1 // Permission to pivot!
Permission to pivot!
How my pace of life, freedom from perfectionism, and social media platform led me as a dietitian mom to podcasting.
Welcome to the Veggies & Virtue podcast with pediatric dietitian and Christian mom, Ashley Smith.
In this episode, Ashley shares her word for the year in 2022. She also opens up about how God has been moving in her personal and professional life to include launching this podcast and :
Recognizing the pace of the present day and current season of parenthood
Recovering from perfectionism and reclaiming a place for flexibility, fun, and freedom
Living more disciplined than distracted with our time, including on social media
Ashley is excited to use this place and space to serve you better. Come pull up a stool at her kitchen counter!
Connect with Ashley
On Instagram: @veggiesandvirtue
Online: www.veggiesandvirtue.com
By email: info@veggiesandvirtue.com
Listen to this episode of The Veggies & Virtue Podcast now!
Full Episode Transcription
Please note this a raw transcription. If something doesn’t read correctly, toggle to that timestamp in the show so that you can listen in on what was actually being said!
00:00 Hey, y'all it is Ashley and we are live on the veggies and virtue podcast. I am so excited, slightly terrified. I would be lying if I said I wasn't a little terrified to be launching something new. If you know me at all on a personal level or have gotten to know me at all from the last few years over on Instagram, you probably know, I am not a dog who likes to learn new tricks and I'm also not an early adopter and not that podcasting is anything new, and not that I can be roped in at all with those who have been early adopters to it. But, if you know me at all, I don't tend to like to try new things, especially things that I might fall on my face at. But, you know, something I have really felt the Lord nudging me in over the last year and convicting me in is how much I crave comfort and how I really just pursue comfort.
00:50 And I can often get stuck in comfort and not that being comfortable is a bad thing, but I think sometimes when we stay settled in something that is familiar and it starts to feel easy, we can also miss out on some of what God might have for us ahead and with new things, and in that tension.That tension of trying something new and relying on strength that is not our own. And so while that's something that I really wrestled with in 2021 and, you know, coming back from 2020 and homeschooling my kids and trying to figure out really what was the next direction for Veggies and Virtue after a little bit of a hiatus while I was home with the kids and kind of putting this business on the back burner, I've just kind of been in a standstill where I felt like the Lord was just asking me to stand still and firm and wait and pray until the next thing.
01:40 And every time I kept kind of feeling the nudge to podcast, I honestly didn't want to. It was not something that really appealed to me, ironically, because I love podcasts, but the idea of listening to myself talk or having other people listen to me talk was again, a little bit terrifying. So all that vulnerability aside, I am really excited to be here with you. I'm really excited to connect with you here. And I just wanted to take some time for this first episode to give a little bit of personal and also professional reasons for why I'm starting this podcast and kind of the direction I feel with where I hope to take it and all the episodes to come. So, on a personal note, again, some of you might already know this. If you're just tuning in and we've never met before, I have a three year old son, a five, almost six year old daughter, and then not at the time of the recording, but at the time of this airing, my oldest will already be eight, which is just like crazy to think about.
02:33 And then we also have a little puppy because why not add to the chaos around here? So, we have a full house now and, you know, I love that and I embrace it, but something that I really was thinking about in terms of kind of the direction this business has taken since I started it in 2017 is when I first started it, you know, I was a newer mom. I had babies at home. I was up all night and definitely didn't even own AirPods then. And that was really in the time that I could maybe read something on my phone, but I definitely couldn't have audio on in the middle of the night when I was, you know, feeding the baby or up with the toddler or whatever it might be. And so blogging really felt like a medium that I felt like I could connect with other moms through.
03:17 And I could just share lots of different information about how to feed your family. But as the pace of my life and the demands of my life changes, I know that that's also how technology has changed and how a lot of you are connecting with information and educational resources. And again, while I'm not a early adopter, I also still want to stay relevant to you and stay in a position that I can reach you and connect with you, and hopefully help you and serve you in a way that fits your family and your lifestyle. And I know that's busy and especially as all of us kind of create our new normal after 2020, the pace of life is picking up again. And I know that podcasting is often an easier way to reach all of you. And so that's why I'm here.
