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Ashley Napoli - The Courage to Choose Yourself · She’s Smart

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Hey, everybody. Welcome to She's Smart. When was the last time you stopped thinking
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about what everyone else needed and asked yourself, what do I actually want?
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Today on She's Smart, I'm joined by Ashley Napoli, founder of Living Lotus and
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Living Well, a yoga instructor, coach, retreat leader, and former English teacher
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who, after 18 years in the classroom, decided it was time to listen to that
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little voice telling her she wanted something different.
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Ashley and I talk about what happens when we spend so much of our lives taking
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care of everyone else that we lose touch with ourselves.
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We get into self-worth, the pressure to have it all figured out,
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and why we look to others for validation, and how incredibly difficult and important
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it can be to let go of expectations.
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We also talk about the difference between self-care and actually valuing yourself,
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learning to say no without guilt, and why sometimes the smallest changes can
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make the biggest difference.
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What I love about this conversation is the reminder that you don't have to completely
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upend your life to make a change.
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Sometimes it starts with giving yourself permission to want something different.
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So get cozy as we connect, learn,
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and laugh together on She's Smart with today's guest, Ashley Napoli.
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Ashley, thank you so much for joining me on She's Smart. I'm so happy that you
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reached out and that you're here.
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This is super fun to have you in this space with me.
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So I'd love to talk. When I first have guests sit down, I'd love to go back
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to where it started so that we can go to now.
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So you were a teacher for 18 years.
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What led you after 18 years? My mom was a teacher for 30.
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And when she left teaching English, eighth grade. Me too. Y'all are crazy.
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You are crazy people. I don't know how you do it, how she did it. She loved it.
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It's just I have a I have a seventh grader and I just, you know,
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and a ninth grader and they're nuts.
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So I am like very impressed and also think you guys have a different bone in
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your body that we don't have.
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At what point did you say, all right, it's time for me to step back.
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I want to I want to change what I'm doing.
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So it's kind of a combination of things.
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It was my 18th year teaching, and I had already been teaching yoga and really
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tapping into this different gift that I had of working with women and working
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on retreats and really going deeper.
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And I felt like teaching wasn't my calling anymore. And as much as I loved working
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with the kids and creating curriculum, it just started to feel a little bit
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stale. I wanted something more.
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The simple answer is probably because my daughter was going into kindergarten
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and I wanted to be closer to home and closer to her.
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But I just felt this calling to do something different.
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And because I had been leading these workshops and seeing this transformation
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in people and myself from going on retreats and going in the depths,
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right, to discover what I really wanted to do.
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That voice just kept getting louder and louder.
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And I think Oprah says it it's like first it's a whisper then it's a knock and
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then it's like this banging banging that you can't ignore anymore yeah it wakes you up up,
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I've been there so I understand I understand that feeling for sure and was there
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a specific moment or it was just those slow steps to being like one day it felt
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this way and the next day it's like you said a little bit stronger a little bit stronger
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yes did you feel like you retired before you actually retired yeah.
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Yes. Okay. A hundred percent. Okay. I sort of had one foot out the door.
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I was in one school for 16 years and I loved it until I didn't because I felt
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this pull and I decided I'm going to go closer to home.
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Maybe a different school will like reignite something. I high school for a little while.
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And, you know, it was the same sort of career, but just a different building.
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But I knew it was temporary because I took a leave replacement.
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And I sort of just knew I was setting myself up for something.
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And I got there and it was kind of like the same thing again.
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Maybe the kids were a little different. Maybe the school was a little different.
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But that inside of me was just saying, yeah, this isn't for you anymore.
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So that's how I started kind of coaching and doing my workshops on the side
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until that leave replacement ended.
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And then I did a few interviews and I just couldn't fake it anymore.
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I was on these interviews and I was like, I guess they want me to say this and
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I could say this, but it was almost like I couldn't even talk the talk anymore. I didn't want to.
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Did your people around you question it when you're like, I'm done,
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I'm going to go do something else?
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What was that? Oh, yes. Like, how could you leave all this time you've put in?
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You only have this many years. I'm like, yeah, that's a lot more years,
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you know, to get to that quote unquote retirement. Yeah. You have a pension.
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You have the best benefits. You have summers off all the things.
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Right. I was making a really great salary at the time, too. And,
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you know, I needed that. It wasn't like I had a partner that was supporting
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me financially. So that was really hard.
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But I just felt this.
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Instinctual and really intuitive ping that I had to try it.
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I had to give it a shot because if I didn't, I would regret the feeling that I never did it.
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So once I decided, I didn't feel like I needed to explain to anyone except my mom.
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It was like, I just need to have this conversation with her because I don't
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want her to worry. I want her to know no matter what, I will be okay.
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And I didn't need her support financially, but I just needed the emotional support.
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And I remember calling her from my car and just being like, Mom,
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I just need you to understand. I don't have it all figured out,
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but I just need you to support me and know I'm not crazy. And,
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you know, this is all going to work out.
