43: Be Honest, How Are You REALLY Doing? (I'll Go First)

Ever scroll through social media and feel crushing resentment, seeing everyone else living their "best summer ever" while yours feels... less than ideal? You are not alone!

This week, Ashley gets raw and honest about her own challenging summer, filled with a breast cancer diagnosis, family caregiving, and busy schedules.

❌ This isn't an episode about complaining; it's about validating your feelings and sharing powerful strategies to cope, find joy, and maintain perspective when life throws unexpected curveballs.

If your summer looks different than you imagined – this episode's for you:

Embrace Your Anxiety: Learn to accept anxiety as a normal human emotion, especially when navigating overwhelming life circumstances. Understand that it's okay to feel it, and you're not "wrong" for experiencing it.
Combat Shame with Gratitude: Ditch the comparison trap and the spiral of shame by focusing on one single thing you're grateful for each day. This simple practice can gently shift your perspective and highlight the good.
Create Tiny, Meaningful Moments: Discover how to infuse joy into your everyday life with small, intentional moments that don't require money or huge effort.

This episode is a heartfelt invitation to be kind to yourself, validate your struggles, and find glimmers of happiness even when your summer isn't what you planned. It's about accepting where you are, finding peace in the present, and knowing that this season of your life is temporary.

More support just for YOU

⭐️ Drop Ashley a message here let her know how you're really, truly feeling right now
⭐️ Have MORE time for fun, when you cook these meals for you and your family

Transcript

I am so glad that you tuned in today because I want to know how are you really doing? really honestly tell me how are you doing right now? And I'm going to go first if that makes it a little bit easier for you to be honest with me.

To get started today, I want to tell you a quick story. Now there is one, well, kind of two, but one woman in particular that I follow online and I know her really well and I respect her. like her, but this summer, all she has been posting about is that she's spending time at the beach. She's definitely working less hours. I actually don't even think she's working at all this summer.

And she keeps talking about all of these amazing trips that she has planned with her family and what a good time they're having. And all of her pictures that she's posting show her and her family at the beach, at the pool, on vacation. And maybe you're seeing this too. Like maybe you're seeing some of your friends or some of your family and they're posting on Facebook or Instagram and they're talking about, my gosh, our summer is so great.

and we're having this really slow summer and just soaking it all in and really taking it easy. Hearing this, I want to talk to you. If you are the mom who is not at the pool with her kids all summer, who is not taking vacations and who's not feeling like you have a slow summer. If you're doing all of those things, I'm sorry, but this episode isn't for you. But if you are that mom who's not doing any of these things, stick tight because

We're going to talk about that today.

So when I watch this woman, a friend of mine online, and I see all of these things that she's doing to have fun, there's a lot of different emotions that come up for me. And most of this stems from the fact that it is so far away from where my summer is actually going. It just brings up a ton of feelings. I feel resentful. I feel annoyed. I definitely feel judgmental.

My summer looks very, very different. know, originally I had also planned to kind of slow down this summer. I wanted to spend more time with Saraya, who's my six-year-old daughter, and my son Jack, who's 24, and his daughter, who's my granddaughter, Charlotte. I really wanted us to do some fun things. I wanted to like take afternoons off to be at the pool and to go on some small, you know, mountain vacations like weekends.

I also wanted to take some time to refresh the busiest rooms in my house, like the kitchen and all of our bedrooms.

but instead my summer has completely dissolved. If you've been listening to the podcast for a little while, you will know that I have breast cancer. And in just two weeks from today, if you're listening to this live, I'm getting ready to have a double mastectomy. And I have about a five to six month journey after the surgery to take care of the healing, do treatments, have additional surgeries. It's long. On top of that,

We have recently put my dad in hospice and he has really advanced stage Alzheimer's. So I'm really trying to help him and do what he needs. But I'm also trying to help take care of my mom who I get it as a caregiver, she is really struggling. It's been a lot for her. So I'm trying to help manage all of those things.

