What a year.
The above was written without an exclamation mark on purpose because that year was 2025.
There was a lot of change in the world—much of it, um, not so good—and I think it’s safe to say a lot of us are looking forward to these 365 days being in the rearview mirror.
But also, this was the year we launched Unboxing It!
And that deserves at least two sentences with exclamations!
This little podcast grew from a “what if we did this?” into “OMG we’re actually doing this!” It was like watching our audio baby take its first steps.
We’ve had over thirty heartfelt conversations on personal growth, societal issues, and breaking free of expectations. We’ve had several guests lend their wisdom (thank you!), and plenty of feedback from you, the listeners, that we’ve tried to fold into the shaping of this passion project.
In this final week of December, your intrepid hosts Lara and Rowan look back on this year of podcasting. Why did we start this thing in the first place? What were our favourite episodes - and yours? Have any of our views changed on these topics since first tackling them? And most importantly, what’s next?
Oh, and this is important, too: Because Rowan (that’s me) will be opening a coffee shop and wine bar in January 2026 and Lara has some new projects on the go too, we’ll be moving from a weekly episode to every two weeks while the dust settles. We love our podcast, but we also need to honour where life take us and guard against burnout.
Thank you for an incredible year. We can’t wait to show you what’s coming in 2026!
With love and gratitude,
Rowan and Lara
Links
Episode 12 Arrogance vs Confidence
Episode 21 Should you have kids?
Episode 27 Aging Against Conformity
Transcript
[00:00:00] Rowan: This feels better if I’m more true to myself, more aligned with myself, that feels better, not just in the transition way, but in so many other ways that I just wanna help other people maybe get there sooner than I did.
[00:00:39] Lara: Welcome to unboxing it. I’m Lara.
[00:00:41] Rowan: And I’m Rowan.
[00:00:42] Lara: And this is episode 35.
[00:00:46] Rowan: 35
[00:00:48] Lara: 35. That’s a lot of episodes.
[00:00:50] Rowan: That’s my age.
[00:00:51] Lara: Yeah,
maybe
[00:00:53] Rowan: that’s my age. Plus 14, I guess. But who’s counting?
[00:00:58] Lara: It’s too late. We’ve told everybody we’re almost 50 a million times in those 35 episodes.
[00:01:02] Rowan: Yeah, it’s true. It’s true.
The cat’s outta the bag.
[00:01:05] Lara: Cat’s out of the bag. But we wanted to spend this episode talking a little bit about. Those 35 episodes. This is the last episode of 2025. So it’s that time of year where you do a little bit of reflection, bit of, what’s coming next. And it seemed like the perfect time to do that for the podcast too.
[00:01:25] Rowan: and we have so many topics that we’ve covered like so
many.
[00:01:31] Lara: Yes, we have talked about a lot, including a few about aging, but everything from confidence and arrogance and people pleasing and fatness and and and so many, and I’ve really loved it. this is not my first podcast. I have had. Quite a few years of podcasting and I always struggled to ever listen to the episodes after they were recorded.
And every week I look forward to listening to our conversation in its entirety and just kind of, well first of all, I get to do this a lot. Mm-hmm. I still agree with myself. can be fun for me. But I think the conversations are interesting. I’ve gotten feedback from other people that it has them thinking.
I have gotten feedback from people that they’re maybe driving and they’re like. Asking questions out loud back to us. I wish I could hear them because it’s getting people thinking about things they don’t always agree, and that’s okay too. But it has people thinking about a lot of topics that I think are worth thinking about.
And so to me, that alone means that this
project has been a great success.
[00:02:50] Rowan: I am proud of what we’ve done so far. One of the things I do want to talk about is how we got started. Like, what, was it that. Got us saying to each other, you know what we should do? We should have a podcast.
Because I think a lot of people talk about whether they’re joking or not. You have a lot of people talking about like, well, you should have a podcast, or I should have a podcast. think The running jokes since I transitioned was, well, Rowan, you know, as a man you should have a podcast, cuz don’t all men have podcasts?
We actually came up with this just based on our friendship and the conversations that we have,
[00:03:27] Lara: Yeah.
