I'm sorry

Part of growing and accepting myself has revolved around not being sorry for existing. Women specifically have often been taught to exist quietly. We apologize often, beg off compliments, and often try our best to blend in.

I’ve never been able to blend in. And I never will be.

I am forever guilty of begging off compliments, sharing credit when its mine to own, and apologizing for being a really big personality.

It’s exhausting.

And the more I grow and love myself, the more people are intimidated by that. I’ve been called arrogant, too much, bossy - honestly I’ve heard it all.

When you choose to love yourself, to stop apologizing for existing, you have to accept that not everyone is so brave. They may try to break you down because they cannot do what you have done. That is not yours to own.

Start recognizing when you apologize or belittle yourself. Take the time to stop, correct the behavior, and move forward. The more you do so, the more you’ll find you stop apologizing.

I’m not saying I’ve mastered the art of this skill. I have my moments where I make myself smaller to make others comfortable. But I’m trying.

The fun part about refusing to be sorry is that the less I do it, the more confident I am. I love myself more. I get this insane sense of faith in myself and what I can do for this world.

Who are you to shrink yourself to make others comfortable? What if you could change the world but you stayed small because you weren’t able to stand up and say I won’t apologize because I have so much to give. I say it often because it seems to prove true with each day - but you have one life. One chance to get the most out of it. Would you rather simply exist or unapologetically thrive?

Love Me Some Me

Recently there is a movement for self love. And that’s a movement I am here for. As someone who spent years unsure of who she was and who still continues to struggle to show myself the love I so freely give others, I deeply appreciate this moment in time.

I love love. I love celebrating Valentine’s Day. I’m here for the engagement announcements, the weddings, the new relationship love - all of it is such a positive time. I’m here for celebrating love. And the love I want to celebrate most of all in life is self love.

For the 300th time, because I’ve certainly written about this before, if you do not love yourself, you will not have a successful relationship with anyone else. You may find a mate, marry them, spend the rest of your life with them - but unless you’re also deeply in love with yourself, that forever love is not at its best.

Self love is a constantly evolving process. I don’t know many people who feel rainbows and unicorns about themselves 100% of the time. I certainly have my off days and I think that’s ok. You can’t be on 100% of the time. But if most of the days you can say I love who I am, that’s a huge win.

For me, the first step in learning to love myself was to get honest with myself. I had to first drop all of the lies I told myself and I had to write down what I don’t love about who I am. For example, when I was in my 20’s and single, I would tell myself I loved that life. The truth? I wasn’t comfortable being single. I pretended to enjoy it but I was not happy without a partner, which is why I was always talking to or dating someone. Now, I’m very comfortable single because I understand that having a good relationship is what counts. Being single doesn’t make me less than like I thought it once did.

Writing down the things I dislike about myself is still to this day a really powerful thing for me. It’s saying out loud the pieces I think are awful. And then it’s understanding WHY I feel that way. Because a lot of those things are actually absurd or they’re things that others love about me. When you write these things out, they’re tangible and you’re forced to dive into perspective. I’m most often able to easily eliminate a few of those by simply working through the feelings behind the insecurity. And the rest, I take to therapy or I work on how I can adjust them to not be a daily hindrance to my self love.

Another example - I’ve been an athlete my entire life. That means a lot of my self worth is directly connected to my body. Having to train sometimes 4-5 hours a day, meant that for most of my life, I had a pretty dang bangin bod. I also am blessed to have great metabolism. But when I stopped being a competitive athlete, hit 30, didn’t always eat as healthy - my body shape changed. I’m not 130 pounds of pure muscle anymore. I’m curvy, sometimes I’d dare say I feel chubby. Body dysmorphia is something I’ve struggled with on and off since I can remember. I have to remind myself often that my body has been through a lot. And it’s given me some of the best moments of my life. And I make myself thankful for those things. I’m extra mindful when I’m not body positive and I do things that make me feel good about myself. I do fitness activities that make me feel confident. I don’t workout to punish myself, I workout because it’s something I love to do. I’ll change my diet to be a little healthier. And I cut myself a break during Holidays or vacations when I indulge more. I am patient with myself.

Something that is also really helpful for me is to write on post its things I love about myself and leave the notes around my home, car, and office where they’ll serve as reminders throughout the day. It’s silly and may not work for you, but I’m easily motivated. When I read these positive reinforcements I think to myself - HELL YEA YOU ARE! If I really need some love, I’ll ask my friends to tell me what they love most about me. Often times our friends love the quirks about us that we may even consider negative. Again, perspective helps.

