would have liked and I caused pain, I forgive myself. Even though I feel violated by this person, I chose to forgive them. They are also wounded, imperfect beings, and I forgive them.”
About the Author
Kino MacGregor is a Miami native and the founder of Omstars, the world’s first yoga TV network. (For a free month, click here. With over 1 million followers on Instagram and over 500,000 subscribers on YouTube and Facebook, Kino’s message of spiritual strength reaches people all over the world. Sought after as an expert in yoga worldwide, Kino is an international yoga teacher, inspirational speaker, author of four books, producer of six Ashtanga Yoga DVDs, writer, vlogger, world traveler, and co-founder of Miami Life Center. Learn more at www.kinoyoga.com.
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Text
5 Ways to Use Your Yoga Practice to Help You Deal With Trauma
These five yoga tools and tips will help you retain a balanced mind and process your emotions after a traumatic event.
I travel nearly every weekend and I’m often staying in new places. Sometimes I stay in hotels, but sometimes I stay in private apartments and airbnbs. Last weekend I was staying in an airbnb and, when I was just finishing my evening meditation, I heard a rattling at the door. Whereas normally I would have screamed, my mind was tuned into the meditative state.
Much to my shock, I calmly got up, put on some clothes and walked to the door. Standing in the doorway was a large man who had let himself in with a key to the apartment. Confused to see me there, he informed me that he had booked a stay in the apartment and was given a key. I actually didn’t have any answers since my host booked the accommodation for me. We decided to call the airbnb host. As they engaged in conversation, possible scenarios of searching for a hotel room or calling for help in case anything fishy went on flashed through my mind.
See also Let It All Go: 7 Poses to Release Trauma in the Body
Luckily, the airbnb host confirmed my reservation and expressed deep concern that this man had a key and was standing in the doorway asking to come in. The host asked him to give the key to me and leave, and luckily, he did without too much protesting.
Here are mindful ways to work through a traumatic event.
Working Through a Traumatic Event
I stood there alone, in an apartment that wasn’t my own, in a city that I didn’t know. I didn’t realize it at the time, but the incident delivered a shock to my nervous system. After he left I drank some water, read a few lines in a book, sent a few emails, and scrolled through Instagram on my phone.
As I closed my eyes to sleep that night, I was rattled awake by the sound of doors or each time the air-conditioning kicked in. I woke up the next morning without the feeling of restfulness that sleep usually delivers for me.
I went through my morning sadhana of meditation and yoga but I still arrived at the venue to teach my class feeling a bit disturbed. I decided to meditate again during the break between my events. It was only then, close to 24 hours after the event, that I registered the trauma response. My body was shaking and my breathing was short and shallow. I felt like I could hardly breathe. Even when I tried to still my body, my hands would shake. I decided to sit in meditation again for another twenty minutes. I finally tuned into the reality of my nervous system: My body shook, my breath accelerated, and then I cried.
I observed the experience in my body without reacting to it. My body stopped shaking and my breath deepened after the last tears flowed down my cheeks. I felt lighter and more free, like the experience has lifted. That night I slept soundly and deeply. In hindsight, the first thing I should have done after the incident was to meditate. But in the midst of trauma, the most common responses are fight, flight, or freeze.
See also How to Work with Yoga Students Who've Experienced Trauma
How to Use Yoga to Work Through Trauma
There are so many layers to this experience that I want to unpack for you as a lesson for your yoga practice.
I credit the meditative mind for giving me the poise not to react immediately when the stranger walked into my airbnb. Without a cultivated attitude of observation and equanimity, I would have operated entirely from a fear response.
I startle easily and I always have. I’m a childhood trauma survivor, so that might have something to do with it. I surprised myself with how calm I was in the moment. But, that doesn’t mean that I wasn’t deeply impacted by the experience. The whole experience reminded me of the deer-in-head-lights response to danger. I initially froze my own emotional response. But then, having survived, I started to shake in the aftermath until I finally released everything in tears.
It took a good deal of time for me to register that my body and mind was impacted by the experience of a stranger walking in on me. It wasn’t until I sat with all the arising sensations that I was able to be free of it. In the space between the incident and the meditation where I cried and released whatever pent up energy was in my body, I had a host of interactions that were less than ideal. I sent emails with unskillful communication and I taught a less-than-ideal class. In other words, I wasn’t myself.
It makes reasonable sense that my feeling of safety was challenged after a stranger walked in uninvited. The process of healing and returning the mind to a state of love and trust is a more meandering and personal journey. I am so grateful that I had the tools of yoga and meditation to help me move through my triggers around this experience.
