Welcome to the Small Steps Podcast. I'm your host, Amy Soon. I'm a nutritional therapy practitioner, food blogger at Small Eats, author of Not in My Desk Lunch, graphic designer, and avid learner. In my nutrition practice, I help nourish overworked women through customized nutrition and mindfulness.
This podcast is here to educate, inspire, and empower you to grow, try new things, and live a life you truly feel good about, one small step at a time. Each show has small steps that you can try and see how they work for you. You can find all the show notes, information, and small steps about this show at small-eats.com. Remember, the materials and content within this podcast are intended as general information only and are not to be considered as a substitute for medical, professional advice, and diagnosis for treatment.
Hello, and welcome back to another episode of the Small Steps Podcast. I'm your host, Amy. It is episode 28. And this week, I want to share a lot of things about myself with you.
This was inspired a lot by talking with Nagar about taking up space and embracing your multifaceted magic, which is a great episode. If you haven't listened to that yet, I really recommend that you do. I'll link it in the show notes. And also, this is something that I was inspired by my friend Taylor Gage from She Thrives, also who has been on the show, who I link in the show notes, and had an episode very similar to this about 10 things that you didn't know about her.
So I'm paring from her because it was a great idea to share with you and to really live the example of being really multifaceted. There are things that you know about me. If you follow me on Instagram, you've seen some things here and there. And for a long time, I held onto the idea that on my social media, I should only show up as a nutrition person, as a nutritionist, as a became nutritionist.
I should only talk about food. And that's not really working for me. So I want to share more of that. And this is the spot that I'm going to do it.
This does break up the format of the show a little bit, which is okay. We're going to lean into that. And next week, there will be another solo show with me. And then the week after that, then there will be a show with you.
So again, a lot of me talking. So hi. So first thing about me that you may not know slash multifacetedness is I love music. You've heard that I was in choir.
I was in choir for five years. Growing up, did a lot of performance was in one musical in high school. I was in the chorus and wasn't understudy for the main lead, but I have loved music my entire life. I played the piano for quite a while.
I haven't played in a really long time. And all the things that I remember are scale progressions, which is like, cool. That's so nerdy. But yeah, I love music.
It's super calming to me. It really helps me focus. It just feels good. So I really, really love music.
Also as an introvert and highly sensitive person, music helps me block other things out that are really overwhelming. So if I'm at work and people are really loud or if I even if I'm at home, I'm usually always listening to music somehow to kind of just like calm down, stay present. And just because I love music, I love music. I like a lot of music.
I like world music, indie rock, some hip hop, classical music, jazz, what I would call classical jazz, which is more like John Coleschrein, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington kind of jazz and not as much of the smooth jazz. Like I like the smooth jazz, but if I had a choice, I would choose the classic jazz. instrumental stuff, trip hop, some techno music. I like a lot of music.
The one thing I don't really like though is I don't really like country. I just don't. I think growing up in Texas, I have over-countryed myself, not from listening to country, but from being around so many other people that like country. I was like, nah, no, I'm good.
I like metal. I don't listen to a lot of metal. I'm a partner, I listen to a lot of metal. So I would take metal over country music any day.
The really ironic thing, which leads to the next point, is even though I love music and I have sung for a really long time in performances just with myself, I actually really have hated hearing the sound of my own voice on a recording or a playback for most of my life, which is really ironic considering now I have a podcast and I edit that podcast and I hear my voice a lot all the time, way more than you hear my voice because I'm editing the show. So that's just hilarious to me. I really hated it because when you hear yourself, you sound away. And then when you hear yourself played back to you, you sound different because you're in your brain and I didn't really like how I sounded.
So I just would not listen to recordings of myself. The idea of a podcast for a long time really freaked me out, like something that I would listen to because I've loved podcast for a really long time, which you've heard on the show before, but it took me quite a while to feel comfortable hearing my voice and not being like, ugh, I don't know. It's something that just happened over time that I just got used to and especially when you're listening to yourself and editing yourself, I've started to just like, okay, that's my voice. That's fine.
But I hated listening to my voice for a really long time. Something else that is, you've probably picked up on this and I mentioned it here and there, but I've never actually said something directly about it is that I am really passionate about learning about social justice and liberation work and using that in my work. So you've heard me talk with Lucia and Allison. We were all in Dr.
T's social justice course, foundation for social justice. I am trying to get Dr. T on the show. We're trying to figure out a time at the top of the new car about this.
