I'm back and happy to say that taking a pause can be a transformative experience! A while ago, I made the decision to step away from the noise (in order to hear myself instead).
In the quietness away from the constant buzz of social media, I found a liberty in solitude and a renewed connection with the voice within. This episode shares a bit of that journey and a toast to the joys of returning to this podcast that I love so much. Join me as we celebrate curiosity and creativity, and continue our collective quest for a life brimming with fulfillment.
I'm so excited to reconnect with all of you and extend a heartfelt thank you for your unwavering support!
And if you're looking for an extra spark of inspiration, don't miss out on Rachel Larson Weaver's episode (Episode 61)—it's the perfect springboard into our new season.
Your engagement and five-star reviews mean the world to us, as we forge ahead with curiosity and a thirst for knowledge, ever eager for the next discovery on this podcasting adventure.
NOTE**** A recent iPhone update may have thrown a wrench in the works, disrupting our usual channels of connection, but it's nothing we can't overcome together. I encourage you to double-check your follows and notifications to ensure you're up-to-date with our latest episodes. Please tell your friends too!
Follow LeAnna and Curating the Curious:
Instagram: @curating.the.curious
@leanna_azzolini_photography
Website:
leannaazzoliniphoto.com
I'm back and happy to say that taking a pause can be a transformative experience! A while ago, I made the decision to step away from the noise (in order to hear myself instead).
In the quietness away from the constant buzz of social media, I found a liberty in solitude and a renewed connection with the voice within. This episode shares a bit of that journey and a toast to the joys of returning to this podcast that I love so much. Join me as we celebrate curiosity and creativity, and continue our collective quest for a life brimming with fulfillment.
I'm so excited to reconnect with all of you and extend a heartfelt thank you for your unwavering support!
And if you're looking for an extra spark of inspiration, don't miss out on Rachel Larson Weaver's episode (Episode 61)—it's the perfect springboard into our new season.
Your engagement and five-star reviews mean the world to us, as we forge ahead with curiosity and a thirst for knowledge, ever eager for the next discovery on this podcasting adventure.
NOTE**** A recent iPhone update may have thrown a wrench in the works, disrupting our usual channels of connection, but it's nothing we can't overcome together. I encourage you to double-check your follows and notifications to ensure you're up-to-date with our latest episodes. Please tell your friends too!
Follow LeAnna and Curating the Curious:
Instagram: @curating.the.curious
@leanna_azzolini_photography
Website:
leannaazzoliniphoto.com
Welcome to Curating the Curious, the podcast that celebrates staying curious in life and never settling into a box. This show is for the creators, the seekers, the explorers, the truth tellers and the forever students of life, no matter what age or stage you're currently at. This is not as good as it gets, and it is never too late to begin. Join me as we explore all of the questions that come with the idea of curiosity a place where the possibilities are endless and you can always start again. Since it felt a little strange to just start the season and not even say a word about where I've been, I wanted to check in and make it short and sweet, kind of just give you an overview of where I went and where I want to take this new season. In the interest of brevity I really appreciate brevity I'm going to get to the point and let you know the answers to those things so that we can just go on with this new season. I can bring you all of the people and the ideas that I've been thinking about for the past few years. If you haven't already listened to Rachel Larson Weaver's episode, which was my first episode back for the new season I think it was episode number 61. Do that. It's such a good one, really started off the year wonderfully for me and she's just a breath of fresh air so inspiring and awesome. I highly highly recommend you check it out. Now I'll get down to where I've been and where I would love to take this new season Back in December of 2022,.
Speaker 1:I read this quote by Michaela Cole in a world that entices us to browse through the lives of others in order to help us better determine how we feel about ourselves, and to, in turn, feel the need to be constantly visible, your visibility these days seems to somehow equate to success. Do not be afraid to disappear from it, from us, for a while. See what comes to you in the silence. So I read those words, I made a handful of episodes and a few months later I fully ran with that advice and decided to disappear Just here and then on social media, and in the beginning I had just planned on a minor little break, kind of get my stuff together. But as the months kept creeping by, I continued to dive deeper and deeper into rest and healing and introspection and just my inner world, and I decided to just quiet the noise. Find some clarity on what my true priorities are in life and forget about anything that had to do with checking in with others, speaking to others, putting my thoughts out there, done. It was all about listening to my own voice. So now I'm back and very excited to be doing this.