But, it got me thinking: How many of us take the time to process large and small traumatic incidents? It seems more likely that we put up a facade of strength and pretend to be OK when we are not. Or, worse yet, we begin to take action from a place of trauma—before the trauma has been processed within ourselves.
On an average day, there are so many things that could illicit a trauma response. Micro-aggressions expressed in casual racist or sexist comments, mean-spirited sarcasm from friends or family, or the negative self-talk that perpetuates cycles of abuse are some that come to mind.
See also What All Yoga Teachers Need to Know About Teaching Trauma Survivors
I now have tools to guide me through the inner work of my own process as a yogi. But I didn’t always have those tools. When I was a little girl and I experienced sexual assault, I didn’t have the tools to process what happened. It look me years to realize the extent of the damage done, and the violations that were perpetrated against me.
It’s more often the case that we are ill-equipped to handle and process the hurt that we experience. It’s less the case that we find the support needed to heal. That is, unless we engage in a devoted spiritual practice and have access to therapists and other healers that can help lead the way.
If you’re sensitive like I am, you will probably register varying degrees of trauma every single day of your life. There are tools that will help you retain a balanced mind and process your emotions. Whether it’s a cruel word spoken by an anonymous stranger on the internet or a careless comment by your partner, the tools outlined below will give you relief from what can sometimes be a stressful, traumatizing world.
See also 5 Ways to Create a Safe Yoga Space for Trauma Survivors
Try these 5 practices to help you calmly respond to trauma.
5 Yogic Ways to Respond to Trauma
1. Breathe
Keep the root of your attention grounded on your breath throughout the day. Notice when your breathing accelerates, tightens, or drastically changes. As soon as you notice a shift has happened, pause whatever you’re doing and focus on your breath. If possible, come to a comfortable seated position and close your eyes. Count to 10 as you breathe in through your nose and count to ten as you breathe out through your nose. Repeat 10 times.
2. Feel all the Feels
The trauma response of fight, flight, or freeze is a response of disembodiment. There is an uncomfortable feeling in the body and instead of sitting with it, the habituated response is to either fight the world, run from the source of pain, or freeze and numb out. Choosing to feel everything is a courageous and brave choice.
So, get quiet and inquisitive. Turn on your creative mind and be receptive to the sensations of your body. Do not judge what you feel. If possible, come to a comfortable seated position and close your eyes. If you can't do that, do a body scan. Start at the top of your head, sweep down towards your toes, and then come back up again. Register all the sensations but refrain from assigning value or judgements to them.
For example, if you notice that your hand is shaking, simply observe that your hand is shaking. If you notice there is a pressure around your shoulders, simply observe that. Do not try and figure out why the sensation is there or make it go away. Just observe. Keep your mind engaged with scanning your body for at least 5 minutes, going up to 20 minutes if you can.
See also Yoga for First Responders: 5 Strategies for Stress + Trauma
3. Pause
Even if you aren’t immediately aware of a trauma response to a difficult situation, give yourself at least a few hours to decompress before you take any action or make any big decisions. It’s very common to displace anger or fear onto the people closest to you, or to make a bad decision in the period of time after a traumatic event. Pressing pause and practicing patience can be an extremely useful tool in maintaining balance through difficult times.
4. Practice
Sometimes in the midst of traumatic experiences it can be tempting to stay away from your yoga mat. This is exactly the time when you need practice the most. The yoga poses encourage a sense of embodied presence and help you reconnect to all the feelings and sensations in your body. This is exactly what is needed to heal and process trauma. Remember that just 5 minutes of yoga each day counts as consistent practice.
See also 5 Trauma-Sensitive Tips for Speaking to Your Yoga Students
5. Forgiveness
After the incident has passed, you will probably need to work through your grievances and judgements about it. In order to be really honest with yourself, try journaling and allowing yourself to rant uncensored about the experience. You may find that you judge yourself for not responding in the way that you would have liked. You may find that you hold a grudge against the perpetrator and have a hard time letting it go.
Once you get honest about your judgements and grievances, you can forgive yourself, everyone, and everything else, too. Even if you find it hard to say, try writing out this sentence: “Even though I didn’t respond as I would have liked and I caused pain, I forgive myself. Even though I feel violated by this person, I chose to forgive them. They are also wounded, imperfect beings, and I forgive them.”
from Yoga Journal https://ift.tt/2RSYKOH
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Text
5 Ways to Use Your Yoga Practice to Help You Deal With Trauma
These five yoga tools and tips will help you retain a balanced mind and process your emotions after a traumatic event.