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And I was so emotional on that call. And she just said, all right, I trust you.
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And that was such a breakthrough for even my relationship with my own mom to
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know that like she's going to be there no matter what and support me.
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And that was a big breakthrough for me. This takes on a whole other level,
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too, because you aren't in a relationship where someone else is tapping in.
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Like, when you leave your job, you're it, right? You are the breadwinner.
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You are making sure everyone's taken care of.
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How did that stress not stop you?
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From doing what you ultimately wanted to do. Because one of my questions in
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here is changing your life.
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You don't need to upend everything if you need a change, right?
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Do you remember that book, Eat, Pray, Love? Oh, my God. And Julia Roberts,
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I know there was a book, and I'm thinking of the movie because that's what I do. I watch the movies.
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Eat, Pray, Love, it was like upending her entire life. And she was like,
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I'm freaking out of here. And I'm going to go eat. I'm going to pray.
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And I'm going to love. And I'm going to, you know, have all the hot sex.
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Yep. Great. But at the same time, in reality, a lot of people don't have that
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opportunity to upend their lives. They have worked three jobs.
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They have three kids that they're taking care of.
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How do you do that? And you were in that position in a way, right?
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It's just you. How did you get through that?
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I'm still getting through it, quite honestly. And it's still something I work
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on actively. Just it's a lot of my mindset.
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You know, I had made a smart investment in real estate a little bit when I was younger.
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And I was fortunate enough to do that, where I had, quote unquote, like an FU fund.
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Oh, we do have those funds. That, you know, stabilized me and made me feel a
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little more, okay, like I'll give it a year, right? If it doesn't work out,
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at least I know I gave it everything.
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Now, three years in, I'm still somehow, I don't know how, working it out.
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And, you know, there was a point recently where I was like, I almost did take
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another teaching job. And it was that pull of like, you're going to have that
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financial stability and you can keep building on the side.
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But there was just like that old mindset creeping in that you need to do this,
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right? This is the smart choice and do it. Yes.
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But that, again, that feeling inside of me knowing, right, I'm not going to
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be able to give my all to my business should I take this position.
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And again, right, everything's temporary.
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I don't have to do this right now.
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But so I was really torn for a couple of days and I decided, you know what? No.
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And I did, I gave myself those three years where now I'm in year three and I'm
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right, I'm all in and I'm not holding back, I'm not playing small and this is
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the year to just really go all in.
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But I would be lying if I said, I don't worry about that sometimes still.
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Yeah, oh gosh, absolutely. Because you know, no one's coming to save you.
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You are gonna do it for yourself. That's right, you are going to save yourself. Yeah.
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When did yoga goat come into this picture for you?
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I started practicing consistently probably around 2015.
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That was really more, you know, I started maybe for the physical benefits.
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But once I realized being on the mat and getting out of my head,
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right, the anxiety, the overthinking, that's when I was like,
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oh, there's really something here.
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This is going to change my life. And two years in to practicing like three,
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four times a week, I was like, I'm going to try teacher training.
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And I was in a studio that I loved so much. It was such a community.
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And I knew this was my teacher. I knew I had to learn from her.
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So I signed up for the training. I guess that was 2017 at this point.
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And just that first like few weeks of the training and I was like,
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oh, my gosh, this is changing my life. This is changing who I am.
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And just consistently showing up to my mat, integrating the practices off the
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mat, right, where you have the road rage and you're like, oh,
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no, I could just breathe through this. I need that sometimes.
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So yoga was a big part of my healing and a big part of me just listening to
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myself again and not getting caught up in all the thoughts that say you're not good enough.
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And just accepting myself where I was at that moment. And even if I just showed
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up to my mat and sat in child's pose for 60 minutes, that was enough.
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And I let myself do that. And that was the first time.
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In my life where I felt I could really slow down.
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And, you know, it's becoming harder and harder in this fast-paced world to do that.
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So yoga is my oasis. It's my place that I come back to all the time where I
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just need to listen to myself.
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I went to a class with a friend of mine up in Rhode Island a few weeks ago,
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and I hadn't been in a yoga class in years. And I practiced Bikram for like
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three years when I lived in Boulder.
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I went to that class and I was like, God, this really felt good.
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I read, I thought that came to mind when I was reading your website and part
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of it when you started your first class, you were like, am I good at this?
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Can I do this? Am I doing it right? Am I doing it wrong?
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Until you were like, I'm doing it the way I'm supposed to be doing it.
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And I think about that because when I went into this yoga class,
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I'm like, I don't remember anything.
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Like, am I doing it right? Am I doing it wrong? I'm like, I don't really know.
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But my friend's next to me and we're really happy.
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So let's just like no expectations, I guess. And I think that we get to a certain
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age or point in our lives where you don't have expectations anymore.
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Like that's something that I think about a lot now. I've let go of expectations,
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expectations of others, expectations of someone's reactions,
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expectations of what a scenario is going to play out.
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And for me, it helps in giving away control.
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Right. Because I'm a very controlling person. I know this about myself.