And
our previous work, right? Both of us have done a lot of work around helping. Other people feel comfortable being who they are, and whether it’s been your books or my book or the advocacy work you do, whether it’s in queer spaces or not, the crux of so much of what we like to talk about is to help people understand themselves better and be comfortable with themselves and.
We naturally, when we’re having conversations talk about that stuff, so why not talk about
it.
while other people can also benefit from the fascinatingly interesting things we say.
[00:04:09] Rowan: Yes, that’s how I would describe us. Fascinatingly. Interesting.
[00:04:14] Lara: We are, hopefully people agree with that, but I do think.
I mean, I think we’re interesting. That’s what I think.
[00:04:22] Rowan: Well, I think that there’s a lot of life experience between us. And some of it is the same and some of it is vastly different.
And that lends to some insight, some wisdom, and just also I think a certain level at middle age of , I’m gonna say fed upness, like I’ve just had enough of trying to buy in to society in ways that don’t work for and I was somebody who was very, very big into rules when I was younger. If I just follow these societal rules, my life will be just fine and. That was not the case. In fact, I had to break a lot of those rules and go against the grain and push for a more authentic way of living. That has led to freedom and a more profound happiness contentment, if you will. and I think I just got to the point where I was like, this feels better if I’m more true to myself, more aligned with myself, that feels better, not just in the transition way, but in so many other that I just wanna help other people maybe get there sooner than I did, because ultimately I think for real happiness, we all have to arrive at the place where we are truest to ourselves. And still kind and loving and willing to grow. Some of us get there later, and if we’re lucky, some of us get there a lot sooner. So that was a reason for me to want to do this podcast.
[00:06:06] Lara: I think some of the things for you and I, where we have started figuring it out, came partially more out of necessity than others.
Which became a gift, even if it didn’t always feel great at the time, but because you’re kind of pushed into new areas, you learn more. have to also be open to it. But I do think a lot of other people, and, and that’s part of my motivation, have just never really thought about certain things. They’ve never really considered certain things.
They’ve never decided not to be open to a different way of thinking. They just never knew a different way of thinking was possible. And until we talk about things, I don’t think. People do know things, right? It can be the simplest thing, but if you don’t know that that’s a thing, you’re not gonna start doing it.
And so having conversations storytelling, all of that. I think that’s so important, and I hope that’s what people are taking away
from the podcast.
[00:07:01] Rowan: Exactly. when you think
of, say our first. Episode, like we just jumped right in. We’re like, let’s talk about being fat. Let’s just go right there, because we are both larger people and we both have experiences with feeling all right with that and not feeling all right with that and watching struggle and struggling ourselves.
How do you feel about that first idea and have your thoughts on it changed at all?
[00:07:33] Lara: I don’t think my thoughts have changed. What I immediately thought when you said, our first episode was on fatness was, I don’t think we’ve done enough on body image. Maybe we need to be talking about that some more.
I think it’s such a huge one, and how we see ourselves and how we feel in our bodies is huge.
Sorry, I got stuck on a huge being another word for being really fat and then that was not what I meant, but that’s in my head.
[00:08:02] Rowan: It’s amazing.
[00:08:04] Lara: Anyhow, I think that it was a really great place to start, right? Because it was a bit of a vulnerable thing for both of us potentially, to talk about, because we could relate to how it, impacted us our whole lives. But then that’s how we continued talking about things, whether it’s about, things being fair
or you and I talk a lot about how it’s impacted us and what I hope people understand is we do that so that you can see the topic in a way that seems human and then understandable more than just as like this general philosophy topic. I want you to know preachy thing
[00:08:43] Rowan: There are so many
ways to approach a topic to feel about that topic.
And some are far more personal than others. Like, everybody has some kind of relation to something like fatness because you either have more weight on your body or you don’t, or you perceive your body a certain way as maybe being bigger than it is, or smaller than it is, or, it ties into fitness.
It ties into, relationships. It ties into. All different kinds of things. It’s a very complex issue. Unfortunately, I wish it wasn’t. I wish that we could just meet ourselves where we’re at because there is nothing more attractive. About a person than confidence in my opinion. And then confidence is what can make your whole life better.
