Podcast

🌾 The Deep Work (& Rest) of Leaving Social Media — with Ashley Neese

🌾 The Deep Work (& Rest) of Leaving Social Media — with Ashley Neese

In 2019, Ashley Neese had a bestselling book, a thriving breathwork practice, a new baby, and 30k Instagram followers.

Now six years later, she’s left social media, moved away from the world of wellness™️, and found a deeper sense of peace caring for her family, writing on Substack, and holding space 1:1.

In this conversation, we chart Ashley’s journey from being an influencer in the 2010s LA wellness scene to becoming a parent who refuses to perform wellness when she doesn’t feel well.

Together, we unpack the insidious logic of early influencer culture: that the more you post, the more followers you’ll get — and the more followers you get, the more you matter.

Then we step away from all that and make space for what can come through when you heal your worthiness wounds.

Join us for this conversation about:

  • How Ashley’s audience grew on Instagram
  • The exact moment she decided to quit social media
  • Why her first 3-6 months off the apps (and her phone) were really hard
  • The get-out-of-LA message that Ashley got from a famous medium
  • Why success can make it harder to quit jobs, platforms, and more
  • Returning to 1:1 client work after years of big stages and corporate contracts
  • The realities of rural life and online work
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Interview with Ashley Neese
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Explore more of Ashley’s writing about social media:

The performance of being well
If I timed my toddler's nap right, I'd have twenty minutes to pull this off. I rushed into our home office, throwing dresses onto a pile on the floor. Nothing fit right over my four-year postpartum body. Too tight here, too frumpy there. Five discarded outfits later, I grabbed the white dress with the high-waisted belt. I thought it helped me look put together but effortless. At this point it was becoming increasingly difficult to “show up” for the camera in a way that matched my pre-childbirth image. I was so far from that woman. She could throw on any of her designated social media “looks” and be ready to go.
The Deeper Call
The truth about my 27,200 Instagram friends
A few weeks ago, I shared some of the lessons I learned after a year off Instagram.
The Deeper Call
Recent photos I haven't posted on Instagram
Early this summer I found my grandfather’s old 35mm camera from the mid-80s tucked away in my office. A friend had sent me scans of their own film prints a few months earlier, and something about them nudged me to pick up film again.
The Deeper Call

Transcript

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:00:26.886):
Hi, Ashley. Welcome to Off the Grid.

Ashley Neese (00:00:28.848):
Thank you so much for having me.

Ashley Neese (00:00:30.849):
I'm so looking forward.

Ashley Neese (00:00:32.891):
Oh, I'm so thrilled to have you.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:00:35.312):
For the folks listening from home,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:00:37.754):
which is everyone,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:00:38.915):
because it's a podcast,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:00:40.516):
you and I first worked together on your podcast.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:00:44.299):
Which was such a beautiful show is such a beautiful show and folks should go tune

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:00:48.402):
into the archive and hear all of the really heartfelt and breath based and restful

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:00:56.487):
conversations that you had there.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:00:58.369):
I'll link it in the show notes.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:01:00.578):
But today,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:01:02.699):
you're here to join me in kind of what I hope will be a bit of a meandering

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:01:07.343):
exploration of your career as a breathwork teacher and practitioner and how that

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:01:16.709):
did and did not intersect with social media.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:01:19.190):
So...

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:01:20.171):
I guess I want to open today with one of my perennial questions or all-time

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:01:24.994):
questions,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:01:26.014):
which is,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:01:26.414):
would you tell us a bit about how you got on social media and how you ended up

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:01:31.397):
building the early stages of your career there?

Ashley Neese (00:01:34.839):
I started on Instagram.

Ashley Neese (00:01:37.120):
I don't remember exactly what year, but it was the days of the Valencia filter.

Ashley Neese (00:01:40.362):
Okay.

Ashley Neese (00:01:40.922):
And that was why I got an Instagram for those OGIGers.

Ashley Neese (00:01:44.864):
And I love just shooting pictures of my little apartment in LA and my cat and whatnot.

Ashley Neese (00:01:49.867):
And at the time, I was building a practice as a holistic practitioner.

Ashley Neese (00:01:53.869):
And it was my roommate at the time who was really like, you should be...

Ashley Neese (00:01:57.791):
using this for work.

Ashley Neese (00:01:58.792):
And I didn't even totally know what she meant.

Ashley Neese (00:02:00.473):
She was way ahead of the curve.

Ashley Neese (00:02:01.554):
I was like, I just want to post cat pics.

Ashley Neese (00:02:03.495):
This is fun and cute, just so my friends can see.

Ashley Neese (00:02:06.217):
And she was really encouraging me at the time to post yoga pictures and all the

Ashley Neese (00:02:10.300):
different stuff that I was doing at the time,

Ashley Neese (00:02:11.741):
yoga,

Ashley Neese (00:02:12.181):
meditation,

Ashley Neese (00:02:12.922):
breathing,

Ashley Neese (00:02:14.082):
eating clean,

Ashley Neese (00:02:15.944):
all these very LA things.

Ashley Neese (00:02:17.605):
And I started posting.

Ashley Neese (00:02:19.766):
And at the time, I also had a blog.

Ashley Neese (00:02:21.328):
And

Ashley Neese (00:02:22.228):
And I was on WordPress at the time and I was writing kind of personal stuff about my life.

Ashley Neese (00:02:26.471):
I was writing about the different practices I was involved with.

Ashley Neese (00:02:30.453):
And it was just one of those things that I kept posting on my blog.

Ashley Neese (00:02:33.615):
And then I would start to, I started cross-posting before I even knew what that was.

Ashley Neese (00:02:37.337):
I would just post on Instagram what I was saying over on my blog.

Ashley Neese (00:02:41.139):
And within a few months of doing that, it started to get some traction.

Ashley Neese (00:02:44.141):
There were other people in the LA kind of community who were blogging and also

Ashley Neese (00:02:47.762):
blogging about,

Ashley Neese (00:02:48.823):
you know,

Ashley Neese (00:02:49.063):
whatever wellness-y things that they were into.

Ashley Neese (00:02:51.604):
And then sponsorship ads kind of started rolling in.

Ashley Neese (00:02:54.006):
Like companies would contact me,

Ashley Neese (00:02:56.287):
like Yogi Tea,

Ashley Neese (00:02:56.947):
for example,

Ashley Neese (00:02:57.527):
and they'd be like,

Ashley Neese (00:02:58.128):
hey,

Ashley Neese (00:02:58.508):
do you want to do a blog post about our tea?

Ashley Neese (00:03:00.629):
And then we'll pay you some money.

Ashley Neese (00:03:01.789):
And then you can also post a picture on Instagram.

Ashley Neese (00:03:04.671):
And at the time, I just thought, this is so cool.

Ashley Neese (00:03:07.192):
I'm already...

Ashley Neese (00:03:09.113):
Like, wow, thanks.

Ashley Neese (00:03:10.254):
They're going to give me $100.

Ashley Neese (00:03:11.715):
Like, yes.

Ashley Neese (00:03:13.376):
And that was a lot back in the day.

Ashley Neese (00:03:15.517):
But it was just so amazing because I was already blogging about a lot of this stuff.

