We recently connected with Aki Hirata Baker and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Aki thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Let’s kick things off with talking about how you serve the underserved, because in our view this is one of the most important things the small business community does for society – by serving those who the giant corporations ignore, small business helps create a more inclusive and just world for all of us.

MINKA brooklyn was created based on my experience of being a student of holistic wellness and healing as well as a practitioner. Through those experiences, I grew to realize that the first ingredients of healing are to feel safe and vulnerable. For many reasons, those ingredients weren’t guaranteed for people that hold marginalized identities. I wanted to have a space where space is created for people that hold marginalized identities to be able to exist and not censor themselves and their way of being when they enter.

I also came to realize that most of the modalities being taught in spaces that were predominantly white and taught by white facilitators often originate or draw inspiration from traditions of people of color. The story behind those traditions and inspiration is missing from our learning. Healing and wellness occurs in spite of the struggles within these stories and the resilience that we exhibited are what created these modalities. Without tapping in, we are missing some aspect of that in healing. So we also created MINKA brooklyn to uplift the voices and experiences of people of color and create a safe space for them to heal.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

I am a Flower Essence Therapist, energetic healing practitioner, Reiki Godmother (commonly known as Reiki master teacher), meditator, community activist, healing and spiritual guide, artist, urban farmer, and a domestic violence survivor. Driven by my passion for understanding powers in all things, and my struggle with depression and chronic physical ailments, I studied various healing modalities such as Ayurvedic Medicine, Integral Hatha Yoga, meditation, Essential Oils, Bach & FES flower essences, Energy Healing (Reiki, IET, 13th Octave LaHoChi and more), Indigenous healing & medicine practices of the Americas.

My current project, MINKA brooklyn, is a center for wellness and holistic living. I co-founded this space with my business partners with the intention of creating an inclusive community that is self-sustaining and that empowers individuals to evolve to the best possible versions of themselves.

I am most proud of the friendships that stem from MINKA brooklyn. When I see people creating deep bonds through MINKA brooklyn, it makes me feel like I have succeeded in my mission. People often say that they feel like they have come home, even in a virtual environment. They feel seen and energized because they feel like they can be their whole self and that’s okay.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

We have been taught from an early age that we have to have a plan that is quantifiable and tangible. By pursuing work in the business of wellness and healing that is spiritually led, I quickly came to unlearn this and instead embrace the fact that you have to go at the pace of life and spirit instead of what your ego (and even society) wants to see.

Another thing that I had to unlearn is that we need to be cutthroat, competitive, and focus on the bottom line in order to run a business. This contradicts our overall mission of creating a safe space. Instead of focusing on the bottom line, the bottom line will come and meet us when we are true to our mission and serve the community in a beneficial way.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

By maintaining that sense of safety within our community and people actually being able to experience instead of something completely opposite of that (this speaks to what I mentioned earlier about there being a void in the creation of this sort of safe space).

MINKA brooklyn is unique in that it is a safe community created by people of color, however, it’s not exclusive to only this community. We are unapologetic in this approach because by bringing people from various backgrounds together in this way to heal, by default, the conversation of equity comes into play since healing is related to social change. Society is a mirror of the individuals that occupy and influence it. So when we are doing healing in a real way, our desire for a harmonious world naturally comes as a result of it.

Ironically, I was advised against running a business this way. Business savvy folks told me that I was focusing too much on the intangible, too much on people of color, and too much on equity, but these are the three things that people know MINKA for. As a for-profit business, people thought this is a crazy idea, but our reputation stands exactly because of these principles that we hold. And because we have this organic approach to healing and social change that’s not intellectually based, the people have going through experiences with us have shared this deep level of transformation with others which has brought new people into our community.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.minkabrooklyn.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/minkabrooklyn
• Other: https://www.instagram.com/soulflowermedicine