Episode 101: Honoring Your Appetite & Making Space for Your Creative Process with Author Layla Khoury-Hanold
Podcast
Episode 101: Honoring Your Appetite & Making Space for Your Creative Process with Author Layla Khoury-Hanold
“We're always learning… the same lessons over and over so we can continue to make choices that better reflect our needs, our wants, (and) our truth." — Layla-Khoury-Hanold
This week’s episode is focused on nourishment. I’m joined by my dear friend Layla Khoury-Hanold, a James Beard Award nominated journalist, freelance food and travel writer, and author.
Layla shares how she honors her appetite and nourishes herself in a way that is true and that aligns for her. She invites you to fill your cup first and gives you inspiration to make space for your creative process.
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast platform while you cook, clean, or create. Get the full show notes & transcript below.
What’s in This Episode:
Layla shares her definition of creativity which she believes is something that is constantly evolving. She gives us a look into her creative process which includes: Research, daydreaming, or putting writing blocks in her calendar.
She gives us a real life example as a parent, partner, and business owner of what has to give in order to support her creative time. Layla is clear about her priorities and asks for help with dinner and releases the responsibility of figuring out the after school schedule for her daughter.
Layla surrounds herself with other writers who understand the ups and downs of the creative process. She’s familiar with the isolating feelings that can come with creation. She prioritizes being in spaces where she feels less alone on her creative journey.
Topics Covered:
Satisfying your appetite for life and getting intentional about how you nourish your creative energy
Reframing the need to “earn” creative time or be worthy enough to dedicate time to creative projects
Refilling your cup for yourself vs refilling your cup for others. Read Layla’s essay on refilling your cup on Mother Untitled here
Building your creative community of people who get what you’re going through
How are you nourishing your creativity? Leave a comment on Substack or DM us on IG @chefcarlacontreras & @words_with_layla.
xo Carla
PS: Dreaming of starting your own Substack? Listen to this podcast about building your new digital home on Substack here
Disclaimer: Always seek the counsel of a qualified medical practitioner or other healthcare provider for an individual consultation before making any significant changes to your health, lifestyle, or to answer questions about specific medical conditions. This podcast is for entertainment and information purposes only.
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About Layla Khoury-Hanold
Food and lifestyle journalist Layla Khoury-Hanold has written for Food52, Food Network, Refinery29, The Chicago Tribune, VinePair, and The James Beard Foundation.
Living in six countries before age 15 cultivated her obsession with food, from grape leaves at her Lebanese grandma’s table to escargots in Paris, haggis in Scotland, and fish cheeks in Indonesia.
Prior to becoming a professional writer, she studied fashion marketing in Paris and worked as a PR assistant for Food Network, where no press release was issued without “the Layla Touch.”
Layla lives with her golf pro husband, precocious daughter, and chocolate Labrador in Roanoke, Virginia.
Find + Work With Layla:
Full Transcript:
Carla (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, episode 1 0 1. This is with my dear friend Layla. We met at the Institute for Culinary Education back in 2011 when I was teaching cooking classes and she was working at the Food Network. We have been friends for ages. This conversation focuses around nourishment. Let this be a reminder to fill your cup first to nourish yourself. I can't wait to hear what you think. Layla, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Can you share with us who you are and how you serve your community?
Layla (01:22):
Thank you so much for having me, Carla. This is really an honor and a treat for me. I am a freelance writer. I typically focus on food and some travel and journalism. I'm also an author, and what those things have in common is that I feel my purpose and the way that I serve my community is through my words
Carla (01:46):
And the way that you use your words, especially through your Instagram in your substack. They invoke and they spark so much reflection, especially in myself.
Layla (01:59):
I love that you have that reaction and that it provides an opportunity for reflection. I think all of us are so busy all the time and we don't intentionally carve out time to reflect. That's been such a gift for me writing my newsletter and sharing sort of a condensed version of the word essays that I do on Instagram, just to offer people maybe a different perspective or to give them that pause in their day that helps them recenter or connect more deeply to themselves or people around them.
Carla (02:34):
It's such a gift. Let's talk about food because you are in the food space. What was your last meal?
Layla (02:41):
My last meal, I had an early lunch. I had leftover chicken and veggie stir fry with rice, and then I polished off the last of my birthday cupcakes and I sat outside on the porch. I didn't bring my phone. I just listened to the stream, trickling by birds chirping, felt the breeze on my skin, and I just really gave myself the gift of sitting down and actually eating something. This sounds so nourishing in itself. It really is. It's something that I pay a lot of attention to as someone who writes about food, whether it's cooking or restaurants, but it's also something I've explored a lot in my memoir and a lot of the themes, no matter what it's about, whether it's creating or motherhood or being a woman in this world, it all centers on appetite and how we honor our appetites and nourish ourselves in a way that is actually true for us and that aligns with our inner selves.