Ashley Neese (00:03:20.420):
And I thought, well, I'm already doing it for free.

Ashley Neese (00:03:22.362):
So why not just get paid?

Ashley Neese (00:03:23.562):
It just seemed like another natural thing for me to do.

Ashley Neese (00:03:27.065):
And again,

Ashley Neese (00:03:27.685):
I would have probably just done it for free,

Ashley Neese (00:03:29.867):
but it was so nice to get a little bit of money.

Ashley Neese (00:03:32.228):
And that kind of just parlayed into bigger sponsorship deals and writing for other

Ashley Neese (00:03:37.335):
online outlets and things like that as I slowly started to build my business,

Ashley Neese (00:03:41.700):
which at the time I was really focused on building a one-on-one practice.

Ashley Neese (00:03:45.945):
That's what I wanted.

Ashley Neese (00:03:46.746):
I wanted to see clients one-on-one and support them.

Ashley Neese (00:03:50.030):
And the kind of Instagram and blog kind of social media deals were coming in that

Ashley Neese (00:03:54.876):
were helping me kind of build my one-on-one practice.

Ashley Neese (00:03:57.299):
Because again,

Ashley Neese (00:03:58.221):
that was ultimately what I wanted to be doing,

Ashley Neese (00:04:00.203):
but I didn't have enough clients to pay my rent.

Ashley Neese (00:04:02.866):
So I needed supplemental income.

Ashley Neese (00:04:05.029):
And I felt like, again, it was just a natural extension.

Ashley Neese (00:04:07.791):
And for those of you who don't know, I actually went to college for art.

Ashley Neese (00:04:10.873):
I studied photography.

Ashley Neese (00:04:12.154):
I studied design.

Ashley Neese (00:04:13.434):
So the Instagram aspect, the photo heavy aspect was so fun for me as a design forward person.

Ashley Neese (00:04:19.518):
I was like, oh, this is great.

Ashley Neese (00:04:20.479):
I can take all these cool photos and then post them.

Ashley Neese (00:04:23.401):
And that was kind of the beginning of things.

Ashley Neese (00:04:25.622):
I really appreciate those perspectives.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:04:27.924):
And like when I currently do scroll all the way back on what's still on your

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:04:32.267):
Instagram profile,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:04:33.187):
it is like cat pics.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:04:34.248):
Yeah.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:04:34.748):
Which I love.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:04:35.748):
Yeah, there's a lot of cat pics.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:04:38.209):
And honestly, I could so much relate to.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:04:41.070):
Like,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:04:41.330):
I also got on Instagram and shared pictures of my bedroom and like random books I

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:04:46.232):
was reading and then started to cross post things from my blog and sort of try to

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:04:51.614):
grow a following in these ways.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:04:54.235):
And I also remember, I wasn't really a part of this, but I remember the sort of

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:05:01.537):
period of time when sponsorship was very informal when it did just feel like wow I

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:05:07.599):
would drink this tea anyway and now they're going to give it to me and pay me to

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:05:11.300):
make some content about it and I don't even know if back then we would have called

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:05:15.762):
it like making content about it like I probably would have said like oh and I get

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:05:19.083):
to take some cool pictures and talk about it like

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:05:22.044):
there wasn't this sort of formalization of being an influencer.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:05:27.068):
Like SpawnCon, as a phrase, did not exist back then.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:05:30.550):
Like that has evolved since.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:05:33.372):
And it reminds me of my conversation with Casey Johnston on the podcast,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:05:38.715):
where we talked about sort of how part of what became so hard about social media is

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:05:44.019):
how formalized all of those things got.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:05:46.541):
And she talked about how, as a journalist, she just felt like being on social media was now like

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:05:52.004):
a whole other job was no longer just like put up your cat picks or like share the

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:05:57.609):
tea and you'll get some cash for it.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:06:00.051):
It became the more like formal influencer economy where now you have contracts and

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:06:06.837):
you're negotiating for bigger brand deals and you're doing non-competes in certain

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:06:11.781):
sectors,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:06:12.621):
you know,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:06:12.882):
not you or Casey specifically,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:06:14.283):
but these are things I've heard from influencers.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:06:16.304):
And so I love hearing that you had that clarity even then of like,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:06:20.828):
I want to build a one-on-one practice.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:06:22.890):
I want to work with people directly.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:06:25.332):
And I'm finding that sharing on Instagram specifically is both probably bringing

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:06:30.997):
some of those clients to me and bringing in this other lane of cash,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:06:37.984):
this other revenue stream of influencer partnerships or just of content and product

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:06:43.549):
partnerships.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:06:44.370):
So

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:06:46.385):
Tell me more about how that started to evolve and how that led to your first book,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:06:51.687):
How to Breathe,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:06:52.647):
which like full disclosure,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:06:53.788):
I like hosted a book club about this book in Chicago way before you and I ever knew

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:06:59.369):
each other,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:06:59.890):
like at a breathwork studio.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:07:01.390):
I love this book.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:07:03.491):
It's still a return to it.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:07:04.831):
So I'm a super fan here.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:07:06.032):
But

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:07:06.912):
I want to hear from your side of things.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:07:08.513):
Like,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:07:09.173):
yeah,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:07:09.373):
how did that sort of sharing,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:07:11.894):
doing some informal sponsorship,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:07:13.575):
getting one-on-one clients turn into,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:07:15.616):
you know,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:07:16.096):
growing a platform of almost 30,000 followers and a book deal?

Ashley Neese (00:07:21.058):
I want to just track back just for one brief moment and touch on what you shared,

Ashley Neese (00:07:24.219):
because I think it's so important,

Ashley Neese (00:07:25.600):
like that evolution in all of this work and

Ashley Neese (00:07:28.701):
all this like quote unquote content sharing and stuff,

Ashley Neese (00:07:30.903):
which like you said,

Ashley Neese (00:07:31.684):
back then I just would have said,

Ashley Neese (00:07:32.925):
I'm sharing this thing or here's what I'm talking about.

Ashley Neese (00:07:35.307):
I didn't even know that it was content.

Ashley Neese (00:07:37.729):
We didn't have the language for it then in the same way.

Ashley Neese (00:07:40.392):
But as the sponsorship,

Ashley Neese (00:07:41.773):
as the whole thing grew,

Ashley Neese (00:07:42.854):
right,

Ashley Neese (00:07:42.974):
and there's more and more influencers and

Ashley Neese (00:07:45.716):
bigger brand deals, it also became such a headache.

Ashley Neese (00:07:49.539):
Brands would reach out and be like, here's the 25 things that I want you to do.

Ashley Neese (00:07:53.122):
And here's the way that I want you to do it.

Ashley Neese (00:07:54.583):
And here's the angle.

Ashley Neese (00:07:55.403):
And here's the shot.

Ashley Neese (00:07:56.104):
And it's like, wait a minute, this isn't fun anymore.

Ashley Neese (00:07:58.525):
This is so much more work.

Ashley Neese (00:08:00.567):
And then there was more work, but then the pay was decreasing.

Ashley Neese (00:08:03.529):
So it was also this like, because everyone's like, oh, well, now you're going to be visible.