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And letting go of those expectations, I let go of the control of what's going to happen.
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And that is a freaking ginormous step, I think, for so many of us who have jobs,
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careers, families, spouses, children, parents are starting to take care of.
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Like we're in a part of our lives that's just a clusterfuck of stuff. Oh my gosh, absolutely.
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And the lack of control is massive.
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You don't know what's going to happen tomorrow or even in an hour.
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Like one day my 14-year-old wakes up and he's like sunshine and smush and then
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he wakes up this morning and he's just grouchy pants McGee and now I'm like
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every morning no expectations.
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Right. I will make breakfast and say I love you and get out the door.
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But I feel like yoga has a lot of those practices in it, right, when you're on the mat.
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So if someone is struggling, we'll use yoga as an example, getting back into yoga.
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What is something that we can do to push ourselves just a little bit out of
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that comfort zone and those expectations to get back into something we love
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that we're afraid we're not going to do well in or we're afraid
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we're not going to succeed in the way we're perceiving ourselves to succeed?
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Yeah, I think so much of what you said is this idea that it's for someone else
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or we have to get it right. We have to have it all figured out.
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And yoga puts you back in your body. And a lot of these practices are just embodying
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where you are right now, right?
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Like you said, with expectations, not knowing what tomorrow brings,
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but knowing you can come back to the moment right now.
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And like the best way to get into that is just to be in your body.
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And so many of us want to escape that because like right now is uncomfortable
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or the unknown is uncomfortable.
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And when we move our body, we not only move our limbs, but we move the energy.
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Anything that's stuck within us, right, could be in the solar plexus.
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It's like blocking your creativity or for women, a lot of that in the hips,
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the emotional stagnation of like someone said something to us 10 years ago and
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it's still there because we haven't moved it.
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And I don't think yoga is performative, but unfortunately, the Western world
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and Instagram have made it seem like you have to be great at a handstand to
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be a yogi. In the perfect outfit. Yes.
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And, you know, in the class with all the fancy people. With the perfect body.
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And that's what I really loved about the practice is that it made me feel.
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Accept myself right where I am. My studio didn't have any mirrors,
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so you couldn't even look at yourself.
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And that put you in your body. It's like, I'm not even judging to where I was yesterday.
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I'm just like here right now. And it's such a hard place to get to because we
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do want to control it. We want to get that perfect pose or we want to get that perfect thing.
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And that's just kind of,
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not possible. Like it's letting go of the control and being where you are.
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And honestly, just showing up is half the battle.
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I think when someone's starting something new and you're afraid of what other
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people are going to think about you if you don't have it, right,
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that we just have to let that go.
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And I know it's not the perfect answer, but it's just showing up and being who
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you are in this moment and not trying to have it all figured out.
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When I had to kind of let go of my practice last summer because I had a back injury.
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And I couldn't go on my mat. I couldn't really move my body the way I wanted to.
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So I started writing again. I started picking up watercolor because I was like, I loved art as a kid.
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My art teacher told me I wasn't great. So I stopped doing art.
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So I picked up The Artist's Way. I started reading that book and I started to
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really just write from a place of I'm not writing for anyone else but myself.
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And then watercoloring and just like it doesn't have to be perfect and taking
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the classes and just not measuring myself up,
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against anyone else, but just letting things flow and letting go of the expectation
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of what it has to look like.
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And that brought me back into my body. So even if I didn't have the yoga practice,
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I could be there and just kind of create without any expectations.
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Yeah. That journaling's nice.
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And you're new writing, but for me, it's journaling. Everything comes out of
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my brain and onto that paper. And it is like I flushed, like just flushed it
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out. It has been wiped down the river.
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It is gone. It's kind of incredible when the anxiety builds or there's just so much...
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Self-doubt, negative talk, like that little voice who just keeps pining away at you internally.
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It's good to write it for me, writing it down. It's like, that's my way of taking
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control of it. And I'll write you out of my brain.
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Like, but, but, but. Bringing it back to how I was able to leave my career is
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like I started that practice and I promised myself I was going to journal every
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morning because it got rid of those limiting beliefs.
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And those thoughts of self-doubt, because I would wake up with the mind racing.
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Like, did I really just do this? So committing to, like, I think at the time
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I was like, I'm going to do a 30-day practice. And I woke up every morning and I journaled.
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And I started saying these mantras, right? I find comfort in the discomfort.
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And that reprogrammed something in me. And you really can reprogram the neural
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pathways in your brain if you do this practice, but you have to commit to it.
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It has to be daily. Because one day off, Two days off leads to three and four.
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And then you're like, oh, I forgot I loved journaling in the morning because
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it really helps me and it really rewires.
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So I think just even if you wake up 15 minutes earlier and sit down with the
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page, just brain dump, get it all out.
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You feel so much lighter because you're not a slave to those thoughts.
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Instead, you free up space for creativity and what could go right.
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Yeah, but I think so many of us are afraid of what could go right.
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Yes. Isn't that strange? Yes.
