I have always been a person who is in tune with my mind, body, and soul. I appreciate the undeniable, magical synergy that comes from the synchronicity of said three realms that one can only reach and hear when we’re listening. But, in order to arrive at that place of silence, focus, and bliss, we need a guide. In my experience, very few guides possess the talent of Dahiana Naidu, a holistic healer and practitioner dedicated to aiding people to discover the strength of their own healing abilities. Naidu’s personal struggles battling and surviving cancer led her to discover one of nature’s most precious and powerful ingredients, cocoa or cacao, in Spanish.
Dahiana’s Road to About Cacao
Naidu grew up among nature with her herbalist grandmother in Colombia, who solved literally everything with plants and flowers. Naidu’s mother was also a very spiritual person, but Dahiana was fascinated by science. She studied food science and nutrition and became a certified nutritionist. When she got sick, she realized that science wasn’t the only subject with the answers, and she went back to her roots to be surrounded by the nature she grew up with. She discovered the balance between science and nature or, in her own words, “Magic needs science and vice-versa.” Her life became a marriage between science and nature through the herbs and plants she knew so well as a child. She knew that to battle, win, and conquer cancer, she needed the powers of nature and science alike.
After facing many personal challenges, she stumbled upon Gia NoMaya in the heart of Brooklyn’s Flatbush neighborhood. This modern-day sanctuary offers healing by combining ancient and modern rituals, such as various yoga practices, a Himalayan salt cave, meditation, cacao healing sessions, and food. It has a very cool restaurant with a menu from Palenque and a very impressive tequila bar. Dahiana was looking for a place like this where she could heal and offer healing.
Cacao arrived at her life, and it literally transformed it, she explained. Due to all the chemicals in her body, her skin was intensely dry and flaky, and her hair was falling rapidly, thinning, and brittle. One thing Dahiana couldn’t forget about the ingredient was its delicious smell, which she remembered she grew up with. Applying her food science background, she decided to study cacao and explore all of its amazing benefits, and the rest is history. The more she learned about the plant, the more enamored she became with its potential as a natural moisturizer, exfoliant, and healer.
Cacao absorbed her, and she started to do science with cacao. The delicious smell of cacao brought back all her childhood memories of eating cacao as a child and seeing how she grew up with the plant all around her. In her own words: “Cacao, instead of changing the things in your life, it reveals them.” She calls it the magic of cacao; it has energy and spirit because it is alive.
At Gio NoMaya, she offers cacao ceremonies where people connect with the spiritual essence of cacao by meditating, relaxing, and drinking cacao. For her, cacao has no limits; it gives energy but also helps you sleep. By doing science with the ingredients, she developed her three products to offer the same benefits received during the ceremony but in a topical way through the skin. The skin is the largest organ of the body, and it absorbs everything.
My Experience
To say that I wasn’t physically or mentally prepared for Dahiana’s magical hands, words, and wonderful About Cacao trio of products is a massive understatement. The moment I arrived at Gia… I was immediately surprised by the rustic and unpretentious beauty of the spa, which has a salt cave and tequila bar. As soon as I laid eyes on Dahiana, I knew she was the real deal because her kind of serenity is very hard to fake. She welcomed me with the brightest blue eyes and the sweetest smile, and I immediately felt that we could be friends. That’s the kind of power she has; she really sees you and sees beyond what one can normally see. What I could see in me at that moment in time. The enchantment continued as soon as I started asking questions about her life, her road to healing, the reason why she created her products, and her purpose. When she told me that her mission was to bring joy to people’s lives with cocoa and help them heal from the outside, I was intrigued.
It was beautiful the way she spoke about the ingredient as a living being with a soul and a spirit that can heal you because it listens to you. She spoke of cacao as a priest in a church, as a community leader, a mentor, a guide, or as something more powerful than just a plant. According to Naidu, the healing powers of cacao are undeniable, and she is living proof of it. I stared at the incredibly beautiful, radiant woman in front of me, and I thought to myself: “If cacao is responsible for her healthy skin and hair, I want to try it.”
The first thing she did was to lead me to a dressing room, and she handed me a towel. As I stared, surprised, she said: “for your showers.” Showers? I asked, and she said: “yes, there are going to be two showers.” Imagine my surprise, but I was intrigued and too far invested in the experience, so I took the towel. What came next was a near-mystical ritual as I lay down on a table in a beautifully dimmed room, and she applied the first product of the set, the cacao scrub. The pure chocolate scent of this product was intoxicating and powerful.
Naidu told me that cacao has the power to connect the body and the spirit, and I could experience it by breathing in its aroma. I must confess that I felt the connection, as every time she applied and massaged the products onto my skin, I was seduced by its aroma and the soft-spoken words from Dahiana. My mind kept disconnecting and entering this blissful plain, which I was slowly brought back to after each shower just to enter again after the application of the second and third products. After the session was completed, it took me a while to come back to my senses because I was so relaxed and immersed in the experience. After my experience with the products, she treated me to a bodywork session where she found the beating heart on my back, told me to free myself from my self-imposed prison, and gave me clarity about my future.
About Cacao: Food for the Skin
About Cacao is a handcrafted and sustainably sourced trio of cacao products Dahiana thoughtfully conceived. The treatment provides a cacao-rich and naturally-scented body scrub named Rough Love, Theo Love, a body butter, and Love Grows, a body mask. All three products were crafted to nourish, hydrate, detox, and protect the skin. She developed her formulas carefully and worked closely with a New York-based lab to ensure the quality and longevity of the products. She makes them herself because she doesn’t want the purity of the formulas to be compromised. Dahiana only uses natural preservatives to guarantee the product’s shelf life. I’ve been trying this trio for several weeks, and I have to say that I’m a cacao believer. There are no dead cells on my skin, and there’s no discoloration.
Rough Love, the amazingly powerful body scrub, is rich in minerals and vitamins because, in addition to cocoa, it has maca, coffee, and coconut. The most powerful quality of this scrub is its anti-inflammatory properties, which nourish, hydrate, and reduce inflammation. Love Grows, the most delicious body mask I have tried in a long time, left my skin feeling soft and buttery. It was made with cacao, coffee, mint, and marshmallow, and it has SPF. Theo Love, the body butter is a sweet-smelling rich cream that covers every inch of your skin, hydrating it from within.
If you live in the tri-state area and are looking for an enriching, spiritual life experience, it will be worth booking an appointment with Dahiana at Gia NoMaya to experience this cacao ritual. The products are available in many natural food stores, including Whole Foods.
Food vs Evil 