I travel nearly every weekend and I’m often staying in new places. Sometimes I stay in hotels, but sometimes I stay in private apartments and airbnbs. Last weekend I was staying in an airbnb and, when I was just finishing my evening meditation, I heard a rattling at the door. Whereas normally I would have screamed, my mind was tuned into the meditative state.
Much to my shock, I calmly got up, put on some clothes and walked to the door. Standing in the doorway was a large man who had let himself in with a key to the apartment. Confused to see me there, he informed me that he had booked a stay in the apartment and was given a key. I actually didn’t have any answers since my host booked the accommodation for me. We decided to call the airbnb host. As they engaged in conversation, possible scenarios of searching for a hotel room or calling for help in case anything fishy went on flashed through my mind.
See also Let It All Go: 7 Poses to Release Trauma in the Body
Luckily, the airbnb host confirmed my reservation and expressed deep concern that this man had a key and was standing in the doorway asking to come in. The host asked him to give the key to me and leave, and luckily, he did without too much protesting.
Here are mindful ways to work through a traumatic event.
Working Through a Traumatic Event
I stood there alone, in an apartment that wasn’t my own, in a city that I didn’t know. I didn’t realize it at the time, but the incident delivered a shock to my nervous system. After he left I drank some water, read a few lines in a book, sent a few emails, and scrolled through Instagram on my phone.
As I closed my eyes to sleep that night, I was rattled awake by the sound of doors or each time the air-conditioning kicked in. I woke up the next morning without the feeling of restfulness that sleep usually delivers for me.
I went through my morning sadhana of meditation and yoga but I still arrived at the venue to teach my class feeling a bit disturbed. I decided to meditate again during the break between my events. It was only then, close to 24 hours after the event, that I registered the trauma response. My body was shaking and my breathing was short and shallow. I felt like I could hardly breathe. Even when I tried to still my body, my hands would shake. I decided to sit in meditation again for another twenty minutes. I finally tuned into the reality of my nervous system: My body shook, my breath accelerated, and then I cried.
I observed the experience in my body without reacting to it. My body stopped shaking and my breath deepened after the last tears flowed down my cheeks. I felt lighter and more free, like the experience has lifted. That night I slept soundly and deeply. In hindsight, the first thing I should have done after the incident was to meditate. But in the midst of trauma, the most common responses are fight, flight, or freeze.
See also How to Work with Yoga Students Who've Experienced Trauma
How to Use Yoga to Work Through Trauma
There are so many layers to this experience that I want to unpack for you as a lesson for your yoga practice.
I credit the meditative mind for giving me the poise not to react immediately when the stranger walked into my airbnb. Without a cultivated attitude of observation and equanimity, I would have operated entirely from a fear response.
I startle easily and I always have. I’m a childhood trauma survivor, so that might have something to do with it. I surprised myself with how calm I was in the moment. But, that doesn’t mean that I wasn’t deeply impacted by the experience. The whole experience reminded me of the deer-in-head-lights response to danger. I initially froze my own emotional response. But then, having survived, I started to shake in the aftermath until I finally released everything in tears.
It took a good deal of time for me to register that my body and mind was impacted by the experience of a stranger walking in on me. It wasn’t until I sat with all the arising sensations that I was able to be free of it. In the space between the incident and the meditation where I cried and released whatever pent up energy was in my body, I had a host of interactions that were less than ideal. I sent emails with unskillful communication and I taught a less-than-ideal class. In other words, I wasn’t myself.
It makes reasonable sense that my feeling of safety was challenged after a stranger walked in uninvited. The process of healing and returning the mind to a state of love and trust is a more meandering and personal journey. I am so grateful that I had the tools of yoga and meditation to help me move through my triggers around this experience.
But, it got me thinking: How many of us take the time to process large and small traumatic incidents? It seems more likely that we put up a facade of strength and pretend to be OK when we are not. Or, worse yet, we begin to take action from a place of trauma—before the trauma has been processed within ourselves.
On an average day, there are so many things that could illicit a trauma response. Micro-aggressions expressed in casual racist or sexist comments, mean-spirited sarcasm from friends or family, or the negative self-talk that perpetuates cycles of abuse are some that come to mind.
See also What All Yoga Teachers Need to Know About Teaching Trauma Survivors
I now have tools to guide me through the inner work of my own process as a yogi. But I didn’t always have those tools. When I was a little girl and I experienced sexual assault, I didn’t have the tools to process what happened. It look me years to realize the extent of the damage done, and the violations that were perpetrated against me.
It’s more often the case that we are ill-equipped to handle and process the hurt that we experience. It’s less the case that we find the support needed to heal. That is, unless we engage in a devoted spiritual practice and have access to therapists and other healers that can help lead the way.