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What could go right? Like the greatest idea ever is this is all going to work
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out. It's going to be awesome. But then there's a voice that's like,
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oh, but what if it does become great? What happens then?
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Like, what do you do at that point? We're actually more nervous.
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You're actually like stifled from that, which I don't understand and would love
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to at some point get to the bottom too. It's like, why do we do that to ourselves?
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Yeah. We're wired for safety.
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Yeah. That child like, okay, I need to just be safe and then we don't take any
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risks because getting out of that comfort zone and trying something new is threatening, right?
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It's like our most basic need is to be safe and secure. And if I do this, I could fail.
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So let me just go back to safety. And that's why we stop ourselves from doing
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these great things. Yeah.
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And I think we also stop ourselves from making it important.
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So I'll give you an example. When I started this podcast, this is the third
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season, I started it. And in my mind, I'm like, whoever's going to listen,
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it is what it is. Like, it doesn't matter to me.
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And it obviously matters to me. But externally, it was easier to say.
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I'm waiting for it to fail so that when it inevitably does, I'm already there.
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I won't be surprised by it. I'm not going to feel bad about it.
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I already know it's going to be, you know, a disaster or whatever it is.
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And it literally put me in a place where I wasn't, not that I wasn't thinking
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about it, but I wasn't giving it enough. Yes.
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Because I was already setting it up to be like, we'll see.
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And it's just something fun. And it still is. So it is something fun.
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But then I realized that it was really important to me.
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And I wasn't just doing it for fun. I actually did it because I really wanted
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it to work. And I really wanted it to be great and massive and huge,
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you know, in my life. I'm like, that's great. That will become that.
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And it'll do that in its time.
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But I stopped going into it being like, this is just for fun.
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This is just for me. And it still is.
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But that negative mentality is not there anymore. And it changed the way I was
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editing. It changed the way I was looking at questions, how I was getting it ready.
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It became more important to me in a way where it was getting those 15 minutes,
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right, that it wouldn't have gotten before.
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Even the way we talk about it and we share about it, to share it from a place
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of excitement and success before it's actually, quote unquote,
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whatever success means, but to.
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Share it with this excitement that it's really something that's so important.
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Yes, it has importance. So you work with women who have spent years taking care
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of everyone else, right?
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So how does a woman know that she's lost touch with herself?
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I think you wake up and you realize you're kind of on autopilot,
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right? A hamster wheel. Yes.
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And you're taking care of everyone else. It's like, does everyone have what they need?
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And then this can show up in a bunch of ways. is it can show up physically where
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you start to feel sick, right? You start to have injuries or things that pop up. You...
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Get to the weekend and you're filling the calendar with things for everyone
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else. And it's like, wait, I didn't do anything for myself this week. Right.
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And I think about this when you're in the baby phase or the toddler phase where
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you're like just eating scraps of food from them and not like preparing half a chicken meal.
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Yes. But then you realize like, yes, I love my kids. I love my family and I want to provide.
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But you can't pour from an empty cup. And then you start to feel resentful or
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you start to feel like you don't even know what you like anymore,
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right? You lose parts of yourself.
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And it's not that they're actually lost, but you just haven't connected with them.
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And you haven't carved out the space to make it important.
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You haven't prioritized it because maybe, again, we're just kind of filling
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that space because sitting with ourselves is uncomfortable or acknowledging that,
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I haven't gone on my mat in weeks makes you feel ashamed.
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So we start to just fill the space and we forget like, I can be bored for a
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little while. I should take a walk because I need this 15 minutes just for me.
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And I think we just realize that we have been doing for so many others and not for ourselves.
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And it just becomes this wake up call, at least for me. Like,
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again, it wasn't a whisper anymore. It was like a banging on the door.
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It's like, no, you have been wanting to do this for years. What are you waiting for?
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You're waiting for permission. You're waiting for someone else to say, great.
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So I work with a lot of women on listening to your intuition and what it means to tap into that.
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And you'll notice the more you listen, the louder it gets. And it's kind of.
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You, quote unquote, should be or really desire to be.
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Yeah. Oh, I had the knocking. It was a pounding. It was like, we're done.
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And I didn't listen to it for like a year. Like you said, it just got louder and louder.
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And then I was like, no, I have to listen to this now.
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We say one day or someday when the kids are older or when this job gets a little
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less demanding or whatever the reason is.
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But we only have this one life. And I lost my dad when I was 17.
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So that showed me the fragility of life. And it's just you don't have all the time in the world.
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And then with the back surgery, it's like I was out of commission. It felt like for months.
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And I was like, I'm not going to wait around anymore. Right. I am able-bodied now.
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And everyone's going to get the best of me when I start pouring into me again.
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Absolutely. So what's the difference between taking care of yourself and actually
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valuing in your mind? I love this question.
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So, I mean, you hear so much about self-care and how, you know,
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go to the spa and take care of yourself and go on this trip.
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And that's all wonderful. I think we should do that.
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But valuing yourself enough to listen to your heart. And it just reminds me of like.