Carla (03:48):
Incredible. I'm going to ask you a big question.
Layla (03:50):
Oh boy. Go for it.
Carla (03:51):
How do you define creativity?
Layla (03:55):
This was probably one of the questions that I thought would give me the most pause, and I have loved listening to other podcast guests define it, and for me, I think it's something that is not a static definition. It's something that is constantly evolving. I think that we all have creativity in us. We are all creative beings, and maybe not all of us identify as creatives, but I think we all have that capacity within ourselves. And so I think once you realize that you can think more expansively about what creativity looks like and how other people are putting their creativity into the world,
Carla (04:35):
It makes so much sense that it's evolving. And this brings the next question into play. What is your current relationship with creativity?
Layla (04:46):
Yeah, I definitely see a continuation of my response because it is something that is always changing. I think, again, I have paid much more attention to how I nourish my creativity, which is part of the reason I was so excited to be on your podcast. I think that it's about understanding how I work best and what that looks like day to day. So sometimes I need a lot of time to research, to conduct interviews, to read books. Sometimes it means a lot of daydreaming. I had one writing instructor tell me that a lot of writing just looks like staring at the wall. That's really comforting to remember on those days where I just don't feel like I'm getting anywhere. But I also have learned that I'm somebody who really likes to think about the process, and a lot of times that leads me to doing more research.
(05:41)
The other thing that I have realized, especially in the course of writing a book, is that I can't just wait for the muse to appear and write when I feel like it. So much of it is showing up to the page, getting my button in chair, calendaring it, being very intentional about carving out the time and space and really protecting it and then identifying what else has to give in order to support my writing and creative time. Can you give us a glimpse into what does that process look like? So a very practical example, and it's sort of funny in a way, is it means giving up, making dinner or being the one to figure out what afterschool plans look like. It means relying on other support systems and not being afraid to ask for help. I think particularly as a mom and a woman, I often would equivocate what I was worthy of, time to write, time to do yoga, time to do this, and I wouldn't feel like I had earned it and it would feel like this big ask. And I think once I got really clear about my priorities and thought more pragmatically about what I was actually capable of doing in a day instead of assuming I would do everything, I just got really clear about asking for help and putting more support systems in place. This
Carla (07:09):
Makes so much sense as a fellow parent running around doing the things because that's part of my reality as well. So it helps to have that understanding that asking for support and also I'm reflecting and hearing that and correct me, there's a worthiness piece here.
Layla (07:31):
Absolutely. I think that it is hard to ask for help. We want to be able to do it all. I think that's part of the modern myth of being a working mom is having it all and thinking that you can be the one. But I think we don't think about sometimes how long something's going to take, let alone the energetic output that it's going to take. And when you consider all the tiny things that have to happen to run a household, to run your own business, to parent your child, to show up for your partner, for your family, these all are drains on your energy. And I think so much of the creative process also is a drain on your energy. And I noticed this particularly when I have a lot of interviewing to do because I want to be so present and engaged in a conversation with someone. I notice it when I have to do some really internal looking work as it relates to my memoir. Some of the things that we write that we need to access are really hard to get to, and that's very emotionally depleting as well. And so I think if we're not refilling our cup as a person as well as a creative, then it's no wonder that get to a place of overwhelm or we feel like there just isn't anything left for us to offer, let alone reinvest again in our creative process.
Carla (09:07):
And you've talked about this in your newsletter about the depletion. I feel like it was in the winter.
Layla (09:13):
Yes. I think it's a theme that comes up a lot for me, this topic of overwhelm. And when it happens, I kind of take a beat and I try not to be punitive about it now because I used to take this sort of morality approach to it. How did I get here again? Why didn't I this? Why didn't I? But I think we're always learning some of the same lessons over and over so that we can continue to make choices that better reflect our needs, our wants, our truth in the moment. And I really had a huge reframe around the notion of filling one's cup, and I wrote an essay about it for Mother Untitled, which I'd love for you to link in the show notes because I think it applies to everyone. I think it's just really great life advice and you don't fill your cup so that you can pour out for others. You refill your cup so that you can give to yourself, and it's actually the leftovers or the excess that others should be getting. And so I think ensuring that you don't dip below a certain threshold and you're not at this critical junction really requires you to be intentional about how you show up for yourself and what you need as a human and as a creative being.
Carla (10:32):
I'm underlining highlighting and can't wait to listen to this again because I feel like this is so important. And you're right when you said this is not just for parents, this is for everyone.
Layla (10:47):
Absolutely. I think inherently human beings, we are all caretakers in some respect. I think often we forget about taking care of ourselves, so I think it really does apply to just a whole multitude of situations and experiences.