04:01 If you know any bit from my Instagram captions alone, you know, I can be a little wordy to say the least and I make long stories longer. Everything about me is just kind of wordy. And yet something in starting this podcast that I really felt compelled to commit to you, maybe for your own peace of mind, as you get started is that these episodes will be 15 minutes in length or less, maybe up to 20 with an intro and an exit and all that kind of stuff. But I really want it to be something that can fit in your day to day life, whether it's one AirPod in while you're out in the backyard and your kids are playing on the playset, or you're picking up dog poop or whatever it might be, or maybe while you're on your way to and from preschool drop off or getting gas or folding laundry, whatever those aspects of life might be for you.
04:47 I just hope that this podcast can fit in your day and encourage you, and also give you some of the insight and inspiration that I know you all are needing. On the note of time, something I also really wrestled with myself, and as I was praying over what my word for the year is for 2022, something that just kept coming up was the word discipline over distraction. And I knew very clearly that one of the areas that I had hoped and tried to be most disciplined and yet often struggled the most was with social media use. And while I have loved Instagram for my business, and I have loved the opportunity to build and connect with my community there, something I've also really struggled with is being disciplined on social media. You know, in order to serve you all well, I could spend hours a day on social and that really just felt like it was beyond the bounds of what I needed, not only for my business, but also just for putting some bounds on my time at home with the kids and my time being effective in work and wanting to make an impact and wanting to serve you all,
05:51 and yet also not wanting to spend hours upon hours on social media a day. So while Stories, you know, could turn my dashes into dots really quick, if I got on some soapbox about a topic that I knew I was getting a lot of questions about, or I felt like needed a little bit of a deeper dive or, you know, trying to edit a reel to make it hopefully either encouraging or insightful for you. I just didn't feel like it was the most effective use of my time nor the most effective use of your time. And so in full transparency on wanting to be disciplined in my own social media use, and yet also wanting to serve you well and wanting to show up and answer your questions and do due diligence in how I answer them, I really felt like podcasting was a better platform for that.
06:37 And so, Instagram, I think is a wonderful thing. I think if you're using it for enjoyment or you're using it for entertainment or to seek out educational resources, I think that's a great thing. And I still plan to use that personally and also professionally in aspects of my business, but I just didn't feel like I could rely as much as I was on Instagram being the main medium to build community. And I'll be really honest. It is scary to start over. It's scary after six years on Instagram, and being able to build a community and connect with you all there to start back at zero and yet, God has also given me tremendous comfort and just the visual of having you all at my kitchen stools in my kitchen counter. And if, you know, maybe back right before the pandemic hit, we did a kitchen remodel.
07:29 We had the somewhat unfortuitous timing to demo the week that the world shut down. And so anyway, some of you have gotten to see the kitchen itself, and many of you have gotten to see that stool space in my kitchen. And if you have, I just hope that you will visualize yourself sitting there because really the heartbeat of this podcast is wanting you to pull up a stool for me to pour you a cup of coffee, for me to put some snacks out for our kids to all, you know, run in and out of the kitchen and have and enjoy and laugh amidst and interrupt us amidst and yet to meet there with you. And so, I've found a lot of comfort in knowing that right now, I just have four stools. And if that means only four of you are meeting with me regularly at the beginning, I'm gonna take heart in hoping and praying over the four of you or however many God chooses to reach through this podcast, that there is beauty in that community.
08:22 And there is impact in the intimacy that we can share in small yet personal relationships, more so than, you know, some of the worldly metrics tell us with, you know, bigger platforms and more numbers and higher engagement and all those kind of things. And so I will admit that, in my flesh it's scary and it's, it does feel like I'm starting over a little bit and yet I'm also really, really excited for what God can do and for the opportunity to connect with you in a different way. The way that I would one of my closest friends or a neighbor, and just the informal and honest encounters that we get to share at a kitchen counter. And so, I hope that that visual relates with you. I hope that that is an opportunity to further connect with you and all the episodes to come.