If you’re sensitive like I am, you will probably register varying degrees of trauma every single day of your life. There are tools that will help you retain a balanced mind and process your emotions. Whether it’s a cruel word spoken by an anonymous stranger on the internet or a careless comment by your partner, the tools outlined below will give you relief from what can sometimes be a stressful, traumatizing world.
See also 5 Ways to Create a Safe Yoga Space for Trauma Survivors
Try these 5 practices to help you calmly respond to trauma.
5 Yogic Ways to Respond to Trauma
1. Breathe
Keep the root of your attention grounded on your breath throughout the day. Notice when your breathing accelerates, tightens, or drastically changes. As soon as you notice a shift has happened, pause whatever you’re doing and focus on your breath. If possible, come to a comfortable seated position and close your eyes. Count to 10 as you breathe in through your nose and count to ten as you breathe out through your nose. Repeat 10 times.
2. Feel all the Feels
The trauma response of fight, flight, or freeze is a response of disembodiment. There is an uncomfortable feeling in the body and instead of sitting with it, the habituated response is to either fight the world, run from the source of pain, or freeze and numb out. Choosing to feel everything is a courageous and brave choice.
So, get quiet and inquisitive. Turn on your creative mind and be receptive to the sensations of your body. Do not judge what you feel. If possible, come to a comfortable seated position and close your eyes. If you can't do that, do a body scan. Start at the top of your head, sweep down towards your toes, and then come back up again. Register all the sensations but refrain from assigning value or judgements to them.
For example, if you notice that your hand is shaking, simply observe that your hand is shaking. If you notice there is a pressure around your shoulders, simply observe that. Do not try and figure out why the sensation is there or make it go away. Just observe. Keep your mind engaged with scanning your body for at least 5 minutes, going up to 20 minutes if you can.
See also Yoga for First Responders: 5 Strategies for Stress + Trauma
3. Pause
Even if you aren’t immediately aware of a trauma response to a difficult situation, give yourself at least a few hours to decompress before you take any action or make any big decisions. It’s very common to displace anger or fear onto the people closest to you, or to make a bad decision in the period of time after a traumatic event. Pressing pause and practicing patience can be an extremely useful tool in maintaining balance through difficult times.
4. Practice
Sometimes in the midst of traumatic experiences it can be tempting to stay away from your yoga mat. This is exactly the time when you need practice the most. The yoga poses encourage a sense of embodied presence and help you reconnect to all the feelings and sensations in your body. This is exactly what is needed to heal and process trauma. Remember that just 5 minutes of yoga each day counts as consistent practice.
See also 5 Trauma-Sensitive Tips for Speaking to Your Yoga Students
5. Forgiveness
After the incident has passed, you will probably need to work through your grievances and judgements about it. In order to be really honest with yourself, try journaling and allowing yourself to rant uncensored about the experience. You may find that you judge yourself for not responding in the way that you would have liked. You may find that you hold a grudge against the perpetrator and have a hard time letting it go.
Once you get honest about your judgements and grievances, you can forgive yourself, everyone, and everything else, too. Even if you find it hard to say, try writing out this sentence: “Even though I didn’t respond as I would have liked and I caused pain, I forgive myself. Even though I feel violated by this person, I chose to forgive them. They are also wounded, imperfect beings, and I forgive them.”
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Or how you can see Paris from a different angle?
In 2014, we spent one week in Paris. Dido was celebrating his 30 and I was there regarding my Ph.D. research. It was March just before the start of the spring and we knew that the sunny weather was just a dream. We were ready to face the grey street in Paris, the rain, and the wind. But we also knew that the quiet and warm halls of the Library and the Archive will welcome us without objection. For me, Paris is rainier than London and the weather in the French capital is more inconstant. But it is Paris and that’s enough. Here is an alternative itinerary which you can consider for your next trip.
Airbnb
That’s was our first time using Airbnb and since then we haven’t booked any hotels. We chose a flat in an old French building at the 13th arrondissement close to the National Library. The key was under the mat. We had a wonderful view. The metro was just around the corner, not more than 5 minutes walk. And one of the days we even visited the street market on Boulevard de Reuilly organized every week. Street murmur, breakfast, French black coffee, that’s how we fell in love with 13th arrondissement.
My view for the next week! One week in Paris! #omtripping #omtripsblog #thepeaceisinsideus #travelblog #blog #bloggerstyle #seemyparis #ig_europe #igersparis #parismaville
A post shared by OmTripsBlog (@sgrueva) on Mar 24, 2014 at 4:15am PDT
National Library of France
To be able to do my research and not “damaging” the plan we have prepared, I was getting up early in the morning and walking to the Library. It was 10 minutes away from our flat. The neighborhood was great and that’s allowed me to relax completely before the long day outside. I even managed to help an old woman to find the metro station (yep, I became a real Parisian for less than a week).
