Meet Cassouki: The Woman Behind The Conscious Cabin

A few weeks ago, I had a post take off on instagram. It’s my first post to reach over 1 MILLION views. It received alot of love. Messages from people sharing their excitement for an upcoming stay at the cabin, a handful of new bookings filling up the calendar for the next few months, and then came the hate..

I received awful messages at a very large volume. I can handle pretty much anything. I’ve gotten through days I didn’t think I would get through, and through those experiences have built the audacity to keep going no matter what. AND I still have days where I feel overwhelmed and defeated. These messages caught me on one of those days.

I used to share more of my personal life online. As this community has grown, I’ve found myself becoming more private. There are more eyes here now. More opinions. More people making assumptions about a person they’ve never actually met.

I wanted to hide. to share less. say less. basically, make myself a little harder to reach. If people can’t see you, they also can’t hurt you, right?? I realized that protecting myself from being seen would also mean guarding myself from receiving all the love and connection that comes along with it. If we block ourselves from pain, we also block ourselves from pleasure. This is not to say we shouldn’t show up without boundaries..protecting my peace is #1.

So instead of disapearing into the forest and crying (always encouraged but wasn’t what i needed this time), I’m going to take up space, stand in my power and share some fun facts about me..

Meet Cassouki

I grew up in a tiny town in New Hampshire.

Smaller than North Conway. No stoplights. Lots of farms. The darkest nights with the brightest stars.

Nature was the one constant in my life. When i’d come home from school (a place I didn’t feel I belonged), the trees were always there to welcome be home afterwards.

It’s funny how we can spend most of our lives moving away form the things that came most naturally to us as a child, only to eventually find our way back.

It’s no surprise that nature, creating and cultivating connection have become my lifes devotion. Those threads were there all along.

And then there’s this sweet cabin. Once abandoned and unloved.

In 2020 I stepped foot on this land and knew instantly I was meant to be here. It’s hard to explain it, it’s the deepest knowing i’ve ever felt. I had a feeling my life was about to change, but didn’t realized just how much.

The land and cabin were neglected for years. There was no running water, no septic, and very old electric. The land was buried beneath debris and old structures that became home for the chippies and squirrels.

Looking at The Conscious Cabin now, it may look like a beautiful before/after story..that I bought and abandoned cabin, restored it and followed my dreams. But it wasn’t that neat. While I was breathing life back into this cabin, my own life felt like it was being burned to the ground. Everything I once found comfort in was decaying. There was grief. There was uncertainty. Many endings. There were days when the life I had known for ove a decade no longer made sense yet the life I was building hadn’t fully appeared and held a terrifying amount of mystery.

One impossible project at a time, I restored this cabin. And she restored me.

Grief and joy can coexist.

We don’t have to wait until everything feels healed and ready before something beautiful is allowed to take form. I’ve grieved while I built. I’ve been terrified while I was also expanding. I was creating somethign from my heart while simultaneously wondering what the actual fuck I was doing.

Both can be true.

Im a first-generation Greek American. Growing up, I watched my parents work multiple jobs. Hard work wasn’t really something that needed to be explained to me. I watched it every single day. And eventually got my first real job at 14 years old.

Some of my earliest memories are helping my dad with his building projects. Pouring concrete foundations. Building sheds. Fishing wire through two-story sheet-rocked walls. And now my dad helps me with my projects.

I recently traveled back to my parents’ villages in Greece. I learned more about where I come from and discovered that my lineage includes builders, stonemasons, midwives and healers. well..that makes sense. because building and tending are deeply ingrained in who I am.

I still wonder what i’m doing sometimes..

I think it’s worth saying becasue the internet has a funny way of making people look like they have it all together.

I experience imposter syndrome. I question myself. I sometimes worry i’m too much. too ambitious. to expressive.

And sometimes i catch myself starting to dim my light, ‘ to be more digestible’.

Courage hasn’t looked like becoming completely fearless or confident. I notice when fear comes up. I’ve learned to sit with it and then KEEP. GOING.

and sometimes it looks like getting rude messages on the internet and responding by writing an entire blog post about Cassouki.

I really just love hearing peoples stories. Not small talk. The real, raw story without a mask or performance. The messy parts. the things you haven’t told many people. The dream youre afraid to share outloud. The heartbreak that changed you. THe moment you realized you couldn’t keep living this way anymore.

I love hearing what’s underneath the surface.

And that’s a huge part of why The Conscious Cabin exists.

Yes, you can sleep in, have a campfire, take an outdoor shower, hike, cook dinner together, drink coffee outside, bring your dog (!), disappar in the mountians for a few days. and that’s wonderful.

but it’s also a space to soften. to have those deep conversations. to speak your truth. to remember what connection feels like. to feel the sense of home and maybe even remember that that home is you.

So here to say:

Take up space.

all of it.

make the thing.

say what you mean.

let yourself be misunderstood by some people.

let yourself be deeply loved by others.

be too much.

keep going.

and maybe, instead of becoming smaller to make the world more comfortable, become more faithful to love than anything else.

thank you for being here.

love,

Cassouki