It's something that is really, really on top of mind for me and something that I'm learning quite a bit a lot about in the past year or so. Most of my time that is not spent working on this podcast, working on my blog, working with clients, doing my day job, having other things. I spent a lot of time learning about this and learning about diversity and inclusion, looking at how to make spaces more diverse in my life and in the spaces that I occupy, looking at my own shit because when you do this work, it brings up your own stuff. So I've been really, really passionate about learning and that, working in that.
Also, Chrissy, I talked to Chrissy about this too. You probably know this, but by now, but this is something that I'm really, really passionate about learning and understanding and it's really important to me for a lot of reasons, a lot of which is it's a selfish reason for sure, but it's like I want to figure out how to relate to myself and how I move throughout the world being a biracial person and finding things that really speak to every single part of me in terms of all of my social identities and not just one. So that's what started this work and it keeps me motivated for sure and the more that I learn about all of the things and more than I'm just like, yeah, I'm here to continue to learn and talk about this and share this and bring this in my work because it is actually really, really relevant to what I do in this space. So in case you didn't know, now you really know, I am definitely going to keep having more conversations like this and more conversations with this lens and all of that.
So definitely not the last time, but this is the first direct time I feel like that I've actually said that on a completely different note, I'm a nerd. So I've been a nerd probably since I was born, watched Star Wars as a kid, watched Star Trek, many different iterations of it as a child. My brother and I recreated Star Wars movies with stuffed animals. We got my grandpa's one of those giant video cameras that you would have to put on your shoulder that look really big now before they were like, can't we recreate it?
All the Star Wars movies with our stuffed animals. My family was a space family. My mom, her dad was involved in the space program. So a lot of things about space, a lot of things with sci-fi and fantasy.
I've been to Comic Con 10 times. I didn't go last year because it can get kind of overwhelming a lot. I've read comics, I've collected comics, used to go to comic shop all the time in LA with my partner, my partner's also a really big nerd. We also watch all of the Marvel movies.
I've even like written and drawn comics before. With my partner by myself, I'm a nerd, guys. In case you didn't know, now you know I'm a big nerd. I'm not probably at the same level of neurodosity as I have been in past years, but I still know my shit and I still really enjoy all of that because it's just kind of my life.
Super random fact about me, I have never broken a bone or head stitches so far. I came really close to having stitches once and why stitches were terrifying to me is when I was younger, my brother needed stitches and I got pulled out of school because my mom I guess just wanted both of us there for some reason. And I was in elementary school and all I remember was him being on a hospital table. I couldn't see him because there was a doctor or somebody, this is a long time ago, in between me and my brother and all I could hear when they were stitching my brother up was like lots of screaming and so I was like, oh my God, I don't want to do that.
I also really don't like and never have like needles or shots. I was like, oh no, this sounds like a terrible idea. I never want to do this. When I was 12, my brother and I played street hockey a lot with the kids in our neighborhood and I got hit in the head with a hockey stick.
I was being more offensive, usually I was more of a defensive player, but I was being more offensive close to the goal box, trying to make a goal and someone's stick just connected with my face, connected with my forehead and I was like, oh my God, and I was bleeding and I was the first thing that I was terrified about was like, oh my God, I'm going to need stitches and oh my God, it's going to be exactly like my brother screaming and crying and like, oh my God, I don't want to do that and needles and like, no. So I freaked out actually the more I think about it, I don't actually remember feeling pain from getting hit in the face, but I was freaking out way more about stitches. Thankfully I did not need stitches on my forehead and I have a, had the hair never grew back where I got hit. So I got hit in my eyebrow.
So if you ever see a picture of me and you see like this little gap in my eyebrow, that's from that. So I've had that gap in my eyebrow ever since. I am a pretty entrepreneurial person and there was one time in my life when I was really close to starting a business, a food business, selling almond butter cups. This was, oh my goodness, how long ago was this?
This was maybe 2014 or 15. I can't actually remember it was a while ago. I was really frustrated in my job that I was in and I was trying to figure out any way to get out and the job prospects were pretty low based on what I wanted of being in the stationary industry or still being in that world, not finding a lot of jobs. And I was like, all right, well, if it can't work out, then maybe I should just create my own food business.
And I was still, I was blocking at the time and I was getting really into making almond butter cups because I was really into making almond butter because I was very much under the idea that peanut butter was like, oh my God, so not cool anymore. And oh my God, so that thing unhealthy, which I roll to that now. And I don't know exactly. I think I started making almond butter cups because I made a lot of almond butter and I just thought that that was so cool to have almond butter cups and nobody was doing that back then.
