Catja’s Joy Drop: your body is a source of deep wisdom and learning to listen to it is a lifelong practice. Underneath the teaching is something more personal: years of chronic pain and an eventual burnout that forced her to stop completely, and the slow work of rebuilding a different relationship with rest, ever since.

Whether you’ve been pushing through exhaustion because slowing down never felt like an option, you’re curious what womb work actually means, or you want five minutes to reconnect with your own body, this one is for you.

Who is Catja?

Catja describes herself as someone who has lived several lives. She had a burnout leading her to yoga — restorative yoga, yin yoga — which became the start of her new path. From there, she trained as a yoga teacher and moved deeper into embodiment work. Today she is a womb awakening facilitator and somatic educator for women, facilitating women’s circles and retreats at her center in the Gers, helping women come back to their bodies.

What does she want to teach/share?

Her Joy Drop: your body holds wisdom and learning to listen to it is a practice. You can enjoy from a short guided practise in the episode: closing your eyes, noticing your breath, scanning the body, choosing one sensation, giving it texture/color and asking what message it might hold.

Her key insights:

• We’re trained from very early childhood to override our bodies — finishing a plate after we’re full, sitting still when our body wants to move, waiting to use the bathroom. Slowly, we lose the ability to feel our own needs.

• Rest isn’t valued in our society — it’s almost treated as a badge of honor to run on too little sleep. But the body keeps score, and you will pay the bill one day.

• If you don’t listen, the body doesn’t stay quiet. It gets louder — sometimes through illness — until you’re forced to slow down.

• She’s still learning this herself. Even now, she admits she still pushes through sometimes and overrides her own pain. It’s a lifelong project, not something you arrive at once.

• It’s not about escaping the mind. The goal isn’t to get out of your head — the mind is useful too. It’s about reconnecting mind and body so they work as one.

📍 Where to Find her & How to Work with Catja

Her website: sal-me → You can sign up to her newsletter to get the latest information.

💛 What does Catja love about Joy Studio?

Catja pointed to the joy of being with Emma and Audrey specifically, calling the community down to earth and “flowy.” She loves how they bring people together and how they act on opportunities to connect members the moment they see one — including connecting her directly with a woman interested in her retreats. For Catja, being part of Joy Studio feels like having a support group, which matters even more because running a business alone can be isolating.

If you’ve enjoyed this episode, feel free to share it to your love one. Maybe you will be the one feature in the next one, who knows?

Joy Studio is a collaborative community where conscious women make money doing what they love. Start your 2-week free trial here.

Yuliia’s joy drop is simple, hard exercise, done consistently, without chasing perfection. Underneath the training advice is something more personal: the resilience she built lifting heavy at the gym is the same resilience that carried her through immigrating to France alone with her child, learning French from scratch, surviving breast cancer, and rebuilding a career in her forties. She doesn’t hide the hard parts. She shares them, openly, as part of what makes the strength real.

Whether you’ve been putting off moving your body until you “do it properly,” you’re rebuilding your own life from somewhere that feels like rock bottom, or you just want a reminder that hard work doesn’t need a perfect plan, this one is for you.

Who is Yuliia?

Yuliia spent 15 years in events, public relations, and digital marketing for the aerospace industry before everything changed. After struggling to find work, immigrating to France as a solo parent, and surviving breast cancer, she found herself lost, until a conversation with Emma, including an exercise imagining her life years from now and reconnecting with what she'd always loved, helped her see a path. That path led her back to the gym, where she discovered that lifting heavy taught her something bigger than physical strength: resilience. She recently passed her exams (in French!) and is now a certified fitness coach.

🏋️ What does she want to teach/share?

Her joy drop: strength training that’s effective without needing to be perfect, and built around what you actually enjoy.

Her key insights:

• I've seen no 80 yo grandma who would regret not having big glutes. But every day I see old ladies who regret not exercising for strength. It's amazing what strength training fuelled by proper nutrition does to your wellbeing. Looks is what comes as a bonus.

• It doesn’t have to be perfect, and benefits start at 60 minutes a week, not 60 minutes a day. Two or three sessions of 20–30 minutes is plenty

• Done consistently, this gets you real health benefits: bone density, metabolism, hormone health, mood

• Start with what’s challenging for you, right now: bodyweight, then a resistance band, then weights. There’s no fixed entry point, only your own progression

• Pick the thing you actually enjoy: Pilates, yoga, weights, whatever is hard enough for you today. When it stops being challenging, you move on

• Comparison is the real obstacle: what someone else lifts is irrelevant to your own progress

• You don’t need a gym to start: stairs, a wall, your own body weight. A chair squat against the wall, lunges on your stairs, a “superman” on the floor, …

📍 Where to Find her & How to Work with Yuliia

1. 📸 Instagram: tallwomanwholifts

2. She is working on tailored outdoor workouts in small groups up to 8 people in Toulouse with the aim to launch in August.
   - If you are outside Toulouse and are interested, let her know your city
   - If you are working for a company, you can put her in contact with the HR manager. She is working on offers for companies: outdoor workouts in front of the office during lunch break.

3. Her other services that will come later:
   1. 1:1 training (outdoor/gym/at your place)
   2. Nutrition follow-up (this requires counting calories/proteins etc.)
   3. Training programmes tailored to your goals

💛 What does Yuliia love about Joy Studio?

Finding her way back to herself.

“It’s just this ability to find a way back to yourself,” she shared. After feeling lost, frustrated, and overwhelmed, she credits Joy Studio with helping her get to a place where, even with life still unpredictable, she knows she’s getting there.

Subscribe now

If you’ve enjoyed this episode, feel free to share it to your love one. Maybe you will be the one feature in the next one, who knows?

Joy Studio is a collaborative community where conscious women make money doing what they love. Start your 2-week free trial here.

Karen’s joy drop is celebration. Not the big, loud, congratulate-yourself-once-a-year kind, but the daily, deliberate kind that fights back against everything in us (and around us) trained to keep us small. She shares the “mind bramble” concept that makes invisible self-doubt visible, the deceptively tiny first step to building a celebration habit..