I hope this Valentine’s Day you’re celebrating lots of love with the people around you that you love. I hope you see this day as a day for everyone, more specifically and most importantly - for YOU. Celebrate your love with those most important to you, but celebrate the most important relationship (the one with yourself) FIRST.

Happy hearts and love day sequins!

Ownership

It’s the beginning of the year, the holiday season is over, and it’s me - so I’m going to reflect! I talk a lot of past relationships and dating, but I don’t think I’ve ever really talked about me as a partner in the past. Buckle up kids - this is gonna be good.

Growing up, I was really insecure. I’ve been told I came off really confident, so props to me for that fake out when I was constantly unsure of who I was.  

Spoiler alert, when you don’t love yourself, it’s really hard to be successful in loving others.  

I was a really bad girlfriend in high school. I was jealous, played games, and was overall unfair. Back then, I didn’t see it that way, but now I laugh at what a lunatic I was. Ok I get it, in high school nobody knows what they are doing. We all think we are going to marry that person and ride off into the sunset. You can’t tell us anything different because you just haven’t loved anyone like we have. Pause for dramatic storm out.  

Thankfully I grew up. And I found a way to love myself. It’s taken awhile. And it’s not always been pretty. I have pushed people away, been a jerk, but I’ve also been a pretty decent catch.  

What I’ve figured out along the way is that at times when I’m not feeling my best self, my relationship doesn’t go well either. I’m a bad girlfriend because I’m being a bad partner to myself first. 

That’s deep right? Thought of it myself, thanks so much.  

 We spend a lot of time talking about those who did us wrong. Who were bad partners. There are so many fire memes about exes. But do we look at who we were in relationships?

Now if your mate was abusive or an overall POS, this isn’t where you try and look at where you went wrong in the relationship. Forget those people, that wasn’t you. That was them. Love you, mean it.

But chances are in at least one relationship, you might haven’t been the best either. Were you in a bad place? Unwilling to compromise? Unable to communicate? Unfaithful? It happens. It doesn’t make you a bad person or less of a catch.

Take the time to evaluate who you are in your relationships. The more self aware you are, the stronger you will be as a partner in the future. And when you are aware, you’re more in tune with what you’re looking for in a relationship. End result? You have more successful relationships.

Think about it. How often do you see your friends in bad relationships because they’re unsure of who they are, unaware of the bad partner they’ve been, and unwilling to admit to any of those things? I can think of at least three friends without missing a beat who I know will not have successful relationships until they confront the partner they  are.

I’ve been a bad girlfriend. I’ve been too busy, too insecure, too set in my ways. Knowing that now, reflecting on why I was that way, helps me to be a better person and partner now. It also has turned into me making better choices about who I date. When you love yourself and know how you deserve to be treated, you don’t settle for anything less.

Reflecting on painful breakups and relationships that caused you distress is not easy. It’s generally the past we prefer to bury away forever. I encourage you to drag it out anyways. Get really uncomfortable with your dark and stormy so that you can experience your bright and shiny.

My 384th Mid Life Crisis

I’m really introspective. I’m constantly evaluating where I’m at, who I am, what I’m doing and how I can make adjustments to grow and be better. I want to maximize who I am and what I can do in this world. Because of that, I have a mid life crisis at least every other year. It’s so unnecessary and so annoying. And so me.

For someone who’s a all glitter, puppies, and sports - I’m quite the deep thinker. It’s never far from my mind that I’ve got a limited amount of time and I’m already about 1/3 into this thing and there’s no redo. It feels like walking up the stairs forever without seeing the top. And its not getting off on any of the floors to stop and see the sights. It’s just climbing and climbing and it never ends.

I don’t know why its at its most extra this year, but for some reason being 33 hit me really hard. I started thinking I was old. Too old for this, too young for that. Past my prime for this milestone. Too far from hitting that one. And the more I talked to friends in a similar life stage as I’m at, the more I realized I’m not alone. Everyone is out there questioning who they are, where they’re at, and what they should be doing differently.

I think part of living in a world where you have these really high expectations and you’re constantly thinking about every little detail of your life is that you hold it inside. You feel like a freak because that’s a heavy load of thoughts/feelings/fears. So it becomes this burden that you don’t dare speak out loud, making it heavier and heavier to carry inside. You fear speaking it out loud because it makes it real. And it makes it open for judgment.

Realistically, you’re not alone. Super not alone. I think a lot of people around you will say they’ve got the same exact fears at any given time. They’re worrying about their job, their finances, their relationships, their age, their skin, their clothes — every single thing — all the things! And there truly are so many things.