09:10 But I also hope you know that that's just part of the heartbeat that I have when it comes to doing this podcast. So another aspect of kind of personal bridged with professional that I felt really prompted me to start this podcast was a struggle that I've had probably my whole life that I feel like I can finally say, I'm starting to kind of come on the other side of, and that is me having a history with being a major perfectionist. And I think for many years of my life, probably majority of my childhood and adolescence, I didn't really understand anything being wrong with that into even early adulthood. I think I would've been like, what's the problem with that? I have reread Beth Moore's "So Long Insecurity" more times than I want to admit. And something that always really stood out to me,
09:55 and it was, you know, this insecurity that came out and presented itself as perfectionism. And I think something I didn't realize in my early days as a dietitian was how I thought, you know, nutrition is a science and it's just so precise. And so much of my undergrad was in science, in math and, you know, really this precision that kind of compelled this perfectionism that I was already compelled to kind of struggle with. And I don't think I realized my own personality type and how that wasn't necessarily a healthy way for me to go about nutrition, because it became very perfectionistic-oriented and very rigid and very, maybe even strict at times. And, just didn't leave a lot of room or a lot of flexibility or a lot of grace and something that God has just continued to show me,
10:51 and I often joke with people is that I didn't realize quite how much pride and, you know, perfectionism and pride often go hand in hand, I didn't realize quite how much pride I had as a person until I became a parent and my own three kids - none of them have been what I would call a perfect eater. And as someone who's a perfectionist, that's been a huge struggle for me because I thought, you know, I'm a pediatric dietitian. Of course I should have these poster children for pediatric nutrition and how they eat. And yet something that God has forced me to really through is that that's not what he has for them. And more importantly, he's using them to help work on me as a perfectionist, to not just see nutrition as something that it has to be so precise and so perfect. And our meals have to be, you know, perfectly planned and perfectly balanced and perfectly eaten and perfectly structured and scheduled and all the things.
11:39 But instead to just embrace that freedom with food amidst my family life and all the messes and the meal times that go with that. And that's something that I've really moved into and pivoted into as a mom, as I've grown as a mom, as I've had more kids and each child has taught me something different, not just about nutrition and the needs that kids have for nourishment, but also in just the feeding dynamics. The feeding dynamics of one child is very different than the feeding dynamics of two and then three. And now feeding kids with a puppy has its all new, you know, struggles and challenges and things like that. But something I felt like God was really asking me to do that I didn't feel social media really allowed me to do was to break free a little bit from that perfectionistic mold for pediatric feeding.
12:26 Because I think in an Instagram world, it's really easy to either portray this perfect way of feeding our kids, because it's a staged picture, it's been edited, or it's just, you know, such curated content that it kind of paints this reality that's not reality. And when I started Instagram way back when my daughter first started mom's day out, you know, at two years old, you know, so now six years ago, I really could just snap a picture and post it as is, no editing, in just its really honest, natural state. And that's something that has really changed in the social media world over the years. And there's been a lot of good for that, cause I think I've learned a lot about how to communicate with parents and the content I create and what resonates with people. And there's been tremendous good and growth out of that, but it's also, I feel like, distanced me a little bit from that connection in this community that I really crave where I want there to be transparency.
13:26 I want there to be honesty and I just want there to be this realness between us as if we are two friends sitting at the kitchen counter where there's very little filters, there's very little fluff and there's really no need to try and kind of position an angle on anything, cause it's just an honest relationship and friendship where we're both here to learn and grow and ultimately help pour into our families. And so with that I felt like, well again, I still am going to be using Instagram and I still would love to connect with you there. I just felt like all the more reason why I wanted to connect with you on here where yes, I may have to edit out a dog barking or a kid, you know, coming in to ask me for something in the middle of a recording at times.
14:09 Otherwise it's pretty unedited and it's pretty just honest conversation, hopefully between you and me. And so if this is something that resonates with you, I just want you to know I'm really, really thankful you're here. I would love to take just a quick second to pray for us before we sign off. And then, we can dive in to future episodes. Lord, thank you for a fresh start. Thank you that sometimes the most courageous thing we can do is come to you saying that we are willing to follow you. We are willing to start over for you. We are willing to leave our past and the comforts of our past and the accolades of our past
14:51 and the reassurances of our past to just surrender to you and to come to you and Lord, whether it be a new journey in podcasting or a new journey in how we feed our families, God, I just pray for every mom that is here. I ask that you be with them. I pray that you speak truth to them. And I pray that through this podcast, that you will encourage them. I ask you Lord to help me to be efficient, to help me to be effective. God help me to be encouraging and ultimately help me to be impactful in these families' lives so that they can nourish themselves from the inside out and ultimately grow closer to you in that time together around the table. Lord, thank you for this opportunity. Thank you for this place in this space. And we pray that in all things, it honors you in Jesus name. Amen.
15:41 So the three areas that I want to touch on today are how I feel like God has spoken through the pace, the platform and also my struggles with perfectionism and how those three things come together to shape some of the reasons why I feel like now is the time that I should come here and meet with you on podcasting. So I'm excited to dive into these today and to share a little bit more about the personal and also professional reasons why I feel like God's been walking me through a greater understanding of how podcasting can help me professionally as well as grow personally through the pace, the platform and the perfectionism in my life. I'm excited to dive in.
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