Whether you’re someone who minimizes every win the second you’ve had it, someone who thinks “celebrating” is reserved for milestones, or just curious what it might feel like to actually notice your own life, this one is for you.

Who is Karen?

Karen Lunt is a life & time coach, writer, and gardener based in Merseyside. She discovered coaching four years ago after reading Maisie Hill’s Period Power and joining Hill’s coaching group, a decision that introduced her to the practice she now builds her own coaching around.

🏆 What does she want to teach/share?

Her joy drop: the art of celebration, used as a tool of resistance against the brain’s instinct to minimize what we do.

Her key insights:

• Celebration is resistance, twice over: first against our own brain’s habit of shrinking our achievements, then against the wider conditioning that tells us not to take up space or “blow our own trumpet”

• Mind brambles are the trap: like the plant, these thought patterns root deep, spread without us noticing, and choke out the light. They often start as self-protection, learned the hard way, which is exactly why they’re so hard to spot

• Start absurdly small: a “tiny snip” is enough. Sit with yourself, look around, and notice what you’re genuinely proud of, if you’re honest

• Any moment counts: any time a thought crosses your mind like “I’m proud of that,” that’s a celebration. Catch it before your brain rushes you past it

• Write it down: Karen journals her celebrations and recently started typing them up and sending them to a friend each week.

• It compounds: small, consistent celebration (like a library card bought years before a move, or five quiet minutes lying down in the afternoon sun) builds momentum that’s visible from the outside long before it feels dramatic from the inside

📍 Where to find her

• Working with Karen:

  The Joy Resistance

  Coaching Offers

  For those who feel lack, here is an open door…

  Read more

  a month ago

• Substack: Joy Resistance

• LinkedIn, Facebook & Instagram: Karen Lunt

💛 What does Karen love about Joy Studio?

Community, and the joy at the heart of it.

Karen described the community and its underlying ethos of joy as what stood out to her most, alongside something that mattered just as much: celebrating women entrepreneurs simply for who they are.

Subscribe now

If you’ve enjoyed this episode, feel free to share it to your love one. Maybe you will be the one feature in the next one, who knows?

Joy Studio is a collaborative community where conscious women make money doing what they love. Start your 2-week free trial here.

Andrea’s joy drop is rest. Not sleep, not scrolling, intentional rest. She shares the practice her restorative teacher made non-negotiable (20 minutes of shavasana, every single day), why your stressed brain will always try to talk you out of it, and what happens when you finally let your nervous system remember its natural state.

Whether you’re close to burnout, always choosing the fast flow class, or just curious about what proper rest actually feels like, this one is for you.

🧘 Who is Andrea?

Andrea Bognár is a Swedish educator, yoga teacher, and Montessori specialist currently based in Toulouse, where she moved less than a year ago. She brings together a rare combination of expertise: restorative and Pilates-informed movement, a deep passion for pedagogy and child development, and a lived understanding of what it means to transition, rebuild, and choose yourself.

💤 What does she want to teach/share?

Her joy drop: the transformative power of real rest, specifically shavasana, the yoga corpse pose, practised for 20 minutes a day.

Her key insights:

• Lie down, do nothing, for 20 minutes: palms up (or on the belly), eyes covered, head supported, alarm set. That’s it

• It’s harder than it sounds: when she started, she kept falling asleep. That’s normal. The nervous system needs time to learn how to rest

• Your stressed brain will lie to you: it will say you don’t have time. That’s exactly when you need it most

• Rest isn’t sleep, and it isn’t scrolling: it’s a conscious state of switching off the problem-solving brain and accessing your parasympathetic nervous system

• Alternatives if lying in silence feels too much: yoga nidra (guided), music, a sound bath: find the doorway that works for your nervous system

• It compounds: after her restorative teacher training (7–10 hours of rest a day!), she came out feeling the clearest she’d ever felt in her life. Her teacher’s response: “That’s your natural state.”

📍 Where to find her

• 📸 Instagram (yoga & movement): @andreabognar.yoga

• 💼 LinkedIn (pedagogy & education): Andrea Bognár

💛 What does Andrea love about Joy Studio?

One word: connection.

“You are both two incredible people who learned how to connect with people — and by the way you are being, you’re teaching people how to connect deeply. That’s such a beautiful gift.”

She also shared how much Joy Studio has meant during her first year in Toulouse, arriving not knowing anyone, and now feeling bonds she didn’t expect to build so quickly.

If you’ve enjoyed this episode, feel free to share it to your love one. Maybe you will be the one feature in the next one?

Joy Studio is a collaborative community where conscious women make money doing what they love. Start your 2-week free trial here.

In this conversation, she shares where to start when you want more beauty in your space (hint: it begins with sitting still), how to make cut flowers last longer, and why flowers are always a good idea to grow.

Whether you’ve got a wild garden you’re still getting to know, or a mini jungle in your apartment, this one’s for you.

Audrey’s voice is slightly lower in this episode (tech stuff you know!)

Who is Frances?

Frances Rawson is a British flower grower based in Cumbria, northern England. She started growing cut flowers full-time in 2020, supplying weddings, events, and locally delivered bouquets, mostly from her own garden. She approaches growing with a chemical-free, nature-led philosophy: slow, observant, and in harmony with the land. She also does garden design and creates beautiful pressed flower stationery.

What does she want to teach/share?

Her “joy drop” of wisdom:

• Sit before you plant: observe your space across a full day; notice light, moisture, what’s already living there

• Don’t rush a new garden: wait a year before doing anything drastic; magic appears on its own

• Flowers are always good to grow: pollinators love them, and you can never go wrong with beauty

• Look around your neighbourhood: what’s growing locally will likely grow for you too; plant ID apps help

• How to condition cut flowers: cut the night before, deep cool water, let them rest overnight → vase life massively improved

• Plant care basics: food (seaweed feed works well), light, moisture; repot when roots take the shape of the container

📍 Where to find her

• 🌐 Website: clodhopperblooms.co.uk

• 📸 Instagram: @clodhopperblooms

• 📬 Email: frances@claudhopperblooms.co.uk

• ✉️ Substack:

Note: she delivers locally in Cumbria and ships pressed flowers within the UK only but she’s creative about workarounds for friends in Europe!

💛 What does Frances love about Joy Studio?

