Episode Transcript
Hello, my name is Aziz and I'm the son of a divorced mother. She is really my superhero. That's why it's important for me to support women, to share their uniqueness, their personalities, perspectives and emotions about life. Too many women in this world feel alone. They worry about the judgment of others and they struggle with their mental health but when they listen to the Rare Girls podcast where empowered women share their voices and tell their stories, many women will feel inspired to live a life of freedom and to overcome all insecurities. They will feel it is a safe space to find their confidence, to remember their unique beauty and to feel their self-worth and they will connect with the sisterhood of Rare Girls who encourage their success and support their dreams. That's what this podcast is all about. My guest today is Hiromi Shaitosa. Hiromi is a Japanese woman living in New Zealand. She is the mom of three beautiful children and also a health coach, a mindfulness coach and a piano teacher. Hiromi is currently taking the Ashtanga 200 YTT course to deepen her knowledge of yoga. Her hobbies include yoga, swimming, playing piano as well as reading books about health, studying everything related to wellness and learning new languages. Hiromi is a curious person who loves learning new things, especially things that she is interested in and she really thinks life is all about learning, self-growth, creating harmony for ourselves and for others. Hiromi, how are you today? I'm very well and I'm very, very excited to participate in this podcast and I'm very honored to be invited. Thank you so much for inviting me in. You are welcome. I feel privileged and lucky to have you here. I look forward to know much more about you. So I'll begin with this nice first question, which is, Hiromi, if your friends could describe your personality, what would they say about you? So all my friends said I'm very friendly and very caring and very loyal to friends and anyone I love and also very knowledgeable. Thank you. And let me ask you about your friendly side because there is a kind of traditional view of Japanese people that they can be friendly to their friends but a little bit shy to strangers. Are you friendly to strangers? Are you different in your caring, friendly attitude from the usual way that some Japanese people grow up to be? Or is that a representative of Japanese culture and people? So I was taught I'm very different from traditional Japanese. Even when I lived in Japan, I've been always slightly different. I don't know why, but everyone says I'm slightly different. I am definitely shy. I don't deny that. It takes some time for me to break ice, but I'm always friendly and I always try to help if anyone needs help. And if I see it, it's just my nature. I just can't ignore. So yeah, in that sense, it's not like because I'm not friends to someone, I don't help. I always help. It just comes from my nature. Thank you. I love that very, very much. It's my own theory that the people who dare to and are excited to live abroad, to start a new life abroad, they are born different. And when they grow up, they feel that they're different to everyone around. So it's easy for them to go somewhere else because they did not really feel too much connected to any place that they grow up. So to ask you, was this the case for you where in many ways, although you are Japanese and you are living in Japan, you felt maybe you can find a place where you feel more at home, connected with similar people to you somewhere else. And that made you curious to go live abroad. Or do you think and believe that was not a factor that even though you did not feel that you are similar to everyone in Japan, you could have lived all your life in it happily. Tell me more because I honestly think that there are people in this world who have a desire to explore and find their tribe and their location because they did not feel 100% belonging where they are born. So my case is I felt I don't really I felt I didn't belong there. And that was always in my heart. I somehow knew back in mind, I don't belong there. And the funny thing is around when I was 17, I it was just one day I was going to high school and I just saw people going to same direction. And because we always catch train to go everywhere. And that was on a tube, one of the station near my house. And I was just walking towards to just to change the train. I was just walking with other people and just looking back other people and I thought, why are we going same direction? I don't feel I belong here. That was one of the realisation I had. I felt like this is not where I'm supposed to be. And since then, I knew Japan is not that really place or maybe where I live was not the place I wanted to be. But I didn't know where I wanted to go. So I I always live just by flow. So luckily, I had a chance to get to know some people, some friends who decided to live in abroad. And also my professor from the university, he lived in Austria before. And he mentioned about how exciting to live in abroad and learn different things, different culture and experience, different experience. And he even mentioned, I should live in abroad. I should go abroad and explore a little bit because the way of my thinking is too narrow and too square. That's what he said. And you shouldn't be in that box because you're different. And that's what he said. And yes, he kind of pushed my back to studying abroad. So I had a chance to study abroad for four days. It was part of my university programme. If I wanted to go, I could go. So I participated to the programme and I went to the UK and I just fell in love. And that's how everything changed. Thank you. I love that very, very much. I appreciate you for sharing this. And it also makes me think because you described yourself as shy. So normally if you're shy to go from Japan to the other side of the world to the UK, how was that decision? How was that experience? What motivated you to go? Was it that you thought, okay, it's enough. I need to explore. I don't feel happy staying in the same place around somewhere where I don't feel I belong. So it was more that desire that pushed you away from anxiety to go. Or is it that you are like you get into an excited mood and emotion and you forget all the overthinking and you just jump instinctively into adventure? Or how was that decision? Because you