I spent every morning in the reading room, buried in books, articles, walking through the large corridors with red, soft carpets. An incredible building, with rich and amazing collections, and a wonderful team of librarians (this word always reminds me of The Mummy and how Rachel Weisz proudly says: I am a librarian). The French Library also has exhibition spaces so anyone interested can visit it. Complete silence, only the noise from the pages of the books and the keyboards. Parisian mornings offer zen sounds that few people can appreciate.
National Archive of France
The other very special place I would like to share with you is the National Archive of France. Do not miss to visit the museum there. Many years ago, this building has been the Museum of the French history and it is not a coincidence that you can find remarkable interior design and architecture, the preserved rooms from XVIII century. The Museum of the National Archive is situated in the building from XIV century the last saved from this period in Paris.
These two locations keep the French spirit and they can be included in the list of the places to visit.
Art Paris Art Fair
A contemporary art fair in the art capital of the world is something pretty normal, right? The main mission of the event is to present modern art in an accessible form to everyone. Every year since 2012, Art Paris Art Fair has a different focus. In 2014 г., when we were in Paris it was an Asian focus. Asia is developing the contemporary art scene and follows interesting tendencies. What we saw was very brutal and connected with their culture and understanding of their life and the world. This place is a must-see for one more reason – the location. The Art Paris Art Fair takes place in the Grand Palais. Nowadays this historical location is mainly used for cultural events and an exhibition hall which is impressive.
Centre Pompidou
We continued our arty walk thirsty to see contemporary art in different shapes. In Centre Pompidou, we visited the exhibition of the world-famous photographer Henri Cartier Bresson. He has been part of the Magnum and he has left his trace in the contemporary photography as we know it today. We waited on the line to see this incredible artist in the center of contemporary art. Omg! When that will happen in Bulgaria?
We were so happy to see the original works from Bresson. We didn’t plan this in advance, Paris surprised us.
The building is so big that one day won’t be enough to see everything. We chose to see only this exhibition and we headed to other places part of the plan.
Album Comics Paris
Who is a fan of comic books and superheroes? We are. Who loves to visit different comic book stores around the world while traveling? We love. That’s why finding one of the famous comic book stores in Paris wasn’t so hard. When we crossed the door of this magical place Atlas Comics Paris we stayed there more than one hour and we bought many comic books for our collection. In the store, there are new issues and old comics, it’s like a real archive representing the evolution of the superheroes. I don’t know about the kids, but we felt in the right place. This imaginary world is so tempting when we compare it to the reality we live in.
Graffiti art
Besides the classical and contemporary art, on the streets of Paris, we saw many graffiti art from famous artists. One of the treasures we found was Le Tour 13 right before its destruction. Le Tour 13 is a gallery building where every floor, every wall, every possible spot were turned into a masterpiece. Unfortunately, the building was destroyed even that lots of people try to save it. There is an interactive site where you can see all the colorful wall paintings.
We saw some of the works of Space Invader. And you, which graffiti artists have you seen during your travels?
Les Jardins in Paris
Our itinerary passed by Les Jardins du Luxembourg, Jardins des Tuileries, Jardin des Plantes, definitely must see places. But I was searching for one specific park – Parc des Buttes Chaumont. Have you heard of it?
From Montmartre, we decided to walk to this park by foot. Well, this short walk offered us a little adventure because we passed by some strange neighborhoods, we saw people who looked at us even more strange, we crossed the streets that can be walked by foot… omg, where we were? Finally, we got there. The sun was high in the sky, the dogs were running, the kids were playing, some of the people were laying down on the lawns, some of them just were reading books. So Paris!
Paris is different for everyone. That’s how we saw it. We hope that you will be inspired to see the French capital from a different angle and enjoy the daintiness.
Be happy everywhere!
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One week in Paris Or how you can see Paris from a different angle? In 2014, we spent one week in Paris…
#art paris art fair#bresson#centre pompodou#contemporary art#france#graffiti#library#museums#paris#parks#photography#travel
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Zeus raises $24M to make you a living-as-a-service landlord
New Post has been published on https://www.readersforum.tk/zeus-raises-24m-to-make-you-a-living-as-a-service-landlord-2/
Zeus raises $24M to make you a living-as-a-service landlord
Cookie-cutter corporate housing turns people into worker drones. When an employee needs to move to a new city for a few months, they’re either stuck in bland, giant apartment complexes or Airbnbs meant for shorter stays. But Zeus lets any homeowner get paid to host white-collar transient labor. Through its managed ownership model, Zeus takes on all the furnishing, upkeep, and risk of filling the home while its landlords sit back earning cash.
