We were lucky to catch up with Ally Rae Pesta recently and have shared our conversation below.
Ally Rae, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?
It’s a summer day in 2018 and I sit in my cubicle, my hands trembling with eager uncertainty. Today is the day that I’m supposed to get the call, to find out if I will finally have an opportunity to leave Ohio and bet on myself. I have lived in Ohio for all 23 years of my life. After being diagnosed with my eating disorder when I was 17, I didn’t think I would ever leave. Leaving my support system, my parents, my doctors – is unfathomable to me. My eating disorder has taken a lot away from me – my zest, my love for adventure, my desire to travel. But slowly I started to reclaim parts of me, to build back who I am without my eating disorder. Slowly I started to adventure again, but only for short times. Leaving Ohio permanently seemed impossible.
About a month earlier I took a trip to visit Seattle and after seeing the Zillow headquarters, the community of young people brainstorming and connecting, the tall ceilings and expansive views of Puget Sound, the palpable energy throughout the floors – I could feel in my bones that there is possibility outside of Ohio, that I could be meant for something bigger than the life I felt I would always live. My friend Kelly encouraged me to apply for an open role at Zillow and although I was so scared, I decided why not? What’s the worst that could happen? After an initial round, I was invited back to Seattle for on-site interviews. Being in the office, 2000 miles away from my comfort zone, I started to have a slight belief that I could do this.
A week later I am now back in Ohio waiting for the call from the recruiter. The clock ticks, and I cannot focus on what our greeting card strategy should be for Halloween 2020. I cannot analyze whether or not there are too many witches and if the success of the top-performing card is due to the sentimental copy or the gold foil finishing.
The clock strikes 2:30 p.m., and my phone is still quiet. My Outlook calendar buzzes with the reminder of my one-on-one with my current manager, Jacki. More than a manager, she is a friend and mentor. Jacki reminds me that life is more than your work. She challenges me to think critically and supports me with all my big ideas. She also reminds me that there is more life outside of the walls of American Greetings and Westlake, Ohio, where I have spent the majority of my life thus far.
We take our meeting in a closed meeting room. My dad had warned me to “keep quiet” about this new job adventure because I should “never show my cards.” He told me I needed to “play the corporate game.” However, I decide to tell Jacki about my interview and the call I’m waiting for today. Jacki is not angry. She reacts with encouragement. We immediately scrap any items on our agenda, and she begins to ask me discovery questions: “What gets you excited about this new opportunity? How would you feel moving across the country? How can I support you?”
I’m astonished by her support. We start talking about my dreams and the stirring in my heart to get out, expand, and take a chance. I share how I want to push past my comfort zone and the confining certainty that fills most of my days.
About fifteen minutes into our conversation, my phone rings with a Seattle area code, 206. My trembling hands begin to shake even more. My breath catches in the back of my throat. This is it—a moment when everything before and everything after is completely changed in a single pivot. I answer the phone on the third ring, trying not to seem too eager or desperate.
“Hey Allyson, this is Justin from Zillow. How are you?”
“I’m good,. How are you?”
“I’m doing well. I wanted to ask how you think the interview went?”
Oh no, my mind begins to race. This means I didn’t get it. He’s probably going to just coach me on how to do better. I take a deep breath, attempting to remain calm, despite this dialogue feeling like a minefield. I fumble on my answer, tongue-twisted. “Hmm, I think it went well? There are definitely parts I think I could have done better. But I really liked the team and the conversations.”
Silence follows. I begin to open my mouth to continue, but then I hear his voice on the other end of the line.
“Well, good. Because everyone agrees. They loved you and want to offer you the final spot in the business operations rotational program.”
Silence. My life is about to change forever. I know this so clearly.
“Wow! Thank you. I am so excited! Thank you.” Dumbstruck, this is all I can say.
“That’s great to hear. You can take some time to think about it and let me know. We are on a tight timeline with the program starting in two weeks, but we wanted to let you know as soon as possible because you were the top candidate across the board. When do you think you may make a decision?”
Without even hearing what the final salary is and despite my father’s warning to never say yes to a job right away, I know I will accept. I don’t need to know where I will live or what the stock options are. All I know is that I need to go. I need to answer that inner fire that says, Leave, fly, baby, fly. So on the phone right there, I say, “Yes I’m in—I accept!”
I gallop out of the room, my face radiating with glee. I walk over to Jacki’s cubicle, and as soon as she turns back to look at me, she knows.
“You got it, didn’t you?”
“Yes! I’m moving to Seattle!” I exclaim, as tears of joy wash over my cheeks.
