I’ve Waited for the Permission Slip Long Enough.

Happy November! 

I am closing the year with some exciting yet scary news. At face value, you may see the news as rather trivial, but you know when you’ve been brewing with an idea for a long time and the only thing that’s held you back is fear, and then once it’s out there, you can’t really take it back? Well, this has been that for me. 

As always, you will be the first to know, so thank you for always holding space for me.  Also, can I just say I’m so so excited! I feel like this, alongside my cookbook (fingers crossed, still waiting on the response from my 3rd submission!), is just bringing pieces of me together that have always been there but now I’m embracing. 

And It feels really, really good! 

Click the button below to have a listen.

Transcript:

Hello Friends…

Welcome to November. We are T-Minus 60 days to 2025, and can I just say, “Where has the time gone?” I’ve been knee-deep in planning for the upcoming year, and so much has been coming up, so I thought I’d share my raw thoughts in case they resonate with you, as well as tell you that because of it, I have some exciting, yet scary news to share.

Okay, I wrote this as a journal entry. So here it goes.

It’s strange, isn’t it? We spend our lives in anticipation, waiting for something—a sign, permission, approval from some external force—to step fully into who we were meant to be. I am no exception. I’ve spent years playing small, subtly dimming my light, all to be more likable, to fit into a mold of acceptability that I didn’t question but, looking back, never fully chose either. Somehow, I thought that the dreams simmering in me weren’t mine to pursue. They were for someone more deserving, someone bolder, more self-assured. And yet here I am, finally trying to shed the need for permission, albeit with an ache of guilt that it took losing my mother to wake up to my horrifying truth…again.

It hasn’t been an instant transformation—it’s been a knock-me-over revelation that I wish would have been easier to see. After my mother’s passing, a void lingered in the spaces she left behind. But through that void came the reminder (and this is the ‘again’ part; I did lose my father, too) that life is fragile, far too short to be lived in fragments of oneself. There is something almost paradoxical about it. In mourning her, I came closer to myself—to this version of me that I had held back for so long. I had been cautious, holding myself in reserve, like an edited draft of someone more complete.

But who is that benefitting? And why should any of us live that way?

Looking back, writing my cookbook proposal brought out that raw truth. It was a moment of realizing that the authentic version of me was being tested. It was a slap across the face in what seemed like an instant. I remember just thinking, “If you are gonna do this work, if you are going to get out of the edited draft of yourself, this is it. This is your chance.”

Putting my heart onto paper, sifting through memories and stories of my heritage, of my mother, of the food that brought us together—it was one of the first times… I felt truly me in a long time, unedited and unscripted. This wasn’t a surface-level exercise in nostalgia. It was real, it was vulnerable, and it forced me to confront the version of myself I had been hiding. I thought I’d learned this lesson when my father passed—that his loss would be the catalyst for me to step into my life fully. And it certainly started my journey, igniting my passions, but somehow I kept pursuing them as a more subdued, edited version of myself. I held back.

And what the fuck?!

I had waited, and life had simply gone on. Now I’m here, facing the reality that my life deserves to be lived in full, yet again, not merely within the limits I had subconsciously set for myself.

While it might seem trivial to some, sharing this is actually something deeply scary for me because it means stretching into my most authentic self and honoring that exposed, unfiltered version of who I am. I vowed this year to be more authentically me, and while I’ve done that, it feels like 2025 is about putting it into action—for the public, for you to see. So here I am, letting go of that need for permission and telling you that I’ll be launching my podcast in 2025. Years in the making, to say the least! This isn’t just an extension of what I already do with food and design—those parts of my world will always be with me—but it is time to expand the scope of my voice. For you to see other facets of me.

This podcast will embrace thought-provoking topics designed to foster healing, reflection, and a sense of purpose. These topics won’t fit neatly in a box—they aren’t meant to. I’ll be joined by authors, educators, therapists, and industry experts who bring wisdom, vulnerability, and stories that remind us all that we don’t have to wait for the permission slip to embrace who we truly are.

I –I’m vowing to be done asking for permission, even if the permission is ever needed from myself. This journey, this podcast, is my way of getting to know all the parts of me I’ve suppressed and those I’m still meeting with each passing day, and I hope you’ll join me on this endeavor.

I continue to think that maybe it doesn’t have to take great losses to wake us up, but it’s what it’s taken for me, and I won’t lie—I’m still working on trying to forgive myself for being in this position. I’m just not there yet.

Ultimately, If I can inspire even one of you to wake up before life forces you to (don’t be me), then this journey I’m on is worth it. And if this resonates with you, then here’s to moving forward. To finally grant ourselves the right to be seen, unapologetically, in full. It’s time we stopped waiting for permission to embrace who we are. It’s time to trust that we were always worthy of the dreams that have been waiting for us to notice them.

Until next month, bye.