Episode 89: Permission to be a Multi-Passionate Creative with Juanina Kocher of Flex & Flow Wellness
Podcast
Episode 89: Permission to be a Multi-Passionate Creative with Juanina Kocher of Flex & Flow Wellness
"What we do as our job, doesn't define us as people, we wear many hats." — Juanina Kocher
This week’s episode is about being a multi-passionate creative, being open to what you enjoy vs. putting yourself in a box. I am joined by Juanina Kocher, a health coach, yoga teacher, and consultant, who primarily supports mothers.
Get the Full Show Notes & Transcript here Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, or on your favorite podcast platform while you cook, clean, or create.
What’s in This Episode:
This episode is filled with a lot of laughs and personal shares! Juanina and I start with our love of the Italian Chopped Salad with Basil Swirls from Sakara Life. We are both ambassadors for the brand. We also both have backgrounds in the restaurant and hospitality world.
Juanina shares how she navigates modern motherhood and how she weaves in creativity throughout her busy day-to-day life. Juanina’s definition of creativity encompasses anything that excites you, which is so freeing!
In our conversation, she explains how excitement often becomes inspiration and weaves itself into problem-solving and uncovering new creative outlets. Juanina talks about creating room for creativity. And what a difference having space and quiet time makes for her creativity.
Topics Covered:
Modern parenting and what that means to Juanina
What it’s like to eat different meals or at different times than young children
How Juanina defines creativity and its connection to problem solving
Creating a bucket list for creative pursuits like pottery or cooking classes
Feeding your creative juices through cooking for pleasure and making new recipes
Wellness tools that don’t take an hour, a five minute meditation, 10-minute moment practice, or taking a walk
Moving through creative blocks by giving yourself space, having quiet time
xo Chef Carla
PS: Join Melissa Hoffman for a live free Nourishing Creativity Hypnosis workshop this Saturday April 20th at 1:00 pm EST
Note: Some of these are affiliate links. I receive a small percentage of the sales. I appreciate your support of my small Latinè & women owned business. Please see my shop + Juanina’s Instagram for more codes + discounts.
SHARE THE PODCAST
Wherever you are listening, please rate, review + subscribe to Nourishing Creativity. Send the podcast to your friends, post in your stories on Instagram & tag me @chefcarlacontreras
About Juanina Kocher:
Juanina Kocher is a mom of 2, holistic health coach, consultant and yoga teacher. Through her coaching work and social media, she shares openly her support and thoughts on wellness, motherhood and postpartum.
She also has her coaching and consulting business, Flex + Flow Wellness where she has combined her experience in both the hospitality and wellness worlds.
Juanina is passionate about self-care, work / life balance, postpartum support and domestic equality.
To learn more about Juanina Kocher
Website: flexandflowwellness.com
Instagram: @juaninakocher
Relax and move your body with Juanina’s yoga videos and articles on Mind Body Green
Full Transcript:
Chef Carla Contreras (00:01):
Welcome to Nourishing Creativity. The cycle of the last few years has left you and me feeling mentally, physically, emotionally, and creatively drained, nourish your very full life through interviews with creatives and entrepreneurs about how they create and move through their creative blocks. If you don't know me, I'm Chef Carla Contreras, a food stylist and content strategist. You can find me, chef Carla Contreras, across all social media platforms and more information in today's show notes. Laina, I am so excited and so grateful to be here with you. I feel like we are two moms having a moment
Juanina Kocher (00:51):
Together. We really are. A moment that has been delayed so many times, we're finally here.
Chef Carla Contreras (00:57):
We've arrived. This is literally a year and a half in the making. So my goodness, and we were just chatting how we met, and I feel like we have so many different worlds that have collided, like Instagram, Sakara, postpartum, my friend Alyssa, who's been on this podcast. There's just so many connections. Juan, I would love for you to introduce yourself and how you serve your community.
Juanina Kocher (01:25):
Sure. So my name is Juanina Kocher. I wear many hats like many women and moms do, but I am a health coach, a consultant, and a yoga teacher. So the ways that I like to serve my community, which is essentially other moms, is kind of who I work with most and who I communicate with most is just trying to provide support wherever I can. So whether that will be in the wellness space, in the space of postpartum is something that I'm really passionate about. Or even speaking to issues like marriage and domestic equality. Basically just trying to provide supports to other women because I think we need that and we all need to help lift each other up because we carry a lot on our backs right now in modern parenting.
