Podcasts about ashley you

Ashley Zuchelli shares her journey with Crohn's disease, from the onset of symptoms to her recent diagnosis. She discusses the challenges she faced in finding a doctor who would listen and the frustration of not knowing what was causing her symptoms. Ashley also talks about the impact of Crohn's on her work and how she manages anxiety. Finally, she shares her motivation for advocacy and raising awareness about IBD. In this conversation, Ashley Zuchelli shares her journey with IBD and the challenges she faced in getting a diagnosis. She emphasizes the importance of realizing when something is wrong and seeking help, even when faced with fears and uncertainties. The conversation also highlights the difficulties doctors face in diagnosing IBD and the need for patients to advocate for themselves. Ashley encourages listeners to not give up on their goals, to prioritize their health, and to listen to our bodies and not dismiss symptoms. Takeaways Finding a supportive and understanding doctor is crucial in the journey to diagnosis and treatment. Managing anxiety and stress is important for overall well-being and symptom management. Having a flexible work schedule can be beneficial for individuals with IBD to accommodate flare-ups and self-care. Sharing personal stories and advocating for awareness can help others going through similar experiences. Realizing when something is wrong and seeking help is crucial for managing IBD. Don't let fears and uncertainties prevent you from seeking the care you need. Advocate for yourself and communicate your symptoms and concerns to your doctor. Don't give up on your goals and prioritize your health. Connect with others who have similar experiences for support and guidance. Topics covered in the interview Ashley's Journey with Crohn's Disease Seeking a New Doctor for a Diagnosis Diagnosis and Treatment Managing Anxiety and Balancing Work Realizing Something's Wrong The Importance of Seeking Help The Challenges of Diagnosing IBD Don't Give Up on Your Goals Don't Disregard Your Body's Signals From the show Stephanie: What have you done over the years to help manage anxiety? Ashley: I would say meal prepping actually soothes me and it keeps my mind at ease because I know if I am hungry or if…I'm feeling good that day, I have food ready for me and it just makes me happy just cooking in the kitchen…And then I started doing the HelloFresh program, where I get ingredients sent to me and then I just cook. I don't have to think about the recipes. They have dietary restrictions on there of things you can and cannot eat, so that helps my anxiety—to make sure I have the food I need when I have a long day at work or if we go travel. feeling so great today or, you know, I do have that type of job where if I wasn't feeling well, I can block that time and deal with what I need to deal with. If I had a flare or upset stomach from eating something or just. Stephanie: How do you balance work and work in IBD? Ashley: You know, Crohn's being Crohn's, acting up when it's not the best time, so I was just honest with my clients. Like if I didn't feel well, like I have to go to the bathroom, [saying] I'll be right back. We don't discuss what happens in the bathroom, but they know I need a moment to break away because of issues going on…I am grateful that I have the luxury to make my own schedule when a flare happens. Links from the show: Follow Ashley: https://www.instagram.com/azuchelli4 * * * * * Support the podcast ❤️ at https://www.crohnsfitnessfood.com Shop my favorite products, Read my favorite books, Subscribe to the podcast, Send a little love/coffee

This episode is with Ashley Love Richards and Fallon Morey, cohosts of TSFU the PodcastKatherine and Fallon play a game with Ashley asking her Christian Clichés to see if she knows what they mean. We also discuss the perspectives Catholics and protestants have of one another, the origin of Alcoholics Anonymous (spoiler, it's Christian), and whether or not AA is a cult. This conversation is comical and fun—and borderline irreverent. Shoot Christians Say YouTube VideoThe New F Word EpisodeUncertain is a podcast of Tears of Eden, a community and resource for those in the aftermath of Spiritual Abuse. If you're enjoying this podcast, please take a moment to like, subscribe, or leave a review on your favorite podcasting listening apparatus. You can support the podcast by going to TearsofEden.org/supportTo get in touch with us please email tearsofeden.org@gmail.comFollow on Instagram @uncertainpodcastTranscript is unedited for typos and misspellings Katherine: [00:00:00] I actually, hi, Fallon. Hi. These are my two friends that I just met through. That's a fucked up podcast, and we had a blast hanging out and, and, and interview doing an interview. I had a blast hanging out with them and doing an interview with them.And so we decided to do this episode. Fallon grew up similar to me in evangelicalism and Ashley did not. So we're going to play a game called Stuff Christians Say, where Fallon and I are going to introduce Christian sayings to Ashley and ask her what she thinks they mean. And this is a like Not a pass fail like no, like there's, there are no stakes here other than testing your Christian, your Christian knowledge before I, I'm going to play a video, a little video to, to get us warmed up, but before I do that.Ashley and Fallon. I would love to hear what brings you here today. Ashley, go Ashley: first. What's up, Kathryn? [00:01:00] Hey! Super excited to be here. So yeah, I have a podcast called that's so fucked up and it's about Colts and murder and other generally fucked up stuff.Although I would say I primarily focus on Colts and coercive groups and I can high control groups. Obviously that's more where your podcast and your stories fit into. I saw Jesus camp 17 years ago when it came out in 2006. I saw a bunch of evangelical children being brainwashed at a camp to Take abortion out of the you know, take abortion rights away because a third of their fucking friends could have been there that night and they weren't.And then I saw it 17 years later, like right after our abortion rights got taken away. And I was like, hold on, this is a long game. And then I saw shiny, happy [00:02:00] people and I've been obsessed with high control, coercive Christianity ever since. So I'm very excited to have met you through me and Fallon doing a segment called the new f word.The f word was fundamentalism fundamentalism and Actually, it's really funny or it's actually really fun the episode that Catherine was on was called the new f word the C and F and E words Which sound like they're going to be really bad, but it was Christianity, nationalism, fundamentalism, and evangelicalism.So, you know, really, I had a lot of fun. I thought that was fun. Katherine: That was one of my funnest, my funnest or most fun. I don't know. Funnest, funnest episodes that I've ever, ever interviewed on. I had a great time with y'all. Ashley: I wanted to make sure that we knew what the fuck we were talking about before we started [00:03:00] talking about it, because as you said, I have, I am not religious, I did not grow up with any religion, I have a Patreon segment where I learn about the Bible, it's called Ash Learns the Bible, because I knew about that one story, I think Solomon, where they try to cut the baby in half, and I was like, That is fucked up.Is there other shit like that? Because I want to hear about it. So, basically, I guess what I'm trying to say is that Christianity has taken over my life somehow. Katherine: That's an intellectual exercise. Ashley: Yeah, not in That I'm involved with it, but I'm just fascinated and I'm fascinated Katherine: when I meet people who didn't grow up the way that I did because it's so normal and it's so normalized and then as you mentioned on the episode that we did together that I will link in the show notes about How 80 percent of [00:04:00] the United States identifies as Christian, there's so much that's just like very inundated into the culture and most people have had some kind of like church experience.And so when I can't encounter people who don't have any, any upbringing in that I'm fascinated by that. What was your life like? Yeah, it's like, oh! How did you, how did you do Ashley: that? I'll tell you, I'll tell you one thing that made my life different and a lot better that I definitely know, and Did I grow up with fear and shame as a child?Yes, I grew up in a house with a narcissist. But, I tell you what, I was not afraid that any fuck up that I did was going to get me sent to hell. I didn't even know about hell, you know? Like, you guys were constantly in fear that you were going to go there. I didn't even know that it was a fucking thing. I think I saw all dogs go to heaven and...I knew heaven was like a, probably a cool place for [00:05:00] dogs. Yeah. But that was the extent of my knowledge. Right. I love it. I love it. And it has been up until, up until pretty recently. I Katherine: mean, you're going to know so many things after today, after our game today, the lingo. Yeah. And I, I, I, I'm now I'm like worried.Is God going to judge us for playing this game? Fallon: God is not going to judge us for playing this game. Ashley: They loves it, but welcome Katherine: Fallon. Tell us today. Fallon: mainly to talk to you again, cause it was so fun the last time. But then also, like you said, I, I think I've told you before, but I grew up Catholic. So, you know, Catholics are very like religion at arm's length.There's so many rules. There's very like, you know, you spend a lot of money and you go to mass and the mass has like exercises in it where you stand up and sit down a lot and kneel. And my mom used to, or my uncle used to call them the Pope's aerobics when he would go to [00:06:00] mass. And. Around like high school.I started to hang out with Christian people who are more in the evangelical crowd, and I, I think I just wanted to be accepted by somebody. Katherine: Pause. You said you hang out, you hung out with Christian people. Did you not consider yourself a Christian as a Catholic? Fallon: No, not really. Because I wasn't, I wasn't really yourself.Catholic. Yeah. Just Catholic. Like it was like it was I don't know, like it, like it was a nationality or something. Like I, I didn't have a concept of what it meant to be religious because I wasn't really connected to my religion. Like it like you had to go to the dentist, but you just had to do it more frequently.It wasn't like a big deal to me. And then I, I wanted some, like. I want to say I wouldn't, wasn't like meaning and purpose to my life, but I ended up hanging out with kids that like went to church camps and did God stuff. So they bought me my first Bible, the little. [00:07:00] Like tie dyed teen study Bible everyone had in the mid nineties, you know, and They had like the little stories in it and they taught me all about purity culture.Yay. And like good friends do and and then I sort of went on my own path and discovered You know, religion and church when I was in college and then in when I was in the Navy, I got like rebaptized again and I was like fully into it. I would say only about eight years ago, I stopped believing in going to church.And I would call myself having been like evangelical during those years. And now I would call myself. I don't know. What is it called when you believe in a higher power, but not necessarily like the Christian Katherine: God? Spiritual, but not religious. Yeah, that's Fallon: a good Ashley: way. Like I think that agnostic means that you believe in a higher power.You just don't claim to know what that higher power is. And I don't know if something greater than you. Fallon: Yeah. So I don't know if there's like a higher one power or if it's like the power of the [00:08:00] universe. I think there could be. You know, there's like weird forces out there. I believe in ghosts and maybe reincarnation and all that kind of stuff, but I don't subscribe to like a, a religion.So I don't I don't find I need it anymore. But then I met Ashley like last year and somehow found myself on this crazy windy road to becoming one of her co hosts, which has been amazing. And we did this F word segment together where I got to meet you. So I think that's, I think that's my path.That's my my journey here. Katherine: As you were talking, I thought of two other things to add to the list. It's like, we can't just assume because like, we're too like, like, yes, we're more religious people, assuming that, you know, certain things, but I'm like, we can't assume that Ashley knows these things. Ashley: Yeah, I actually had two quick questions.So if you're re baptized, That means you're a born again Christian, which means you're evangelical, right? I just want to make [00:09:00] sure, do I have that right? It's a symbol, Katherine: but could mean a lot of things. It Fallon: could mean a lot of things. Katherine: Like Presbyterians will baptize babies, and it's like a future hope. Like, we're hoping that they will be a Christian in the future, but it's not saying that the baby is a Christian.Like Baptists will baptize someone as an adult because you have to be old enough to like make the decision yourself. And then that is a symbol that you are a Christian when you are baptized as an adult. So it's different for everybody, but it's like more like a Ashley: ceremony. And so being born again, that doesn't equate to evangelicalism.It is. It does. Yeah. It can be. Not always though. See, this shit is slippery. It is. I mean, what? I Katherine: haven't heard of anyone outside of evangelicalism using born again Fallon: though. No, that's really a, that's really a, an evangelical kind of terminology. [00:10:00] Which Katherine: means that you have accepted Jesus into your heart.Totally. Ashley: Totally. Yeah. You guys, I put up a video the other day because I, I don't know if you saw it on the story, but it said, when you take your friend to church and they don't know what to do with their hands, and this girl is slowly doing the Macarena.Katherine: that would 100 percent be me. I'd be like, I don't know what's happening. Ashley: They're all raising their hands. Katherine: I remember. Fallon: Go ahead. Oh, I was going to say my stepfather was not a religious person and my mom used to make him try to go to mass. She quickly abandoned, but he would walk into the church and he, he would go, what am I supposed to do with water?Like there's a bowl of water. What am I supposed to do with it? And I was like, stick your fingers in it and then blessed yourself. And he's like, what do you mean blessed yourself? And I, so we, we taught him up, down, left, right. And so then anytime we mentioned church for like [00:11:00] the rest of. Their marriage, we'd be like, we're going to church.And he just like, yell up, down, left, right. Like that was his synonymous word for with church in church. Katherine: Oh, yeah. Ashley: I love it. But they told me that spectacles, testicles, wallet, and watch was to help people to remember how to do the Katherine: Austin Fallon: powers told you that Ashley: bitch. Another person, religious person Katherine: told me that I swear, I swear, Ashley: or I'm making weird shit up.Also, you guys, the video I was just referring to, I believe was from Deuteronomemes, which is my favorite new account. I'm gonna follow them after. Fuck. You gotta go follow them. They put amazing Videos of like mega church pastors, wild and out and people going way too hard singing at church. Like it's, it's, it's really good stuff.You guys, Katherine: I'm going to, I'm going to follow them [00:12:00] after, but in preparation for this game, I'm going to play a little video for us and folks who grew up. Religious probably I've seen this video, but this is just going to get us warmed up real quick and let's get warm, share my screen. So I'm so Ashley: excited Katherine: and here we go.Bless his heart. You think he's backsliding? I think I saw him drink. Yeah, but in moderation. I just wasn't seeing much fruit. He's going down a slippery slope. How's your heart, man? How's your heart? I'm just such a words guy. It was a total God thing. I'm blessed. Been working on my testimony. Is that secular music?We're opening with a secular song tonight. Wait, is this a secular song? Isn't she secular? Which station is the fish? 104. 3, the fish. Safe for the whole family. You know he's a believer. I think he's saved. I just pray you'd give him traveling mercies. Pray for all powers unspokens. I echo that. I just really like to echo Pather's prayer, Father.I echo that echo of my echo of his echo. I really [00:13:00] feel like I'm being released from this, you know? I'm trying to be relevant. I'm just trying to be in the world, not of it. Hey, do you want to join our small group? You want to join my D group? You want to join my cell group? Community group? Access group?Accountability group? Axe 27 group? Dude, he brought it. He brought the word. That service last night rocked me. They're pretty purpose driven. Yeah, it's Seeker. Don't they do Seeker service there? I feel like he's gotten really watered down. I don't feel like he really teaches the word. It's just not enough meat, you know?Are they non denom? We have a great Wednesday night supper. Let's invite some dudes over and fellowship tonight. We're gonna have a sick time of fellowshipping tonight. Dude, we had the sickest fellowship last night. We're going straight velocity. Ignite. Yeah, I'm going to ignite. The edge. The dive. The bridge.The ramp. Fire. Courageous. Passion. Echo. Reverb. Noise. Velocity. Drive. Elevate. Radiate. 722. 635. 419. Orange. Blue. Yellow. Green. Clear. Neon. Catalyst Conference this year. I don't do that because I feel like it ruins my witness. Been struggling with that. I'm really wrestling with a, I'm wrestling with a doubt.Need someone to hold me accountable. I'm really trying to be intentional with her. I'm [00:14:00] pursuing her, for sure. I'm trying to guard her heart. Guard her heart though, bro. Do you hold me accountable to that? Yeah, well, Bounce your ass. Dang it. Crap. Shoot. Sheesh. Frick. Darn it. What the H? Holy crap. Son of a bee sting.Dude, he's really teeing me off. I'm gonna kick his ass. Are you assing me right now? Not cool. I find that offensive. I find that offensive. I find that Fallon: offensive. Oh my god. I don't care how many times I watched that. I watched it right before you got on the call and I watched it yesterday and I still laugh every time, every time because it's, it's.It's Katherine: so real and that's literally how people talk though. Ashley: Let's have some fellowship. I want to say that I understoodmaybe about 20 percent of that. Fallon: This game is going to be amazing. We should watch Katherine: it again at the end and see if it makes [00:15:00] more sense. Ashley: Although also, whoo, I got to say some of that brought me back to my AA days. A lot of fellowshipping and AA, a lot of great Katherine: testimonial, you know, maybe in different words you know, but.Mm. I have a suspicion that AA is a culti, is culti. Do you think AA is culti? Ashley: I have a suspicion that I'm really irritated that culti shows don't want to talk to me more about my experience in AA because it was culti as fuck and people are like, Yeah. I don't want to put 12 step programs down. It's like, well, listen, if you knew what I was going to say, it would be that AA saved my life probably.And I needed that Katherine: accountability when Ashley: I started. And then it became a little culty and maladaptive, so I'm not totally talking shit. Not everything that's culty is inherently bad, but Katherine: well, that's kind of church [00:16:00] Ashley: is pretty fucking culty motherfucker. Like I did wreck the words. The shit that I did recognize was either from.AA or the Bachelor because they said a lot of like, what's on your heart in a season of the Bachelorette that I watched Katherine: Are we ready? Ashley: Are we ready? Ashley? I'm so ready. All Katherine: right. I feel like we should have had a game Ashley: sound. I'm excited as F Katherine: all right. Take it away.Fallon: All right. All right. If somebody said to you guard her heart, what does that Ashley: mean? Be like be a man and make sure that you protect her. That's pretty close. Nailed it. Woo! One for one, Ashley. There's Fallon: also, there's also a secret meaning which is in the dating, like, in the dating concept. I actually got this one from my husband.It's like, guard her heart. Basically, don't have sex with her. Like, Katherine: don't, don't stir up her emotions. [00:17:00] Yeah. Be a good Christian people. Make her want to have sex with you. Fallon: Yeah. You know, those wily women, they might just want to have sex with everybody. Guard her heart. Katherine: Okay. And then it's also used in a broader context of just like guard your heart against, you know, temptation, guard your heart against sin, guard your heart about, against desires and yeah, it's a very common, common, So, so Ashley: you should be guarding her heart against sin and desire.Yeah. Because you're the man and that's okay. Ew. I hate it. At first. I was like, no, Katherine: that's cool. You're supposed to guard their eyes. So you're supposed to cover your body to guard your, your brother's eyes. Help him guard his eyes so that he wasn't led into temptation. Yeah. Yeah. You visually see Ashley: the patriarchy is so strong already.You guys, I can't Katherine: get better. Ashley: Good job. Good job, Ashley. Yay. I don't, I bet I feel like I [00:18:00] didn't get the second meaning, which was so much grosser. It's like, you know, those ladies and the crazy Katherine: feelings. Oh, Fallon: no. Well, we'll award points like the way they do on whose line. So we'll, you know, instead of a thousand for that one, you get 500.All right. Okay. Katherine: Next. Good job. Good job. You may already know this, but the uncertain podcast is the affiliate podcast of tears at Eden, a nonprofit that serves as a community and resource for survivors of spiritual abuse. This podcast and the work of tears are supported by donations from generous listeners. Like you. If you're enjoying this podcast, please consider giving a donation by using the link in the show notes or visiting tears of eaton.org/support. You can also support the podcast by rating and leaving a review and sharing on social media. If you're not already following us, please follow us on Facebook at tears of Eden and Instagram at uncertain podcast. Thanks so much for listening.And now back to the show. All right. What does Ashley: [00:19:00] backsliding mean? Okay. So again, I'm kind of thinking AA. Okay. You've made progress on something, and now you're not, you're not making progress anymore or you're maybe even going back into your bad habits. Katherine: Yeah, I mean, I think it's similar. I think the word backsliding has this idea of like sliding back sliding back your old ways.And so, yeah, but I think it can kind of be used interchangeably with any sort of like, it's like a slippery slope into into. Ashley: Sin, if it's temptation and sin. Yeah. Katherine: And like that was like a slippery slope in the churches that I grew up in, which are very patriarchal and women couldn't be pastors. If you like, let a woman teach on Sunday morning, it was like a slippery slope to like a woman.[00:20:00] Having leadership and so it would be like a point of contention or a slippery slope would be like, you know, letting your child go to, if it was like, you're only supposed to homeschool your kids, but you let your kid go to a co op, that'd be like a slippery slope to putting your child in school or holding hands is like a slippery slope to having Ashley: sex.Oh, yeah. Katherine: Quite any more to say I'm backsliding quite the Fallon: jump. Yeah. I just have to wonder why there's so much sliding, like Christianity is on the mountain covered in Ky and you just, Ashley: any minute you're just ready to like, just slide, slide Katherine: down. Sliding. Well, there's an a lot of like going upward, like climbing the mountain right.The heights. There's all this idea of like heaven being above and you're like climbing and you're moving upward and you're climbing the ladder. There's a lot of that. And so then sliding would be like you're sliding back down Ashley: into the [00:21:00] mire. So if you like stopped praying as much or you started watching secular television.Fallon: Yeah, that's the one. Ashley: Whoa. Because I know what secular means. It means like of the non christian world, right? Right. Fallon: I heard that meaning a lot more what Ash said, which is like somebody came into their belief later in life and they were doing really, really well. And usually they're like on fire for Jesus, right?Like in the beginning. Oh, yeah. And then. When they're backsliding, it means like, Oh, they, they, I saw them hanging out with a friend who's not in church and I saw them go to the regular movie. So I think they might be backsliding into their Ashley: secular life. You guys are fucking tripping me the fuck out right now because that is so AA too.Like backsliding, slippery slope. If you're hanging out with. You know, your old friends who used to [00:22:00] drink and do drugs with that's a slippery slope. If you, if you, if you stop coming to as many meetings, you know, that might mean that you're out. Does AA have a Katherine: foundation of Christianity? Like did Christianity?Ashley: Well, motherfucker, I do know the Lord's prayer by heart. So you tell me, I would say big yes, hold on, hold on, hold, hold the phone, hold the phone. Hold on. Dear God. Give us our daily bread. Hold on. Give us our daily bread. Lead us not into temptation and walk through the valley. Fallon: You've lost some of it.I think over the years I haven't been to Ashley: a fucking AA meeting in a long time, but I used to know that shit. Walk Katherine: through the valley of the shadow of death. Amen. Ashley: I take a look at my life and realize there's nothing left, Katherine: [00:23:00] you know, coolio. Yeah. Yes. Fallon: My guys. I was thinking Amish paradise from Ben's weird.Owl Ashley: lives living in an Amish bear. There you go. Love weird. Owl. Fallon: Well, right now we're definitely backsliding because we're getting secular up in here. Ashley: Okay. No, but you guys, are you hearing how many AA connections Katherine: there are? I wonder, I need to research this now. Did AA start by Christian found with a Christian foundation?And is, is the prayer from AA that give me the courage to accept the Ashley: things I cannot? Yeah. Oh yeah. Okay. Hold on. I know that one. That's the serenity prayer. God. I believe it starts with God. No. Yeah. God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.Is that, is that religious? Is that a religious poem? Katherine: That, that is in religion and there will like that will happen, but like, I don't know which came [00:24:00] first. Did it come from AA into Christianity or did Christianity bring that into AA? I don't know. Shit bitch. I don't know. We should figure it out though. We have another podcast episode coming up.Yeah, we do. Hey Fallon. So, Fallon: If I say the term, a baby believer or a baby Christian, what does that mean?Ashley: Like they just got indoctrinated. Yeah. God, you're so good at this. Fallon: Contrary to popular belief, it does not mean a tiny baby who is also a Ashley: Christian. Well, you guys, honestly, I think I've got a little bit of a leg up at this point. If we would have done this episode six months ago, I think that... Right. I probably would have been a lot more lost.I'm not gonna lie. I've learned a lot about Christianity recently. Katherine: We're gonna have to go to the hard ones. Ashley: Yeah, we're gonna have to go to the hard ones. Oh, were you guys starting off with softballs? No, bring it. Katherine: Yeah, okay, tell me what transubstantiation and the trinity Ashley: are.