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When you value yourself, you stop ignoring all the signs.
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You stop waiting, right? So I think valuing yourself amongst or,
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you know, all this noise, like I'm not good enough or I'm not where she is,
25:51
so I'm not going to even try.
25:53
Is really valuing where you are right now.
25:56
And you have so many gifts, but you're just comparing yourself to other people.
26:02
It makes it feel like you're not good enough.
26:04
So when you value yourself you accept yourself where you are right now,
26:10
maybe you want to learn more maybe you want to take a course but just look at
26:14
all of your life experience up until now and know that you're enough and you
26:21
have something that no one else has and,
26:25
you just haven't given yourself that space again to kind of tap into it.
26:31
But valuing yourself means that from the simplest thing as drinking enough water,
26:37
and nurturing yourself.
26:39
I think a lot of us women, we went through our 20s or 30s and it's like restrict
26:44
and don't eat too much and don't do this.
26:46
And right. And instead of restricting, how about fueling and feeding ourselves
26:52
like with the basic nutrition and getting enough sleep.
26:57
And I value myself enough to show up to that yoga class because I know it's
27:02
going to make me feel so good.
27:05
And just that constant reminder that, you know, maybe I can't make it every
27:10
day, but I'm going to value myself enough to carve out this hour once a week.
27:15
And that is pouring back into me. That shows that I value myself.
27:20
And then if we take it a step further, that's when the universe starts,
27:23
like, bringing in more of what you want because your self-worth has been met, right?
27:29
You feel good enough. You feel worthy enough to receive. The worthy enough to receive.
27:35
My sister and I have conversations about this all the time.
27:38
And that is one of the things that pop up a lot in our conversations is you're
27:44
worthy enough to receive. Like you said earlier, I was told I wasn't good at
27:48
painting. So I just stopped painting. Yeah.
27:50
Well, I was told this and I stopped doing this.
27:53
And it's incredible to me that it takes us into our 40s to like,
28:00
and maybe we needed that much time, but to look at and be like,
28:03
look, I don't even know how much time I've got left. Let's hope for a really long time.
28:07
But I'm not going to live in that anymore.
28:10
Right? I'm not going to live in that space where I feel guilty about stuff,
28:13
where I'm not worthy of stuff. Like, fuck that.
28:16
We're not going to do it. I don't need that anymore. And we kind of inherited
28:20
that from generations. You absolutely do.
28:23
And it feels like our generation maybe now is finally deciding,
28:29
like, that's not how we're doing it anymore.
28:31
Like, yes, I'm still going to give and I'm going to be of service,
28:36
but it doesn't help anybody to neglect what I need.
28:40
And our needs have always been put on the back burner because we want to be
28:44
liked. We want to be accepted.
28:46
We want to be of service. And that is so beautiful, but not at the expense of
28:51
your soul. Yeah. What you really have been called to do.
28:56
Yeah. It just chips away too much. And then it doesn't stop until you can actually
29:00
like stop yourself. Right. And take that moment.
29:05
Can you strengthen your self-worth the way you strengthen a muscle?
29:10
Absolutely. So give us examples. Dig more into that.
29:13
Yeah. So I think, number one, it's the mindset of I am worthy.
29:19
And a lot of people don't believe in mantras or affirmations because they think
29:26
it's hokey or they think like, oh, my God, I don't believe this.
29:29
How can I even say it when I don't even believe it?
29:31
So you start with something small that you can believe. of.
29:35
And you start to train your brain and then you like build on that.
29:40
So, for example, when I started saying these mantras and doing these things,
29:46
I started to get a lot of messages and opportunities coming to me.
29:52
And I think it was because I was like an energetic match for it.
29:56
So when I decided to do it, maybe I wasn't saying it out loud,
30:00
but I was writing it down. Right.
30:02
I am worthy of abundance. or I have always been worthy. Now I'm just remembering it.
30:08
And just the way that you say it, the language and committing to that.
30:13
Again, it is a practice of every day you say it.
30:17
So I went on a retreat and we did this practice and that, again,
30:22
strengthened my self-worth.
30:24
I could not have like ripped that Band-Aid off had I not committed to these practices.
30:30
So I think, again, we get so pulled in to these other things that we need to
30:36
do and we get further away from what
30:39
we really want when we're constantly listening to the noise instead of.
30:43
So when you commit to saying, again, I am a firm believer in mantras and affirmations.
30:50
I think you strengthen it through that. I think you strengthen it when you keep
30:54
commitments to yourself, just as you wouldn't cancel a doctor's appointment
30:59
or, you know, cancel on a friend.
31:02
You carve out that time because when you commit to it and you don't cancel,
31:08
you're telling yourself, I am worth it.
31:10
I am worth my own time and energy.
31:13
Right. When you commit or you invest in something like a coach or a retreat,
31:19
you're like, I'm worth it. I work hard and I deserve it.
31:24
And I think when you keep showing up for those things, that's when you strengthen
31:29
it. You start to believe it. Because trust me, maybe even five years ago,
31:33
I wasn't feeling that self-worth.
