Voice Hugs

How much can one stranger's story actually change your life? When Viv's husband suffered a serious burn last year, the thing that got him through recovery wasn't a doctor or a product—it was a blog he stumbled on by chance where one man quietly documented his own recovery journey 🩹

That little blog cracked open a big conversation: why shared stories make us feel less alone, what the internet felt like before the algorithm (RIP Tumblr-era honesty), and where the line is between sharing your life and performing it—trauma-dumping, mommy-vlogging, and kids who never consented to being content.

The moral isn't to stop creating—it's that the world needs real stories, told for connection, not clicks 💛 Because you never know who's quietly reading. What's the story you've been sitting on?

☎️ Hugs Hotline is officially open! Got a juicy question? A sticky situation? Something you just need to voice HUG-it-out? Leave us a voicemail and we’ll share our best advice in an upcoming episode. Can’t wait to hear from you ❣️

Leave us a voicemail here: https://www.speakpipe.com/HugsHotline

Or, as always, you can send us an email [email protected] or DM us https://instagram.com/voicehugspodcast 😼

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Why is it so hard to answer a simple "how are you” sometimes? You see someone you haven't seen in months, they give their little life update, it's your turn, and your brain just… buffers 🍥

This exact moment happened to both of us recently, and it cracked open something bigger: how social interactions can mirror back what we’re actually going through, why we downplay big life changes (hi, pregnancy and new motherhood), and how easy it is to isolate right when we most need people.

If you've been answering "I'm good!" on autopilot, this one's your gentle check-in 💛 So… how are you, really?

☎️ HUGS HOTLINE: Got a juicy question yourself? A sticky situation? Something you just need to voice HUG-it-out? Leave us a voicemail and we’ll share our thoughts and/or best advice in an upcoming episode. Can’t wait to hear from you ❣️

Leave us a voicemail here: https://www.speakpipe.com/HugsHotline

Or, as always, you can send us an email [email protected] or DM us on IG @voicehugspodcast 😼

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How do you make a decision when there are 24 kinds of everything and the algorithm has an opinion on all of it? 🌀 From the grocery store to your For You page, we're more overwhelmed by information than any generation before us. Whether we’re aware of it or not, this is quietly running our moods, our spending, and our sense of self.

We get into a study that proves too many options make us worse at choosing, why your feed can hijack your whole week off a single click, and the sneaky reason marketers target new moms and college kids especially 👀

Mentioned:

☎️ Hugs Hotline is officially open! Got a juicy question? A sticky situation? Something you just need to voice HUG-it-out? Leave us a voicemail and we’ll share our best advice in an upcoming episode. Can’t wait to hear from you ❣️

Leave us a voicemail here: https://www.speakpipe.com/HugsHotline

Or, as always, you can send us an email [email protected] or DM us @voicehugspodcast 😼

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sometimes you just need a lighthearted one 🃏 We pulled out a get-to-know-you card game and answered 20 questions—from "what fictional world would you absolutely not survive in?" to "if your life had a warning label, what would it say?"

It got chaotic fast: dinosaurs, zombies, Ro's very confident belief she'd be amazing at literally everything, and one warning label Viv agreed with a little too quickly 🤭

Save these questions for your next game night or road trip and play along with us 💛

☎️ Hugs Hotline is officially open! Got a juicy question? A sticky situation? Something you just need to voice HUG-it-out? Leave us a voicemail and we’ll share our best advice in an upcoming episode. Can’t wait to hear from you ❣️

Leave us a voicemail here: https://www.speakpipe.com/HugsHotline

Or, as always, you can send us an email [email protected] or DM us https://instagram.com/voicehugspodcast 😼

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How do you get through a hard season when you can't see the end of it? There's an "unwritten rule" that says every long stretch of hardship is followed by a quantum leap—all it requires is that you don't give up on yourself ❤️

We get honest about what a hard season actually feels like day to day (not the cleaned-up version), why "high-functioning" struggling is so easy to miss, and where the line is between real hope and toxic positivity. Both of us open up about seasons we almost didn't say out loud 🥹

If you're in the in-between right now, we hope it helps you feel a little less alone. Sending the biggest voiceHUGS as always 🧸

☎️ Hugs Hotline is officially open! Got a juicy question? A sticky situation? Something you just need to voice HUG-it-out? Leave us a voicemail and we’ll share our best advice in an upcoming episode. Can’t wait to hear from you ❣️

Leave us a voicemail here: https://www.speakpipe.com/HugsHotline

Or, as always, you can send us an email [email protected] or DM us https://instagram.com/voicehugspodcast 😼

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How can we dream bigger when life has trained us to play it small? As kids we wanted everything, unapologetically—then somewhere along the way we learned to want less, to be realistic, to play it safe 🌱

We get into where that voice actually comes from (hint: you didn't come up with it), why it's so easy to see everyone else “playing small,” and the honest, unglamorous story of how Ro finally got un-stuck after years of feeling creatively flat.

Consider this your permission slip 💛 That dream you buried because someone told you to "be realistic" is probably still in there. What is it? And what would it take to say it out loud?

