We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Leah Tarleton, MS, RDN. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Leah below.
Leah, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Setting up an independent practice is a daunting endeavor. Can you talk to us about what it was like for you – what were some of the main steps, challenges, etc.
There are times in life when we feel we are firmly in the driver’s seat—hands at the wheel, forging a clear path forward, shaping our own destiny. Other times, life delivers a different kind of experience. We instead find ourselves driven—by something greater than the force of our own will, not knowing what comes next and when, guided only by sheer guts, blurry vision, and a heart full of courage. When I decided to start my own practice, I would have preferred to be in the driver’s seat, but in reality: I felt like I was on the ride of my life.
When my job as a clinical dietitian came to a sudden end just before the start of the pandemic, I found myself out-of-work and in transition. Things were shifting in my life, and it seemed the best I could do was go with it. Though I found myself out of a job, I never stopped working. I used this time to explore causes that truly mattered to me and to do work that felt meaningful in my community.
I packed bags of food in the emergency food-system for 9 months during COVID; picked fruit from trees in Seattle neighborhoods and distributed it to those in need; I joined a local chapter of Toastmasters and gave a speech on resilience; raised money for a grassroots fundraising campaign that supported migrant farmworkers in Washington; and wrote an essay on food justice for the local dietetics association right around the time that BLM protesters began their marches and painted their art on the streets of the newly-formed Capitol Hill Occupied Protest (CHOP).
As I navigated these experiences, it was becoming increasingly clear to me that I would not be going back to work in the healthcare system. The world around me was shifting in ways that felt entirely out of my control, and the story of my life and work was being rewritten.
In October 2020, my family packed what we couldn’t carry into a 10×10 storage unit, and moved to London. The journey to create an online business was well underway at this point in time, but I felt a disconnect. It was as if a grand canyon stood between the business I had now and the business that I wanted to create. I was utterly confused about who to serve, undecided about which problems to solve, and powerfully overwhelmed with the task of learning how to “sell” myself online. I needed something that could transcend all of it and offer clarity. So, I went inward in search of a deeper truth and purpose to guide my work forward.
This inward searching process came in the form of daily walks in a nearby greenspace–the historic Hampstead Cemetary of Fortune Green in West Hampstead, London. Consecrated in 1876, this cemetery marks the final resting place of 60,000 human lives. Buried in its ground: renowned playwrights, sculptors, painters, and architects, nobel laureates, novelists, social activists, engineers, poets, and religious leaders. Needless to say, I felt myself in good company.
It was here that I began to wonder more deeply about the true nature of things, and heard whispers of divine presence in the pristine natural beauty of this space. I wrote poetry about snowdrop flowers and Celtic crosses, and I peeled the vines off of old gravestones in secluded sections just to see and honor what was underneath. In this quiet, resting place, I explored the depths of my own soul.
Looking back, this time in my life represented a kind of personal and spiritual awakening that paved the way to my current line of work. London saw me through an unveiling of the most authentic parts of myself including an inborn personality trait that research psychologists describe as high-sensitivity. It was a discovery that clarified so much about my nature and resolved many personal lifelong questions that left me feeling like a born misfit.This discovery had a profound impact on me and ultimately formed the foundation for the work I currently do as a holistic health & healing practitioner.
Shortly after my return to the States, I found myself on a health and healing journey of my own. London had provided me with a tsunami of self-discovery and spiritual-awakening, but it was beginning to engulf me. This was a time in my life that asked me to put business on hold so that I could listen more closely to my fears, anxieties, and personal traumas. It was a time to focus on my own nourishment as a sensitive person and to tap into my deepest intuitions about life and business in order to move forward. This difficult journey with my health helped me to grasp the essential elements of self-nourishment which I later turned into a framework that I use in my practice.
Soon after arriving home, I began to train in a new way of thinking about health and healing that would drive the next iteration of my business. I enrolled in a 10-month online certification program offered by the Institute for the Psychology of Eating which trained its students in a holistic health perspective. Grounded in nutritional and healing wisdom, this program transformed my understanding of what it means to satisy the deepest hungers of life in mind, body and spirit.
