why I don't post anymore, engagement update, celibacy, mentally preparing for motherhood | Q&A 🧃

Potatoes are having potato babies. Are you happy, bro? Why don't you make content anymore? Engagement story. Any shows, movies you recommend. How do you prepare for motherhood? Did you face any judgment for choosing to be celibate? Why did you choose to live together before the wedding? Also, when is the wedding? That is me. Time to walk in frame and be like, Hey guys. Been a long while again. No, but really. Hey guys. Hey friends. Hello potatoes. Before we just jump into posting again, I just thought it'd be nice for us to catch up. It's been exactly one year since my last Q&A. So I posted another Ask Me Anything on Instagram a few days ago, asking for juicy questions. You all delivered as you did in the last video. So much noises. Maybe it's the noise in my heart. I'm also sweating so much. Just haven't filmed a video in so long. There's just so much I want to catch up with you guys on. There's actually so much, like so much life has been lived and I'm so excited to just share and be online once again. Let's first start in the bathroom. This is so heavy. I'm meeting a friend for dinner after filming and I also want to look cute for you guys. Okay. Are you okay? Why am I all this time? Why don't you make content anymore? Thank you for asking. I'm totally fine. My family's fine. Everything is fine. I just had to take a little bit of a break. There's many things. Many things contributed to me feeling very creatively stagnant. In my last Q&A, I mentioned how I was working through being a public person and what that means and where it's all going. That combined with feeling like I've run out of lived experience to pull from or just feeling like I don't have anything to share coupled with me questioning if I really wanted to be this productivity self-care girl because that's kind of the route that I was going down two years ago. Also looking at creators who are ahead of me so just creators who are bigger than me, creators who have started before me and even looking at people not in my industry like folks like Jay Shetty. This article just came out which is why I've always been very hesitant with selling anything to you guys since we've started online together. What else? There's a few more things. Oh yes. Everything online is becoming the same. Same video titles. How to exit your lazy girl era. The same thumbnails. You have people copying videos shot by shot. I don't think this is within this space but it's within the MrBeast space and where did originality go? Where did creativity go? Why are we even doing this if we're just copying each other? Then that means the ultimate goal of creating content is to get views. I mean I don't think there's anything wrong with that but for that to be the sole reason why you're creating I think it's a sad landscape to be in and I think with short form content copycat is even more prevalent within short form. If you don't have a literal or figurative car crash in the beginning of your short form content no one's gonna watch it and I just I don't really want to be a part of that. I don't really stand for that. That is why I took a very intentional step back but an unintentional time off to really figure out once again who I am how I want to show up in the world. I could have kept creating the same types of content I was creating before getting views, talk about productivity and self-care in the way that I've known how to simultaneously feel like I'm losing a part of my soul. It's not that bad. Or I could take this time to spend and ponder, wonder, rest, play, read, question and just look into things that I'm genuinely interested in so that I can create more from these different types of lived experience that's not just me being a creator and me being burnt out. At one point it gets boring. Everyone is burnt out. Every self-care girly, every productivity girly is going through burnout. They're all telling you how to be motivated and how to work not as hard and to be motivated again and to not work as hard. Yeah, I think I'm good. And then I clearly feel very passionate about this topic. I wanted to make a dedicated why I stopped making videos or why your favorite creators stopped making videos for a really long time but I think it's gonna take a lot more time for me to actually figure out what I want to say. That video is coming. Okay, sunscreen time. The sunscreen has been so amazing. Fel, my co-host on Beauty Within talked about this as her favorite sunscreen of 2023. Her sunscreen recommendations never fail. It just blends right in. Now that skincare is done, makeup time. The next question. Vision for YouTube. Are you planning to keep it going or ending it someday soon? I don't feel like it is near yet. There's so many videos within me to be made that has yet to be made that it would be a shame if I just stopped now. The vision for YouTube is to honestly not take everything so seriously. I do have a vlog channel. I haven't been posting at all on that channel. That is definitely something I want to revamp and also more fashion, more beauty, home decor, DIY things that just don't fit on main channel. For me to do that on my own also is not possible. So in case you missed it, I am hiring. If you want to join Team Potato, the form is ready. The form is live. I'll link it down below. I'm looking for a video editor as well as a social media