And I’m not talking about ego, we’ve talked about that too, ego and arrogance and confidence. But I’m talking about just owning the space that you take up, being comfortable with who you are. still saving space for others, obviously, I will say. About fatness specifically. I still feel very much the same as I did before about my body and that I am a larger person and that I’m okay with that.
But I will definitely admit that since having top surgery, I feel so much more at home in my body.
So you wanna talk about self-image? My relation to my larger body is healthier than it has ever been because I don’t feel at war with it at all. There are not parts on my body that I really wish weren’t there, and it has more masculine appearance and that.
Makes me feel so much better about my belly and about everything else. Right. So it got even better. I think that’s sometimes what people miss about
transness is that, it has
a lot of. Similar characteristics. Body dysphoria has a lot of similar characteristics to poor body image. It’s not quite the same, but it really comes down to this delicate balance for me.
Between changing what I can and knowing that that feels right, because of course the argument could be made that like, well, if you got comfortable with your belly, why couldn’t you get comfortable with your breasts? But they’re very different things in some ways too. But having no breasts anymore.
Which I still put my hands over my chest several times a day. Like eight and a half weeks in now I’m doing it right now ‘cause I just sometimes just still can’t believe that my chest feels right. I think just having. That even though it’s not, you know, does it look like Thor’s chest?
No, of course it doesn’t. It looks like a bigger guy’s chest. but I’m so happy with it. So, yeah, all of this stuff about self-worth and we should do more on self-worth and just about self-love and what it really means to love yourself. What it really means to, feel right and the importance of it.
Because the amount of energy that we expend on not feeling at home in ourselves, however that is it just takes away from so much. So that’s a very convoluted way of saying that. I feel even better now than I did during episode one because of gender affirming care. And it has helped me love my body in a way I did not think possible.
[00:12:27] Lara: I love that. That’s true. I love that For you, I think it’s an interesting topic to dig more into and we had somebody even suggested as a topic, and we haven’t covered it yet, because I think it’s such a big topic to figure out how to handle right, is how to love yourself more, and knowing that I am.
Not somebody who would ever dismiss gender affirming care. I feel like I have to put a caveat in before the next thing I say, which is I have a lot of envy at the idea of feeling good in my body, right? Like, I’m so happy for you. I think it’s amazing that you’re feeling better in your body, that it feels more correct.
I envy that and I don’t know what will need to happen for that to be true for
me.
[00:13:15] Rowan: Yeah, And I think you represent a lot of people in a statement like that. I know many people who are even much older than we are. I know many people who are younger and would arguably have bodies that are enviable themselves, you know, oh, like I kill for that metabolism.
You know, like, oh, what do you mean you don’t have to work out and you look like that? That’s amazing. Or whatever it might be. Whatever it might be. . But they also don’t feel good and so I think it comes down to it being a lot more about the work we do inside than whatever is going on outside.
So, yeah, that is a topic. To explore for sure. A lot of it is mindset. Some of it is trauma, some of it is mental health. Some of it is physical health. I mean, it just can go on and on. But I would like to see us unpack that a bit more because even though I’ve done a lot of work on that overall, and I can very confidently say I love myself, I don’t hate the way I look.
I don’t hate the way I feel except for my knees lately. Like, come on knees. Like, give me a break. , Oh wait, we already talked about that too. I was gonna say that’s just aging. But now we know, that that is not always aging. that’s a fascinating topic as well.
I think the guests that we’ve had on have. Enlightened me so much that conversation, about aging and how to look at the body holistically and how we don’t have to subscribe to this idea that aging means pain or immobility. It was, was so transformational for me. what did you take away from that and other conversations that we had?
Like what were some of the big takeaways for you when it came to our guests this year?
[00:15:15] Lara: Well, I definitely wanted to bring up that I love the discussions we have with our guests, right? Whether it was Marie, we talked about, education with Stephanie and we talked with Misty, who is another author. We’ve talked with a bunch of people and I think. Having these conversations where you just keep getting other people’s perspectives on things, right?