were young and in that time, since you're shy now, in that time, you probably were super shy. So how does that decision work? I'm shy, but I have confidence in myself and I actually feel, I don't know, I'm not sure. I don't know when people say shy or what it really means, but I can be both. I can be introvert, but I can be extrovert. And the part of my extrovert side decided to go abroad and explore and have some more opportunity to experience different things. So I didn't have really fear to go abroad and to live in abroad because I know I can adapt quite well. And also I can make friends quite easily. I can be shy inside, but I can make friends. My daughter even said I'm an ambibard. I have both sides. So I think because I didn't really have fear, I just went there and I just tried to explore everything. So it wasn't really difficult for me to have so much fun over them. Thank you. And tell me a bit more, what is the meaning of confidence for you? I believe you mentioned that it's the belief that you can adapt anywhere. And nowadays we live in a time where there are too many women and young girls who are comparing themselves to girls on Instagram, to celebrities, to artificial intelligent AI girls who don't even exist. And they feel that they don't have self-esteem. They feel not beautiful. They feel not successful, not confident. What's your advice for them so that they can feel the same way? So for you, what is your definition of confidence? Were you born this way or did you develop it? And what's your advice for younger girls in particular, but women in general, so that they will be more confident? So at the time I went to the UK for the first time, I was 19 and I was confident because I'm quite determined. So if I decided to do, I would do it. And that was me. And I always, you know, I succeeded. And even if I fail, I still could just get up and then just do it again and then just keep trying. And I didn't really have the fear of failure because I knew failure is just another beginning. You can restart. It's like a reset button. To be fair, being mom, I actually lost confidence at some point and I started to compare myself with other moms. And I felt like I was not really good mom and, you know, I had self-doubt and it was very difficult. I think it was actually easier when I didn't have children because I could control my life. Everything was under my control in no way. But once I start having children, having three different person with me and I have so much responsibility, I start to start self-doubt and start to compare myself with my mom and other moms. And always felt like I was a failure. So I actually went through this as like a journey to build up my confidence again and try to explore a bit more to be better mom. So you can always compare with someone. And, you know, they are saying the next neighborhood grass is green Adam, yours, right? But to be fair, there is no such thing. That's the truth. I mean, you can see Instagram, you can see other moms and you compare yourself and you only see the good side of that. But you don't actually know what kind of life they actually go through. And then when you actually share with other moms, they also have some problems. They just don't say that they don't really show it on social media. Why do they do that? Unless they are actually trying to share to make other people aware that even those celebrities or those people everyone admire have problems. So it's not only your problem. You know me. So it's to me, it's not to me to compare yourself with others. You can be yourself and you need to be yourself because that's when you can actually build your confidence. And if you think of negative side of yourself, then you also need to look at the positive side of yourself because everyone has strengths and weakness. And we can always use our strengths to cover the weakness. If we need help, we can also ask some other support. I mean, why not? So yeah, I don't really see the point of comparing yourself. Just really be yourself and know yourself. And that's how you can build your confidence. Thank you. I appreciate that. And I can imagine how it is since now you have so much responsibility. And I can imagine you were born to feel a lot more freedom where you can be spontaneous, but now you need to plan everything. I have actually two questions, but I'll begin with a nice small one because I'm curious. Are people born in the way that you are, where you feel different and you want to be free and you have confidence or is it something that happens that makes you this way in childhood? So was it genetic? Are your children very confident, very brave, a bit crazy? And they are similar to you? Or is it not that they have a different personality to you? So maybe it was not so much that you're born this way, but during your childhood, maybe you saw some things that changed you. Tell me more about your children and whether you see yourself and your crazy side within them. So three of them have very different personality. My first born, she is very confident. I actually admire her confidence. And we actually talk about self-confidence, self-love a lot because that's actually my focus of bringing up children. And she is always, she's been always very confident and she's very extrovert as well. When she was little, I was looking like she's completely opposite personality from me. I think some people are actually born to be very confident, to be honest. And some are not. My second one, he is in a way very confident, but he's quite shy in front of people. I know he knows he's capable, but he gets quite nervous. I think he worries a little bit about failing because he is actually quite in a way perfectionist. My third one, he is in his own world. So he doesn't seem to worry too much about others in a way and he just can be as he is. Recently I've noticed though, my first born starts to become a little bit lack of self-confidence sometimes in front of people. She is more aware of people may have different perspective or different image of her. So she starts to wonder, do I need to behave that way? She starts to care more about people's opinion, which is quite surprising because she never did. So we still quite talk about being judged by others and or being misunderstood by others. But I always tell her, just be yourself because even if people misunderstand her, if she just stay as she is, eventually they will