Now I’m not saying you should get out there and share all the thoughts in your head about this every time the mid life crisis creeps up. That’s next level and people have things they have to carry on their own. We all got a lot of shit to do. But you can confide in your people. You can say woah hey, this one is especially overwhelming can we hash some things out? And if you need more than a friendly ear and a glass of wine, call a therapist.

Therapy is my absolute favorite place for mid life crisis thirty. It’s a safe space with a neutral party who is ready to help talk you off the ledge and remind you that you’re not in fact crazy, you’re just really hard on yourself. You can make lists and do worksheets and its actual heaven for type A folks. I’m currently keeping a very detailed sleep journal for my therapist and I’m obsessed with the fact that it gives me an action point for helping myself.

If it’s a mini mid life crisis - you can take out your toolkit and manage that shit at home. Get in tune with where you’re at. Make your own list of things you love about yourself, things you’ve achieved, reasons people love you. Check off the bucket list items you’ve gone and done. And make a new list or vision board of where you want to go/what you want to achieve next. Setup a plan to achieve those things. I find when I can see a plan or a list in front of me, I’m able to get an idea for the bigger picture and calm myself the hell down. It gives me space to take a deep breath. To feel a little more in control of my situation and the path I’m on.

We also have to address the annoying societal standards in the world. I don’t know who invented these but sincerely stop. If I have to see one more Instagram model filtered and nipped and tucked and be told I have to be gorgeous and funny and smart and I’m going to lose it. Thankfully our generation is taking a stand and trying to move forward, but there are still a lot of life stages dictated by society/customs/religions/parents. It’s really hard to push back on these things. Especially when they’re family/faith/culturally based. At the end of the day though, you are in charge of your plan and your life. You have to understand that there are sincerely no rules to how life happens. Your stages might look differently than others and the expectations others have for you. And that’s okay. Remind yourself of this often. Life is hard enough, you don’t need the added pressure of pleasing others.

You also need to accept that you can’t control everything. The world is going to get wild and weird and you may have to zig where you planned to zag. Life has its own plan for you. That plan could involve more twists and turns than Carol who landed the dream job at 21 and found the dream guy at 22 and - you see what I’m saying? That’s not for you to plan. That’s for you to experience.

The mid life crisis life is hard. It’s not for the faint of heart. It’s also really manageable and becomes less of a looming cloud if you take control to the best of your ability. Do whatever you have to in order to maintain balance. Leave yourself notes, set reminders on your phone, get out and do more of what makes you feel alive and thriving - whatever it is, don’t allow those mid life crisis to steal your confidence. Chin up sequins, life is made to be designed, and you, you’re custom.

Tough as Nails

This one is for the introspective folks. The ones who are hard on themselves to the point of emotional abuse. The people who are constantly evaluating themselves. The folks who put themselves down in a way they’d never ever take from anyone else.

I’m type A. Like if there’s an A+, I’m that. I’m a born and bred athlete. An overachiever. A perfectionist. I’m all these things and more. And while I am such a cheerleader for everyone else - I am such a bully to myself.

I’ve got this thing I say to friends when they’re hard on themselves:

“HEY! Stop being mean to my friend!”

But as I’ve been in therapy, the more I’ve discovered, I am the exact opposite to myself. I’m seriously kind of an asshole to myself.

I call myself not good enough. I’m not smart enough. Funny enough. Wealthy enough. Thin enough. Muscular enough. Driven enough. Achieved enough.

And I’ve had enough.

I’m sure we’ve all heard this:

You are deserving of the love and respect you give to others.

And we are. But breaking a cycle of abuse is not easy. When you’re in your head abusing yourself, there’s nobody else in there to stand up for you. It’s literally you vs you. I think self abuse is the hardest to break. Most of the time, we don’t realize the extent to which we do it.

I’m not even the one who noticed how abusive I was to myself. My therapist started to take note of how I spoke about myself. How I qualified any positive attributes and highlighted negative ones. How qualities I portrayed as negative in fact were anything but.

It turns out, I don’t think that highly of myself.

And that’s kind of sad because I’m a pretty dope person. I’m kind, caring, loyal to an extreme degree, and you know what? The list goes on and on.

Women especially are bred to downplay our qualities. At work, at home, we are taught to be humble. To give credit to the group. To put ourselves second.

I’m a strong independent feminist and I am still the biggest victim of this lifestyle.

I want it to stop though. Because I am worthy of the intense amount of love and support I give to other people. I deserve to say I’m smart. I had a really good idea. I crushed that project. I’m a good person. I’m beautiful - both inside and out. And I deserve to say those things out loud with no qualifications.