31:36
However, I had done...
31:38
Lots of retreats. And I worked with my eighth grade girls on the self-esteem book club.
31:44
So I knew when they were in their thirties and they were calling me and saying that stuck with them.
31:50
I was like, this is something like that is, it starts young.
31:55
And unfortunately, all of us don't have access to it at that young.
31:58
And I think our teens need it more than ever this day and age.
32:03
But I really do believe that it's just a consistency thing. And you build,
32:08
you show up to the gym three days a week for your strength training.
32:11
You have to show up to your journal every day and show up for your meditation
32:16
practice, whatever it is. But you have to find the thing, right?
32:20
One of my clients, she's now a client, but before I met her in a dance class
32:25
and she said, you looked so in your body and so confident. I was like, oh, really?
32:31
And that's she wanted some of that she wanted to feel that way
32:37
and it was just because i like when i'm moving my body is when i feel most myself
32:41
same so you have to show up for that right i could have canceled the dance class
32:46
but it's important to me to move my body and feel
32:50
something it really helps yeah
32:52
so i think it's just showing up for the things and remembering to schedule them
32:57
put them on the calendar or else they don't happen.
33:01
Honor that if it's on the calendar, that's what's happening. Yes.
33:04
I used to be very quick to cancel my things because someone needed something.
33:09
And it's just taken years to be like, no, that's my time.
33:12
I'm taking that, you know, whatever it may be so that I can be my best self
33:16
for the next person who needs me.
33:19
So you said something in your note to me and it really stuck out.
33:22
Women who were done outsourcing their worth and power.
33:26
So what does outsourcing your worth and power look like?
33:31
I think it's looking for that external validation and that permission.
33:36
I think back to this moment I had when my daughter was very young,
33:40
maybe six months old, and we were in the depths of a pandemic.
33:46
And I had this little taste of freedom because I was on maternity leave,
33:51
but also like the world was changing as we knew it.
33:55
And I was like, what does it feel like to kind of just listen to that voice
34:00
inside of you that says, I want to run retreats and I want to like really help
34:06
women like change their lives.
34:08
Right. That was a huge goal. And I didn't know what I was getting into.
34:11
But I just thought also it could just be fun to have these experiences with other women.
34:16
Him. And at the time I told my partner and he just poo-pooed the idea.
34:20
He was like, everyone's running retreats. Like, why would you do that?
34:24
There's over a million retreats out there. And I said, yeah, you know, you're right.
34:28
Why would I do retreats? Like, I'll just go on them. I don't need to run retreats.
34:33
But there was always this voice inside of me that said, no, like,
34:37
you're going to be really great at this, create these experiences.
34:41
But I was looking for him to be like, go for it, right? Do it. And I.
34:47
I just put that on the shelf. And I was like, you're right. Like,
34:51
I'm a mom now. My primary goal in life, that is like my mission.
34:56
And I'm just going to be a great mom and a teacher. And there's nothing wrong
35:00
with that. Like, that's a beautiful thing.
35:02
But there was just this dream inside of me that I couldn't let just go.
35:08
But I was waiting for someone to say, yeah, go for it. Right.
35:14
So I was looking for that permission. So I was outsourcing to someone else to
35:20
say, go for it. Or my power to think that I can't do it. Right. Let them do it.
35:26
Or I need someone else to be in partnership with me.
35:31
Even I had a blog back 10 years ago, and I loved this blog. It was a travel
35:36
blog, and then it started to get into spirituality a little bit and this self-awareness
35:41
and self-acceptance that I love to write about.
35:45
But I had a friend who helped me with it. And I was like, I needed that other
35:49
person to kind of keep it going.
35:51
It's giving away our dreams for one day or deciding it's not important enough
35:59
or it's not going to change the world. I think we want to have it all figured
36:03
out. And we think it has to be this big, huge thing.
36:07
But it can start very small.
36:09
And it has to start with you. You don't have to have permission from anyone else to do it.
36:15
You can decide that you're worthy enough to do it on your own and to just keep
36:22
taking little steps toward it every single day or at least when you can. Yeah.
36:27
And I think we just give too much away to like, I don't have what it takes.
36:34
I'm not as good as her and she's already doing it. And that's just ridiculous.
36:40
And I don't think that social media helps because it's such a curated moment.
36:45
That half the time is not real, that 17 different photos were taken before that one. Yep.
36:52
It definitely doesn't help. I don't have girls, but my niece and my friend's
36:56
girls, it doesn't help them.
36:59
And thinking that they're not perfect exactly how they are because they're seeing
37:03
these very perfect curated visions of everything.
37:06
I think that's a very difficult position for them to be growing up in because
37:09
now they're not just sitting with their friends and hanging out and being like,
37:15
I'm loved and I love my friends and we're good.
37:17
They're looking for that external to make them feel good about themselves.
37:22
I had a guest on last season, Paula, who's starting team. She started a teen
37:26
magazine called Cookie.