Where you keep understanding it from more and more directions where you can learn from other people’s knowledge. Julie, who we also talk to about aging is somebody who I’m constantly learning more from in terms of. What I might have been taught unconsciously, how society teaches us and reinforces negative messages, how we can start changing that conversation and for us to keep talking about this stuff.
It’s always helping me. Understand a little bit more, relate to myself a little bit more, figure out how to talk to other people about things, how to support other people. Like I don’t think any of us should be attempting to figure all this out alone. And the more conversations
we can have with the more people, the better.
[00:16:27] Rowan: You said something in there
that made me think of another topic that I want to touch on next year, and that is the societal belief that once you get to a certain age, you don’t matter anymore. You’re no longer relevant. I know we’ve talked about it a little bit here and there, but I found myself while we were thinking about, , all the things we’ve done on aging and the fact that we talk about how we’re almost 50 and, all these different things, that there’s almost a level of embarrassment or shame.
That’s just this little undercurrent in me, and I know it’s not coming from me not me directly is what I’m trying to say. I’ve always looked at people who are older than me and thought, wow, you have so much life experience that’s really cool. Like you’ve lived twice as long as I have. That’s, very hard to find these days.
Somebody who’s lived twice as long as me, you’d have to be at least 98 at this point. they exist. But I think there’s also this idea, and I saw this happen on queer TikTok, for example, not too long ago where there was this sentiment going around that if you were over 30, you really were irrelevant.
At this point, you should just shut up 30 years old, you know, there were like 17 to 22 year olds basically going like, no, if you’re not young like us, , you have nothing valid to say. Right. So I do think that there needs to be more discussion about this because. It also happens on the other side where you have people going, well, you’re so young, you have nothing of value to say you haven’t lived yet.
And that’s not true either. So, maybe this episode is really just a brainstorming session on other things we wanna talk about, but it is, a valid criticism of how society works. I think there’s room at the table for everybody, right.
I think aging has been a fantastic topic. One of the topics we got a little bit of pushback on, and by a little bit of pushback. I mean, we got one comment, but it was valid. we discussed having children and, being childless by choice, and think you responded to that comment, so I’m gonna let you speak on it a little bit.
Yeah. I think that the feedback was maybe as people with children, you shouldn’t speak for people who. Don’t have children or who don’t want children, and I think that’s a valid thing in all places. I also think that we very much wanted to make it clear we were trying to give our perspective on what we might say to somebody who’s thinking about having kids and how we know that when we grew up having kids was.
Presented as the thing you would definitely do unless for some reason like nobody wanted to marry you.
Yeah. Like if you were a successful adult, you were going to get married. And you were going to have children, and if you didn’t do those things, there was this idea that there was something wrong with your life.
So yeah, we were trying to present in a different way. And also I think we were saying that, you know, there were a ton of podcasts and videos and essays and even books from people who chose not to have children. And them saying, this is why I did it and this is why it works for me. And this is what I would say to somebody who’s weighing those options.
And there are also some people with children who will put a lot of pressure on others. To do exactly what they did and have children for maybe some of the reasons we said maybe for religious reasons, cultural reasons, all these different things we were trying to talk about how it’s really okay not to have kids, because having kids can be very challenging and it does change your life.
Not that we don’t love our kids or regret our choices, but trying to give a very realistic view. Of what that looked like.
[00:20:40] Lara: And I think that episode actually might have spoken even more to a different segment of people than we first thought it would be for. Right? So whether it’s for people who are either feeling like they maybe don’t wanna have children but feel like that’s not really accepted, or they didn’t have children like that sort of side.
But I also got some feedback from people with children who appreciated. Our candid discussion about the fact that it isn’t always easy, that it is hard, and that that isn’t a thing that people talk about very much. And so it can feel like, well, I’m the only one struggling. Everybody else seems to have it easy, but when we have candid discussions about topics people don’t talk a lot about, it can help all kinds of people in different ways.
[00:21:25] Rowan: We’re recording this just before Christmas, like about four days before, and my week is half opening a coffee shop because I’m getting the keys in a couple weeks. So it is just mayhem and also. Between my partner and I, we have five adult children and four of them are coming for the holidays and one is recovering from surgery.
