Victoria Hutchins is an ex-attorney, yoga teacher, influencer, poet, and a beautiful human. Hutchins is best known for her videos under the username “The Daily Victorian.” Her 1 million Tik Tok followers and 400,000 Instagram followers watch the videos of her giving advice, wisdom, poetry, and love all while drinking a cup of coffee and doing some yoga flows in the sunlight that streams in through her Houston apartment. Yet, her 30-45 minute long podcast episodes from Soul Gum offer knowledge and depth than I had ever expected from a podcast and are worth every minute.
Soul Gum, her self-development, philosophical, and psychological podcast, started in late 2022. Hutchins has talked about a range of topics from confidence, the paradox of choice, dating, purpose, nihilism, death anxiety, and friendships.
Every episode is educational and engaging while Hutchins speaks as if she and her listeners are old friends just having a chat.
Her voice is soft and calm but conveys when she gets really excited about a topic. She doesn’t talk fast, but rather like a human. And, her podcast is a reflection of that. Each episode feels human and unique. One will feel like your grandma just gave you a cup of tea on a rainy day and genuinely wants to help you feel better about that one friend. Another will feel like she’s a friend sitting across from you in a busy cafe giving you advice about dating. Or, it feels like Hutchins is suddenly your therapist or some other really wise, peaceful character who’s using history, science, and facts to help you understand death or purpose.
Victoria Hutchins makes me laugh and keeps me engaged, and a little bit more educated.
I’ve so far listened to all thirteen episodes and it makes my entire week when Hutchins releases a new one. Here are my favorite episodes and a little bit about each one (I personally listened to each episode chronologically and found that to be enjoyable, yet Hutchins does develop the podcast more as she goes along so the first episode might be a bit harder to listen to than the most recent ones.)
Season One, Episode Three: ”Why Are We So Scared to Die? How Do We Get Less Scared?”
I personally loved this one because death anxiety is something that I have experienced, yet I didn’t even know it was a normal experience. Victoria Hutchins defines death anxiety as, “an intense, intrusive, maybe even debilitating, fear of death and/ or the process of dying. Either or both with respect to your own death or the death of other people.” Before leading her listeners into the oblivion of the fear of death, she offers a soft tone and facts about death avoidance to lighten the mood (for example, Russian scientists in the 19th century would sew money testicles on top of human testicles in an attempt to make men live longer and avoid death). Then over the course of the episode, she talks about her personal experiences with death anxiety, how death anxiety is different for everyone, then ends the episode with some advice. She tells her listeners that when death anxiety clouds your thinking to try your best to live presently in every moment. To enjoy that cup of coffee because the coffees you will have are limited, to enjoy the time with your mom because the amount of time you have with your mom is limited and to enjoy living with all that you have in each moment you have.
Season Two, Episode Two: “8 Clues to Your Purpose”
This episode simply felt grounding as someone whose future is very much unknown and scary. Thinking about my purpose and who I am have helped me feel a bit more secure. Here are Victoria Hutchin’s 8 clues to finding your purpose:
- What you loved as a kid
- What makes you jealous
- What puts you in a flow state
- What you see everywhere
- What makes you uncomfortable
- What connects you to the world
- What you want your purpose to be
- Here and now.
She delves into each one with facts and information to help her listeners connect to it. What I took away from the episode is it’s ok to not know my purpose to understand that my purpose is right in front of my nose- I just have to look a little deeper for it because it truly is all around me.
Season Two, Episode Four: “The Spiritual Reason You Can’t Focus”
In this episode Victoria Hutchins talks about meaning, distraction, the value of our time, etc. Yet, the thing that really stood out to me was her “Dorito vs. Dinner” concept. She talks about her personal experience, that I believe many people relate to, where instead of eating a filling home cooked meal, she’d eat a whole bag of Doritos because it takes more effort to make herself a nice meal and sometimes life just happens and Doritos are easier. But she never feels full. Hutchins then asks her audience to make a list of everything they like to do and separate it into two columns: Dorito or dinner. Doritos are things like scrolling Tik Tok or other habits that are fun yet don’t make you feel refreshed whereas dinner activities are like going on long walks and calling your mom which, may be more effort, but leaves you feeling a little more grounded. So in your valuable, limited free time, Hutchins asks you to be a little more mindful about avoiding impulse Dorito activities, so that you allow your focus and energy to be more sustained and mindful. I have been thinking about this more often and have noticed that it does actually work. I delete Instagram during the week and instead color and have noticed that I’m more calm and can transition to whatever is next in my day a little easier.
My only big complaint about Soul Gum is that Hutchins sometimes assumes her audience is female. The majority of her audience probably is female based on how the algorithm on social media presents her content, yet she still adds a little, “you go, girl” to her episodes every now and then despite occasionally acknowledging, “ it’s cool if you’re a dude too,” without acknowledging others who don’t identify with either.
I keep myself regularly updated with all of Victoria Hutchins’ newest videos, episodes, and news. She regularly posts on Instagram and her debut book Make Believe comes out March 18th. Hutchins describes Make Believe as a series of poems on womanhood, childhood nostalgia, queerness, friendship, dating, morality, purpose, and more. From what I know about Soul Gum and the small bits of poems she has pre-released, I expect that Make Believe will not disappoint.
Image Source: Hustonia and Apple Podcasts