{"podcast":{"title":"The Scenic Route with Victoria Steward","slug":"the-scenic-route-with-victoria-steward-7782802","podcast_index_feed_id":7782802,"rss_url":"https://api.riverside.fm/hosting/S6ZcgSiO.rss","website_url":"www.victoria-steward.com","image_url":"https://hosting-media.riverside.com/media/podcasts/951714c0-7b4d-4675-bd36-b3bd278f8546/logos/46260bbc-d587-4fc0-b414-b393efa55bf4.png","author":"Victoria Steward","episode_count":19,"summary":"What if the detour was never a wrong turn? We get handed one map early on: the superhighway. Pick the career, hit the milestones, stay in the fast lane somebody else drew for us. And one day a lot of us look up and realize it's been heading somewhere we never actually chose. This is a show about the people who got off it. I'm Victoria Steward. I spent 20 years as a federal civilian engineer/project manager before I left on a gut feeling and started taking my own scenic route. Every week I sit down with interesting people who made a change, sometimes sudden, sometimes so gradual they almost missed it, that sent their life somewhere they never saw coming. The kind of stories that inspire you to start dreaming into your own. If you've started to wonder whether there's a different road available to you, you're in exactly the right place. ✨ New episodes every week. Subscribe so you don't miss one.","last_synced_at":"2026-07-22T22:19:55.428806+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-scenic-route-with-victoria-steward-7782802"},"episode":{"title":"The Thing That Finally Made Me Stop: How Meditation Changed Everything I Wanted","slug":"the-thing-that-finally-made-me-stop-how-meditation-changed-everything-i-wanted","published_at":"2026-03-24T15:31:07+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-scenic-route-with-victoria-steward-7782802/the-thing-that-finally-made-me-stop-how-meditation-changed-everything-i-wanted","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-scenic-route-with-victoria-steward-7782802","url":"https://api.riverside.com/hosting-analytics/media/ca73aa9668422e1ec8bcf51bc83a35785240b609d2011194f22408547cc5cffb/eyJlcGlzb2RlSWQiOiI1NWZmYWI5Ni1iMmZlLTQ0ZGItOTg4OC0zNDMzYTQzNDQ2NDUiLCJwb2RjYXN0SWQiOiI5NTE3MTRjMC03YjRkLTQ2NzUtYmQzNi1iM2JkMjc4Zjg1NDYiLCJhY2NvdW50SWQiOiI2OTlmNjIyYzM1MDAxYzBlOWJlNGFlNGIiLCJwYXRoIjoibWVkaWEvY2xpcHMvNjljMjk3MzY2ZDMwYTJiNzBkZDc3M2E3L3ZpY3Rvcmlhcy1zdHVkaW8tUGhZZDAtY29tcG9zZXItMjAyNi0zLTI0X18xNC01Mi01NC5tcDMifQ==.mp3","audio_url":"https://api.riverside.com/hosting-analytics/media/ca73aa9668422e1ec8bcf51bc83a35785240b609d2011194f22408547cc5cffb/eyJlcGlzb2RlSWQiOiI1NWZmYWI5Ni1iMmZlLTQ0ZGItOTg4OC0zNDMzYTQzNDQ2NDUiLCJwb2RjYXN0SWQiOiI5NTE3MTRjMC03YjRkLTQ2NzUtYmQzNi1iM2JkMjc4Zjg1NDYiLCJhY2NvdW50SWQiOiI2OTlmNjIyYzM1MDAxYzBlOWJlNGFlNGIiLCJwYXRoIjoibWVkaWEvY2xpcHMvNjljMjk3MzY2ZDMwYTJiNzBkZDc3M2E3L3ZpY3Rvcmlhcy1zdHVkaW8tUGhZZDAtY29tcG9zZXItMjAyNi0zLTI0X18xNC01Mi01NC5tcDMifQ==.mp3","summary":"What do you do when you’ve done everything right... and everything still feels wrong? In this first solo episode of The Scenic Route, Victoria Steward shares the real story behind why she left a 20-year career as a civilian engineer for the U.S. Navy: not because she had a plan, but because her body and her nervous system finally said enough. Victoria talks honestly about the burnout that didn’t look like burnout from the outside: the $120k salary she somehow couldn’t hold onto, the Fridays she couldn’t finish, the weekends spent in recovery mode instead of living. And the one thing that finally started to shift it: a simple meditation practice that made the signal louder than the noise. This is also the story of what happened after she left: the detours into Reiki, sound healing, and animal communication; the slow realization that none of it was a wrong turn; and the winding scenic route that eventually brought all the parts of her back home. If you’ve ever felt like you’re on the right path but it doesn’t feel like yours... this one’s for you. What You’ll Hear in This Episode Why a $120k government salary didn’t feel like financial safety... and what was actually going on The burnout that didn’t look like burnout: Fridays that felt impossible, weekends built entirely around recovery How podcasts first cracked open her curiosity during COVID... and why that’s partly why this show exists Finding Ziva Meditation with Emily Fletcher: the first thing that actually shifted something Why the signal got louder in the stillness... and why that felt more frustrating before it felt freeing Leaving the Navy in October 2023 with a gut feeling and no plan (and what happened next) The scenic route that followed: Reiki, sound healing, animal communication, PFK® coaching, VITA(TM), a…","meta_description":"What do you do when you’ve done everything right... and everything still feels wrong? In this first solo episode of The Scenic Route, Victoria Steward sha…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":1225,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-scenic-route-with-victoria-steward-7782802/episodes/the-thing-that-finally-made-me-stop-how-meditation-changed-everything-i-wanted/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-scenic-route-with-victoria-steward-7782802/the-thing-that-finally-made-me-stop-how-meditation-changed-everything-i-wanted.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}