Zeus has quietly risen to a $45 million revenue run rate from renting out 900 homes in 23 cities. That’s up 5X in a year thanks to Zeus’ 150 employees. With a 90 percent occupancy rate, it’s proven employers and their talent want more unique, trustworthy, well-equipped multi-month residences that actually make them feel at home.
Now while Airbnb is distracted with its upcoming IPO, Zeus has raised $24 million to steal the corporate housing market. That includes a previous $2.5 million seed round from Bowery, the new $11.5 million Series A led by Initialized Capital whose partner Garry Tan has joined Zeus’ board, and $10 million in debt to pay fixed costs like furniture. The plan is to roll up more homes, build better landlord portal software, and hammer out partnerships or in-house divisions for cleaning and furnishing.
“In the first decade out of school people used to have two jobs. Now it’s four jobs and it’s trending to five” says Zeus co-founder and CEO Kulveer Taggar. “We think in 10 years, these people won’t be buying furniture.” He imagines they’ll pay a premium for hand-holding in housing, which judging by the explosion in popularity of zero-friction on-demand services, seems like an accurate assessment of our lazy future. Meanwhile, Zeus aims to be “the quantum leap improvement in the experience of trying to rent out your home” where you just punch in your address plus some details and you’re cashing checks 10 days later.
Buying Mom A House Was Step 1
“When I sold my first startup, I bought a home for my mom in Vancouver” Taggar recalls. It was payback for when she let him remortgage her old house while he was in college to buy a condo in Mumbai he’d rent out to earn money. “Despite not having much growing up, my mom was a travel agent and we got to travel a lot” which Taggar says inspired his goal to live nomadically in homes around the world. Zeus could let other live that dream.
Zeus co-founder and CEO Kulveer Taggar
After Oxford and working as an analyst at Deutsche Bank, Taggar built student marketplace Boso before moving to the United States. There, he co-founded auction tool Auctomatic with his cousin Harjeet Taggar and future Stripe co-founder Patrick Collison, went through Y Combinator, and sold it to Live Current Media for $5 million just 10 months later. That gave him the runway to gift a home to his mom and start tinkering on new ideas.
With Y Combinator’s backing again, Taggar started NFC-triggered task launcher Tagstand, which pivoted into app settings configurer Agent, which pivoted into automatic location sharing app Status. But when his co-founder Joe Wong had to move an hour south from San Francisco to Palo Alto, Taggar was dumbfounded by how distracting the process was. Listing and securing a new tenant was difficult, as was finding a medium-term rental without having to deal with exhorbitant prices or sketchy Cragislist. Having seen his former co-founder go on to great success with Stripe’s dead-simple payments integration, Taggar wanted to combine that vision with OpenDoor’s easy home sales to making renting or renting out a place instantaneous. That spawned Zeus.
Stripe Meets OpenDoor To Beat Airbnb
To become a Zeus landlord, you just type in your address, how many bedrooms and bathrooms, and some aesthetic specs, and you get a monthly price quote for what you’ll be paid. Zeus comes in and does a 250-point quality assessment, collects floor plans, furnishes the property, and handles cleaning and maintenance. It works with partners like Helix mattresses, Parachute sheets, and Simple Human trash cans to get bulk rates. “We raised debt because we had these fixed investments into furniture. It’s not as dilutive as selling pure equity” Taggar explains.
Zeus quickly finds a tenant thanks to listings in Airbnb and relationships with employers like Darktrace and ZS Associates with lots of employees moving around. After passing background checks, tenants get digital lock codes and access to 24/7 support in case something doesn’t look right. The goal is to get someone sleeping there in just 10 days. “Traditional corporate housing is $10,000 a month in SF in the summer or at extended stay hotels. Airbnb isn’t well suited [for multi-month stays]. ” Taggar claims. “We’re about half the price of traditional corporate housing for a better product and a better experience.”
Zeus signs minimum two-year leases with landlords and tries to extend them to five years when possible. It gets one free month of rent as is standard for property managers, but doesn’t charge an additional rate. For example, Zeus might lease your home for $4,000 per month but gets the first month free, and rent it out for $5,000 so it earns $60,000 but pays you $44,000. That’s a tidy margin if Zeus can get homes filled fast and hold down its upkeep costs.
“Zeus has been instrumental for my company to start the process of re-location to the Bay Area and to host our visiting employees from abroad now that we are settled” writes Zeus client Meitre’s Luis Caviglia. “I particularly like the ‘hard truths’ featured in every property, and the support we have received when issues arose during our stays.”