Chef Carla Contreras (02:05):
I love that you named and called it out of Modern parenting, and I'm going to speak for myself. I'm in a different realm of parenting than I was raised,
Juanina Kocher (02:14):
And I feel like I've gotten backlash a little bit when I've said modern parenting because of course some things are easier. In some ways we have technology and a lot of tools to help keep our kids busy, but I think it's our plates that are so much fuller. My mom, my grandmother lives with us. We had multi-generational help. My mom worked. My dad was home by five o'clock every day. There was no email. There was no being on call all the time. So I think just family dynamics and work life balance is very challenging. And then you throw kids into the mix and then it becomes just some days almost like unmanageable. It's very challenging. I think modern day parenting and then also the dynamics between partners as well I think has grown very challenging.
Chef Carla Contreras (02:54):
Yeah. Let's talk about food. Yeah,
Juanina Kocher (02:58):
Food is really, look, when I say wellness, I have 15 years of restaurant and hospitality experience, so I love food.
Chef Carla Contreras (03:04):
My goodness. I had no idea you had that.
Juanina Kocher (03:08):
Yeah, I feel like maybe we connected on that too. Yeah, yeah. I worked with various restaurants and chefs, and I still do in my consulting, in my world of consulting, I still work with hospitality brands.
Chef Carla Contreras (03:17):
This is why I'm like, yeah, let's do all the food. Can you tell me what was your last meal?
Juanina Kocher (03:21):
So interestingly enough, my last meal was the Italian chopped salad from Sakara Life, which is one of our connections. Literally just had it about an hour ago
Chef Carla Contreras (03:29):
And is my favorite.
Juanina Kocher (03:30):
It's so good. The little basil swirls.
Chef Carla Contreras (03:32):
The basil swirls are the only reason I order it. Yeah,
Juanina Kocher (03:37):
I gave half of one to my one-year-old, and he was going to town. He loves it.
Chef Carla Contreras (03:41):
Oh my goodness. I love to take one and freeze one. So I feel like I've entered a new level of my sakara adventure is that sometimes I will freeze components like the burger or the soup, like the lentil soup
Juanina Kocher (03:57):
Lasts longer.
Chef Carla Contreras (03:58):
Yeah, I'll freeze it, and then one day when I don't have it, I pull it out of the freezer and I'm like, wow, what is this magical gift?
Juanina Kocher (04:07):
Yeah, no, that's actually a genius idea. I do. When you get the granolas, it's kind of big portion of granola, and I don't eat a ton of breakfast first thing in the morning, so I can make that last two breakfasts. It's like making it stretch that sakara,
Chef Carla Contreras (04:19):
And if anybody hasn't tried Sakara, we'll obviously put the link. Yes, it's delicious. And I'll ask you this question. The reason that I order it is that I'm recipe testing that I'm developing today. I had two podcasts and I'm going to make a margarita recipe for a company. And honestly, at the end of the day, I don't have dinner ready, and this is the reason that I love having this. I make food for my kids. They have their protein and starch and roasted veggies and all these things, but I like having something that's just for me.
Juanina Kocher (04:56):
Yeah, I am like that too. And plus sometimes we eat at different times, which I know you should try to eat together, and we do a couple times a week, but sometimes it's like Tristan's having his chicken and broccoli and whatever, and then I eat something a little bit later, or he has his mac and cheese, and then I scrape the pan 30 minutes later. So about finding that balance.
Chef Carla Contreras (05:17):
Exactly. We had the richest conversation about creativity while I was driving my car. I wish that we had recorded that conversation. It was so soul filling
Juanina Kocher (05:33):
And I don't even remember exactly. I don't really remember the details. I
Chef Carla Contreras (05:37):
Don't either, which is
Juanina Kocher (05:37):
Unfortunate, but also fortunate. This will be a whole new thing that we open up here talking. But that was a really good conversation. I was like, this should have been the podcast.