[00:25:00] Okay, good job. Well, you stumped me on A, okay? And the next one was what? Transubstantiation Katherine: and the Trinity. Ashley: Okay, the Trinity is the Father, Mary, and the Holy Ghost. Very close. It's the Katherine: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, yes. The Holy Ghost, Holy Spirit, Holy Ghost. You got it. Ashley: Hey, what's Holy Ghosting? Is that a thing?Or is that a sex thing? What? Is that a sex thing? I heard it was like when you come on somebody's back and then leave. Katherine: Is it that a Superman? Oh Fallon: my God. The fact that both of you know more than one term for weird Katherine: sex acts and she's like, no, it's Fallon: not that weird. It's this other weird superman. Ashley: We're thinking of the, the Dirty Sanchez, which I don't actually know what that is.It's different. Fallon: No, let's talk, Ashley: talk about that. Life is about the rusty trombone, Katherine: you know the trans substantiation? You [00:26:00] don't know what that Ashley: is? No. Okay. The Trinity though. Yeah, that's father, son . Katherine: Do you know that that means that God is three in one? Ashley: He's the father and the. No, no, he's a, he's a buy one, get one free deal.Buy one, get two free. Wow. That's a hot bargain. Hey, question is Jesus God? Yes. Yes. Okay. But I thought Jesus was like God's son. Also, yes. Also, yes.Katherine: My uncle Ashley: was my grandpa and my grandpa was my uncle too. Ding a ling What's going Katherine: on here, dude? Alright, transubstantiation. Both Protestants and Catholics know this one. Transubstantiation means that when you're doing communion, Do you know what communion is? Do you know what communion Ashley: is? Is that when you eat the...The bread and the wine? Okay I'm sorry. Can we all just touch on how [00:27:00] fucking weird that is? Body and blood of Christ. Yep, give it to me. Put it in my mouth. I want to eat that and drink that. Are you kidding me? Nobody's fucking thinking this is weird? Katherine: Yeah, it is weird. And what makes it weird, in my opinion, is transubstantiation and the, the Protestants know this because the Catholics actually believe that the bread and the wine become the body of blood of Christ when you are taking communion, but the Protestants see it as a symbol, not as like actual blood and wine.And the Protestants know transubstantiation because we know that that is what differentiates us from the Catholics. And what makes the Catholics not Christian is because they believe in transubstantiation. Fallon: Oh, yeah. Cause you guys will be like, what's so weird guys is they believe that like, that's actually Jesus's like leg or body. [00:28:00] And like I said to Catherine, what's weird is that they believe that God actually talked to them while they were like taking a dump this morning and told them what to do that day.Ashley: Like go eat me. Fallon: Yeah. Okay. Yeah, no, no. Just like go to your church and say, God told me this morning that I should ask you guys each for five more dollars. Everyone goes, Oh, he must've actually told him like, that's weird. But the believing that that's Jesus's body is not weird. Whatever. Ashley: You guys. Catholics are metalas fuck, dude. It's wild. I'm sorry, but I have been reading some of the Bible and I'm pretty sure that he said cannibalism isn't cool. There you go. There you go. You guys, you know, the Bible, he doesn't God say, doesn't God say not to eat people? Yes. He says yes. He totally [00:29:00] does. I remember it. And they're just up, up there eating him every Sunday.Catholics. I don't, I don't understand. Catholics Fallon: believe that like basically set up their mass. So their weekly service is a mass. If anybody, I'm sure people listening to the show do know, but they, the mass is really every Sunday. Each week. A reenactment of part of the Last Supper, what they believe happened at the Last Supper of Jesus, which you'll get to in the second part of the Bible, and so they say, Jesus took the bread.He gave you thanks and praise. I know the whole mass broke it and said, eat this. It is my body. You know, so he, they believe he said it and that's why they say it. And then they believe that when you wave your hands over the cauldron, it becomes the thing. Not there's no cauldron, but Katherine: usually put clips of, of conversations, but I want to do that clip because Ashley's face.[00:30:00] Ashley: What are you talking about? Oh, you guys. And that's Catherine. That's why it's witches are evil. Yeah. I was going to say also that it sounds like witchcraft. So like what? Yeah. Fallon: Oh God, now I got to find a good one. Hold Ashley: on. I know that. And that was, that Katherine: was considered two. So we're at, I think five now.So we Ashley: have five more. So when you were, when you asked Callen, sorry, when you asked Fallon earlier, Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. So when you asked Fallon earlier, Oh, so as a Catholic, you don't consider yourself a Christian. I thought that was a very interesting question for you to ask because I thought that the big difference was.Christians, there's a whole bunch of denominations like Protestant and whatnot. And Catholics just like rocked out on their [00:31:00] own. And they were like, listen, you guys can, or I think the Christians were like, this is too metal. We're going to do our own thing. Right. So it's kind of like Catholics versus Christians a little bit.No. Katherine: Well, I always heard it like Catholic versus Protestant and there would be people who would be like Catholics are not Christians. And then the Catholics that I knew got offended by that. And we're like, no, we're Christians. And like, you don't get to decide if we're a Christian or not. And worshiping Mary and transubstantiation were the main arguments about why Catholics weren't real Christians.And so I grew up with Catholic relatives and, and it was always like, are they a Christian or are they not? And Fallon: I would say largely like my thing was just, I never thought about my faith, like with that kind of question when I was younger, like church is just something you do. And Catholic church is not like.You know, an evangelical service where like you, you might be crying and you're raising your hands and you're [00:32:00] singing moving songs, closing your eyes and you're like, somebody is preaching from their heart half the time, like Catholic has a very specific service. They have a book that gets published and it's basically like on this day you plug in this reading and it's the same every year and the church is always the same.The priest gets like a little chunk of time in the middle to say whatever he wants, but that's it. There's no, there's no ad libbing throughout, and so it's not anything you can really attach your heart to, right? Not, not really. And this is, this Ashley: is like three hours every Sunday? One hour. That's still too much.One hour. That sounds boring as hell. I mean, honestly, I'd rather go listen to Omega Pastor fucking while out about I, I saw the best one the other day. He's like, We don't make it rain on booty cheeks. That was the first fucking thing he said. He said a whole other list of sinful things that they don't do.That's hilarious. I just, but I do [00:33:00] remember that. And I was like, Amen. You know? Fallon: Right. Ashley, I'm going to, I'm going to put a hedge of protection on you. What am I going to do?Ashley: Well, I feel like it's something to do with protection. Katherine: Another way would be saying the same would be like, I'm going to pray a hedge of protection over you. Ashley: Is it like a a forest field, but it's a bush because God appeared as a board, a burning bush. I love Katherine: it. I love that. That's really complex. It's very simple.Ashley: Yeah. Basically. Is it not what I said? No, No, Fallon: it's about protection and it's not really a force field. It's just, you're praying for protection, usually from like Satan, like something's happening in your life and the way I've heard it, Satan's about to get in, like Satan's attacking you from all sides. So I'm, I'm like the way I would surround my house with like a big hedge to keep, keep people [00:34:00] out.And from looking in my windows, like I'm, I'm praying for like something to protect you from bad forces. Ashley: Why does it have to be a hedge, though? Yeah, I don't Fallon: understand the hedge either. I feel like, I feel like, if Satan is really this crazy, powerful being that can influence everything else, he could probably just whip out his chainsaw, right?Like, get through some leaves. And just, like, right through that hedge, so. Katherine: You were talking about that before we started. Yeah. About how hedges actually know that. Not that sturdy, but yes, I think a force field is kind of like a spiritual field Ashley: like you are. Yeah, that's, that's kind of witchy though, you know.Yeah. Oh, oh, for sure. They would stone me to death or something for that. Hey, Katherine: I've been asking for y'all to help me find a witch to cast a protection spell. Ashley: Right? And I was like, I'm a baby witch. I'll buy a book. Katherine: And as I was looking at the like online, I was like, this is just prayer. Oh my God. This is just [00:35:00] praying like, Oh no, I Ashley: want to read you some of the, the prayers, the spells.Oh my God. They sound like prayers. Oh my God. I want to read you some. Not of this one. Spell or prayer. We'll do it after. On Katherine: that note. If someone were to say I have a check in my spirit, what, what, what do they mean? Ashley: That they feel like they have accountability within them. Like somebody's checking their spirit, but it's, it's, it's like God within their heart or Jesus. Or whatever. You guys, I'm killing this Christianity game. Yeah. I think I'm so proud of myself. I think Fallon: I said on a previous episode that you might be a better Christian than any of us at this point.And it's highly possible that knowledge alone, that might be absolutely Ashley: true. I'm well, because I didn't grow up with it. You guys, I'm fascinated. I'm like, that's Katherine: probably like, you're probably retaining it a lot more because it's [00:36:00] fascinating. Whereas we grew up with it and it was just like everyday jargon.Yeah. And like, we've never had to like explain it to somebody before, but you're learning it in a way. In which you can like explain it to somebody and check in spirit. My grandmother used to say that all the time, just like check your spirit or mind the checks, mind the checks in your spirit, which was like, basically the, yeah, like the Holy Spirit was like speaking to you to tell you something was like dangerous or, you know, stay away from it, or basically intuition, but the Jesus, Jesus version, Ashley: I'm thinking about how scary it is as somebody with a fucking.Jesus Christ. Am I right? And how many people in coercive controlling religious groups are being told constantly that they're going to hell and then if they have PTSD or any kind of mental mental illness. People, they're [00:37:00] just told to pray it away. I'm imagining having the mental health issues that I do and being in a situation where everybody around me was like, that's not real, or that's the devil getting you.Like, holy fucking fuck. That sounds so scary. I'm just imagining if I, like my brain's crazy. And I think if the, if his enough people were telling me that my panic disorder and shit is the devil fucking believe that and they'll be scared the fuck Katherine: out of me, dude. Oh, absolutely. Interested in listening to more than 40 archived Uncertain Podcast episodes? All you have to do is sign up to become a monthly supporter of 5 or more. Becoming a monthly supporter will give you access to popular episodes such as Confessions of a Christian Parent and When Bad People Do Good Things.You'll also get access to this episode without any interruptions from yours truly. Become a monthly [00:38:00] supporter today by going to tiersofedian. org slash support. Fallon: So Ashley, I'm going to ask you, what are your, what are your unspokens?If I say that, if I say unspoken, what are, what am I talking Katherine: about? Yeah. Ashley: Unspoken Fallon: or I pray for your unspokens. . Ashley: Oh, thank you. Context. It's like the shit you don't say that you did because it's, it's a, sins be, Fallon: could be. Usually they're talking about unspoken prayer requests. Ashley: Like Katherine: the things that you don't know that you need prayer Fallon: for.Yeah. Yeah. Like either I'm thinking about it and I don't want you to know that I'm praying for it or all of like, if I'm like, I pray for all of Catherine's unspokens, it means that I'm praying for all of the stuff she actually needs that she doesn't know she needs. And maybe. Oh, but you know, your pastor may know that you need more than, than you do.Right. Like pray for all that shit too. So Katherine: I was 29 years [00:39:00] old, a missionary woman prayed over me and, and she prophesied that I would get married and I would have this, like, we would be like this power couple. And this was like, Almost 10 years ago. Ashley: Where's your Christian power husband? Where is my Christian power spouse?Where Fallon: is your Christian power husband? That sounds like an action figure that we need to develop. Katherine: But I just remember it being like, they're going to be a power couple lord. A power couple lord. He has a Fallon: starched white shirt with two buttons. Ashley: Okay, bitch. Listen, I'm about to throw some terminology down. Is that prosperity gospel?Not Fallon: really. Prosperity gospel is more like. Ashley: Is that like being rich means you're close to God? Yes. Katherine: Ish. That's prosperity gospel. Yeah. Like God is blessing Fallon: your life. Or it's okay to have abundant money and not necessarily like help every person with it and keep it for yourself because [00:40:00] God wants you to be rich.That's what the MLMs like to Ashley: use. That's some televangelist type shit, right? Fallon: Yeah. The ones that raise money. Like Ashley: the guy who has all the planes. Who's that guy? He's big on TV. Olsteen? Probably. Like, he's really fucking rich because he preaches on TV and people are super Fallon: into it. I don't know if Joel Osteen, maybe there's a few of them, Joel Osteen's the pastor in Texas, right?And he has like, he has like a giant super mega complex house and like millions and millions of dollars and huge church. Yeah. He's a big prosperity gospel person. Amway likes to tell you to read him. Ashley: He's a, he's a prosperity. No, no, no. Joel Osteen is a televangelist. So yeah, I think he is the one who's.Yeah. With the Katherine: plane. So razy rich. Oh, and Ashley: like. the planes? I think so. What Katherine: does it mean to be in the world, Ashley: but not of it? Okay. So I feel like that means that you have to go to [00:41:00] work, right? And you have to, you have to do stuff that's in the world. But don't let the secular people drag you into their sin because you should be.More in like the godly world and so it's saying be in the secular world because like you have to also you have to tell people that Jesus is what's up and you know, you got to go out there and like proselytize and let people know that like Catherine I learned this from you that if you're doing good work in the workplace, you're doing it for Jesus Christ.Did I, did I nail it? Oh, you Katherine: totally nailed it. 100%, 100 points. 100 of the points. 100 percent of the points. I feel like Ashley: an amazing Christian right now. Fallon: You are. You would have giant. Katherine: You are halfway up the mountain to Ashley: the kingdom. You guys, I'm on fucking fire for Christ right now. [00:42:00] Fallon: I need that on a t shirt.I'm on Katherine: fire, Ashley. You're a burning. Oh yeah. Ashley: Oh, I mean, ignite me baby. Cause I can't, I can't get hotter for Jesus. All right. Yeah. Fallon: Yeah. Anyhow, I think, I think you, cause the last one, the last one, I've had so much fun. Oh my gosh. But you're too good at this. It would be so much better if you were like baby believers are tiny babies that somehow believe like that would have been funny.Yeah. Ashley: You guys, you guys didn't know that I was going to fucking bring that, that passion of the Christ heat. You're like a super agent. Fallon: You are. You're a sleeper agent for Christ. Ashley: Okay, that's a t shirt. Katherine: That's a t shirt.All right. Fallon: So, I'm gonna end with this one. I'm pretty sure you'll get it. But, if I say, God put it on my heart. [00:43:00] Ashley: Okay, this is one of the things that I told you I learned from The Bachelor. So, when God puts something on your heart, it means you, like, really need to speak to somebody about something, because if God puts that on your heart, like, fuck, that means you got to do it.Right? Yeah. That's good. And like people on the bachelor. No one can argue with you about it. No. Yeah. Cause people on the bachelor would weirdly have God put it on their heart that they had to go see the bachelorette like after the rose ceremony. Like God put it on my heart and I needed to come here and yeah, God put it on my heart to come get to know you better.Yeah, Fallon: exactly. Somebody justifies their actions by implying that God told them to do a certain thing a certain way or say a certain thing. And like Catherine said, that's the big piece. You can't argue with me because it's from God. Right. Right. God tacked this post it note to my chest that said, you know, I need to, to tell you you're a [00:44:00] jerk or whatever.And like, I Ashley: must be, because that's funny because God put it on my heart to Fuckin talk about all of these fucks and expose them for the fuckin dick tits they are. Allegedly. Allegedly. Allegedly, right? Heavy on the allegedly's. That's what, Katherine: It gets really funky in the dating community. When I'm going to be like, the Lord told me that we were going to get married and they would like tell the person that, or it was like a common, like commonly used excuse for women.If they didn't want to date somebody, if someone asked them out, it should be like the Lord, the Lord wants me to be single right now. Like God Ashley: doesn't want, I like that. I would use that even as a secular woman. I'd be like weirdly, I just got in touch with Christ. He put it on my heart to Not date you.Yeah I, I gotta I just have to trust the Lord on this Katherine: one. Yeah, no. Yeah, but then strangely, six months later, suddenly God was okay with them being in a relationship. Ashley: [00:45:00] Yeah. I like that. I kind of like that though. Fallon: I Ashley: know. Well, Catherine, that's why I wanted you to look into Twin Flames universe. Because I think that's exactly the, the idea.That they're running on because I was watching this documentary on Amazon Prime, you guys, it's really great. And I was like, why are they fucking bringing Christianity into this? This is about finding like your soulmate, which actually seems more like some woowoo shit, blah, blah, blah. And it's because they encourage you to stalk your love interest, because if God's put it On your heart to love them.That means you're supposed to be together and you should pursue them until they realize that that's the correct thing. Katherine: I know a lot of relationships that turned out that way. Like the, the guy just stalked her for years or the, or the woman did the same thing, like just like hung out for years and years.Like, [00:46:00] I believe, I believe the Lord has us together. My Fallon: spiritual gift is stalking.Ashley: Mine is patience or whatever. Women always get your mercy. Oh, yeah. Fallon: You're a mercy giver. Patience is definitely not my spiritual gift. Katherine: All of my spiritual gifts were gifts that women weren't supposed to have like leadership. And Ashley: why did you get hooked up with those? Katherine: Yeah, man. Talk to God about that one.Ashley: You're like, bitch. He put it on their hearts. I don't know. Katherine: He gave me these gifts and then he gave me boobs. What up? Ashley: What? Everyone was confused. Okay, Katherine: so Ashley, how did you feel about this game? I feel like you got at least an A. I feel like I Ashley: think I know Christianity better than I thought I did. You Katherine: definitely.I Ashley: might know more than some Christians at Fallon: this point. I think it's [00:47:00] amazing that, you know, you don't even know, like, it's not even that, you know, like Christianity, you know, like Christian slang, Katherine: that's you're in the world. You are in the Ashley: world, but I'm not of it. You guys. Okay. Let's get it straight. No secular music or entertainment up in this house.I only produce the content. Do not listen. Don't listen to it. Good for you. There you go. Yeah. Yeah. You're so holy. You're holy. Holy, holy. I'm holy ghosted Later. So you're holy. Ghosted. . Yeah, . So, Ashley, I don't wanna know, Katherine: I'm curious, like, what is your feeling about these phrases? Like, did they come across as like, just like super weird and like, this is like this?Or is it like, oh, this is normal. This is just Ashley: culture? Well, like I said, part of it felt super familiar because of aa. Which I'm like, yeah, Katherine: I think that shit's, like, Ashley: pretty Christian, though. I did say the [00:48:00] Lord's Prayer quite a few times. And... I just also remember a conversation that I had with my mom where she was like, that sounds pretty Christian.And I was like, no, you don't get it. It's a spiritual organization and like how people in Colts always really argue with people that they're not. We're not, we're not a cold. We're not though. You know, it's like we just have these meetings and you know, the fellowship tonight was like tight as fuck.You don't know what you're talking about. Yeah. So what I think I do notice, Not so much that it's weird, but that it's culty because one of the big hallmarks of cults is having your own fucking lingo that outsiders don't understand. Fallon: Great way to keep people who you don't want out out and a great way to keep people who you've got in because everyone likes to feel like they know the group speak, right?Oh my Ashley: god, you know, it'd be so fun if I asked you guys if you knew what these AA sayings [00:49:00] meant. Like first things first. Yeah. Anybody? Is that Katherine: from AA? It is. Ashley: Yeah, it is. Take a stab. Katherine: Just focus on what you have in front of you and don't worry about the rest. Ashley: Yeah. You nailed it. Yeah, basically like so if you, so a lot of people will like get sober and then also become a vegetarian who goes to the gym six times a week and doesn't smoke anymore.So that is, Oh yes, they just replace the addiction with something else. Absolutely. Absolutely. But you know first things first means, so like if it can mean. Just don't get overwhelmed with everything and just take care of what's most important first. And it can also mean, like, if you're trying to quit alcohol, wait until you feel comfortable with that before you try to quit cigarettes or whatever.Because, super easy to backslide, very slippery slope. [00:50:00] Fallon: But you know what? I've heard that when I started, like, when I got came, like, started to go back into like deep Christianity when I was in the Navy, shut up. I heard that from somebody who was like, well, I heard including a God put it on my heart. But he was like, when I first became a Christian, I had it put on my heart that I should only focus on one thing at a time. So like my, he was like, so I would encourage you to only focus on following God for one year and no dating and no thinking about romance for one year, because otherwise you can't be sure that you're doing like that thing correctly.So yeah, that. That shows up. Like, if you're a new Christian, focus on being a Christian, don't focus on trying to date and, you know, do this, Ashley: stop it, stop it, stop it, stop it. That is what they say in AA too. They say for your first year, don't date. Don't. All right. I'm going to, I'm going to Katherine: Google it. Does AA.Oh Ashley: my God. I'm freaking out. You guys, I was. [00:51:00] So much more Katherine: in a cult than I thought Fallon: what? No, you were just a Christian for Katherine: a while. I love that Christianity informed your view of AA being a cult. I'm like, oh my god. Oh my god. The similarities Fallon: are meeting through AA's immediate precursor The Christian Revivalist Oxford Group, they and other alcoholics fellowship there until forming what became Ashley: AA.Okay, that's the thing. They realized that the altruistic Christian model, they are. That's what it says somewhere. Katherine: An altruistic Christian movement is what it says. Ashley: Shut the fuck up. Shut the Katherine: fuck up. Where? The end 1935 when Ashley: it was founded. Okay, so, okay, now I'm starting to remember Bill Wilson the big book.Bill Wilson of, also the big book the Bible of AA. Bill Wilson, our charismatic leader who gets celebrated on his birthday. Katherine: Like, Ashley: like. There's often [00:52:00] a picture of him in the rooms. Oh my Katherine: gosh, this is such a Ashley: cold. Freaking out. I, that is why I'm a good Christian. I fucking was a good Fallon: Christian for quite a while.Catherine. I almost feel like I need to be like, you need a whole a episode and we should stop this Ashley: here. Yeah. No, we Katherine: got to stop now. Cause this is crazy. Christian and the ASF. But I definitely think you should do an AA episode for that's a fucked up. You should definitely do that. I think it sounds it. It sounds like everyone I know who's been through AA when they would like tell the stories, I would be like, that sounds like so shaming.And so like behavior oriented and it sounds so like restrictive. And so I'm just like scarcity mindset and just like, it doesn't sound like human to some extent. Ashley: No, I'm like, I'm like tripping out. I'm making like so many [00:53:00] wild connections right now. Oh my God. And especially Katherine: because typically what leads to addiction is trauma and it didn't sound like there was any depth into addressing the Ashley: trauma.Well, this is fun. And you, when you do your steps, one of the steps is to. Admit all of the ways that you've wronged everybody in your life. And I said, what about my mother who abused me? And they said, well, you have to find your part in that, which is that as a 30 something year old woman, you're still holding on to that resentment.Whoa, Katherine: that's straight out of Christianity. Straight. Ashley: Also every night you're supposed to write an inventory, which is like all the ways that you had fucked up that day. That's like shame based. Yeah, if, if you get out, if you're out of the program, when you come back in, you have to take a newcomer chip and be like, yeah, after 10 years of sobriety, I drank for one day and now I'm a newcomer and that [00:54:00] whole 10 years is gone and everybody's like, everybody's like, yay.And you're like, okay, cool. Like I'm getting love bombed by the group. I'm glad to be here. This is the only way to stay sober because in AA, there's only one truth is the only way to stay sober. Katherine: So AA becomes the new Fallon: addiction. Hey, Oh my gosh. Yeah. We got to talk about this. Wow. Okay. Katherine: This is a whole new episode, but yeah.So in conclusion, Ashley, any final thoughts, Fallon, any Fallon: final thoughts? No, this was really fun. We're glad to get back together. Well, I was, I think I speak for both of us. So glad to get back together with you. And it was really fun to see Ashley unravel all my expectations that she wouldn't know Christian Ashley: lingo.So, and to see Ashley. Fully realized that she was in a Christian cult for multiple. I mean, that doesn't make me Fallon: happy, but yes, it was Ashley: but Katherine: it solves the mystery for me as I'm like hearing people's stories. I'm like, that sounds cool. Ashley: [00:55:00] Yeah, but Katherine: I can't say that because so many people like worship AA and found it so helpful.Ashley: . I think I'm finding that I want to say what the fuck I want to say and say, I said what I said, but I will be honest as well and say.I think at times it was really fucking helpful. I think at times I needed that. I think some people, legit, that is the only fucking way for them to stay sober, is with that level of accountability, and trying to like, get out of their narcissism by finding that there is something bigger than them and they're not the center of the universe.So I do say it with the, I mean, Like I always say, cults are on a spectrum. They're not always super harmful and coercive. But, is that shit culty as fuck? Yeah. And, like I said, it was really helpful for a while. And then it became maladaptive, which is when I felt shamed. Because I smoked weed. [00:56:00] Because I got sunstroke and was like violently throwing up and I understand the medicinal properties of marijuana and then they were like, yeah, you went out and I was like, no, I didn't.And I actually left because I wasn't going to let this fucking group of people tell me that I had that my sobriety was fucked. I was like, no. Actually, it's not. So, fuck you guys. I'm out. And now I've been sober for, if we're not going by AA time, about nine fucking years. I've had a couple drinks in between.I think I went like one year, actually, probably drinking. That does not negate the other fucking eight. Yeah. Where I did not pick up a drink. So, you know, it's, I heard something really interesting. And I think that you were in a cold. depending on whether or not you Think or decide you were in a cult. I thought that was very interesting.Like it's not really up to other people to tell you that you were in a cult because maybe you were and you had a great time. Like maybe that one fucking [00:57:00] Scientology or NXIVM class that you took at the very low level and you never went into the organization. Maybe that class helped you, you know, so.Katherine: Exactly. And, and, and I think that that is the opposite of fundamentalism when you can kind of hold those things together and just be like, it was helpful. But the organization itself is harmful Ashley: and yeah, because life's not black and white, right? Like there's a lot more Katherine: gray. I can say the foundation of evangelicalism, I believe is problematic, but I'm not going to, but I can also say people I know go to church and have a good experience and they genuinely have a good experience and it helps them be a better person.So right. Both of those things can be true at Ashley: the same time. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, I think that's a great place to end. Me too. Thanks everyone for being here. Yeah, you guys, and If you guys have not checked out Catherine's episode on our feed, please do follow us on That's So Fucked Up. We're on all the platforms where you listen to podcasts. We did a six episode [00:58:00] series on Christian fundamentalism. One with Catherine. It was awesome. So check that out and Catherine, thank you so much for having us.Thank you Katherine: for being here guys. This was so fun. Ashley: Hell yeah. Katherine: Christianity.

Hey Mamas, Are you tired of feeling like you're putting out fires with your kids all day? Do you wish your home was more peaceful and you had more time to spend with your husband?  Wouldn't it be great to find that instead of getting frustrated and yelling at your kids, you were creating true connection with them? Join me today on the podcast as I chat with Katie Keene about how setting up a family government is the answer you've been looking for!  Ashley  You can find Katie over at https://bit.ly/m/HerHomeandHeart   My favorite natural products: Skin & Beauty Products: Earthley Use code NEWTOEARTHLEY to save 10% off your first order!  Ordering organic bulk food: Azure Standard Supplements for cellular health: LifeVantage I would love to connect even more with you! Please email me or reach out to me on social media! Private Facebook Group Email: hello@ashleybraden.com Facebook: facebook.com/specialkindofmotherhood Instagram: instagram.com/specialkind.ofmotherhood *This post contains affiliate links. If you use my links I may receive a commission at no additional cost to you. Thank you for your support!

Are you ready to break from what others think? Are you sick of people-pleasing? Are you ready to live your best life, feeling renewed? Discover how to tend to the parts of yourself that require attention and show up as your authentic self in this episode. "If you want to stop wishing for someone else's life, you need to shift your focus from comparison to self-discovery and embrace your own unique journey." - Ashley "You know, the thing about rest is that so often people think, oh, either I don't have time for that, that seems so luxurious, or that seems so unimportant, or that seems so boring. You know? People have all kinds of ideas about what rest looks like and also what it means." – (3:14), Ashley Listen as writer, podcaster and breathwork teacher Ashley Neese helps you break free from all the artificial barriers and the fear of judgment. Ashley guides you on living with an open heart and stepping off the hamster wheel. She has an incredible personal journey of healing and self-discovery. And her openness helps you learn and relate. She helps you know which parts of yourself need attention, and you learn how to show up as your present, authentic self in relationships. Not only that, You get tips on managing phone addiction and creating healthy digital boundaries! Self-awareness creates self-compassion. The Impact of Social Media on Personal Well-being: "I often look at, like, how do I actually want to spend my energy? It's like, what's really filling my cup? What's feeling like a really good exchange for me? And social media doesn't feel like a good exchange for me, like a nourishing exchange, for example." – (23:10), Ashley “We're so focused on attaching our value to what we produce.” – (5:53), Ashley Finding nourishment in your hectic world includes a pause. Listen as Ashley and Lauren share the secrets to restoring balance and wellness; resting and taking a pause is one of the most powerful things you can do for yourself. Ashley helps you make space for something new in your life, get the rest you deserve, and find the courage to pause. Listen as Ashley shares her practices and techniques, helping you reconnect with yourself and find peace amidst the chaos. She is a regular contributor to Goop, and her wisdom will undoubtedly help you come home to yourself and prioritize self-care. “I came into rest broken down; I came into rest sick.” – (6:50), Ashley “Just because I can do something doesn't mean that it's the best thing for me to do, the most efficient thing for me to be doing.” – (14:40), Ashley “We see people like Arianna Huffington writing about burnout, and we see all these, especially women, . . . , who have big platforms and media companies and all over, you know, in different genres and different jobs talk about this burnout piece and talk about how real that is because women are expected to work harder than men, that's just a fact.” – (5:25), Ashley In this episode: (2:21) – The benefits of pausing and slowing down. (4:00) – Unpacking the belief that you don't have time for rest. (6:21) – Reclaiming your intrinsic value that isn't attached to work.  (8:30) – At times when you need to move fast, how to make rest work. (9:29) – How to know what you're feeling.  (11:30) – Creating space so that something else can emerge.  (12:31) – You don't have to do it all. (13:52) – How to create space when you have children. (15:34) – About multi-tasking.  (17:49) – Answers emerge in the pause.  (18:50) – What happens in the pause.  (20:00) – About social media.  (21:06) – The addictive design of smartphones. (21:58) – How to put boundaries around your social media usage.  (30:14) – The necessity of being vulnerable and putting yourself out there. (34:27) – How to have a nourishing component in your life.  (37:12) – Trauma bonding.  (39:20) – It's not your partner's job to fix the broken parts of you. (40:17) – Understanding that something different is possible.  Resources and Links  52 Weeks of Hope https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauren-abrams-83b8b421/ https://www.52weeksofhope.com/ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyLA7Rb6E0PtKBhPGu1vcjA https://www.facebook.com/52weeksofhope/ https://www.instagram.com/52weeksofhope/ https://twitter.com/52weeksofhope Get your FREE Confidence and Clarity Growth Scorecard Ashley Neese https://www.ashleyneese.com/ https://www.instagram.com/ashley_neese/ https://www.facebook.com/AshleyNeeseWellness/ Permission to Rest: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/690360/permission-to-rest-by-ashley-neese/ How to Breathe: 25 Simple Practices for Calm, Joy, and Resilience: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0399582711 Here are a couple other episodes you might enjoy that are similar to this one with Ashley: Breaking Free of the Hamster Wheel: How Overachieving Moms Rediscover the Magic of Life! How to Stop Wishing for Someone Else's Life Heal Your Past Traumas and Create Your Best Life Now with Mary Sise

This episode features Catherine, a return co-host from the Ritual Oils episode. Listen in as Catherine and Ashley discuss all things Candle Basics. The majority of this episode covers how to use candles as there's a lot more to it than just lighting the wick! ;) There is also a brief discussion on how to use candles in magic. You can find Catherine on Instagram at @quadriviumsupplies, via email at catherine@ritualoils.net, or her shop at www.ritualoils.net This episode is sponsored by AG1. To get a FREE 1-yearsupply of Vitamin D AND 5 Free AG1 Travel Packs with your first purchase, visit drinkAG1.com/ASHLEY You can find Ashley on Twitter (@SeekWitchcraft), Instagram (@seekingwitchcraft), Facebook ("Seeking Witchcraft Podcast" or "Ashley Seekraft"), or the community Facebook group ("Witches Seeking Witchcraft"). Want to support the show and gain bonus community perks and features? You can do so at https://patreon.com/seekingwitchcraft

Ashley joins us today from Australia sharing her three birth stories and how she learned to truly trust herself. Driven out of the hospital due to discrimination and not being able to find support from home birth midwives, Ashley decided to go for a free birth. With a special scar, two previous Cesarean surgeries, a big baby, a high BMI, and a history of gestational diabetes, Ashley accepted all of the risks and was able to reap the beautiful benefits of undisturbed home delivery. Ashley shares with us her journey to acceptance when things didn't go the way she planned, but also how to persevere through to fight for the story she wanted. She now hosts The VBAC Homebirth Stories podcast and is a Homebirth/Freebirth Mindset Coach inspiring other women to have the courage to take back control of their birth stories!Additional LinksAshley's InstagramThe VBAC Homebirth Stories podcastHow to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull Transcript under Episode DetailsFull TranscriptMeagan: Hello, hello. Welcome to The VBAC Link. This is Meagan Heaton and we have Ashley here with you. Can I just tell you? She is amazing and you're going to want to listen to this episode 5 million times and then when you're done listening to it 5 million times, you're going to want to check out her Instagram and watch her videos 5 million more times because she is amazing and such a wealth of knowledge. We reached out and said, “Hey, we want to share your story on the podcast. We think it's going to be an amazing episode.” I don't think. I know it's going to be an amazing episode. Review of the WeekBefore we do that, I'm going to get a review per usual and remind you that if you would like to leave a review, we are on Google and Apple Podcasts. You can email us. Shoot us a message on Instagram. We love to add your reviews to the queue and read them on the podcast. This specific review is from Ana Neves and it says, “I've been preparing for my VBAC ever since my C-section, and listening to the stories in this podcast has not only taught and informed me all about the different options, but also inspired me. I know that when the time comes, I will be prepared and feel the power of the great and courageous people who shared their stories here.” Oh, I love that. “The great and courageous people.” Oh, I love that. I love that so much. Thank you so much for sharing your review and like I said, if you have a review to share and you want us to know how you feel about the podcast and all of these great and courageous people, please leave us a review. Ashley's StoriesMeagan: Okay, Ashley. I am so excited that you are here. It's been interesting from now in recording, we've had Australian people on the podcast a lot. It warms my heart and makes me so happy and makes me feel like I probably need to go to Australia now because one, I am obsessed with all of the knowledge you guys have on birth and I actually really like the way that birth is in Australia in a lot of ways. But I am just so honored to have you here with us. Ashley: Thank you. I am so excited to be here. That was such a beautiful, warm welcome so thank you very much for having me. Meagan: Yes, oh my gosh. I'm serious. I just love listening to you too. I just love your guys' accents. My Utah accent is pretty lame, but yeah. So let's turn the time over to you. I am so excited because I feel like I've heard little things, but I'm excited to just hear it right now with you. Go ahead. Ashley: Okay. So let's start from the first babe then. Basically, I went into that one expecting that I was going to have a vaginal birth because my mum had vaginal births, and all of the women before me did too. My mum had me in 7 hours. I was the first baby. My sister is two, so mum said, “If you have medication, you're weak. You've just got to suck it up.” So I had this, “If she could do it, I can do it.” I had this, “I'll have the epidural if I need it” sort of vibe. A lot of my friends had babies before me. They had children when they were 17-18. By the time I had mine, I was 28. I was newly married and I had watched all of my friends. They told me all of their birth stories and things. They had all had vaginal births. I thought that Cesarean birth was really for celebrities basically because when I was in high school, it was Posh Spice who was having this C-section and things like that. It was a trendy thing to do. It wasn't something that normal people did. It was an expensive thing that rich people did. Meagan: Like in Brazil. That's how it's viewed in Brazil. You are high-class if you have Cesareans. Ashley: Yeah. I mean, I went to the GP before I got pregnant and checked on my levels to make sure. I have always had a high BMI, so the doctor said to me, “The only thing I recommend is that you lose some weight because you might struggle to conceive,” so I went in knowing that there may be a hardship there. Some of the women in my workplace at the time had multiple miscarriages. My mother-in-law had 7 before my husband, so I went in with that kind of, “We'll see what happens, but it could take a while.” So I conceived within the first month of trying so that was a shock, but also so exciting. Super exciting. It was a month before my wedding, so I got sick just after my wedding for my honeymoon and all of the fun games and after that, I was just like a sloth dying because I got HG. I got HG and it was just 20 weeks of basically a challenge. Meagan: Yeah, miserable. Ashley: It was hard. I was so excited to be a mom. I couldn't wait from the time I conceived to birth the baby and have the baby in my arms. That's all I wanted. I went to the hospital and there was a bit of a mix-up between when I went to the GP and had the GTT, the test for gestational diabetes. The doctor told me that I didn't have it. I went to a hospital because that's what they do. You go to a GP and they just send you to the local public hospital and that's the one that you are allowed to go to, but they didn't really discuss any of the other avenues like private, or midwives, or homebirths or anything like that. So I went excitedly to my first appointment. I waited for over an hour and I saw some random gyno-obstetrician and they said to me, “You've got gestational diabetes so you'll be seeing us.” I was like, “No I don't. I don't have gestational diabetes.” “Yes you do,” she said and I burst out crying. It was this big thing. Basically, the difference was if I had birthed or if I had gone to the hospital in Brisbane which is the next suburb over, I wouldn't have had gestational diabetes but in the hospital that I went to, they were up with the times with the lower numbers because that was cycling at the moment. It was 2014. I had gestational diabetes and that meant that I had so many more appointments. It meant that I was only with obstetricians. It meant that I had to go to nutrition or a dietician. It was just so many appointments. It was out of control. From a very early stage, I was told, “You're going to be induced and you're going to be on insulin.” As soon as I was diagnosed, I was told, “You're going to be on medication.” Meagan: No talking about it. Ashley: “Yeah, let's see how this unravels and we're not going to start you on the pill, we're just going to go straight to insulin for you,” so it was kind of like they had already decided my fate. I was really excited to have an induction. It meant that I got a date for my baby and I was going to have my baby early. When I spoke to the other ladies in the GD who were getting induced, the lady said to me, “It's all good. I was induced and I had my baby in 5 hours.” I was like, “Awesome. Awesome.” I don't know what number baby that was for her because when it comes to induction, I know now that it really matters whether it's your second or if you've had a vaginal birth before, then an induction probably isn't going to land you with a C-section. I ended up getting my date, coming into hospital, and having no discussion. I kept asking, “Can we have a birth discussion?” It was always, “Next week. Next week. Next week.” There was no discussion about what happens at birth or really what to expect or any niceties or anything. It always felt quite cold. It was like the people didn't even want to be there, the junior obstetricians, it was like they were doing their time so to speak. It just wasn't a pleasant experience. I was expecting my first baby and I just felt like another number. Meagan: Yeah. It wasn't warm and fuzzy at all. That's for sure. Ashley: No. I just felt like it didn't feel right. It just felt really not nice. Meagan: Yeah, impersonal. Ashley: Yeah, exactly. I basically went in for my induction and my husband came in with me. That was a couple of days of having gels and people putting their fingers up and continued monitoring and just very uncomfortable. I found after they had done all of that process that my cervix was right shut up. It wouldn't open up. They said, “Okay. We are going to try and put the balloon in there.” That was the most excruciating pain. Meagan: Especially when you're not dilated. Ashley: It was excruciating and I was in so much pain. The doctor and midwife made out that I was making a big fuss because I was responding that it was painful, so they gave me a lot of gas and I was pretty much tripping out. It was really trippy. Meagan: Like nitrous oxide?Ashley: Yeah. I just felt like if this is how painful it is to put this thing in, how painful is labor going to be? How am I going to handle that if I've just been through two days of this? I think that I had a cannula in my hand as well because I couldn't really go to the bathroom without assistance from my husband. It was really getting uncomfortable. I had something up inside me. Meagan: Or poking you or something all of the time. Ashley: Yeah, exactly. So another night in the hospital we slept and then they said, “If it doesn't open and it doesn't drop out by the morning, then we'll talk about it.” I wasn't allowed to eat. I had to fast. Meagan: That's going to serve your body well. Ashley: I know. It's really cool. It's like they give you so much amazing care in the hospital to set you up for this amazing birth, and I woke up and it was still in there and nothing had changed. I felt really defeated and I felt like my body was broken like there was something wrong with me. Nobody had ever discussed or told me that there is a high failure rate to this or that this procedure can fail or that you may not be a great candidate for this procedure. Meagan: Or more time. More time can make you a different candidate statistically and raise your BISHOP score. Ashley: Yeah, they obviously did the BISHOP score and they would have seen that I wasn't a good candidate for this. They would have known that when they did all of these things to me. Now I see that as my body is so amazing that you tried to do all of this stuff to my body and my body was like, “Hell no.” Meagan: Nope. I'm keeping this baby in. Ashley: Clam shut, yeah. The junior doctor came in and she said, “Look. We recommend that you come in tomorrow for more monitoring. Go home and come back on Monday and we'll start the process again.” I was like, “What do you mean you're going to start the process again? This was really torturous.” I said, “What's the difference between a day or two? My body's not going to respond any differently. Can I just come back in two weeks?” I'm 38 weeks at this point and I'm like, “I'm not even 40 weeks. Can I come back in 2 weeks when I'm in labor?” Meagan: And a first-time mom.Ashley: Yeah, because my mom had me and my sisters right on 40 weeks, so I'm just expecting the same. She said, “No. You can't.” I was like, “Oh, okay.” She said, “No, you can't do that.” I said, “Okay.” She said, “You know what? We're just about to have an obstetrician meeting, so I'll go in there and I'll ask the consultants what they think and I'll come back with a plan.” “Okay,” I said because she also did talk about my option of being a Cesarean on the Monday and I said to her, “Look. I'm going to be honest with you. There's no way in hell that you're going to get me to come in for elective surgery. It's just not going to happen. I never wanted to birth like that and I don't want to.” She came back and she said– they obviously spoke about what I had said and they made for me later a plan to push me in the way they thought that I was going to bend the most, so they said, “Look. We've bumped all of the surgeries for the day and we're going to book you in as priority because we feel like you should be having this baby now.” I was kind of like, “Okay.” So they were bumping all of these surgeries. There were people sitting out in the waiting room waiting to have their babies, but they were going to bump me to have my baby first. I had my sister in the room who was a surgery nurse who had been pushing me to have surgery the whole time because she was traumatized. I'd been fighting her the way through like, “No. I don't want to do that. I want to have a vaginal birth.” I was so exhausted and my husband only had 5 days off of work, so he had to return in a couple of days. I had my in-laws at my house babysitting my dog and I was promised a baby. I feel like at that point, I was just like, “Okay, well if that's what you think, then okay. I'll do it.” I signed this 3-page waiver form by the way, which I was really scared of. I was like–Meagan: What am I doing? What am I signing?Ashley: My sister is getting me prepared. She just finished a shift from working upstairs in nursing and she organized for herself to get in there, so it was going to be my husband and her. They never allowed a third person, but because she worked there and knew people, she was able to weasel in. She's getting me ready like a good nurse. She's so excited. She gets to be a part of it and I'm just recording a video of, “If I die, tell my baby I love my baby.” I am so petrified. I've got video and photos and I just look at the photo and it's like me trying to look excited, but actually, I'm like, “Holy crap. This is really scary and I don't want to do this.” Meagan: Why is everybody so excited and I'm terrified? And why is no one talking to me about this? Ashley: Because I'm giving up control. They're not getting the knife, but I am. It's really scary if you've never had surgery. It's not something that we do every day and it's not something that I had ever gone through before. So off I go into surgery and it's really good that my sister was there because she got to take a lot of photos and she got to be a part of it. Meagan: That would bring some comfort maybe. Ashley: Yeah, I felt like they would step up a bit as well because they knew that it was one of their own in there and I was one of their own. She took a lot of photos and things like that, but when they were doing the spinal, no one can be in the room. I just remember feeling so petrified and shaking and looking into this big man's eyes who was holding me and thinking, “You look like a nice man. Keep me safe.” This midwife came around and she was like, “You look like a deer in headlights” because it was like all of these lights shining down at me. I'm in this crazy room with surgery stuff. I'm really scared. I'm petrified, but I went through the whole process and the obstetrician and everyone, it was Christmastime. It was early Christmas. It was December 5th and they were all having their Christmas party that night, so they were all very happy talking about the Christmas party. “You're going to the Christmas party? I'm going to the Christmas party.” I thought, “Well, they're not fast. They're not stressed. They're very happy. They're starting their day. I'm the first one. They're excited about the Christmas party.” It didn't feel very personal. I definitely didn't feel included in the process. They were just talking among colleagues. Meagan: I can so relate. So relate. Ashley: It's horrible. Meagan: Yeah. They were talking about the snow outside and how depressing it was because the one just gotten back from Hawaii. He was like, “Oh, I came back to snow.” I was like, “I'm right here. Can we talk about my baby? Can we talk about me?” Ashley: Yeah, it's very impersonal. I mean, it's one thing at the dentist to be chatting it up. I don't mind it at the dentist if they're chatting or something, or the orthodontist or something, but yes. I thought, “At least they're calm.” The baby was born in no time and then announced, “It's a baby girl.” I just thought, “Oh, can I go to sleep now? I'm not really interested in this. I'm very time. I'm shaking. This is not a great experience.” I just turned around and said, “Can I go to sleep? I don't want to hold the baby.” It's uncomfortable anyways, but I can't really hold the baby. I'm shaking. I've never really had that many drugs in my system before and off to recovery we go basically. That's a new experience as well. Yeah, it wasn't a great postpartum experience in the hospital. It was quite a negative experience with the night midwives, so I was really excited to get out. I left a day early because I just did not want to have to put up with the night staff. My husband wasn't allowed to stay. Meagan: Oh, why? Ashley: So in our hospital in the public system, some of them have got 4 or 5 to a room, so I was in a 4 or 5 to a room. They don't allow husbands to stay. I couldn't get out of bed. Meagan: I didn't know that. That's like old school.Ashley: It is old school. A lot of them are getting upgraded now because obviously, it's better to have your own room and stuff, but that's where I was lumped. No one wants to birth there because no one wants to share a room, but if you're in the catchment, that's where you get stuck unless you go private. So he got booted out at 10:00 at night, and then I was left with this witch of a midwife who every time my baby cried, she was like, “Oh, look. You're just going to have to sleep with the baby on your belly because I can't be coming back here to get the baby all of the time.” I was like, “But it's not guidelines. I'm not allowed to sleep with my baby with my chest. I can't sleep and it's stressing me out.” In my head, I'm saying those things, but yeah. It was horrific. The next morning, my husband came and I was letting loose at him. I was like, “Why weren't you here? The baby and I haven't slept.” I was so stressed. I mean, think about it. Being awake for 3 days, having been in the hospital for a long time, and then having gone and had major surgery, you're left on your own with this baby with barely any support. No one telling you what to do, trying to breastfeed with your nipples getting ripped by the way. Meagan: Pretty much abandoning you. Pretty much. Ashley: Basically. So the second night, I stayed and sorted that out, then I went home the next day. I did have a bit of a thing with the midwife. She was on again, so I ran down to the bathing room and I hid from her because– okay. One thing you should know about me is that I am a highly sensitive person, so something that someone might say to someone may not affect them as much as it would affect me. Meagan: It triggers you. Ashley: It really upsets me and being in a vulnerable position, I need someone who's gentle, nurturing, and loving. So I ran away and I hid in the bathing room with my baby. I was trying to work out why she was crying. I had fed her. I swaddled her. I changed her. I was really trying to work it out. She could hear the baby screaming and obviously thought that I was not looking after my baby. I said, “Look, I'm just trying to figure out what's happening here.” She's like, “You just need to hold her.” I was like, “No, I just need to figure out what's happening because I've got to go home with this baby and work this out.” She's like, “Why don't I take the baby and I'll look after the baby so you can get some sleep?” I'm like, “No. That's not happening.” I was so against this woman. She was like, “Here's your medication. Take your medication. I've been looking for you,” and then she sent another colleague down to come and check on me and try to convince me to give the baby up. But what I discovered by sticking to my guns and doing what I felt was intuitively right for me was that my baby was pulling her arms out of the swaddle and that was waking her up. So I put her in a little zip-up and from then on, she slept through the night. My husband came the next morning right on the dot. I had a shower. Baby was sleeping. He's like, “Where's the baby?” I'm like, “She's sleeping,” feeling like a million dollars. “I've got this. I've got this and we're checking out today.”Meagan: Yep. Get me out of here. Ashley: I went home and we struggled with breastfeeding. I got some really bad advice from one of the nurses that came to my house so I felt like a double failure. By 6 months time, I was mixed feeding to just formula feeding and I felt like a real failure. I let her down. I hadn't birthed her the way– I didn't feel like I birthed with, “When I had my baby,” or “When my baby was born.” I didn't say “When I birthed,” because I didn't feel a part of the experience. It happened to me. It wasn't inclusive to me. I just felt completely excluded. So I knew when I was going to have my second, I was having a VBAC for sure because I knew there was a thing possible. I knew about VBACs and I said to my GP, “What's the timeframe between babies?” She said, “24 months between birth and birth.” That was the thing then or whatever. I said, “Fine. I'm having 24 months.” I literally started trying within 24 months, whatever it was, 15, or whatever. I fell pregnant the second time. I was having a VBAC and I think I joined the VBAC group in Australia. I started learning all of the stuff, becoming informed and advocating. I knew that this time I wasn't having an induction because that's what caused me a C-section. I knew that I wanted to try to avoid GDM because that's what I thought was the lead-up for the induction rush. I didn't realize that my weight was obviously pushing against me so much. I didn't understand the reasons why or some of the discrimination that happened in the hospital at that point. I did the early GTT test and I passed that. I was like, “Yes. Maybe this is going to be different.” I'm going to show them. I'm educated. I know what I want. I'm informed. I'm also a people pleaser so I'm trying to get them on board with me. I'm trying to get them to agree with my decision. I'm trying to get them to be a part of my team and cheer me on and get excited.I'm just kind of getting met with obstetricians who were like, “VBAC is great and it's the best way to birth your baby.” I'm like, “Yes. This is amazing.” Meagan: You're like, “Thank you. This is what I want to hear.” Ashley: “But not for you.” I'm like, “What? Not for me?” “Well, for you, we recommend a planned Cesarean.” “Okay.” They never really spoke in plain language or explained it to me. It was only through digging and digging and digging and asking and asking and asking that I was finally able to get some answers. I essentially ended up getting gestational diabetes at 20 weeks, so then I wasn't allowed to see midwives because I had asked to see midwives and they said, “If you get GD, we won't release you.”Meagan: It disqualified you. Ashley: It disqualified me from seeing midwives. I said, “Look, you're a surgeon. Can I just see you if I need surgery?” The thing with GD is that there is a GD counselor and somebody that you report to outside of them, so why do I need to see you because you're not a GD expert or specialist? I actually see somebody. Why is a midwife not capable of looking after me? It doesn't make any sense. They're just trying to pull in all of the patients to keep their bellies full and make sure they've got jobs. I was gutted. I was absolutely gutted. I only failed by .1 on one of the tests and I wish I had known back then that I could have redone it and I probably would have passed it. It was really disappointing and I was like, “Oh, goodness me.” So I was diet-controlled through that time. I say diet-controlled because that's the readings that I gave them. I wasn't really diet-controlled but I was being a bit of a rebel because I was getting the same numbers as I was with my first baby and I was on insulin with her and insulin didn't do much. I thought, “Well, what's the difference going to be if they're the same numbers? She came out healthy and had no sugar problems or anything.” I kind of started to think, “Is this GD thing a bit overrated? If I was in a different hospital or a different country—”Meagan: I was going to say if you went somewhere else like last time, would it have been different or would it actually have been GD as well? Ashley: If I had gone somewhere different and I knew this because I was part of the GD community and I had friends that were birthing in Brisbane who were even having to keep below higher numbers than me. They had much higher numbers than me, so I thought, “You're with a private obstetrician and you're getting different information than me,” so I started to clue on that. And then also, when I was doing my readings on my fingers, I would get a different reading on this one to this one, so I started questioning, “If this one's .5 difference to this one, how accurate is this measuring?”Meagan: Yeah, interesting. Very interesting. Ashley: So it was very scary for me to do that because nobody's doing that and every time you're going there, they're like, “Dead baby. There was a woman who had gestational diabetes and her baby died.” And I was like–Meagan: You hear these and you're like, “What?” Ashley: I was like, “How did she die? How did the baby die?” They said, “Oh, we can't disclose that information. You're telling a room full of women with gestational diabetes that a baby died and the mum had gestational diabetes. She could have been hit by a car for all we know and you're using it to fearmonger us, but you're not willing to tell us how the baby died. It could have been negligence on the hospital's part. It may not have been GD related at all.” Meagan: Yeah, she just had it. Ashley: She just had it, so I found that quite disgusting and all of those things started to really add up. The more that I saw in the VBAC community, the more that I saw this was happening around Australia, the more I was determined to advocate and fight which is really hard for a highly sensitive person, but I got a student-midwife. I got the head midwife to come to my appointments. I had a student-doula who was a dear friend of mine and I started to grow a team around me. I refused to see one of the doctors at one point and wanted to speak to the best, most amazing doctor in the hospital, so the midwives set me up with the nicest obstetrician who still didn't support me to have a vaginal birth, but he was nicer to deal with. I mean, I had some crazy conversations with some of the obstetricians during that time. One of them was a junior and she said to me because I didn't want to have continuous monitoring. I just wanted to have the doppler. She said, “You know what my boss says? He says that if you don't have continuous monitoring, then you're basically free birthing in the hospital.” I looked at her and I was like, “You're crazy.” At this point, free birth to me was crazy and she was telling me that because I'm in a hospital and if I'm not doing that, then I'm free birthing. And I thought, “But I'm getting checked with a doppler by a midwife. I'm with obstetricians.” That is absolutely insane, but it goes to show the kind of mentality and the thought process that goes through the fact that they don't know how to be with women. They don't know how to observe and watch a woman. Now, my mindset is the complete opposite way. I see things in a different light than how they would see. They rely on machines whereas they don't rely on that connection. I'm the type of person that relies on human-to-human connection and I've listened to people and I love stories. That's how we learn. We don't learn about humans by watching machines. I started to learn about the inaccuracies of their machines and some of the equipment that they were using. It made no sense to me to have continuous monitoring when I knew that one obstetrician would send me to surgery for the reading whereas another one with maybe more experience who may be older and more chilled would be like, “Yeah, that's nothing.” If the results are at that rate, then that's not beneficial to me because then I'm putting my fate on whether I get a choppy-choppy obstetrician or a chilled, relaxed one on the day. So that was kind of my thinking. I didn't do growth scans this time. I didn't see the point in me having a growth scan to tell me that I was having a big baby. My first was 3.7 at 39 weeks. I knew this one was going to be 4 kilos and I said, “Look, I'm happy to birth a 4.5-kilo baby out of my vagina,” which is almost 10 pounds for your listeners and they just wanted to do Cesareans on 4-kilo babies as well as inductions. It was always about induction and I found out the reason why they wanted to do induction. They wanted to manage me. They weren't a tertiary hospital, one of the bigger ones, and so I found out that the junior obstetricians wouldn't be comfortable doing or maybe confident or capable of doing an emergency Cesarean on someone of my size, so I said, “That's fine. Just send me to that hospital or that hospital. Let's just do this. If it's a staffing issue, I don't want to stretch it out.” They just laughed at me. It can't be a big deal then, can it? If they're not willing to send me to a different hospital. We had so many conversations and it was anxiety-inducing. I would cry on the way to the hospital. I would cry on the way home. I'd have to get my fight on and I even had a conversation with an obstetrician that said to me, “We'll fight about that later.” I said, “That's exactly right though isn't it? It's a fight, the fight.” Meagan: Yeah, we'll fight about that later. That right there. Ashley: He goes, “Oh, I didn't mean fight. I don't mean fight.” I go, “Yeah, but no. You do.” Meagan: But you just said that. Ashley: But you do. Meagan: You're like, “Yeah, I can tell that you're not agreeing with me and you're telling me that if I want something else, I'm going to have to fight with you.” Ashley: And so I'm hearing about this informed consent and I'm like, “Informed consent.” I'm fixated on what would get them to be on my side. I've learned about informed consent. They legally have to support me, right? But that is just the fast in my opinion, in my experience, they wouldn't know what informed consent or working with a woman, it just blows my mind. I didn't realize that at the time, but there were a lot of conversations that were happening about my weight. “You're not going to be able to. It's harder for bigger women like you.” I would leave conversations thinking, “I'm not going to be able to birth my baby out of my vagina because I'm big.” Meagan: They were shaming you. Ashley: Yeah, basically I was told by an obstetrician that, “She's not a fatist, but—.” I was like, “I've never heard someone say ‘I'm not a fatist.'” I don't even know what that means. I had some really interesting conversations because I was asking questions and I was asking questions because I was asking so many questions. Every time I went to an appointment, the obstetrician would say to me, “Ah, I see you're having a repeat Cesarean,” and that would spike adrenaline. Read my book. Read my book. You would know that I'm having a VBAC and then, “Oh, well do you know the risks of VBAC?” Yes, I do. “Oh, you really do know the risks, but we still recommend that you have a repeat Cesarean,” and I would have to go through that every single time. Meagan: So discouraging. Ashley: It was a nightmare. By 36-37 weeks, I had received a phone call and they said, I could feel the smugness and a smile through the phone, “Oh, we're not willing to take the risk. You're going to have to go to a different hospital.” I was just horrified. I was so scared. I've just been kicked out of hospital because nothing has changed with me.”Meagan: But because I won't do what they want me to do and I'm being stern in following my heart. Ashley: Yeah, because I won't submit. I've told you from day one what I'm going to do, but I suppose the rate of success with that tactic is probably 99%, I'm probably the 1% of women who actually says, “No. I actually will not fall for your trickery.”Meagan: Yeah, okay fine. I'll leave. Ashley: I was so determined, so then I went to a different hospital and it was a newer hospital. They had birthing pools. I was hopeful that I might get in a birthing pool. You get your own room in the postpartum. I was excited. They had informed consent signs. The receptionists weren't fighting each other. This first one that I went to was pretty rough down there. They were lovely and polite. I thought, “Oh, this feels nice. Maybe I'm going to have a different response,” and I did. I saw an amazing midwife on entry. She was like, “If they're not going to allow you to do this, you advocate and you can make a complaint. That's disgusting how you were treated.” I thought, “Oh, wow. This is the best thing.” I saw an obstetrician. They were supportive. They wanted to do some of the same things, but they respected me. I felt like I was seen as a human. They would ask me questions and they would go and ask a consultant and the consultant would agree with me. I was like, “Wow, I am ticking boxes here.” I made some compromises because I was vulnerable. I did a growth scan and they found out that baby was about 4 kilos. Meagan: Like you already guessed. Ashley: I knew that at 39 weeks. I said, “That's fine.” “Oh, we recommend induction.” I said, “Yeah, I know you do. I'm not doing it.” That's what caused me the C-section last time. I'm not doing it. We went through the study at 39 weeks. I said, “That doesn't apply to me. It doesn't apply to me. I'm not in that study. It doesn't mean anything to me.” I don't know how you can have a study saying that it's going to work better on someone at 39-41 because you're not doing the same people. You're not doing induction on someone at 39 weeks and then going, “Hey, let's try it again at 41 or whatever it is.” You're doing different people. I don't want to know about it. I don't care about it. They said, “Okay, well I'll talk to the consultant. We'll look at the scan,” and then she came back and said, “Yep, you're fine. There's no fat on the shoulders, so yep. That's fine.” But if I hadn't said that, I would have been booked in for an induction, right? I would have just said, “Let's go, yep.” I sat there on the weekend with my husband shaking like a leaf again having to advocate for myself. It isn't an easy thing to do. Every time I have to raise my voice, I'm putting adrenaline into my body. I'm not raising like screaming, but I'm having to raise my voice. My baby would have been under attack the whole pregnancy essentially. I eventually get to the due date. A week before my due date– it was a couple of days before my due date– my midwife turns to me at the last appointment. She was training in the hospital last time, so I was really grateful that she was willing to come with me and support me even though she wasn't going to get her book signed off for this birth. And on that appointment, she said to me, “Look, my daughter's booked a holiday for me, so I'm going away on your due date. Are you going to have this baby soon now?” I was like, “Oh my goodness. You've just fought with me the whole time and now you've turned into them trying to get me to have my baby before my due date because it suits you.” Yes. I was heartbroken and I was so angry. I decided then and there I was not going to invite her into my birth space even if it was sooner because she had betrayed me on every level. I went into that appointment and the obstetrician didn't recommend it, she said, “Do you want to do a cervical stretch?” A sweep and I said, “No, I don't.” I turned to the midwife and said, “What do you think?” She was like, “Yeah, why not?” Of course, she said that because it gets the baby out quicker. So again, you've got to be careful about who you're with because if you're relying on people who've got a different agenda, you've got to take their advice or their opinion with a grain of salt. But I was a little bit interested myself. I'd never had a stretch or a sweep like that before. I was a bit interested. I was worried that I was going to go over due dates and I was willing to wait for 40+10 and I was getting a bit stressed like, “Oh, what if it goes longer?” You start to freak out at that point. There's a bit of pressure and with what I'd been through, I had the stretch and sweep. She said, “You're 3 centimeters and you're stretchy.” I was like, “Wow. Wow. Last time, they couldn't even– I was closed up.” Meagan: Get a Foley in. Ashley: Yeah. So I was so excited. I started to get some niggles and lose some mucus and a bit of blood and things like that. Two days later, I went into labor. She said to me, “If it does nothing in the next couple of days, then the baby wasn't ready to come. If it happens, then the baby was always going to come,” sort of thing. Now, obviously, what's the point in doing them if the baby is going to come and it does nothing but disturb? I mean, my complete mindset changed and flipped. But yeah, I went into straight labor. I was so excited and so proud of myself. I'm in labor this time. I never knew if my body was broken after all of the fearmongering and talk. I was just so proud of myself. It was exciting. I had adrenaline pumping through me. I was shaking with fear and excitement. I was going to wait the whole day to go in. I was going to essentially go to hospital when my baby's head was coming out. As soon as I went into labor, I was like, “Yeah. I think I should go to the hospital.” I was adamant the whole time I wasn't going in until I was ready to push and as soon as I was in labor, I was like, “Yep. Okay, it's time.” Meagan: Let's go. It's exciting. You're like, “Okay, let's go have this baby.” Ashley: Yeah, and it was fast and hard. When I go into labor, it's not any prelabor, it's just that this is on. I dilate pretty quickly. When I got to the hospital, I was 5 centimeters. They were really surprised at how I was doing because I was quite calm and quiet. They were like, “Oh.” I got eventually into the birthing suite. My doula came and set up the room really pretty. I went into the shower and had a midwife assigned to us. She just sat down and read my birth plan and was happy with everything. She wouldn't let me in the birthing pool of course because I was over 100 kilos even though they've got a hoist for bigger people if they need to. They're just not comfortable with bigger people in the birthing pool. I just did my thing and I said, “I don't any doctors to come in. I don't want anyone annoying me or harassing me.” And I just labored for a few hours until I felt like there were some waters or something I could smell and feel. The midwife said, “Do you want me to check you?” I said, “Yeah. Yeah, we'll see if the waters have gone.” She said, “Yeah, the waters have gone and yeah, this is a little fore bag so would you like me to break that?” I said, “Well, if you think so, okay.” At this point, my education had gone to the point of getting past the induction. If I had gotten into spontaneous labor and I saw a midwife because everything was raving about midwives, I'm going to be fine. This baby's going to come out of my vagina okay. I didn't know anything about birth really. I just knew what not to do. I'm probably not going to have an epidural, but I'm open to it. You shouldn't break the waters, but I don't really understand why. But I wasn't having my waters broken. I was just having a little bit of my waters broken. And then came the tsunami and it was my entire waters. It was all over the bed and it was all warm. I was like, “What is happening?” She had either–Meagan: So your bag never really did break until then. Ashley: No, yeah. Yeah. Yes. And there's some other information. She's like, “Oh, we'll put the screw on the baby's head.Meagan: The FSC, fetal scalp electrode? Ashley: We call it the clip. Meagan: A clip. Ashley: Yeah, some call it the screw. I call it the screw. It's a little clip and it barely hurts. That was one of my compromises from not having continuous monitoring. I said, “If I have that, then I can be mobile.” That was the compromise and negotiation. Then, I found myself locked to a machine by the way because it wasn't mobile at this point. Then as soon as I got off the bed, there was a decel, so I was back on the bed. I was in excruciating pain at this point. I come out of my nest in the shower where I was able to breathe through everything and I was standing upright. Now there was a bit of fear happening because there was a decel that she didn't recover from quickly enough, so then the obstetricians and everyone had to come in. They were kind of like, “Oh, C-section,” talking about it already. I said, “No. I don't want to talk about it. The baby's fine. Just let me do my thing.” “Okay, okay,” and then they hounded me to get a catheter in my arm even though I didn't want one. I said, “No, I don't want one.” It's really painful and I don't want it. She said, “Oh, come on. We'll just get one in.” I said, “Okay, fine. Just do it then. Just leave me alone.” So she put it in and I'm walking around with this thing coming out of my vagina, this thing in my hand and I'm out of the zone and really finding it hard to get back into how I was feeling. Meagan: Your space. Ashley: Yeah, my space. I must have been in there for an hour or two, maybe a bit longer. By this point, they've told me that I'm 10 centimeters on one side, 8 centimeters on the other and there were a couple more decels and maybe one more and they were saying things to me that I don't understand. They were like, “You've got an anterior lip. It's swollen. You're 10 centimeters on this side and 8 centimeters on that side. Your baby's asynclitic. Your baby's up high.” They're looking at me and I'm like, “I don't know.” Meagan: You don't know what any of that means. Ashley: I'm 10 centimeters. The baby is going to come out right any minute. I'm just like, “Is the baby's going to come out soon?” I was starting to feel some pushy pains as well, so my body was pushing a little bit too and then I think I went back into the shower and I called in my husband because he was a weak link and I knew he would do what I said. I was like, “I want an epidural.” And the epidural was there within 10 minutes. I knew that would happen. They wanted me to have an epidural on arrival because of my said. I went to the anesthesiologist appointment and they looked at my back and said, “No, you've got a fine back.” What they're worried about with bigger people is that there can be fat over the spine. I said, “Okay, well I've got a fine back,” which I thought would be fine because I never had any problems with the C-section. They said, “But we still recommend an epidural on arrival.” I was like, “Okay. Well, at least I understand why.” The thing is that I'm trying to get information from them so I can make informed choices, so if it's in my best interest, then I will say yes and I will do it. But if it's in the best interest of you to make your life easier, then I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to put myself or my baby at risk to make your life easier. I understood that an emergency C-section was a higher risk than a planned C-section. I understood that induction was a higher risk. I knew all of the before things and the choices. What I got stuck with is I didn't understand physiological birth. I hadn't done any research on that. So they were talking to me gobbledygook, all of these things were happening. I just never thought that this could happen. I never ever thought this would happen to me. My mom had me in 7 hours. What is happening? What are these things that are happening? Now I'm on the bed. I'm stuck on the bed because I've chosen to have an epidural and now I've negotiated because we have had a couple of decels. I've negotiated for myself what I think is a pretty sweet deal which I realize is actually a really bad deal of vaginal examinations every hour. The normal standard practice is about every 4 hours and I'm like, “Okay. How about if we just check every hour and see if there is any progress?” They're like, “Yeah, that sounds great.” Every hour, they come into me and they're saying, “No change. Baby's up high. No change. We recommend C-section. These are the risks if you wait.” They were talking to me about the risks that would happen in a Cesarean, not about the risks that would happen in a vaginal birth if I wait. So it was very biased. I was like, “Okay, so what happens if I wait to have a vaginal birth?” They were like, “Well, we just recommend a Cesarean.” I feel like I'm in a room stuck with the enemy. I said to my doula, “I don't trust them. I feel like they know what they're talking about, but I don't know any different either.” My doula was a student doula and it's not like I came in there with a midwife who is on my team. I'm looking at the midwife and I'm like, “Are you going to help me?” I'm realizing that she's team obstetrician. I mean, I've never met her before. She was just working there. I'm thinking, “This is not what was sold to me in the VBAC group if I see a midwife. Midwives are amazing, blah blah blah blah.” What I actually missed was that independent midwives that are not working in hospital have more free reign are the midwives that everyone's raving about. I'm thinking it's just random midwives, any midwives are awesome. And not every midwife's awesome because you've got different personalities. You've got different experiences. You've got different passions and every person is different just like you can find an amazing obstetrician. You can find an amazing personal trainer, but they're not going to suit everybody or everyone's needs. And they have a bias against different people based on color, based on gender, based on size, based on the way that you look. If they can identify with you, they are going to be more attached to the story and fight and advocate a bit more. If they're not really into you, they're going to be like, “Oh well. I'm not going to lose my job over this,” sort of thing. I've learned all of these things since. Eventually, after about 6 hours, I had another decel. I think I had about 3 in total. It wasn't a huge amount. Meagan: Yeah, and how low were they? Do you remember? Ashley: I don't remember. The problem was that she wasn't coming back as quickly as they would have liked. Meagan: Prolonged. Ashley: Yeah, it was prolonged. I also didn't know at the time that the epidural also slowed down my contractions too. I only know this from getting the hospital notes which is quite common with epidurals as well. Eventually, I just said, “Okay, fine. I'm fine. I'll go.” After the last one, it felt like my baby was at risk. If someone is coming to you every hour saying, “This is the risk. We recommend that,” eventually, you just give up. I think I had been in labor for a total of 12 hours at that point. The first labor I had ever had and off I went. As I was going out, the midwife said to me, “It's okay. I had a home birth planned, but I ended up in a Cesarean. You'll be okay.” I was like, “See? You never would have been on my team because you hadn't even had a vaginal birth yourself.” I looked at her and I was like, “That was the worst thing you could have ever said to me at that point.” I was like, “Just because you had one and you're okay with it doesn't mean that I'm okay with it.” It was the worst thing. She obviously thought it was really supportive, but I felt so betrayed. So off I went and I had my surgery. Everything started to go downhill. My husband got rushed out of the surgery with my baby and you could just feel that it was intense. I said to my husband, “I love you. Look after the baby. I think I'm either going to lose my uterus or I'm going to die.” Meagan: Were you hemorrhaging? Ashley: Basically, the story that they tell me, I'm not sure if I believe it, but even if it is true, it is what it is at the end of the day. One of the risks that they were worried about is when a baby descends too much, there's a– you know this yourself– there's always a risk of a special scar happening because there's more risk of a tear or them having to cut more. So that's what they were informing me about the whole time. They knew about the risk and they were trying to stop– Meagan: But they kept saying that baby was high, right? Ashley: They told me that baby was high. They said that when the baby came out, she flung her arm up and ripped it down to my cervix. Meagan: Oh, okay. Ashley: Now, how does that happen when a baby is up high? If she's up high, how is she ripping down to my cervix? Now I think about that. How does that happen? Because my cervix was fully dilated. Meagan: Yeah, except on that one side. Did it ever finish? That swelling, that edema, did it go down? Ashley: Not that I know of. What they told me was nothing had changed positioning in that. Then when I looked at the notes when I got the notes, he laid out, “I saw that the positioning had changed.” She had come down a station, but they never communicated that to me. I have a feeling that she was probably down a bit further than they had put because, on the paperwork, they also said I was only 7 centimeters. There was no mention of an anterior lip, so they fudged the papers a little bit and weren't honest. I mean, if you're going to make a few little changes, then obviously, there's a reason for that. It obviously looks better on paper. Meagan: That's what happens all of the time. The patient will hear one thing, then on the op reports, it's a little different. So we always encourage you to get your op reports. It's sometimes hard to read but get your op reports. Ashley: It is hard to read. You know, they put it on the board too here in Australia what you are and at what time, so the information is there for me to look at the whole time while I'm in labor, so it's not that one person just said it, it's literally on the board for you to see. I was quite upset when I saw some of the notes. I went through the notes. I've been through them multiple times now and I was just trying to learn. I was Googling, “What does this mean and what does that mean?” because I don't know the medical jargon. I'm learning all of the things and I'm looking at Spinning Babies. I'm looking at everything and trying to learn after the fact, but essentially what had happened was apparently, she had flung around there, tore my uterus down to the cervix and then they needed to call in a specialized team to come in and resolve that problem that they had created. The surgery went on for a number of hours and it was a very challenging surgery. I wanted to crawl out of my body essentially because I had been laying there for so long. It was just a horrible experience. I was reunited with my baby. She was born at 6:30. I was reunited with them at about 12:00 at night, so I had been in labor from 4:00 in the morning and then I was breastfeeding her because my husband advocated for her to be breastfed. So that meant that she had her sugars checked. They were fine, so they were happy for her to wait for me. I was really, really glad that my husband advocated for me. I was so tired when I got out of surgery and I was back in this hot room. I was sweating profusely. There was no aircon. Some of the rooms, even though it was new, didn't have aircon. I ended up in a room with no aircon and it was so hot. I had to have a midwife stay with me and do observations every 15 minutes to check me. I didn't end up in the ICU, but I lost 3.1 liters of blood. I had blood transfusions in the surgery, all of the stuff in the surgery to keep me awake, and all of that. I really wanted to go under, but they wouldn't put me under because I had been eating. It wasn't a great experience and I came out very traumatized from that experience. I ended up having PTSD with flashbacks. I was crying for months. I felt broken. They told me to never have a vaginal birth again, and that I could have two more babies so that was amazing. I was like, “Well, you must have done a good job if you think I could have two more,” but they must be born Cesarean. I was like, “Okay, no problems.” I was so grateful to be alive after that experience. I was trying to make sense of what had happened. The next few years, that was my mission to try to make sense because I've gone from a space of you're not allowed to have a vaginal birth to what happened, trying to understand what happened, and then planning our future because we wanted four children total. So I almost never had any more children. For 6-12 months, I was done. I was never going to go through that again. I was a broken person. I was really struggling, but I trained as a postpartum doula and I started to want to help women in breastfeeding and the things that I knew that I could support because I ended up breastfeeding that baby for 12 months and I felt like a success at that regard. I learned a lot about breastfeeding. I wanted to share my voice and help women, but I wasn't well enough to help women in the birth space because I felt like a failure. I was trying to learn and I wanted to be in a space where I felt safe. This was trauma and challenges were happening and this was me being able to help people and make a positive out of a negative essentially. And then I found you guys. I found your podcast and I was like, “This is amazing,” because you were the first place that was promoting VBAC after two Cesareans. Back then, nobody was having VBAC after two Cesareans let alone multiple now that we see happening. I think a lot of it has to do with your podcast because when you hear women's stories and you hear the statistics and you can actually hear other women doing it, that was the start of me getting hope and realizing that there was another way. Meagan: Oh, that just gave me the chills. Ashley: Thank you so much for your podcast. Meagan: I have a sweater on right now, but literally it just went up my arm. Ashley: Awesome. It is really nice to know that if I didn't come across your podcast, I probably wouldn't have taken that next step, so it is life-changing to hear other women's stories and have that resource. The fact that you guys had the stats and everything, I was very much in the stats trying to move through special scars. I eventually had gone onto Special Scars, Special Hope. Meagan: Such a good group. Ashley: Yeah, so amazing and started to connect with other women who were having worse scars than me. They were birthing on classical scars. I was like, holy moly. I think it was ACOG or maybe RANZ of New Zealand and Australia. They said it was okay to labor on a scar like mine because I had a vertical scar down to my cervix. That's the low-risk special scar. I was like, “If it's good enough for them, it's good enough for me.” Look at these people saying that. All of the obstetricians that I had spoken to because I had a meeting with an obstetrician. I had met with so many midwives who knew about the system. They said to me, “Look. They are going to be petrified of you coming to the system.” It was really good to get that feedback and from my own experience, they wouldn't allow me to have a VBAC let alone a VBAC after two Cesareans with a special scar and high BMI. I started to really try to uncover, so I met with an obstetrician from that hospital and she basically said to me, “Look, you're a square peg trying to fit in a round hole or a round peg in a square hole.” I looked at her. I didn't understand that. I had never that and I have never been referred to as that kind of person. I quite like doing what normal people do. I was looking at her. I'm like, “What are you talking about?” She just said to me, “Basically, I ended up with this surgery because the surgery who was working had decided that because of my weight, that that was all that I was capable of or that was the path that I was going through.” That was really the first time that I've felt like my weight has actually held me back or I've been discriminated against. When I look back at the fact of how I was treated and the conversations I was having, it was obvious that it was happening the whole way through, I just was so naive to it that it was happening in my face and I didn't even realize it because the thing is that I understand that being of high weight can put you at risk for all of these things. I'm looking at it from their point of view, but I'm not actually sometimes looking at it from Ashley's point of view. I understand their concern and I understood all of the medical stuff because I had listened to them. I had asked questions. I had read their policies for obese people. I understood that it was discrimination. I didn't understand it at the time. I didn't understand that they probably weren't seeing me as a human as maybe they would have if I was a skinny version of myself. We probably would have had a different conversation. They probably would have been cheering me on and holding my hand and saying, “You're an amazing VBAC candidate. We support you. We probably still want to do all of these things to you, but we're not going to kick you out of hospital.” That's the difference when I hear women's stories. Oh, she's allowed to get in the water bath and she's allowed to have a beautiful birth. She doesn't have to bend over backward and do a cartwheel and it's because she looks a certain way or she was really lucky because she got an obstetrician that was amazing. There are all of these things that have to line up. That's what has propelled me on my journey to find home birth as an option. Meagan: Home birth, home birth. So you talked about stats. You were on this mission of stats, so you went out and you found the stats about VBAC after multiple Cesareans, two Cesareans, special scars, found some stuff, said, “Okay, this seems acceptable,” and then you started a home birth. Based off of your own research, for you, you felt completely comfortable starting this journey. Ashley: No, I didn't. Meagan: Okay. Ashley: I didn't. I mean, I had to work through the fears with the stats and I was comfortable with home birth and the idea of home birth. I understood that home birth was as safe as birthing in a hospital and I understood that if I was birthing with a midwife I would have a medical person with me. Now, the next challenge that came for me was that I couldn't find a home birth midwife who would support me. I feel like I leveled up. I was leveling up the whole time. It was like, now you've got a VBA2C. Now you've got a special scar. Let's work through this. What do I feel comfortable with? What am I willing to take on? Okay, okay. That's doable. That's doable. I can work through that. What's the next thing? Oh yeah, the next thing is this. Okay, what am I going to do with that? A home birth. Okay, a home birth feels like a safe option. I can do this. I can do that. I can do that. Okay, that's going to be the best thing for me. I'm not going to go back to hospital. Meagan: I love that you said that. I can do this. I'm comfortable with this. You kind of have to go through that with anything. In life in general, but especially with this birth, you went through it and you were like, “Okay, yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Okay. Now, here I am.” Ashley: Yeah and I was seeing a psychologist at the time for all of the things to help me lose weight actually. My GP, I wanted to lose weight. I've been overweight my whole life. I wanted to lose weight. I went to a nutritionist and she was like, “You know everything. I think it's emotional.” I've got childhood stuff going on. I worked with him and I said, “The way that I feel about the hospital system, is this right?” He's normalizing my experience for me and saying, “You're perfectly normal.” I'm trying to say, “Am I having a trauma response here? I don't want to go into a home birth because I'm having a trauma response,” because the obstetrician said to me, one of them, she's like– she wasn't the best obstetrician for the debrief. She said to me, “You've got a risk of special scar, a 7% rupture rate.” I said, “That's a little bit different from what I found in Special Scars, Special Hope where they are looking at women.” I said, “Have you got any statistics?” She's like, “No.” I'm like, “So how can I trust that what you're saying is correct then?”Meagan: Well then, where'd you get 7%?Ashley: Exactly. She's like, “Look, if you find any doctor who's willing to support you, then they're not the doctor for you. I'm telling you what is the safest thing for you.” I was challenging her because at this point, I'm angry. I'm so done. I'm so done. I've just been through hell because of you people and I want to get information. I don't want to hear your judgments. She said to me, “If you find a doctor, then basically they're not right. They're doing the wrong thing.” I said, “So you're the best doctor in the whole world? You know everything right? You're the best and you know the best then? So if I find another doctor who says yes then they're wrong and you're right, that's what you're saying?” She was just looking at me. She was like, “I just feel like what you're going to do is you're going to keep looking until you're going to find someone and then you're going to put yourself at risk.”I'm like, “That is exactly what I'm going to do.” Meagan: You're like, “Well, I'm glad you feel that way.” Ashley: I should have sent her a postcard after my free birth and said, “I freebirthed. Thank you for driving me to this.” It is amazing the conversations you have when you really do have conversations. You can see where they're coming from and how very different their views are. Some of the fears and worries that they have are not about you and your baby. They are about themselves and their career, but the information I didn't know about her was that she was actually the head of obstetrics and she just lost her title and her job. She'd been bumped down. The reason why I went to her was because she supported breech birth in hospital and she was very vaginal friendly. She did support me. She was the consultant I saw on the paperwork that supported me to have a vaginal birth, but in the timeframe of me organizing to meet up with her, the information that I didn't know that I found out later was that she lost her job because she had supported somebody to have a breech and there was a poor outcome that the parents accepted, but somebody else had basically complained about. The only thing is that breech is so risky they say even though it's not. She's one of the radical obstetricians so she had been punished and so she was coming from a space of where she was. It's really important to know that information. You never know where they are in their career or how they are feeling, so she might have been really bitter at the time and negative and feeling like there was doom and gloom in the world. It was really shameful when I was speaking to my doula friends and they were like, “Oh really? She was so amazing.” I'm like, “Yeah, well maybe she is amazing but not for people like me. Maybe she supports this person because they've got a thin body and because of me, she's like, ‘No. I wouldn't touch you with a 10-foot pole,'” because it's too risky for her and for her job also. They are up against it as well in the system and that's something I have learned. My next mission was that I needed to find a midwife who was going to bat for me, not somebody who was going to be worried about losing their career because they come after the midwives too that are home birthing. So I had gone to the free birth podcast as well and I was listening to their stories. I was like, “They're a bit out there for me. I'm not brave enough to do that. That's a bit radical.” Eventually, my husband was the one that talked me into a free birth when we couldn't have a midwife to support me. It

Today, Lindsey and Ashley explain Light Therapy. With so many light therapy options such as red light, blue light, led light, far infrared light, near-infrared light. Well, it can be downright confusing and not to mention intimidating! Our LED Light mask recommendation that we love and use is linked here. Please rate our podcast! It's just us 2 sisters here working our tails off to bring you the best skin information, which we are so happy to do! By rating our podcast, you help us get ranked! You really can make a difference in our little podcast! Just as plants absorb light, so do we! Scientists are discovering that as we absorb light, we can transform the energy to enhance repairing tissue, regenerating cells, and improving cellular performance. It does this by utilizing 3 different types of wavelengths.  We go into it so that by the end of the podcast, you will have a clearer understanding of how to utilize this modality! The anti-aging sisters, Lindsey and Ashley You may now join lapree beauty, our free anti-aging skincare community! Click HERE to listen!

What can instantly make you appear more youthful?    THICKER EYEBROWS!!!!   On Today's Podcast Lindsey & Ashley had their brows laminated and they tell you      Is it worth it? What can you expect? How to take care of your brows afterwards so they won't become brittle?     The sisters! Lindsey and Ashley   “You must never underestimate the power of the eyebrow.” Jack Black   See it all in our  lapree beauty anti-aging skincare community.   

Branding might be even more important for social sellers than everyone else. The market is full of people selling your same or similar products, but they are buying from you because of your brand and your amazing customer service. Ashley Lions from Bloom Mama shares her journey to being a branding strategist and how we can up our game in our branding. Connect with Ashley: You're invited to Dare to Shine: A Magical Membership for Social Sellers to Dream, Innovate, and Do! Info, connect with Lindsay and join the free Social Selling Sisterhood group on Facebook here: www.lindsaydollinger.com/links Connect with Lindsay on IG: www.instagram.com/lindsaydollinger If you got value out of this podcast, please screen shot it and share it with your social selling bestie and share it in your stories on IG/FB and tag @lindsaydollinger. Lindsay will reshare all the stories she sees!  Please leave the show a 5-star rating and a quick review below as well! Your support means the work! **The opinions expressed by Lindsay Dollinger on this podcast, her website, or her social media accounts are those of her own and are not those of Color Street or any other company she partners with. Posts for freebies to use on Podcast show notes and blog posts:  Grab Free Daily Methods of Operations task list for direct sellers: https://www.lindsaydollinger.com/opt-in All other freebies here: https://www.lindsaydollinger.com/freebies Purchase your own Direct Sales Done Right Planner and Tracker System: https://www.lindsaydollinger.com/offers/phYxdekM  All courses and services offered, including private coaching: https://www.lindsaydollinger.com/services

I am so excited because today we have a special guest with us, Meredith McCann. Meredith is a motherhood photographer and birth doula and today we're going to talk about how to help mothers see beauty in their stories. Ashley: Tell us a bit about what you do and what you are passionate about. I had two very dangerous, very risky pregnancies and therefore have become very passionate about maternal healthcare and maternal mortality rates. I just feel like our testimonies are such a big piece of why we do what we do and I feel like God kind of allows us to walk through those things so we can offer comfort and healing to other people who are going through similar things. I am also passionate about photography and helping moms to be healed through photographs. So often I feel like the motherhood image is lost. I hope that I'm able to provide an experience for my clients to help them connect to their motherhood and see it for the beauty it is. Ashley: You are both a doula and a birth photographer. Tell us about that journey. I happen to be a birth photographer who is a doula not a doula who happens to take pictures. You cannot be 100% of both, so in my case I am a photographer who is documenting as a primary and then a support doula in addition to that. In February of this year I was worried that photographers wouldn't be allowed back in hospitals so I enrolled in a doula training. Not only would I be allowed in as a doula, but I would be more educated in how to support moms and know when to take pictures. Ashley: You probably see a fair amount of trauma and loss in your field. How do you process that? This is a God thing, first of all. The holy spirit is working in that relationship that I have with my client. I see my primary job as documentation and not inserting myself into their story. I am not their therapist but it is VERY important to listen to your client. Often after they share something difficult (like the pain of a miscarriage) I will offer to pray with or over her. The other important thing is that in stressful and difficult situations, to stay calm and listen to the medical professionals because they have way more training than I do. Ashley: Is there one birth story or client that left a really big mark on you or stood out in some way? I had a birth this summer that was a VBAC and was attended by her 11 year old son. I would have thought it inappropriate but it was truly a beautiful birth that went exactly as it was intended to go. It just pointed to the redemptive spirit of Christ. In the last few years I have come to a whole new appreciation for the medical field and also the change in birth in that it is more about the celebration of motherhood. READ MORE: Unstoppable Hope Photography Business Challenge Join the 2-Week Unstoppable Hope Photography Business Challenge starting on Monday, October 25th. Sign up for 2 week of photography training to grow and scale your photography business. Subscribe, leave a review on Apple, & email me a screenshot at team@wildandradiant.com to get a FREE COFFEE! Follow Ashley June Co. on Instagram Are you looking for a faith-based business coach? Contact me here!

Sean Rademeyer and Jill Devine have been friends since high school. Although they were more of acquaintances and knew of one another through mutual friends. Like most people, Sean and Jill stayed up to date with one another through social media. Jill knew Sean struggled with substance abuse, but she didn't know the extent of the struggle. Sean heard Episode 45: A Widow Talks About Her Husband's Mental Illness and it struck a chord because he was friends with Corey Schuster, the husband discussed in the episode. Sean reached out to Jill and said he was ready to discuss his 10-year substance abuse and co-dependency recovery journey if Jill was willing to share his story. Of course, Jill said yes. Resources - Midwest Health Center Suboxone Doctors: This is one resource for people suffering from opiate addiction. This is a first step before entering a program of recovery. It's a lot safer than people buying drugs on the street. But it's not a cure all. Wellness comes from admitting one has a problem and adopting recovery as a way of life. Centerpointe Hospital: For mental health and addiction recovery, including alcoholism and abuse recovery. This is the beginning of recovery where detox happens and a time of preparation in rehab educating one of their illness. It gives a patient an opportunity to step away out of life, stop using, and informs them of what needs to be done to maintain their sobriety. Very educational and a very necessary step on the road to recovery. Alcoholics Anonymous: People that don't go to rehab or don't have insurance would want to explore this option.  Free rides to meetings are also available here. Most importantly, an opportunity and means to get to know God, which is the dilemma of all alcoholics. They are their own higher power running their life on self-will without God. The program is designed to break down all of the barriers that stand in the way of a relationship and truly knowing God in their life and how reliable he is. Al-Anon: For Family members living with someone effected by addiction and alcoholism. To be included, but often not mentioned, is help to those who grew up in alcohol or abusive homes. People in these situations get sick themselves living in close proximity to someone suffering from addiction. They take on a whole set of beliefs and behaviors that makes their lives miserable. The program isn't designed to teach them how to save their loved one, it's designed to get them to place that teaches them how to stay well in that situation and what's within their power to do in these situations. Most people make things much worse and the correct course of action to emerge victorious in this is contrary to what we believe help looks like. People need education and support to overcome this difficult life circumstance. Addiction and alcoholism around them doesn't have to destroy their peace and serenity. It's a learning process and the primary goal of Al-Anon. The alcoholic doesn't usually like when the family member joins Al-Anon because their primary enabler's behavior starts to change. People learn how to take their life back and set boundaries and say no. Empowering! Harris House Bridgeway Jill would like to acknowledge and recognize the hard work moms put in on the daily. It can be a thankless job at times, and Jill wants these moms to know their worth, so she created the Supermom Shoutout, brought to you by Addy's Way. Each recipient will receive a custom designed Supermom t-shirt from Addy's Way, in addition to the Shoutout. This week's Supermom Shoutout goes to Ashley of O'Fallon, MO. Katie nominated her and said: Hey Jill! I would love to nominate Ashley!!  I think she is an unbelievable Supermom for many reasons! She had one child when she met her now husband. He had 4 children and she has NEVER thought of them as “step kids”. So anytime anyone asks her how many kids she has, without any hesitation she says, “we have 5 kids”. She loves them like her own unconditionally. She is a working mom of 5 kids and went back to school and just graduated with a nursing degree and won the patient advocacy award. She is an amazing coworker and even better friend, and I couldn't be more proud of her! Ashley - YOU are seen and YOU are supported! To nominate a Supermom (or you can nominate yourself) email hello@jilldevine.com. Submit the name of the Supermom, where they're from, and a brief description as to why Jill should shout out this particular Supermom. Two Kids and A Career Website: https://www.jilldevine.com/ Two Kids and A Career Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jilldevine/?hl=en Two Kids and A Career Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JillDevineMedia/ Thank you to our sponsor: Blondin Professional Real Estate

Ashley Laderer is a writer and mental health advocate from New York. She decided to specialize in mental health after realizing she could help others who also struggle from anxiety and depression feel less alone. Her writing has appeared in Teen Vogue, SELF magazine, Billboard, Refinery29, NYLON, and more. ASHLEY: You can read her work at clippings.me/ashleyladerer Instagram and Twitter at @ashley_unicorn The YANApodcast: Instagram: @the_yanapodcast New episodes every Tuesday! NAMI Philly: Instagram: @NAMIPhiladelphia or @namiphilly_ETS Website: www.namiphilly.org NAMI Philadelphia Warmline: 267.687.4381 OPTION 1 CRISIS RESOURCES: National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (800) 273-TALK (8255) Crisis Text Line is a free, 24/7 support for those in any type of crisis. If you text, “NAMI” to 741741 from anywhere in the United States you will be connected to a trained Crisis Counselor. Philadelphia Suicide and Crisis Intervention Hotline (215) 686-4420 SAMHSA (Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration): 1-800-662-HELP (4357) - available 24/7 to help those suffering from addiction find immediate help. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/yanapodcast/support

In this weeks episode we dive in deep into what what it looks like to find love for yourself when everything seems to be going wrong. Ashley lets us in on her self love journey and how that lead her to find love for herself, manifest her dream partner, and create the life she knew she deserved!Ashley is a Self-Love and Confidence Coach. She helps women let go of anxiety and self-doubt to become fiercely authentic and unapologetically self-confident. She is a certified Neuro Linguistic Programming Master Practitioner, social & emotional intelligence coach, life coach, and speaker. Ashley is a former top finalist in Miss New York USA and stand up comic/ improv nerd. She can be seen in Martha Stewart Magazine and was ranked as a top 3 life coach in Los Angeles Entrepreneurs Magazine. Ashley loves to teach through methods of self-care, self-healing, and boundary work throughout her digital courses and group coaching programs. Ashley believes that the idea that self-care is too expensive, too time consuming, or too much of a luxury is dated and false. She believes self-care is not just bubble baths and long days at the salon. It is a lifestyle, a mindset that anyone can achieve with the right willingness and consistency. As an expert, her goal is to make self-care approachable and attainable for all. We talk about:How she wen't from being a shy little girl to competing in Miss USA How she moved on from getting left at the alterHow she manifested her dream guyWhat being in a healthy relationship looks like How you can begin to step into a more confident you!Connect with Ashley:You can check Ashley out at ashleyvives.com or on instagram @coachashleyvives.You can also check out all of her current offerings here.

HERE'S A SNEAK PEEK OF THE GOODNESS…“Am I angry about what’s happening in this moment, or am I angry about what might happen in the future?” - Jenna“The more I resist the anger, the rage, and the sadness, the more they compound, so I just have to let myself feel them.” - Ashley“It takes more energy to resist our feelings than to allow them and be with them.” - Ashley“You can never outrun the waves of emotion. You can never make it to shore quicker than the waves will catch up with you.” - JennaWHAT YOU'LL LEARN ABOUT IN THIS EPISODE…Why we’re going back to basicsStrategies for riding the rollercoaster and waves of emotionsThe power of mindful media consumption right nowWhy now is the time to check in on our peopleHow we can increase awareness around our privilege now and going forwardLINKSShare the Eff Perfect love with a fellow perfectionist, procrastinator, or people pleaser!And because we’re in this together, be sure to take the Eff Perfect Pledge.And follow us on Instagram @effperfect!Shop the lookbook

In our season 2 finale episode, Ashley Wayne shares her story of facing down her fear of being blind and becoming a mother. And now, she has two blind children and a newborn.   Full transcript available: https://inourbelly.com/season-2/ashley-wayne   Belly of the Beast Life Stories is a firsthand retelling of real life transformations, an oral history podcast by David All.   Season 2: For Love of My Child are true stories of a parent’s transformation when faced with acute challenges, chronic ills, and early endings of their child or children.   Give us soul juice: Subscribe, rate and write a fair review about this podcast so other heroes can find it, too. And please consider sharing this story with one person that it will inspire or better understand their life experience.   STORYTELLING FROM DAVID ALL + Life Stories Workshops: “What’s your story?” Can be an uncomfortable question. Life Stories Workshops by David All help folks thread the dots of their life story to gain clarity and mastery of their story. Watch a video and learn more at DavidAll.com   + Beyond the Belly: A new podcast connecting the dots and threading the patterns in Belly of the Beast Life Stories   EPISODE SUMMARY   Part I The gift of sight was always seen as a luxury to Ashley up until this moment She’s days from going to get her daughter in Bulgaria, the international adoption nearly realized In these early moment, a blind woman confronts being a blind mama to her blind daughter Ashley was blind at birth, two detached retinas, not even a perception of light The darkness hadn’t slowed her down, but the simple everyday tasks of changing diapers or taking her to a friend’s house to play seemed insurmountable “It was scary; when you’re suddenly put in charge of another human being it’s very sobering" Parenting brought her to her knees, Ashley had to realize it was OK to ask for help   Part II Ashley had spent a lifetime being independent, and thriving, as a blind person But the realities of being a mother changed her perception She shifted her mindset Day by day, Ashley was successful at doing the little things and life started to return to normal Normal enough to begin (and finish) the process of adopting their blind son, who had Cerebral Palsy Faith is everything to Ashley, and she elaborates on this fundamental aspect of her life A Grand Canyon experience through a blind families eyes Blind people don’t have superpowers like exceptional hearing Ashley has to be extremely present to experience special moments with her family 4-weeks ago, Ashley birthed her first biological son, that appears to be fully sighted Ashley still yearns to see, especially the little things like seeing what her infant is looking at and being fascinated by   Part III Ashley shares advice to her younger self just as she’s about to take on motherhood She writes a lot about the distancing she and her family experience being blind (see articles in the guest resources section) and urges folks just to treat them normal   QUOTABLES "It was a very emotional time. I remember as it got closer, feeling this immense weight and wondering, am I really going to be able to take care of her? I had done a lot of things as a blind person that I think many people would imagine would be pretty difficult.  But parenting felt like it was going to be this much more insane and immense task. And I really didn't know if I could do it, but we had obviously committed and were going to adopt her."   "And I didn't need sight, and I could get along just fine without it, and almost to the detrimental extreme of that end, you know, believing that sight wasn't necessary, and I was an amazing blind person who could do anything [Laughter]. I didn't need anyone's help, especially help from those the sighted people.  I think parenting really did bring me to my knees, figuratively and literally sometimes, just the realization that sight is a gift, and it would be not just nice to have, but would be preferred in a lot of cases when it comes to parenting, and that it was OK to admit that."   "You know, every little task, like I kind of dreaded every diaper change, like, am I going to get her clean enough?"   "You realize that things weren't quite as intense or frightening as I had originally thought. It doesn't mean that I still didn't need help or things weren't frustrating at points. But it began to feel less and less alien and yeah, just a bit more normal."   Regarding faith… “It’s everything. It's what I hope to... We hope and strive for, to teach our children that there is a God. And it's, we can know him through Christ."   "I've always had to rely more on my hearing. And just to dispel a myth, because I always have to take any opportunity to mention this, you know, blind people don't have super hearing."   Advice to a younger Ashley… "You will figure it out. Yeah, you'll make some mistakes, but nothing so horrible that neither you or her will be scarred for life. You will figure it out together and all the things will get done."   GUEST RESOURCES + Ashley’s Facebook: A Blind View   Here are a few of Ashley’s articles: + A blind mother’s courageous journey of parenting two blind children (profile piece) + Learning what it means to be a blind mother + I’m a blind mom raising blind kids, here’s what I’d like you to know   SHOW RESOURCES + Submit your story - Now curating Season 3: The Forgiven, stories bringing to life the transformational trial of the criminal justice system  + Belly of the Beast Life Stories website + @inourbelly on Instagram + @inourbelly on Twitter + /inourbelly Facebook Community + Beyond the Belly is David's new podcast connecting the dots and threading the patterns in Belly of the Beast Life Stories   + LIFE STORIES WORKSHOPS “What’s your story?” It’s my favorite question to ask, but is it your favorite question to answer? It will be. Life Stories Workshops by David All help folks thread the dots of their life story to gain clarity and mastery of their story. Watch a video and learn more at DavidAll.com.   DAVID’S WEEKLY  INSIGHTS, INSPIRATION & HEALING RESOURCES + “There has to be an openness which allows the unseen to become visible, the eternal to become immediate, and the transformation to become possible.” Michael Meade, Living Myth Podcast   + Belly Advisor and Master Healer, Artie Wu, is offering Live Sacred Space Sessions as a support resource of safe sacred space and emotional comfort during the pandemic crisis. They are 100% online and free and open to all. In case you missed David’s conversations with Artie, check out Beyond the Belly episodes 1-3.

