How My Belief System Impacts My Everyday Life

Over the years, I’ve watched myself transform into someone who is more loving, caring, and compassionate. I’ve watched myself learn and heal, ask questions and defy norms, and truly love and forgive. This journey is not linear growth and it’s taken a long time to build the belief system and conviction I have today. Somedays, I let my emotions run away from me and other times, I say things out of spite and then there are other days, I show deep love and gratitude and feel light in my connections.

My belief system is built on the basis of love and connection— love for myself, love for others, and love for this life.

It’s so important for me to share my belief system because it has pulled me out of some dark holes and helped me overcome circumstances that could have eaten away at me. I believe that this life has meaning and purpose, and by doing the best you can everyday to show up, to be present, and to put your best foot forward, life is brighter and fuller. This is our life in the now, and I make decisions everyday to go for it and to mindfully create a life I love. That means I am constantly feeding my hope instead of my fears, investing in friends and family who add so much light to my world, and going out of my way to explore more and go into uncharted territory.

I made the decision a long time ago that I don’t want to wake up one morning and say “I wish I would have….”

I’m that way with everything I do —

I’ve taken jobs that pushed my limits.

I’ve moved across the country in high school.

I’ve moved to another country to pursue my dream of volunteering in the Peace Corps.

I’ve put my heart on the line and said, “I love you” first.

Not everything works out exactly the way I envision it and plan, but it works out exactly way it was suppose. With choosing yes and taking the leaps of faith with love and passion in my heart, I’ll never have to wonder if I tried harder or said more because I did try my best and said what I felt. I’ve followed my intuition and that’s why I am here today; your intuition is your gut telling you “hey this feels right” or “hell no, back that tractor trailer up and pivot”

My belief system is not controlled by circumstances or excuses for things outside of my control.

By that, I mean, I’ve had girls not want to be my friends, rumors started, boys who turned me down, parents who got divorced, and the list goes on, but when I reflect on it all, I had very little hate in my heart for the people who lacked compassion for me. My belief system of loving the life I live forced me to look past the surface, and to know, most people’s thoughts, opinions, and even hate had nothing to do with me. Their opinions of me didn’t belittle who I was or take away from how loved I was, and that wasn’t going to change how I acted, cared, or showed up.

There’s going to be times in life when you feel small, when you want to hide, or when you’ve made decisions that didn’t highlight your best character, but that’s when you have to own who you are, own your mistakes, and own the responsibility of how you created the situation. In order to move forward from hardships, breakups, disputes, and so on, it takes a lot of consciousness to take own ownership of the role you played. You can call that other girl a mean girl or say anything you want, but one thing that has always stuck with me is the quote “hurt people hurt people.” I’m by no means perfect, but when I can, I choose kindness.

I don’t believe in an eye for an eye, or revenge. When you ask yourself when making decisions, is this action taken with love, I hope you can always answer yes.

I hope you build your belief system with love in your heart, faith in the plan, and promise in yourself and others.

5 Ways To De-stress From Your Chaotic Life

Creating a balance isn’t always ideal— especially when work or school or family life is overwhelming and prominent. We can’t always control our circumstances, but we can control our stress levels with some life hacks to put some ease back into our normal, filled day. Being a college student, who works and has a full class load with extracurriculars, I don’t have an overabundance of time for some R&R, so here are some of the tricks I use to destress whenever I’m about to lose my marbles.

About a year ago, I started to try something new whenever I had a rough day or needed a pick-me-up and that was Meditation, eventually it just became part of my everyday routine. It leaves me feeling at peace and uplifted, no matter my situation. To get a great meditation app, download the Deepak and Oprah 21-Day Meditation Experience or if you are in Fort Myers/Naples area, there are Drop-In Meditation classes but once you make this part of your everyday, the “big” stressers don’t seem so big and bad.
Yoga. Hear me out, yoga is by no means easy, but you don’t have to be good, flexible, or athletic to enjoy it. I started going to yoga on Fort Myers Beach, and loved the environment and relaxation I got from it. So even though I can’t make to the beach every Saturday morning for yoga, I find time to do it at home with my yoga mat from T.J.Maxx. Some great apps I use are– Yoga Studio and Daily Yoga and also if you want more information on the best Yoga apps, Healthline is a great resource.
Making time to focus on your health and being active is so important. When I work out, everything else is put on hold and I get to focus on me and where I’m at. If you don’t have time for a gym, download The Handstand App for fitness plans and workouts. If you can join a gym, I go to LA Fitness and really enjoy the equipment and classes, and I’m also a fan of Crunch Gym. However, I do want to start going to my University’s gym FGCU more to workout, so see if your school has one so you can swing by after studying or class!
Cooking isn’t always my speciality, but it’s something I’m working on. I’m always finding recipes I want to make and I get most inspired from foodie blogs. Anyways, as basic as it sounds, I google yummy food that is also healthy and started making some of those: Healthy Yummy Food and one of my favorite Food Blogger’s site called Daily Dose of Pepper or you can be like me, and like to bake. In that case, I love Baking with Blondie and anything chocolate, so of course, here’s some delicious recipes to take your mind off of anything else: Chocolate Heaven
Lastly, when I’m stressed or having a less than fabulous day, I try to find some distraction. Something that isn’t work or tedious or overwhelming, so what’s better than online shopping….. not much. I like to keep a budget, so I don’t recommend doing this everyday, but here are some of my favorites to bring you a little bit of happiness. For jewelry: Gem and Company For clothing: Thirty One Boutique and Henri Girl.

Let’s continue to be GirlBosses, who find peace in the midsts of all the chaos. You’ve got this and you are capable!

xo, Ash

Ladies, This Is Not A Competition

Better than I was yesterday. That’s who I want to be.

Going through life changes and actually evaluating yourself is at often times challenging, but we make it more difficult than it needs to be. When we look in the mirror and analyze who we are, we are gazing over the exterior first and then sinking deep into our soul; we constantly highlight our flaws and what we’d change, both physically and in our personality, and as we do that, we are subconsciously comparing ourselves to the girl who seemingly has it all together. “Comparison is the thief of joy” but it’s all we do.

Social media will be the death of us. We see the girl who is Instagram famous with a million guys pining over her and two million girls dying to be her. We see her highlight reals and perfect selfies. We see her excelling, and having the perfect hair, body, friends, family, house, etc. We see perfection when we analyze her, but when we look into ourselves, we see flaws and imperfections. We see everything that is wrong. But why? Why are we so quick to adore others, but forget to see our worth? Ladies, we are not in competition with one another; we all have different strengths and weaknesses and far different hearts.

Having a pretty, symmetrical face doesn’t make you more beautiful than the girl who has a soul that radiates.

We have this mixed up perception that others don’t struggle with the things we do, but I promise they do. We work tirelessly to keep our flaws hidden, like we are the only one who struggle with anxiety or depression or have shaming circumstances. We assume the girl that is smiling with her perfect friend group is what we should be aiming for, but we have no idea what goes on behind closed doors. We don’t know who she is without her mask; being real, especially on social media, is seldom the case, but yet we compare like it’s our day job. We are all guilty of it, like highlighting or acknowledging our flaws to the world is lethal, but it’s needed.

Self-love is a crazy concept because that means accepting and loving yourself with all your craziness included.

You can love yourself while wanting to better yourself, but do it from a place in your soul that craves to be a better you for you. It’s all about intentions so only compare yourself to the person you were yesterday and keep improving to be the best version of yourself. You will be so loved and beautiful.

xo,

Ash