Chef Carla Contreras (05:48):
Can you share with me how you define creativity? Because I feel like everyone has their own definition and or non definition. I loved this. The last podcast I'd had, there was no definition, so I'm going to throw this in your court. How would you define creativity?
Juanina Kocher (06:07):
That's a big question. I think most people would immediately go to someone who's an artist or someone who's in music, sort of the more traditional definitions of creativity. But for me, I think it's really anything that excites you, anything that lights you up. And for some people that could literally be a spreadsheet or organizing a room. I think it's anything that just makes you think problem solve anything that excites you, I think is a form of creativity.
Chef Carla Contreras (06:31):
I love that because it can be exciting. We both really got excited about the Sakara meals. I mean, yeah, we were like there, right?
Juanina Kocher (06:41):
And Sakara can spike our creativity for you. You're like recipe tests, you're doing all this stuff. Who knows? That could lead into some kind of a creative outlet on the side for you. It's I think a lot of things can open up channels of creativity.
Chef Carla Contreras (06:54):
I think that that is really important that sometimes something that seems unrelated to creativity can prop open that door and you're like, oh, okay, maybe I could make two meals out of this granola and maybe I could share this in my stories in this way. It becomes something different, right?
Jaunina Kocher (07:14):
Yeah. I do really think that problem solving and creativity can go hands in hands because especially for those that are more analytical, those that maybe don't have those more traditional creative outlets. If you're running a business, I mean, holy shit, the whole business is creativity. It's figuring different things out, finding new and creative ways to do things, lots of problem solving when you're running a business and doing things like that for yourself. So yeah, I really think there's loose definitions, but I think they're very broad. And it might be subjective too. Some people probably feel differently.
Chef Carla Contreras (07:43):
What is your current relationship with creativity
Juanina Kocher (07:46):
Right now? I have a five-year-old and a one-year-old. So I would like to have more space in my life to be creative. And I think at least for me, I'm totally speaking for myself. I kind of need that quiet time, that downtime to really get my creative juices flowing because I feel like life is so busy and you have so many things coming at you that it's just very reactive. Whereas I would rather be able to sit and kind of think about my next move with certain things or things that make me happy going back, I wrote in my bucket list and I really want to go back to my childhood and things that made me happy. So taking a pottery class, for example, taking more cooking classes, things like really using both of those more traditional forms of creativity, but also just in general, just organizing and figuring out things for myself. So my relationship to your question is that it's good. I think I definitely have a plan and I definitely think I do a good job where I am right now of carving out that time. But I more, I definitely want to breed more of that creative space.
Chef Carla Contreras (08:45):
I love that you've mentioned cooking and pottery because they're both on my list and they've been, actually, I will share this. My sister sent me some photos of her garden and I had no idea, but I did pottery back in high school and college, like early college. She has these pieces. I made these giant sculptures. She has them in her garden,
Juanina Kocher (09:12):
So she saved them.
Chef Carla Contreras (09:13):
She has them. She saved them. She's a Taurus, so she's extremely in a Capricorn rising. So she's extremely organized, but she also has this beauty aspect and there's plants growing out of them. And I was like, pottery is on. Thank you for that reminder. Because I feel like that pottery piece, that connection to the earth, the connection to your hands,
Juanina Kocher (09:39):
Using your hands,
Chef Carla Contreras (09:40):
There's so many different things that come along with pottery and cooking's the same. It's using all of the senses.
Juanina Kocher (09:47):
Those are a bit too big things for me because I cook a lot at home. But as you know, sometimes when you're cooking just to feed your family, that feels a little different than thinking up a recipe or getting creative, thinking about what you really want as opposed to just needing to feed yourself. So trying to do one new recipe a week, trying to take more classes to learn new techniques, things like that.
Chef Carla Contreras (10:07):
Yeah, there is a difference between feeding yourself or feeding a family and cooking from a space of I'm looking for something creative in terms of a recipe or in terms of to technique or in terms of a flavor or seeing something maybe on social media or on Pinterest and being inspired I think is a different way. You mentioned the restaurant industry, maybe even having a dish and a restaurant and being inspired to bring that into your home
Juanina Kocher (10:40):
To recreate. And I think can, for some people, they can go hand in hand, but I do think you need to have a day where you don't have a ton of other things on your mind where maybe your kids aren't on, maybe your partner's home, and they can kind of take the kids so that you can focus, so you can kind of bring everything together. Like you were saying with Sakara, it's like you're, at the end of the day, you need to eat. Your kids need to eat, so you just throw in some things or you heat up leftovers and you try to do it quickly. And I do think that's definitely very different from feeding your creative juices through cooking.
