ZILLION TRILLION

There’s something deeply dystopian about the fact that even journaling has become aspirational content.

Somewhere along the way, writing down your thoughts turned into another optimization ritual. Another thing women are supposed to do perfectly. Beautiful notebook. Perfect handwriting. Peaceful morning routine. No children screaming in the background. No notifications. No real life.

Which is why this conversation with Laura Rubin genuinely changed the way I think about journaling. Not because she romanticizes it, but because she completely strips the performance out of it.

We talk about overthinking, anxiety, emotional spirals, indecision, nervous system overwhelm, and why most of us are no longer cognitively capable of the wellness routines we keep trying to force ourselves into. She explains why journaling is less about “dear diary” introspection and more about organizing thought before your brain organizes chaos for you instead.

Laura also shares the exact prompts she uses when you feel reactive, stuck, emotionally flooded, disconnected from yourself, or unable to figure out what you actually want anymore beneath all the noise.

But honestly, the moment that stayed with me most was when she described asking a room full of successful women to simply write down things they liked and one of them realizing she genuinely no longer knew. Not loved, liked.And I think that says something pretty devastating about the moment we’re living in.

This episode felt less like productivity advice and more like permission. Permission to stop trying to do wellness perfectly. Permission to slow your brain down long enough to actually hear yourself think again.

If your brain has felt loud lately, I think you’ll love this one.

When was the last time you sat quietly long enough to hear what you actually think?

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The babies you can almost feel before they get here.

The ones you swear you knew before any positive test. The little one you’ve been quietly carrying around in your body for years that nobody else can see. That feeling we’ve all been trained to dismiss as wishful thinking, hormones, projection: anything but what it actually might be.

This week, I’m sitting down with Kelly Meehan Brown, the woman who literally invented the term spirit baby medium. For over a decade she has been speaking to babies before they come, in conception, in miscarriage, in IVF, in pregnancy, and in all the in-between spaces we don’t have a real language for yet.

We talk about miscarriage as embodied death, why over-intervention is a real thing nobody warns you about, what babies actually look like in spirit form, soul personalities, birth imprints, why 43 isn’t the cliff we’ve been sold, the difference emotional support statistically makes on a fertility journey, and how grief lives in the body when we refuse to tend to it.

She also reads me on the podcast. About the daughter I’ve been feeling for years. I have not fully recovered.

It’s wild, it’s grounding, it’s a little disorienting in the best possible way, and exactly the kind of conversation I needed right now.

If you’ve ever felt a child before they came, lost one, been told to “just relax,” or been quietly waiting for a soul that hasn’t shown up yet, this one is for you.

BUY THE BOOK HERE

Connect with Kelly on Instagram at @spiritbabymedium

Listen to her podcast Spirit Baby Radio

Visit her website HERE

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We need to talk about ambition.

Not the clean, empowering, girlboss version we were sold. The shinier, more socially acceptable kind. The one that got dressed up as freedom, identity, feminism, self-worth, and proof that we were doing life correctly. The one so many of us built ourselves around, only to wake up one day exhausted, underwhelmed, and quietly wondering why getting everything we thought we wanted still didn’t feel like enough.

This week, I’m talking to Amil about motherhood, work, burnout, feminism, identity, and the very unsettling possibility that a lot of what we were taught to want was never actually designed to make us happy in the first place.

We talk about the ambition trap, the guilt of wanting a slower life, the impossible standard of being fully present at work and fully present at home, and why so many women still feel like they are failing inside systems that were built to make them fail. We also get into social media, IVF, the politics of modern motherhood, and the strange cultural moment we are in where women are constantly being asked to defend whatever choice they make.

It’s honest, nuanced, a little existential, and exactly the kind of conversation that makes you look at your life differently after it’s over.

If you’ve ever wondered whether you’re burnt out, disillusioned, ungrateful, or just finally seeing the game for what it is, this one is for you.

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Connect with Amil on Instagram at Amil Niazi

Read her columns for the cut HERE

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There are very few people who can say they trained to go to space—and even fewer who will tell you that nothing prepared them for early motherhood.

