Hi, my lovely.
I have been gone so long. I finally found myself grounded enough to write and to speak again. But because it's been so much time, let me first reintroduce myself.
My name is Naomi. I've been studying to be a nutritionist. I'm a foodie. I'm a dancer. I'm on a mission to become much muchier, to become more me, to connect deeper into self, and hopefully empower women, empower people along the way. And to be quite frank, I'm just trying to figure it out. But what I do know is this, is that I want to and I'm going to live deliciously.
I started this podcast at the beginning of last year because my life was going through so many big changes and things were really falling apart and it felt like a brand new start and seeds were being sown, things were going to bloom. This was my way so this was my way of documenting the significant changes and of my thought process and along the way I found that the process of verbalising also really helped me to gather my thoughts and connect with myself more deeply. I also wanted to create nutrition related content to show what I've learned and hopefully provide a source of information to anyone who might need it.
So that was the beginning of last year and it started with a bang. First semester was quite intense but I was recording then and the second half of the year was a struggle. I am not one for giving up. But at the peak, I was really ready to throw in the towel. I was so overwhelmed.
And one thing that I've been grappling with for the past like 18 months and part of me starting this documentation, this conversation was to gain clarity, more clarity on what's to come next, to get an idea, a feeling for what the next step is and to [get an idea of] where I'm headed, what to make.
So beginning of 2024, it was very much, “okay, everything is crumbling. That's okay. This creates space for things to come in, right?”
Then comes mid-year, end of first semester. “Okay, nothing has changed so far since then. I haven't really come up with anything nothing's really shifted within either that's okay though I'm still in the middle of what I have to do in the middle of the process who knows what opportunities will still come next semester” and I'm so close to finishing there is all this space in my life something has to come in right? But spoiler, things didn't come in but things did get worse and to my surprise more things were to fall away. What made it all harder was through the other side of all of that there was still no sense of what's [to come] next. So much happened at the end of last year that I couldn't process everything in the time. There just wasn't enough physical time.
Come end of January this year I was catching up with a friend who I hadn't seen in way too long and I was recounting my recent affairs. It was a huge catch-up, which during, I found all this unaddressed emotion coming up as I recounted. so it was it was still kind of finishing up with last year's stuff at the beginning of this year.
So in lieu of that, 2025 so far has been a very reflective time. I entered this year still very much as the fool on the fool's journey, but maybe the fool's fall over the cliff, finally landing on some sort of ground. A renewed sense of hopefulness for the changes that will occur this this year but at the same time also a great frustration at the lack of movement frustration and particularly about the clarity that has that I feel has kept eluding me so today I want to reconnect along my journey thus far. And the space that I find myself in that maybe you might be finding yourself in too.
No longer where I was, but also not where I want to be. A time of uncertainty. I found that all the conversations that I've come across around this have only really been about such short seasons. I'm talking weeks like a month, a month to a year and then moving on. You know life changes so much in a year, except when it doesn't, and I wanted to contribute a voice, maybe some thoughts, maybe a little experience for a time of uncertainty that's lasted over several years.
So here as I sit, no longer the beginning of the year, we've reached the middle where it's winter again in the southern hemisphere. The nights are so long and dark and sitting here I'm starting to think from the fool, instead of the fool, when I see my own reflection I think I'm starting to see the magician. (These are all tarot references by the way, the Rider-Waite tarot.) And I'm not able to come to you, I'm not able to present a finished product. I am still desperately trying to figure it out. Umami 2.0- for that is what this is, might not be full of advice but it's going to be a space of reflection for sure and my wish is that as I get much muchier, so do you. I am still very much passionate about holistic health and I hope that the space I create helps people come home to themselves, and empowers people no matter what season they're going through.
Through all of this, when I think of the lessons I have learned thus far, I've acquired the skills of confrontation, self-reliance, learning to be on my own. Trusting myself and knowing that I have my own back. I've also acquired mediating skills and lessons on how to walk away. These skills were all learned and they served me really well.
I think that in the process of learning these skills or before they become skills, we tend to acquire them as a behaviour, a learned behaviour. We might become them and possess it as a trait almost. We become confrontational. We become independent, confident. A person who is quick to exit or we become flighty, noncommittal.
And these things, they keep us safe.
I recognise that it's been with feeling the frustration of trying to break out from a period of stillness, of rest, only to be called back to it time and time again.
That assertiveness is not who I am. Independent is not who I am. But I do lean into behaving in these ways.
