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00:00:01
Welcome to the Body & Soul Studio Podcast
12 Plays2 months ago
In Ep. 1, we discuss why I'm feeling like I need a new creative space that provides a better environment for connection, inner peace, and playful exploration.
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✨ Yoga, Spirituality & Women’s Wellness Podcast by @carmen_lee_co
🌱 Nourish your body
🌙 Awaken your soul
🤍 Self-care rituals
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Carmen Lee
Facebook: @carmen.lee.co.official
Email: support@carmen-lee.com
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The Body & Soul Studio
Instagram: @bodyandsoulstudio.co
Transcript
Introduction & Intentions
00:00:00
Speaker
Hi and welcome to the Body and Soul Studio. I'm your host, my name's Carmen Lee and I'm a certified yoga teacher and holistic women's wellness coach. So this is my new podcast, first episode and it's probably going to be a little bit messy. So i don't have a script in front of me.
00:00:24
Speaker
And I consciously don't want a script in front of me because I don't want to curate myself. I just want this to be a cozy but messy and creative script.
00:00:39
Speaker
part of the internet for me and also maybe for you as well.
Motivations for Podcasting
00:00:43
Speaker
So this first episode I kind of thought that I'd talk a little bit about why I'm starting the podcast and what's led me here and why I think that this is going to be a really important avenue for me moving forward.
00:00:59
Speaker
As a business owner within the wellness industry, I find myself in a tricky spot sometimes where there's a lot of dualities that I'm contending with. Obviously, I'm a yoga teacher. So as you can imagine, there's certain things I really love. I love yoga. or I love meditation. i love slow living. I love being out in nature. And I don't like a busy, chaotic life. I like a really quiet life. I genuinely don't think I would even be on the internet. In fact, I full stop would not be on the internet if it wasn't for my business. At the beginning stages, I was trying to do my business without being on the internet. And it's really hard because not only are you isolating yourself,
00:01:44
Speaker
It's also really hard to share resources and create information and stuff like that and share all of that if you don't want to be on the
Business Presence vs. Personal Peace
00:01:51
Speaker
internet, right? So obviously I opened up all the normal channels, made a website, socials, blah, blah, blah, and grew from there.
00:01:58
Speaker
But as I said, it creates this duality for me because i am here to share my products and my services and do the things that I want to do within my wellness business. But at the same time, I'm also needing to take care of my own mental health and live a life that I love which is really what I'm all about you know like creating a life that you adore living that you don't need a holiday from that you don't want to escape from just being really intentional about how you live your life
00:02:29
Speaker
and walking a path that feels really, really good for you. And so within my business, I'm always trying to be really intentional about the things that I do and making sure that they feel good. So that has meant that I quite often i'm on my website. You'll find me making content on my website and I love writing. I love writing blogs and creating what I would regard as helpful content.
Content Creation & Well-being
00:02:56
Speaker
And I'm talking about this because basically I found myself getting really, really overwhelmed as of late with short form content channels such as social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, threads, these kind of places that are really kind of based on quick short chaotic content that's spewing a million different thoughts ideas opinions at you all at once and it's just making me feel extremely overwhelmed and that's why I'm moving now towards podcast and also video and that's going to be my focus this year
00:03:37
Speaker
Because it's going to feel a lot better for me as a business owner. And also because I don't want to encourage other people to spend loads of time on these platforms either. So up until now, like I've said, I've been on my website a lot.
00:03:50
Speaker
Really intentionally creating long form content that I feel is going to be helpful for my clients and my audience. And even though i have social media, I don't really create that much content on there. One, because I don't like being...
00:04:04
Speaker
on the platforms myself and two, I don't really want to encourage other people to be on them either and three, I feel like so much information in the health and wellness world is really nuanced and I don't think that you can put it into like a 30 second reel and for that content to be truly, truly helpful. I think that this is probably one of the main issues that I have with social media is that when I try and write captions, I try and do it really intentionally and think about different points of view. But ultimately, you need to write quite a bit in order to be intentional with the message that you're giving out. And when you're trying to be inclusive and accessible, it just doesn't fit within 2,000 characters and it just doesn't feel right. That being said, I love creating content. I'm not trying to demonize social media or the internet or content creation because the fact is i love creating content.
00:05:05
Speaker
I love thinking of the concept. I love going out and making and producing content. I love editing content, whether that is photos or videos or writing blogs. Like I love it. I really, really adore creating content actually. But what I don't adore is being on like a chaotic platform that makes me feel anxious and overwhelmed. Like it's that part and in particular having to like plug in to a barrage of, you know what it's like, you've got access to these platforms yourself.
Struggles with Solitude and Promotion
00:05:41
Speaker
So anyway, obviously this leaves me in a bit of a conundrum because I do have a wellness business that I absolutely adore and it's my calling and it's my path and I just love it. It's what lights me up and I find myself in a conundrum because obviously on the one hand I want to be a hermit and on the other hand i also have services and products that I need people to know about so that I can create a community and so that I can run my business without it really burning me out, you know?
00:06:15
Speaker
So this year I'm going to be really intentional in terms of creating this messy little cozy space. The Body and Soul Studio podcast is going to be for me this year. And it already just feels so good to just sit here and ramble with no script, no curation. And ah yeah, it it feels good, which is ultimately I think what you always have to lean into.