Two things stood out for her:

1. The Wing Woman — she’s been paired with Emma C. and they’ve connected online; she found it really lovely.

2. The Monday & Friday prompts — she loves how they create a rhythm of pausing to reflect: “It’s so easy to swoosh through a week without stopping to consider what you’d like to do, what you need to do, and what you’ve done.”

3. She also enjoys the breathing exercises, even if she’s still catching up on some!

Joy Studio is a collaborative community where conscious women make money doing what they love. Start your 2-week free trial here.

Tired some days. Uncertain others. Present, always.

In this conversation, Jasmin talks about the stinging nettle — a plant she turned into both an artistic material and an entire coaching philosophy — about what happened when she refused to separate her art from her coaching, and about the creative space she is starting to find inside the tiredness she spent years trying to hide.

This is a conversation about what becomes possible when you stop performing and start showing up as the full, complicated, beautiful thing that you are.

A 20-year art practice and the plant that changed everything

Jasmin studied art in her early twenties and has worked as a jewelry artist ever since — in a niche corner of the art world where jewelry is a medium for artistic and philosophical inquiry.

Her most iconic material? The stinging nettle. A plant she came to through a search for something outside of capitalist systems. She made large cords from its fibres, turning a weed most people have only painful memories of into something extraordinary.

And then she named her one-on-one coaching programme after it. Because if you know how to pick a stinging nettle — moving upward, against the direction of the hairs — you don’t get stung. It’s about consent. About knowing how to approach something with care. About the fact that most things that look intimidating will yield, if you come at them the right way.

Refusing to separate what belongs together

When Jasmin started coaching alongside her art practice, she put both on the same website. The art world told her not to. You’ll kill your reputation as an artist.

She did it anyway. What happened next surprised her: people from gallery openings started approaching her in hushed voices. “Jasmin, what is that thing you’re doing? I didn’t dare message you.” There was shyness around it, but the hunger was real. Artists were working on these exact questions in their work — and had nowhere outside the artwork to actually talk about them.

The superpower: feedback that is alive

Jasmin’s superpower is giving feedback that isn’t prepared. Trained through years of art school critiques — where a student would walk in with work and you had minutes to respond — she learned to approach something slowly, with all her senses, to ask questions that find what the person actually wants, and reflect back where they are.

“I don’t know what the end of my sentence is going to be. I’m looking for the words, looking where this is going.”

The struggle: tiredness as a liminal space

Jasmin’s biggest struggle is something she spent most of her life trying to hide: she is tired, a lot. A medical condition means her baseline is fatigue and navigating that in a world that wants constant output has been hard.

She is starting to explore tiredness not as something to push through or conceal, but as a liminal space — one that might carry its own specific kind of creativity. The work she is most afraid of, and most excited about, lives there.

She talked about the shame many artists carry around having a part-time job. She just took one herself. “It’s not leaving my art behind. I’m making it possible for my art to thrive.” The fact that most people don’t say this out loud, she said, makes it lonelier than it needs to be.

Where she’s going: making in the fog

Jasmin’s artwork has a habit of being prophetic. A piece called Memories of Healing, made during one of the most glowing periods of her life, preceded years of actual healing she hadn’t seen coming. Her most recent piece — made from poplar pollen, impossibly fragile, dissolving when worn — is telling her something she is still learning to read.

Her upcoming workshop is called Making in the Fog. Let your tired be enough. A collective exploration of what becomes possible when we stop waiting to feel energised before we create and start trusting what’s already there.

No date yet. Follow her on Instagram to find out when it lands.

The gift

Lie on the floor. Not a mattress — the floor, or a yoga mat. Let your muscles release in a way a soft surface won’t allow. If your back hurts, bring your knees up and move your pelvis very slowly, side to side, just a tiny, gentle rock. After ten minutes, your vertebrae will have settled. Your body will have let go of things it didn’t know it was holding.

“Just start with two minutes. And see what comes up.”

What Jasmin loves about Joy Studio

“I can show up without a mask. Even numb — not in drama, just kind of flat — and be seen in that. There is a subtlety to this group. A gentleness I find very special. And every time I hear about what the other women are doing, I think: who is she? I want to have coffee with her.”

Find Jasmin

📸 Instagram: @jasminmatzakow

🌐 Website: jasminmatzakow.de

Joy Studio is a community for women who want to make money doing what they love — without losing themselves. If this conversation resonated with you, come find us.

And if you’d love to experience this kind of community in person — our 4-day experience, Bloom, takes place September 17–20 in Aveyron. Early bird pricing is open until April 24th. Only 10 spots.

Book your Spot!

Lara Coley is a San Franciscan award-winning poet and author of ex traction. Based in Toulouse, France, she is a professor at ISAE-Supaéro, a holistic life coach, and reiki master. She offers coaching in one-to-one sessions and group courses in creative writing and in confidence, connection, and building happier habits. Her work is a creative intersection of writing, healing, and teaching.

In this episode of the Joy Studio podcast, Emma and Audrey sat down with Lara, a member of the Joy Studio community, to talk about how all of her facets weave together, what it means to commit before you’re ready, and why giving people the chance to say yes might be the most underrated career move there is.

From San Francisco to Normandy, and back to Toulouse

Lara’s first move to France in 2005 started from an unlikely place: a French class she enrolled in while going through extreme depression. On the wall was a poster of Mont Saint Michel. She cried, convinced she would never go anywhere that beautiful.

A year later, she was there.

Her path since then has looped through teaching teachers in Normandy, waiting tables in San Francisco, taking acting classes just to be able to read her own poems out loud (her first open mic, she was told: “You have good poems. No one can hear them.”), completing most of a master’s in marriage and family therapy before realising it wasn’t the right fit, and eventually landing back in Toulouse, this time, she hopes, to stay.

The superpower: curiosity from an empathetic place

Curiosity. The kind that wants to understand how another person lives something. What they have packed into a single word. How they got to an understanding of an idea.

Paired with hypersensitivity (she feels every emotion in the room) and hyperphantasia (her imagination is fully sensory), it makes her a remarkable teacher, a perceptive coach, and a poet who can write darkness with a smile on her face.