Along with that, Saraya, my six-year-old, is in a lot of summer camps. I've really tried to have, like enroll her in some fun camps. Like today, she's doing a Taylor Swift camp. She's been going on a lot of fun outings and field trips and all sorts of things. But honestly, this is all my attempt at trying to pull back from mom guilt because I feel guilty. I've got a lot of other things going on and I just can't have her home all the time. So,

I need her to be busy and doing some things mostly so that I can get work done. ⁓ and speaking of trying to work, this summer I made the decision to not take private clients. closed my group programs for a little while, but I'm still trying to create opportunities and ways for my business to survive so that I have a business when I come out of my cancer treatment. I literally refuse to let cancer take everything away.

So I'm doing what I can now to keep the business going.

So no, I'm not having a fun or a carefree or a slow summer over here. And I don't share all of this to complain or to dump my problems on you. I just want you to know that not everyone is having their best summer ever. So when I see friends and family and other people having these amazing, relaxed, enjoyable summers, I get mad and I get resentful.

Am I the only one? Like I have to imagine that there are other moms out there who feel like, my gosh, like this doesn't feel fair, right? You you might be judging your friends that you're seeing online and thinking, ⁓ yeah, that must be nice. What a fun summer they're having. All the while you're feeling frustrated that you don't get to do any of those things. You don't get to go on the vacations or have the pool afternoons or to just sit around and do nothing for a week.

You're probably feeling jealous of your friends and family. And maybe you're even questioning like, what are they doing differently in their lives that gives them all this freedom to be so relaxed and carefree? Did they make different career choices early on in their lives? What is it that allows them to be so

What is it that allows them to have that freedom and to be so carefree? Maybe you look on social media or you talk to your friends at church or the playground or wherever, and you just start feeling resentful. You still have to work. You still have to take care of the household chores and all of the responsibilities. You still need to manage your family and all of the needs that they have. And if you have multiple kiddos and a spouse, you're probably doing a lot to manage what summer and expectations

looks like for them.

So when you look at all of this, it is no wonder that the seemingly frivolous things like working out or making a healthy meal, it just goes by the wayside because on top of everything else, all of that feels impossible.

Here you are just trying to keep things afloat. No pool pun intended, but just keep things afloat and manage your day-to-day responsibilities. But everyone around you seems to be having the best summer ever and so much fun. Super frustrating, right?

So please tell me that I am not the only one who's feeling this way this summer, that no, it is not a fun and carefree and relaxed summer. I am pretty sure I'm not alone in this. But what I do want to tell you is that despite all of the things that you have going on and that you're facing and that are coming up, I know that there are some really good ways to try and cope with these feelings and this feeling of frustration.

So what I wanna do right now is share with you three different ways that I'm.

So what I wanna do is share three different things that I'm doing that helped me to feel less frustrated, less resentful, and to just feel like my summer has some worth and that it's not a complete failure of a summer, or I don't wanna keep having to say like, well, we'll just try again next year. I want to be able to find some joy, some satisfaction in the summer that I do have, even though there's a lot of things going on.

So I want to give you three things that I'm doing and hopefully some or all of them will really help you to find these little joys in your summer too, even if we're in the same boat.

All right, first up, want to talk about anxiety. I work with enough women who come to me and once we start talking through where they're at, we discover that they are actually feeling very anxious. They feel anxious about who they should be or what they should have or whatever it is. You know, I heard something the other day from Dr. David Rosemary.

You know, I heard something the other day from Dr. David Rosmarin, a leading expert in the field of anxiety. And what he was talking about is that we often look to anxiety as something that needs to be, I don't know, medicated or pathologized, that we have to do something about it. But interestingly, what he pointed out is that we forget that anxiety is an acceptable human emotion. It's normal.

It is normal to feel anxiety when you are busy handling your career and your family and the household chores and trying to create fun and to get your kids to the pool and make popsicles at least one day in the summer. You know, all these things that should be a fun and enjoyable summer. But if that's not happening, you probably have a lot of anxiety around that. So I want you to notice, are you trying to push away the anxiety when it comes in?

Or are you trying to welcome it in and say, you know what, I am going to feel anxious for this short period of time. It is a normal acceptable feeling given the circumstances that are going on right now.