Speaker 1:I'm still not sure what I plan to do from here with social media. It's hard because I do actually, I get the word out better with social media, but I don't really want to be spending my time there too much, so I'm still ironing that out. But regardless, a major lesson has been learned through this huge break that I took and all of these things that I've been working on. If we are constantly watching others and checking in on how they feel about what we do, we begin to lose sight of our own inner compass. So is it possible to be an active participant on social media and still keep a grasp on that inner guide? I think for some, yes, it is possible. I don't know how, though. It's not for me, but I'm back here. There's no question how I feel about this.
Speaker 1:This podcast is a great joy in my life. It's very fulfilling. I love this medium of communication and connection and I am truly, truly back and I'm staying. It's funny the reaction that you get when you do something like come out with your own podcast and what people think of that, what they assume it to be Very interesting. I got myself caught up in all that BS.
Speaker 1:The year before last, 2022 was the hardest. I mean, you can hear me when I'm talking about the tribes thing and oh, I'm apologizing for saying it because somebody said it was bad and I was so concerned about what other people were thinking. I just want to give myself a big hug back then and say, hey, you can't be perfect. You're recording this. You don't have a team of editors or a team of people telling you what's right and wrong. Sometimes you're going to say something stupid, but I think it's not even stupid. Okay, it might not work for some people, but I came to find that a lot of people were like what are you even talking about? I'm out of that phase of my life, thank God, where I'm checking in with everybody to see if I'm okay.
Speaker 1:I'm really happy to be back with that new sense of self, because I think the more truth you can tell, the more you can connect with other people. I'm coming back to this space as myself. There's not going to be sugarcoating, which I don't think I was doing too much of in the first place, but I'm me and this is what you get. Quite frankly I am super excited to really cover all of these things that have taken place, that have changed in life, the things that I've found to work for me and that I've been working on, the things I've learned and the people that I've been watching and listening to and have you hear from them. Instead of listing all of those things for you, which I find to be very boring hearing lists, I think we'll just let those things unfold as we go. My new intro kind of says it all.
Speaker 1:This podcast is about creativity. It's about being open. It's about constructing, creating a daily life that excites you. It's about looking for more. It's about you're never too old, it's never too late. It's about what's coming up around the bend, all of that.
Speaker 1:I want this to be a community of the truth seekers, the truth tellers. I want us to reimagine our worlds together, reject all of that crap that society is telling you that you need to be, that you need to do, reclaim your life. I want to work on that every day, and so that's going to be a big part of this podcast. I want this to be a place where we just extinguish those limiting beliefs, erase the need to be liked, screw it, be you. I've done a lot of that and I can't wait to share more about that because it's so much fun once you get into it. Life can be long or life can be short. That part is not in our control. But how full and how rich do we want our lives to be? Are you actively dreaming and designing and tweaking and reinventing, aka staying curious? Are you open to the questions and the what ifs and the possibilities? If so, I think this podcast is for you. If you are not, then it is not for you. If you came here for politics, it is not for you. I hate politics and I will not be discussing them. Do not come here for political talks. It's not happening.
Speaker 1:I was coming from before. I was coming from a place of setting really hard boundaries and I was just kind of in a fighting back sort of a place. If you listened to my last several episodes, I was dealing with a lot of things. All of those things have been resolved in my mind. I am coming now from heart soft and boundaries strong kind of a place. So boundaries are strong, but my heart is soft. I am no longer like this needs to go, this needs to go. It's more Okay. The boundaries are strong, I'm feeling soft, I know where I fit, I know who fits in my life and I am coming from acceptance and love. At this point I no longer see people as mean or hurting me or see myself as a victim. Working through all of the forgiveness and the understanding of where other people come from and what causes miscommunication and just overall human perception. I am now not seeing anyone as mean or hurtful. I'm seeing them more as wounded in need of healing, and I am coming from a whole different place mentally. I'm hoping that everyone will end up hearing that and feeling that as well. Part of the reason why I went away was because I knew I was not coming from that place at that time and I knew I needed to get back to who I really truly am.