Ashley Neese (00:08:07.031):
And now you're going to be attached to this brand.

Ashley Neese (00:08:08.612):
So brands started becoming...

Ashley Neese (00:08:11.294):
Everyone just got really into the money side of things and also into really kind of

Ashley Neese (00:08:16.919):
pushing influencers to work more for less money and taking advantage of a lot of

Ashley Neese (00:08:21.644):
people who just wanted to quote unquote be seen or be famous or whatever it was.

Ashley Neese (00:08:25.107):
So that was when things started shifting for me and I was like,

Ashley Neese (00:08:27.769):
you know what,

Ashley Neese (00:08:28.189):
I got to really take a look at this in a different way.

Ashley Neese (00:08:31.172):
But for many years, it really worked.

Ashley Neese (00:08:33.654):
And it did get me a book deal.

Ashley Neese (00:08:35.555):
I was invited by MindBodyGreen to speak at this super private,

Ashley Neese (00:08:38.917):
fancy conference they had at a Ritz-Carlton out in Arizona with some very big

Ashley Neese (00:08:43.559):
names.

Ashley Neese (00:08:44.920):
One gentleman who has one of the largest podcasts now on the planet,

Ashley Neese (00:08:48.442):
and he's controversial,

Ashley Neese (00:08:51.244):
sidebar.

Ashley Neese (00:08:53.565):
So he and I were on this panel together,

Ashley Neese (00:08:55.406):
and there was another gentleman who was on the panel as well.

Ashley Neese (00:08:57.708):
And

Ashley Neese (00:08:58.408):
It turns out the editor of my book happened to be in the audience at this conference.

Ashley Neese (00:09:02.551):
And I didn't know that at the time, but she, I got back from the conference.

Ashley Neese (00:09:05.833):
I had worked with an agent and we had pitched how to breathe and we'd gotten a

Ashley Neese (00:09:09.956):
bunch of different responses.

Ashley Neese (00:09:10.956):
And this woman,

Ashley Neese (00:09:11.437):
Kelly,

Ashley Neese (00:09:11.877):
who's at 10 speed press wrote back and she was like,

Ashley Neese (00:09:14.299):
Hey,

Ashley Neese (00:09:14.739):
I actually saw you at this conference.

Ashley Neese (00:09:16.560):
And I was going to say,

Ashley Neese (00:09:18.220):
do you wanna do a book with us?

Ashley Neese (00:09:19.382):
Like, I'd love to bring you in to do some kind of a book and here's your proposal, great.

Ashley Neese (00:09:23.690):
So that's kind of how that worked.

Ashley Neese (00:09:25.172):
It was just being in those, sometimes I say like,

Ashley Neese (00:09:29.406):
you know, right place, right time kind of a situation.

Ashley Neese (00:09:31.527):
Like I just happened at this conference where she was invited and she saw me speak and teach.

Ashley Neese (00:09:36.490):
So that was really fortunate.

Ashley Neese (00:09:38.412):
And it's interesting, the book, the How to Breathe proposal went so well, it went to auction.

Ashley Neese (00:09:43.094):
We got 11 offers, which was crazy for a first time author.

Ashley Neese (00:09:46.576):
But I think it was less about me and more about the

Ashley Neese (00:09:50.839):
people wanting breathwork and breathwork was becoming a thing, a really big thing.

Ashley Neese (00:09:54.882):
And this is even before James Nestor's book came out,

Ashley Neese (00:09:57.723):
which has sold way more copies than mine,

Ashley Neese (00:09:59.204):
of course,

Ashley Neese (00:09:59.585):
but it's,

Ashley Neese (00:10:01.346):
you know,

Ashley Neese (00:10:01.546):
it was before that.

Ashley Neese (00:10:02.286):
So this was 2019 and we were working on this book in 2017.

Ashley Neese (00:10:05.288):
So there was really nothing else like it.

Ashley Neese (00:10:07.690):
And there definitely wasn't anything about breath that was also, again, design forward.

Ashley Neese (00:10:12.533):
So that was really important to me.

Ashley Neese (00:10:13.934):
I wanted the book to be beautiful.

Ashley Neese (00:10:16.255):
I wanted the design to be accessible.

Ashley Neese (00:10:18.216):
I wanted to be able to just

Ashley Neese (00:10:19.757):
Almost use it like an oracle and just open it up and go, what do I need today?

Ashley Neese (00:10:23.322):
Here's a practice without it having to be super academic.

Ashley Neese (00:10:28.750):
I wanted my mom to be able to pick it up in an anthropology or wherever,

Ashley Neese (00:10:33.035):
Walmart,

Ashley Neese (00:10:33.476):
and go,

Ashley Neese (00:10:34.017):
oh,

Ashley Neese (00:10:34.217):
this is cool.

Ashley Neese (00:10:34.878):
I can use this.

Ashley Neese (00:10:36.440):
So that was really important to me.

Ashley Neese (00:10:37.961):
And I liked the publishing experience with that book because we had such a great

Ashley Neese (00:10:41.842):
publisher and they were able to get those distribution channels that I really

Ashley Neese (00:10:45.383):
wanted.

Ashley Neese (00:10:45.703):
Like I wanted the book in Target.

Ashley Neese (00:10:47.404):
I wanted it in anthropology.

Ashley Neese (00:10:48.664):
I wanted it in some of these bigger spaces.

Ashley Neese (00:10:50.225):
So again, so folks like my mom could be browsing around and pick it up.

Ashley Neese (00:10:54.966):
So that's,

Ashley Neese (00:10:55.706):
you know,

Ashley Neese (00:10:55.886):
I feel like that's really how all of those Instagram moments,

Ashley Neese (00:10:59.668):
all of those connections really led to being in a place where I would meet somebody

Ashley Neese (00:11:03.089):
like Kelly.

Ashley Neese (00:11:03.449):
Yeah.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:11:04.520):
Yeah,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:11:05.041):
I really appreciate you like being so transparent around kind of like those sort of

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:11:11.509):
right place,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:11:12.290):
right time moments.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:11:14.152):
I'm also curious,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:11:14.813):
this is a slightly maybe left field question,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:11:17.737):
but like,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:11:18.919):
how much do you think being in L.A.?

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:11:20.581):
?

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:11:23.286):
made all of this work.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:11:25.326):
Like, do you think you could have done all of this purely through social media?

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:11:29.167):
Or do you feel like the sort of being in this city where there's so much wellness

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:11:35.008):
happening and there's a culture around it and everybody who's like making these

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:11:40.509):
careers or becoming,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:11:41.769):
you know,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:11:42.089):
big,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:11:42.509):
well-known in these areas is there.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:11:43.950):
Like,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:11:44.410):
did the right place just feel like Instagram or did it also feel like the literal,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:11:48.191):
like physical city that you were in?

Ashley Neese (00:11:50.951):
Honestly, I mean, I think it was both.

Ashley Neese (00:11:52.812):
And I do think LA had a big part of that.

Ashley Neese (00:11:54.752):
I was just on a call with a dear friend of mine from that time period, Erica Chitty.

Ashley Neese (00:11:59.114):
She's so amazing.

