Real Nourished: a reinvention

things are changing around here

I’ve been quiet on this newsletter for months. Not because I haven’t had anything to say. I have words for days. Decades, even. I’ve had a lot to say… just not necessarily about intuitive eating. Which was the whole point of this newsletter.

When I created the current iteration of Real Nourished a few years ago, I thought really hard about what I wanted to say (you can stop dieting and live your best life and I can show you how!) and who I was saying it to (well, you, obviously, the smart, bold woman who has better things to do than obsess about shrinking her body.)

I soaked up the internet’s best advice on how to write a newsletter that turned your audience into clients. I spent too much money on a course that promised to teach me how to turn my words into dollar signs. I learned to write in two-sentence paragraphs. (My prep school English teachers would be horrified…but they couldn’t have known how short a 21st century attention span would be.) I tried to inject calls to action that were eye-catching but not annoying.

And mostly I loved it. I don’t love creating content for social media and quietly hoping for likes while the “free” platform steals our attention while collecting data to sell advertisers so they can sell us products and services they created to solve problems they invented.

I do love writing and I do love (hopefully) inspiring women to love themselves just as they are in this body they have, whatever it looks and feels like, and whatever it’s capable of, even if (or maybe especially because) it is something I, too, am actively working on every single day. I have learned to let go of the feeling that I’m a fraud because my relationship with food, exercise and my body isn’t all perfectly good 100% of the time.

I really loved thinking and writing about intuitive eating. But I’ve outgrown it. Like the skinny jeans I kept in my closet for way too long because what if they fit again someday!? What if I became the kind of person who always said no to dessert? What if I stopped liking bagels and pizza and ricotta and jam on sourdough toast? What if I started drinking my coffee black? (Read: What if I were not myself, but someone else instead?)

This newsletter has become the skinny jeans that existed mainly to make me feel bad and to make it hard to find pants I actually felt good in. It’s been taking up space in my brain as another thing I’m not actively doing but that I haven’t totally quit, and I’m finally done being in that in-between space.

So I’m reinventing this thing as my interests evolve and as my soul nudges me forward on my path. I guess you could say I’m rebranding, except I wouldn’t say that because I’m not a brand, I’m a woman, which means by definition, I’m ever evolving and I don’t exist to be predictable or on-message or to inhabit a certain persona. Although if I had to exist in that kind of box, it would include a lot of hot pink, jokes, and honesty. And bikes, of course.

Starting now, Real Nourished is a newsletter not just about intuitive eating but about intuitive living.

It’s about soul nourishment, which means I’ll be sharing my reflections on art (including but not limited to performing arts, comedy, and books), bikes, and woo.

Because all of that stuff - the way I feel when I experience art and make art, when I ride my bike, and when I get quiet and listen to what’s in my heart and what’s all around me- the powerful energy I can’t see, touch, or, or hear but that I know is behind the magic I experience on an increasingly frequent basis - it’s all a form of energy.

And it is my conviction that what we need right now is that kind of good, light, connective energy. I’m trying really hard to stay informed while protecting my mental health. I don’t know how to find that sweet spot and I fear that at this moment in history, it doesn’t exist.

But I don’t want to focus on fear. I want to move through the world driven by connection, creativity, and my curiosity. And writing about that here on a regular basis means that’s where I’ll choosing to put my energy.

Which means that might be your cue to unsubscribe. If this isn’t for you, I appreciate that it once was and I wish you well.

But if it is, I’m pumped you’re sticking around because I think this is going to be really fun. If you’re on board to stay here, drop me a line in the comments and let me know: what’s been filling your cup lately? And if the answer is nothing, what is one teeny tiny gift you can give yourself today?

I’ll go first.

• I got to be in a show called Reclamation on Saturday night at Junkyard Social in Boulder. Co-produced by Zoe Rogers and my Listen to Your Mother Show co-producer Stephanie Sprenger, it was an evening of celebrating women’s voices, featuring a mix of storytelling and standup comedy and wow that was medicine for my soul. I have no doubt that art heals.

  

  Stephanie Sprenger and me at Junkyard Socia

• I did the 40-mile Old Man Winter gravel race yesterday, in Lyons, CO and it was so much freaking fun despite scary winds and the muddiest, slushiest conditions I’ve ever experienced. It was a feat just to stay upright but I felt buoyed by the energy of the 1k+ other riders out there doing the same thing. (Bikes also heal!)

  

  Holy mud!!!