37:28
And the whole premise of it, she has a younger daughter, and she's like,
37:32
where have these, where is the, like, ask Miss Sally for help places gone?
37:38
Like, where is the magazine where the first page is, I got my period during school, what do I do?
37:44
And she's also like, where are the moments where you sit down with your friends
37:46
and you're pulling out pages and sharing them and not looking at a screen?
37:51
And it's really taken the world by storm. Like she's
37:55
creating this thing that is not just like a magazine, but it's a whole new way
38:00
for these kids to interact and be together and get away from the,
38:04
you know, the mostly like the social media and the doom scrolling and everything
38:07
else, which I see my kids doing. It drives me nuts.
38:11
But there's a want for that. Yes. There's a going back. There is a desire for that.
38:16
Small bookstores are reopening. People are, I mean, God knows I read like a
38:19
book a week now because I've gone into this romanticcy rabbit hole.
38:23
And then it went from romanticies to romanticies to then like cowboy romance
38:28
to like, I don't even know what genre I'm going to be at next,
38:31
but I can't, I can't seem to stop.
38:35
And it's the most fun, like naughty, sexy.
38:39
I shouldn't be listening to this while I'm walking down my street.
38:42
You love it. And it's just the most fun. It's the best little escape.
38:47
And we need those things too. Oh God, it's so good.
38:52
For me, it's watching old episodes of Gossip Girl.
38:55
And I know this is not the show for teens to really be watching,
38:59
but there's something so nostalgic about it and something like escapism.
39:03
And I'm not saying like we don't face our problems. But we have to have those
39:08
outlets, too, that are just fun, that are just for us.
39:12
I see a lot of this kind of coming back to creativity movement where it's like
39:16
you've healed so hard. You stop reading self-help books and now you're reading
39:19
fiction and you're decorating and you're doing.
39:22
And I think we need to show that to our kids.
39:26
Right. One of the main reasons I didn't want to be on that hamster wheel of
39:31
punching a clock every day.
39:33
Right. Because I wanted to show my daughter there is more than that.
39:36
Yeah. Yeah. And when she sees me going after my goals and going after a dream,
39:41
then she has permission to do that for herself. And that was really important to me.
39:47
And some days where I question it all, I'll get a note from her that I'll say,
39:52
I'm so proud of you for making the change.
39:54
Like she heard me on a podcast and she was sitting in her room and she came
39:59
out with this note. And I was just like, this makes it all worth it.
40:02
Oh, my God, it would have melted. Framed it. Absolutely.
40:06
I love you so much. Soulful six-year-old. Like, I have gotten so lucky about
40:13
that because she really gets what I'm doing. Yeah. and.
40:18
Just to come back to what you said, there's so much of this noise and how we should be.
40:24
Yes. And now we're outsourcing our worth to an algorithm.
40:30
What is it going to look like if I post? And instead of creating for ourselves,
40:34
we're creating for an audience.
40:37
And we don't want our kids to feel that pressure because that's a whole nother
40:41
beast that takes us away from ourselves And shapes our identity not in the way that we should.
40:49
Right. It's like, great. This is something I created for myself.
40:52
And now let me share it. I'm all about it.
40:55
But not, oh, I have to create this because this is going to be what people want.
41:01
It's just like a really hard thing.
41:04
Yeah, it really is. I want to give my kids regular cameras. Yes.
41:08
I bought one from my daughter. It's the best, right? You don't know what it's
41:11
going to look like. Guess what? In two weeks, or I don't even know how long
41:14
it takes to process things anymore, you get to find out.
41:17
Not only does it give them a chance to wait for something and not have immediate
41:21
gratification, but there's something so fun about getting those pictures back
41:25
and be like, oh, my God, that's a terrible picture.
41:27
Or look how funny that is. Like, I want them to have those experiences where
41:33
the moment isn't captured and perfected because that is not life.
41:37
We do not live in a filtered world. Like, in reality, there's no filter. Yep.
41:45
What we did from our last trip was we printed out the photos and made an old school scrapbook.
41:50
And it was so much fun to live it and go through it and put stickers and just
41:54
like those hands on, get off the screen and kind of just get back to using our hand analog lifestyle.
42:03
I want to teach my kids to play poker because I would rather have them be doing
42:06
that than doom scrolling on a screen. Like, let's learn how to play poker because
42:10
then you can actually maybe try to beat me at like something. Right.
42:13
It would be super fun. And we're
42:14
taking our power back, giving all of our precious energy away to a scream.
42:21
So how do you stop needing the validation?
42:25
Again, I don't think it happens overnight. I think it's practice.
42:29
I think it's just, for example, like with the art, right? I'm not showing my
42:35
art. I'm just doing it for myself.
42:37
And that internal, intrinsic value.
42:42
Pleasure that I get out of it is like I don't need this to be perfect yeah and,
42:47
that emulates life it's like I know that I'm going to feel better when I go
42:55
on this walk a lot of this too was like,
42:58
being okay in my own company yes for so long I tried to busy myself because
43:06
I didn't feel like I could spend time with myself.