Chef Carla Contreras (11:10):
I love that. Feeding your creative juices through cooking. I'm going to underline and circle. Circle that one.
Juanina Kocher (11:16):
I feel like it kind of has many, many little meetings there. Yeah,
Chef Carla Contreras (11:20):
A hundred percent. So I know that you're in the wellness space and you're in the wellness space in different areas. There's yoga. I know that you have yoga videos. What is it for MINDBODY Green?
Juanina Kocher (11:32):
MINDBODY Green, yeah.
Chef Carla Contreras (11:33):
You have sakara, you have the health coaching. You have different aspects of the way that you work. There are so many different facets to your wellness, and I'm wondering perhaps there's a toolkit or perhaps there's resources that you use that might not be an hour long yoga practice. Could you tell me about what nourishes your creativity?
Juanina Kocher (12:00):
Absolutely. I think there's a couple different parts to this. So as far as just straightforward, what I do when I want to get creative with things is definitely hold space for it. I need some quiet times. So a lot of times for me, and again, bringing back motherhood into it, maybe that's like a five minute meditation with some essential oils. Maybe that's a very quick 10 minute yoga flow. I rarely do unless I'm filming for a partner website. I rarely do an hour long because who has that time? So definitely moving my body walks. I love long walks. I think that that really gets me going because I can just zone out and think about what it is that I want to do. So I think moving your body, finding quiet space, whatever that means for you, whether that's meditation, whether that's literally just sitting there.
(12:42)
A lot of people like journaling. When I did more health coaching and have more clients, I know a lot of people that love journaling. That doesn't always work for me personally. I feel like there's just time constraints for me, but I know that that's a tool that many people use. Those are probably two ways I foster it. And I also think going back to creativity, meaning different things. With my work, I have my social media world where I do share a lot of wellness and motherhood content. But then as far as what I would say is my day job, I do some coaching, but I also do a lot of consulting work with hospitality and wellness brands. And so that is more of that problem solving creativity, whereas I also have the more traditional forms of creativity. So I think also not feeling like you need to put yourself in any box is very important. I think we live in a world where everyone's trying to find their niche and their target market, and they're trying to build a business and they're trying to do all of this. And I think we have to be careful to not box ourselves in too much and just be open to what we enjoy and what the world sort of brings to us and build off of that. What we do doesn't define us, I guess, as a quick little point to be made.
Chef Carla Contreras (13:48):
Can you tell me more about that? I want to know what we do doesn't define us. What does that mean?
Juanina Kocher (13:54):
I actually struggled a lot during Covid when I shifted from restaurants and marketing and special events into the wellness space because although I've always had an interest in the wellness space, that wasn't what I did. So I battled a lot. And even now to this day, when I am thinking about different content on social media, I'm like, all right, am I posting moms stuff? Am I posting wellness stuff? Am I posting a recipe? Because in many ways, one might look at that and think she's all over the place, but at the same time, it all rolls in together. For me, I love to cook. I have to cook for my family. I am a mom. A lot of my wellness content usually is focused towards quick and easy things that moms can do to be their best selves and things relating to self-care. And so I think we don't need to define ourselves as I'm a yoga teacher or I'm a health coach, or I'm a whatever.
(14:38)
I'm a human. I enjoy all of these things. If I had to defined personally myself as one thing, I would say like a mother, I think that that's the most important thing. I think if I had a billion dollars, I don't know that I would probably just be making my bone broth and baking my bread from home. I don't know that I would be the hustler that sometimes I am now, but I think that we have to be flexible in life and just be open to new experiences, new challenges, and not think that just because we've been an accountant for 20 years, we have to always be an accountant. Maybe we can go and I don't know, be a travel writer or be a yoga teacher or whatever. What we do as our job, it doesn't define who we are as people. I think we wear many hats and there's a lot of facets to life.