Jacki gives me the biggest hug and tells me how excited she is for me. She tells me to go home and celebrate.
Because the office is within a short walking distance I operate in, I walk home, through my backyard, and run into the house, seeing my mom in the kitchen. I jump up and down while screaming at the top of my lungs.
“Oh, Alz, I am so excited for you!” she exclaims, watching me run around our kitchen. I’m overtaken by euphoria. I’m shaking, crying, screaming, and laughing.
“I’m doing it, Mama. I did it! I got it! I’m moving 2,000 miles away. I got a job at Zillow! Mom! I am doing this.”
She just looks at me with the largest grin.
“Yes, Alz, you are. And I’m so proud of you.”
It takes me another thirty minutes to finally calm down from this high. Once I begin to relax, my mind starts to race. The questions creep back in. How can I let go of my support system? Will I relapse if I go?
I don’t have time to contemplate if I will relapse or what I will do if I can’t hug my mom when I’m anxious. It’s time to go—to sort through everything, pack my clothes, my life, my mind, my memories.
I have two weeks to pack any belongings, go through my twenty-three years of stuff, flash through two decades of memories, run through every favorite route, sit and think by the lake, drive through the Metroparks one last time, and take a few final after-dinner walks with my parents.
I have two weeks to quit my job, where I’ve spent the past three years building community. I have two weeks to let go of Steven, a person I’ve spent almost three years with, as long distance isn’t an option. I have two weeks to take a chance, pack my two suitcases, jump on a plane—and go!
It’s time to go. I feel deep within that I’m ready to leap, ready to get uncomfortable. The next day my mom and I book our flights. I find an apartment building, begin packing, and start letting go—releasing any expectations for what the next year may look like; releasing Steve, a man that who has been so deeply integral to my life for several years; releasing who I was, who I am, and opening up to all that I may be.
It isn’t only my hometown. My eating disorder has also kept my world small. Still, I will move to Seattle where I know only one other person and take my soul 2,000 miles away. And despite knowing that this moment is integral to my journey, I don’t know all that is yet to come.
The stirring in my soul says to fly. Let go. You are strong. Trust yourself.
When I land in Seattle, I feel an overwhelming sense of confidence and also uncertainty. It is the first time that I feel true loneliness – bone deep. It is the first time that I do not have my mom’s arms as a refuge and safety net. I start learning what it is like to embrace my own body – to be my own support system. I explore coffee shops and take myself on solo dates. What I had feared for the past 23 years – that I could never leave and truly go out on my own, I am finally doing.
As I walk among the rainy Seattle sidewalks, I’m reminded that this exact moment is why I took the chance to leave and move 2,000 miles away. These are the moments my soul was craving—the simple pleasures that don’t need to be posted for the rest of the world to see. These little moments where I’m becoming closer to myself; where I am letting my mind be quiet enough for me to think again, write again, be again. I don’t have to do anything or be with anyone. I’m learning to love the rain and welcome the loneliness.
Taking this risk ignited an entire wave of moments and experiences to come. I know now that I can move 2000 miles away, I can be my support, I can embrace all of who I am and all I am becoming. It was in this place that I began to find out who I am without ED and rebuild myself from the inside out.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
My name is Ally Rae and I am fueled by empowerment and community. Growing up I had a pure zest for life, a larger than life personality, some would say. I craved to feel seen and heard and to be exceptional. I also vacillated between feeling never enough and too much – too loud, too bossy, too much of a leader, yet also not small enough, not fast enough, not good enough. After experiencing sexual assault at a young age I felt that my body was not my own and it was purely an object. After years of feeling this way, I craved to finally seek some sort of control back over my body and to find a way to truly feel accepted.
This is when I turned to food and exercise. I had always loved to move my body growing up – I played a variety of sports, volleyball being my main focus. I had drive and ambition and wanted to excel in everything I did. At 16 I toured the Naval Academy and saw how pristine the students were and dreamed to be like them – the heads held high, the selflessness of their goal.
I started training for the Naval Academy Summer Seminar program and also started a diet with my mom, the 17-Day diet. Little by little I started to feel that I was gaining my control back. I could focus on the amount of exercise I was getting in, and the number of calories I was consuming. Yet like a little flame that soon turns into a blazing fire, what I thought was the control I had became all consuming and a complete lack of control. I was no longer in control – my eating disorder was. I did not yet know that that’s what it was. But I did know that I was never enough and would never be enough. The hours in the gym continued to intensify, the list of foods I was allowed to eat shrunk in parallel to the number of calories. My mind told me “I was not small enough. I was not worthy. I must continue to do more.”
