On Being A Hummingbird — A Conversation with Daniela Hofmann
This piece is part of Quiet Inspirations — a series where I share the people, mindful conversations, books, and soul-rooted work that inspire me and that resonate with me.
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On emergence, permission, and the work that holds us
I first encountered Daniela in her mindful co-working space called the cabin. I kept returning, not only for the work itself, but for something harder to name — a quality of presence, of connection and of held space, that I rarely find in places devoted to working.
When I finally invited her into a conversation for Quiet Inspirations, what arrived was not a tidy linear story, but something more alive — a meandering and a dwelling, giving space to what was quietly emerging as we recognised similar threads from different directions.
One of the first things she said was that work and life, for her, cannot really be separate. They inform each other, interweave and flow. The idea of a boundary between them feels to her like drawing a line in the sand which can start to feel like a straitjacket. I know exactly what she means in a world where defining ourselves and putting ourselves into boxes is so normal.
"Why do I need to commit to one single thing?
It feels so impossible to me."
She shared something Elizabeth Gilbert once said — that there are two kinds of people.
The “jackhammers”, who know what they are going to be early on, and then the “hummingbirds”, who move from flower to flower, leaving a little of themselves everywhere they land.
I felt goosebumps at that. Not just for the beauty of the image, but for what it quietly offers: permission. Permission not to define yourself into a single lane. Permission to trust that what looks like wandering might, from a wider view, be a path.
Daniela spoke about the importance of focus too — of tending one project or fire at a time, even when there are several alive. Her point is not fragmentation, but trusting that there may be an overarching thread moving through the different places our attention is drawn. Looking back at her own path, she said, what seemed separate often reveals exactly that — an underlying vision or project, quietly making sense of all the different pieces.
When anything lives outside what has been formally studied or learned, a voice arrives that asks: do we need that? Is that important? Does it create value? Does it make sense?
She spoke about feeling brainwashed by capitalism in that respect — she said it with quiet courage, because it felt edgy to admit. And then there is something even more uncomfortable still, underneath: that even in doing some of what she loves, she partly justifies through that same lens. “Needing everything to make sense can disconnect us from our essence.”
Because underneath all of that — the busyness, the justifying, the performing of productivity — there are quieter things.
Things that tug on the heart. Things not yet fully formed, not yet ready to be shown, but present nonetheless, asking for attention. And when we give them space, deeper voices may also become more audible — the voices, fears and longings that arise when we are working on something that truly matters to our “hummingbird soul”.
So there is often inner work to do when we step into being more heart and soul guided. And here is what we both found most tender about this: they need space before they can become, and creating this space can take courage.
It is one of the reasons Daniela created the cabin. And another is that to create and hold this space, it can be so helpful to have other people's presence. With someone else simply being there, holding the same intention, something often shifts. An afternoon that might have dissolved into admin can become something else entirely, such as tending to something emergent. Learning that the cabin has this function for Daniela felt like a quiet recognition.
And perhaps that is what creating space really means. Not carving out time, not optimising a schedule, but allowing something unhurried to take form. Trusting that the heart and soul see further than the mind in their own sweet timing.
Not all of us have the same conditions for this. Some people are genuinely fighting for survival, with no margin left over to create space. Daniela holds this honestly — none of this is simple. And yet she tends to it anyway.
But I also find myself wanting to ask — gently, as an invitation rather than a challenge — where in our own lives have we unconsciously closed the door on the emergent? Not because we can’t afford it in terms of money or time, but because our habits, our conditioning, our inherited ideas about what counts as worthwhile or as “acceptable” have quietly filled it in? We walk paths laid down by others, often without noticing. And sometimes the most radical thing is simply to pause, look around, and ask: is this actually mine? And perhaps this is why spaces like the cabin matter so much.
So, for Daniela, the cabin is not so much a co-working space in any conventional sense, but an incubator — a held container where the unformed can begin to take shape. In that space, she has been quietly tending to something: a growing body of work around motherhood with videos and conversations. And she is feeling nourished in the tending of it.
What moved me most in our conversation was this: she is not waiting until it is ready. She is letting it exist publicly while it is still becoming. That takes a particular kind of courage — the courage to be a hummingbird in a world that keeps asking you to plant a flag.
I am looking forward to watching what emerges in her new YouTube Channel around the
portal of motherhood.
Connect with Daniela
Daniela works at the intersection of inner life and outer work as a consultant for conscious creators and business owners, a creator of the cabin (a mindful online coworking space) and guide for mothers. Across all of it, her work exists to help those she works find their way home to what actually matters, to themselves and to love.
Visit her YouTube Channel here.
Visit the cabin here
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Julia Kyambi is a medical doctor turned intuitive somatic guide.
She guides deep-feeling, soulful humans on their journey of inner homecoming