#10: Naomi Hawksley
"I make it a point to accumulate as little as possible to keep my head clear."
Naomi is an artist and curator at OdyXxey Radio.
At a glanceā¦
Location: Seoul
Big 3: Leo/Capricorn/Leo
What does health, or being healthy, mean to you?
Right now being healthy means feeling capable in my body. It's not that I'm always maximizing my time and energy, but a few long days in a row or unexpected tasks won't leave me exhausted. Also, this point is made all the time but I think it bears repeating: one large aspect of being healthy is letting yourself play and do things that aren't objectively great for you. Eating junk, staying out all night, things like this. They keep the heart full.
How would you describe your current lifestyle?Ā
It's pretty inconsistent right now, more than ever been before. And it's exciting and confusing to be reflecting on my health now of all times, since I'm having to relearn a lot of healthy habits.
I have to run around to different parts of Seoul for work most days, and around 3 days a week I'm in my studio sitting and drawing all day. I find it hard to establish a solid routine, especially since I moved to Korea from California just a few months ago. Most of the time I spend not working I use to get a better lay of the land and get to know new friends here. There's a lot of learning and playing, which I've learned also involves a lot of booze and smoking.
āOne large aspect of being healthy is letting yourself play and do things that aren't objectively great for you. They keep the heart full.ā
How do you start and end your days?Ā
I usually wake up at around 10am and immediately run out to grab a coffee. I always get an iced americano with vanilla syrup because I have a huge sweet tooth. Once I get back home with my coffee I like to do a wall pilates routine and one other short workout that targets a specific area. Then I'll get cleaned up and apply my skincare and perfume. I recently started using Round A'Round Green Tea Sun Lotion and Escentric Molecules M01, they're both great.
I like to end my days by cleaning my room. Since moving to Seoul, I get overstimulated pretty easily so I like to keep my space really clean and bare. I make it a point to accumulate as little as possible to keep my head clear.
Do you have any recurring dreams?
Since I was a teenager, I've had really weak, unhealthy teeth and get cavities embarrassingly often. I have a lot of dreams related to this, usually where all my teeth start to fall out. I heard this means a lack of control in one's life, but I'm not entirely sure. There's another dream I have every few weeks where I'm running in a 100m dash. I shoot off the running block but can't seem to move at full speed, like I'm trudging through mud or jelly. I'm also unsure of the meaning of this one, but it's easy enough to infer I guess...
Do you believe in the concept of self-healing, or that one can heal oneself?
Most definitely. I think that self-healing has so much to do with maintenance, prevention, and balance. This is a part of TCM I'm also very much attracted to, where the body has an ideal neutral state that healthy habits support. It's not necessarily about optimization. Like I said earlier, this includes eating in accordance to one's composition as well as regularly receiving treatments like acupuncture to combat any imbalances within the body. There was a point in my life where I was recovering from an illness with severe mental and physical symptoms and acupuncture helped me a lot. My composition was especially hot and damp, so I received a lot of dry, cooling treatments were I would lay with the acupuncture needles scattered across my body and a warm box on top of my stomach. Outside of the physical healing, I found it so helpful to lay there and feel my insides changing beneath my skin. Bodily change is something I feared for a long time, so to feel it happening gently, and through the lens of balance, was something I really needed.
Was there a specific moment in life that made you more conscious of your health?
Around 2010 my mom was dealing with asthma and discovered traditional Chinese medicine. Initially, she was paying the most attention to the principals relating to food and I was able to learn a lot from her growing up. One of the key principals of TCM is to eat according to your body's composition, which is categorized by temperature and dampness. If you're retaining a lot of heat, you should eat cooling foods like dandelion, banana, watermelon, and kale, and if you're really damp then you should eat beans, cinnamon, carrots, potatoes, nuts, and seeds. I really like this approach because because it allows for multiple versions of a healthy diet, which I don't find to be as true of the western dietary models I've seen.
Where do you look to for information and guidance?
I always turn to my mom, as I'm sure many do, for this kind of wisdom. For the past 15 years or so she's been studying TCM and works as a nurse, so she has a really well-rounded understanding of medicine that allows for wholistic and short-term approaches.I also learn a lot by observing friends online, which again is a pretty generic response but I find it to be really true. A lot of friends have gotten into fragrance recently, whether itās formulating their own, researching smaller brands, or telling stories with it. I think watching them explore the topic has been teaching me a lot about invisible indulgence and flexibility. There's an infinite number of ingredients you can combine to fit any mood you may be in, or to get to an ideal place in your environment. I think this kind of play is true of health, too, and the kind of satisfaction the perfect scent can evoke is important to apply to your insides.
Fuck, marry, kill: three health trends of your choice.
Fuck zero sugar drinks, marry probiotics, kill raw food diets.
What are your grocery staples? What meals do you find yourself returning to?
I'm a pretty lazy cook, so I make a lot of one-pot or sheet try meals that use seasonal produce. Some of my favorites are butternut squash, tomatoes, plums, and citrus. I try to always keep couscous or quinoa around, and almonds, walnuts, and cranberries for snacking.
What do you think is the most pressing health issue of our time?
For me, it's the concept of self-optimization; it's one of the most unforgiving and dangerous things to pursue. There's a cultural obsession with peak performance that can leave someone so, so tired, and embody[ing] the antithesis of health. It ignores individual limits and encourages selfishness. Itās okay to be weak at times, to do nothing but think and rest and play, but the idea of living an "optimal" life doesn't leave any room for this. I think it's pretty dystopian.
What advice would you give to the person reading this?
Cry it out.
