Finding New Purpose (and slowing the f- down)

How do you slow down after a busy season in life? Today that's what we talk about on the pod.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Navigating Identity and Priorities Post-Cancer
• 6:56 Embracing Family, Health, and Self

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hey, it's Rebecca, welcome back to the pod. We are in full-blown fall season. Here at High Click Woman Headquarters in beautiful Laramie, wyoming, where I live, it is sweater weather, pumpkin spice is still going on, my kids are thinking about Halloween, the leaves are falling, the weather is getting chilly and we're coming to kind of the dark season as we head into the holidays, and I want to just peel back a little bit and I want to talk about some of my goals that I'm putting on the calendar as I try to get through the next couple months, and here's why this is important. So I mentioned before that this is the dark season. This is the dark season for me personally because the fall carries with it a lot of baggage and a lot of emotional baggage.

Speaker 1: 0:59

So on November November 8th, 2021, I discovered a lump in my right breast. On December 7th, I was diagnosed with stage two breast cancer. So 2021, 2022 was really the year of cancer. So surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, and then I went back to work full time about a month after I finished cancer treatment and full time at the ski shop and outdoor retail store that I owned, and when I went back to work, I felt like I just needed something new, because I had just been cooped up in my house for 10 months. I don't even know how long I'm going through cancer treatment, enduring cancer treatment, because it's no joke. And so 2022 was really a year that almost didn't exist in my life, because it was just this endless blur of doctor's appointments, and if you have had cancer or been through cancer treatment, you know it's like a full-time job just getting to all of your medical appointments all the time. And so that was really the year of medical appointments and then trying to go back to work and figure out what I wanted to do with my life.

Speaker 1: 2:18

But I decided after a winter so, headed into 2023, I decided that you know, after the winter season, when we hit the spring, my husband and I went to Costa Rica in April of 2023. And I was like I can't do this. I can't do this anymore. I can't keep running this ski shop. Even though I had good employees, I was still recovering from cancer. I still didn't have my energy back, I still just was not feeling good. So we decided to put my ski shop on the market and we sold my shop in November of 2023. So it's almost been a year since I sold my outdoor retail store and my ski shop and since I recommitted to putting 100% of my effort into Hike Like a Woman and giving Hike Like a Woman the time and effort and energy that it deserves so that we can reach our mission of helping women get outside and explore with confidence.

Speaker 1: 3:25

And so there's been a bit of an identity crisis as I've gone from cancer patient which was this identity in itself to back to work right, like, look at her, she just finished cancer treatment, oh, and now she's back to work full time. How does she do it? I don't know, I didn't do it. I didn't, I didn't do it very well. And then trying to figure out who am I? If I don't own this prominent business in my town, then who, who? Who am I?

Speaker 1: 3:58

Hike like a woman full time. Yeah, it's a full-time job, not a full-time income. Yeah, it's a full-time job, not a full-time income. And I've also really been focused on my family because I lost so much time with them for six years when I was trying to make my shop run. It was every day nights, weekends, holidays. I was working all the time and then I was sucking whatever I could, whatever energy I had left at the end of the day I was, I was giving that to hike like a woman and it just wasn't really much. So now I'm, I'm working from home, I am mostly doing the mom thing and the wife thing and, uh, I do the hike like a woman thing a couple hours a day. Uh, but it's just a whole different identity to go from waking up and going to work every day to waking up and trying to figure out, like, how do I make this work, how do I make it run, and also, how do I explain what I do? How do I explain that Sometimes I lead trips and I have a podcast, a YouTube channel. Sometimes I lead trips and I have a podcast, a YouTube channel. And it was just easier to say to people you know I own Basecamp than it is and I own Lone Moose Ski Shop than it is to say, yeah, I own Hike Like a Woman. And they're like hike like a what?

Speaker 1: 5:34

So anyway, almost a year, hike Like a Woman has been my full-time job and here's what I have learned. I have learned to set boundaries. In the past, hike Like a Woman, like I would, I would take on every opportunity that would come my way, and now I'm like, no, that doesn't seem like a good fit for me, or I don't have the energy to give that project the time that it deserves for me, or I don't have the energy to give that project the time that it deserves, or, yeah, learning to set boundaries and also to say no and to say no to opportunities that don't quite fit our mission and our values or that I don't have time to pursue. I'm not doing gear reviews anymore. I will talk about gear night and day on our YouTube channel and in person, but I'm not doing sponsorships. I'm not having people give me free money or free gear or money in exchange for me to lie and say that I really love a product that I don't. So I'm trying to be really honest and authentic with the products that I recommend to people.

Speaker 1: 6:29

And I've also learned to take some time off and to take time off with my family and to schedule big adventures. You know, this summer we went on a huge family vacation. During spring break, we went on another big family vacation. When I got back from Kilimanjaro, I took my kids on a two-week road trip this summer and we also took our kids to Europe for two weeks and pulled them out of school.

Speaker 1: 6:56

I just feel really strongly about giving my kids experiences and providing opportunities for them that I didn't have as a kid, and I feel really strongly about just creating these incredible memories with my family, because we don't know what the future holds, and life is so precious, but it's also so uncertain and future's not a guarantee, and I learned all about that when I was going through cancer treatment, and so we'll just we'll just do a full circle moment here, and and that is why taking time off is really important to me.

Speaker 1: 7:30

So there you go. That's kind of the three things that I have going on, the three things that I'm focused on as I get through this dark season and as I try to cope with these big feelings about cancer that are going to come up as I go out throughout the next couple months. So this is a reminder to be gentle to yourself, to be kind to yourself, to schedule your mammogram and to make sure that you are taking care of your physical health and your mental health. Thanks for joining me today. I'm going to be back next week and we're going to talk about what's next here at Hike. Like a Woman.