From the fertile ground of these experiences, The Nourished Sensitive was born. If someone asked me what I would do differently, I couldn’t say for sure. There are certainly decisions I might have reconsidered, different paths I may have followed, and investments of time, energy and attention I’d perhaps have made had I known at the time what I know now. However, all of it was entirely relative to who I was in that former existence. I believe that all of my decisions and experiences so far are inextricable parts of who I am and the business I have created, and therefore they belong in the story. For better or for worse, I wouldn’t change a thing.
If you find yourself as a young entrepreneur called to a life of personal meaning, creative innovation, and service to yourself and the world around you, my advice is to follow your path where it leads no matter how long or how far it takes you.
Some will tell you to be fearless, but I say that creating space for your fear is an essential part of the journey. Fear is a signpost for intuition. It orients you to change and calls you to ask yourself: what now? Use your fear to move forward and to stay in the practice of self-discovery and constant creative renewal. Let everything be there as you do this: uncertainty, discomfort, even your deepest self-doubts. Whatever you feel inside your mind, body and spirit as you walk this path, it is here to teach you something vital. Lean in, breathe through it, and listen.
There are ways to manage the discomfort of the early days of entrepreneurship. Focus on creating a vision by constantly asking yourself: what change do I want to see in the world around me AND in the world inside of me? From there, choose a course of action that allows you to embody or “be” that change. It doesn’t have to be a giant leap or make you an overnight success; small acts of self-care, patience, presence and attention will help you get where you’re trying to go.
Make one decision at a time with the best wisdom you have available, and keep trying no matter how many times both you and your decisions fail. Make room for all of it to fall apart before it finally comes together, and be absolutely intentional about surrounding yourself with like-minded and like-vibration people who can help you pick up those pieces and put them back together.
To those relationships and to your work, bring the whole of yourself and what you do because this will prove more helpful and impactful in the long-run than any qet-rich quick scheme or sales tactic. If you feel like giving up, take a break first then see how you feel. 9 times out of 10 you’ll feel like getting back to it and the other 10% of the time, you’ll find something more important that needs doing and it won’t feel like giving up.
Lastly, to the young entrepreneur: understand the meaning of the word passion. It means you’re willing to be uncomfortable for something that really matters to you. If you can find your energy in passion for what you do, and ground your work in an intention of genuine love and caring, you will never find yourself truly depleted. I believe that entrepreneurs who live and work in this way are supported and guided by something much greater than the work itself. With enough time, and an absolute truckload of patience, those who embody this kind of spirit will undoubtedly see sustainable success.
Leah, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
The Nourished Sensitive is a virtual health, healing and holistic nutrition practice that serves clients globally. I have worked with highly-sensitive humans from all walks of life across 3 continents, guiding them to live a more nourishing and health-sustaining life. Clients can work with me 1-on-1 by beginning a 3,6 or 9 month guided journey in my signature Nourish to Flourish program, or they can self-pace their work with me on an individual session basis. I provide teaching, workshops, and interviews on various topics related to holistic nourishment for highly-sensitive humans. I have held conversations and provided supportive resources in both online and in-person community spaces that support the health, healing and empowerment of sensitive humans from online courses to memberships, healing retreats, learning series, sensitive empowerment summits and more. My vision for The Nourished Sensitive includes an online community that is currently in development: The Nourishment Collective.
My journey into my current line of work involved several personal and professional iterations. In 2015, I completed my BS in Nutrition & Dietetics as a 1st-generation undergrad at the University of New Hampshire, immediately followed in 2017 by a combined internship and MS in Nutritional Diagnostics at Cox College in Springfield, Missouri. In that same year, I became a registered-dietitian nutritionist (RDN) and relocated to Seattle where I was later hired as a clinical nutrition manager in a skilled nursing facility. When the job ended in late 2019, I started work with a career coach. She encouraged me to look outside the traditional healthcare environment, and to reflect on what kinds of work I found most enjoyable. My idea of joyful work involved being of service to humanity. It involved engaging in nuanced conversations, sharing transformative ideas, and providing creative solutions. Joyful work for me was delivering healing through any means possible, and affirming the value of life at every turn. I knew that remaining in the healthcare system did not offer a path to my version of joyful work, so I decided to start my own health practice and provide the kind of health-care that felt right for me.