As a beginning teacher, that same hypersensitivity was almost overwhelming — if one student seemed disengaged, her entire nervous system would mobilise. Now, it’s what makes her classes feel, in her students’ words, like one of the few places in academia where they never feel anxious.

The happy class and the engineering students who hugged her

Lara teaches what she calls her “happy class” at a Grande École in Toulouse. Officially, it’s positive psychology, because it’s an engineering school and one must be serious.

Every cohort, at least five students write in their feedback that it’s the only place in their academic life where they feel no judgment. Where they look forward to coming. Where they go deep with a classmate they’d met just days before and leave still talking.

And then there’s the story of the student who sent Lara an email after the course ended, saying her class had given him the skills he believed would lead him to love himself. When she saw him on campus six months later, she hugged him. French people, she notes, are uniformly shocked by this. Her Californian friends see no issue whatsoever.

Her last cohort, she says, was especially successful. Two students asked if they could hug her goodbye. “In France. That is very, very special.”

Committing before you’re ready — the two courses

Lara has two courses she’s been sitting on. Things she’s taught in academic settings for years, wisdom she’s more than ready to share.

What she’s launching:

→ One-time creative writing workshop — May 11th, online. A taster session for people who are curious but not sure they’re “writers.” (Spoiler: Lara loves working with beginners.)

→ Six-week creative writing course — Starting the first week of June, online. Weekly sessions building into a full workshop experience.

→ Happy Class — Coming October, in person in Toulouse.

No prior writing experience needed. As Lara puts it, what she really teaches — in every class, at every level — is creativity. How to think about how you think. How to look at yourself, your work, your relationships with other humans, with different eyes.

The struggle: infrastructure feels like walls

For someone with ADHD whose mind is constantly in fluid motion, the moment a plan becomes concrete — a date set, a venue chosen, a price decided — it can feel like walls closing in.

Two gifts to take away

Lara shares two practical tools she keeps coming back to:

1. Train your brain to look for the positive — by asking questions. The difference between “How on earth am I going to do this?” said in despair and “How on earth am I going to do this?” said with curiosity is everything. Your brain is a machine that looks for answers. Ask it the right question, and it will find them — but only if you let it get to answer number seven without shutting down answers one through six.

2. Give people the opportunity to tell you yes. We are experts at telling ourselves no on other people’s behalf. Oh, they wouldn’t choose me. They wouldn’t want that. It’s not the right moment. But when you actually put yourself in front of people, give them the application, show them the work — frequently, they do choose you. We just never let them.

What Lara thinks of Joy Studio

We always ask, and Lara’s answer made us cry a little.

“I feel like it’s the most holistic support I’ve had in any kind of membership or anything like that. Not just emotionally — but consistent. I see you guys more than I see some of my friends. The brainstorming, the accountability, the in-person meetups... it’s so collaborative. It’s so human. When I have a coffee meetup with these women, I feel like I just went through three months of therapy in the best way. I healed some shit I didn’t know was broken.”

It’s like a garden that grows dreams.”

Find Lara

📸 Instagram: @laracoleywrites

🌐 Website: laracoley.com (live from April 20th — with signed copies of her book)

📖 Her poetry book is also available on Amazon and as an e-book at FNAC

Joy Studio is a community for women who want to make money doing what they love — without losing themselves. If this conversation resonated with you, come find us.

And if you’d love to experience this kind of community in person — our 4-day experience, Bloom, takes place September 17–20 in Aveyron. Early bird pricing is open until April 24th. Only 10 spots.

Book your Spot!

Hosts: Emma Lavelle & Audrey Masson

Episode Summary

Emma and Audrey, the two hosts of the Joy Studio Podcast, take a rare solo episode to reflect on six months since their first Bloom retreat and what it’s meant for them, their community, and the experience they’re about to launch again.

Whether you’re building something from scratch, navigating a transition, or simply feeling like you’ve lost the thread of what you want — this episode is an invitation to pause and ask: where was I six months ago, and where do I want to be in the next six?

Key Moments

The Letters: At the end of the first Bloom retreat, Audrey introduced the practice of writing a letter to yourself to be opened six months later. When those letters finally arrived, it wasn’t about checking goals — it was about coming back to the energy and intention of that moment. A beautiful reminder that the win isn’t always what you planned.

The Place - Rêve: Emma discovered the venue (Rêve, meaning “dream” in French) when her partner surprised her with a visit six months before the retreat. She fell in love instantly — not with a fancy venue, but with a place built by a Belgian couple, Phoebe and Jory, who restored an entire tiny ruined village to help others experience their own dreams. Audrey shares what it felt like to arrive there for the first time.

Slow Growth Over Big Goals: Emma opened with an ambition of 300 community members in 90 days. What happened instead — a slow, intentional build of two or three women at a time — turned out to be the foundation for something that has genuinely surprised her. The community’s sense of safety is what stands out most.

What They’d Do Differently: More breathing room between workshops. More time to process, integrate, and just be. And starting the planning earlier — this year we’re launching now for September, instead of June for September. Less is more turned out to be the real lesson.

Where the Bloom Women Are Now: Six months on, the guests are sharing their voices — through Substacks, LinkedIn posts, Instagram — stepping into spaces that feel like theirs. One of the most moving moments from the first retreat was a sharing circle where women were asked simply: what do you need support with? That vulnerability became the foundation for Joy Studio’s weekly “Celebrate and Support” ritual.

Emma’s Superpower — Holding Space: Audrey names what Emma does that she can’t quite explain herself: she removes the awkwardness. People feel safe to be themselves in her presence, and that safety creates connection almost automatically. Emma reflects on how that didn’t come easily — it came from a lot of work, healing, and learning to recharge fast.

Audrey’s Superpower — Integration: Emma describes watching Audrey turn a pile of stones into a wall — taking the energy and ideas of the room and giving them structure and form. Audrey traces this back to years of managing product launches in international marketing, combined with her training in yoga, breathwork, and singing bowls.

Who Bloom Is For: Not just women in business — women in transition. That might mean growing a business, leaving a corporate job, navigating burnout, or simply not knowing anymore what you want. Four days where someone else handles the logistics. Where you don’t have to take care of anyone. Where there’s a river, good food, donkeys, kittens, and a lot of laughter.