Ashley Neese (00:12:01.034):
And she's doing a lot of really important work.

Ashley Neese (00:12:03.715):
So it was Erica Chitty, my friend Lacey Phillips, who runs To Be Magnetic.

Ashley Neese (00:12:08.277):
And there was like a whole group of us.

Ashley Neese (00:12:09.717):
And this was way back in like 2010.

Ashley Neese (00:12:12.418):
15.

Ashley Neese (00:12:12.438):
So this is 10 years ago.

Ashley Neese (00:12:13.379):
And we had all just kind of gotten on Instagram and we all met each other through

Ashley Neese (00:12:18.180):
Instagram,

Ashley Neese (00:12:18.681):
which was so fun.

Ashley Neese (00:12:19.901):
And we would go meet and we would just go sit at a coffee shop in Santa Monica when

Ashley Neese (00:12:23.142):
we were all kind of just starting out our practices.

Ashley Neese (00:12:25.303):
And we'd be like, OK, like what sponsorship deals are you getting?

Ashley Neese (00:12:28.084):
Like, what are you charging for clients?

Ashley Neese (00:12:29.465):
Like, what are you doing about this?

Ashley Neese (00:12:30.825):
Like, let's kind of all help each other.

Ashley Neese (00:12:32.426):
And so it was really that spirit of that in-person kind of connecting with those women, too.

Ashley Neese (00:12:36.928):
But it was all we all just kind of happened to be living there, too, at the same time.

Ashley Neese (00:12:40.589):
And meeting each other through Instagram.

Ashley Neese (00:12:42.812):
And I just DM'd them.

Ashley Neese (00:12:43.893):
And Erica and I were DMing each other like, hey, your work seems really cool.

Ashley Neese (00:12:47.117):
And it seems like adjacent to what I'm doing.

Ashley Neese (00:12:48.799):
You want to talk about clients.

Ashley Neese (00:12:50.341):
And she would refer clients to me.

Ashley Neese (00:12:52.824):
I would send clients to her.

Ashley Neese (00:12:53.945):
So there was a lot of referral networking going on between all of us.

Ashley Neese (00:12:57.529):
So that was a huge part of it.

Ashley Neese (00:12:58.690):
But Erica and I were just on the phone last week.

Ashley Neese (00:13:00.872):
And Erica was like, you know, it is this like this thing about LA.

Ashley Neese (00:13:04.034):
And if you like if you're there at this particular moment,

Ashley Neese (00:13:07.176):
so many things were happening for all of us.

Ashley Neese (00:13:09.218):
But then some people like just got so far off the rails and it got really sad and

Ashley Neese (00:13:13.981):
really just scary.

Ashley Neese (00:13:15.702):
And then other people like myself just opted out and were like, I'm going to the country.

Ashley Neese (00:13:20.046):
And other people stayed and they're still making it work.

Ashley Neese (00:13:21.967):
However, they're making it work.

Ashley Neese (00:13:23.128):
But there's definitely something about that place.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:13:26.431):
what I'm really hearing you say there is that one,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:13:28.994):
you were on Instagram at the right time sharing things that were really like

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:13:32.638):
getting picked up by the cultural zeitgeist.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:13:35.342):
Two, being in LA really like amplified that, helped you meet other people doing this.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:13:40.909):
But then three, like,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:13:42.831):
In my parlance,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:13:43.971):
you actually just had a community of biz friends where you and Lacey and Erica met

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:13:48.993):
up and did referrals.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:13:50.513):
You're practicing all of those really simple but often overlooked business growth,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:13:57.555):
relational marketing things.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:13:59.936):
And I have found that for many,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:14:02.777):
many,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:14:03.017):
many of the people that I speak to who grew their business in the beginning,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:14:08.918):
perhaps through Instagram or did have things that went viral,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:14:12.878):
did do bigger brand deals,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:14:14.979):
it was also that group of three people they had meeting and doing the work that

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:14:21.240):
helped all of that grow together.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:14:22.560):
So I'm happy to hear that that was a part of your journey as well.

Ashley Neese (00:14:25.920):
It's making me think about when you kind of did your debrief on your

Ashley Neese (00:14:29.778):
conversation with Glennon Doyle on the pod and you were like,

Ashley Neese (00:14:32.200):
this came from a relationship,

Ashley Neese (00:14:34.441):
right?

Ashley Neese (00:14:34.701):
And it's like, we're all talking about relationships here.

Ashley Neese (00:14:37.063):
It's like all these things are coming from relationships.

Ashley Neese (00:14:40.004):
Even the early, early brand deals that I got from different tea companies were because

Ashley Neese (00:14:44.471):
I knew someone who worked at that company,

Ashley Neese (00:14:46.212):
you know,

Ashley Neese (00:14:46.452):
it's like or a friend of a friend was like,

Ashley Neese (00:14:47.993):
hey,

Ashley Neese (00:14:48.233):
I know this kid or this woman from,

Ashley Neese (00:14:50.514):
you know,

Ashley Neese (00:14:50.954):
college or whatever who's doing this thing in L.A.

Ashley Neese (00:14:52.835):
Like, would you want to check it out?

Ashley Neese (00:14:53.936):
So so much of that stuff came.

Ashley Neese (00:14:55.977):
Other stuff sure came from people just finding me online.

Ashley Neese (00:14:58.879):
But in those early days,

Ashley Neese (00:15:00.099):
and I would say a lot of the bigger kind of opportunities that I had,

Ashley Neese (00:15:04.461):
for lack of a better word,

Ashley Neese (00:15:05.462):
did come through actual people.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:15:08.021):
Yeah.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:15:08.521):
Yeah.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:15:08.821):
Real people, real conversations, real relationships or real referrals.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:15:13.443):
Yeah.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:15:13.983):
And I think about this a lot.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:15:15.604):
I think partially probably why I asked you about place is because now that I have

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:15:19.286):
moved myself so far away from all of the people who do what I'm interested in,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:15:24.788):
it's been interesting to reflect on,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:15:26.989):
you know,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:15:27.609):
there are still so many of my Chicago relationships that open doors for me or do

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:15:31.370):
things for me.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:15:32.051):
And

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:15:32.871):
And also,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:15:33.312):
I've been sort of reflecting or grappling with recently,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:15:36.256):
like,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:15:37.418):
what would my career have looked like if I had moved to New York or been in an even

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:15:40.563):
bigger city,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:15:41.144):
if I had made different relationships?

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:15:42.906):
Or sometimes,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:15:44.108):
you know,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:15:44.729):
quite vulnerably or honestly to share,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:15:46.512):
like,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:15:46.952):
looking at some of my career

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:15:48.535):
peers or colleagues who like went to Ivy League schools or like they had like gates

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:15:52.961):
opened to them that were never open to me.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:15:55.804):
And I think it's really dangerous to get into a space of like projecting or judging around that.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:16:00.991):
But I think it's always worth saying like,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:16:03.655):
There are different doors that are open to all of us,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:16:06.296):
but at least finding a few and walking through them and meeting the people on the

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:16:10.218):
other side,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:16:10.959):
like,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:16:11.499):
is what's going to make a business work.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:16:13.820):
Like,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:16:14.141):
is how you're going to get new opportunities and step into new relationships that

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:16:19.063):
can bring the things you want your way.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:16:20.844):
And...