Like, Justin's had just become a thing and they were just releasing. Like they already had the nut butter and they were starting to do like their nut butter cups, but nobody had done almond butter yet. I was literally like making all of these by hand. And so yeah, I was really close to starting a business.
I had read a bunch of books. I had gone to food shows. I had gotten potential people to work with as far as like getting product and I never did it. Thankfully, I never did it.
I think a few months after I got really close to starting the business, I actually did get a job that was relevant and something that I wanted at the time. So I didn't end up doing that. But I learned so much about starting a food business, all the legal things that would be involved in that starting a business in general and thinking about things like how much does this cost? How much time does this take to make?
And where would we sell it? And all these things I had never ever thought about before that sometimes I think about today and I think about when I look at like how much things are and all the it's just like more information that just rattles around in my brain. So I started a food business probably not right now. I don't know about the future.
It's a very specific kind of work. So fun facts. Another thing about me is that I have been a writer probably just as the same amount of time that I've been an already creative person. I've been writing since I was a little kid.
My mom is an author. So it really makes sense. And I've written all sorts of things and I write all sorts of things like technically blogging and writing posts and doing all that stuff. That's writing.
But I've also done like I wrote a lot of poetry in high school and middle school. I think that's also very much like an A.C. Teen thing. I haven't written poetry in a long time, but I really love writing poetry.
I wrote short stories. This is such a 2000s thing. I wrote fan fiction when I was in high school. I wrote fan fiction for Dark Angel, the show with Jessica Albon and I loved so much and alias.
So two shows of that as women. I wrote fan for both of those and published them. I don't even know if fanfiction.com or fanfiction.com even exists anymore. But I wrote fanfic.
That's a very like millennial kid thing to say. I also started learning how to write screenplays when I was in high school. And so I was dawling with writing screenplays and writing screenplays and learning that format was actually really helpful when I started writing comics. It's a really similar format and way of thinking about how to write and writing expressively.
So yeah, I've written all sorts of things. And then I write all sorts of different things. Now, I write a lot of other informational articles and all these other things. So I've been doing that for a really long time.
We're related to that when you're a writer. You read a lot. So I read so many books. I used to read a lot of books when I was a kid, a lot of sci-fi and fantasy and teen kind of stuff.
And I watched a lot of TV growing up. And that was really awesome and also really not awesome. Because while I got exposed to so many different things and ways of life and different worlds and all this stuff, I find now as an adult, there is a lot that I am trying to unlearn from reading and watching all that stuff as a preteen teenager, a young adult as a kid. Because in my brain watching those things and reading those things at a young age, I was like, oh, well, this is how life could be.
This is how life should be. And then when you experience real life and you're like, oh, that's actually not really what life is like at all. But I read it in this book. So therefore it could be real.
And therefore this is an opportunity for me to feel like I'm not living my life properly because it doesn't look like these books. So there's that. And I've talked about that with some other fellow bookworms and they're like, yeah, I really, really feel that. So it was really, it's really awesome to read and I love reading.
And I also know that I have internalized some ideas about how life should be based on books that I really liked and that I'm working to let some of those things go. So unexpected things about books. Something else that you may or may not know is that I like Wu things as well. I feel like it does make sense being someone that likes science fiction and fantasy that I would like Wu things.
And I didn't really talk about it for a really long time. I have an interest in astrology that's really fascinating to me. It's something that kind of grounds me in a way because it reminds me that there's a lot more outside of my life. Like it helps me get out of my head when things are because when things happen, the first thing that comes to my mind is like, what's wrong with me?
Why is this happening to me? Victim blah, blah, blah. And sometimes reminding myself, oh, there are just things going on in the world right now. Like you're not alone in this.
Like it's okay. This thing happened. That's fine. It will pass or it's fine to have these feelings.
Like astrology has really like helped me step outside of my brain. I enjoy tarot. I think that that's really awesome. And also it's like a really nice mixture of my art background as well.
I'm also really particular about what kind of cards I use because I'm like, no, it has to be artistically like to a certain level. So that is helpful and not so helpful at the same time. I've done a lot of research to find decks that I like because I am particular about art. I like crystals.