Book Mentioned: Creative Machines https://amzn.to/45XEYcA

☎️ Hugs Hotline is officially open! Got a juicy question? A sticky situation? Something you just need to voice HUG-it-out? Leave us a voicemail and we’ll share our best advice in an upcoming episode. Can’t wait to hear from you ❣️

Leave us a voicemail here: https://www.speakpipe.com/HugsHotline

Or, as always, you can send us an email [email protected] or DM us https://instagram.com/voicehugspodcast 😼

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Viv came back from a work conference with a story she hasn't been able to shake: a Japanese company’s chairman hands every new employee a 100-year calendar and says, “Somewhere on this page is the date of your death.” 🕰️🤯👀

A little morbid, sure, but it's really about awareness. Awareness that our time here is finite, and that most of us don't waste it dramatically… we waste it accidentally (hi, 6 hours of screen time 😭). We get into how to actually be present, the tiny three-minute things that make a life feel alive, and why nothing can replace seeing and interacting with people in person.

This isn't an episode about death. It's a soft reminder that life is happening right now 💛 If you could see your life on a 100-year calendar, what would you want more of and less of?

Mentions:

☎️ HUGS HOTLINE: Got a juicy question yourself? A sticky situation? Something you just need to voice HUG-it-out? Leave us a voicemail and we’ll share our thoughts and/or best advice in an upcoming episode. Can’t wait to hear from you ❣️

Leave us a voicemail here: https://www.speakpipe.com/HugsHotline

Or, as always, you can send us an email [email protected] or DM us on IG https://instagram.com/voicehugspodcast😼

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How do you actually know when you're ready to have a baby? It's one of the biggest questions of your 20s and 30s, and no one really prepares you for how much of it is both emotional AND logistical. This was a question from our Aussie listener, Nat—thanks for writing in!! 💌

We break motherhood readiness into two parts: the logistical (finances, division of labor, gender roles, and the conversations to have before baby so resentment doesn't quietly build) and the emotional (grieving your freedom and your body, plus the very real "what if I'm a bad mom / what if I pass down my trauma" fears).

Here's the thing though, "ready" probably doesn't look like what you think it does. We get into the reframe that finally took the pressure off both of us 💛 What's making you feel ready (or not)?

☎️ HUGS HOTLINE: Got a juicy question yourself? A sticky situation? Something you just need to voice HUG-it-out? Leave us a voicemail and we’ll share our thoughts and/or best advice in an upcoming episode. Can’t wait to hear from you ❣️

Leave us a voicemail here: https://www.speakpipe.com/HugsHotline

Or, as always, you can send us an email [email protected] or DM us https://instagram.com/voicehugspodcast 😼

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

100 episodes in, and we finally sat down and asked ourselves the questions we'd been avoiding: What have we built?? Do we still want to do it? And where do we actually want it to go from here? 🥹

We're getting honest about the parts of Voice Hugs we've never really said out loud—how we've (not) treated it, what we're a little scared of, and what it would take to dream bigger without losing the soft thing that makes it ours.

There's also one thing we learned about you that genuinely surprised us 🌍 This one's an open, honest conversation—and we want you in it. What do you want to see next from Voice Hugs? 💛

✳️ Please share any & all thoughts with us here: https://forms.gle/LKZFAdku3eJbQC8eA

☎️ HUGS HOTLINE: https://www.speakpipe.com/HugsHotline

Got a juicy question yourself? A sticky situation? Something you just need to voice HUG-it-out? Leave us a voicemail and we’ll share our thoughts and/or best advice in an upcoming episode. Can’t wait to hear from you ❣️

Or, as always, you can send us an email [email protected] or DM us on IG https://instagram.com/voicehugspodcast 😼

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

❣️ MUG HUGS LAUNCH + GIVEAWAY BELOW ❣️ Four years. One hundred episodes. We still can't believe we get to say that out loud 🥺 What started as two perfectionists in Ro's parent’s living room—taking a full 30min to record a two-sentence intro—somehow became 100 episodes of us growing up along side one another.

This really is one is a giant love letter to YOU. Whether you've been here since day zero, episode one, or this is your very first episode of Voice Hugs, we’re so grateful you are here. Cheers to embracing another 100 (🤭) seasons with the OPENEST of arms and BEING our best selves, together 🧸🤝🏻✨

⭐️ MUG HUGS: Our limited edition Mug Hugs in collaboration with @byslowstudio will be available 7/8, @11am PT on www.voicehugspodcast.com. We are SO excited to get these pink and blue cuties in your hands 🥹

💝 GIVEAWAY: To celebrate 100 episodes of Voice Hugs 🥹 we're giving away 1 Blue Mug Hug with a matching bubble coaster + 10 greeting card sets (each set comes with 5 ‘For All Season’ cards)!

To enter:

Details:

🍵 SLOW STUDIO

╰ IG: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/byslowstudio⁠

☎️ HUGS HOTLINE: Got a juicy question yourself? A sticky situation? Something you just need to voice HUG-it-out? Leave us a voicemail and we’ll share our thoughts and/or best advice in an upcoming episode. Can’t wait to hear from you ❣️

Leave us a voicemail here: https://www.speakpipe.com/HugsHotline

Or, as always, you can send us an email [email protected] or DM us on IG https://instagram.com/voicehugspodcast 😼 😼

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices