Cross Country Move

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The reality of change: it ain’t easy.

And sometimes all of your thoughts about said change leave you with tears running down your face in public.

Change is amazing AND hard. And we ALL tend to avoid it for that reason.

Our brains are wired for safety. When something is new & different, our brains get protective AF.

Go back.

Turn around!

THREAT!

Danger ahead!

This is from YEARS of wiring, like I’m talking back to caveman days. (Google it.)

It wants us to do what we know. What is safe and normal.

In other words:

DO NOT CHANGE anything.

REMAIN the same!

Which is exactly why right now my brain is offering me these thoughts among others:

Let’s go back to STL.

I want to go back home [so that I don’t have to deal with the hard parts of change not only for myself but with my kids].

The best & also not super easy thing for me to do to work through this transition is accept ALL of the emotions without judging myself for feeling them. This takes awareness & compassion. Which if you know the brain, the brain wants to judge! But I can’t be mad at myself for wanting to turn around & go home AND process the sadness.

So I remind myself, nothing has gone wrong here.

During certification I learned about feeling ALL the feelings & how it is like carrying a heavy bag (of emotions) on your shoulder for as long as it takes. It is a learned skill but once you nail it, you can change your relationship with yourself and with those around you. Less reactive. More observant.

The reality for most of us is, we want to be happy ALL of the time so we avoid discomfort that may lead to growth & achieving our dreams. But what if we accepted that there is a balance of both negative and positive emotions - that is what our human experience is about.

You wouldn’t know happiness without experiencing sadness.

You can’t feel joy without knowing pain.

The goal is humanness. And that human experience involves LOTS of contrast on purpose.

I am choosing humanness over happiness.

Life isn’t meant to be JUST rainbows & unicorns .

What have you been avoiding because you don’t want to feel discomfort?

Or resisting because you think you should be happy 100% of the time?

Mindset + Your Body

• Body Shaming

• Guilt

• Happiness (or lack thereof)

A few things the girl on the left thought losing weight & being smaller would fix…

Truth: All of those things will come w/ you, even when you lose the weight, even when you are at your ideal body size, IF YOU DO NOT GET YO’ MIND RIGHT.

But the problem isn’t those, it’s:

• Our THOUGHTS about our body.

• Our relationship w/ food.

• Thinking that happiness comes from an external circumstance.

Once you realize you CAN work on ALL of that, especially the thoughts - you know the ones that creep in from your inner mean girl, you can tell her to zip it - you can take your power back.

(PS - I totally see Dr Evil here.)

Being happy now requires you change your thoughts FIRST - THEN your actions will shift.

When we talk to ourselves like shit, we treat ourselves like shit.

And this is one of the BIGGEST reasons I shifted my business focus.

In my years as a coach, I’ve watched women take action FIRST. They follow a workout program + a nutrition plan but never stop to work on the way they talk to themselves & view food.

And they get the results, temporarily.

They beat themselves up over a “BAD” meal.

They look for quick fixes if they can’t seem to keep results.

They shame their bodies.

Y’all - I can’t emphasize this enough, that IS where the work is!

I want women to see that:

• You can’t permanently change your results without changing your thoughts.

• There is no rush. There is not better than here.

• You are perfectly worthy just as you are. Nothing. Not even a pant size can change that.

• There is no more giving up or quitting. There is only showing up & enjoying your damn life.

If you’re curious about how you can learn to quiet your inner mean girl, head to "the WORK WITH ME” page to sign up for a FREE 1:1 chat.

I’ll show you how Life Coaching can help you tell that bitch to sit down & shut up - she can ride with you to the party but she is sitting in the back she is no longer allowed to tell you how to drive.

I took the leap....

For those of you who have known me for years, you know my journey. For those of you who haven’t known me long, WELCOME, you have a lot to learn but here is something NEW in my life. I have been sharing the entire journey on my IG: @AshleyLMolitor

Her (my mom sag) tombstone would read:
RIP Felicia the flap.
Gone but not forgotten.

I worked hard for 6 last years on my mind & body.

When I first started my journey, it was a struggle mentally to accept & embrace my mom sag.

But with a whole hell of a lot of thought work & daily practice I got there.

I no longer had shame over it. I would literally tuck that shit in & go about my day. It was apart of me & my story. It was the skin that protected my belly that grew 2 tiny humans.

So what made me take the leap?

I had embraced myself & was happy with my body.

Crazy right?! It sounds like it makes ZERO fucking sense but I could have stayed just like Ashley on the left & been fine!

That feeling of acceptance or happiness doesn’t come from the size or shape of your body, it comes from what you think about yourself. I knew those thoughts were available to me as the person on the left & still are as the person on the right. BOTH versions of me are equally worthy of my own love & acceptance.

Happiness. Acceptance. Embracing who you are. That is an inside job, y’all.

No change on the outside will fix what is going on, on the inside.

Start there.

And from that place of love, you do things because you WANT TO not because you think have to in order to feel better.

I owe my surgery credit to Dr. Judith Gurley.

April 12, 2021 (left pic, the morning before surgery) - April 22, 2021 (right pic)

• Swelling will get better over the next 6 weeks but some of it may linger a little longer, totally normal.

• There is ointment in my belly button in the new pic. This is currently my reality. Ointment. Non adhesive bandages. And girdles, hence the lines on my stomach. It is my BFF, I wear it all day/night except when I am showering. And the drains WERE my friend for a week, thank god those are out.

Confidence

Confidence doesn’t come from achieving a goal, it comes from the work you do TO achieve a goal.

Step outside of your comfort zone, even when you are warm & cozy inside of it.

Do the big scary thing even if it makes you feel like you might shit your pants.

Get comfy being uncomfy.

If you sit around waiting for the discomfort to go away before you take action - you’re gonna be playing small & sis, you are not here to play small.

Where do you think you can’t take action because you don’t have the confidence YET? What can you do right now knowing that each rep will build your confidence muscle & get you closer to where you want to be?

Coach hack: I like to think of a person I admire who has already achieved a similar goal & ask myself, what would “she” do? What did she do to get where she is?

Pro Coach hack: That person you admire can even be YOUR future self. What would she do?

Live Intentionally

Go where you feel most alive.

One of my mentors said:

Life is HARD when you’re unhappy.

But when you’re unhappy consistently all of the time, life is miserable.

You say - “That’s just life.”

When you believe THAT, your quality of life is lower.

And quality of those around you & their life is lower.

And she nailed it.

That WAS my life.

I was negative & unhappy on the regular.

And a victim to all of my circumstances.

I had so many shitty thoughts about my body that kept me stuck in cycles of yo-yo dieting & inconsistently exercising.

My relationship with food was subpar.

I lacked self confidence because I never set goals & followed through.

I had little awareness of my self worth.

My stories about my marriage were creating so much distance between Aaron & I that we had filed for divorce, not once but twice.

In my eyes, “that was just my life.”

I was settling for that story!

Thank the fucking LORDT (in my best Madea voice) I invested in myself & life coaching.

Now I know that I get to wake up each day & decide who I want to be.

My circumstances don’t determine my mood. I do.

I try NEW things. I fail. I learn. I grow. I repeat.

My relationship with MYSELF, my body, with food AND with Aaron has completely changed.

I learned how to manage my mind & not give my power away to anyone or anything else.

I live with so much more intention.

I feel more in control of my life now that I ever did before.

And you can too.

I am now accepting new clients. And if anything I have said here or in ANY of my pasts posts speak to you - then we should probably chat.

Click HERE to set up a free consultation to see if 1:1 Coaching is a fit for you.

Let’s get you on the path to living the most intentional kick ass life that you deserve & where YOU feel most alive.