Maybe for you, there are changes in your family dynamics. Like maybe you have kiddos that are getting ready to leave for college and move out, or you have teenagers that are starting to drive, or maybe you have kids that aren't in school and you have them home all summer long. Maybe you're like me and you've got some health issues, perimenopause, breast cancer. I know they're different, but they're both very disruptive to your life.

it would be really normal for you to feel anxious. So certainly there is a time and a place where you would definitely reach out to your mental health practitioner and get support with your anxiety, especially if it is interfering with your sleep and your day-to-day activities. But I want you to recognize that it's okay to feel a little bit anxious and I don't want you to shame yourself for having that emotion like

Oh my God, I'm so stupid. Why can't I pull myself together? This should not be that big of a deal, but it is. If your life feels overwhelming, if it feels like there's so many things going on, it doesn't feel like you want it to. It's not the summer that you had hoped for it to be. Don't shame yourself for feeling that anxiety. It is okay to feel and accept it. I just want you to know that there is nothing

wrong with you. It's totally normal.

So we talked about anxiety, but speaking of shame, that actually brings us to number two. So I want you to think about what happens when you start comparing yourself to others. I know we try not to do this, but maybe you're watching your friends on Instagram or Facebook and you're like, my God, what is wrong with me? Why don't I have a summer like that? Why can't I do what my sister is doing and take two vacations in the summer with my family?

Why can't I be more calm and relaxed and enjoy time with my kids? Why am I so irritated? Why am I so stressed out? Why do I feel so lazy and unorganized? And why do I feel so unsuccessful?

You know, at this age, shouldn't I be able to be on vacation in the summertime with my family and enjoying time with my kids? Wow. When you dig into all of this, you can really start having those feelings of shame. Shame for not being where you want to be, you know, for like not being skinny or not having enough freedom with your time for not being more carefree this summer.

you start to feel shame about not having what you want, like those days at the pool and your vacation with the family. Now, to be totally honest with you, I'm actually not a person for doing gratitude journaling. You know, I've often laughed that like people put things in their gratitude journal just to write something down to say, oh yeah, I'm so grateful for all of these things. But do they really believe it? So what I have found has worked really well for me is that I pick

one single thing that I'm grateful for in my day and oftentimes it's something about myself. So I am often grateful that I am consistent. I'm grateful for persevering even though my life feels really challenging right now.

So I want you to pick one thing to be grateful about and focus on just that one thing all day long. And believe it or not, what this practice has done for me over time is that it's allowed me to find other things throughout the day that I can be grateful for. But in the beginning, when I started doing this, it was just too hard. So I just picked one thing. So if you're feeling like you are spiraling in shame and can't figure out why you don't have the things that you want,

why your life is not the same as whatever her name is on Instagram, you know, I just want you to pick one thing to be grateful for each day. And here's a kicker. It can be the same thing every day. Don't get creative. It's totally fine. You do not have to lie to yourself. It can literally be the same thing every day. Just pick one thing. Be grateful for that every single day.

You know, I'm grateful that the sun is shining. I'm grateful that my feet hit the floor this morning. I'm grateful that I get to have chocolate every day after lunch. Just find the one thing. And I promise that it will help to sort of pull you out of that spiral of shame because you will slowly start to see, you know what? I guess I do have a few things that are working for me. I do have some things to be grateful for. My entire life is not terrible.

All right, number three, when you think about comparing yourself to those people that you see on Facebook and Instagram who are at the pool or whatever, like it all seems really big.

All right, number three, when you are thinking about comparing yourself to those people that you're seeing on Facebook and Instagram and they're doing the amazing things or having those great vacations, it all seems really big, right? know, Laura went on a trip to Costa Rica, my friend Sharon, she's going to a mountain vacation and they're staying in this gorgeous Airbnb.

My friend Robin, she went to Disneyland and they actually got to stay at a hotel that's inside the park. It gives them this perfect access to the park. So they don't have to ride on that tram that takes forever. It's just so effortless. Or my friend Holly, who is literally taking the entire summer away from work. Yeah, I'd like to do that too. Again, we start to reintroduce that feeling of shame of

why we don't have those things or maybe that underlying anxiety. I know this totally happens for me. Like, my gosh, am I ever gonna be able to provide those things for my family? Will there ever be a summer where I don't have to work as much or I'll be able to take a vacation where I can just feel fun and carefree?

Instead of leaning into the shame and the anxiety, what I need you to do instead is to focus on these tiny, tiny moments. Now I get it. This is definitely a lot easier said than done.