understand. If they don't understand, those people are not ready for her. So why does she need to care? She's also on the social media. I do Instagram, she does TikTok and at some point she starts to get more viewers and comments and they start to get some criticism and she went through all that. But I told her, why does she need to care? Because what I can say is it's not like everyone can like you, everyone will love you. Everyone has different preferences and some people, even if you try to share a good side of you and try to encourage people or try to do something good, doesn't mean everyone will see that way, unfortunately. So yeah, sometimes you try but it doesn't work. So from my opinions, sometimes she has a criticism. I just said, well, if these people don't like you, then they don't really need to watch you. So if they are still making comments, then maybe they still like you in a way. Just don't worry too much about it. Thank you for that. I agree 100%. We cannot please all people in the world. We just need to find our own people who are a good match. And I'm also very curious about something you love learning. You are someone, well, are you a curious person? Because I have a question just to make sure. So yes, you said yes with your head. So I say yes. Just for people listening. Yes, that's always curious. Okay, great. I love that for two reasons. Psychologically, it's not that people are brave, but it's that the only way for you to overcome fear is curiosity. When you're curious, you cannot feel fear because you want to move forward to know. But even more, I am wondering, is it what is different about you that maybe many other people, including those who are going in the same direction in Japan that you notice, that you're very, very curious while other people are not so much curious? Is this the trait that makes many women and men and people in general, me, be more open-minded, more adventurous, more spontaneous, and more able to feel confident that they can adapt? Or you think it's separate that curiosity is not the factor that makes you be different and unique, but it's something else? Let me know because I think, and I honestly believe that I thought it's not the truth that everybody's very curious like me, but it turns out 95% of people are something, are not curious. They just want to have the same life every day and have routine, and they don't want so much change because they worry about it and they feel scared. While curious people experience new things and they're curious about what will happen, what they will discover about themselves, and maybe for you, the new emotions, new experiences, and new adventures, tell me a bit more about that. I think I am very curious person, and even my friends say I'm always studying. And I'm always curious. I'm always looking for the answer and try to live a better way. I believe when you are curious, you will definitely become more brave. Because we seek for answers, right, because we are curious, we don't actually feel the rest, to be honest. I don't really even worry too much about the outcome because I'm curious. I want to know the answer. I start to study. And then when you start to study, you've got more things you don't really understand, so you have to study more and you have to make more research. It's endless. And sometimes we will find some good answers, but it's not really that's the case. We sometimes don't find the answer. That's why we have to keep researching and trying different things. So yeah, I don't know if this is a good answer. Yeah, I think curiosity always makes us more brave and very different from other people for sure. Thank you so much. It's a great, great answer. And I'm curious about something as well. You said you love the UK. Why did you decide to move to New Zealand, which is on the other side of the globe, both far from Japan and from the UK, to start the family there? What was that choice instead of being anywhere, whether it's in London, Manchester, Scotland, Wales, wherever it is in the place that you love, but instead you went to New Zealand. Tell me that story, please. It's actually not really my choice. So I studied in the UK for a year and then I met my husband over there. But I need to go back to graduate from my university because I took a year off to study in abroad. So I went back to Japan and I graduated and I realised I actually should work and save some money to get married. So we had four years of long distance relationship and then afterwards we got married. But he's not originally from the UK. He's Brazilian. So he always wanted to move somewhere warm and with nice weather and with nice beach. And a year later after we got married, I became pregnant. But that was the time we had a recession in the UK. It was pretty bad. And he started to worry about having family in the UK. So he started looking for different options to live inside the UK first. But he couldn't quite find a good job with better pay. So he's a different option in abroad. And he lived in Australia before. So he applied for a job in New Zealand and Australia within the same company, but different branch of the company. And he's got a job of FARS in New Zealand. And he was quite curious living in New Zealand because he never lived in New Zealand. So he brought this up. And I only had one month because I was pregnant at that time and it was just close to my labour. So I didn't really want to think too much about it. So we just said, OK, you deal with that bit because we need to sort out visa and everything. I sort out the pregnancy and give birth and then bring up my baby until we actually know the final answer. And then when my daughter was four months, we moved down to New Zealand. Thank you. That sounds like a very, very miraculous almost story full of ups and downs. And thank you so much for that. And I want them to explore your spiritual side since you are a mindfulness coach. Now you're studying and curious about yoga. You'll love learning. But even before all of that, how do you see the world? Do you see yourself as like a part of the harmony, like a Zen person within the energy of the universe and you're just part of it? Or do you see yourself like almost like a goddess and you are creating your reality to learn lessons and to evolve spiritually? Or do you have any other kinds of perspectives on the world that maybe are part of the reason why you became curious