xoxo-Ashley
"Ok...please please please just hear me out and read this whole post...I have a feeling it might get a little bit long, I will try hard not to make it too long....but I want you to ESPECIALLY read it if life hurts profoundly right now...or if you know someone whose life is hurting profoundly. I will go as fast as I can. I found the above photo today when I was looking for photos of the first art journal I ever made (so I could show it to you...which I will in a minute).....the journal that started the whole journey of Brave Girls Club curriculum (before I ever knew that that's what it would someday become...before Brave Girls Club even existed anywhere but in my head and heart).....the art journal was just my own very very personal and private journey through "OUCH"....through a very hellish many-years-long period in my life that seemed like it might never end...when I broke into twenty million jagged pieces....when I lost everything I had worked for, when I lost who I thought that I was and what I thought was most valuable about me.....but when I FOUND EVERYTHING THAT MATTERED. This is the photo that comes after the photo below. I think I was planning on blogging about a shift in thinking I had experienced...I remember taking this photo and thinking about how I can put that huge OUCH so close to the front of my face so that I can not see anything else...or so that everything else is blurred out....but that what I really needed to do, is put the OUCH down with all of the other parts of my life so that I could REALLY SEE that I needed to put it all into perspective. So I did.....my OUCHES were all over the place, everything hurt...but the thing that hurt worst was the condition of my marriage and of my husband....it was first and foremost on my mind and my heart and I could not see much beyond it...even though there was a lot more to see...a lot more ouches, but a lot more goodness, joy and miracles too......so I worked really hard to put that OUCH down to see what was behind it.... I think about how broken and unfixable I felt at that time. I think about how I wondered if I would ever laugh again, if life would ever feel happy or easy ever again.....I felt lost....really really really lost. I felt desperate and I felt like my soul was living completely outside of my body. I couldn't remember my dreams and wondered if I would ever have dreams again. I felt like a failure because I couldn't hold myself together anymore. I felt like my identity was shattered. While I was once a successful businesswoman...my husband's accident and illness and all of the things that tumbled down around it were my focus......and I failed miserably at holding my business together...that identity was gone. I used to be the happy person...the positive, optimistic & carefree dreamer...where had that girl gone? I was a depressed mess. I was jaded. I would barely leave my house. That girl was gone. I was the girl with the perfect marriage.......that all got shattered into bits. This is depressing so I will not go on........but.........I could if I had to...for pages...:) What I want you to know is that I am soooooo happy these days. So so so happy. I feel at peace, I feel whole. I feel on track. I feel like I don't have to have any special kind of identity except ME.....I have let things go. I want to tell you how I did it. I want to tell you that the lessons that I learned, and the way I manifested it through art and journaling completely healed it all up....it took time, and lots of gut-wrenching honesty with myself....but it worked. Now that I have seen the THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS of women who have taken Soul Restoration, and who have returned to Brave Girl Camp for second and third times....and now that I have seen the LIGHT back in the eyes of those women and the dramatic beautiful changes that have taken place in their lives because they did the work......I know for sure that I just need to keep begging YOU to give it a chance, too.