Strangers would praise me for my shrinking body and discipline, only adding more fuel to the power of my eating disorder. I thought I was truly the “epitome of health.” I was the “cleanest eater,” my body was finally small enough and now strangers applaud me for my “fitness.”
I would soon learn that I was the farthest thing from the epitome of health. Instead my body was completely breaking down in parallel with my mind, as my eating disorder’s grip became stronger and stronger. It became so strong that it landed me in a hospital bed with a week left to live.
I denied that I had an eating disorder: “but I eat,” I told my doctor. “There is no way I can have an eating disorder.” Yet that was exactly what I had – anorexia, orthorexia, and exercise addiction. With my parents’ support and the doctors, therapists, mentors I slowly started to admit to myself that I was sick and I do need help.
I slowly started to physically heal, but my mind was still consumed by my eating disorder. After my second hospital stay, I was allowed to do yoga only. At first I hated yoga – I was told to breathe, to slow down, to be with my thoughts. It was painfully uncomfortable. But I continued to go back, at first because it was all I was allowed to do, but then because I started to see how healing it was. The narrative in my mind began to shift from one of depletion to one of replenishment. I began to actually breathe again.
My journey with yoga is what inspired me to become a yoga teacher and get my yoga teaching certification in 2018. I infused the principles of yoga into all the ways I moved my body. I reclaimed running as something that was healing and life-giving, not life taking. It was in this space I also saw a need for run coaches who worked with people in their own journey of movement. To walk or run alongside them figuratively and literally reminding them that it’s not about the pace or the numbers on the watch, but about how you feel inside – about the innate strength and worth that is independent of any outcome.
As I am now 10 years into my own recovery journey, I have also since become certified as an eating disorder recovery/anti-diet coach in which I support others in breaking free from diet culture, from the chains that disordered eating/eating disorders can have on us and to find true freedom in their body, mind, and relationships to food and their self.
Most recently, I have published my memoir, Beyond My Body: Recovering from a Complex Eating Disorder, Reclaiming Movement, and Finding my Worth, for my 17 year old self who so badly craved to be seen and heard, but also to support others in their journey that they may know they are not alone.
In all that I do, I recognize that each journey is truly unique. At Ally Rae Co, I empower individuals to find purpose and meaning beyond their bodies. I believe in celebrating what our bodies are capable of, moving joyfully, and finding true freedom with food, your body, and your overall life. Each individual journey is unique and I am here to be with those I support every step of the way – meeting each person exactly where they are at. I take a holistic approach and recognize and deeply know it is not just about the food or the movement. It is about healing our full self – mind, body, and soul. So as I work with clients we incorporate all of that in what we do – whether that is supporting them with movement plans, doing breathwork together during sessions, healing the relationship with food, doing values based work, self-worth work, and more – it is truly looking at each journey as the whole picture and walking right alongside of each person.
I am fueled by the power of community and authentic connection where we come together to share, learn and support one another. Whether through leading community events like sunset yoga, or (soon to come) group programs and retreats, there is SO much power in connecting in community.
I also speak at colleges, universities, high schools and was previously president for almost 3 years of the disability network at Zillow Group. I partner with organizations to deliver impactful events, talks and workshops all on finding purpose beyond our bodies as we continue to heal our full selves.
Ally Rae Co is founded on three core values: connection, community & empowerment. The logo includes three elements: sun, water, and mountains.
Water: connected, home, evolving. I remember the first time I felt the water enveloping my body – effortlessly. I was a young girl in my neighbors pool. Growing up I never wanted to leave the water – it’s where I felt connected to my inner being, where I found playfulness, where the tide continuing to move each day showed me how beautiful, dynamic, and evolving she is and that we too deserve to be. The water is like home – an instant release, weightless as the water holds me in her evolving being. And so in this water, in this journey I hope you find home within yourself, that you learn form the tides that we deserve to continuously evolve, and that everything is connected – flowing as one.
Mountains: empowered, expansive, purposeful. The first time I vividly remember expansive mountains was when I was standing on top of Horsetooth rock in Colorado amazed by how unapologetically the mountains took up space. I looked out over the glistening water, the mountains peaks and exhaled. We do not know how tall or big the peaks are and they continue to expand. Her trails are purposeful leading to empowerment in our bones. Each step to reach her peaks, we learn that there is peace in the unknowing of where the trail may lead. And so on the mountains peaks, in this journey along the trails you find purposeful empowerment – that you deserve to take up space. I hope you let yourself expand beyond peaks you could ever imagine.