00:06:42
Speaker
And I also want to lean into more video this year. So that's the other thing that I found myself doing with my socials. So I started up a new Instagram specifically for the Body and Soul Studio podcast.
00:06:55
Speaker
And what I'm going to use that for is a much less curated version of myself and what I do. So what I found myself doing on my main socials is being quite curated and again I don't have an issue with that because i find it art like I love it I love looking at other people's highlight reels and seeing this beautiful art that they're creating and I can discern between what is real life and what isn't real life. Obviously, I'm not saying that it's necessarily always healthy and there are some issues with it, but I do. I love created content. I love kind of like this slow living, cottagecore, island life kind of content. You know where you can just like watch it and disappear into this like haven of softness that feels like you're just floating on a cloud. It's like a breath of fresh air. that's the sort of content that i really love and also that I like to create it's a little bit of escapism I think not only for the creator but also for the observer it's kind of like being part of this fictional visual book isn't it um but I love it I love creating it I love watching it but at the same time as a creator
00:08:15
Speaker
I've boxed myself in creatively because now I love the way that my feed looks and my brand looks, but I've become very protective of that in that I'm like, oh, I don't want to post that or experiment with that because I like the feed to look like this and I like my content to be made in a certain way and I like the brand to look a certain way.
00:08:39
Speaker
But as I said, the issue with that is that you then stifle your own creativity and your own growth. And so i think that alongside the Body and Soul Studio, because I've now got the socials attached to that, I'm kind of excited because I feel like I'm going rogue a little bit, which is so stupid, but it's also really cute. I just want to like, I just want to play and for it to not be so fucking serious, you know?
00:09:09
Speaker
so I'm really excited about that for me. yeah I think it's gonna be really fun so that's it basically I just I don't want a script I want to draw outside the lines I don't want to be so curated and obviously it's going to be curated to some extent because I still have to think about sales and marketing and the brand and my business and stuff like that but Yeah, I just, I need to breathe a breath of fresh air into my brand and what I'm doing.
Authenticity & Audience Connection
00:09:41
Speaker
Oh, and the other side that I forgot, this was also really, really important one for me.
00:09:47
Speaker
i feel so, so disconnected from my audience and my clients with the way that I'm currently marketing. Because obviously, bear in mind, like with my blogs, I'm just putting articles onto my website, sharing information and stuff like that. And a lot of this marketing is not like a two-way street. Obviously, it is a two-way street when people reply to my stories and they send me DMs and stuff like that. but because I don't create a lot of face-to-camera reels where I'm talking to people and a lot of my content is kind of fluffy, whimsical yoga videos or their images or yeah, it's not me face-to-camera and i think because of that, because I don't do a lot of that, I feel this real sense of disconnect and from the people that I'm talking to.
00:10:41
Speaker
And so I think just by being able to sit here and actually talk to you, it's going to help me to close that void of feeling like I'm not speaking to you and my clients and my ideal clients and my target audience.
00:10:57
Speaker
So there's a few different like really important reasons why I'm creating this space and I don't know why but this just felt like a really organic way for me to start the podcast because I felt like I had to get that off of my chest before moving into the podcast because for me this is a really intentional space and I don't like to add to more meaningless noise on the internet which is why as much as I love creating short form content because I love the beauty, the artistry of it.
00:11:31
Speaker
I also don't just want to add more meaningless noise to the internet because I genuinely think that we could do with less of it, not more. And so again, that causes an issue on my socials, right? Because at the same time as wanting to speak to people, I also feel like I don't want to make content because I don't want to overwhelm people more than they already are, you know?
00:11:52
Speaker
So here we are. We have now this messy little beautiful uncurated space on the internet where I can connect with you and with my clients and move forward with my business in a way that just feels really grounding and wholesome for me because I'm somebody that really believes that running a business especially when it's a yoga business and a wellness business is not about martyrdom You know, I see a lot of business owners that teaching about wellness and then behind the scenes they're kind of sacrificing a lot of themselves to help others.
Balancing Wellness & Growth
00:12:30
Speaker
And I really, really am not at all interested in running my business like that. You can't operate like that for long either. These are always the same people where they get really successful and then within two years of their business they're doing this kind of breakdown video on YouTube. about how they've lost themselves and they've burnt out and they need to take a year sabbatical and do a trek to the Himalayas and for me it's about balance.
00:12:54
Speaker
I love my business, I love my brand, I love wellness, I love yoga and I also love walking the path with my clients. And I don't want to burn myself out and run myself into the ground in the process of doing that. Because as said, don't believe that this is a path of martyrdom. um I believe that this is a path of shared practice and shared growth where we walk this path together. And we smile on this path together and we feel whole and fulfilled together. And we laugh together, we cry together. All the beautiful stuff on the full spectrum of what it means to be messy, beautiful, perfect and human
00:13:35
Speaker
I think that's that. I don't think I've got anything else to add.
Conclusion & Embracing Imperfection
00:13:39
Speaker
First episode. Here we go. so if you stayed until the end of this ramble, thank you so much.
00:13:47
Speaker
It'll be interesting to see how this evolves. Like, I don't think that I'm even going to bother putting in an intro and outro on this. I just want to get it out there. And I'm just going to allow myself to build in public, I guess is what the marketers would say, right? I'm just allowing myself to build in public, be messy in public. I will get together an intro and outro at some point.
00:14:09
Speaker
But right now I'm just going to press send. I'm sending you so much love and until next time, take care of yourself and I'll see you soon.