Book your Spot!

Bloom experience runs September 17–20, 2025 at Rêve, Aveyron, South of France. Find all the details here.

Photo by Moana Ghiandoni

Guest: Emelie Svensson → MLi by Svensson

Stitch up Studio

Redefining fashion-one stitch at a time

By MLì by SVENSSON

Hosts: Emma Lavelle & Audrey Masson

Episode Summary

Emelie Svensson is a Swedish fashion designer whose work is futuristic, intuitive, and impossible to put in a box.

Trained in Paris, and shaped by her experience working between Paris and Berlin, Emelie has navigated both the creative intensity of the fashion industry and the personal challenge of building a life across cultures including the shock of moving to Berlin without speaking the language.

Her path is defined by persistence. Despite refusals, closed doors, and uncertainty, she kept going finding another way in, (a window maybe?) again and again.

Today, she redefines fashion and her work moves beyond traditional fashion cycles. As a seasonless designer, she creates outside of imposed timelines, bringing color into winter collections, and now exploring new directions like swimwear.

In this conversation, we also explore the complexity of sustainability, her relationship with adrenaline, and the power of resilience.

Key Moments

From Paris to Berlin:
The transition from Paris to Berlin and the challenge of navigating a new culture and language while continuing to build her path.

Pushing Through Refusal:
Hearing no, again and again and continuing anyway. Finding alternative paths when the obvious ones didn’t open.

Seasonless, Not Rule-less:
Designing outside traditional calendars, including bringing color into winter collections and rethinking what fashion cycles mean.

Futuristic & Unboxable:
A creative identity that doesn’t fit into one category

The Reality of Sustainability:
Why sustainability in fashion is complex, nuanced, and often far from black-and-white.

Emelie’s Superpower: Sewing

She explained how sewing has empowered many women.

Her Struggle: Building a Steady Income Stream.

This is unfortunately how it works in the industry, where you have to make down payment for photographer etc to actually then sell your line.

Practical Takeaway

If you can’t go through the front door, use the windows!

Find Emelie

• MLi Svensson on social media / website and here on Substack

Stitch up Studio

Redefining fashion-one stitch at a time

By MLì by SVENSSON

Join us for a 14-day free trial inside Joy Studio on our Heartbeat app and connect with internationally minded women building lives and businesses rooted in clarity, courage, and community. 💛

THE JOY STUDIO — 2 WEEK FREE TRIAL

Guest: Veronica Ferrari → More Thank Just Views on Substack

More Than Just Views

More Than Just Views is for culturally curious travellers and creatives navigating life across places. Here you will find travel stories and musings on books, art, creativity and life abroad from an Italian writer living in Paris, after London and Rio.

By Veronica Ferrari

Hosts: Emma Lavelle & Audrey Masson

Episode Summary

Veronica Ferrari is a writer, community builder, and self-described “creative about town” currently based in Paris. Her path has been shaped by curiosity, experimentation, and a deep desire to create a life that feels aligned, across countries, projects, and identities.

From navigating remote work across Brazil, New York, and Europe during/after COVID, to exploring publishing, freelance writing, and community-led workshops, Veronica has continuously followed what feels interesting rather than what feels expected.

At her core, she is a connector: of people, ideas, and places. In this conversation, she shares the power of small experiments, the importance of giving time to your creative projects, and why saying no can be one of the most generous things you do.

Key Moments

• The Power of Experimentation: From living in Brazil during COVID to spending three months in New York, and then a year in different cities across Europe, Veronica embraced “mini-experiments” instead of waiting for perfect long-term plans.

• Connection as a Superpower: Not just networking—connecting people, ideas, and opportunities in a deeply personal way. A thread that runs through everything she builds.

• The Ripple Effect of Small Decisions: What starts as curiosity—trying freelancing, exploring writing, meeting people—creates unexpected opportunities and entirely new directions.

• From Overgiving to Protecting Energy: Helping everyone individually became unsustainable. Learning to say no allowed her to serve more people—through workshops and shared spaces instead.

• You Don’t Need More Time—You Need to Start: The shift from “I don’t have time” to giving even 5–10 minutes to a project changed everything. Momentum creates ease

Strengths & Struggles

Veronica’s Strengths:

• Connection: A natural ability to bring people, ideas, and opportunities together in meaningful ways.

• Curiosity & Learning: A constant desire to explore—through travel, writing, reading, and new experiences.

• Experimentation: She doesn’t wait for certainty—she tests, adapts, and builds from real-life experience.

Veronica’s Struggle:

• Overgiving & Boundaries: Wanting to help everyone, often at the expense of her own time and energy.

• Her growth edge?: Learning that protecting her energy doesn’t reduce her impact—it expands it.

Practical Takeaway

You don’t need more time. You need to start.

Even:

• 5 minutes

• A lunch break

• One small action

Because:

• Action creates clarity

• Repetition creates ease

• Momentum creates confidence

Or as this episode shows:

The more you do something, the more natural it becomes—and the more your life starts to shape around it.

Find Vero

• Within Joy Studio!

• More than Just Views

  More Than Just Views

  More Than Just Views is for culturally curious travellers and creatives navigating life across places. Here you will find travel stories and musings on books, art, creativity and life abroad from an Italian writer living in Paris, after London and Rio.

  By Veronica Ferrari

Join us for a 14-day free trial inside Joy Studio on our Heartbeat app and connect with internationally minded women building lives and businesses rooted in clarity, courage, and community. 💛

THE JOY STUDIO — 2 WEEK FREE TRIAL

Guest: Simone (Supported by Choice)

Hosts: Emma Lavelle & Audrey Masson

Episode Summary

Simone is a neurodivergent psychotherapist and coach based in Toulouse, where she lives on a farm with her partner and youngest son. Originally from Maidstone in Kent, her path has been anything but linear — from leaving home at 17 and completing a fashion marketing degree with four children (and pregnant with twins at graduation), to a career in accessories product development, to losing everything and rebuilding from the ground up. That rebuilding led her to psychotherapy, to Panama, to an accidental ego death on her lunch break, and eventually to France, where she now works with clients under her practice Supported by Choice. One of Emma’s trusted inner circle, Simone brings the rare combination of clinical depth, lived experience, and a warmth that meets people exactly where they are.