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:16:22.892):
There's structural and systemic privilege here as well.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:16:25.093):
There are a lot of reasons why some of us have opportunities that others don't.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:16:29.115):
But I think that sense of like an openness to connection and the initiative to send

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:16:34.498):
that DM,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:16:35.198):
to send that email,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:16:36.259):
to go to that coffee shop and connect with people,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:16:39.180):
like that is at the root of every successful business owner I have ever met.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:16:44.763):
Yeah, same.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:16:45.104):
Yeah.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:16:50.765):
Hi friend,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:16:51.506):
Amelia here,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:16:52.367):
interrupting this wonderful conversation because this is where the paywall would

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:16:58.216):
drop and free access to the episode would end.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:17:02.101):
So if you are a paid subscriber, you never have to hear these.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:17:06.289):
you get access to all of the episodes in the clubhouse all of the time,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:17:09.950):
my friend,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:17:10.590):
as thanks for your support of my work.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:17:13.090):
And if you are currently a free subscriber,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:17:15.191):
this is your friendly reminder that I am inviting you to upgrade to paid to enjoy

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:17:20.312):
our catalog of over 30 clubhouse exclusive episodes.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:17:25.333):
In addition to being able to hear this conversation in the future, because

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:17:29.594):
It is free now, but then it will be behind the paywall again, my friend.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:17:34.217):
So thank you so much for tuning in.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:17:37.140):
Apologies for interrupting and gratitude for your decision to upgrade to paid if

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:17:42.383):
that is one you were able to make today.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:17:49.764):
Okay,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:17:50.084):
so from what you shared so far,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:17:51.646):
it seems like when How to Breathe came out,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:17:55.469):
that seems like a big moment of success for you in your career.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:17:58.651):
Like that book got a lot of press.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:18:00.693):
It seems to have done very well.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:18:02.474):
You sold it at auction.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:18:03.755):
It opened a lot of doors for you.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:18:06.377):
And I'm guessing it grew your Instagram profile.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:18:09.720):
It helped you like have even more of an audience.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:18:12.643):
But tell me like what happened in the years after that book and how did social

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:18:18.207):
media play a role in that?

Ashley Neese (00:18:20.737):
It's interesting because it's like up until How to Breathe came out,

Ashley Neese (00:18:25.201):
I felt like my career was going at a pretty fast clip.

Ashley Neese (00:18:30.665):
It's like things where the momentum was building and it's all like,

Ashley Neese (00:18:33.287):
okay,

Ashley Neese (00:18:33.548):
now the book and then what's next?

Ashley Neese (00:18:35.049):
And, you know, just that kind of upward energy.

Ashley Neese (00:18:38.311):
But when the book actually landed in people's hands,

Ashley Neese (00:18:40.894):
I had my first child who was six months old.

Ashley Neese (00:18:44.276):
And we were,

Ashley Neese (00:18:45.677):
my partner and our child Solomon and I were going around on a very low-key book

Ashley Neese (00:18:52.360):
tour.

Ashley Neese (00:18:53.980):
It was very,

Ashley Neese (00:18:54.741):
yeah,

Ashley Neese (00:18:55.301):
just,

Ashley Neese (00:18:56.181):
it's funny because I had all these visions of what it was going to look like,

Ashley Neese (00:18:59.563):
like pre-baby.

Ashley Neese (00:19:01.003):
And I was like,

Ashley Neese (00:19:01.443):
it's going to be grand and we're going to have all these sponsors and I'm going to

Ashley Neese (00:19:04.324):
have all these beautiful people and we're going to be on sprawling gardens like in

Ashley Neese (00:19:07.826):
Malibu and all this kind of stuff.

Ashley Neese (00:19:09.247):
And then I was a

Ashley Neese (00:19:10.567):
exhausted mom with like pretty bad postpartum anxiety.

Ashley Neese (00:19:15.248):
And Solomon really struggled with digestive issues early on.

Ashley Neese (00:19:18.589):
And so there was like not a lot of sleep happening.

Ashley Neese (00:19:20.490):
And it was just like a whole shift.

Ashley Neese (00:19:22.810):
And I remember having a conversation with a friend of mine as we were trying to

Ashley Neese (00:19:25.831):
plan this big like influencer party for my book in LA.

Ashley Neese (00:19:28.692):
And she was, bless her, she was like, Ashley, I

Ashley Neese (00:19:33.294):
no, do you really want to do this now?

Ashley Neese (00:19:36.196):
Is now really the time?

Ashley Neese (00:19:38.377):
She's like, I think your book's going to be fine.

Ashley Neese (00:19:40.559):
I don't think you need to push yourself right now to really just put the pedal to the metal.

Ashley Neese (00:19:47.143):
Your book's out.

Ashley Neese (00:19:48.044):
It's doing well.

Ashley Neese (00:19:48.864):
I don't think there's any more you need to do.

Ashley Neese (00:19:51.786):
And it was in this call and I just started crying.

Ashley Neese (00:19:53.768):
I was like, oh, thanks, Betsy.

Ashley Neese (00:19:57.190):
You're right.

Ashley Neese (00:19:57.970):
Actually, I just want to do these little tiny mini tours and hang out with my baby.

Ashley Neese (00:20:03.954):
and try to get some rest because I was tired you know but the book thankfully the

Ashley Neese (00:20:11.238):
book people wanted the book you know and I had done all that pre-work like I had

Ashley Neese (00:20:15.260):
really done so much work leading up to that point that by the time the book was

Ashley Neese (00:20:20.343):
here it really kind of took on a life of its own and I'm

Ashley Neese (00:20:24.285):
I know that doesn't happen for everyone.

Ashley Neese (00:20:25.665):
And I'm also here to say that absolutely did not happen for my second book.

Ashley Neese (00:20:29.106):
So don't think I have some glamorous Midas touch with publishing.

Ashley Neese (00:20:32.547):
I absolutely do not.

Ashley Neese (00:20:33.467):
My second book has not really sold as well as I'd hoped.

Ashley Neese (00:20:36.388):
So full transparency.

Ashley Neese (00:20:38.309):
But in terms of social media,

Ashley Neese (00:20:39.949):
things just really shifted for me because,

Ashley Neese (00:20:41.470):
again,

Ashley Neese (00:20:41.770):
I was a new parent.

Ashley Neese (00:20:42.750):
And then...

Ashley Neese (00:20:43.510):
I was launching this book and then I was online all the time.

Ashley Neese (00:20:46.194):
And I had already kind of taken a step back from my private practice because I

Ashley Neese (00:20:50.199):
couldn't see clients at the time.

Ashley Neese (00:20:51.781):
And so I was really looking into my online life to be more of the,

Ashley Neese (00:20:55.546):
be generating more of my income,

Ashley Neese (00:20:57.268):
but it was becoming increasingly difficult.

Ashley Neese (00:21:00.472):
because Instagram was pulling my attention so much.

Ashley Neese (00:21:04.736):
And where I wanted my attention to be was on my family.