I don't think so there's like this really interesting, really interesting thing because like this is obviously a thing now, like it's really trendy now. And I don't think crystals can solve all of your problems. I don't think that astrology or tarot can solve all of your problems just like I don't think you and Kale will solve all of your problems either. I like to think of these things as tools as reminders as things that can help ground myself, get myself out of my head, things that remind me of things that are true in my life.
Like I'm okay. Things are going to be okay. So it's really nice to look at a pretty piece of earth because that's what crystals are. They're a beautiful piece of earth.
And I've always really loved rocks. Also, when I was younger, there was an empty lot that ended up becoming like my childhood best friends home, but at the time it was an empty lot and we would dig up quartz. We would take like gardening tools and just dig up quartz and we had bags and bags and bags and bags of quartz in the garage for years. Yeah.
So it's just it's kind of been a thing off and on for a while. But the thing that I really like about woo stuff is that it really is it's really supportive of ritual and nature and tapping into my intuition and like reinforcing that there are things within me that are strong and powerful and awesome. And I really enjoy that. That's why I like woo things, not because I think they're going to solve all of my problems.
And I also have complicated things right now with woo stuff. I think I mentioned in an earlier episode that I left a community that was a spiritual woo based community. So there are things that are still really difficult for me to fully embrace after leaving that community. And it's still something I really enjoy and hope to be able to enjoy in a way that doesn't always remind me of that community that I left with time as and as time passes.
The last thing that you might not know about me or that is a part of my multifaceted magic is that being kind is one of my superpowers. It was never intentional, but just I think it's just how I operate and how I've always operated. But it's one of my superpowers. I get that feedback from a lot of my friends and from a lot of you actually that I reached out to me and I really kind and I really appreciate that feedback because being kind to myself is actually one of the hardest things that I am learning.
It's one of the hardest things for me to do to be kind to myself. Been a habit of mine for my entire life to be kind to other people and to extend that kindness and that love and I just never developed the skills to extend that to myself. So I work on it to various levels of success. And it's one of the hardest things that I've done and still continue to do by no means mastered being super kind to myself.
I'm less of a dick to myself, but there are often times when I catch myself not being as kind as I could or pushing myself harder or falling into a lot of perfectionist go go go just do all the things that is kind of really automatic for me to do because that was a lot louder than being kind to myself. So yeah, being kind to myself is hard and it's something I work on and it's something I'm better at and it's a constant practice. Like everything is a constant practice. So those are a bunch of things about me that are part of me being a multifaceted person and things you might not know about me.
I really wanted to give you small steps in the show because I like to give small steps in all shows. So these small steps are around how you can start to recognize your own multifaceted magic and if you want to consider sharing those things. So write out things that you like to do or that you enjoy or things that just really let you up. That can be anything and everything.
You don't need to filter yourself. Just write it out. Just brain dump everything out on sheets of paper, Google documents, your phone, like just get it all out. If you feel like that's difficult to do, if you're similar to me and you're like, well, I have struggles saying nice things about myself because that's not a muscle that is very developed.
That's totally okay. Ask people in your life that you really trust that you're really close with. Ask them to tell you what they like about you. And there's another challenge when they tell you those things, believe them, believe them and try and receive it and feel it as much as you can.
And this is not easy. I just completely, if you're like, ew, listening to this right now, that's okay. It's not easy. It's not easy for those of us that have worked through a lot of things or in the middle of working through a lot of things that involve cutting ourselves down.
It's hard to receive when you're like, no, I'm kind of an asshole or I'm kind of a piece of shit or like, oh, no, like that's not me. Like that's someone else. Like they're not telling you to blow smoke up your ass. Not everyone is asking you.
Most people aren't asking you, by the way. So if they tell you something, they're not just saying it to be nice. They're telling you because it's true. And it might also be worth side note journaling about why is it hard for you to receive?
What in your life has made it difficult for you to receive compliments or information or feedback that is negative or positive, mostly positive though, because it's negative feedback is usually pretty easy. And then you're just like, well, more reinforcement than I'm a piece of shit. Not correct. Not correct.
So it could be helpful to kind of start to see like, where does this come from? Why is this difficult for me? And then when you receive the feedback as much as you can, just try and receive it and try and hold it and really feel it and not just immediately like, throw it out as fast as you can. It's not a habit to.
It's a good thing. You can enjoy the compliments and the feedback that people give you about you. Do you have that list from yourself or your friends? Give yourself a moment to appreciate what's on that list or lists and appreciate yourself.
