Spokane’s Anam Cara turns three with ‘Best place for wellness or relaxation’ award
News Story by Morgen White | FāVS News
Hannah Talbot remembers when she opened Anam Cara Healing Center. People told her she was a witch.
“When I first moved here, I had people tell me that they couldn’t come to Anam Cara because it conflicted with their religion,” Talbot said. “I had people tell me that I was a witch and that nobody wanted my stuff here.”
Despite her struggles in the beginning, Anam Cara, 7 S. Howard St., recently celebrated the meditation studio’s third anniversary. In addition, the studio found out they won the Downtown Spokane Partnership “Best in Downtown” (BID) Award for “best place for wellness or relaxation.”
Elisabeth Hooker, vice president of Marketing and Programming at Downtown Spokane Partnership, created the BID awards program.
“Part of my job is to highlight [downtown] businesses, come up with event ideas, work with event promoters, as well as celebrate those that choose to invest in the downtown area,” Hooker said. “And so part of that is our best in BID awards.”
These awards have been around for only three years, but when it was introduced at an annual meeting in 2022, it was an immediate hit, Hooker said.
“We thought it would be really fun to highlight what makes downtown special,” she said. “It received such a great response that it was something that we decided to kind of anchor at that annual meeting event.”
Surprised by news of the nomination
Talbot recalls hearing that they were nominated by a client and told to go vote.
“It happened very fast, and all of a sudden we were a finalist. And to know that we were a finalist with names like the Davenport Spa, the historic Davenport, like that is Spokane,” Talbot said.
When Anam Cara’s win was finalized, Talbot felt an immense sense of gratitude.
“It felt like winning the Oscars. It is incredible to be recognized for how hard you have worked and the effort that you put in,” she said.
Businesses that won in their categories are given a spotlight and receive extra promotion, including a video profile, Hooker said.
If you build it, they will come
Talbot used to be the director of operations for four restaurants. Despite her lofty title, she didn’t feel content with her life.
“It seemed like I had everything right on paper, but yet I still felt depleted and burnt out. And so that’s kind of how I found my way into yoga, and that led to mindfulness,” she said.
The seeds of Anam Cara began to grow when she went looking for a place herself to practice meditation and mindfulness. She wasn’t finding anything generic or philosophy-free, open to all.
“The whole time I wanted a place for me to work out of but with other practitioners as well,” Talbot said.
Talbot moved to Spokane from the Seattle area in 2021 and established Anam Cara in March of 2022.
The meditation studio emphasizes community and self-care with in-person and online meditation classes, individualized healing sessions, as well as workshops surrounding the topic of mindfulness.
Talbot has also added energy work and teaching Reiki classes, mini retreats for different occasions including birthdays, weddings and funerals and workshops focused on a variety of different topics.
Talbot is also a Somatic Healing practitioner.
“If you break that down, the word Soma is Latin for body. This is just that mind body connection, mind-body healing, so that we can release the stuff that’s stuck and stored in the body,” she said. “All of that manifests, as you know, it can be mental, spiritual, physical ailments. … It truly does affect everything,” Talbot said.
Although some in the community lacked understanding around her vision, Talbot persisted. Now three years later the hard work has paid off.
“What’s changed for me is that it feels much more solid. The first two years were just me working literally seven days a week, 16 hours a day, grinding like for weeks at a time without a day off,” Talbot said.
When Anam Cara first opened their doors, Talbot said that it was a complete roll of the dice. She was not sure if those in the community would be receptive or if they even felt the need for it. However, she said she felt in her bones that this was what she needed to do.
“I went all in. Our space is absolutely gorgeous. We did all of the construction. It’s custom woodwork. Everything was intentionally placed and thought of in the space,” Talbot said. “So it’s like the feeling that you come in and you just go, ‘I feel at home, I feel at ease.'”
A client’s journey ‘home’
Cara Carlton has been a loyal patron of Anam Cara who has felt at ease there since July 2022.
Her journey to the studio started three years prior when Anam Cara was written on the side of a boat in Hope, Idaho. When she got home, Carlton looked it up and felt a connection to its meaning: soul friend. She even ended up getting a tattoo of it in Old Gaelic on her shoulder.
When she learned about the studio’s opening in downtown Spokane and heard that name she’d been so drawn to years before, she knew she had to go and check it out.
“There was just so much kind of synchronicity that brought me,” Carlton said. “And then that day, I signed up to do an unlimited, which I still do.”
During the pandemic Carlton worked for the Chamber of Commerce for Spokane. Although the work was meaningful, she says it wrecked her nervous system. Carlton had just been diagnosed with high blood pressure and started taking medication for it a year before she walked into Anam Cara.
“I just knew I needed something and I could feel, it wasn’t exactly physical, but like, just run down, absolutely run down,” she said.
One thing Carlton did not expect from attending classes, which she admires, is the insight from those around her.
“I think that was Hannah’s intent from the get go, to establish a community and then start learning from the community,” Carlton said.
Talbot agreed.
“This is really a place for people to feel at home and at ease and to be seen and to be witnessed in whatever capacity,” Talbot said.
Although the winners have already been announced, the annual Downtown Spokane Partnership meeting and BID celebration is Thursday (Feb. 20) at 3:30-6 p.m. More information is available at DowntownSpokane.org.
