What was I thinking??

Personal story warning about failure and rejection.

I wanted to be a nutritionist, so off I went to university to become a nutritionist.

Can’t remember if they were rumors, but within a few weeks we found out that becoming a Registered Dietitian (not a “nutritionist”) was actually a really competitive process. After graduation, you had to do an internship. Trying to land one of those was like trying to get a toilet paper (tp) pack at the supermarket during early pandemic days. 

If you made it to the store too late or weren’t pushy enough to score a tp pack, well then, you had to get creative in the bathroom I suppose. 

I was that person. I was left out of the dietetics tp. I went back to the grocery store a few times to try my luck. No tp. Darn it! I don’t want to reinvent myself. It’s not fair! But I had to. 

I worked as a health educator, then became a holistic nutritionist and worked in health food stores, then an Intuitive Eating counselor, and took a shit load of online business courses. A LOT of marketing training. This shit's still hard.

A few months ago I told myself I couldn’t do this online biz thing anymore. I confronted my internship failure gremlins and decided to try and reapply. I wasn't concerned that the process was lengthy for those with degrees from the days where AI wasn't even a thing. But I was doing it! I didn’t care what it took. I may be nice but that doesn't mean I'm not stubborn!

I didn’t care about…

• the thousands of dollars in student loans I would have

• not working for over a year (not generating income)

• studying and stressing endlessly for the registration exam after (and the 5 hour exam beforehand for old graduates like me who’ve forgotten half the material)

• not being able to travel for over a year or have a life 

• that I’d spend years and years repaying student loans…AGAIN!!!

I didn’t care! I was determined. 

Until, I DID care. What TF was I thinking??? 

I don’t wanna do this shit! I wanna sit in a café with my husband on a weekday morning, I wanna explore cool neighbourhoods in Mexico city one day soon, I wanna visit my cousin in Spain who I haven't seen in 25 years (we were so close). I still want to work on my Intuitive Eating & Drinking practice because it's fulfilling.

Society loves ambition. It's praised. She's an ambitious woman. Who doesn't wanna be...ambitious? It even sounds sexy.

Except, my ambition went down the toilet... along with the dietetics tp. 

But in the end, I still did something I thought I never would - allow myself to reattempt/confront this process (therapy was needed, just an FYI). Something I had put behind me completely. So now it’s as if I never got rejected.

I rejected them.

Don't get me wrong. I continue to pursue clinical opportunities, in addition to working on my Nutrition/Intuitive Eating/Drinking/Self-Acceptance/Enoughness practice.

Life is strange, hard, beautiful, sad… and unpredictable. And we gotta (or, I wanna) make the best of it however we can. Doesn't mean taking the easy road out, but it does mean respecting your energy capacity, and listening to your heart and intuition.... or at least negotiating those with your practical/logical brain cause you still gotta pay your bills.

Thank you for tuning in and supporting my work!

With love ❤️,

Violeta