Key Moments

• The Life Behind the Life: Growing up mixed race in a xenophobic small town, leaving home at 17, completing a degree with children — and how ADHD meant she could only function under intense pressure, not in spite of it.

• When It All Blew Up: The moment a seemingly aspirational life — four-storey Victorian house, career in accessories, everything looking “neat and tidy from the outside” — stopped fitting, and the courage it took to walk into the mess without knowing what was on the other side.

• Ego Death on a Lunch Break: Working as a psychological care manager at a festival in Panama, Simone tried the world’s strongest psychedelic medicine thinking it was a quick 20-minute experience. What followed was something closer to an exorcism — and the beginning of a completely new chapter.

• Unmasking & the Neurodivergent Self: What masking really is (not a choice, but a nervous system response), why “masquerade” might be a more accurate word, and how Simone now uses discernment rather than adaptation to protect her energy.

• Meeting People Where They Are: Her superpower — honed through years of addictions therapy — of seeing the person inside, not the behaviour, and creating the conditions for them to move forward safely.

Strengths & Struggles

Simone’s Strengths:

• Meeting People Where They Are: A genuine ability to see where someone is, accept them there, and facilitate forward movement without rush or judgment.

• Permission, Protection & Potency: The three principles she models in her therapeutic modality — and in her life.

• Collaboration: A growing love for creative partnership, currently expressed in a sewing and fashion atelier with Emily — a reminder that your most nourishing collaboration doesn’t have to be in your day job.

Simone’s Struggle:

• Hyperfocus: The ADHD gift that keeps giving — and occasionally won’t stop. When curiosity locks on to a subject, it can be all-consuming. The middle way remains a practice, not a destination. (See also: the butter cookie.)

Practical Takeaway

“You can’t make the right decision, but you can make the decision right.”

This is the reframe for perfectionists, for people in the middle of change they didn’t choose, and for anyone who needs permission to stop waiting for certainty:

• You don’t need the right decision. You need to find the choice within what’s already happening.

• Ask yourself: how can I move from “this is happening to me” to “I’ve chosen this to be in my life”?

• The gifts — and there are gifts — tend to surface once you’ve made that shift.

Find the choice. Even a shitty choice is still a choice — and that’s where agency lives.

Find Simone

• Instagram: @supported_bychoice

• Supported by Choice — neurodivergent coaching and psychotherapy

Join us for a 14-day free trial inside Joy Studio on our Heartbeat app and connect with internationally minded women building lives and businesses rooted in clarity, courage, and community. 💛

THE JOY STUDIO — 2 WEEK FREE TRIAL

Guest: Kate Turner
Host: Emma Lavelle & Audrey Masson

Episode Summary

Kate Turner is a professional in the “edutainment” (educational entertainment) space who has built a life and career in Spain after moving from the northwest of England 13 years ago. Having studied languages and spent a year as a British Council language assistant, Kate originally entered the world of English language teaching publishing. Her career has since evolved through curiosity and openness, leading her from editorial work into product management and business development.

Now working for a Canadian-based company while living near Madrid, Kate explores how to empower teams without “spoon-feeding” them, why physical planners beat digital ones, and how leaving space to disconnect is the ultimate strategy for fresh ideas.

Key Moments

• The 13-Year Spanish Journey: Moving to Madrid for a “four-year plan” that turned into a permanent home with a family—human and animal—and the unique feeling of belonging to two places while being from neither.

• The “Edutainment” Shift: Moving from large-scale publishing to a smaller, more agile company where there is “less red tape” and more scope to actually achieve results.

• Motivating at Home: Transitioning to fully remote work and finding focus by setting just three or four achievable daily goals rather than an “impossibly long” list.

• Superpower – Empowering Others: Realizing that her true strength lies in giving a team the tools they need to succeed and watching them develop.

• The Value of Mentorship: How both being mentored and mentoring others offers a “fresh perspective” that transcends specific industries.

Strengths & Struggles

• Kate’s Strengths:

  • Empowerment: A passion for supporting teams and helping them achieve their goals by providing tools, not just answers.

  • Ideation: A natural “ideas person” who explores all angles and remains curious about what problems need solving.

  • Driving Energy: The ability to not just have an idea, but to “get behind it” and mobilize others to make it happen.

• Kate’s Struggle:

  • Patience: As a person with high energy and a “let’s just get this done” attitude, she finds it challenging when others delay tasks that would only take ten minutes to complete.

Practical Takeaway

Give yourself the space to disconnect. Most great ideas don’t come while you’re staring at a screen. They come when you are taking the dog for a walk or having a bath—away from your phone.

• Leave space for the “crazy” ideas to surface.

• Don’t worry about them being perfect right away; just write them down and research them later.

• Focus on the problem you are trying to solve to keep those ideas grounded in reality.

What problem are you trying to solve? AND → Make sure you take the lift in airports!

Find Kate

• Instagram: @ohhellokate

• Linkedin: Kate Turner

Join us for a 14-day free trial inside Joy Studio on our Heartbeat app and connect with internationally minded women building lives and businesses rooted in clarity, courage, and community. 💛

THE JOY STUDIO - 2 WEEK FREE TRIAL

Guest: Erica Fourie
Host: Emma Lavelle & Audrey Masson

Episode Summary

Erica Fourie is a South African artist and creative based in Toulouse. After moving to France and leaving behind a career in events, Erica found herself rediscovering creativity through watercolor, curiosity, and the freedom to begin again.

For most of her life, Erica was comfortable in the background: supporting, observing, and staying unseen. But in recent years, something shifted. Through community, intentional choices, and a willingness to do things scared, she began stepping forward: exhibiting her art publicly, expanding her creative practice, and allowing herself to be visible.

This conversation explores her "word of the year," and why stepping forward is a "magical" act of growth.

Key Moments

• From backstage to visible: Erica spent years working behind the scenes in events before realizing she wanted to create and share her own work.

• Moving to France as a catalyst: Relocating created space to rediscover herself, explore watercolor, and reconnect with creativity.