So she is not coming for the holidays, but I’ve got grocery lists running through my head. I have gotta go pick two of them up from their place , and that’s outta town and there’s a puppy. A puppy’s coming, right? Like, it’s like all these different things , and so it doesn’t end.
Having children isn’t just like, well, they’re 18 now. Like they’re, all of them are adults and we’re still doing this, you know, crazy holiday, like whatever. And this is just, the holidays of course gonna be the busiest time, but my life is. Always, I’m always taking into consideration five extra people.
I love those five extra people. They are the best humans in the world. Also, my brain. Is as full as my heart. my heart feels great about it, and my brain is just a little chaos monkey right now. So anyway, I’m glad that we could add that perspective. and I understand if it was taken wrong, or if somebody had their own views on it.
But I don’t regret doing that episode. I think it’s awesome that the suggestion was made that we should talk to. Some people who are childless by choice. We actually did at one point, we talked to Julie, who, chose not to have kids, and she talked about how aging looks different when you don’t follow the script, which was a fantastic conversation.
I’d love to have more of these. I wanna have more perspectives like this. If there’s anything that I wanna see more for us in the future, it’s diversity. I wanna see more people from completely different backgrounds come on our show, and I want to give them this space to discuss their experiences and educate those of us who have not lived those experiences, that’s a big 2026 goal for me.
[00:23:44] Lara: Yeah, I think that would be wonderful. I would also say that one of the things. I certainly worried about ahead of time, and that did happen a little bit on one episode and I may not have even told you, was that if we put our opinions out there, people are gonna tell us we’re wrong. And there was the episode on, being late.
And how that’s something that I struggle with. And had at least one person, I think two people when I posted. it might have been on TikTok, it was on social media, it wasn’t on our post who said no, like it’s super rude. Being late is rude. in this day and age, just get a calendar kind of responses and.
That’s the kind of thing that would’ve crushed me in the past because I was like, I knew it, I’m terrible. fortunately I was just like, and you are. Why we are having this discussion. Like, End of story. The fact that you can’t see the other point of view, because a lot of the people who respond that way do it in a very matter of fact way.
Right? Like you were wrong. End of story versus understanding that different people operate in different ways and that we need to take different things into consideration and that different solutions work for different people. And that’s why we’re having these conversations so that you can know that there are different kinds of brains that you can know that when somebody’s doing something, they’re not willfully trying to be a jerk.
They might just really struggle with it, even though you don’t struggle with that thing. And so. I guess the two sides of that were, one, I didn’t get crushed when somebody told me I was wrong, which is good, but also that this is why we’re having these discussions.
[00:25:26] Rowan: Okay, so first of all,
just want to very. Emphatically commend you for that kind of growth. Because as somebody who gets a lot of criticism online, it can be really hard, and there are some things where they hit harder because there may be a kernel of truth in them. To me, I may. Kind of believe that already about myself, and then somebody says it and it just pokes the wound.
Right? It just hits that really sensitive spot. So, good job. The other thing is I think there’s a way to give feedback that is not awful. And if only people could do that more often. For example, let’s say I heard that conversation. And I run a tight ship of an office and I need people there on time, what will be more helpful in my opinion, would be to say, you know, I work in a medical office and it can be really difficult when people come in late for these reasons.
So I just wanted to provide the other side of that because while I understand you’re struggling, I think perhaps I’d also like you to understand that it really hurts me too when you show up late that. Would be a very different thing than well just get a calendar loser. You know what I mean?
in this day and age, there’s just no excuse to be late anymore. , And I’m not saying anyone called you a loser, but what I’m trying to say is that like, that’s the difference between a discussion and a judgment. If you’re judging someone, you already think you’re right, and no matter what they say or do, doesn’t matter.
But if you’re. Trying to get them to see your point as well, and you’re at the same time trying to understand where they’re coming from. That is a healthy discussion and I would love to see in general, not just with our podcast, but like in general all over the place, much more of that in the new year.
[00:27:27] Lara: Yes. I agree emphatically. I did want to also take a moment to acknowledge, we have these conversations and then my lovely husband Eric edits. These podcasts and we haven’t really talked about that, but he spends a lot of time going through these, cleaning them up, taking out, the things we might have stumbled over.