as well as confident before? Maybe you saw yourself as having a great destiny and therefore you think, no, no, no, nothing bad will happen because I am like the reincarnation of an empress. I'm a female emperor. I don't know. But tell me more first how you see the world. And then I would like to know more about mindfulness yoga, but first about just how you see yourself spiritually within this life. I believe I'm part of the universe and I always believe there is a reason I'm here. And since I was 17, I'm actually seeking for the reason why I am here. Because when I was 17, I had a thought of why I'm here because I actually asked some of my friends since then. Everyone gives me different answers, but it was never really good enough. But I always believed that everyone was born with some purpose and we are here to solve some purpose. It might be a small joke, it might be a big joke, we don't really know, but it doesn't really matter. We are here because there is a reason for it. And without knowing, we are serving in some way to make it work. So yeah, I definitely think I'm part of the universe. And I have been quite lucky in a way because I feel like whenever I seek for answers or whenever I need some help, it always comes in a way. And even before I started to become more spiritual, it always came. And I always knew it came from somewhere up here, up there. But I don't know who brought the answer or who actually gave me a help, you know, sent someone to help me. But there was always something and I always felt that energy. So yeah, I believe I'm part of the universe. Thank you. I like that very, very much. And then I'm curious about two things. You said at 17 you had the thought that you have a life purpose. Do you believe the people, for example, in your town that were similar age to you who are walking, following each other, also had a feeling like that or they just wanted to not be in trouble, to just be in a peaceful state and they did not think the same way? Because this could be part of what makes you you and makes you want to explore and be different is that you felt that you need to find your purpose when many people give up or maybe they feel it for a little bit and then they say, no, no, no, it's hard. I need to make money and just work and do whatever. So tell me a bit more about that. Plus, how did you change because of mindfulness from that time when you were 17 till today? How are you as a person inside that you can say it's because of my spiritual work, my mindfulness work that is different? So first, just to make it easy, comparing yourself to the other people who are not as curious whether they also had that pursuit of their mission as well as any changes that mindfulness brought to your life over time? Well, my friends, so I asked some of my friends why we are here and many actually didn't give me good answer. And I don't really think many people actually think that way because I kept asking people around and many people have a goal and what they want to do. They know what they want to do. I mean, some actually don't, but not many people actually think about life purpose. They have goals, but it's not the life purpose. I mean, because for me, life purpose, meaning it's something I need to solve for the rest of my life. To use my time being right now in this life, I need to solve for that purpose. So goal is slightly different because you can have small goals and you can just go through that and you achieve that goal, small goals and then just step by step. But life purpose is something you serve for the rest of your life. So it's a different thing. And I've noticed many people don't really think too much about it, but I met some of really good friends. They also think about life purpose. I think majority people don't, but still there are people who think about life purpose. Thank you. And how did you change as a person inside because of your spiritual work and mindfulness from the time you were 17 and you had your moment of small enlightenment till today? Okay, so when I was 17, I felt I was lost. I didn't know the direction where to go. But after doing mindfulness work and also learning yoga, I learned it's all about harmonizing life and finding peace and really finding the balance of life. And that's the answer of this life. We all go through different challenges and we all learn in the end how to balance to find peace. And I do have lots of different job, but they are all connected to with health. For instance, I teach piano and also I do mindfulness coaching and also I do nutrition and health coaching and everyone think, but they are all different things, but they aren't. Because for instance, when I play piano, I feel the energy and I feel actually it's all about harmonizing. And for me, it works for some people. It's probably different. It could be something like drawing or it could be something like maybe even doing some sports to find how to harmonize yourself. It's more like reconnecting with yourself and how to express yourself and then all the energy go all together. And then that's how you harmonize yourself with surrounding, with energy, with universe. And as I mentioned before, I believe we all are part of universe and somehow we can reconnect through this experience. And it comes to a nutrition and health coaching. I also look into how to harmonize your life because we have to look into the diet. We need to look into your stress, look into the sleep pattern and look into the lifestyle. And it's all about how to harmonize your life so you feel you can live in a very healthy life and you can actually serve your purpose because without health, you can't really serve your purpose. And that also comes from universe. So it's all about harmonizing. Does it make sense? It makes sense 100%. Thank you so much here, Romi. It was my privilege and my honor to have you here, to share your voice and your story with the world. I'll make sure to write your Instagram in the description so that if anybody wants to connect with you, they can find it easy to find you. I wish you all the success I wish you to raise your children in a way that makes you most proud so that you don't compare yourself to any other mother. And to keep developing your curiosity, your yoga skills and everything that brings you and others harmony, thank you so much for participating. Thank you so much for having me. It was such a pleasure. Thank you.