What's the best way to develop a content strategy that reflects the reality of today's buyer journey? This week on The Inbound Success Podcast, Ashley Faus, who is the Content Strategy Lead for Software Teams at Atlassian, shares why she thinks a playground provides a better analogy than a funnel for marketers looking to develop their content strategy, and how to use the concept of a content playground to provide your customers and prospects with a better buying experience. Highlights from my conversation with Ashley include: Many marketers use the concepts of the linear funnel and the looping decision journey to develop their content strategies, but Ashley says that those don't reflect the reality of how people buy. Much like in a playground, where there isn't a singular goal (get to the top of the jungle gym!), your prospects aren't always ready to buy and may have other interests. For this reason, a playground offers a better analogy. Rather than forcing prospects to follow a specific journey that we as marketers have determined is ideal, Ashley recommends focusing on creating strong content depth that allows your prospects to follow their own journey, wherever it takes them. For smaller teams that are just getting started, Ashley recommends identifying your "hedgehog principle" - that one thing you do better than everyone else - and creating a very in-depth piece of content on that. Then, you can use that content to repurpose into a variety of assets that can be used on social media, for your trade shows, in the sales process, etc. The key is to find a topic that is substantive enough to support the development of this amount of content.  In terms of how this content gets presented on your website, Ashley recommends ungating it, and then being very explicit with your CTAs so that your website visitors know exactly what they will get if they click a button.  She also suggests adding a related content module on your site to encourage visitors to browse through your content. The best way to begin measuring the impact of your strategy is to use simple tools like Google Analytics in combination with UTMs. As you grow, you can use more sophisticated marketing automation software like HubSpot or Marketo. Resources from this episode: Visit the Atlassian website Connect with Ashley on LinkedIn Follow Ashley on Twitter Check out Atlassian's Team Playbook and Agile Microsite Listen to the podcast to learn why envisioning your buyer's journey -- and their interactions with your content -- as a playground is a more effective way to approach the development of a content strategy. Transcript Kathleen Booth (Host): Welcome back to the Inbound Success Podcast. I'm your host Kathleen Booth. And this week my guest is Ashley FOSS, who is the content strategy lead for software teams at Atlassian. Welcome Ashley. Ashley Faus (Guest): Nice to be here. Thanks so much for having me. I'm so happy to have you here. Ashley and Kathleen recording this episode. Kathleen: And, and for those who are listening, you can't see it. But Ashley has an awesome virtual Zoom background of the golden gate bridge. That's one of my favorite things about the pandemic is that it is revealing people's personalities through the Zoom backgrounds that they choose.  Ashley: It's been interesting. I actually think didn't have the latest version of Zoom. I got scared that if I upgraded and something went wrong, I wouldn't have access to it. So for a long time I was the lame person that didn't have a background and it was just my kitchen the whole time. So yes, I finally upgraded. Tell any of the listeners that are hesitant, you can upgrade. And it's not going to ruin your computer. And you, too, can have a nice virtual backgrounds. Kathleen: Oh yeah. For our all hands meetings at my office. We've been having so much fun with just seeing the backgrounds that people come to these meetings with. It's, it's awesome. It reveals so much about their personalities. About Ashley and Atlassian Kathleen: But so we have so much to talk about. And the first thing I want to talk about is really have you explain to my listeners what Atlassian is, and then also your background and what led you to your current role as Content Strategy Lead. Ashley: Sure. So Atlassian is a collaboration software maker. A lot of people are very familiar with JIRA, Confluence, Trello, Bitbucket, Status Page. We have a number of different products that people use all the time. JIRA especially is a staple for software teams. So I actually started at Atlassian two and a half years ago and I moved among a couple of different teams. My background is primarily marketing, but I actually started on the corporate communications team, moved over to editorial, doing a mix of content strategy, social media, thought leadership for the corporate side, and then just recently made the move over onto software teams. One thing that's kind of interesting and great is having that diverse background has given me that ability to move across different areas and go where my skills can be most useful. So I'm excited to dive in. I'm fairly new to the role, so it's been an interesting transition to try to onboard from home and then also start to get up to speed both from a content standpoint and a strategy standpoint, and then also from a tactical standpoint of where are all the different boards, where's the JIRA tickets? Like what's the process, what are the meetings? So, um, it's been fun. It's been fun. Kathleen: I will definitely say as far as Atlassian is concerned, I've been a user of so many of the company's products. I've used Confluence and JIRA. I'm currently using Trello. I know our dev team uses a number of products as well. It's a great company and a great suite of products, especially for anybody who's practicing agile, which I have done a few times. And so that was another reason I was excited to talk to you. But one of the things I think is really interesting is, you know, you mentioned you're relatively new in the role and we were just talking before we came on and you were explaining how your fiscal year, it's going to change over pretty soon. And so not only are you relatively new in the role, but you're being thrust into the situation of having to plan and strategize for a whole new year in the middle of the pandemic, no less all of these things happening at once. Your current focus is on content and I was really fascinated by how you think about content and content strategy planning and this concept of the content playground. So could you talk a little bit about that and what do you mean when you say a content playground?  What is a content playground? Ashley: I started thinking about it because I needed a new metaphor. Everybody that I talked to was talking about primarily the linear funnel. And you know, you've got your three phases with your editorial calendar and you say, "I need three content, three pieces of content per phase. I'm going to do one per month. Cool. Now I have nine months of content strategy, if my math works out". Most of your listeners are probably sitting there going, "That's not how you do content strategy. You can't just say one piece of content per phase and then call it". Kathleen: Wouldn't it be nice if you could though?  Ashley: You bought a calendar, write three articles and you're done. Then, you know, I know a lot of people have moved on to the looping decision journey where you basically add a fourth phase in there. And you're kind of almost recycling these people, but now there's a cross sell or upsell, but somehow you're dumping them back into that awareness phase from the linear funnel. If you look at the Google results for both the linear funnel and the looping decision funnel, it's kind of terrifying. It's very confusing. It basically just shows that we all agree that humans don't work this way. Nobody just goes politely down our little funnel. The 10-3-1 conversion was kind of the standard for a long time. You get 10 people in awareness. A certain amount of drops. So you get three into consideration to be able to get one to that kind of purchase decision. I was really wrestling with this because I was like, how do you create content in a way that allows people to do what they actually do, which is enter and exit and go sideways and all of that? So I had originally come up with this idea of a jungle gym. But there's two problems with that -- mainly that there's only one objective. It's either to get to the top or, if you're my three year old nephew, it's to go across without touching the lava below that. It's still me as a marketer forcing you into what I want you to do and it's taking all these touch points and saying, what's the fewest number of touch points that I can use to get you to a purchase? And yes, ultimately we need to sell products. Ultimately we have to make money as businesses, but it feels bad to everybody to just constantly be like, are you just trying to sell me something? Like what's the catch? I don't really trust you because I know you're trying to sell me. So if you look at an actual playground though, what's the point of the playground? Is the person who's sitting on the bench just enjoying the sunshine? Are they enjoying the playground the wrong way? No, actually perfectly acceptable. Sit on the bench. Again, you know, thinking about what the right way is to play on the playground for the adults and the playground designers, going down the slide is the right way. Three year old nephew, every time wants to go up the slide. If you translate that to content strategy, I recently had an example of this where in the traditional funnel, pricing is considered a very bottom of funnel action. If I'm asking you about price, man, I'm ready to buy. Well, in my case, I needed to go ask for budget before I could even do the RFP and I had no idea what that budget should be for. It was going to be a SaaS product. So understanding, you know, the subscription, SLA, the licensing tiers, all of that. And so I started reaching out to some vendors in the space asking them for just ballpark pricing so I could go get budget. And so many of them were like, well, allow me to send you a white paper about why this matters a lot and you know, Oh, you need to do a demo. And I'm like, Nope, I don't want to waste my time going through your traditional funnel when I don't even know if I have a budget yet. Kathleen: I have to just interject there and say amen because this has been a frustration of mine for so long. I had this recently with a marketing software product. It was exactly what you're talking about. It was last November and I was working on my budget and I knew that I was not going to purchase this product until halfway through 2020. And that was even before all this craziness with the pandemic hit. But I needed a placeholder number for it in my budget. So there's no chance I was going to engage in, like multi meetings and demos and hours long calls with people to pitch me what I know I'm not ready to buy yet. I just needed a price. There's nothing more frustrating than companies that make it that hard and it wasn't a one time thing. I just found myself doing this yesterday. Somebody started talking about email signature software and they mentioned the name of a new company, and I literally Googled the company name and pricing because I was like, I don't even want to waste my time looking at everything else and getting excited about it if I can't afford it. Ashley: Yeah, well, and it's interesting too because once I got the budget approved, I was already completely sold that this problem needed to be solved. I just needed to get management on board that yes, we are committed to solving this problem. So then I actually got into the sales process and you know, I started kind of at the top of that and I just said, look, I'm bought in, draw me all the way down to the bottom of the funnel and I want you to just pitch me. Kathleen: Yeah.  Ashley: It blew the sales people's minds. And they're like, well, let me just go through the deck. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. I don't know how many slides you have, but I'm telling you I'm bought in, I agree with you. This has impact. It solves a problem that I have. I have money, here's what my budget is. I'm BANT qualified. I need you to drop me all the way in and I need you to sell me. A majority of them just froze because they didn't know how to go through there. They only know how to do this step by step. And that's where I think the content playground comes in. Obviously there's a sales component to this too. When you do get people who just want to jump right in, I wouldn't send them to play on the swings. That's what we're doing right now. We're spending all our time on the swings. Let's just do it. Quit trying to force them to go down the slide. It's so funny because people have this idea that there's a specific way that you're supposed to build the relationship and you're supposed to, you know, okay, let's get you through the marketing funnel and get you through MQL and then SQL and then a sale. And it doesn't always work that way. Sometimes you meet somebody and they come at you and they're like, no, I'm literally ready to sign on the dotted line, whether it's you or one of your competitors. So why should it be you? Kathleen: Yeah. And not only is that an issue, but it's like I'm going to sign and it's going to be fast. So if you can't meet my fast timeline, just get out of my way. Exactly. That's so interesting. I love that concept. How to use the concept of a content playground to develop your content strategy Kathleen: So give me an example of, conceptually, how does that play out in terms of developing and executing your strategy? Ashley: I've done this at a number of different companies and then we also, you know, do this similar type of thing, whether you see whether you recognize it and call it a content playground or not. When you start to recognize companies that do it because you go through and there's a nice experience to say, Oh, I've kind of landed in this problem space or solution space and now I have the ability to go explore. So we've done that quite a bit in it last year and moving into this content strategy role on software teams, I'm getting exposed to some great ways that they've done it. So for example, we have this agile microsite and then we paired that last year with this agile coach series. This is all work that has been done that I'm excited to come in and kind of optimize and see how can we replicate this across other content types. And it basically says, you know, yes, JIRA helps you run in an agile way, but if you don't have the right practices set up and you don't have that mindset in those processes, a tool is not the thing that's going to fix it for you. And so sure we can sell you JIRA, but if we don't show you the right way to set up the workflows, if we don't help you have acceptable standups, if we don't help you improve your retros, having these things on a board is not going to solve, you know, your agility problems. And so putting that together, if you look at it from a content depth standpoint, instead of organizing around specific phases of the funnel, organizing it around content depth. So from a conceptual standpoint, what the heck is agile? Why does it matter? What kinds of success, you know, have people seen with it, what are the problems from a strategy standpoint, what are the practices and rituals? So that's where you get into some of the standups. That's where you get into some of the retros. And then from a tactic standpoint, how do you actually do those things? And so we have a number of things from the agile coach series, from the agile microsite and also our team playbook, which talks about things like my user manual. So how do you work together as a team? Um, putting together project coasters for kickoffs. And then yes, there's some product demos in there. There's some guides in there, there's some tutorials, there's here workflows that you can set up to do that in JIRA or to do that in Trello. But it's really that full content experienced to say, I just need help figuring out how to run my standups or my retros. And then, cool that I can do that in JIRA as well. So I previously worked at Duarte, if you're familiar with Nancy Duarte's work. Um, she wrote Resonate, which was, you know, a big game changer for a lot of people. They do workshops, they do presentation design for tons of big names and Fortune 500 companies. So we did this in a number of ways. When we launched her slide decks book for example, we put that as a free, ungated version on SlideShare. And then we linked over to this kind of more traditional inbound strategy page where you've got a landing page with a form, you give away a free piece of content, show good faith that this is good quality, and then you've got a form fill out to download some templates that people could use that would then drop people into a drip campaign where we would showcase more templates, we would showcase some use cases that we had built and give them more content to ultimately lead them to say, "Hey, if you want to buy a workshop to learn how to do this at a pro level, here's how you can do that." Getting started with your content playground Kathleen: So if I love the whole concept here, and I love the notion of content depth because I do think that there are so many marketers that almost try to cover too much and they skim the surface on everything and it doesn't work. I think the thing that could be challenging about this is hearing that, like, where do you start and how do you, how do you get there? Because you can't snap your fingers and have a lot of depth in all these topics right away. And also, how do you know what those top level topics are? If you were teaching this to somebody, how would you walk them through that? Ashley: So there's a couple of ways that, uh, we've been able to do it at Atlassian. Obviously we're fortunate we have a large team and a ton of experts that have complimentary skills. So for example, we have done a ton of keyword research to understand both search intent and the specific wording of that. From a market standpoint, agile came in and changed the game, and it turns out that JIRA was actually a really good fit to run agile. So we already kind of were keeping a pulse on the market and we started to see that agile is becoming this very mainstream thing, that our tool and our technology is really useful in helping people run. So let's focus on agile. Okay, where do we focus? And that's where things like SEO and keyword research, that's where focus groups, that's where digging through the feedback that your customers are giving you and asking like, what are the top questions in terms of workflows? How do those map to things like running scrum teams or running Kanban boards? How does that now map to workflows and guides and onboarding tutorials that we would share with somebody who starts with your product or working with Trello products, for example? So I would say I'm doing a listening exercise and there's a number of tools. You could do it on social media as well, particularly for software devs, which is one of our core audiences. They hang out on Hacker News, they hang out on Reddit. And so go look there. That's, that's another core tenant I think as marketers is loving the whole human and not just who are you as a buyer? I only care about you as a buyer or user. How do I get you to engage in the product every day or buy more of the service? Okay, these people have lives. And so if you can figure out what do they love, what are they passionate about outside of the one thing you're trying to sell them, that also gives you an entire new space to explore for thinking about what topics could you engage in. And so, when you think about engineers, efficiency, optimization, clean and concise process is something that's very important to them. Well what are some of the frameworks or what are some of the topics that deal with optimization that could potentially lead you to lead you to something like Six Sigma or manufacturing for example, right? There's a lot of ways that you could think about it if you just know what do engineers generally like? And it's like, they really like efficiency. They like optimization, they like tight, elegant solutions and just jump off from there to see, okay, what are the specific topic areas that would coincide with your product offering? And with the things that they generally care about, what does that mean? Kathleen: And if you don't have an enormous team and you want to take this approach, how do you do it? Because I imagine you'd have a choice of like, okay, I've identified 10 areas that I want to go deep on, you know, and I could either take area number one and fully play it out and develop all the content. Or I could do one article for each of the 10 areas and then go back and do the second article. Like how would you tackle it? Ashley: Yeah. So one of the things that Nancy Duarte actually talks about a ton, from Jim Collins book Good to Great is this concept of the hedgehog principle. And that's if you can do one thing and be the best at it, just do that one thing. So instead of trying to spread yourself too thin across all of those 10 topics, I would be ruthless initially in what is the thing that we actually have the ability to talk about without having to spend a ton of time and energy going and finding that expertise? What's the thing that leads most to the product market fit, or the service market fit, whichever of those that you're selling? And then what's the thing that has depth? This is something that I see a lot, is people start throwing topics on the board and you're like, okay, but how many words can you actually say about that thing? And for the most part, people were like, "Whoa". And it's like you can't even say one sentence about it. How are you going to write a full article? And then that also gets into, it's not just one article, it's okay, how do we also turn that into a video? How do we turn that into an infographic? How do we turn that into a social media post? Because this thing has to live for a lot of time. Nobody has time to keep creating net new content all the time. And so if this piece can't be repurposed or broken apart, it probably doesn't have enough depth to chase. So I would say if you're very first, starting from scratch, to limit it to probably two, maybe three topics that are related to each other and that you know, have depth. And I would say especially if you're dealing with a small team, like you're at a start up and the founder is kind of the only person who could talk about this, I'm definitely limiting that to two topics that you know you have in house expertise and then doing a good job to capture that from a conceptual, strategic and tactical standpoint the first time. And then go with the repurposing strategy. So instead of saying, "Oh my gosh, we have to cover it, a thousand words or a 20 minute video every single time", think about it as, no, nobody wants to read that, nobody's going to scroll through all of that. So let them pick their journey of how deep they want to go. Repurposing your content Kathleen: So can you dig in a little bit more to that repurposing topic because I was interested to hear you discuss all the different ways that the content can manifest, because I think a lot of people might hear this and think it's a bunch of blogs, but it's, it's really not. Ashley: One of my favorite campaigns that was super successful, there was a startup that I worked at that got acquired by Oracle called Palerra. Palerra was a cloud access security broker, which, you know, doesn't matter as much to the majority of the audience if they're not in tech, but, basically they're kind of a complimentary security product to a lot of cloud offerings. We were primarily an enterprise solution. Technology is a really heavy topic. And so what we did, when I came in, there was this raw word doc of just random customer interviews, and problems that they had faced. And so for example, we all know on a personal level we should update our passwords regularly. A lot of companies have that installed where it's like 72 days time to change your password. So at an enterprise security level, there's a similar concept for your keys to your different cloud services. And so we had a scenario where there was a customer that hadn't rotated their keys in like two years. It blew our minds. So our product actually found that. So we actually were talking about cautionary tales and focusing specifically on AWS because that cloud offering is quite ubiquitous among our customers and these are a lot of common pitfalls that our products can help solve. So we called it a cautionary tale. We turned it into an ebook first that then became the basis for our booth graphics at AWS Reinvent. And then we had a booth giveaway. We put an Amazon Tap in a clear box and then we had a bowl of keys sitting next to it and they looked identical. And so you drew a key and if it unlocked the box, you won the Tap. And so that was able to lead us into, "Have you rotated your keys? How are you doing password management?" But not just those basic tactical issues, but also like how do you know there's even a working key in the bowl? How do you know that Kathleen is supposed to have the key and not Ashley? What happens to the keys after the show? So let's say Kathleen and Ashley both leave and the bowls just sitting there. Now what happens to the keys? Right? And our product can help with that. And from a security standpoint, those are a lot of blind spots that at the time people were missing. And then the nice thing about that being at a security conference, people were very skeptical that there were any working keys in the bowl. Right? There's no keys. Yeah. So every time someone won, we took a picture and then we put it on the company Twitter feed. And then if they had a Twitter handle, we tagged them and ask them to retweet. And so there were people, and I mean we had people, well, again, they're very methodical about this. They're like, okay, it looks like roughly once an hour people are winning. So the last time somebody won, they just won. Okay, well I'm going to come back and try again later. Kathleen: Like people play slots.  Ashley: Yeah. It's like slots. But that was a great way. And then we were also able to share that ebook on Twitter as well to say, "Hey, if you're curious why we're taking pictures of the food, you can read this ebook." And then we were able to send that as well with some deeper case studies to anybody that we had scanned at the booth. So it was a really nice integrated online, offline and social media experience. That's another one of my pet peeves is people who are just like, come to booth 123. I'm not at the conference so you're just going to spam me for three days. So making sure that you have content that tells a story to your social media audience, whether they're attending the conference or not. Kathleen: That's great. That's a really good point about the shows too. Because yeah, you do so much marketing. And if somebody is not going, it's just annoying. How to share your content on your website Kathleen: So if you've created all this content, what does that look like on the website from an experience standpoint? Are there content hubs? Is it a resource center? How do you organize this all for presentation to your audience? Ashley: I think it really depends on the audience. I think HubSpot, obviously from the hub and spoke model that they've done, is amazing so that you can kind of see, you can dive in deep per topic, you could dive in deep from an integrative marketing standpoint, you can dive in deep from a tech stack standpoint and obviously they have solutions for that. So the way that they've organized it is actually really great because it allows people to kind of slice and dice how they want. One of the things that we've done that I think is really great and it lasts and is, for example, on the work-life blog, which is like a corporate level, so deals with things like teamwork, practices, leadership, et cetera. We've got a related articles function. And so when you get to the bottom of the article, yes, there's a CTA. If you want to sign up for the newsletter, you want to um, go talk in the community. Or in some cases where we're doing product focused content, it's go to the product tour or something like that. But then at the bottom there's related content. And so we have a mix of collections, a mix of tags, and then those get fed into the related content. And so there's always a next step for people to take. I think that's the biggest thing, whether you organize it as a hub, whether you organize it as a resource center that's done by topic filtering or content tagging, that ability for somebody to always take the next step and to, to only force that next step to be a buying action if they're in a head space for buying action. So if you're on a product tour, the request a demo or the sign up for free, or the do an evaluation for seven days or 30 days, whatever it is, that makes perfect sense. But if you've just read an article about productivity, it's a really hard landing to talk about five tips to manage your time and then all of a sudden be dropped into, you know, by the way, you need to buy Trello. It's like, why would I do that? So making sure that there's always a next logical action that either takes them deeper toward a purchase or deeper tool, words and practices that will help them or allow them to say, I don't know how I landed here. How do I get back to the first thing that I clicked so that I can get back on the path where I think I should be? Kathleen: Yeah. How do you execute that? Because you just gave the example of somebody who's just poking around and then they're all of a sudden getting pushed to buy. You know, being that it's a playground and people can go in any number of directions, how do you craft those next steps so that they make sense? Ashley: I think the biggest thing is, there's obviously an ideal customer journey and that does include some post-sale engagement. That could be things like documentation. It could be a support community. But really, I mean even from like, um, practically accessibility, labeling your buttons with what it is you're doing. Are you downloading this? Are you reading this? Are you clicking to do an evaluation? Are you starting a trial for free? What is that? And then that way people are very clear whenever they get down there, they know what they're clicking on. I know I've had this experience a few times where it's like, see more. And I'm like, yes, I wish to do that. And it automatically takes me into this form where it's like put in a credit card. And I'm like, you didn't tell me that's what I was doing. That's not, I didn't agree to that. So having really clear navs and in the resource center, not having buy CTAs all over the resources. For example, Intercom does a great job with this. They're a messaging, communication growth platform. You can go over to their journal section or their resource center and it's all thought leadership. It's all very high level and they state at the top, "This is free content. It's educational, no sales." And so, you know, when you're that part of the website, you're not going to get sold to and there's a nice handy button at the top. It's like go back to home. And that's where, you know, you could either be directed down an education path or sales path and you can kind of choose. So I think just being really explicit. We're past the point of I'm going to trick you into sales. It might've been on LinkedIn. I saw a discussion that maybe you and somebody else were having about, "Oh, I got a thousand leads from this form. And the question is, are they qualified?" Jay Acunzo actually has a whole rant about this. Stop gating your best content and then pretending whoever fills out that form is a lead sales lead. That's not what they agreed to. And so don't try and trick your audience. If they want to buy, they'll let you know. If they want to be educated and they want to form a relationship with you, they'll do that. And so giving them a clear path to let them either do sales or build a relationship makes them feel empowered. It gives everybody good feelings and it doesn't clutter up your sales process with people that are junk, that are not qualified or that are not actually interested in buying. Kathleen: So true. I find it's counterintuitive because, I started a few years ago ungating as much content as I possibly could and just putting it on the page and then adding like a little field just for email saying, "Want to get the PDF? Put your email in." And that was it.  What was fascinating to me is that not only did conversion rates not go down, in many cases, they went up. It's really psychology if you think about it. There's so much crappy gated content out there and the problem with gating it, first of all, is people are very jaded and a lot of them will think, I'm not giving up my email only to find out that this is junk. And so then they don't convert at all. Whereas, if you give the content away and then give them the option of downloading, you're basically allowing them to try before they buy. You're proving that what you're giving them is really good and if they do think it's really good, they are going to convert because they're like, "Well, it's no skin off my back. This is great content. I don't mind giving up my email address for it." And so the people that wind up converting on the ungated content are more qualified because they've self qualified. The other thing I've found, it goes back to your thing about being explicit, is especially when you don't have things gated, like on the page before or in the marketing you're doing for it, just coming right out and saying, "No need to fill out a form to get it." Ashley: Yeah. Kathleen: You don't have to give us your email address. People are so naturally almost defensive or they're like, Oh, Nope, Nope, Nope. They're going to ask for something. And if you can just come out and say, I'm not going to ask you for anything, that goes a long way. Ashley: Well, and I think what's interesting in this, in this thought about building relationships and giving that content away, a great example, there's a company that I worked with, they were an agency for us. We were a startup. We were using, you know, a lot of agencies and freelancers and they host these dinners and it's basically, you know, just get five, six, seven people together, have dinner, nerd out about marketing topics. And yes, we all know full well some of us are current customers of this company. Some people are prospects of the company. But I don't have budget or need to work with them anymore. But every single time I meet somebody that says that they have the need that this company services, I refer them and I refer probably three or four clients to them. I would continue to do that and we have a great relationship. They still invite me to the dinners. I sent one of my colleagues to a dinner to basically make a connection to say this might be relevant for you to meet some people that we might want to put spokespeople on panels with in the future. And so that willingness to connect with each other. I'm loyal to that company even though I have no budget and no need to buy from them right now. But I'm referring, I'm still giving them revenue because again, it's, it's fine for, for me, when I meet somebody at a conference and they're like, how would you do this? I'm like, actually this is a great company. Would you like an intro? And so a buying action may not necessarily be the person who downloaded the content buys. It may be, I mean, again, I talk about Intercom. I love the content that IDEO puts out. Again, I have no need to buy their services at this point, but I tell everybody, go look at HubSpot's content or go look at Intercom's content. And so there's no way for them to measure that. I'm just another random name on their list that hasn't converted, but I'm a brand champion for them and they don't even know it, you know? Measuring the ROI of your content playground Kathleen: That's awesome. So speaking of measuring, you get this all set up. You deploy it. How do you track and measure whether it's working, how it's working, et cetera? Ashley: So I've done this in a number of different ways depending on the company and the strategy and the bandwidth and all of that kind of stuff. If you're just starting out in your tiny little team, and you don't have the ability to do, you know, Tableau or Databricks or kind of all of these fancy data pipelines, at minimum just start out with your Google tracking. Google has free stuff that you can put on. Use your UTM codes to understand if these things are getting tracked from a social media standpoint, what's the referrals, if you are using any pages with forms from any of the marketing automation providers. Again, I'm pretty partial to HubSpot just because I think they do amazing content. The platform is great. We've used Marketo in the past, and other companies. So any of those are great to really understand what are the trends. I think that's the biggest thing. Making sure that you're looking at a correct trend level. I've worked a lot on the social media side and people get freaked out per post. "Oh my gosh, we did 10 posts last week and this one did, you know, half a percent better than this one." And it's like, let's zoom out and look monthly. How are things trending? Let's do some testing to see if we post more. Does our engagement rate go down if we, um, the other big thing is optimizing the CTA is for what you want to happen. So it's going to be really impossible for you to get somebody to like, comment, retweet, follow, and click through all in the same posts. Like there's not enough words for that post. And so making sure that each CTA belongs where it should be. So if you're asking for a poll on Twitter or Facebook, that's the goal. Responses in feed is the goal versus explicitly asking someone to click through. Make that explicit and you need to make sure that you're putting in some sort of hook or benefit. I see this a lot with people who are just starting in social media, for example, that they just give the title of the article or they just say, read these five tips. Well, what are they? On the opposite extreme, they give it away and they say, here's the five tips. And then they laid them out. And I'm like, well, now why do I need to read the article? You already gave me the tips. Give me the first tip that you think is the most interesting and then say, click through to read the next four tips. Kathleen: Right? Ashley: So, from a measurement standpoint, being very clear on a per post basis about what your goals are, if you're looking at click through rate or engagement rates and what type of engagement. So that's kind of more from a social media standpoint. If you're doing YouTube, if the answer is subscribe to the channel, if the answer is watch the next video, if the answer is go visit the page, those are very different actions. And so making sure you're optimizing those. And then obviously looking at things like organic traffic is always great. Looking at whether you have emails or product tours. From an email standpoint, looking at the open rates and the click to open ratio. So a lot of people look at the CTR, but that's a little bit out of whack. If there's a thousand people that opened it, but you sent it to 5,000, it's not very fair to say what's the CTR on the 5,000? Use it on the thousand. In some cases we've gotten really granular to look at which pieces of content get the most clicks. And so that helps us to understand, it's great that you want to put 10 pieces of content in the newsletter, but if only the first five ever get clicked, you need to find something else to do because you're not amplifying those things. Kathleen: How do you get people down further? Ashley: Yeah, exactly. What kinds of results can you expect? Kathleen: So any examples of like, what kinds of results does taking this approach yield in terms of pipeline or engagement or revenue or any of the above? Ashley: Yeah. From a scale standpoint, it depends. It's not very fair to say like, Oh, you'll get a thousand leads. It's like, okay, well if your revenue goal is 10,000, that's a struggle. Or if you're a billion dollar company, a thousand leads doesn't do you any good, right? So, we've done content pairing for example, where we've done a mix of gated content and ungated content. When we did that at Duarte, the ungated piece has over 300,000 views. Now it's been up for a couple of years, but it's got over 300,000 views. We were getting roughly 10 to 15% download rates of people going and getting that content. And so that's something where you're still getting the benefit of the people looking at it for free and ungated, but then you're starting to see higher engagement, you know, 10, 15% on that. Whenever I've done newsletter sends that have been more thought leadership focused with very light touch sales, we've been able to see 20, 30% open rates, 15 to 25% CTOR rates. Again, because we're serving that content that they've requested, not trying to shoehorn in sales. Whenever we've done sales, as a piece of content, like, "Hey, get a trial" or "Use this code" or "Refer" or "Here's an eCourse and then we'll give you one module for free because you've signed up for this newsletter" or something like that, those do have a much higher conversion rate for whatever the next buying action is. Again, it depends on the scale. So like the Palerra one at the time, you know, that ebook and we were a tiny little company. I mean we only had, I think when we got acquired, we had maybe 60 employees total. So very small company, 10 by 20 booth at AWS Reinvent, which is a massive conference. And we got, you know, almost 2000 views on that small ungated ebook. And then we got substantially higher open rates, and then our lead scans at that booth, I mean it was ridiculous. I want to say we scanned like 500 people and at most shows we were only scanning probably a hundred to 112 and so it was huge because it all tied in. Kathleen's two questions Kathleen: That's awesome. Well shifting gears because we're gonna run out of time. I have two questions that I like to ask all my guests and I'm really curious to hear your answers because you've worked with some really interesting companies who are very good at this. Is there a particular company or individual that you think is really killing it with inbound marketing right now? Ashley: So I will do the shameless plug for Atlassian, A, because I work there so of course I think we're doing a good job. But truly, I think one of the biggest examples of this, we have our team playbook and this is something again where we connected our work futurist Don Price, has done a number of different keynotes around the world and always promotes the team playbook and that has led to this health monitor -- the team health check, understanding where your blockers are. That led to a large engagement with ANZ bank, which is a huge bank in Australia and they have now done a case study with us. They're huge champions that come for our conferences and speak about how this one tiny little interaction with this health monitor has led to this entire agile transformation across their business. It's a mix of the tools, the people, the practices, it all came together perfectly. So, yes, that had a revenue result for us, but it started with that ungated content at a conceptual level about how do you do your team work better and that's what Atlassian really tries to empower. I mentioned Intercom as well. They have a ton of great content. They've got sales manuals, they got marketing manuals that talk about a variety of different ways to think about content marketing, sales, the interaction between sales and marketing. Highly recommend their content for both sales and marketing practitioners. And then, IDEO, just like if you want to elevate your creativity and you want to kind of think outside of a traditional business or products. I work in tech, so of course I'm in this little bubble that everything is SaaS and everything is ARR. IDEO has none of that. And so every time I go to IDEO and just like, this is fascinating, how does the world work when you're not in your little bubble? And so I would say, no matter what bubble you're in, IDEO will help you get out of it. That would be three that are a mix of marketing focused, tech and then a design consultancy that's just completely out of my wheel house.  Kathleen: I can't wait to check some of those out -- particularly IDEO. It sounds really interesting. Well, second question is, the biggest pain point I was here from marketers is that digital is changing so quickly and they feel like it's drinking from a fire hose to try and keep up with everything and stay educated and on the cutting edge. So how do you personally do that? Ashley: Yeah, so from a broader view, kind of outside of marketing or just business chops, which I think is really important, it's how do we fit in and especially as you move up in your career and you become COO or something like that, understanding that business acumen is really key. I love MIT Sloan review for that content and they've been killing it lately. Every single thing that's come out from them over the last probably six or seven months, I'm like, "Yes, one hundred percent fascinating". So I love MIT Sloan from a business standpoint. There's a couple of marketers that I think are a little bit contrarian and I joked about going on rants about things and I'm like, "Yes, ranting. I love it." Katie Martell is somebody that I've been loving her content lately. Jay Acunzo I think is great. He's really honing in on podcasting and show running over the last year or so. But just in general, his thoughts on content marketing and strategy are great. I love Scott Berkun. He is primarily a designer, and more on that design thinking. He has a new book out that I need to get because it looks amazing. It's like How Design Makes the World, I think is what it's called. And it's looking at how all of these interactions and everyday things influence our path, our actions, et cetera. So Scott Berkun is great. And then I would say just like a book that I always come back to is this book called The Medici Effect by Frans Johansson. It's primarily about intersectional thinking and divergent thinking. And so yes, there's an element of understanding the tactical nitty gritty from a digital standpoint. I think there's a number of, you know, Marketing Profs, CMI, HubSpot, all of those do a really great job of that. But how do you think about change? How do you think about a problem space? How do you think about a solution space? The Medici Effect is just every, it's like I come back to it kind of annually. It's like, okay, somewhere in there I'm missing something. I should probably just reread the The Medici Effect. In fact, I should probably just to think about the concepts and The Medici Effect to jolt myself out of being so focused on, okay, what does this button on Twitter do or what does this ads do? Like are we doing AB testing? We're doing multivariate testing, what's our competence interval, whatever. We're pulling those things down. Like I don't know what the best practice is. It's like I'm clearly thinking about it in the wrong way. If I'm so twitchy about such a small detail, you get lost in the weeds pretty easily. Kathleen: Those sound like some really good resources. I will put links to all of them in the show notes. How to connect with Ashley Kathleen: If somebody is listening and they want to connect with you online or follow you or learn more about this topic, what's the best way for them to do that? Ashley: I would love to connect on LinkedIn. I'm Ashley Faus. For the most part, I think I'm the first search result for that. And you can also follow me on Twitter also @AshleyFaus. Kathleen: Great. I will put Ashley's links to her social accounts in the show notes. So head there if you want to find them. You know what to do next... Kathleen: And if you are listening and you liked what you heard today or you learned something new, and how could you not because Ashley shared so many good ideas, head to Apple podcasts and please leave the podcast a five star review. That helps us get found by more people. And if you know somebody who's doing kick ass inbound marketing work, tweet me at @workmommywork, because I would love to make them my next interview. Thanks so much for joining me this week, Ashley. Ashley: Yeah, thank you for having me. It's always fun to nerd out about marketing. Kathleen: Yes!

Tom Duggan welcomes Phil Lahey from the Merrimack Valley Prevention & Substance Abuse Project (MVPASAP).  Last week, Tom had government officials, so this we his guests give some perspective on the opioid crisis from the private sector. Phil brought along Sandra and Ashley to talk about their experiences. Our host Tom Duggan of the Valley Patriot discusses: Tom talks about breaking news How does Tom feel about the ban on menthol cigarettes? Do the liberals believe in anything at all The Lawrence inauguration is tonight Monday night will be the inauguration of the new Methuen Mayor New Year’s Eve shooting in Lawrence Phil talks about what MVPASAP is all about and how it got started Sandra and Ashley share their experiences with recovery Phil talks about the gratitude that comes with recovery How do you go about repairing relationships? How did the MVPASAP scholarship help Sandra and Ashley? You can find the website for MVPASAP at mvpasap.com All that and much more on this week’s episode of The Paying Attention Podcast! For more information, check out latest edition of the Valley Patriot or www.ValleyPatriot.com. The Paying Attention! Podcast is recorded each week at the Studio 21 Podcast Café and is hosted on the United Podcast Network.

Because being surprisingly unexpected in your business category is the best thing for you… Today we are super excited to pour a mimosa and chat with our girl Ashley of Ashley Rose Clothing! Ashley is surprisingly unexpected. She hand makes all of the children’s clothes in her booming boutique, Ashley Rose Clothing - but here’s the kicker - she is self taught and doesn’t own any tiny humans yet. A little about Ashley Rose: “I'm Ashley, the designer, seamstress and creator of Ashley Rose Clothing. I work to make clothing that combines fashion and function for the littlest ones you love. I started this small business in the spring of 2016 after packing my two suitcases and moving to Hawaii. I found myself with a blank slate filled with endless opportunities after finishing the Peace Corps. I was inspired to create something that was meaningful and embodied my core values of integrity, thoughtfulness and adventure. While my clothing has evolved immensely over the past several years of growth, I've always remained true to my sustainable methods of production. My team and I cut and sew all of our garments locally in Hawaii using only the highest quality fabrics. Quality fabric is significantly more durable, feels better against delicate skin, and gets softer with each wear.  I strive to create thoughtful, well-designed, and long-lasting garments. By ultimately creating seasonless pieces that can be worn a myriad of ways, I aim to discourage the disposable view of clothing that has become increasingly pervasive. My hope is to return to the days of a minimal, functional wardrobe worthy of care and passing on.” - Ashley You can find Ashley on instagram at @ashleyrose and online at ashleyrose.com. Here are some things we’ll cover in today’s episode: How she became self-taught. How she fell into a business category she never expected. How boxes we (and other) put ourselves in - like only a mother could make children's clothes - is hurting you and your business. How a move (or two) can help your business. Some rules she has for running a business heavy in instagram. How to scale your business and think about the future. Brunchie fact: Ashley shares her favorite brunch spot in Oahu right now, and what she orders off the menu! (Spoiler - it’s also surprisingly unexpected) We’d love for you to connect with us on social media! We’re on instagram at @barefacedbrunch and online at www.barefacedbrunch.com. As always, we really appreciate you letting us know your thoughts in the star ratings and reviews section! Thanks for having brunch with us, have a great week!