Sun: rising in community – free. The sun continues to rise again and again. She is free. And so together we will rise with the water calling us home, evolving & connected. We will rise with the mountains expansiveness, purposefully empowered. With the sun, we will rise, free.
And so this is Ally Rae Co – the water, the mountains, the sun – a collective community – home, empowered, free.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
When I was five, I dreamed of writing a book one day. I had no idea what it would be about or why, but writing for me was a way to slow my anxious mind down and to understand all that was happening around me and within me. I used writing throughout all the years growing up – to heal, to understand, to express, to be. Fast forward to seventeen, I am lying in a hospital bed diagnosed with a complex eating disorder (anorexia, orthorexia, and exercise addiction.) “A week left to live,” the doctors said. In that same hospital stay my sister bought me a journal from the hospital gift store and reminded me that writing is how I heal. “Alz, I know you haven’t written in a while, but maybe you can write after meals, or to calm your mind again,” she said.
I slowly started to write again as I slowly started to gain back my thoughts – renourishing both my mind and body after months of deprivation. One of my first journal entries, I wrote, “one day I’ll be okay. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but one day. One day I’ll write a book about this.”
I thought that my healing process started and ended in the hospital, but little did I know it was only just beginning. It was not until a second hospital stay and then going to college, till I actually put the pen in my own hand and truly began writing my story. During the fall semester of my freshman year, I understood for the first time that I could not keep living like this. I could not keep living under my eating disorder’s wrath. I needed help. It was the first time that I raised my white flag and said I cannot do this – not my parents gentle force or the doctors orders – but my own choice. In that moment I truly started writing my own narrative where I knew my eating disorder would not be part of the ending.
It has taken me nine years since that time and ten years since my first diagnosis to actually write and publish my book, but all along I was healing, all along I was embracing the non-linear process. Even through all the highs and lows and everything in between, I never gave up. The small glimpses of hope that I would get of how full life could be without my eating disorder kept me going and the community of people who never gave up on me.
My memoir, Beyond My Body is my processing of all that was, all that is, and all that is to come.
Beyond My Body is a compilation of stories about my early adolescence, being a young woman, the lowest parts of my eating disorder, discovering life again, and everything in between. I write in vignette style to portray the nonlinear healing process of any mental health illness, but especially eating disorders. The stories can be read separately or together as one compilation.
Beyond My Body shows how different experiences and factors impacted my eating disorder, and how it gave me a false sense of control and then stripped me of my life and everything that made me, me. The memoir then begins to transition into the early stages of recovery and the choice I made to finally recover for myself, instead of for my parents or doctors. In parts four and five, the vignettes demonstrate how expansive life became for me as I began to let go of my eating disorder, as well as how scary it can be to figure out who you are without your illness.
Beyond My Body is for anyone affected by an eating disorder, body dysmorphia, compulsive exercise, or feelings of not being enough. I wrote it in the hopes that the words would make each individual feel seen, heard, and understood. It is also for support systems, coaches, mentors, teachers, and caregivers to better understand what may be occurring with someone who is struggling with an eating disorder. I wrote this book to continue to break the stigma around eating disorders and show the complexity of this illness. Most importantly, I wrote this book for my younger self and my family who never gave up on me.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
I’ve embarked on a transformative journey of building different brands over time, including a yoga brand, a running brand, and a podcast. For so long, I thought that I had to build a brand to be able to create a business. However, during the publishing process of my memoir, I had a significant shift in my perspective that led me to a powerful realization: I am my brand. Rather than spreading myself thin across various identities, I’ve come to believe in myself and what I can uniquely offer to the world.
This evolution has brought about a dynamic approach to the services and programming I provide. They naturally evolve in sync with my personal growth and development. My unique strength lies in my unshakeable belief in the value I create and the positive impact I can have. I’ve come to understand that I don’t need to hide behind a brand; I am the brand, especially in the realms of content and wellness.
The heart of this transition is focused on identifying the unique value I can provide and harnessing my personal superpowers. It’s about embracing what makes me, me, and leveraging that authenticity to connect with others and make a meaningful difference in their lives. This shift has allowed me to pivot from building brands to believing in the power of being my own brand, with all the potential and authenticity that entails. This provides me with space to combine all of my different skills and offerings to truly meet each individual, entity, organization, and myself exactly where we are at.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.allyrae.co/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/allyraepesta/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/allyson-pesta/
Image Credits
Some of the images have been taken by Rylo creative: https://rylocreative.com/