Hey friend, I'm Riley.
I'm passionate about all things self-love, mindset, spirituality, personal development and wellness.
I'm a coach and energy healer, and I host retreats, workshops and events and work with my clients online.
I regularly receive the question:
"How did you get started doing that?"
So, here's my story.
My business grew from my own healing journey. My journey grew from my lifelong history of battling self-sabotage in one form after the next - which grew from my subconscious belief that I wasn't good enough, lovable, or worthy of good things, which I was completely unaware of.
So, let's backtrack.
I was born on Vancouver Island. When I was about 8 years old we relocated to Vancouver and then to Calgary, Alberta shortly after that. I spent my formative teenage years in Calgary - living there from age 10 to about age 23.
My mindset work started early. As a young child, I dealt with many fear-based emotional issues. I was plagued by irrational fear, separation anxiety and paralyzing worry. Throughout the course of my elementary school experience, I successfully learned and created tools and coping strategies to manage my negative thoughts.
By the start of junior high, I was "normal". I was seemingly well-adjusted, had lots of friends and did well in school.
Around the age of 15, things would take a turn and I would discover some new, life-changing tools for managing my thoughts and feelings - weed and alcohol. Shortly after that I found another wonderful distraction - my first love and serious relationship.
From this point on, my life began to feel like a dysfunctional marathon. Things were becoming more and more chaotic, and I would drink, smoke and party away the increasing discomfort. My relationship was intense, turbulent and unhealthy - but I was committed - because I had found what we are all searching for, right?
The relationship finally crumbled at the beginning of my 20's which sent me into a downward spiral that included even more binge drinking, working in bars, restaurants and nightclubs, causal sex, putting myself into debt spending money I didn't have on Vegas trips, music festivals and whatever else I wanted to avoid the pain, and developing an eating disorder.
Throughout this near decade of being a party-monster, I was always also dedicated to my "fitness" - working out very hard, very regularly and was very strict about what I ate. Yet, I could never out-train or out-diet my lifestyle.
Shortly after that relationship ended, I decided to move from Calgary back to Vancouver, where I didn't know more than a couple people. It didn't take long for me to latch into the party scene and make tons of "friends".
The crazy part is - I genuinely believed I was having a great time. Maybe I was. I was the life of the party and thrived on late nights, free drinks and wild stories. But around age 26, it stopped being fun. By this time, I was in another relationship and again, it was troubled. I believed I was the problem, and so initially sought out therapy and spirituality as a means of "fixing" myself - so that he would finally love me the way I wanted to be loved.
Spoiler alert: the relationship couldn't be fixed, and I didn't need fixing.
This was the start of a long, beautiful, painful, twisted, miraculous, life-changing healing journey - that I am still navigating today.
I learned about my childhood trauma and wounds.
I learned about my limiting beliefs and fears.
I learned I was an empath - and a narcissist magnet.
I learned about my ego.
I learned about my energy.
I learned that we are never taught how to feel our feelings and process our emotions effectively.
I learned that alcohol had no place in my life.
I learned how to really, truly love myself.
I learned so much, so fast, that sometimes I felt like I was going to explode with all my new knowledge and insight. I wanted to share it with anyone who would listen - but almost nobody in my life at the time gave a shit.
Eventually, I graduated from university and found a corporate job, because again, that's wha you're supposed to do. I hated it. It made me resent my own reality.
I quit, and decided to pursue a career in personal training. This I did not hate. I was good at it. Once I started to do the inner-work and shift my relationship with food and alcohol, I began to embody true wellness - I felt strong, healthy and confident - and I was passionate about helping others achieve the same.
One problem: true wellness comes from the inside, out.
I was always looking for ways to incorporate mindset, spirituality and personal development into my fitness business, but I was busy, my personal training career was thriving - and then Covid happened.
Within the same month, I wrote off my vehicle, my relationship ended, the world shut down, then the gym I worked for went bankrupt. I had nowhere to live, no car, no job, no income and a decision to make:
Was I going to find a job, or create one?
The universe wiped my slate completely clean, and it was the best gift I have ever received. After a couple weeks of crying and feeling sorry for myself, I got my shit together and decided that this was not a curse - it was an opportunity.
I started writing a free personal development newsletter during lockdown. I started creating online group programs around self-love and mindset. I put all my energy into building a community.
Almost instantly, I was offered an opportunity to host a wellness retreat that summer. I had no idea HOW, but I said yes, and the rest is history. It was the most exciting, rewarding and meaningful "work" I had ever experienced in my life. People told me the weekend changed their lives - and it definitely changed mine.
I began putting more and more energy into my mindset programs until in January 2021, I made the decision to leave fitness behind and focus exclusively on mindset and self-love coaching.
And so, here we are.
Toward the end of 2021, I sold all my stuff and spent all of 2022 and the first half of 2023 traveling the world and learning how to build an online coaching business. I spent extended periods living and working in Costa Rica, Mexico, Nicaragua, California, Bali, Australia and New Zealand. And now I'm back! I'm living back on Vancouver Island for the first time as an adult.
To me, now, it's clear. I spent the majority of my life trying to outrun myself. I cycled through every type of sabotage under the sun - binge eating, binge drinking, years of abusing and even being addicting to cannabis, toxic relationships, over-spending, partying... I tried every approach to creating happiness and avoiding pain - and nothing worked.
That's because, until I really got to know myself, I was trying to "fix" myself with someone else's tool-kit. I didn't know who I was, what I wanted, or why I was doing what I was doing. I was living in a fog. I was chasing things I didn't truly care about, I was seeking validation in ways that made me feel worse - and all I knew was I was sick and tired of feeling sick and tired.
I have now had the pleasure of helping hundreds of other amazing people get to know themselves, clear the fog and start living with intention. We are unstuck. We are empowered. We are free!