I think behaviours are something very surface level. They can indicate what's lying underneath, but they don't show what's truly there in the depths of who you are. They're more like skills I can switch on, use, and hopefully match them to the right context and used in the correct timing. The skill is a part of us not the other way around, and you see with people who rely too much on their skills they're quite fragile they're very protective of it they, like for example somebody who uses who is very funny they are very witty their skill is humour. We all know somebody who relies on it way too much to deal with any situations. And yes, while they're very highly skilled in their humour, it can be a source of their detriment as well. And it's a struggle [for them] to let it go because that's what they use to keep themselves safe.
Just like the skills that I honed were the ones that I developed to protect me from getting hurt, And of course the ones that we practice with hold most often is the easiest one to wield. So even if we aren't so desperately reliant on it, we can find ourselves choosing or reverting back to it, to what we know very frequently.
I've noticed that while, for example, what I have are great skills to have in the toolbox, they're just not quite right for what I need now. It no longer serves me in the same way. And we've got to release the old, right? But what, when the switch from the old to the new hasn't been so smooth? This is the space of no longer back there, but not yet there either. There is no visible path forward because it's never existed before. Nor is the drive coming from behind because, well, we've released. We're releasing the past. The past that has, up until previously, had a very strong grip on us. How do you make moves when what you used to use no longer works? I'm finding that I'm asking myself, what do I even like? What matters to me? What is important? But also confronting the, feeling that what is around me is not quite good enough.
I looked in a little deeper and what I found lying behind these feelings was that previously it was all fuelled by a need to escape. And now I've graduated that. There is no longer a need to escape. There is nothing to escape from. What I used to try run from no longer exists. As that has gone, my sense of bearing has also gone and it's really difficult to identify desires that are beyond just something superficial. There have been days where fear has taken up too much space in my body. The scared voice tells me that we don't know what life working out looks like. It says, we've not yet found a place that feels right. That this is looking like this is just how things are. This is it. It tells me how I've worked so hard in places that don't love me.
So what is the reward? Really, what is the reward? From the space or the void I'm talking about, what is the reward for sitting still? On the other hand, what is the reward for suffering? Mind you, people are not better off for having suffered. For most, they're worse off than they've started. It's really the individual's ability and actually the community as well. It's people's ability to stand back up and adapt and change and make turn it into something beautiful that that's when you gain something good from that right and too often people just don't have the resources. People can't get back up. I ask again but really what is the reward?
Marriage, a relationship, love, this is not a reward. Working and finding success is not rewarded by now you get to have a family, have a child, retire, be safe. Not even safety is the reward. Because we exist regardless. We get to exist regardless. We get to experience regardless.
A random thought just popped into my head but, in Spanish, the word for to make and to do is the same, “hacer”. And one of my favourite Spanish speaker isms when they speak English is when “hacer” gets translated to “make” in the context of where we would use the word like have or do, like “have a party”. They say “make a party”. And it just reminded me, I think it just popped into my head because we can have experiences, but we can also make experiences.
Where I've gotten to [in my understanding], I guess, is that everything is an experience. Learning to walk as a baby is an experience. Starting to school is an experience. Graduating school is an experience, all of school is just an experience. Your friends they’re just an experience in the way that there is no real control over them, there is no criteria to meet, something to achieve, there is no to-do list when it comes to a friend you are just there to experience them in their fullness same as a relationship, any relationship, it is an experience. Our feelings is an experience. Our thoughts trigger feelings and that is an experience. And that's a great thing. But it's also not so serious, don't you think?
A prompt that I've been sitting with for a moment now is how can I grow without it being an escape from where I am? But instead, leaning into myself more and more. I am making sure that I am very mindful not to fall into the trap of needing to fix myself to grow. That I am enough. I'm not flawed or I'm perfectly flawed and it is not for me to fix but just to experience.
Just to experience…
I get to experience.
And to instead, root and deepen into who we want to be. Coming to a point of balance of how everything is a reflection as well as that it's all working out in my best interest.
I'm not going to lie the balance is hard because I think it's easier to pick a side and run with it. It's easier to be negative about it and, oh, I'm not good enough. I'm flawed. It's a reflection, I've got to fix it. I've got to fix me and then it'll fix everything else. On the other side of the spectrum is nothing matters. It's all working out. Everything is working out. I don't have to do anything. I'll just manifest.
I'll just manifest, manifest, manifest… Think good thoughts and everything is going to change without me lifting a finger. There is truth in both sides, I think. But the truth is scarce at the extremes. And it's easier to pick one than for them both to be true at the same time. I think when I started, I was running from one side to the other, feeling unbalanced when I was too far over on one side and scrambling to get to the other.
And now the voice of fear I mentioned earlier doesn't really stick around for too long. There's another voice that's more encouraging saying, from the vantage point where I feel blessed and worthy, we're moving to other places that also make me feel blessed and worthy.
And I am so ready.
To live a delicious life.
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