• Taking up space publicly: From exhibiting at a gallery show to sharing her art more openly, Erica chose visibility despite self-doubt.

• Doing it scared: Bravery isn’t the absence of fear—it’s acting alongside it, whether sending an email or sharing your work.

• Community Over Competition: Fostering a space where others are viewed as connections rather than rivals.

Strengths & Struggles

Erica’s strengths:

• Gentleness as strength: Her calm, thoughtful energy creates safety and connection wherever she goes.

• Creative courage: Choosing to explore watercolor, design, and artistic expression—even without certainty.

• Intentional growth: Erica actively seeks new environments, people, and experiences to evolve.

Erica’s struggle:

• For much of her life, Erica felt more comfortable staying in the background—questioning whether she had the right to be seen, to share, or to take up space.

Word of the Year: Kaleidoscope

Erica’s word, Kaleidoscopic, represents her current stage of growth. It is about setting a foundation so that as the light and opportunities flow in, she can see them differently at every stage.

Practical Takeaway

Do it scared.

Fear doesn’t disappear before action.

Whether it’s sharing your work, sending an email, or starting something new, the act itself builds confidence.

You don’t need certainty to begin. You only need willingness.

Find Erica

Instagram: @miraandmoon

Join us for a 14-day free trial inside Joy Studio on our Heartbeat app and connect with women building creative, visible, and meaningful lives.

THE JOY STUDIO - 2 WEEK FREE TRIAL

Episode 4: Nikita on Creative Ambition, Community & Charging What You’re Worth

Guest: Nikita Andester
Host: Emma Lavelle

Episode Summary

Nikita Andister is a writer, visual artist, and community builder who has called 36 places home by the age of 35. From blueberry farming and van life across the U.S., to teaching English in Russia, to writing SEO articles and sex columns during COVID, their path has been anything but linear.

Now rooted in Toulouse, Nikita is building something intentional: creative salons, workshops, authors & apéro evenings, and a life designed around art, ambition, and enoughness.

In this conversation, she shares what it means to care deeply without shrinking, how silliness is a serious strength, why charging more can be an act of love, and the bold specifics of their future: French citizenship, a book deal for their fantasy trilogy, gallery representation, and a home that doubles as an event space for artists and dreamers.

Key Moments

• The winding path: 36 homes, countless jobs, and “side quests” that built the exact skills she now uses to host, create, and lead community.

• Community as popcorn, not pie: There is always more to make. Love and belonging aren’t scarce.

• From the Deep South to Toulouse: Growing up queer and alternative in a puritan culture shaped their sensitivity to morality, worth, and belonging.

• Ambition reframed: Not corporate dominance, but fostering—art, events, creative space, home.

• Silliness as strategy: Blindfolded oil pastel experiments, laughter and using play to loosen perfectionism.

• Charging more as self-respect: Multiplying art prices, questioning underpricing, and asking: “Would I want my friend to charge less?”

Strengths & Struggles

Nikita’s strengths:

• Silliness: A deliberate choice that keeps life light, creative, and socially expansive.

• Ambition: High standards for their art, writing, and events—without apology.

• Loving deeply: She signs her newsletters “I love you—and I mean it.” And she does.

Nikita’s struggle:

Caring so much about being morally sound that it can become paralysing. Endless internal debates about ethics, impact, pricing, and “doing it right.”

Their growth edge? Learning that caring about others must include caring about themself—and that underpricing or shrinking isn’t the loving way.

Ambition Without Cruelty

Nikita’s ambitions are specific:

• A book deal for their fantasy trilogy set in the Wild West

• Their art represented in a gallery

• French citizenship

• Hosting creative events where people feel invited into art, not judged out of it

She’s building a space rooted in enoughness—not “you’re not punk enough,” not posturing, not scarcity.

Their vision is clear: a home that’s also a salon. A workshop atelier. A dinner table. A creative hub. A place where artists gather and no one has to shrink to belong.

Pricing, Worth & Being Nice to Yourself

A powerful thread through this conversation is pricing.

When you deeply care about being ethical, generous, and kind, it’s easy to undercharge. But what if:

• Charging more allows you to continue creating?

• Pricing reflects your hours, skill, and energy?

• Being loving includes yourself?

Instead of asking, “Is this too much?” Nikita reframes it as:
Would I want my friend to charge less? Or would I want them to be resourced?

The answer is obvious.

Practical Takeaway

You have more time than you think. And you have time to play.

Even five minutes.

Play loosens perfectionism.
Play builds confidence.
Play reconnects you to your creative self.

Whether that’s sketching blindfolded, rearranging your space, cooking something new, or writing badly on purpose—play is not frivolous. It’s foundational.

Find Nikita

• Website: https://nikitaandister.com

• Substack: https://nikitaandister.substack.com

• In person: Sunday market at Place de la Daurade in Toulouse

• Creative salons, writing workshops, authors & apéro evenings, and more

Mentioned: Authors & Apéro, Place de la Daurade, Substack

Next week: Another powerful conversation from inside the Joy Studio community.

Want conversations like this in your real life—not just your headphones?
Join us for a 2-week free trial inside Joy Studio on our Heartbeat app and connect with us, Nikita, and the women building brave, joyful ambition together.

THE JOY STUDIO - 2 WEEK FREE TRIAL

Episode 3: Andrea on Holding Space, Transitions & Learning from Mistakes

Guest: Andrea
Host: Audrey Masson

Episode Summary

Andrea, a Swedish educator, yoga and Pilates teacher, and musician based in Toulouse, shares her journey through multiple career transitions and the art of holding space for learning. From opening a Montessori school in Portugal at 26 to studying music in Berlin, to creating parent education programs, Andrea reflects on navigating the unknown with increasing trust. Now in another transition phase in Toulouse, she discusses the shift from external achievements to seeking connection, safety, and the courage to stay in the spaciousness between dreams.

Key Moments

• Multi-passionate identity: Teaching, music, yoga, Pilates, parent education—Andrea describes how these parts are finally integrating into one person

• The selfish musician: At first, studying music felt selfish compared to “saving the world” through education. Now she sees the value in both.