RESOURCESlivingorganique.comThe Energetics of AuthenticitySHOW NOTES“One of the most important things I’ve realized over the last few years is the context of our culture and how much we are a product of it and its belief systems — without reflecting on it, realizing it, or questioning it.” –Ashley“You’re placing the highest value on the idea in your mind of who you should be, or what you should be, or who you’re told you should be. I thought I wanted to be what I was told.” –Ashley“The opinions of other people do not matter as much as my opinion of my own life. Why would I think that another person has a better concept of what’s going on energetically inside my soul than my own God- given innate intuition and gut feeling.” –Ashley“Our divine and sacred nature: God is out there; God is also in here, connecting “as above, so below.” We integrate the two. And we start to realize that the alignment is from God.” –Ashley“A lot of people get nervous with the word “energy,” and understandably so. But we are energetic beings, and our entire body is comprised of electromagnetic energy. This is proven in quantum physics.” –Ashley“We cannot cut out forms of energy and expect the physical body to heal and repair. Emotional health and spiritual health are critically important if we expect the physical body to run properly.” –Ashley“Disconnect from the voices. Disconnect from the “shoulds.” Reconnect with God. Start by evaluating the fruits of your thoughts and allow that internal voice to have your time instead of the Internet, Facebook, etc. Listen to what it’s trying to tell you.” –Ashley“It seems that the mom who has the most anxiety and turmoil is the one who is putting high value into what that others think. She becomes so concerned about pleasing, or appeasing, but it is often at the expense of her own children and personal symptoms.” –Ashley“Have the courage to say, 'This is right for me; it does not have to be right with others, and I’m good with that'.” –Ashley

Ashley: Hello. This is Ashley here with the Mompreneur Tribe. I am so thrilled today to have someone that's in it kind of different market. You really sometimes wouldn't think of a mom entrepreneur in this area. But here is a mom that is rocking it, is business partner with her husband. Her name is Catie Bird. She is with Harley Davidson of Durango, Colorado. Welcome, Catie. Thanks for being on. I'm just so excited because this is just ... You have such a unique business. So can you introduce yourself please and tell us a little bit about you? Catie: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much first of all for thinking of me and wanting to include me on your podcast, it's a really big honor. I think that being a mompreneur is definitely something to be really proud of and excited for. I'm in about two and a half years of entering that mompreneur role. So I'm still learning quite a lot of what it takes to be a business owner and whatnot. I'm just really grateful to you too for including me in this podcast. Catie: A little bit about me, my name is Catie and I am a southern girl from Texas, was born and raised in South Texas my whole life. And now as of about two years ago, I now live in Southwest Colorado with my husband, Trevor, who he and I have been married for 10 years, celebrated in November. We have two beautiful children. Millie is our daughter. She just turned nine last week and our son Reese, who turned seven recently as well. Catie: My husband, Trevor and I own Durango Harley Davidson here in Durango, Colorado, which is far Southwest Colorado. So if you think about the US map and you're looking in Southwest Colorado, we're right next to the four corners, so where we connect with Arizona, New Mexico and Utah. It's really a pretty amazing place to live as far as landscape, the mountain ranges and the rivers. It's just a beautiful place to be and a really big destination for motorcycle riders. Catie: There's so many wonderful rides that draw people here. So we are mostly a seasonal business, which is a big change for us from coming to Texas because we in Texas ... It's summer basically year-round. So people are riding motorcycle all the time, so things don't really slow down. Here, it's very, very different.We have about six out of the year to really sell, sell, sell, make it or break it before winter hits, and everything basically comes to a halt. So it's definitely a very different way of life in a very different style of business from what we're used to. I think we've done a really good job of adjusting to that and running our business based on that model now of seasonality. So- Ashley: Tell me about how you got there. That was the next thing is like why did y'all leave Texas to go up to Colorado and start out on this business? Because y'all been a part of the Harley Davidson Family for a while now, right? Catie: Yes, yes. My husband, Trevor has been working for the brand, sell Harley brand for gosh, close to 17 years now and with two dealerships back in Texas where we're from. I've never been involved with the Harley business. When I graduated college, I went into the corporate world and I started working for the NBA with the San Antonio Spurs was my first job out of college. Catie: That was a really amazing experience and really learned a whole, whole lot there. Then from then, from there I decided we were ready to start a family. And so I became a stay at home mom for about seven years, which I feel very blessed that I was able to do that as long as I was. All the time while I was staying at home or working with the Spurs, my husband was continuing with Harley Davidson in San Antonio in the New Braunfels area. Catie: Then I kind of started feeling my kids were getting a little bit older, starting Mother's Day out. I was kind of feeling like I was missing something, I love being a wife and a mom, but I was missing a purpose I felt like for myself outside of those roles. My best friend actually has started her own business selling custom men's wear, custom men's wear company. So I jumped on with her. Because I have a love of fashion, I have some merchandising background as well. So I jumped in and started my own business with her selling custom men's wear. So that was really fun and fulfilling. I was able to do it on my own time and still be there for my kids, and be home for Trevor and do the whole mom-wife thing as well. Catie: But just a few years ago, an opportunity kind of arose, Trevor and I had been really praying and thinking a lot about our future and what we wanted for our kids. While he had a partnership in some of the dealerships in Texas, we felt like it was time for us to branch out on our own, with all, with all of his years of knowledge, it was time for us to go and find our own dealership where that could be 100% owned by us and our family. Durango kind of fell in our laps, it's kind of a long story of how that happened. But it has been such a huge blessing. If you would've asked me 10 years ago where I saw myself today, living in Southwest Colorado, owning a motorcycle dealership would never have crossed my mind. Catie: I never grew up around motorcycles. I didn't know really much about them at all other than I would ride with Trevor and we would go places and do stuff. A little bit of the business side from what he would share with me. But that definitely was not in my wheelhouse of plans for myself. So it's kind of really interesting to see where I am now. But I wouldn't change a thing. It's been an amazing blessing for our family to be here. I also never thought I would leave Texas. I've gotten my Southern roots and they are deep. But it's really been fun, a fun adventure to try somewhere new and be somewhere new with meeting different people. There's so many wonderful blessings that have come from it. Catie: But now, when we took over ownership of the dealership back in June of 2017 is when we started, we were just blown away immediately by the team that was already here and in place. All of the managers that were with the business before we took over ownership are still with us today. That's something that Trevor and I are really proud of because this team that we have is in my opinion, the best in the business. Catie: They were really great about transitioning and learning a new way of doing things with our business model and whatnot. They have just really, really made our jobs easy as far as leadership because they all are leaders. They all do a great job. We really are a family here. And that's one thing that sharp and I have always talked about from the beginning is that we want to be a family where we want everyone to feel welcomed, and loved, and supported. Also, we are a family owned business. Our kids are very much involved in everything that we do here at the dealership and combined with them being here all the time and having a strong relationship with our team, we feel really lucky to be here. So that's kind of how we got where we are in a nutshell. Ashley: That's such a leap of faith to leave, be a Texan and leave. I feel like so many ... So many people come to Texas, they rarely leave unless it's a big calling. And you found that calling and y'all left. Now here you are, you're two and half years into this new business venture. But it sounds like you guys are very settled in it. Can you tell me a little bit about your roles? And what it's like being in business with your partner? And how you all divide up responsibilities and then day in and day out of juggling the kids? Catie: Yes, absolutely. So it's really kind of cool how it's worked out because I, to be honest, was not quite sure how it was going to go, working with Trevor 'cause we are together all the time anyway. And I'm thinking, are we going to butt heads? We've never worked together before. How is this going to work? And so it just fell into place in that I know his strengths, his strengths are my weaknesses and kind of vice versa as well. My strengths are kind of his weaknesses. So where Trevor takes over, he handles most of the overlooking things, the motorcycle sales division and all of the finance part of the business, which I am not a numbers person. That is so far over my head, and I will admit it. Catie: That is a big weakness of mine. Being a business owner, it's definitely something that you should know really well. I'm taking the baby steps to really try and dive, dive in and learn more about that side of it. But for now, it's great that I have this partner that does know that side really well so that I can focus on where the other needs in the business are, which are marketing and the merchandise sells, so the general merchandise department. So if any of you who aren't familiar with Harley Davidson or have never been into a Harley Davidson dealership, I'll just kind of explain a little bit of what it looks like. Besides this your showroom floor with all of the motorcycles, the new and used, we also have a very large general merchandise department. Catie: So clothes, fashion, writing gear, your leather jackets, your riding boots, all of your protective gear as well as just your casual gear that you wear when you're not on the bike, so the fashion side of it. There's also a parts department where you can come and buy motorcycle parts and then have them installed in our service department, which we have a really large service department. Very, very wonderful service department. Catie: We get compliments on our team back there all the time on their great service and, and how well that they do. So there's lots of different areas of the business that need to be managed and watched over. So Trevor does sales and finance and I handle all the marketing and the merchandise. And it works really, really well because there wasn't a marketing department here in the shop beforehand, before we took over ownership. Catie: It was kind of a split job between like our accountant. The accountant would kind of do it, the controller and everyone kind of shared responsibilities, which was great. They made it work because again, as a seasonal business, we only have about 10 full-time employees that are here year-round. Then once the season starts to pick up, usually in May, then we add about 10 to 15 more just for the summer. So we grow quite a bit in our peak season and then kind of go down to the skeleton crew in the winter time. But there wasn't a specific person that was handling the marketing. So my degree is in public relations and communication. So it was kind of an easy role for me to kind of just step into and start handling that part of it. Catie: So it's actually been really awesome working with Trevor because we respect each other's strengths and we lift each other up. We always lean on each other because we know that this is make it or break it for us. We moved our family away from everything that we knew to take on this dealership. This is our livelihood. So I know to respect him when he says, "No, Catie, this isn't going to work. We've got to restructure and think of something else," and vice versa. Catie: He does the same with me. So having that mutual respect and trust in each other has really made this partnership work, being able to work with my husband each day. I will say there are those days that he really gets on my nerves. I just go and I just shut myself in my office so that ... 'Cause we are husband and wife. We don't get along all the time and we don't always agree, but we respect each other. Catie: So I know when he's in a bad mood, if he's having a bad day, I'm just going to keep my distance today and I will handle what I need to do and vice versa. So it works. It works for us. Ashley: I like that you pointed out several different things. Being in a partnership with my mom, we've definitely learned that we play off of each other's strengths and weaknesses. So her strengths are some of my weaknesses and my strengths are some of her weaknesses. We really play that to the advantage of our business. Then at the end of the day, when you just have respect for your partner, your business partner, whether it's a parent or a spouse or a friend, it really truly goes a long way in business and being able to trust them that "Hey, this is for the good of the business." And like you said, it's your family's livelihood. It's the same with us. It's, actually two families' livelihood and plus you feel the responsibility of all the employees that you employ as well and their livelihood. Ashley: You want to make it work and make it successful for everyone. So I love those points that you pointed out. And then at the end of the day, not everything's perfect. We're all humans, right? So you really know how to keep your space. Catie: Yeah, absolutely. Ashley: So what is a tip that you would give to fellow mompreneurs that are trying to juggle it all and juggle having a business and kids? And because you were a stay at home mom, lik you are very active in your kid's lives and everything. How do you make it work? Catie: That's a good question and I think that I'm still figuring it out honestly. It's just day by day and for me, like I'm such a Type A planner type person that I feel like I have to have every moment of my day and my week planned out. I'm trying to reverse that and to just like being present in the moment and what I'm doing right then, and focusing on that and not stressing so much about what's going to happen later because I find that when I do that, if I'm at either when the kids are at work with me or if I'm at home with them, my mind is just constantly thinking about the next thing. Okay, what do I have to do next? What do I need to do for the kids next? Catie: Instead of being present right there and jumping down on the floor and making that puzzle with my kid or going outside just to kick the soccer ball with my son. I need to be more intentional and more present. And that's something that I'm really working on. So my advice for other mompreneurs out there is that even if you're not a planner or if you are, I do think it's ... I'm a very big list person. I think like being intentional and like actually scheduling that time even if it's just 10 minutes to give your children like your full attention is important 'cause otherwise, the day can just get away from you and you get busy getting ready for dinner, doing laundry talking to that client on the phone problem solving, doing homework, all of that tha. I find that if I schedule lik okay, from 6:00 to 7:00, that's strictly for Millie and I. Catie: Millie and I are going to sit and we're going to chat about her day. I'm going to give her what she needs right now. That's not going to happen every day. And that's okay. I think we also need to give ourselves as moms a lot of grace and understanding that we're not going to be perfect every day, all the time. The mom guilt is real. I have it all the time. The first year for me going from being a stay at home mom to working full-time in a new place without any other family here to help with the kids and all of that, I was really hard on myself and I felt like I was failing at everything, whether it'd be work or the kids because I wasn't doing it perfectly and I didn't have it all figured out. Catie: But now going into, let's see, we did two and a half years now. Like I'm finally learning that it's okay to not have it all figured out and to not be perfect in everything. My kids are loved. They're happy, they're flourishing in this new place. I rest in grace and mercy in that. Like I know that they are good. I guess the advice is just don't be so hard on ourselves. We're doing the best that we can and that's all we can do. I also think that it's really important for our kids to see us as moms struggling. I think that they need to see that mom isn't perfect but mom tries her best. I think that's important especially at work because my kids are at work with us all the time because we don't have extra help. We don't have other family here or whatnot. So a lot of times after school, they come up here to the dealership and they, luckily it's a pretty cool, fun place to hang out. My son loves to go to the service department and sit there and watch all the technicians work on the motorcycles. Ashley: Yes, a young boy's dream playground. Catie: Yeah. It's cool. I mean, I feel like he's getting an education just being back there, watching these guys work. He's got this engineer brain and it's really cool. He loves that. My daughter, she'll jump in on the sales floor and start folding t-shirts. She's an expert t-shirt folder now. She is very confident and talks to customers. It's so cute because I'll have customers come up to me and ask me if she's my daughter and I'll be like, yes. And they'll say, "Oh, she was so great. She came up to me and said, hi, welcome to Durango Harley Davidson. Can I help you find anything today?" So it's a cool place for them to be. I think they're also learning the value of hard work being here and seeing mom and dad running this business. Catie: But our kids also see our bad days. They see it like when there is an upset customer and they're watching how Trevor and I are resolving that. They're seeing like, if Millie comes back to my office and I'm just way behind on stuff, or I just lost this campaign that I ran just didn't go very well and I'm upset about it. I don't hide it from her. My son still so little, I think he's kind of oblivious to a lot of it. But my daughter, she's very in tuned to emotions and things. She doesn't miss a beat, but I let her see me. I don't try and hide it whenever things aren't going great. I think that obviously for her, her age, I don't show her everything that's bad or horrible. Catie: But I think it's important for kids to see that we're human and that we struggle when we fail. But the important thing is that we don't give up. That's one of our family rules. Birds don't give up, we don't quit. We can fail and that's okay, but there's more honor in failing than there is in not even trying because you're afraid to lose. That's big lesson that we want to teach our kids is you can't be afraid to go for what you want. We didn't make this leap of faith to Colorado with the expectation of failing. But we knew that we needed to do, we needed to make a change and this was where God's leading us. We're here and it's not always going to be easy and it's not always going to be exciting, fun, happy days. Catie: But we stand firm and knowing that we're here for a reason and we've got a purpose here. I just think it's important for our kids to see that we are human. When they see how we react to the problems and to things that are going good or bad, then they're learning as well. I'm hoping, my hope is that one day when they enter the workforce for real, they're going to know the discipline that it takes to be successful and not being afraid of failure because that was a big challenge for me is failing. Catie: Watching my husband throughout his business and his life with Harley Davidson, I've seen him take a lot of risks. We've also had a lot of failures. But I really respect that he's never let that stop him from trying something new and doing what he wants. So watching him go through that has given me the confidence to know that I can do this too. I may not know a whole lot about motorcycles. I do a lot more now than I did two years ago, but I know that I have passion for this brand. I have passion for our business and the people that worked here and our customers. It makes it extremely fulfilling to come to work every day. Ashley: Your passion just now, I am just taken away. When you said the we will show honor, more honor in failing like the life lessons that you just talked about right there and how you're showing that to your kids, it's so impactful. I tell this to my husband sometimes, I'm like taking our kids to work with us, they will learn so much more some days than they ever will in that classroom. Ashley: The life lessons, and you just like nailed it with everything you said and how your kids are involved in the business in the day in and day out, and being a part of it, and seeing your reactions with customers. I absolutely agree with you just because we have a retail store too. My oldest is old enough to come and understand those interactions. You're absolutely right. They're watching our interactions, they're learning from it. Ashley: It can be such a good thing. It can be such a good thing to show that to our kids and just the way you articulated it was so great and just hearing your passion behind it, how it's more than actually just you being a mompreneur and being in partner with your husband. But it's a whole family. It's the whole family there that made the move, that's doing this business together. That's incredible. I applaud you guys. I loved hearing all your passion just now when you were talking about just the tip that you give, it is true. It is so true. And how we be present in our day to day lives for our kids, but also to give ourselves grace. So much grace. Catie: Yeah. Exactly. So much grace. Yeah. We're not perfect and we never will be. But all we can do is just do the best that we can. I'm making it a goal of mine to just not worry so much about everybody being happy and everything being perfect and take me. It's okay. It's okay if they're not ... It's okay that they're here at work with me every day after school this week because I have a lot going on. You know what, that's all right. Because what would they be doing at home besides sitting there watching TV or jumping on the trampoline? They've got stuff to keep them busy here and I can be okay with that. They're going to be just fine. Ashley: Yes. Catie: So yes, grace is a big, big thing. Ashley: Yes. I look at it with our family business is that they could be at home with a babysitter in front of the TV or they could be there interacting with ... It's great communication skills. Catie: Absolutely. Ashley: It's much better than them learning to text or play on the computer. They're learning great communication skills, dealing with customers and learning to talk to our employees. Ttalking respectfully, I feel like that's a great teaching studio for them. Catie: Yeah, 100%. Ashley: Catie- Catie: That was awesome. Ashley: I have thoroughly enjoyed this conversation today. I think you provided such wisdom to other fellow mompreneurs and especially that we just need to show ourselves grace. Something I ask all guests is what is a way that we can show up or support your business and you guys during this season? Yeah, how can we support you guys? Catie: Awesome. Well, you can support us if in the way of just follow us like on our Instagram page we actually have a really cool Instagram page. We do all these different lifestyle posts everyday of different motorcycle riders far and wide all around the country, in the world. They're really, really neat. They all have positive messages to them as well. So our Instagram page is @DurangoHarleyDavidson, all one word, no dash or anything. And then you can also check out our website, DurangoHarley.com. But one thing I want to touch on and follow us on Facebook too. Yeah. 'Cause we post a lot on there as well. But we also own a motorcycle rally that happens here every Labor Day weekend. We just finished year two for us. It's actually a rally that's been around for like 26 years or something. Catie: But right when we moved here, it kind of fell out. The previous owner that had some bad business skills kind of had ran it into the ground. But it used to be, there used to be 20 to 30,000 motorcyclists that would come through Durango on Labor Day weekend. It kind of fell apart. So my husband and I, and our marketing partner in the rally, John Oaks really tried hard to rebuild this rally. Catie: Bring it into a new light with different, with newer events like hooligan dirt, dash races. We just did our first ever motorcycle hill climb at Purgatory Resort, which is where our ski mountain here. It was a huge success and it was really, really awesome. I encourage you also to follow Four Corners Motorcycle Rally on Instagram as well. They post a lot of really awesome content, but the rally is a great way to support our local community here in Durango. They would bring a lot of economic success here for that, that one weekend. So that's a great way to support as well, just talking about what it is that we're doing here in Durango for labor day weekend and bringing in that next generation of motorcycle riders and bringing something fun to the community. Ashley: Awesome. So we will. We will ask, we ask all of you listeners out there if you will engage with them. So follow them on Instagram for the Four Corners Motorcycle Rally as well as Durango Harley Davidson on Instagram. I'm going to go check them both out. Then of course I didn't realize that different Harley Davidson dealerships have different websites. So that's good to know. If you are a Harley fan or maybe you have a need to buy a gift for a Harley fan, that's where I am. My dad had a Harley day was then growing up. And so my only purpose I've ever had in life is just to buy gifts. Ashley: So I literally walk up to the counter and just check out. I've never even explored the dealership. I just ordered and picked up there. S go and shop you guys at Durango Harley Davidson. All of this information will be in the show notes as well as if you click through and you got to our show through a social media link, go back to the social media page cause we're going to tag those in the social media pages. Ashley: Catie, I thank you for being a guest on today's show. Listeners, I invite you, you just heard me talk about how we can support Catie and her husband, Trevor in the Durango Harley Davidson dealership, their business. Please go out, engage with them on social media. Ashley: That is something you can do that is free, to support any business. And sometimes you hear a big brand and you think, "Oh, that's just some national brand." No, there's actually families behind these big brands. So the Bird Family owns this dealership. It's family-run. Sometimes people get lost in those big brands, but no, it's actually a family-owned business. So go out and support them. Ashley: And if you liked today's episode, I invite you to hit subscribe and leave us a review. We always are looking for feedback and comments, and want to hear all your great thought and reviews. So thanks for listening and have a great day. Speaker 1: Thanks for listening. To find out more about Ashley, log on to the MompreneurBoutique.com that's the MompreneurBoutique.com.  

You will love this episode and learn SO much! Alternative Healthcare Practitioner Ashley Guité and I chat about it all! Food Intolerances, Muscle Testing, Bio-Energetics and other holistic approaches to your health. She has a powerful story and is FULL of wisdom, friends. Soak it all up... you'll love her heart too! So many bright lights are shining on the Wellthy Women podcast, right?! :) Want to get in touch with Ashley? You can do so here: www.integratedhealthcare.ca

Hi crystal lovers, this week I'm so excited to be here with the amazing Heather Askinosie of Energy Muse and co-author of Crystal Muse. So, thank you so much for being here with me.   Heather Askinosie: Thank you for having me. I love coming and talking about crystals. Ashley: Well, it's our pleasure to have you. And you know, a lot of people are getting more and more into crystals now. But it just seems like sometimes people feel a little overwhelmed by all the different things that they can do with them. And one thing that I love about your book, the Crystal Muse, is that you make working with crystals so accessible. Heather: Well, thank you. Ashley: Yes. I mean, you make it something that anyone can do. It's not intimidating, you give great instructions. It's like my go-to reference now, and a book I always recommend to our students. There are some things that you talk about in there that I think are so important for keeping your energy body aligned and keeping your energy field clear.  Could you tell us a few of your favorite things that you do with crystals to keep your field clear and aligned? Heather: Well, I think that the fastest way to clear your energy field is to use Selenite because it is, in my opinion, one of the most high vibe crystals that exists on the planet. When I feel a little out of sorts, I'll go lay down on my bed and I'll just lay there with the Selenite on my chest. I kind of let selenite do the work. Sometimes, I might add a thought of, “Please clear my energy and help realign me into my body, into my own inner power.” But it's almost as if light, a column of light, really infuses my body.  I really like the wands, but I also love working with larger pieces of Selenite too. Sometimes it's as simple as just having something to hold on to, you know? I think it's easy to forget that. Crystals are our tools, and Selenite is a really, really powerful tool. So I feel like if you're going to have something in your crystal tool chest, Selenite would be my top recommendation. Ashley: Yes, yes. Heather: So, do you think that too? Ashley: Oh, absolutely. This is one of my favorite tools to work with. I love the larger pieces too. And you know what? I don't always think the size matters so much. But there's something that just-- it's just that physical heft of it, that weight of it that just really gets into your body and gets connected. Heather: I agree. How much do you think intention plays a role in this work? You said that you like to place the Selenite on your body and just say to yourself that you're intending to be more aligned. How much do you think that plays a role in what's happening for someone? Because you said on the other hand, you just allow the crystal to do the work. Heather: Yes. I think it's a dance, and sometimes there's times where I'm at a place where I can really go there and be like, you know what, it's time to get centered and it's time to be aligned. And then there's other times where I'm not at that place, when it's been one of those days and I've had whatever with my family or with work or what-- just life. It's just a journey. Those days, I'm just like, I've got to just put it on and be like, “Help me.” So, some days I definitely think intention plays an amazing role in our lives, because where intention goes and where our thoughts go is where energy goes. But there are times where I just need a crystal friend to lay on me and just help me get back to that point. Our award-winning Crystal Healing Certification Program is coming soon...   Ashley: So true. Heather: So, that's how I work with them. Ashley: You've mentioned that you have days that are a little bit rough where you just have to have a crystal do the work and help you out. I know that from personal experience and from working with people all over the world, that we tend to all have those days. Most people agree that it's because there are these energetic co...

Hi everyone! This week I am so thrilled to be interviewing Nicolette Sowder from Wilder Child. If you don't know Nicolette, you really should get familiar with her and her community...   Nicolette leads an amazing community for those who are really passionate about raising a wilder child and getting back to nature with their children. So Nicolette, hi! And thank you so much for being here. Nicolette Sowder: Hi, thank you so much for having me on, I'm so excited. Ashley: So, Nicolette... Could you start by telling our listeners a little bit about yourself and your mission and how you got started with Wilder Child? Nicolette: Sure, so right now, I live with my husband and my two little girls and we're wild schooling on sixty acres in Michigan. We actually run a pastured farm, but we weren't always here. We were on a trip five and a half years ago... the time's gone so fast... but so much has been packed into such a small amount of time. So we moved from Northwest Indiana -- it was really like a satellite suburb outside Chicago -- so we did have a little bit of property, but once we moved here, I mean, we are now just surrounded by nature. I always grew up appreciating nature with my parents, so that really instilled some key values within me. This was all enhanced when I got here, just us being dominated by nature. It was all around us, and I was able to form such a close relationship with our animals. At that time I had my one year old, my daughter who now is almost six (which I can't believe!), but when we came here she was one. It just had such a profound impact on me being in this environment with her. I felt like I really had to start writing about it. I think that's how a lot of bloggers start, with trying to express this totally transformational experience that you're having with your children. This was all enhanced with us being really with mother nature as well. I like to think of her now as the third parent. So this whole experience was mind-blowing, I thought I had to write about it. Then it became so much bigger than me. It just felt like there were so many parents who just wanted to talk about it, talk about how to reintegrate and heal that bond with nature from a parenting perspective. I feel like at that time, there was a lot of nature-based educational information, although there wasn't that much in the parenting context. That's really where Wilder Child has moved and really, really speaks. That's my passion, it's working with parents, working with families. Ashley: You know, I think this is such an interesting story because you had this experience growing up yourself as a child who was very connected to nature. It's not just something that you're interested in on your own, but that your parents really encouraged. Then when you became a parent yourself, it sounds like it was almost not only about  creating this connection for your own child but also in some ways, it was maybe a reconnection for yourself and learning to understand the natural world in a different way, through a parent's eyes. Nicolette: Oh my gosh, that's exactly what it was like. The role of nature and how it fits into your parenting life is a very special and very different thing to just nature on its own when you're growing up. There's a completely different energy when you're growing up, and I think you tend to miss a few things. It's still immersive when you're a child and it's so instinctual, that connection with nature, it almost goes unacknowledged. I don't mean that in a bad way, it just is. Mother nature should've always been with you, then and now. It's just that now, mother nature has become much more of a support system for me, one that I am fully able to appreciate and acknowledge. Everyday, I'm more and more thankful, more and more aware of the role that Mother Nature is playing in my life. Ashley: Sure, that's so beautiful. I'm not a parent myself but I remember spending so many days a...