At Home, Anywhere
There’s no shortage of competitors chasing this $18 billion market in the US alone. There are the old-school corporations and chains like Oakwood and Barbary Coast that typically rent out apartments from vast, generic complexes at steep rates. Stays over 30 days made up 15 percent of Airbnb’s business last year, but the platform wasn’t designed for peace-of-mind around long-term stays. There are pure marketplaces like UrbanDoor that don’t always take care of everything for the landlord or provide consistent tenant experiences. And then there are direct competitors like $130 million-funded Sonder, $66 million-funded Domio, recently GV-backed 2nd Address, and European entants like MagicStay, AtHomeHotel, and Homelike.
Zeus’ property unit growth
There’s plenty of pie, though. With 330,000 housing units in SF alone, Zeus has plenty of room to grow. The rise of remote work means companies whose employee typically didn’t relocate may now need to bring in distant workers for a multi-month sprint. A recession could make companies more expense-cautious, leading them to rethink putting up staffers in hotels for months on end. Regulatory red tape and taxes could scare landlords away from short-term rentals and towards coprorate housing. And the need to expand into new businesses could tempt the big vacation rental platforms like Airbnb to make acquisitions in the space — or try to crush Zeus.
Winners will be determined in part by who has the widest and cheapest selection of properties, but also by which makes people most comfortable in a new city. That’s why Taggar is taking a cue from WeWork by trying to arrange more community events for its tenants. Often in need of friends, Zeus could become a favorite by helping people feel part of a neighborhood rather than a faceless inmate in a massive apartment block or hotel. That gives Zeus network effect if it can develop density in top markets.
Taggar says the biggest challenge is that “I feels like I’m running five startups at once. Pricing, supply chain, customer service, B2B. We’ve decided to make everything custom — our own property manager software, our own internal CRM. We think these advantages compound, but I could be wrong and they could be wasted effort.”
The benefits of Zeus‘ success would go beyond the founder’s bank account. “I’ve had friends in New York get great opportuntiies in San Francisco but not take them because of the friction of moving” Taggar says. Routing talent where it belongs could get more things built. And easy housing might make people more apt to live abroad temporarily. Taggar concludes, “I think it’s a great way to build empathy.”
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Dublin to Edinburgh
Our flight to Edinburgh was at 9:55 am. The concierge at The Brooks Hotel, a gentleman called Connor O'Connell, had arranged for a cab to pick us up at 7:30 am. Connor was a blustery fellow who made us wait a long time the previous day before answering our questions because he was too busy discussing sports with another person. He then had told us about the camera store on Trinity St, which was much further than the one we found practically around the corner.
We were packed, checked out and ready to go by 7:15 am, so we went to the lobby to wait for the cab. I stepped outside and took a picture to the left and the right of the hotel, because I couldn't believe it was the same place. All the hustle and bustle of the preceding day had disappeared and it looked like a ghost town.
When the taxi arrived, the driver was not a happy man. Apparently the city was hosting a triathlon, which had caused a lot of street closures. He was upset that our man Connor had not told us about the closures and how it was going to delay getting to the airport and that we should have left earlier. He said if we had left at 7 there would have been no problem, but these guys didn't care and they left all the blame on the poor taxi driver. Apparently he had to go 10 km out of his way in order to cross the Liffey (Dublin's river) and would have to have the same detour when he came back. We just quietly listened and let him rant. I was in the front seat and "hmmd" my way through the whole tirade.
In any case, he got us to the airport with plenty of time to go, so we checked in our bags in two stages. First we weighed our bags and scanned the bar code in the piece of paper we had printed from Aer Lingus - that resulted in a gummed paper strip with our name, flight information, and a bunch of bar codes, that we had to fasten around the side handle of the suitcase. Then we had to go a special ticketing line where nobody was waiting and we had to place our bags on the scale there and let the scanner read the tag on the suitcase. Once it read it, it spit out another receipt for our bag and the bag started moving on a conveyor belt. We looked to our right and there was a long line at Aer Lingus, not sure for what exactly, but we were happy to be finished.
Then we had to go up two flights on escalators and enter the security area. We didn't have to take our shoes off, but everything else was the same. Again, it didn't take too long and before long we were searching a Departures board for our flight. We were early enough that there was no gate information yet, and it asked us to look later. We decided to have something to eat/drink. We found a place called the Chocolate Lounge, and knew we hade come to the right place. Sharon and I decided to have hot chocolate and Carol had her usual Diet Cokes. Just so you know, they had 7 different offerings under hot chocolate, including a Chocolate Shot, which was a shot of melted chocolate. Very decadent, but I just had it plain, without whipped cream or anything.