You can all of these cool things that you do, that you can do, that you're capable of doing, that you've done, all these cool people that you've met, all these things that you've brought into your life. Take a minute to really soak that in and just appreciate yourself and all of the things that have led you to creating this list. Keep this list somewhere that you can see it because you can write it and then like close it in a book. And then for a lot of people, including myself, out of sight, out of mind, you don't see it anymore.
And you just kind of like go on with your life, put it up somewhere, put it up somewhere that you can see it. Take a picture on your phone and make it your screen background, put it in your bathroom mirror, put it on your fridge, put it by your bed, put it somewhere where you can see it and that you can remind yourself like, oh, I do a lot of cool shit and I'm a cool person. Look at all these fun things that I do. Look at all these awesome skills and magic that I have that I bring to the world.
If this applies to you, you can also start talking about those things with other people, like things that you like as someone that has been on the shire more introverted side, who has been afraid to share things for fear of being judged or getting negative feedback. This resonates with me a lot because I have not shared a lot of things with people before because I didn't want them to not like me or to not like stuff. So I didn't share. And so a lot of people never really knew much about me unless I would just sit back and wait.
And there is some validity in that. And also it can be really exhausting to just wait, just wait around and not share and not be heard and not be seen because you're afraid if they don't like what you have to say, if they don't like your habits or hobbies or opinions or feedback, that's also a pretty strong indication that those people aren't the people for you. And that can be more complicated than just saying like stopping friends with these people, but maybe you need to find other people in your life that have more things in common with you and start to invest more time in those people because there are some people that we're not going to like magically get rid of in our lives or cut out. And you also can choose for the most part when you spend time with certain people and how much you spend time with people and finding people that really get you and see you on some level.
If you've written out this list and you're like, man, I haven't done some of this stuff in a really long time. And it was really fun. Maybe start doing some of those things again. If you're like interested in them, maybe start making space, listen to the last week's episode of how to make more space, maybe consider having this on your list to make space for and consider making space for something that you enjoy and trying those things, especially if you work a lot, if you have a lot of things, your life is filled with responsibilities and and insulting and working and isn't as much filled with fun stuff.
I would definitely suggest adding some fun back into your life and knowing what you've done in the past and enjoy is a really good place to start. The last one is a bare one that takes a little bit more work and is worth mentioning. So if you as you write these things out and as you think about it, if you're feeling some kind of way about liking too many things or feeling like these things are all over the place or you're all over the place or like, what's wrong with me? blah blah blah.
Let go of the idea. Listen to next show again and let go of the idea that liking a lot of things or doing a lot of things that don't seem quote related is bad. Because it's not. It's really not.
This is what enriches your life. This is what deepens your life. This is what makes it fun. This is what gives you opportunities to experience a lot of things and meet a lot of different people that you wouldn't have met if you're only one thing and you're not only one thing.
And also you're not alone. You're not alone in liking lots of different things. You're not bad for liking different things. Again, if people in your life are telling you that they're incorrect and they may not be people that you want to keep spending your time with.
You're not alone. You're not wrong or weird or bad. You're just a cool, multifaceted, layered, complex human being. Welcome.
I'm going to talk about this up for the small steps. Write out the things that you enjoy or like to do. Ask people in your life what they like about you and try and receive that as much as you can. Believe them.
Give yourself a moment to appreciate that list that you wrote and the things that people have told you. Appreciate those things. Appreciate yourself and the awesomeness that you have. Keep that list somewhere where you can see it to remind yourself of your multifacetedness.
Start talking about those things that you like with other people. And if they don't like it, think about finding other people to spend more of your time with. If you want or need to add some more joy and fun to your life or more multifacetedness to your life, if you feel like maybe there's too much of the same things happening and you want to mix it up, consider doing some of those things on your list again. See how they feel.
And also let go as much as you can of the idea that liking a lot of things is disparate, messy, bad, incorrect, scatterbrained, a bunch of bullshit, and that you're alone. Because you're not alone and liking a lot of different things is really fucking awesome. So that is the show for this week. If you would like to share something that a lot of people don't know about you or some fun fact about you or some part of your multifaceted magic, let me know.
Give me up on Instagram at small underscore eats. You can leave a comment on the show notes. You can find all the show notes at small dash eats.com slash podcast and you'll see episode 28 right at the top or you can search for episode 28. Yeah, you also email me and let me know.
And all right, I will catch you next week with another episode with me and I will talk to you soon. Remember, you can do this once most of the time.