I have bad days where I hate everything about me. And sometimes I have to fight myself to stop doing that. I have to distract myself. It’s a constant internal battle not to let internal Ashley be an asshole to the Ashley in the world who is pretty damn great.

I think at the end of the day, I’m type A+. I’m always going to struggle with this. And I’m grateful for that. Because the qualities that are bad, they also allow me to achieve all the great things I have. You don’t get to be a Division One athlete by being easy on yourself.

But it’s acknowledging when those things are healthy and when they’re unhealthy. It’s healthy to say Ashley, stop being lazy, get outside and get your workout in because you know fitness makes you happy. And it’s not ok to say Ashley you’re fat, you’re ugly. That’s not only wrong, its not helpful.

Start to identify the language that’s not helpful. Write it down. Tell yourself to stop. And keep practicing that. Ask your friends to stop you when you’re bashing yourself. It’s possible to train yourself to change. Eventually, you even start to believe the positive things you tell yourself.

Being tough as nails is awesome. Part of being tough is learning to say no to the bully that lives inside of you. There are enough people in the world who are going to tell you no. Who will criticize you and put you down. You cannot control those people. You can control yourself.

Be tough enough to love yourself more than you hate yourself.

Practice What You Preach

I'm very hard on myself.  A lot of us are.  Life comes with a lot of pressures.  I think one of the greatest things you can do for yourself is remind yourself what makes you great.  That being said, I'm very bad at actually following through on it myself.

As a woman, we are often trained to be humble.  To downplay attributes and successes.  We beg off compliments and are taught to be caretakers.  A lot of the time, we forget to be selfish and celebrate the things that make us great.

So I'm going to put my list out there.  I'm pretty great because:

1. I am a fiercely loyal and protective friend
2. I am a passionate person
3. I give to others
4. I'm a talented athlete
5. I am successful
6. I take risks
7. I've got a contagious smile
8. I impact others by being a source of sunshine
9. I'm a good writer
10. I sparkle

It seems easy, but writing down qualities that make me great is actually quite hard.  I stopped many times to wonder, does this sound conceited?  Will this be taken negatively?  And that sucks.  Being kind to yourself is hard.  Openly saying - "I'm pretty MF fabulous" is even harder.  But it's necessary.  Life is hard.  Being kind to yourself shouldn't be.  What does your list look like my sequins?

Headphones On.

As much as I've always been perceived as someone with supreme confidence, I do have moments of weakness where I worry about what other people think of me.  At work, in the family, with friends - I'll get stuck in a what do they really think of me phase and what I have started to remind myself is:

"What other people think of me, is none of my business"

Let that sink in.  We often talk about things that are nobody else's business but what about the things that are none of your business?  For the most part, what other people think of you has a whole lot more to do with them than it does you.  And regardless of who you are, chances are, someone has said something unkind about you.  At work, in our personal lives - its human nature to have opinions about other people.  Realistically, know those things aren't going to aid you in being a better you.  So make them none of your business.

In the workplace, I am a force.  I have incredibly high standards for myself and quite frankly, not everyone has the same standards for themselves.  That makes me a target for people who can't or don't want to keep up.  

On social media, I am vocal.  I have strong opinions regarding social and political issues and I'm not afraid to stand up for those opinions.  That makes me a target for people who love to argue.

In my personal life, I am a firecracker.  I'm the loudest person in the group and I'm always talking.  That makes me a target for people who aren't as spirited.  

I'm not a blend into the world type of human.  I've had a lot of people say a lot of really awful things about me in every facet of life.  Sometimes I let it get to me, but more often than not I understand that when you're someone who reuses to fade into the crowd, a lot of people are going to try and bring you down.  Let them.  That's none of your business.

"Lions don't concern themselves with the opinions of sheep."

It's the most cliché quote in the whole book when it comes to gossip - but it's something I repeat to myself as often as possible.  The real leaders, the dreamers that turn into doers, the best people - they're kind, they're focused, and they know that what other people say about them, is none of their damn business.

Boys Would Like Me More If...

I cannot count how many times I've heard a woman say this and follow it with something wrong with herself.  It's bigger boobs, skinnier, different hair, better clothes - its a million different things that women are bred to believe they need in order to attract men.  I've said it myself when I was younger - I needed to be more something or less something in order to find a man.   And while I'm well aware this is not isolated to women - a lot of women have felt this doubt.  

The truth is - boys probably would like you more if you were a little more X and a little less Y.  But MEN - men will love you for the unique qualities that make you who you are.  And as a grown woman in the world - YOU need to take responsibility for loving you as you are, and expecting this.  