Carla (11:07):
Layla, I'm curious about creative blocks because your work and including writing the memoir, there has to be creative blocks.
Layla (11:19):
Oh yeah, for sure. I'm so glad you asked because when I've been very candid about hitting a wall or reaching that moment where I said I wanted to quit and put my memoir away, and I shared it on Instagram stories, I got so much feedback and so much gratitude that I shared that because I think oftentimes when we're creating something, sometimes it can feel really isolating and we think we're the only ones who are going through it, which is why I think sharing these things so that others don't feel alone. And so you're building more of a community is really, really helpful. So they happen to everyone. And the biggest thing for me is getting very quiet and creating some space for stillness. And the temptation for me is always to just try to plow through the creative block. And I think a lot of us are really tied to producing something, having something to show, and it's sort of like the grind culture and productivity machine that we exist in.
(12:24)
And so when I'm able to get quiet and tune that out, I can really listen in and figure out, okay, do I need more support? Is it because I have too many other demands on my time? Is it that I really truly need a break? And I'd love to take myself on an artist date every week? That doesn't happen, but it's often a really wonderful remedy to the creative block and burnout. And then I think surrounding yourself with other people who get what you're going through. One of my favorite writing instructors, Rachel Herron, always stress the importance of building your writing community. And so I have a writing group that I meet with every other week, and we have a Discord channel. And so sometimes I just pop in there and I go to the whining channel and just share all my frustrations, and people are able to chime in and say, I see you, or I heard this great podcast, or Did you try this? So I think for me, it's just, again, a lot of the creative blocks come with the overwhelm. And when you can't see the next day, let alone an hour in front of you, I think that's really your body and your mind telling you you need to stop, take a beat, reset. And that can look like different things for different people. For me, it's stillness and space and quiet, whether it's on the floor of my office with a tarot deck or on the porch with an ice matcha. Leila,
Carla (13:55):
Is there a difference between your professional creative blocks and the creative blocks for say, your substack or your memoir?
Layla (14:06):
That's a great question. I think that sometimes they look alike. Sometimes it's just that it's a sign that I need to do a little bit more research if I'm not able to connect the dots in a certain way. It might be on the memoir side, listening to a podcast on a particular craft tip about how to handle backstory. For instance, sometimes it's if I'm writing about a cuisine that I'm not familiar with and I can't really see how certain things connect to one another based on the chef or the hospitality professional story, then that's a sign that I need to look at some cookbooks. I need to be able to dream a little bit about the ingredients. I need to go back and ask for a clarification. And so I think in both cases, it's getting really humble and honoring the fact that I don't have all the answers. And as someone who loves learning, I think it's a real opportunity to move through those creative blocks that present the same between the two, but sometimes require different courses of action.
Carla (15:18):
You wrote today about Making a Wish, and I want to chat about that because there was a subtle nuance in that post about wanting to publish your memoir or wanting to get picked up. And I'm curious because you were like, there's a voice that said this year. So I'd love to know more about listening to your intuition and how does that play a role in your creativity?
Layla (15:46):
I think intuition is so powerful, and again, it's something that I have really worked on honing and learning to trust as a person and as a creative. And I think writerly intuition, especially when I actually listen, it really serves me well. But I was walking my dog Bella the other day, and I had this realization and I realized that I really would like to be traditionally published, meaning I get an agent, I get a book deal, I work on the book. It probably takes two years to come out from the time that I signed the book deal. And I am attached to that partly for ego and partly because I believe that it's going to make the book the best that it can be and that it's going to reach the most amount of people. But the epiphany was that that is just a story that I'm telling myself, and it's a thinly veiled bid for control because especially with publishing, you don't know what's going to sell.
(16:50)
You don't know what your relationship is going to be like with a particular editor. It doesn't necessarily mean it's the best or better. And self-publishing has really come a long way. And I think I'm just trying to stay patient. I think the voice that whispered this year is one that just really wants to get it out there already and is trying to feed my achievement beast. And I do think that I'm trying to get a little bit more peace and garner a bit more faith around the fact that the book is going to come out into the world when it's supposed to in the way that it's supposed to, and it's going to reach the people who need it most. And if that's one person, then that is a success. And I don't need to tie my success or worthiness as a writer to going down a particular path. I think it can look like a lot of different things. I'm just trying to open to that.
Carla (17:51):
Beautiful. Thank you for sharing a glimpse inside of that. Layla, I have loved our conversation. Can you share with us how we can find you? How can we support you?
Layla (18:02):
Yes, I would love to. You can subscribe to my Substack words with Layla. You can visit my website words with layla do com, and I'm most active on Instagram. It's at Words with Layla.
Carla (18:19):
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.