manager. The social media manager unfortunately needs to be based in LA so I know that limits a lot of you but I hope in the near future as my team grows, I can potentially onboard more remote folks. Yeah. So that is the future of Rowena. A few moments later. No makeup, makeup. My skin looks so good. I got too lazy to do my hair but I will do this one thing to help with baby hairs especially when I still have bangs. I'm not really sure what I want to do with it. Comb it to this point. Kind of helps you look more particular. Okay. I'm gonna get changed and see you guys outside. Okay, now lining round of questions. How does homecoming, being active on socials again, feel? I feel very refreshed. I feel very excited. I just want to share my upcoming content so you can help keep me accountable. We missed you. Hope you got time to rest and catch up with life. I missed your video so much. Thanks guys. This means a lot. This really does mean a lot. For a while, I feel like positive comments kind of just, I don't know, became a little numb and I feel silly for saying that because it sounds so ungrateful but I think I'm at a place where I can accept love in general and also from you all. What a great place to be. Any shows, movies you recommend? Queen of Tears. Dune. I understand the hype now. And the Moses documentary. Just want to make a hot chocolate before we get the next big sections of engagement. First sip. Definitely not as good as when James makes it for me but I'll take it. Okay. How do you handle the chaos and overwhelm that comes with an engagement slash wedding plan? This is why I haven't talked about my engagement at all besides from that Q&A video in passing. Ring details. Here's a close-up shot. She is a beauty. We actually went ring shopping together. We actually went ring shopping together before we got engaged. So I knew it was happening but I didn't know exactly when. They do this thing where they put all the different shapes of diamonds between your fingers. You could have something you want in mind but when you actually see the stone, see the rock on your fingers, the only thing I knew I wanted, I knew I wanted the band to be gold. With your ring, there's like a basket what kind of holds the ring in place. You can see if it focuses that there are tiny diamonds under here too. So James got 26 diamonds because he had my brother's birthday. It's 26 so there's actually 25 little diamonds in the bottom and then this big diamond is 26 diamonds. Very sweet. Here's the ring deets. Engagement story and wedding inspo. I'm not gonna get into the engagement story here because a video, a whole video is coming. I also went in detail on Voice Hugs, our podcast with photos, with videos. So I will link the podcast here if you want to watch the video. Next, do you think you're different after moving to LA comparing with New York City version of you? I definitely feel I'm a much different person. I'm okay with slowing down. The sun I think helps a lot. The very mild, warm, embracing weather helps a lot. Being able to see the clear, clear blue skies is wonderful. Being close to my family is wonderful. Being with my partner is wonderful. I think I did lose a part of me that was this like super determined, go-getter, busy, for lack of a better word, productive gal and I think I'm okay with leaving her behind in New York but there are elements of her drive that I am hoping to channel and bring back including routines and all of that while I'm here and I've been doing, I've been doing more of that. You'll see my new routine videos. They are coming. All right, starting to get spicy. Is it difficult to get along with your BF after a long distant relationship? So I haven't called him my boyfriend in so long but maybe I should go back to calling him that to keep him on his toes. Um, I wouldn't say that it's completely difficult. I would say there's definitely a learning period and a grace period that's needed for both of us to cohabitate together especially for me living on my own for so, so, so many years when I was in New York. There's bound to be a period of working things out together as I shared in a previous video. This is just a little highlight for the relationships Q&A. There's actually a lot of great questions like overcoming betrayals, singles in 30s, splitting finances, dating mindset habits. I want to make a 7 mindset habits video for this specific topic so thank you but yes, I will do a dedicated Q&A for relationships after the engagement vlog in case you guys have any questions and I'll have James do that with me. He'll be off camera but then he'll be there. Okay, okay. Cheers. I'm out of witty transitions. I just wanted to change the backdrop. I see I'm very shiny. Oil blotting paper with powder. Look at how shiny everything is right here. This compared to this. Wow. All right, next lightning round of questions. Are you happy, bro? What do you think? How is this year going for you? Better or worse than expected? What have you learned so far? It's definitely better though not in the way that I expected and I think a big big lesson that I'm relearning is that if you start from your heart and if your heart is rooted in something that's greater than yourself, for me it's my spirituality. Life will just work itself out. You will be given everything you're supposed to have and that's it. It's a beautiful thing. What kind of audio slash music have you been listening to