Speaker 1:Another thing that's really on my mind for this coming season is coming from a beginner's mind. I love this quote. In the beginner's mind there are infinite possibilities. In the experts there are few. That is by Suzuki. So this is all about coming from that beginner's mind, a state of openness and wonder, and that state allows a person to approach life without any bias associated with knowledge and experience. It's a curious mind without ego. It's an open mind, just saying, hey, what do you have to bring me today? Let's figure it out, let's study it, let's just go on this journey. That's essentially what this podcast is about Beginner's mind.
Speaker 1:As you may remember, another thing that I was really dealing with over the last several years was perimenopause. I have made some unbelievable discoveries in this realm of life and boy did I go through hell and back to find it. But I am finally finally at a place where I can come from experience and talk about things and, I think, really shed some light on some stuff. I'm hoping to have some great experts to come and talk, because I'm not an expert, but a big thing I have in my mind is I want to hear from people who have started over later in life, in midlife, after midlife. I want to hear stories about people who are doing things until the day they die. I don't want to hear about the whole under 30 lists or even under 40. I want this season first of all. It's just going to be different, because I'm coming from a whole different place in my life. I have done so much physically, spiritually, mentally I have discovered avenues, I have gone down avenues. I didn't even know what the hell it was three years ago. I want to come back and talk about those things.
Speaker 1:As for my interviews, most of them are going to stay done along the same lines. Although I'm not pursuing professional photography like taking clients anymore, I still am a photographer, I will always be one, and I'll still likely be speaking to a lot of them in this next season, because so many of them are writers and poets and powerful speakers. I do want to bring on many other different types of interviews, though, but I just know of so many photographers that are inspiring and just awesome to watch, so it's going to be a mix, but this by no means is a photography podcast. This is for anybody out there looking to expand their mind, expand their lives, live a creative life, get inspired and just hear interesting stuff.
Speaker 1:Really, and last, what is my overall goal for this podcast? It is very simple, and that is to just keep doing it and keep loving it. That's it. The numbers are actually pretty impressive as to what I expected to be honest. So, whatever, I don't really check. I don't even know how many actual subscribers I have. I only know on certain platforms how many, and I haven't even checked that in like a year. So I have no clue and I'm probably going to keep it that way because it's not why I do what I do.
Speaker 1:I do know the global standing and it's pretty great for me at least, and that's it. I'm not doing it for applause. I really love this and I love what it brings to my life. I love sitting down and researching the people that I'm going to talk to. I love sitting down and brainstorming what I want to talk about and the things that I want to put my attention on. I have what you would call a Ferrari brain with bicycle brakes. That's kind of another way of saying. You know the ADHD brain. It's just moving at 100 miles per hour all the time and really hard to stop it. So instead of focusing on negative things or rehearsing you know an argument in your mind, I focus on this and creating this and what I'm going to bring to you and what I'm going to bring to my life and hopefully someday to my daughters when she listens, and that's it. So that's my overall goal.
Speaker 1:I think it's pretty clear who this is for and who it is not for, and I'm not here to convince anybody. If you like it, follow. Please make sure that you have not been paused. Apple iPhone updates did some weird thing that I just heard about and somehow paused a bunch of people, so I'm not very happy about that. That sucks, because I'm not really on social media ton to let everybody know and my numbers are so low on social media now, so I don't know. Tell your friends, text them an episode and tell them to go and make sure that they're following so that they'll get notifications when these air, and that's about it. I'm really excited to be back and I'm loving seeing you all share these episodes. It makes me so happy, and if you could please leave a review and five stars, that would be awesome. So until we meet again, stay curious.