We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Miranda Lattimore a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Miranda, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Naming anything – including a business – is so hard. Right? What’s the story behind how you came up with the name of your brand?

The name ZEN:MNM was birthed out of a poem my partner/husband typed on his Underwood Typewriter called Homeostasis, where he states, “it’s hard to find zen when you live in this black skin.”

We moved to Portland, Oregon during the pandemic and noticed a state of homeostasis and peace when we spent time in nature, participated in mindful movement, or simply focused on our breath. Growing up in South Carolina, we rarely saw or experienced Black People enjoying nature and finding solitude through movement and mindfulness.

Zen in Black Skin became ZEN:MNM when we discovered the ingredients that, alone or combined, brought us back to our best selves: Mindfulness, Nature and Movement.

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.

Before ZEN:MNM, my husband, Marcus, and I had busy, hectic lives due to our social “status” in the state of South Carolina. With Marcus as a popular athlete and me as a real estate agent, we were bombarded with requests, obligations, and responsibilities on a daily basis. Finding balance became more of a challenge as we crept further into our twenties. We decided as a couple that we needed a mental break from the race, and a holistic approach to wellness. This decision led to the inception of what we do today.

Recognizing a need to slow down and reset, I started attending a pilates studio that offered weekly yoga stretch sessions. Having little experience in the yoga and mindfulness world, I had no idea how transformative yoga could be in all aspects of my busy little world. After a few weeks of consistent practice, my thoughts, energy and actions began to slowly shift, and I noticed a breakthrough in my own emotional and mental health that I never came close to achieving previously. Meanwhile, Marcus had began reading more and journaling as a form of therapy, shaping his writing skills and enhancing his mindfulness practice.

Once we settled in Portland, I became a certified yoga teacher and began offering virtual yoga classes in October of 2020. A year later, in 2021 Marcus started typing stream-of-conscious poetry on his typewriter, offering poems on the spot at pop-ups around Portland. Seeing the joy and sense of grounding presence it brought people, we decided to come together to form ZEN:MNM.

ZEN started as type-written poetry and one weekly community yoga class. We now offer JYM CLASS (Journaling Yoga and Meditation) workshops, forest bathing, yoga and pen therapy for the recovery community, corporate wellness, virtual services, and custom ZEN experiences like retreats and consulting.

The biggest goals as a business offering wellness services, is that our clients feel they have a safe, non-judgmental environment where they can find their own version of zen through our founding principles of mindfulness, nature and movement. We are proud to offer pay-what-you-can options for our community offerings, and seek to limit barriers to access to holistic wellness.

What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?

We don’t want to be another reason people are scrolling, so we chose not to have a dedicated social media account for ZEN. We do the majority of our marketing in person and through our monthly(ish) newsletter. Sticking with this approach is a never-ending challenge, but we enjoy the opportunity to make genuine connections with people, and word-of-mouth referrals have been the core of our growth.

Our most effective strategy so far has derived from Marcus being a live typist. His vintage typewriter(s) serves as a unique marketing tool for ZEN. People approach us with curiosity, and once they request a poem with Marcus, I am able to establish a relationship with the client–walking them through our wellness offerings, and learning more about their stories. People love the mindful approach of on-the-spot poetry as Marcus formulates a poem based solely on their word/theme and their energy.

Allowing clients to feel our presence and intentionality, to us, makes up for the visibility that would otherwise come from having a digital profile. We still toy with the idea of creating a ZEN-stagram. Maybe one day we will give in, but for now, it’s snail mail and poetry pop-ups.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I love this question because most of my adult life has been centered around unlearning and relearning. Something I learned during my yoga training was reacting vs. responding. Many of us in the western world have a tendency to react to things, and our body become accustom to that knee-jerk reaction–even with the smallest things.

Learning to respond rather than react takes patience, a practice of self-compassion and an awareness of Self without judgment. Running a business is one of the biggest challenges of my life, but once I started applying this principle to ZEN for our clients, I was able to observe situations objectively, assess clients with more attention, and deliver more meaningful classes and workshops. One of my favorite parts about offering mindfulness, nature and movement services is that I get to help others come to this awareness as well.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.zenmnm.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mirandalattimore/, https://www.instagram.com/marcuslattimore_/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/miranda-lattimore-122b73aa/