I think it's true of anyone - male or female - that society puts a lot of pressure on us to be a lot of things.  I hear many of my peers still questioning who they are and why they're not a magnet for the opposite sex.  And that makes me really sad and quite frankly bored.

Confidence in who you are and what you bring to the table is not easy.  But I can promise you - the reason that you are single is not because you are too fat, too thin, too loud, too whatever - you're single because you have no idea who you are or how to love you for all that means.  

If you do not love you, nobody else can love you.  #Science

Remembering Yourself.

In an entire sitting on a flight to New York I read Ashley Grahams new book: A New Model.   for any woman who has ever struggled with body image - I highly recommend this book.  It's an extremely empowering novel that celebrates body diversity, body positivity, and the power of the female form.  But the part that really resonated with me was with how much I celebrate the beauty of other women, as much as I'm the first person to call out the great qualities of people around me - I am deserving of that kind of love too.

It's really important to me to celebrate the uniqueness of human beings.  I am that person in public who will tell strangers I love their outfit, their hair looks incredible, or they have a contagious smile.  I think if we all spent a little more time complimenting and lifting each other up, the world would be just a little bit softer.  But when it comes to myself, I'm kind of an asshole.

There is no negative thing anyone could say to me that I have not thought about myself.  I'm the first person to point out my flaws and I am constantly thinking about how to improve who I am. And while it's important to always be growing, it's equally important to appreciate who you are NOW. 

I recently started getting back into therapy and it's hit me like a ton of bricks that as much as I do love who I am - I am still really mean to myself.  I criticize where I'm at in my career, how hard I'm working out, nit pick at my appearance, worry about how committed I am to the people around me - etc. etc. etc.  And that is really exhausting.  And really unnecessary. 

So I'm working on looking at how kindly I treat others and figuring out how to be as kind to myself.  I'm an exceptional human being, in theory - I get that overall - I'm good people.  But learning to celebrate that every day and give myself the compliments that I give others, is absolutely necessary.  I'm out here doing my best too and my best is pretty dang good - I deserve love and celebration and compliments too.

There's a difference in self love and celebrating the self.  I truly do love who I am.  But being able to celebrate that love and confidence is critical to a healthy mentality.  So here's how I solve, because we all know I love a good list:

1. Everyday I write down something I love about me
2. T-H-E-R-A-P-Y
3. Learning to call myself and hold myself accountable when I get too judgmental of myself
4. Surrounding myself with people who are positive about themselves
5. Chill the F out

That's where we are.  Baby steps and small celebrations.  Hold me accountable and help me make this happen my sequins.  I'm kind of awesome, and I need to stop being such a jerk to myself because I certainly would never put up with anyone else treating me the way I treat me sometimes! 

#SparkleOn

The Worst Thing That Ever Happened

I'm going to be single forever.  At one point or another, most of us have said this.  If you haven't you're probably from the South and have been married since 14.  But for most of Americans today, we've had that thought of never finding "The One" cross our minds.  And really, is that the worst thing that could ever happen to you?

I love love.  I love relationships because to me marriage is the ultimate team.  But at the end of the day, if I don't get married, if I don't find my forever, that's not going to be the worst thing in the world.  Because to me, being in an unhappy partnership, an abusive relationship, or an unequal partnership are far worse than winding up alone.  Equally if not worse are things like cancer, death, severe disfigurement - but sure, single can top your list of worst things ever if ya like.

For those of you who have a deep fear of being alone - who actually do believe that its the worst thing that could ever happen to you - may I suggest that the fear could stem from not being comfortable with yourself.  This also may be why you haven't met the right person to begin with.  Should your greatest fear be winding up alone, I highly advise working on your relationship with yourself.  Because at the end of it all - if you're not happy with you and comfortable being alone - you won't ever find true happiness with anyone else.

Let's talk about how to get comfortable with realizing being single is not a disability.  It's not a sign of being a loser.  It's not a defining quality.  Being single doesn't make you less accomplished.  It's not something you have to check off in order to live your best life.

Being single is your opportunity to develop your most important relationship you will ever have - the one you have with yourself.  Because to me, the worst thing that can ever happen is being unhappy with yourself.  If at the end of this great adventure I don't find my teammate, I'm not alone and its not the worst thing that will ever happen to me.  I've got a lot of people in my corner, including myself - that make me jut as fulfilled, just as happy - and just as worthy as anyone with a wedding ring.  If I'm not happy, comfortable, and confident with myself - that truly is the worst thing that could ever happen and THAT would be my failure.