Ashley Neese (00:21:07.958):
But that work made it almost impossible because I remember I was up like 3 a.m.

Ashley Neese (00:21:12.962):
nursing Solomon and then I'm like checking Instagram.

Ashley Neese (00:21:15.925):
And I'm just doing this over and over and I can't put my phone down and I've got

Ashley Neese (00:21:19.128):
this baby who needs something.

Ashley Neese (00:21:20.449):
And it was just this moment of like,

Ashley Neese (00:21:23.154):
what the hell am I doing?

Ashley Neese (00:21:24.654):
Like this is so like not in alignment, but I didn't know how to stop.

Ashley Neese (00:21:30.316):
And I'm on Instagram and any new parents out there know it's like a really

Ashley Neese (00:21:35.437):
dangerous place to be as a new parent.

Ashley Neese (00:21:37.138):
And you're seeing all these moms who've lost all their baby weight in two weeks and

Ashley Neese (00:21:41.039):
they're like gorgeous and they're happy and their babies are sleeping and they're

Ashley Neese (00:21:44.820):
like throwing money around.

Ashley Neese (00:21:46.420):
And you're like, what's wrong with me?

Ashley Neese (00:21:47.780):
Like, I'm not okay.

Ashley Neese (00:21:49.021):
Like, I feel like...

Ashley Neese (00:21:50.501):
Like I was like hearing things for six months after I had Solomon.

Ashley Neese (00:21:53.824):
Like I was really mentally like not well.

Ashley Neese (00:21:56.446):
And it was so hard.

Ashley Neese (00:21:58.748):
Like there were days I couldn't even change my clothes.

Ashley Neese (00:22:00.850):
And I'm like,

Ashley Neese (00:22:01.811):
and I'm trying then to like push myself into this kind of pre-baby image to like

Ashley Neese (00:22:07.195):
show up online.

Ashley Neese (00:22:07.996):
And I was failing and it was becoming so untenable.

Ashley Neese (00:22:14.001):
So something like really had to change for me.

Ashley Neese (00:22:16.423):
Yeah.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:22:17.444):
I know you wrote about this,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:22:20.265):
and I don't know if it was specifically this period,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:22:22.046):
but this sort of sense of performing well-being on the internet,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:22:28.288):
on your substack recently.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:22:29.828):
And I thought it was a really beautiful essay where you talked about what wearing

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:22:36.470):
white linen meant.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:22:38.831):
And the symbol of white linen as a mother of, I've mastered this.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:22:45.674):
I've got it.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:22:47.254):
I can wear white.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:22:48.455):
I can wear expensive fabrics.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:22:49.896):
My kid's not going to ruin them.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:22:52.358):
And when I read your piece,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:22:53.758):
I was like,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:22:54.439):
I'm not a parrot,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:22:55.219):
but I'm like,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:22:55.900):
I so deeply know this way of like putting on a shirt just for the photo or like

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:23:03.245):
really trying to project this image of being okay when you're not okay.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:23:07.427):
I think many of us do that.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:23:10.289):
And sometimes it's a necessary coping or survival tactic where

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:23:15.015):
But also what I'm so intrigued by here that I'd love to just ask you to unpack the

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:23:21.302):
way you,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:23:21.603):
like,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:23:22.143):
as you did in your,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:23:22.744):
as you've done in many essays is like,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:23:25.990):
How did you start to grapple with the sense of like,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:23:29.111):
I'm performing well being on the internet and like claiming I can teach people that

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:23:34.293):
when I really don't feel well.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:23:36.974):
And also I need to make money.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:23:39.575):
And also like, it strikes me as really uniquely challenging.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:23:45.697):
And you just brought us to that moment of realizing it's not working.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:23:49.858):
So how did you start to grapple with that?

Ashley Neese (00:23:52.659):
That was really the first time that I felt in just a really deep way,

Ashley Neese (00:23:57.683):
just a dissonance between like what my life looked like kind of offline and what my

Ashley Neese (00:24:01.926):
life,

Ashley Neese (00:24:02.306):
what I was projecting online.

Ashley Neese (00:24:04.608):
And it was working until it wasn't, right?

Ashley Neese (00:24:09.011):
But that was the first time.

Ashley Neese (00:24:11.252):
And then eventually I took a break.

Ashley Neese (00:24:12.653):
So I was like, you know what?

Ashley Neese (00:24:13.354):
I'm just gonna take a break from social media.

Ashley Neese (00:24:16.056):
And I did, I took a break.

Ashley Neese (00:24:17.797):
I was already kind of on a maternity leave at that time.

Ashley Neese (00:24:20.299):
So I had set aside,

Ashley Neese (00:24:22.533):
I had some savings.

Ashley Neese (00:24:23.454):
And I also just want to mention that we have a two income household with my partner.

Ashley Neese (00:24:27.059):
So we're really lucky that way.

Ashley Neese (00:24:28.440):
And I'm really fortunate that way.

Ashley Neese (00:24:30.322):
There was other money coming in.

Ashley Neese (00:24:31.524):
He had a business at the time that was really successful.

Ashley Neese (00:24:33.706):
So yeah,

Ashley Neese (00:24:35.068):
so there was that piece,

Ashley Neese (00:24:35.969):
that financial piece where it was like,

Ashley Neese (00:24:37.150):
I don't have to do this right now,

Ashley Neese (00:24:39.153):
which I was lucky.

Ashley Neese (00:24:39.994):
I know a lot of people aren't in that position.

Ashley Neese (00:24:42.396):
But at the time I was able to take that break and I took a long break from

Ashley Neese (00:24:45.479):
Instagram and it was wonderful.

Ashley Neese (00:24:47.541):
And then I came back and I came back slowly and more intentionally and with more

Ashley Neese (00:24:51.905):
kind of tools under my belt,

Ashley Neese (00:24:53.606):
right?

Ashley Neese (00:24:53.766):
With more awareness,

Ashley Neese (00:24:54.767):
like,

Ashley Neese (00:24:55.067):
oh,

Ashley Neese (00:24:55.207):
I can just take the app off my phone or I can set a timer or I can kind of do all

Ashley Neese (00:24:59.872):
these,

Ashley Neese (00:25:00.892):
you know,

Ashley Neese (00:25:01.273):
tactics online.

Ashley Neese (00:25:02.834):
But what always happens with me is that they work for a little while and then they

Ashley Neese (00:25:06.837):
stop working because my brain is just wired that way.

Ashley Neese (00:25:09.980):
Like I start looking at this stuff and I can't stop and I can't stop scrolling and

Ashley Neese (00:25:14.063):
I can't stop comparing myself.

Ashley Neese (00:25:15.564):
So I would say I went through three or four iterations of that where I would come

Ashley Neese (00:25:19.407):
off and come back on and come off and come back on.

Ashley Neese (00:25:21.549):
And, you know, kind of the last straw was for me about a year and a half ago.

Ashley Neese (00:25:24.671):
And it wasn't anything like...

Ashley Neese (00:25:26.733):
Grand.

Ashley Neese (00:25:27.434):
It wasn't like this big aha moment.