• Parent education breakthrough: Working with families where you could support both parent and child simultaneously—”It takes a village to raise a child”

• Fifth or sixth transition: This isn’t Andrea’s first time in the void. The first time felt like a crisis; now there’s underlying safety and trust in the process.

• Dreams shifting: From big external goals to seeking feelings—waking up in safety and connection, working in a team, having time for people she loves

Strengths & Struggles

Andrea’s strength: Holding space for safety and learning—creating environments where people can be who they are without projection
Andrea’s struggle: The unknown space between dreams. The transition feels scary, but she’s learning to trust the process and recognize there’s potential in the spaciousness.

The Neuroscience of Mistakes

Andrea shares a life-changing insight from a Montessori conference: When a child (or adult) makes a mistake in a safe environment, the brain processes it into long-term memory—that’s learning. If they don’t feel safe, they freeze, fight, or flee, and the learning doesn’t happen.

The shift: Stop calling them “mistakes.” Call them “learning” or “information.” When we feel safe enough to pause and process what went wrong, we actually integrate the lesson. Self-compassion during mistakes is key.

Practical Takeaway

Andrea’s gift: Rename mistakes as “learning” or “information.” Practice self-compassion when things go wrong—whether it’s a misspelled email or a bigger setback. Ask yourself: What do I get to learn from here? Create safety around mistakes for yourself and others, because that’s where real growth happens.

Find Andrea

• Instagram: @andreabognar.yoga Andrea’s yoga and Pilates practice (online classes available)

• LinkedIn: For professional connections

• Joy Studio meetups: Weekly in Toulouse

Mentioned: Montessori education, neuroscience of learning, Kate Turner (Joy Studio member)

Next week: Another inspiring conversation from the Joy Studio community

We are so honoured to have our very first podcast guest: Claire!

Why Claire?

• She is a woman of mystery

• She is doing it her way: blending very cool things together

• She has a multi cultural background

• She (sometimes) places her sculptures on her head

• She signs up to all of these amazing creative experiences / challenges → Have you heard about #Februllage?

Connect With Claire:

• @clairematzart

• @thesocialpalm → Social Media Support for Conscious Entrepreneurs

Weekly Substack:

Episode 2: Claire Matz on Ethical Marketing & Creative Wonder

Guest: Claire Matz
Hosts: Emma Lavelle & Audrey Masson

Episode Summary

Claire Matz, half-French, half-American marketer and artist based in Toulouse, joins us to discuss ethical marketing, creative play, and finding balance between business and art. From her international upbringing in Texas to organizing sculpture exhibitions and launching her own conscious marketing consultancy in 2020, Claire shares how she’s navigating the messy, beautiful journey of building a multifaceted career while staying grounded in her values.

Key Moments

• What is ethical marketing? Good for people, planet, and business—equally. It’s about authenticity, accessibility, inclusion, and building trust grounded in truth. Not just telling, but showing.

• The small business advantage: Social media gives local and small businesses access to global audiences without massive marketing budgets—when used intentionally

• The Golden Hour story: How Audrey discovered a local Toulouse lingerie designer through Instagram, leading to same-day doorstep delivery from a neighbor. Ethical marketing in action.

• Kindness vs. niceness: Claire references Trevor Noah’s distinction—kindness tells you there’s something on your face; niceness stays silent

• 2025 word of the year: Connection. 2026 words: Embrace and Blossoming

Strengths & Struggles

Claire’s strengths: Curiosity, adaptability, creativity, and kindness
Claire’s struggle: Navigating fear, anxiety, and doubt with better boundaries—learning to listen to these feelings without being overwhelmed by them

Tools & Practices

• Breath work and body check-ins: Hand on heart, feet on ground

• Connecting to wonder: Notice birds chirping, sunshine on your face, heart-shaped puddles—the present moment

• Gravity as grounding: “Gravity is holding me” (from Anna’s workshop)

• Hope hunting: Intentionally seek out joyful, hopeful things—they’re quieter than negativity but always there

Practical Takeaway

Claire’s gift: Play. Set aside even 5 minutes to try something you’ve been wanting to do or loved as a kid. If that feels like too much, give yourself a small treat—go to the bakery, get a croissant. Create little pockets of joy, even tiny ones. If you can, do it every day. Every hour, why not?

Find Claire

• Newsletter: Create and Wonder on Substack

• Instagram: @createandwonder, @clairematzsart, @thesocialpalm

• Website: Resources on ethical marketing and incorporating social justice into your social media presence

Mentioned: Golden Hour lingerie (Toulouse), The Social Palm

Next week: Joy Studio community member

We are live with our Joy Podcast podcast, where our objective is to highlight the community and our members!

So, with Emma, we went first! Listen to hear our backstories and favourite tools!

You can listen to it or click on “transcript’“ to have access to the written version.

Our Community Hub is hosted on Heartbeat → Check it out.

Sending love,

Audrey ✨

Episode Notes:

Hosts: Emma Lavelle & Audrey Masson

Episode Summary

In this inaugural episode, co-founders Emma and Audrey introduce themselves and share the vision behind the Joy Studio podcast. They open up about their backgrounds, how they met in Toulouse, and what brought them together as business partners. This candid conversation sets the tone for future episodes—real, vulnerable, and focused on highlighting their community of international women entrepreneurs and creatives.

Key Moments

• Why they’re co-founders: Emma was drawn to Audrey’s tenacity and willingness to call out bullshit; Audrey valued Emma’s presence, energy, and strong boundaries

• Their backgrounds: From corporate pharma to teaching English across continents, both took winding paths before landing in Toulouse and building Joy Studio together

• What they’re struggling with: Audrey navigates the identity shift from corporate professional to multi-hyphenate entrepreneur; Emma works on staying focused rather than scattered

• Where they’re headed: Growing a community where women can make money doing what they love while enjoying life now—not someday

Practical Takeaways

From Audrey: Take a moment to pause and breathe. Place your hands on your belly or heart, close your eyes, feel your feet on the ground, and simply observe your breath for a few minutes.

From Emma: Give yourself the gift of seeing yourself as others see you. Remember: you have an 80% negativity bias. You are 80% more beautiful, charismatic, brilliant, and powerful than you think you are.

Next week: Our first community member interview