HAPPY ME = Miracles + lots of soulwork
I want you to know that there's another way to live. During that time, I honestly thought that I just had to learn to live inside of a yucky, hard, miserable life...that I had to learn how to function inside of misery and heartbreak....that my best years were definitely over. I know now...I KNOW NOW that this is not the case. I know that we can heal. We can be whole. We can forgive...ourselves and others. I know that we can start over. I know that sometimes being forced to start over is THE VERY BEST THING THAT COULD EVER HAPPEN TO US. I know that sometimes the only way to get to where we are meant to be, is THROUGH things we never thought we could endure...but then, we do endure it...and then we are stronger and better and wiser and more full of everything good because of it. I know that this is true for me...I know that this can be true for you. I know FOR SURE that we are all meant to use the "wings" that we have been given..I know that we are meant to fly....not to stay stuck. Sometimes the journey from caterpillar to butterfly is profoundly confusing, painful and bleak. But it is on it's way somewhere!!!! That's the thing we must always remember.....the journey to becoming....all of it is important...the caterpillar part...the climbing around super low to the ground part....the climbing up the plant part....the becoming a cocoon part...the part when we are in the dark for a very long time turned from a caterpillar into mush (this the the part that is scary, because we often do not have any idea what is happening and it feels like we are going to die any second)..and then, the part where we get to emerge as what we were always meant to become..............(I also believe that we get to go on this journey lots of times in our lifetime..so if you have been a butterfly before and you suddenly feel like a caterpillar again, take heart...you are on your way to somewhere good!) Ok....so, I am writing this because today we are running SOUL RESTORATION PART 1 again...for the third time. We are doing this because women from all over the world are begging us to....thousands of women. Many of the women starting out in the classroom today are taking the class for their second or third times because of what it has done for them....I believe them when they tell me that it has truly been a miracle to them. I believe it because this course material is what got me through the darkest years of my life....so I took all of the things I learned in my art journals and made them into a class to take you on the same journey. It all started with me just not knowing who I was anymore....OR WHERE THE HECK I WENT...this is the very first sentence I wrote in my journal those many years ago... I wanted to know who I was if I wasn't a business success, or a successful artist, or a fun person, or a perfect wife. WHO WAS I...WHAT WAS I..when I couldn't be anything to anyone. Who was I at the core of me. Who was I when everything was stripped away and I was just a person. Working through those questions and their beautiful answers...through doing lots of art and journaling projects is what healed me.......I want that for you...and I know it is possible because I have seen it so many times now. Here are the other pages in that first journal....maybe some questions that you have asked yourself... I started asking myself some really hard questions..and then I just listened. I just got very very very quiet. I did this for years. I learned how it worked. I could hear the truth when I got very quiet...when I shut out all of the outside voices and opinions and expectations. Now...it is a fully planned-out, guided step-by-step curriculum that is fun and difficult and life-changing. It is so funny how life is. I thought I was in that cocoon, ready to die...in the dark...........I was making art in there, I had NO IDEA that I was growing wings. If you need help finding your wings....I really want you to see how this might help you. As dark as things might seem.......I promise you that there is light to be found. YOU ARE NOT LOST.....YOU ARE STILL IN THERE. YOU ARE. ....and even if you feel like you have lost all of what you are and who you are and what you thought you were and how you thought life would be......you are just right when you are just YOU. You don't have to have any other identities to have value. I bet you are tired of carrying around a backpack full of heavy rocks and burdens from the past. I bet you are tired of feeling hurt and bruised and broken. I bet you know that it is finally time to move forward and heal...to be RESTORED to who you really are. I bet you are done making excuses. I bet you are ready to do whatever it takes. So...are you ready? SOUL RESTORATION 1 started today. I promise you that it could be the very best $99 you have ever spent. If you commit to doing all of the lessons, watching EVERY video and plowing through it even when it is hard or uncomfortable....it will truly be a life-changing, life-enhancing, joy-producing, PEACE-making experience for you. I have seen it happen to too many thousands of women to tell you otherwise. ok....so....................now there's no excuse for you to not do this!!! Give up a few coffees every week, or sell a piece of art...have a yard sale! ......you are worth it....even if you thought there was no way because things are so financially bleak...there's a way. You can do this. You are worth this. We just got back from 2 Brave Girl Camps, back to back....I talked to so many of YOU there.....I saw the light in your eyes. I saw the what the miracle of embracing the TRUTH about ourselves can do....I saw complete restoration............... and... on the way back from one of our mountain walks.....I saw THIS.....my husband, sitting out on the car, waiting for me to get back: and while I was walking to him....I thought about the journey we had been on together...I thought about how long I had to WAIT.....how hard that waiting was...how much work I had to do while I was waiting. I thought about how the best things in life are not very often the easiest things, but that they are still the best. I thought about how every single one of those tears was worth the journey that I was on..........worth what I would learn...worth what I did learn.....worth what I get to do now. Worth how blissful, happy, peaceful, lovely, fun and wonderful life feels now....I want that for you.
My friends...........if it's time....then just do it...no more excuses, ok? If it's not time, we will be here waiting whenever you are ready. I know it's scary to decide to finally heal from things that have hurt for so long......but, it is SO WORTH IT. It's time for you to show the world those beautiful wings of yours!!! "
Read more about what Melody and the Brave Girls are doing HERE
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