Chef Carla Contreras (15:19):
That's beautiful. I really love that. It gives me a lot to think about.
Juanina (15:23):
Thank you. Because it's an internal struggle for me. I think we're so often taught if you go to a marketing class, if you go to a marketing class in college, they teach you to niche down, pick out your target market, and I do 100% feel like there's a place for that. I am not saying that in marketing you shouldn't do that. I'm just saying you shouldn't put so much focus on thinking that that's all you are or that's all you can be. You own a business and then have a nonprofit on the side. You can focus on one thing and be something completely different in your free time, and that's totally fine. I don't think there are really rules. I think we have self-inflicted rules put upon us, especially now with social media and society in different ways that you can present yourself and sort of build your brand. I think that's only kind of made that feeling worse, that kind of imposter syndrome or what should I be focusing on? I think a lot of people struggle with that.
Chef Carla Contreras (16:13):
Yeah, because I can't remember who it was. I feel like it was Sophia. I took a class. Oh, and she's like, if I just posted and I want to say that word intentionally just posted yoga poses, I'd have a million followers. And I feel like I've had this with my own content because I am multifaceted. I have the podcast. You
Juanina Kocher (16:39):
Are. Yeah. I think that's one reason why we connected. I kind of love people that are niche list sort of.
Chef Carla Contreras (16:46):
Sometimes it doesn't translate into, okay, well this is the smoothie person or this is the person that posts yoga poses, and there's nothing wrong or good or bad with either one. But I feel like when you have social media that you get to define, it's your party. Totally. It's like if you hosted a dinner party,
Juanina Kocher (17:10):
Come or not. I know you're invited, but you can also see yourself out.
Chef Carla Contreras (17:19):
You get to choose the menu, the plates, all the things, the flowers or not to have flowers or giant branches or whatever you're doing. Oh my
Juanina Kocher (17:28):
God, I love that example. It's so true.
Chef Carla Contreras (17:31):
You get to decide that. And I feel like, and people ask me this a lot, they're like, why are you Chef Carla? I'm like, well, first of all, I'm a trained chef. I worked in restaurants free just, and they're like, oh, is that just an Instagram thing? I'm like, no, actually, actually, it really is something that defines who I am. But I feel like this is a very important conversation of being able to expand into different areas. And I love that you brought this up because I feel like it's an important thing. And also the imposter syndrome of, oh, well, I don't know. Am I good enough or are people going to like this? Or any of those things.
Juanina Kocher (18:16):
Yeah, it's tough. I mean, I think you just really have to decide what you love. And even if those three things that you love so much or very different things, I think that will authentically come through. And if social media is your thing and you want to help promote that via social media, I think your people will show up. And like you said, they'll come to your dinner party and then some people won't, and that's okay. Niches work for a lot of people. I mean, some people are very targeted in what they want, but everyone's different. Not everyone is like that. I know myself, I feel like I always have my hands and I've always been like this. I've always had my hands on lots of different things because I find interest in a lot of different things. I also don't like to say no. If something seems interesting or that I even might like it, I'm usually going to do it because I feel if you regret something, it's usually not that you did it, it's that you didn't do it. And I really want to do as much as I can. I want to experience as much as I can.
Chef Carla Contreras (19:05):
So cool. I love it. Let's talk about creative blocks, because this is a big thing when it comes to creativity. This could literally go through every single area. You talked about spreadsheets or clay or cooking or any of these different spaces. What does it look like for you personally to move through creative blocks?
Juanina Kocher (19:31):
I think it looks different depending on what it is I'm trying to move through. So most recently, I kind of came to a space, my youngest is getting a little older, so I kind of felt like, okay, I can start focusing on some new things. What do I want to do next? And I actually found it very helpful, which usually, this is not me because I brought up journaling earlier, but I created sort of a bucket list, if you will, just a list of all these things that I want to make sure that I do before I die. And I found that to be very, very helpful because I do think that there is a sort of glimmer about putting things on paper where you can see it as opposed to just living in your mind. And we have so much shit going on in our mind.
