RM 2018 Year In Review

I'll be honest, going into 2018, I had no idea where I was headed. I specifically remember seeing people on the 'gram doing their 2018 planning and thinking "Crap! I need to be doing that!". But I wasn't really sure where to start.

I ditched New Year's resolutions a couple years ago when I realized they aren't the answer to making permanent and sustainable change. I decided to just treat the New Year like any other day, which is really what it is; just one day morphing into the next. Simply by doing that alone, I was amazed at what 2018 brought for me!

Keep in mind, this is very much a highlight reel. I tried to keep it raw and real by sharing more of a background of how I got to each of these places (hint: not everything fell in my lap – many of these things took a lot of grunt work going into it) as well as some behind-the-scenes personal things you may not have known was going on. I personally suffer from comparison syndrome so I wanted to remind you of that. Remember that comparison is the thief of joy and while it's great to look to your peers to stay inspired, what's more important is to stay in your lane and focus on YOU!

In Business:

I gained clarity in my niche and what I'm here to do: I'll be honest, when I first set out to be a Disordered & Emotional Eating Coach, I was scared. I was scared that I had niched myself so much that no one would be interested in what I have to offer. What I discovered was the complete opposite; there is such a great need for both nutrition and emotional eating coaching.

Just like I discovered when I was in nutrition school, I felt like nutrition was so extreme and didn't reflect how I actually felt about living a healthy life. I started putting my views out there about eating wholesome #RealAssFood but also not beating yourself up when you have pizza, wine or a cinnamon bun (craving one HARD right now haha) and I was SO pleasantly surprised to see how well received my message was.

It became blatantly clear that many of you were also itching for this kind of messaging around health; the balance, the elimination of morality around food, the real life! And I thank you for that. I thank you because it's validated the work that I'm doing and reminded me that it's SO needed. It's really what keeps me inspired to continue creating for you and serving you in the best way that I can every day.

I launched my first online course: I totally didn't see this one coming, but I'm so proud of this course I created with my Joyous Health family! The course I'm referring to is my DIY Kombucha Online course which is an online course to teach you how to brew your own kombucha from the comfort of your home! If you follow me on social media, you may know that I had been teaching monthly kombucha workshops at Left Field Brewery in Toronto for over a year in addition to the odd kombucha workshop in corporate settings and other people's homes.

The whole kombucha thing came as a complete happy accident, but I'm so glad it did because it's opened me up to a completely new audience who I've had the pleasure to connect with in person. The introvert in me secretly enjoys hiding behind a computer to do my work, but every now and then, I love to get out from behind it and connect with others in person!

Anyway, it was getting to the point where I was finding it challenging to sustain the in-person kombucha workshops on top of everything else I was working on but I still wanted to get this information out into the world in a more scalable way.

I casually mentioned this to my team at Joyous Health one day and the next day they pitched the idea of offering the kombucha workshop as an online course through Joyous Health. Two weeks later, we were filming videos and creating/designing the comprehensive guide you get when you join the course. There's so much more I want to do with this course, but I'm so happy that we actually went through with launching it this year and for all of Joyous Health's support in doing this. SO grateful!

I did my first TV segment: Over two and a half years ago before I finished nutrition school, we had to write out our goals for the upcoming year that would then be sealed up and mailed to us a year later. One of those goals was to be a featured guest on The Social (LOL). I laugh because of the aimless goal that this is, but also because I didn't realize at the time, how much work would have to go into that to actually get there.

While I have yet to be a featured guest on The Social (not to say, it's not in the cards ...), I was SUPER stoked to do my first TV segment in May (and SECOND in October) on CHCH this year.

I was ecstatic to get both of these experiences under my belt this year! I was also nervous as heck! It's a good thing there was a segment about cat adoption before me so I got to snuggle this sweet fluff ball before going on (LOL – is that meant to be or what?!)

If this has been a goal of yours, all you have to do is reach out and make it happen – and yes, that can take time, but be patient and persistent. I was SUPER lucky with my first TV segment because it was actually intended to be Joy's segment (my girl boss at Joyous Health!) but she wasn't able to do it. She put my name forward and *somehow* they went for it. For the next TV segment in the Fall, I just reached out in advance, pitched and idea and they went for it.

I share this with you because I feel like it's easy from the outside looking in to think that things must just fall in people's lap, and okay, while it might have for me the first time, the rest of it came from showing up, doing the work and not stopping. All that to say, my Theatre Minor came in handy those two days haha!

I (almost) launched my podcast: I say almost because the Fill Your Cup podcast won't officially be launching until January 7th, 2018 (get on the list to be the first to know when it goes live!), but I revealed the podcast and started doing some batch recording in December 2018 and I couldn't be more excited about where this is headed!

I won't lie, there has also been a lot of fear and doubt in this process but mostly excitement. I've been wanting to launch a podcast for over a year now but I didn't know what it would be about. In the midst of a minor health crisis I experienced this year, it came to me. I was not "filling my cup" as much as I could have been at the time and I wanted to create a resource that would help those that are struggling with emotional/disordered eating and body image in a light-hearted way.

Knowing that emotional eating is often born out of people not meeting their basic needs (i.e. sleep, nourishment, healthy relationships etc), I decided to launch the Fill Your Cup podcast which would act as a resource to help and show people how they can meet their basic needs and put themselves first so they can show up as the best versions of themselves every single day! BOOM! Stay tuned! I did two public speaking gigs that scared the crap out of me: I might have a theatre minor, but before any speaking gig, whether it's a kombucha workshop (that I've taught over 20X), a TV segment or a public talk, I still get nervous and feel like I'm going to crap my pants before I start! I will say that it's gotten easier the more I've done it but the nerves never really leave, but in the theatre world, we chalk that up to showing you care.