And I really appreciate it. And not only do I really appreciate it, but I have had multiple people tell me that they find our podcast easy to listen to, which I think is a lot to do with the editing. So I just wanna take a moment to acknowledge him and all the hard work he does. And we know he’s listening.
[00:28:14] Rowan: That’s true. also wanna take a moment, I’m just gonna call my audio husband from now on, but Eric, thank you. And, I’m sure that there are a lot of people listening who would thank you as well. It is really difficult work. I have a child who works as an audio engineer and does a lot of.
Audio books, the various levels of editing that go into those, and it’s meticulous and it takes skill, and I am very grateful that Eric puts in the work to make this a reality for us. So thank you.
[00:28:49] Lara: Well, I think then we should look a little bit forward into 2026. We’ve done 35 episodes. What do we see coming next other than the fact that we’ve come up with some new topics right here today?
I think we should say a little bit about what 2026 is gonna look like. Especially keeping in mind Rowan is about to open a coffee shop,
[00:29:11] Rowan: right? So I am getting the keys to a coffee shop in about two weeks, and it has been built from the ground up, so. I need to say that when we first came up with this idea for this podcast and when we started to record this podcast, even.
There was no coffee shop in the works. This all came about because my partner dani, lost her job. And then a project that was very near and dear to me that I was working on that was DEI focused, was scrapped. In large part, I think because of the anti DEI climate of 2025. So we were in this position where we didn’t know what to do next, and then it very quickly pivoted into let’s do the thing we always dreamed about.
So that thing has been months in the making and in early 2026, like January. We’re opening. I can’t believe it. It’s weird to say. It’s weird to say that on record, like we are opening in January, so. I’m gonna be pretty busy. And, we’re not staffing it full of, amazing people yet because we can’t afford to until we figure out what our revenue’s gonna look like, which means I’m working seven days a week, which means I’m gonna have less time for podcasting.
And so we’ve made the decision that at least for now, for the first little bit of 2026, we’re gonna go to every two weeks.
[00:30:42] Lara: Yeah, it is, quite a bit of work and both of us have other things that are pulling us in some directions, but we love it too much to give it up. We hope all of you love it enough to keep listening and to keep telling people about it.
But for a little bit, we’ll go to every other week and then maybe some of you, will have time to catch up on some of the 35 episodes you haven’t gotten to yet.
[00:31:04] Rowan: That’s right. I mean, and, this is not a plug, this is just a statement. We have some amazing paid subscribers right now and we’re very grateful for them.
If we get more paid subscribers, then we’ll be generating. An income from this, like a real income that will allow for us to create more time for it. And so that’s usually how podcasting works, right? You sort of start at the bottom. Think there’s a guy from Toronto who sang about that at one point
and, you work your way up. This is really a passion project for us, though. I mean, in my opinion. I would keep doing this regardless, but I do have to do it a little less right now because I have to make. Some money. I really need to make some money next year. I have to prioritize that.
But also I’m so excited to be building some community here in Toronto and creating a space that’s welcoming and safe for people. So that’s, something that, in my heart of hearts, at some point I am gonna be able to find some fantastic staff that will run it at least half the time for us, and I will have much more time to podcast and do all these other fun things I really like to do.
[00:32:10] Lara: like the manly man You are with your podcast. That’s right. That’s right. I mean, am I even a man without a podcast? Ooh, I’m not sure.
I dunno. So I think that I wanna just end by celebrating the amazing 2025 success. Of having launched this podcast and being able to have so many great discussions. Thank you to all of you who have been listening.
Thank you to all of you who have supported us becoming, a paid subscriber. Thank you to everybody who shared this with other folks. We appreciate you. We can’t wait to keep having these discussions with you in 2026. And there’s lots of room for us to keep talking about lots of things because society is, still throwing all kinds of expectations at us that we are ready to shut down.
[00:33:01] Rowan: I love it. You’re such a rebel. Thank you to everybody for being here with us, and I’m really looking forward to a fantastic 2026 with you.
[00:33:13] Lara: Happy New Year.
[00:33:14] Rowan: Happy New Year.