Before we picked the Chocolate Lounge we had seen the menu at another place, and I noticed a "Bacon & Sausage Blaa" on the menu. There was an asterisk next to the it, and I couldn't resist I had to see what it had to say. It said: "In Waterford in 1802, white flour was brought to the city by the French. The French called it blanc, but the Irish pronounced it Blaa..."
They finally posted our gate number at around 8:30 so we started to follow the signs to our gate; they first took us up the escalator for two floors and then we followed a long corridor, then two gate numbers (including ours) split off from the rest, and we went on through a series of door and dog legs finally ending on a set of double doors leading to a staircase. We went down two flights of stairs and finally ended back on the main floor off to the side, and there was our gate with our flight number (and two others) on it. We were there no more than 10 minutes when they started boarding. We had low numbers so we got to go first. As we went through the gate, there was a bus, and finally the penny dropped. We were going to a smaller plane and we were boarding on the tarmac.
Sure enough, after everybody got on in off we drove for a little bit until we reached an Aer Lingus plane on the tarmac. It was an ATR 42, a twin-engine turboprop short-haul regional aircraft, developed and manufactured by France and Italy. The flight was about 3/4 full. Even though the flight was supposed to depart at 9:55, we were actually in the air by 9:40! The flight only lasted for 55 minutes.
When we arrived in Edinburgh, the plane taxied to a location near a door that lead to room that gave us the option of going straight out if we had nothing to declare, so we didn't have to go through customs or security.
We had rented an apartment through AirBnB for a week. We had agreed to give the owner a call when we landed so that she could come and meet us at the apartment and give us the key. Her name was Shauna and she was Canadian, but had fallen in love with Edinburgh (and with her Scottish husband, too, I suspect). We were not supposed to arrive at the apartment before 2 pm, but Shauna suggested that we might want to come and drop our bags off, get the key, and then return at or after 2 pm. It was clear that she was the one doing the cleaning of the apartment. She gave us a quick introduction to things in the house and off we went.
The apartment is in a nice, secure, accessible location. It has 2 bedrooms; one with an ensuite bath, and the other bathroom is in the hall. Carol was very generous as usual and let us have the bedroom with the ensuite bath. It has a garden in the back with a table and chairs, but the weather hasn't exactly tempted us to try it out, plus we're not sure we know how to open the door to the back. Nearby there are lots of restaurants and shops, and just a couple of blocks away there is an American-style supermarket with everything we might ever need. There are also several buses that serve the area and go into the city center.
We then went to the Hop On Hop Off bus to take a tour. There are four major ones and they all depart from Waverly Bridge in the center of town: The Edinburgh (the green bus), the Majestic (the blue bus), the CitySightseeing (the red bus), and 3Bridges. We bought tickets that allowed us to go on all the buses except the 3Bridges, for a period of 48 hours. We were also told that the red bus and the green bus went to many of the same places. We got onto the green bus and stayed for the whole circuit.
We picked that one because it had a live tour guide, and she was very good, she was entertaining and animated and had a good sense of humor as well. She told us that Edinburgh is famous for the 3 "B's," Banking, Brewing, and Books. She also told us that "in wine there is truth, in beer there is wisdom, but in water there is bacteria." She told a lot of interesting facts about the various sites, but while I enjoyed them at the time, you're very lucky because I don't remember many.
There was a sentimental story about Greyfriar's Bobby, a dog and faithful companion, blah,blah, and so they erected a statue to Bobby, in front of the Greyfriar's Inn. The statue of Bobby is blackened, but his nose is shiny because of all the tourists who touch it for good luck. There always seems to be a crowd of tourists in front of Bobby.
Then there's the story of Maggie Dickson (after whom a pub is named) who was sentenced to hang for concealing her pregnancy (she was unmarried we think). However, when they took her coffin for burial, they heard knocking coming from the coffin. It turns out that the hanging hadn't worked and she had not died. They took her to the magistrate to hang her again, but he decided that once was enough. Her family took her in, and although she hadn't died, she had a permanent crook to her neck.
When the tour ended, we came back to the apartment; by then it was 2:15 or so, and Shauna had left. We went in and unpacked and later on went to eat at an Italian restaurant at one end of the block called "Nonna's" (Nonna is grandmother in Italian). Although we did not have a reservation, we got a table provided we left before 7:30 when they needed the table for a reservation. Since it was 6:00 at the time, we felt safe. The food was very good and we probably will go back before we leave.
And so ended our first day in Edinburgh.
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