In this episode, I sit down with Katya Echazarreta, the first Mexican-born woman to travel to space, to talk about the parts of motherhood no one warns you about; not in books, not on TikTok, not even in the most thorough “research spirals.” We talk about exhaustion that rewires your psychology, the mental weight of missing milestones you can’t schedule, and the moment when your entire definition of success quietly collapses and reforms.

Katya opens up about how becoming a mother forced her to radically reorganize her life, her work, and her relationship to ambition. About choosing presence over prestige. About saying no without apology. About why productivity didn’t disappear, it sharpened.

We also go deep on something that genuinely caught me off guard: RSV. What it is, why so many parents don’t know about it, how easy it is to underestimate, and why prevention—not panic—matters. This part alone is worth listening to if you have a baby in your life.

At its core, this conversation isn’t about space. It’s about what we think we’re striving for, what actually sustains us, and how motherhood strips away the noise until only the essential remains.

If you’ve ever felt torn between who you were and who you’re becoming, or wondered whether you’re allowed to want less and mean it, this one is for you.

Connect with Katya on Instagram at @katvoltageExplore the Foundation : La Fundación Espacial Katya Echazarreta

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There’s a version of womanhood that looks good on paper. The right partner. The right timing. The right balance. The right plan. And then there’s real life.

In this episode I sit down with Margherita to talk about what happens when everything you carefully built gets taken away and what grows in its place. We talk about motherhood guilt that doesn’t make sense but won’t leave about raising boys without suffocating them about being let go before you’re ready and about the quiet power of letting go when life forces your hand.

This isn’t a redemption arc or a reinvention fantasy. It’s a conversation about becoming more yourself in your 40s than you ever were in your 20s. About choosing fulfillment over perfection. About trusting the process even when you hate that advice.

If you’re in the middle of a life unraveling this one’s for you. If you’re carrying guilt you can’t quite explain questioning old plans or realizing that the version of success you were sold doesn’t fit anymore this conversation will feel uncomfortably familiar in the best way.

We talk about faith without religion independence without isolation and why sometimes life has to take things from you before it gives you what you actually need. We talk about building a brand from the ground up dressing women for real lives and modeling happiness not perfection for our kids.

No answers. No five step frameworks. Just an honest conversation about motherhood identity taste and learning to trust that life knows best even when you don’t.

Connect with Margherita on Instagram at @margheritamissoniExplore the brand : MACCAPANIShop Margherita’s curated gift guide HERE

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This week on Zillion Trillion, we’re talking about fertility, food, and the invisible work of rebuilding your body with my friend Khirma Eliazov—founder of Kika, former fashion girl with a namesake handbag brand, and current wellness nerd who did not arrive here via green juice and yoga retreats, but by hitting a very real wall on her fertility journey.

We get into what it’s like to be 40-something, successful on paper, and quietly falling apart inside; meeting your person “late” and trying for a baby when everyone around you seems to have done it already; miscarriage, IVF, and why so many of us end up blaming our bodies. We talk about the dark middle part; the hospital visits, the postpartum spiral, the “I thought I was just going crazy” years.And how working with a functional doctor completely changed how she thought about food, vitamins, and what “healthy” actually means.

We also go deep on kids’ nutrition (spoiler: the vitamin aisle is lying to you), depleted soil, why your organic broccoli might be basically vibes at this point, what’s actually going on with all those gummies, and how Kika was born as an all-in-one, food-grade supplement for exhausted parents who want real support, not another thing to feel guilty about.

If you’ve ever felt like your body was being left behind while the rest of your life moved forward, this one’s for you.You can find Kika at kiknutrition.com and on Instagram at @kikanutrition.

Besos,

Victoria

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Today I’m chatting with Laurel Pantin — writer, editor, curator of Earl Earl by Laurel Pantin , and one of the rare people whose taste isn’t just good, it’s grounded. Laurel has lived entire lifetimes inside the fashion world: from the magazine trenches to the front-row circus to building a space online that actually reflects who she is, not what the industry expects. Her shift from the safety of a masthead to the uncertainty of freelancing wasn’t just a career pivot — it was an identity rewire, a moment of asking who she is when the title drops away.