lately? Well, I don't listen to a lot of music. You know I love my audiobooks. Okay, thank you from today's sponsor, Audible. You all know I mostly listen to personal development and non-fiction titles but recently as I was preparing to clean, I was like I want to try something new that's something a little different so I thought why not try listening to a mystery or thriller. The twists and turns of this 18-hour title actually made me want to clean 24-7 because I just wanted to finish this title as soon as I can to figure out what happens. Beyond Audible's mystery slash thriller slate which has both action-packed and psychological thrillers, there's an incredible selection across every genre from business to romance, music, fantasy, and so much more. New members can get a free trial of Audible and members can get access to all of these and you can download included titles all you want. Moving on. Your newly acquired best habit and whether you want to organize a meetup. What's that? James just blew me a kiss. Bye-bye. Drive safe. Your newly acquired best habit and whether you want to organize a meetup. I actually don't think I have a newly acquired best habit because if I did, I would have made a video about it already. However, I have been very consistent with having the first thing I do every morning to read my spiritual texts for at least an hour and then meditate for 15 minutes which I think has compounded over time to help me be at a much more grounded, spiritually aligned place. Whether you want to organize a meetup in LA. This may not be a proper meetup but I will be at a pop-up in Fullerton in May if you're in the SoCal area. I would love to see you. Put it on your calendar. Here's all the deeds. For two of my favorite K-Beauty brands, Hanskin and Plutka and it is for their Glow Fest. It is free but you do need to RSVP so I'll leave the link down below and follow me on Instagram for more details. Hope to see you there. Oh wow. I would love to hear about celibacy. I would never have thought to ask if you didn't and it got cut off. I think this is why we need to talk about something like this more. Anything that is a given in society of you just do it because everyone's doing it is worth having conversations about, okay? So why celibacy? I did talk about this in my last Q&A video. The TLDR is that while it was mostly a spiritual thing it did come from me being in a very unhappy, dark, unfulfilled place and I was living this one life doing the things that I was doing making the choices that I was making. It was not making me happy so I was like okay what if I completely 180'd my life. Celibacy or just choosing not to be physically active was one of many sweeping lifestyle choices that I made for myself including not drinking and I think I was just in such a fragile state that I was desperate to try anything new just to see if it would make a difference. When I set out it was okay let me do this for three months and it just kind of it kind of blossomed into this is now my life. Yeah like I never thought of it as a big deal because I was like let me just try this if I like it I'll continue it if I don't like it I can stop doing it but as I slowly started seeing me growing into this new version of myself which is what you guys saw starting from 2016 I really liked her and so I just kind of kept going and back to what I was saying earlier of how I feel like to be physically intimate and I'm trying not to get demonetized to be physically intimate is now given and like a norm in society and I would like to ask why not just for this but for anything anything that's given in life why you know just like I'm curious right we grew up seeing it in movies we grew up with our peers being physically active and you just think that oh this is something I should do too but why I was talking to a friend recently and she mentioned how she's writing a book where it talked about why people want physical intimacy there's four main things the first one is closeness the second one is let me just pull it up the first one is closeness with your partner the second is sharing pleasure with someone the third is being desired the fourth is freedom to escape and to explore and I felt like me in my youth I wanted to be close with my partner and because I wasn't in the ways that I wanted to more from like a quality time love language perspective I pursued this because I thought it would make us closer how strict are you about celibacy and what are the boundaries does this strain your relationship I am I guess you can say very strict like monk mode does this strain your relationship I think I'm very grateful to have a partner who understands we've learned to love each other and to be physically intimate or just intimate in other ways that helps us feel closer younger me will look at where I am now and just feel like wow I didn't know that was possible but now that it is possible I'm so proud of younger me for deciding to do this for her future self yes how did you introduce the topic of celibacy to James when you first started dating I wanted to be very upfront with whoever it is that I'm dating slash potentially dating just so everything is out on the table and they can make a decision themselves whether this is a deal breaker whether they're okay with it definitely talked about it within the first couple weeks of talking did you face any judgment for choosing to be celibate if so how did you handle it