But to show you that it's possible, I want to take you back to a story. So I want to take you back to when I was a single mom. And if you know my story, you'll know that when my son Jack was six years old, I left an extremely abusive marriage. My husband at the time was a gambling addict and an alcoholic. And literally everything that was happening was completely decimating our lives.

I filed for divorce and there I was with my son and we were trying to find ways to move forward in our lives and create a life that kind of felt peaceful. I was doing pretty well financially at the time, but I didn't have a ton of extra. So I started doing something every Friday night with Jack. We would do movie night. And what we would do is I would pick him up from school.

And we would either go to Walgreens or Target because they had those giant boxes of movie theater style candy. And I think they were a dollar.

Seriously, it was the best thing. So we would get a box of dots, a box of junior men's, and sometimes Jack would get a box of Raisinette.

Then we would pop over to the grocery store and for one more dollar, we would get a Netflix movie. Now, mind you, this is when Netflix was not streaming. You had to go to the vending machine and pick your movie. And, you know, even at that time, like you couldn't reserve it online ahead of time, you had to go pick your movie on the screen and you could only pick from the things that were inside that vending machine. So we would sit there

and scroll through and pick a movie. And then we would bring our Netflix and our movie theater candy boxes and we would have a dinner picnic on the family room floor.

Now in

Now at the time, in the moment, I actually felt a lot of shame that I couldn't do more for my son. And I had a lot of anxiety like, my gosh, is it always going to be like this? But when I look back now, it was actually a big gift to be able to find these small moments. Jack and I, we both looked forward to our movie nights and it allowed us to just bond quietly and have a few hours of peace and calm.

even though the world around us was so chaotic and there were so many things going on, so many scary things. But on Friday nights, we were able to just sit on the family room floor and have our dinner and our movie and our movie snacks. And we felt really calm and peaceful.

So I want you to find a way this summer to create those tiny moments. It doesn't have to be something big. It does not have to be a giant vacation halfway across the world or the most lavish and glorious vacation in the center of Disneyland or Disney World. I want you to make moments that are small and meaningful. Making sure that every Sunday afternoon you sit out on the front porch and have a popsicle with your kids.

or spending two minutes to show your kids how funny it sounds when you talk into a giant box fan that's running at full speed. Take 30 seconds to step outside in your backyard or on your patio and just look up to the sky, close your eyes and just breathe for 30 seconds. These little small moments are going to compound over time and are going to help you feel less shame, less anxiety.

Also, I want you to go back and listen to episode 37, where I talk a little bit about poolside eats and vacation treats. Because even if you're not at the pool or on vacation, there are a ton of ideas in that episode. Most of them came from my days of being a single mom and having to create these small moments like backyard picnics and making s'mores on the grill, because we didn't have a fire pit.

There are so many ways to create these tiny moments and it doesn't have to take money or effort.

There's so many ways to create these small moments and it doesn't have to take time or money or effort. So use some of these ideas. Definitely go back to episode 37 where I know you will find a bunch of great ideas.

All right, my friend, I really hope that this episode has hit home for you. And I really do want you to reach out and just help me feel less alone that I'm not the only one who's having a summer that is far less than ideal.

Basically over here, it is a crappy summer, but I'm trying to create some semblance of happiness and joy. So if you can do these couple of things, except that anxiety just might be part of your summer and catch yourself when you're spiraling into shame, find some small things to be grateful for. And then create those tiny moments that will give you those little glimmers and remind you that the situation that you're in currently, this life that you have right now,

It is not forever, but right now it is okay to just sit here, accept it and know that there is nothing wrong with you at all. This is just a season of your life.

You know, I do pride myself on trying to be authentic. And honestly, what you see and hear on this podcast is exactly who I am in person. This is really truly who I am. So I hope that today's episode gives you some courage to look at how you are really doing and just being okay with who you are and where you are in this moment of time. I am sending you huge hugs, my friend.

I hope that you'll send some back to me because I definitely have a long journey over the summer and into the fall. And I'm really grateful to have this podcast as a way for us to connect. But I also hope that it's giving you some inspiration to see that your summer, it's going to be okay. It can be salvaged. So go give yourself those tiny moments, be okay with who you are and where you are. And I will see you back here next week.