Ashley Neese (00:25:29.916):
I was just sitting in the ER with our middle child and he was sick again and he's

Ashley Neese (00:25:34.299):
been in and out of the hospital since he came to us.

Ashley Neese (00:25:37.801):
But I was sitting there with him and I was on my phone and the doctor's talking to

Ashley Neese (00:25:44.186):
him and I'm on fucking social media.

Ashley Neese (00:25:46.508):
And I was like, this is like fucked, excuse my language, but I was like, this is not okay.

Ashley Neese (00:25:50.430):
Like, I need to be here with my son.

Ashley Neese (00:25:52.110):
And so I just wrote a quick thing and I was like, I'm done.

Ashley Neese (00:25:54.811):
Like, that's it.

Ashley Neese (00:25:55.351):
This is really, I don't want this to take over my life in this way.

Ashley Neese (00:25:58.033):
Like, this is not the way that I want to parent.

Ashley Neese (00:26:00.934):
And

Ashley Neese (00:26:01.954):
I'm not saying that that's like,

Ashley Neese (00:26:03.215):
I'm not saying like that,

Ashley Neese (00:26:04.035):
like I'm taking a moral high ground here or that other parents should get off

Ashley Neese (00:26:06.997):
social media.

Ashley Neese (00:26:07.357):
That's not, I'm just talking about my own personal experience here.

Ashley Neese (00:26:09.858):
That is not how I wanted to be with my kids.

Ashley Neese (00:26:12.060):
And as someone who grew up with parents who were very, there was no social media back then.

Ashley Neese (00:26:16.562):
There's no cell phones back in the dark days,

Ashley Neese (00:26:18.583):
but back in the dark of times,

Ashley Neese (00:26:20.604):
but it was just like,

Ashley Neese (00:26:22.205):
they didn't have any of that.

Ashley Neese (00:26:23.166):
But like, I can see my mom now.

Ashley Neese (00:26:24.927):
She's a big candy crusher.

Ashley Neese (00:26:26.208):
Like,

Ashley Neese (00:26:27.148):
She's a big, big candy crusher.

Ashley Neese (00:26:28.949):
It's to the point where I'm like, dude, you need to get off that stuff.

Ashley Neese (00:26:32.871):
But I thank God that wasn't around.

Ashley Neese (00:26:35.452):
But case in point, my parents were just really busy, really preoccupied.

Ashley Neese (00:26:39.434):
They weren't really around much.

Ashley Neese (00:26:41.415):
So I want to give something different to my kids, right?

Ashley Neese (00:26:44.857):
And I know my tendency is to go to social media to check out,

Ashley Neese (00:26:49.179):
to go to social media to compare myself,

Ashley Neese (00:26:50.960):
to go to social media to like...

Ashley Neese (00:26:52.901):
you know, for all of these kind of emotional reasons.

Ashley Neese (00:26:55.482):
So I was like, I've got to do something different and I want to be present for my kid.

Ashley Neese (00:26:58.683):
And so it wasn't like, again, it wasn't grand.

Ashley Neese (00:27:01.904):
It was just kind of this quiet, like I'm done.

Ashley Neese (00:27:03.845):
And I didn't have any major epiphanies early on.

Ashley Neese (00:27:08.447):
I feel like the epiphanies came later once I saw how much

Ashley Neese (00:27:12.128):
different my mind was working once I'd been off social media for a long time but

Ashley Neese (00:27:16.414):
that was really the crux of it it was just you know I kept going into these cycles

Ashley Neese (00:27:20.660):
of being on and off and on and off and then finally just going you know I just have

Ashley Neese (00:27:24.065):
to be done like that's just how it has to be for me

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:27:27.423):
Yeah, I really appreciate you naming that sense of like immediate but quiet clarity.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:27:34.450):
And I can see that image like so starkly even in my own mind of like being in the

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:27:38.574):
hospital,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:27:39.655):
realizing the doctor is talking to your kid,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:27:41.497):
but you're looking at your phone and just being like,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:27:43.218):
holy shit,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:27:43.899):
what am I doing?

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:27:46.121):
It's very it's so much that like hijacking of our attention by social media.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:27:51.026):
And like we talk about that often in these sort of passive ways or like it's normal.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:27:56.171):
But I think what you're describing is that moment of quite literally feeling like I

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:28:00.415):
have every intention of being over here,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:28:02.357):
but I'm actually over there.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:28:03.778):
How did I end up over there again?

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:28:05.660):
Yeah.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:28:06.741):
That's what feels like the hijacking to me.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:28:08.302):
It's different than like getting sucked into the scroll or like picking up your

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:28:11.925):
phone for a different feeling.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:28:14.107):
That clear sense of like, how did I even get here?

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:28:16.449):
I don't want to be here.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:28:17.550):
It definitely resonates with many of my experiences of picking up my phone or being

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:28:23.194):
on Instagram.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:28:25.276):
It reminds me of the story my mom tells about how she quit smoking the day she

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:28:30.879):
found out she was pregnant with me.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:28:33.320):
And I mean, obviously, there's no way she wasn't addicted to nicotine.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:28:37.462):
Like,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:28:37.762):
I'm sure I feel like that's not possible if you're actually a smoker,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:28:40.823):
which she was,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:28:41.964):
you know,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:28:42.344):
in the late 80s,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:28:43.465):
early 90s.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:28:44.985):
And yet, it was just this moment of immediate quiet clarity.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:28:50.287):
She didn't make a big proclamation.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:28:51.688):
She didn't do a whole thing about it.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:28:53.328):
She was just done smoking.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:28:55.629):
And that also sort of reminds me of the conversation I had with...

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:29:00.191):
My friend Grace Allardyce on the podcast recently about business as initiation.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:29:04.174):
I think there are these moments sometimes when it's just like,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:29:07.597):
you know,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:29:08.118):
initiation can be a very long process,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:29:10.420):
but then it's just like kind of all at once it's done.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:29:13.862):
And I think that's like the moment my mom decided to quit smoking because she was

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:29:18.326):
having a child was her first step in the initiation of becoming a parent.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:29:22.369):
I think I would have to check with her if she'd agree with that.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:29:25.638):
But I'm sure it would have been so hard to quit before.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:29:28.299):
But because now she was on this other path, it was so simple.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:29:31.861):
And I'm hearing you, too, in your social media journey.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:29:34.042):
Like, it was so long.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:29:35.042):
It was arduous.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:29:35.683):
It was on and off.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:29:36.563):
It got hard at many points.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:29:38.544):
But there was just this moment when it was very clear and the shift happened.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:29:44.587):
And then from there,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:29:47.148):
you learned much more about what was actually going on even before that time.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:29:51.630):
So, yeah, I appreciate you sharing that.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:29:54.811):
Because I don't think we've had quite that story of leaving Instagram on the podcast yet.

Ashley Neese (00:29:59.675):
Yeah.

Ashley Neese (00:29:59.835):
And I think,

Ashley Neese (00:30:00.375):
too,

Ashley Neese (00:30:00.675):
it was interesting when I wrote my first essay about it,

Ashley Neese (00:30:05.319):
you know,

Ashley Neese (00:30:05.599):
in what,

Ashley Neese (00:30:05.959):
April of 2024,

Ashley Neese (00:30:07.280):
a lot of people were like,

Ashley Neese (00:30:08.201):
oh,

Ashley Neese (00:30:08.301):
this is so hard.