surprisingly and maybe also not surprisingly I faced zero judgment I feel like it's because of the way I approach it to my friends I think they all understand you know they all know me they all know I'm very intentional with everything that I do so for me to make this type of decision there's nothing to be judgmental of and I think I'm also at a stage in my life where all of my friends are around my age and we haven't seen all of life but we've seen enough of life to know that everyone has their own unique life experiences and they all make decisions that you know is aligned with them that being said I do pick and choose who I would tell this to I don't go out there and just tell everyone like yeah just like how I'm only sharing this now publicly on this channel in this much detail use your best judgment if you are and if you want to be know that if people do judge you for it it's more a reflection of them and where they're at than it is a reflection of you and your lifestyle choices I actually have to head out to meet my friend for dinner don't want to be late that is one thing that I'm really trying to work on as a human in life I'll see you when I come back we're back from dinner cut this just so it doesn't burn the whole place down should I move this up a little? oh this is wonderful beautiful beautiful beautiful I'm scared I'm gonna open the window for a second all righty moving on with the lightning round of questions is voice hugs podcast episodes coming back soon? we're definitely in the works for a lot of very very cool things for voice hugs I don't know if I can tease anything right now but I'll flash it really quick on the screen it might be blurry but just that's something that we're working on more physical products than it is new episodes coming back working on getting started on everything again real soon cue to fingers crossed fingers crossed new favorite hobby slash interest so as y'all can see legos golf and home decor why did you choose to live together before the wedding? also when is the wedding? there's a lot of questions about when the wedding is or has it already happened? if you have followed my content you would know the answer to this considering how private I've been making my life how do you prepare for motherhood? it seems like so many things can go wrong there's also a couple of you who are becoming new moms they're in the same life phase that's so exciting potatoes are having potato babies to me preparing for motherhood was things that I've been kind of processing since I turned 30 the biggest thing that I worked through was deciding do I want to be a mother or do I want my career and for the longest time I thought it was either or because I knew how intensely I worked to get to where I am today but within the past year it made me realize that it is possible to have both you probably just can't dedicate as much time as you used to as I used to in work but it's still possible to juggle both and I'm reminded of this quote from Chriselle in one of her videos she talks about how you can have it all but just not at once yeah putting my life my life on pause for a few years to bring forth beautiful babies is totally fine I still have many many years to live and potentially more lives ahead of this current one okay what made you realize that you're ready to have kids and be a mother? I don't think.. I don't think something big happened I think it was finding the right partner being in the right headspace and also being in the right physical space because I ended.. physically ended a chapter in my life to begin a new one out here on the west coast it was a very clear opening and closure it helped me in last year's video I did say I don't think I'm ready yet because I still feel like a kid which I still do but now I think it's like even though I am a kid I think it's okay I think I can do it I think I'll be fine is motherhood something scary and nerve-wracking or exciting and fun to you? it's definitely the latter it's kind of like taking on a new challenge you're learning and doing something new for the first time I love new beginnings how many kids do you and Jams want? Jams wants at least two or he wants two I want at least three which is why we gotta get going we'll see I'm trusting.. I'm trusting the plan how do you think your content will change if slash when you have a kid? I don't know what it's gonna be I think I would still try to make life and things I go through productivity all of that the main focus but with like an added spin of how to stay productive even when you have a kid things I'm learning for the first time or things I'm relearning for the first time seeing through a kid's eyes something like that the good thing is I feel like even with this video I feel like I've gotten to a place where I care less about like being perfect or having content show up in a perfect way and if you've watched previous videos I've talked about this for many years now of just letting go of this idea of who I should be and how I should show up which I think is very liberating and I'm very excited to see how this will continue to show up in different forms of content and different styles of content as well thank you guys so much for joining this is very long overdue I hope you're as excited about upcoming content as I am if you have any requests anything you want me to do ASAP any ideas let me know here's a hug it's been too long love you guys bye