The meaning of the world healing is: to make whole. For my clients, I try to provide an experience that helps them connect to all parts of themselves and resolve feelings of brokenness while promoting feelings of wholeness, health, and nourishment . Clients typically come to work with me through the doorway of challenges around their relationship with food & body, nutrition, and their health. Many of my clients find themselves navigating challenges to overall nourishment like a loss of appetite, emotional or binge eating, irritable digestion, food sensitivities, burnout, hypertension, low or unstable mood, excess weight, and poor body image. I believe I provide a unique solution to my clients because the work we do together is not grounded in making better or fixing, but in establishing deeper self-trust and compassionate attention to challenges to nourishment as they arise. My approach is very person-centered, relational, spiritual, and life-affirming. I also take much of my inspiration in healing and self-transformation from the natural world and to my personal spiritual connection with it.
I am most proud of my clients. I am proud of the deep work they put in to understand themselves and their challenges on a deeper level, and I am proud of the strength and courage they embody in order to get there. I feel proud when I read their session notes, reflections, and hear their progress in a session. It’s always gratifying when I get to experience the journey through their eyes and understand from their perspective how this work has changed them. I am proud every time a client tells me that I played a key role in their healing, self-growth and self-discovery. It gives me such satisfaction to read their testimonials of the work we did together and to see how much it helped them grow. It fills me with pride when clients reflect back to me that had this work not come into their life when it did they may not have enjoyed eating on their honeymoon; never would have found the courage to take the art class and the energy to do theater; or would have continued on in a relationship with their body that was draining the life out of them. There are many things that I can say I’m proud of myself for, but I think the client transformations speak for most of it.
In the various online spaces I frequent, I aim to present myself as the embodiment of my brand. That is, I want potential clients and followers to know that I walk the same path that they do, and that I’m learning everyday what it means to be a Nourished Sensitive. While I very much value my own intuitive gifts and expertise, and use it as much as possible to help others change and transform, I also equally value the expertise and wisdom of those I serve and who follow me. I try my best to learn just as much from them as they do from me so I can be of greater service. I want those around me to understand more deeply the idea that we are all here to walk each other home. I believe that sensitive humans are very well positioned to be the healers and helpers that this world so desperately needs but only when they learn how to nourish themselves first. That’s what drives me. In my heart, this work is not about power or prestige. I do what I do for a purpose, and to honor the potential we all have at making a great change in our inner world so that we can be the change we want to see in the world around us.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
While growing my online business, I’ve had to learn how to be flexible and resilient through many challenges and changes of environment. During much of my journey into entrepreneurship, my family and I lived and worked remotely in two different countries, and12 states across the US. We added thousands of miles to our lives and really came to understand the meaning of the world “travel-worn”. With so much change and transition occuring in my own life over the last 2 years it has been a great challenge to keep the vision of my work alive and to show up for it consistently. Changes of scenery present a constant need to adapt my own existence and reframe my own ideas of myself. I’ve been challenged to grow and transform, adjust and re-adjust at every turn, and stay present or else find myself out of work and depleted. Despite the challenges, I find myself immensely grateful for these experiences in my journey as an entrepreneur because they have shaped me into a person who authentically understands struggle, discomfort, and what it takes to make a change in oneself and in one’s life. I find it has made me into a stronger person who can inspire others to find their own inner strength through even life’s greatest challenges.
Putting training and knowledge aside, what else do you think really matters in terms of succeeding in your field?
In my line of work, I think a true love of humanity and personal humility is necessary. I wouldn’t necessarily call myself a saint, but human kindness and humility is something that really matters to me. I believe true health, healing and nourishment is found for the most part in a sense of true belonginess and connection within ourselves and the world, rather than in a sense of being separate or belonging only where we rank in the social hierarchy. I think in order to be successful as a health coach, spiritual guide or healer, or health practitioner of any discipline, you have to care very much about the person you serve and what you are trying to do. You have to be an excellent listener and someone who can reflect and mirror back to those around you what makes them good and right. Most of all, you have to have courage. To me, this means you’re in touch with your heart and your gut and you’re not afraid to go out there and act from it.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.nourishedsensitive.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/the.nourished.sensitive
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thenourishedsensitive
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leahtarletonmsrdn/
Image Credits
Kate Connerty