(20:08)
Things come in and out and we lose things and we forget. So I found that to be super helpful. But usually going back to just having some quiet time. And I think this is very much like a mom thing too, because pretty much every mom I talk about I talk to, they're like, okay, if I just get some quiet time, I could run the world. I can get my shit together. I can figure out my next move, I can do this, I can do that. Give us 30 minutes of quiet time. And it's like everything. So I feel like that's probably usually the way I go when I need to move through something is taking a quiet walk, doing a meditation, and then now most recently, just writing things down. And I think as I've gotten older, writing things down is helpful because do feel like my memory, I'm running out of space, so I need to step on paper.
Chef Carla Contreras (20:51):
I resonate with so much of that. I resonate with the quiet space because I know when my kids first, when I get in the house, they're at school and I'm like,
Juanina Kocher (21:05):
I know
Chef Carla Contreras (21:06):
I can just breathe. And the writing, I used to be morning pages, especially when my kids, my kids were babies. I heard this podcast from Glennon Doyle that she used to write every day at four 30 in the morning. Oh my
Juanina Kocher (21:23):
God, queen. Okay.
Chef Carla Contreras (21:24):
I heard this podcast in 2016, and I swear I did that up until the pandemic. So I did it for four years every day. That's
Juanina Kocher (21:34):
Amazing.
Chef Carla Contreras (21:35):
It was a beautiful practice.
Juanina Kocher (21:37):
Did you love it? Did you get to a point where you didn't feel like you were struggling to get out of bed?
Chef Carla Contreras (21:41):
No, I didn't. But then pandemic hit and I felt like I hit a wall with work and homeschool because I was working in food styling at home. So I felt like I hit a wall with that, and most recently I started to write again and I was like, oh, okay. Yeah, that's what that space is. So I feel like the theme here is space, because the walking is also space too, right? The walking is
Juanina Kocher (22:10):
Everything
Chef Carla Contreras (22:11):
Going outside, and we're in the northeast, the two of us. So it's smelling the leaves and having them crunch on your feet. There's so many things, and I find myself walking without music or any of these other things. So that same, I can fully be in the experience, and perhaps this is because I also have a partner and two humans. There's a lot going on. There's a lot going on.
Juanina Kocher (22:40):
There is a lot, and I totally agree with you. I sometimes listen to music, sometimes listen to a great podcast, but oftentimes I walk just with nothing and I'm in the city a couple of days a week. So I actually plan it that when I go into Grand Central, I can walk uptown to the cafe that I do some work with. So I literally will do a two mile walk as often as I can in the city and hearing the bustling noise, but not noise that's necessarily in my ears, I don't know. I'm just able to zone out. It's really a happy place for me is a nice long walk. Maybe more than yoga and even meditation. A nice long walk on a nice day. I really feel like there's nothing better, and ideally in the city or in the mountains, but it's fine. Around my neighborhood can work too.
Chef Carla Contreras (23:18):
I love this. Is there anything else you'd like to share before we wrap up this beautiful podcast?
Juanina Kocher (23:24):
Oh my goodness. I think that's about it. I feel like we covered quite a bit. We covered food, we covered space, creativity.
Chef Carla Contreras (23:33):
It's just so beautiful to share space with you. I feel like I
Juanina Kocher (23:37):
Know we finally did it. I'm so
Chef Carla Contreras (23:38):
Grateful.
Juanina Kocher (23:39):
Me too.
Chef Carla Contreras (23:40):
Thank you.
Juanina Kocher (23:41):
Same.
Chef Carla Contreras (23:42):
How can we find you? How can we work with you? How can we support you?
Juanina Kocher (23:47):
Sure. So you can find me on Instagram, just my full name, Juanina Kocher. You can also check out my website, which is flex and flow wellness.com. My email's on there. You can reach out to me there if you'd like to work with me in any capacity. You can also find me on YouTube through MINDBODY Green and various yoga flows. So yeah, you can search me that way as well.
Chef Carla Contreras (24:08):
Thanks so much for tuning in to Nourishing Creativity. You can find me Chef Carla Contreras across all social media platforms and more information in today's show notes. While you have your phone out, please leave a review on iTunes or Spotify. This is how others find this show. I really appreciate your support sending you and yours so much love.