Hi everyone! This week, I am so ecstatic to be interviewing the amazing Ethony. Ethony helps Tarot professionals build successful heart-centered businesses through Business Coaching and Tarot Certification, which is one of the reasons I really wanted to interview her today.   I feel like Ethony and I are really kindred spirits in our missions and the type of work that we are here to do on this earth. Ethony is a mother, a practicing eclectic witch, and the creator of many popular Tarot and Oracle Card Decks -- including the Bad Bitches Tarot, which you may have heard of. She's also the Headmistress of the Tarot Readers Academy and has so many more amazing accomplishments. So Ethony, thank you so much for being here with us today. Ethony: Thank you so much for having me. Ashley: Now, I've listened to a number of interviews with you before and I know that you kind of get asked this question a lot, But... How did everything start for you with Tarot? Ethony: I found Tarot through my practicing the craft. So I found Witchcraft, Paganism, and Wicca when I was in high school. I was 15. And I'm aging myself here, but The Craft was very popular. I love that movie still. I was actually doing research for an English paper and I came across this book called The Learned Arts of Witches & Wizards -- a book that I still have. It talked about nature and the connection with the natural rhythms of the moon and the sun and the seasons and the mystical arts. I'd always been absolutely fascinated by all of those things. I just felt like I'd come home; I found home. I loved how accepting and open that practice is. After this, I started to build my tools. The Tarot was one that I found while I was also working in a shop that sold cards. It was a language that clicked because Tarot really is a language. It's the most amazing thing that connects me to my higher self, with my spirit guides. Yes, it claps back at me at times. I mean it’s been keeping me out of too much trouble. But I found that through my spirituality first. Since then, it has become the main tool that I use throughout my life. Ashley: You know that really brings us to my next question actually. Because the way you're describing it is that it started for you just on this path of spiritual self-discovery and Tarot was one of the tools that you discovered along the way. How can the rest of us as modern mystics, as seekers of spirit, really incorporate Tarot as part of our spiritual practice? Ethony: Tarot, Oracle cards -- any form of using cards in any way -- I really find to be a beautiful conversation, a beautiful exchange. So one thing that I find is very helpful, if you're working on a goal or you have something you're trying to achieve or an energy you want to set for yourself for the day, grab your favorite deck. You don't have to know it very well. It doesn't have to be one that is super popular. Just grab the deck that you feel the most connected to. In the morning, give that deck a shuffle. Ask yourself, ask the cards, take some deep breaths, and say, "What action can get me further towards my goal?" Or, "What next action should I take?" Or, "What energy am I being asked to focus on today?" And pull just one card. In that way, you are actually becoming a partner with the universe, with your higher self, with your spirit guides, all to move yourself forwards. You're becoming an active participant in your own spiritual awakening and journey. I've found that has led to so many breakthroughs. Every little, small step adds up to a big step towards making massive change happen. Ashley: That is so true. And to those of you listening, I just have to say from personal experience, I've found this to be a really transformative way to work with cards in my own spiritual practice and in my own just kind of day-to-day routine. I won't necessarily pull a card or a few cards every single day. But it is something that comes up quite frequently for me and that I re...

How can we take ownership and responsibility of our own lives so that we can be empowered to take action and make a difference? What do we need to properly to take care of ourselves holistically so that we have the energy and motivation to bring about our best work?   Ashley James, holistic health coach and host of a top wellness podcast, Learn True Health, shares her wisdom with us on this episode.   HIGHLIGHTS: [14:45] Kaméa: "What's a common theme you've heard over and over again while interviewing leading holistic practitioners for your podcast?" [12:57] Ashley: "The more we give up our power by being a victim, the more we've lost and the more we are just giving up all of our energy, and the person who's victimized us has won." [15:47] Ashley: "You need to listen to your body and the symptoms of your body so that you can tweak and adjust your diet and lifestyle as you go."  [16:57] Why it's important to pay attention to our skin. [19:20] Why genetics are important but don't determine whether or not we will have an illness. [21:16] Ashley on how we may need to evolve our diets over the seasons and as we age.   Thanks for bringing your light! Find the full show notes with links and resources at www.greendreamer.com, and share your #1 takeaway from the episode tagging our featured guest and me @KameaChayne to spread the light and to let us know you're tuning in!

Today, I am really excited to be interviewing the amazing Emma Mildon. Emma is a millennial mystic, charged with creating a movement of conscious action in the world. She's the author of "The Soul Searcher's Handbook" and "Evolution of Goddess" and she is one of my favorite people to talk to. So, Emma thank you so much for being here today.   Emma Mildon: I love our chats so much! I'm always so excited because something always bubbles to the surface, so I'm so excited to talk to you again. Ashley: And for those who may not be familiar with you and your work yet... Can you tell us a little bit about yourself, your mission and how you got started with all the amazing things that you're doing? Emma: Yeah, of course. So I really started out, spirituality, totally selfishly. I was just wanting to expand and explore it for me. So I'm being totally honest - It was a me, me, me spiritual mission. I did the yoga, I did the meditation, I explored the crystals and then I started traveling. So I read lots of books, and met lots of teachers and gurus and authors. I found myself learning everything from tea-leaf reading to astrology and numerology, crystals, Reiki, and meeting Shaman. It was quite a journey. And throughout that, I threw a lot of books across my room. Now, I don't endorse book-throwing, but I have zero tolerance and a pretty short attention span. As a mystic millennial, I hate being told what to do, more importantly, I hate being told what to believe in. The books I read were great and they had great wisdom and I really respect the authors and artists that wrote them. However, there was always an undercurrent of bossy-ness and right and wrong. Kind of like regiment to ritual, which I really didn't resonate with. I felt like it kind of clipped my wings when I was trying to explore and journey through my own spiritual choices. As a result, I wrote books that I needed at the time. I started writing books about spirituality that became... kind of like smorgasbord spirituality.   You could digest and eat and nibble on any type of mystic, spiritual mindfulness that you crave without having to sit down and have a whole big meal on it. It's about having spirituality on your terms. Soul Searcher's Handbook is a menu of spiritual approaches that you can take to help guide you to build your own belief system on your own terms. Ashley: You know, I don't know if I've ever told you this, but... in addition to the love and light school, I also own a metaphysical bookstore. One of my employees who was recently promoted to manager said that your book, The Soul Searcher's Handbook, is really what sparked her interest in everything metaphysical. Someone gave her that book and she said that she read it cover to cover. She couldn't put it down. She said it was just so comfortable and so approachable and that really sparked her natural curiosity to continue further on this amazing spiritual path that she's on. Now, she manages the bookstore and she's doing all these other amazing things in the world. She's a freelance photographer and she's all about creating beauty in the world. Your book helped inspire and spark all of that for her. And I think everyone I've ever talked to about it says more or less the same thing. It's so warm and welcoming. You feel like you're just sitting down with a cup of tea with someone that you could spend hours talking to. Your new book, Evolution of Goddess, is very much the same. It's here at just the right time for many of us. So can you tell us a little bit about what sparked your passion for this topic? For Evolution of Goddess, what got you going with this? Emma: Yeah, you know what, it's so funny. Hearing that story about The Soul Searcher's Handbook makes me emotional, and that's exactly what I experienced coming into Evolution of Goddess. In truth, I was pretty tired and I didn't want to write another book. So I really had my work cut out for me with Evolution of Godd...

Hi, everyone and crystal blessings. Today, I am so excited to be interviewing the amazing Adam Barralet. Adam is someone that I’ve been following for quite some time. If you’re not familiar with him, you may actually know him and not even realize it from his amazing YouTube channel where he talks all about healing crystals.   Ashley Leavy: So Adam, thank you so much for being here. Would you mind introducing yourself and telling us a little bit about how you got started working with crystals? Adam: First of all, thank you very much for having me today. I’m really blessed to be in a chat with you all, your fans, your following and your circle. So my journey began with crystals over 20 years ago now. I walked into a crystal shop and I bought myself a little Amethyst. I went home and I read all about the magic and the mysticism of that crystal on the little bit of pamphlet they gave me. The next week, I’m back in that crystal shop and I bought another one, and then another one, and another one - to the point where now I think I work with about 300 different crystals. So that’s where I kind of began. I would buy so many books and try to find as much information as I could about crystals. There’s so much information out there that would tell me that a rose quartz is good for love and Citrine is good for abundance, but they wouldn’t tell you what to do with them. So I was collecting all these crystals, but they were just sitting on the shelf looking pretty. If we’re drawn to crystals, we can justify spending $10, $20 or $50 on a bit of rock, however our friends and family may wonder where our money is going. So I thought, if I have this unique drawing to gifts from mother nature, I also have the responsibility to make sure I know how to use them. Otherwise, it’s like giving you a Ferrari and you leave it sitting in the garage. So I started bringing another elements of different practices: aromatherapy, astrology, Feng Shui, guided visualizations, spell work and more, to find out how they create and understand love, healing and protection. I grew up in Australia, however I lived in Toronto for a while and in New York City. I had some great teachers in these places, and when I finally came back to Australia, I met some great people who invited me to write my books and produce my oracle cards. Now I’m blessed to travel around the world teaching people what to actually do with these colorful things that we love so dearly. Ashley: You know, Adam, I’m so glad that you brought that up because as a crystal teacher that was earlier on in life a student, that was one of my biggest complaints while I was trying to learn everything I needed to about crystals. I mean, I have over 200 crystal books, but  it seemed like there were all these encyclopedic volumes about what the properties of stones were but not as much information on what to do with them. Often, the information you got was so overly complicated that I constantly felt like, Oh, what if I make a mistake? Or this has a lot of steps. It seems really complicated. What if I don’t have all of those special tools or things that I need? Through my own work with stones I eventually realized that it doesn’t have to be difficult or complicated. I think more and more people are waking up to that. Now, you see amazing books available like your book “Crystal Connections: A Guide To Crystals And How To Use Them” which really is more practical. It's more of a hands-on, integrated approach to working with stones  Adam: Exactly. You know, I love working crystals and I wanted many people to feel confident with that. If we can’t make it simple and understandable, then we’re going to be eliminating people who will feel helpless with what to do with their crystals. Ashley: So true. Now, Adam I know for you a big part of your attraction to stones is really because of this value that you have about living in harmony with nature. So...

"I'm so excited to be able to share this interview with the amazing & inspiring Emma Mildon with you! Emma is truly a powerhouse of wisdom on all sorts of spiritual topics, and is a well-known crystal expert."   Ashley: Hi and welcome to the Love and Light live podcast. I'm so excited today to be interviewing the amazing Emma Mildon. You may be familiar with Emma, she's the author of The Soul Searcher's Handbook and the soon-to-be-released Evolution of Goddess. She's also been featured by The Huffington Post and by Mindbodygreen. She is just an amazing powerhouse of information on different spiritual topics. I am so excited to be interviewing her because The Soul Searcher's Handbook is one that's been on my shelf for a long time. I really love it. I've already pre-ordered my copy of Evolution of Goddess and I'm just really excited to talk with her a little bit today about this upcoming book. So Emma, thank you so much for being here with me. Emma Mildon: Hi. How are you? Calling in from New Zealand. Ashley: Lovely. That's the other thing I love. Many people listening, our students, they know my amazing team member Lucy is from New Zealand. So we have big New Zealand love over here. Emma: I’d love Lucy. We’d probably love each other. Ashley: For those of you who are maybe not familiar with you or your books yet... Would you mind just introducing yourself and telling us a little bit about yourself and your spiritual journey, and how you got started with all of this? Emma: Of course. Yes. I pride myself on being kind of the girl-next-door spiritualist. I began writing after kind of a world odyssey of soul searching. Firstly, I traveled the world and did everything I physically, possibly could in terms of learning and digesting spiritual wisdom. I read every book I could try to get through normally, just the first two chapters until they told me what I should do and think and believe in. And I did courses and learned from masters and healers and authors and shaman. At that time, I had no idea that actually I was researching my own book. But really, I think in that process of traveling, trying to read books about topics, I mean, coming out the other end and realizing that actually we needed a spiritual book without all the rules. A reference guide that meant that you could take what you like and leave what doesn't resonate with you. So yeah, that's kind of how I started out. I definitely didn't start out as a writer. Speaking and things like this make me incredibly nervous. I love to hide behind my pages of my book. Writing is definitely dear to my heart. I've really just felt passionate about people who need to have this information. Because when I started looking to explore spirituality, there wasn't really enough to help guide me that didn't boss me around. I think being a mystic millennial, I wanted to have a book that gave me the freedom to explore spirituality on my terms. Ashley: You know, I do think that that is such a true thing for many of us who are a little bit on the younger side who are in that millennial generation. It is about this personal freedom. I think that's why many of us choose the paths that we do and the careers that we do and things like that. So I definitely relate to that. But I think for really truly anyone listening, we've probably all felt this from one time or another when we're learning about something new. We feel like there's a specific way things have to be done because that's what we're being told and it really impedes on our own spiritual development and spiritual growth. We were talking a little bit about this before we started recording the podcast. About this idea of feeling like what you should be doing and beating yourself up when you don't do that. So I think that's so wonderful that you've incorporated more freedom into that original book. And I'm just wondering, did that play a role at all when you started to write Evolution of Goddess?

Want to know how I started out on my sacred business journey as a Crystal Healer & Teacher?   I get so many students asking me to share my story of how I started my healing business. So this week I'm sharing a special behind the scenes look at my sacred business journey, how I got started and how I got to where I am today. I know so many of my Love & Light students are on their own paths to creating beautiful, sacred businesses. But many of you are on the fence about whether you should follow you heart and take your business full-time. It can be so scary sometimes, but I want to encourage you with my own personal sacred business success story. I'm here to tell you - the world needs you to share YOUR special gifts! You have to follow your heart and the clues from the universe... Healing work is what you are meant to do - that's what the signs are telling you. You can listen in to the podcast above, or watch a special video interview below where I share my story. Enjoy! Looking for more spiritual business advice? Check out my FREE Crystals for Business eBook! YES PLEASE! SIGN ME UP Interview: Kelly: Hi everybody and welcome! Today we've got Ashley Leavy with us and she is the founder of the Love & Light School of Crystal Therapy. Hi Ashley, welcome! Ashley: Hi Kelly! Thanks so much for having me. Kelly: Thanks for being here. I've been really looking forward to this interview. Ashley: Me too. I know we’ve had it planned for a little while, and I’m just so excited to dive in today and share with everyone. Kelly: Yeah, great. So tell us a little bit about your story and how this all came about for you. I know you’ve got this amazing school now. How did you get from where you started to what you are doing now? Ashley: You know, if I look back I never ever would have guessed where things were going to take me. It was one of those things where I was really just, sort of, kind of, following the doors of the universe opening for me, following the breadcrumbs, so to speak, from one thing to the next.  And I'm so happy that I, kind of, listened to those little gentle nudges that I was getting because I couldn't have asked to be in a better, happier place in my life and in my business. So, for me this journey really started all the way back when I was a little girl... I was always interested in crystals and I would spend a lot of time with my grandfather, and he had a really large mineral collection. We'd sit in his study and he'd show me different things about the crystals and tell me about them and that was a really special time for me. You know of course when I became a teenager I got a little too cool for that stuff and, kind of, took a step back from it. It was really in my early twenties that I started to kind of reconnect and rediscover that part of myself and found that I was really looking for some deeper spiritual meaning in my life. I had done quite a bit of self-study up until that point, learning what I could from books and from, kind of, scouring all corners of the internet.  And it wasn't until 2007 that I actually took my first professional crystal healing training with an instructor. And that was a huge transformational moment in my life! Because I finally got to really experience what it was like to learn about crystals, to share about them in a group setting, and it was, kind of, that fork-in-the-road moment for me. Because I had actually been finishing up my degree at the University of Wisconsin in botany. I had a degree in horticulture, but there was a lot of, kind of, family and societal pressure to go do something that was going to make more money.  So everyone said, you know, go back to school, do the botany degree. So I was kind of on this path to something that didn't really resonate with me at a soul level. I mean, it was kind of like, at that point I could go have this career in botany where I was making genetically modified organisms for Monsanto o...

This week I'm sharing a really special interview I had with Jenn Aubert, all about how to boost your sacred business with the power of crystals.   Introduction: Ditch the distractions and aim for unstoppable. Honest talk about stepping fully into your business and life. Welcome to "From Stuck to Unstoppable", with your host Jenn Aubert of LearnSavvy. Jenn Aubert: Hey unstoppable listeners, this is Jenn Aubert. Thank so much for being here. I'm super excited to welcome our special guest today, Ashley Leavy. Ashley is the Founder and Educational Director of the Love and Light School of Crystal Therapy where their mission is to share the power of crystal healing with people all over the world. She is also the owner of Mimosa Books & Gifts in Madison, Wisconsin. So, welcome to our show Ashley. Ashley Leavy: Oh, thank you so much for having me, Jenn. Jenn: I'm so excited to chat today about how to integrate healing practices into our business, and in particular, crystal healing, to enhance our business success. So, this is going to be a lot of fun and I'm excited to dive in. Ashley: Me too, I can't wait to get started. Jenn: Okay. You've been teaching crystal therapy for many years. How did you get into this field and decide to create this as a business and a certificate program around it all? Ashley: You know, Jenn, it's kind of one of those things that, believe it or not, just sort of snuck up on me. I mean, when you're a child, if you have a lot of great support from your friends and family, and people that are encouraging you, you're always told you can be anything you want to be. Normally, those options are limited to ballerina, firefighter, and President of the United States, but no one ever tells you that you can be a crystal healer. This is not even something I knew existed, and I just sort of kind of fell into it. I've been really attracted to crystals ever since I was a little girl. I spent a lot of time with my grandfather when I was young, and he's very scientific-minded. He was actually a chemical engineer for many years, and he had this huge collection of minerals. I would go spend the summers with my grandparents a lot of the time and he would just share with me all these things about the crystals, and tell me about where they were mined or what they were used for. It was all very scientific. There was no woo-woo metaphysical stuff when it came to our discussions. I remember getting this book from him for Christmas when I was in third grade, and it was a Smithsonian Institute guide to crystals and minerals. Reading through that book which had great tips about earth science, and really interesting stuff about minerals and how they were used, the thing that really stood out to me the most were the little passages about the history, and lore, and legend of crystals and how they had been revered by humans for thousands of years for different purposes. That just kind of opened my eyes to this whole new area of crystals that I hadn't been exposed to before. It was so interesting because I was always really into mythology and things like that. I started exploring that and doing a lot of self-study. Then, in 2007, I took my first professional crystal healing training, really at that time just for myself because I wanted to explore my own personal growth and self awareness when it came to working with crystals. But as soon as I took that first professional training, I knew that this was something that I had to do with clients. I wanted to work with people. To actually do this professionally. I had no idea what I was doing, I was just 22 years old. I was in college finishing my degree in Botany and I was really, really unhappy with that. My first degree was in ornamental horticulture, which I love, but I had all this family pressure to go out and do something more, and be something more. Going back to school for this degree in Botany, I thought, well, maybe I'll become a teacher.

Amanda Shofner satisfies her need for adventure through the written word. She’s a self-published author who has written urban fantasy, non-fiction and romantic suspense. She’s a voracious reader, TV-watcher and Minneapolis native. We chatted with Amanda about her writing process, alpha readers, beta readers, pantsing, plotting and a little bit of everything in between. Here’s where to find Amanda Shofner: Website/blog: http://amandashofner.com/ My blog posts at Mill City Press/where my non-personal writing content is: https://www.millcitypress.net/blog/authors/amanda-shofner Published: http://published.com/ Twitter: http://twitter.com/amshofner Instagram: http://instagram.com/amshofner Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/amshofnerauthor/ Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/amshofner/ Writing Sprint Hashtags: #NaNoWriMo #AmWriting Mill City Press self-publishing services: https://www.millcitypress.net Here’s where to find Ashley: Website: www.BrooksEditorial.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/brookseditorial Instagram: http://instagram.com/brookseditorial Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/brookseditorial Here’s where to find Abbigail: Website: www.InkwellsandImages.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/abbigailekriebs Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/abbigailekriebs/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/inkwellsandimages/ Mini Book Club: The Emotion Thesaurus by Angela Ackerman & Becca Puglisi The Lunar Chronicle Series by Marissa Meyer Shadow & Bone by Leigh Bardugo Quotes: “Everything I have done in life has led me to where I am now.” -- Amanda “Writing is a priority and I had to figure out how to fit it in my life.” -- Amanda “I started writing 30 minutes every morning. A morning is not a morning without writing.” -- Amanda “Your self control stumbles over into other areas of your life when you choose to be really diligent about something.” -- Abbigail “You don’t need a lot of time to write.” -- Amanda “A lot of the things that I told myself about writing were wrong. Writing is what you make it.” - Amanda “If you commit to writing and if it is something you really want to do, you will be surprised in where you can find the time.” -- Amanda “[Netflix] is kind of an easy pit to fall into.” -- Ashley “It’s tough to find a balance: sometimes you do need those days where you don’t do anything.” -- Ashley “Sometimes just doing the work in your daily life takes a fair amount of creativity.” -- Ashley “The first draft can be terrible. I can hit delete later on in revision. But I need to write terrible now to get to the next point.” -- Amanda “Given the choice between something that I am really excited about and something that I want to never look at again, it was an easy choice.” -- Amanda “You need to be excited about the project that you are working on.” -- Ashley “You still run into problems, but writing can be enjoyable.” -- Amanda “Times are changing in self-publishing: it’s no longer a last resort.” -- Amanda “It’s probably smarter to focus on one thing at a time.” -- Ashley “That’s why I have a full-time job: I can write as much as I want and not have to worry about what is paying my bills.” -- Amanda “Having a full time job allows you to take a little more risk and fail a little more often.” -- Abbigail “The ability to fail is huge. You have to be able to fail in order to succeed. Failing means you are trying things.” -- Amanda “Creativity is more like a muscle: you have to train it to do what you want it to do.” -- Amanda “Writers struggle at finding other people to connect with. It is a very isolating experience.” -- Amanda “Writing sprints are how I am able to do as much as I do.” - Amanda

Summary For our first interview on Chasing Creative, we chatted with Kenzie Swanson from Hello Neverland. Kenzie is a writer, a photographer, an Etsy shop maker, and a mom to an 18-month-old. In the episode we chat about how her blogging strategy has changed over the last several years and how she’s tried out different creative outlets in a very public space. She gets real about going back to work after having her daughter - and then deciding that it wasn’t working and making the change to stay home. We chat about her love for journaling, how she manages her time, and what she’s been reading lately. Oh---and young, creative yuppies. Where to find Kenzie Her blog used to be Chasing Happy. Now it’s Hello Neverland. Her Etsy shop rocks. You can also find Kenzie on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. Or, if you are in the Lincoln, Nebraska area, you can hire her as a photographer (she’s awesome!). Where to find Ashley Website: www.brookseditorial.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/brookseditorial Instagram: http://instagram.com/brookseditorial Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/brookseditorial Where to find Abbigail Website: www.InkwellsandImages.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/abbigailekriebs Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/abbigailekriebs/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/inkwellsandimages/ Articles mentioned in this episode Two articles on hipsters/yuppies/yuccies: http://mashable.com/2015/06/09/post-hipster-yuccie/#rv.XtYj7fOqE http://www.complex.com/style/2015/06/yuccie-explanation Mini book club The Homemade Kitchen: Recipes for Cooking with Pleasure by Alana Chernila An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace by Tamar Adler Bread & Wine: A Love Letter to Life Around the Table by Shauna Niequist Fantastic Beasts & Where To Find Them by J.K. Rowling Quotes from the Episode “Having a blog that you update regularly is a great way to push yourself.” --- Kenzie "When you pick a niche topic, you are naturally going to be challenged to find different ways to write about that thing.” --- Kenzie “In every creative endeavor, you are going to have ebbs and flows, and it goes in a cycle for everybody.” --- Kenzie “The ebbs and flows don’t make you a bad or good journaler, just that journaling is always there for you when you need it.” --- Abbigail “We don’t have to go to all these extra lengths to make the perfect photo album or perfect journal.” --- Ashley “When it comes to art or business or anything, you have to experiment and see what works and think on your feet and let it change and let it evolve.” --- Kenzie “So often when we get old, we get stuck in deadlines and routines and schedules and we let go of creativity. We are wired to be creative.” --- Kenzie “You can’t see everything that is in front of you, but you can see what you need to do next.” --- Kenzie “If it is not right, let go of it.” --- Kenzie “We get so caught up in not failing that we’re not willing to take the risk to make something better for ourselves.” --- Abbigail “What’s creative for me is going to be different than what’s creative for someone else.” --- Kenzie “Give yourself the freedom to experiment with creative processes.” --- Ashley “Nobody cares what you’re doing as much as you think they do.” --- Ashley “Time limits are a huge blessing in disguise.” --- Kenzie On being a work-at-home mom: “I get more done in a two-hour nap window than I do when I have a full day.” --- Ashley “You have to take the time to invest in yourself, too. You have to sometimes choose yourself.” --- Kenzie “Schedule breaks before you need them.” --- Kenzie “If you are an ambitious young woman in today’s world, you are a little worried that you are going to be left behind if you take time off.” --- Abbigail “We think that there is this one thing we are meant to do with our lives. There is something we are meant to do in each season of our life. It’s going to change every time we enter a new season and we are meant to do something else. Don’t be so afraid to miss that one thing. If we are meant to do it, we can do it at any point.” --- Kenzie “We expect genius to come so early in life. You keep living until you are done living.” --- Abbigail “Keep your eyes on your own paper. Look at far you’ve come.” --- Kenzie

Today we're sitting down with freelance writer Ashley, to help her build her business while increasing her hourly rate. Ashley has been a freelance writer since 2007 until 2014 when she started ghostwriting. She does all of the research and writing for articles and posts it on clients websites and blogs. We answer her questions on how to get paid more for her work, create consistent recurring income, and how to always be asking how is my marketing content making a sale for me. [Tweet "You have to charge what you are worth. Stop undervaluing YOU"] Create more time for yourself by creating a system and process to eliminate the clients that aren't serious about hiring you. You will learn Where to find clients that are willing to pay for your expertise Guarantee Your Income by Offering Recurring Packages The importance of charging more for a one off offer Use Your Customer's Feedback to market to new clients Create a Plan to raise all of your rates to existing and new customers Keep Your Current Clients Happy by offering an extra bonus to your service. Set Boundaries with Prospective Clients Be Clear on Your Sales Page Convince People they Need to Hire a Ghostwriter through your Sales Page Content [Tweet "Don't give away your time. If you meet with people, charge them for their time."] Links and resources mentioned in today's show Flip Your Life Enjoy the podcast; we hope it inspires you to explore what's possible for your family! Click here to leave us an iTunes review and subscribe to the show! We may read yours on the air! Can't Miss Moments Each week Jocelyn and I share moments that we might have missed if we had not started our online business. We hope these moments inspire you to see the possibilities and freedom online business could provide for your family. We were able to go down to the surgery of one of our family members down in Nashville, took the kids to a science museum, swim at the hotel, spent time with the family member after their surgery was finished. You can connect with S&J on social media too!   Thank you for listening! Thanks again for listening to the show! If you liked it, make sure you share it with your friends and family! Our goal is to help as many families as possible change their lives through online business. Help us by sharing the show! If you have comments or questions, please be sure to leave them below in the comment section of this post. See y'all next week! Can't listen right now? Read the transcript below! JOCELYN: Hey y'all! On today's podcast, we help Ashley Grant take her ghost writing business to the next level. SHANE: Welcome to the Flipped Lifestyle podcast where life always comes before work. We're your hosts, Shane and Jocelyn Sams. Join us each week as we teach you how to flip your lifestyle upside-down by selling stuff online. Are you ready for something different? All right, let's get started. SHANE: What's going on guys? Welcome back to the Flipped Lifestyle podcast. Excited to have on a Flip Your Life member today. We ae going to be giving out a free consulting call to one of our members and helping them take their business to the next level. We are super excited as to have a good friend on the show, not only a Flip Your Life member but an attendee at some of our live events and somebody we actually just saw in person a couple of weeks ago. They were passing through. We had got to eat lunch with them. It's our Flip Your Life member, Ashley Grant. Ashley, Welcome to the show. ASHLEY: Hey guys. I am so happy to be here today. JOCELYN: Yeah it's awesome. We have enjoyed hanging out with you in person twice now. So Ashley can attest that we are totally normal people for the most part. SHANE: We are not weird. We are not putting up a front. Do you know what I'm saying? ASHLEY: You guys are awesome. JOCELYN: So it's awesome.