We’re talking about all of it: the ego death and freedom of leaving magazines, how she built her Substack and now her store, the challenges of motherhood, and how different things look when you stop pretending it’s all linear.

And we’re going deeper into the truth behind reinvention: the pivots, the risks, the “am I actually doing this?” moments you never see on Instagram. Laurel’s story is proof that you can walk away from the version of yourself everyone recognizes and land somewhere better, stranger, and much more you. If you’re in your own “something needs to change” era, this is the conversation you want to listen to.

Besos,

Victoria

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This week I’m talking with Joanna Schroeder Christopher Pepper — the duo behind Talk to Your Boys, a book that every parent (or honestly, human) needs right now. Joanna’s essays on masculinity and media have appeared in The New York Times, Esquire, and The Atlantic. Christopher’s spent decades teaching sex ed and health to teenagers — which basically makes him an anthropologist of modern boyhood.

We get into all of it: why boys are shutting down, how to get them to actually talk, what porn and social media are teaching them before we do, and how to make the hard conversations feel a little less hard. It’s not preachy — it’s practical, funny, and very real. You cant miss this one!

What’s the hardest conversation you’ve ever had with your son — or the one you keep putting off?Let’s crowdsource some real talk in the comments

Find them at:

Instagram : Joanna Schroeder & Christopher Pepper

Substack : Zooming out & Teen Health Today

Book: Talk to Your Boys

Besos,

Victoria

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I swore I’d never fangirl on my own podcast… then I sat down with Tish Weinstock (aka one of my style icons)

Tish is one of those rare women who can move seamlessly between the worlds of fashion, beauty, and culture without losing an ounce of herself in the process. A London-based writer, consultant, and editor, she’s currently a beauty editor at British Vogue, but her career reads like a roll call of fashion legends: working alongside Paolo Roversi and John Galliano on a Luncheon Magazine cover special, appearing in campaigns for Chloé and Vivienne Westwood, plus shaping the way we think about beauty through the launches of Dazed Beauty and System Beauty.

Last year, she added “author” to that list with the release of How to Be a Goth: Notes on Undead Style—a sharp, witty “grimoire” that’s equal parts manual and manifesto for navigating life through the lens of modern goth.

And did I mention she has a Substack? Yup. The woman can do it all—including looking like this right before popping.

We get into what it’s actually like to be the first in your group to get pregnant while everyone else is still closing down clubs; the hospital-level mastitis that made her reconsider the whole saintly-new-mother thing; and her real thoughts on maternity clothing. There’s “smart sex” (yes, with toddlers starfished in the bed), the witchy facial she swears by that I still can’t pronounce, and Botox filed firmly under Damage Control. She talks about coming back to herself—leather corsets over the bump, PVC tops, the goth girl upgraded—not to perform “good mom,” but to own it. Plus the domestic circus: the childhood nanny who now lives with them (adorable and mildly unhinged), the jealousy of watching your partner return to the real world while you’re chained to a breast pump, and the uncomfortable truth that love and like don’t always show up at the same time when your kid is screaming in your face.

Let’s just say the bits that didn’t make it into Vogue… made it in here.

If you want to fangirl over Tish follow her on:

Instagram

TikTok

Substack

Besos,

Victoria

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We finally made it happen After a few (ok, a lot of) technical hiccups, the full replay of my live with Ash 💚 is here — thank you to everyone who tuned in live and patiently rode the chaos with us.

Ashley is the brilliant co-host of Se Regalan Dudas, the largest Spanish-speaking podcast in the world, and the co-founder of Dudas Media. She’s also the co-author of “Se Regalan Dudas” ( the book), where she dives deep into the messy, beautiful, complicated truths of growing up, redefining success, and giving yourself permission to ask the hard questions.

In true Ashley form, we cover everything — from the meaning of success, to working with friends, egg freezing, body image, and more… plus, she shares her 3 best tips for anyone thinking about starting a podcast.

It took a couple of days to rescue the footage, but I’m so glad we did — because this conversation reminded me how powerful it is to pause and ask yourself the hard questions… especially the ones you’ve been avoiding.

Find/ Stalk Ashley via Substack Instagram TIKTOK

Plus, you can buy tickets to her tour HERE

Besos,

Victoria

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