43:10
And now I love it. The pendulum swing so far to the other side that I'm like,
43:15
everyone leave me alone.
43:17
But we do find a lot of our time in relationship is when we are up against like this.
43:24
Who am I really, right, in relationship? Because we start to learn who we are
43:30
and then we start setting boundaries and then we decide that who gets our time and Who doesn't?
43:37
I think, again, it is a practice. And I did this a lot with my family,
43:42
too, because I was the first one to leave home and move away.
43:48
I was always traveling back to see them and I started to build my own life and,
43:55
got a lot of pushback. Why aren't you coming to visit and when are you coming?
43:58
And I was like, I'm actually not.
44:02
I'm good. And it's hard because you go through like this, like,
44:07
I don't want to say it's like an ego death, but it's like the people pleasing
44:11
that you always did has to die.
44:14
You cannot please everyone. Right. And it's so hard because that's just kind
44:21
of how we're wired as women, to be there for everybody.
44:25
And we kind of mold ourselves to fit so that we can please everybody.
44:31
And then we just abandon ourselves. It's like, I didn't even want to go to that
44:34
thing. So it's like saying no more than you say yes.
44:39
Because every time you say no, it's kind of saying yes to yourself.
44:42
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. It's hard.
44:46
It's not easy for everyone to do.
44:48
You kind of like slowly do it. I'm peeling off the bandaid.
44:53
But I do give myself a lot of credit from where I was five years ago to now
44:59
where I'm just like, I'm sorry that I disappointed you, but I can't disappoint myself.
45:04
And it's also, I think, too, is when things come up, knowing.
45:09
Recognizing when you need to be somewhere.
45:11
Like 80% of life is showing up, but it's showing up in the right places.
45:15
Yes. And giving everything you have in that moment so that the people you're
45:20
with know that you're there and that you're not, you know, halfway to a different place in your mind.
45:26
But there might just be less of those. But when the important ones come up,
45:30
you know that you internally, like for me, I'm like, no, I know I'm supposed
45:34
to be there. So I'm going to be there.
45:35
So what is the smallest daily practice that a woman could do?
45:39
Right now to kind of reconnect with herself? I would say just five minutes of
45:47
stillness in the morning.
45:49
Don't reach for the phone for the first hour if you could really not.
45:54
Five minutes of stillness. I love insight timer for a meditation,
45:59
something just to start your day in the right mindset.
46:02
And then, you know, if you have a little more time, I would go straight to the
46:06
morning pages, the journaling and the brain dump. Get it all out on the page. Okay.
46:11
That's my two favorites. And now you have meditations that you just brought out. I do.
46:16
And tell us about those. So I used to do Monday morning meditations for my community
46:22
and those were live on Zoom.
46:24
So I have them all up on YouTube, but I have noticed a lot of us getting away
46:31
from our screens. So I wanted to have a recording.
46:34
So something you could download and just pop in your ears, especially in times
46:39
of transition right now is kind of like transitioning into fall back to school.
46:45
And it feels very overwhelming because we go from the summer is just no schedules
46:49
and you're kind of just free flowing. When we have to get back to a routine,
46:53
it feels like such a push.
46:55
And I wanted to create something very simple for people to come back into their bodies.
47:02
And it is a practice of box breathing. It's just a four count inhale,
47:07
a four count hold, a four count exhale.
47:10
And it's, to me, one of the most basic breathwork practices to bring me back
47:14
into my body and to slow down.
47:17
So I recorded this meditation. It's on my website and I'll give you the link so you have it.
47:22
And I just think it's like a quick five-minute practice, even if you have a
47:28
very busy schedule. Yeah, I
47:29
love the box breathing. I end up doing that a lot. Yes. It brings me back.
47:34
It's so powerful. But when we look around, when did you really breathe today?
47:39
Did you take a minute just to inhale deeply and exhale? Like,
47:45
even if you could go and scream in your pillow or just sigh it out really loudly,
47:49
like, it feels so good to release that. because like we have a lot of tension in our jaw.
47:55
We have like a lot of blockages in our throat, right? We kind of have to like,
48:00
talk it out, scream it out, shout it out, sigh it out to release some of that
48:05
frustration or that stress.
48:08
I'm going to put the meditation in the notes below. Okay, great.
48:10
Can listen to it because I will be listening to it.
48:13
Ashley, this was wonderful. I really enjoyed having you here.
48:16
Thank you so much. I'm so glad that this worked and you got here.
48:19
I'm going to listen to this one again and again because there's a lot of just
48:22
really great reminders in this, and I appreciate that.
48:24
Thank you for having me. I love your podcast. I love what you're doing for women
48:28
and just how you're showing up for your dreams. Thank you.
48:31
Thank you for having me. This was so good. This was so good.
48:36
Thank you so much for joining me today on She's Smart. New episodes drop every other Thursday.
48:42
Don't forget to subscribe, like, and share. Stay cozy.