The first speaking gig was for Jenn Pike's event, Ignite Your Life (tickets are on sale for next June 2019 – you don't want to miss out!) and I had the honour of being one of the guest speakers amongst many other amazing nutritionists, health professionals and entrepreneurs that I look up to.

The second one was for Sunnybrook where I spoke in front of a crowd of 150+ employees. I'm not sure why that one scared me so much. Maybe because they told me doctors might be in the room. But it was one of the first talks I did where I felt like I found my groove with speaking, almost like I was giving a TED talk. I chalk that up to lots of practice to my cat in my bedroom (LOL) but it was definitely a proud moment for me!

In My Personal Life:

I started going for relationship therapy: I say this with zero shame and also because I know how much it helped Randy and I and I only want the same for you and your significant other if you feel you could benefit from it.

I'm not going to go too in-depth with this, because I plan on doing a podcast episode on this in the future but I will say that nothing was necessarily wrong with our relationship, but I felt we could be better. I felt we could be better communicators and that we needed to fill our relationship cup (ha! see what I did there?).

We started going every 2 weeks and now we go once a month and to be honest, much of the time we go, I'm unsure of what we're going to talk about because things are more often than not, going really well!

I've learned so much about myself and Randy and how to communicate on an emotional level to sustain the health of our relationship. There's so much to unpack here which is why I'm saving it for a future podcast episode, but all I can say is that I'm SO grateful this resource was available for us because it really took our relationship to a place I could have never imagined!

I learned to listen to my body: This might sound plain and simple because it's what I preach in my practice when working with people struggling with emotional eating. But to actually LIVE through it? That's hard shit. For a long time, I ignored the signs my body was giving me to slow down and focus on stress management. The "doer" in me just kept pushing along because "there was no time" to stop. That was until ... (see next point).

I broke up with CrossFit (temporarily): This is one of the prime examples of how I learned to listen to my body this year. It wasn't necessarily CrossFit that was the problem. In fact, I loved it. But the 5:20am morning wake ups were hurting my body (and adrenals) and constantly being in pain from throwing heavy weights around was no longer serving my body.

In the back of my head, I kept receiving the message: "do yoga, do yoga, do yoga". But I ignored it, because I couldn't "just" do yoga and qualify that as working out (little did I realize shortly later, yoga is freaking HARD).

My body started screaming at me in the form of chest pains which brought me to emerge and led to me getting a chest x-ray and an ECG, all of which actually back clear. We chocked up that experience to anxiety but a few days later, I received a call from the doctor at emerge saying they found the start of pneumonia in my left lung. I don't know much about pneumonia, but that was enough for me to call it quits on anything that was possibly adding additional stress in my life. I finally surrendered and traded in my CrossFit membership for a yoga membership. I turned to gentle walks and sleep ins.

And while I have plans of going back to CrossFit in the New Year, it will look a lot different. Listening to my body will be the name of the game and not pushing myself beyond what my body and adrenals want me to will also be a priority.

It's been an interesting lesson in listening to my body, honouring my needs and making friends wih my body all over again, but I believe we get the lessons we need when we truly do need them and I'm so thankful I got mine (and listened to it) when I did.

Where I'm headed in 2019

Once again, I don't really know where 2019 is going to bring me haha. Just kidding (kind of?).

Business-wise, I want to create more products and service offerings for people that are struggling with emotional eating, disordered eating and body image. That might look like physical products or service offerings similar to my online consultations or perhaps through an online course.

That also means making my website more of a user-friendly experience. This may be a process that comes in time though. Simple things like being able to print recipes directly from the post or being able to purchase products/service offerings through my website will also be a priority.

Personally, I want to continue to prioritize self-care by listening to my body. I've realized how much this has improved my mental and emotional health and I really want to continue that, while gradually introducing CrossFit again because truthfully, I miss throwing heavy shit around and seeing my CrossFit pals.

I also want to make an intention (not a resolution) to stay true to myself in all that I do. I think my general indecisiveness can often come from considering other people's ideas in combination (or over) my own and I really just want to focus more on what makes sense for me. What is going to make ME happy? I encourage you to do the same. It's not easy, but the value of doing so is truly the gift that keeps on giving.

My relationship with technology will always be something I want to be more conscious of as well. I recognize this isn't going anywhere soon, because it's a large part of my business (Ok, it IS my business) but I definitely think I could be more intentional and mindful about my usage, by setting social media bed times (9pm cut off) and keeping my phone out of the room so it's not the first thing I look at in the morning. I guess that means I'm in the market for a new alarm clock, so officially taking recommendations haha.

My Message To You

I want to thank you from the bottom of my real ass heart for being such a huge support this past year. It's truly people like you that keep coming back, cheering me on, validating the things I'm saying as a sign that you want to see more of it, that keeps me going and excited to create for you.

So now I'm going to pass it back to you! If there's anything you want to see from me in the New Year, lay it on me! Is it more #RealAssFood recipes? More information on disordered eating, emotional eating, body acceptance. Heck, maybe even cat health for crying out loud. I want to know because if it weren't for you guys, I wouldn't be here doing what I do.

Drop your thoughts in the comments below! Until next year ... (yup, I'm gonna be one of those jerks that says that haha). Wishing you all the best in 2019!

Rach xx