Ashley Neese (00:30:09.161):
And it's like, well, I'm coming here like I've been off and on for years.

Ashley Neese (00:30:12.444):
I didn't just quit cold turkey last week.

Ashley Neese (00:30:15.926):
But I mean, I did quit cold turkey, but it's been a process, right?

Ashley Neese (00:30:18.968):
It's like that initiation.

Ashley Neese (00:30:19.869):
It was like everything was leading up to that moment.

Ashley Neese (00:30:22.911):
And I had to kind of try it a bunch of different times in a bunch of different ways

Ashley Neese (00:30:26.312):
with a bunch of different tools to really make sure that,

Ashley Neese (00:30:28.512):
like,

Ashley Neese (00:30:29.392):
I had exhausted all my resources of trying to make it work.

Ashley Neese (00:30:31.993):
And,

Ashley Neese (00:30:32.473):
you know,

Ashley Neese (00:30:32.713):
as someone who is an AA for a long time and has been sober for a long time,

Ashley Neese (00:30:36.114):
it's like,

Ashley Neese (00:30:36.514):
it's that piece,

Ashley Neese (00:30:37.154):
too.

Ashley Neese (00:30:37.414):
It's like, I've exhausted all my resources.

Ashley Neese (00:30:40.455):
I've hit rock bottom.

Ashley Neese (00:30:41.335):
Like, I'm just kind of done.

Ashley Neese (00:30:43.215):
And that's kind of how it was when I quit drinking.

Ashley Neese (00:30:44.776):
I was like, yeah, I've tried it all.

Ashley Neese (00:30:46.316):
And I'm kind of done now.

Ashley Neese (00:30:47.636):
It's just not working anymore, you know?

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:30:50.837):
Yeah.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:30:50.997):
Yeah.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:30:51.497):
Yeah, I can definitely relate to that.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:30:52.899):
I am somebody who tends to like burn myself out on things more than like walk away

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:30:58.927):
when I first know they're done.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:31:01.831):
Speaking as someone who like literally got dumped in every relationship I've been

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:31:06.056):
in since high school.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:31:06.777):
Yeah.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:31:07.978):
except my current marriage.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:31:10.580):
But that's a different conversation.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:31:13.702):
Okay,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:31:15.764):
before we talk more,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:31:17.165):
I want to talk more about some of those realizations that have come up.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:31:21.067):
But briefly before we do that, how did your second book fit into that?

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:31:26.131):
And where did it happen?

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:31:27.912):
Because I know you were still on social media when the book came out and you were sharing it.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:31:31.994):
So I'd just love to hear a little bit more about Permission to Rest and how that

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:31:37.819):
Like anything you want to say about the experience of putting out that book or if

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:31:42.248):
it led to you stepping away from social media in any other ways.

Ashley Neese (00:31:47.063):
Yeah, I was actually, I had been on a big hiatus.

Ashley Neese (00:31:50.765):
Another one of my hiatuses when it was kind of getting,

Ashley Neese (00:31:53.867):
we're like six months out from launch from Permission to Rust,

Ashley Neese (00:31:56.328):
which came out in fall of 2023.

Ashley Neese (00:31:58.970):
And I got back on kind of at the encouragement of,

Ashley Neese (00:32:02.392):
you know,

Ashley Neese (00:32:02.772):
everyone else who was working on the book.

Ashley Neese (00:32:04.373):
And they're like, but you need to sell this on social media.

Ashley Neese (00:32:06.374):
And I'm like, but this feels so weird.

Ashley Neese (00:32:08.195):
Yeah.

Ashley Neese (00:32:09.196):
I'm selling Rust on a platform that's not Rustful.

Ashley Neese (00:32:12.079):
I don't know.

Ashley Neese (00:32:12.399):
Something about it just always felt so incongruent.

Ashley Neese (00:32:14.480):
But I also understand that this is how things are sold in today's market in a lot

Ashley Neese (00:32:19.224):
of different ways.

Ashley Neese (00:32:19.805):
And big publishers, I'm with a top five publisher, and that's what they want.

Ashley Neese (00:32:23.088):
They expect to see it, and they want all the things.

Ashley Neese (00:32:25.269):
So it's fine.

Ashley Neese (00:32:26.550):
It's kind of part of the contract.

Ashley Neese (00:32:28.532):
But...

Ashley Neese (00:32:29.893):
I was working on,

Ashley Neese (00:32:31.174):
I started Permission to Rest probably,

Ashley Neese (00:32:33.196):
let's see,

Ashley Neese (00:32:34.458):
How to Breathe came out in 2019.

Ashley Neese (00:32:36.159):
So I'd say beginning of 2020,

Ashley Neese (00:32:37.741):
kind of right before the pandemic is when I started working on Permission to Rest.

Ashley Neese (00:32:42.125):
And it had been on the back of my mind,

Ashley Neese (00:32:44.387):
I'd already been engaging with a lot of the practices and kind of doing a lot of

Ashley Neese (00:32:47.630):
those things.

Ashley Neese (00:32:48.291):
And then I decided that would be a nice thing.

Ashley Neese (00:32:50.453):
To me,

Ashley Neese (00:32:50.693):
it seemed like a nice,

Ashley Neese (00:32:51.513):
I don't want to say sequel,

Ashley Neese (00:32:52.854):
but like the next evolution of How to Breathe.

Ashley Neese (00:32:55.135):
The book itself is much more,

Ashley Neese (00:32:56.996):
I don't want to say academic,

Ashley Neese (00:32:58.756):
but it's definitely a lot more research.

Ashley Neese (00:33:00.757):
And there's a lot more research in the book.

Ashley Neese (00:33:02.318):
There's like five pages of footnotes in the back that I really had to push for with

Ashley Neese (00:33:06.399):
my publisher.

Ashley Neese (00:33:07.080):
They're like, this is an art, like a design forward book.

Ashley Neese (00:33:10.061):
Like we don't want, I'm like, I want my citations.

Ashley Neese (00:33:11.962):
Like at the time I was getting my, I'm no longer in my PhD program.

Ashley Neese (00:33:16.183):
That's a sidebar.

Ashley Neese (00:33:16.884):
But at the time I was also working on my PhD and I'm like, no, no.

Ashley Neese (00:33:20.265):
I'm a researcher.

Ashley Neese (00:33:21.026):
Like, I will have notes.

Ashley Neese (00:33:21.986):
Like, I will show my work.

Ashley Neese (00:33:23.547):
And I think that's also in the space of wellness something that,

Ashley Neese (00:33:26.229):
like,

Ashley Neese (00:33:27.089):
we just don't see a lot of.

Ashley Neese (00:33:28.250):
Like,

Ashley Neese (00:33:28.450):
so many people are taking ideas from different modalities or other teachers or

Ashley Neese (00:33:32.793):
other cultures even,

Ashley Neese (00:33:33.934):
and no one's citing anything.

Ashley Neese (00:33:35.315):
No one's giving anyone credit.

Ashley Neese (00:33:36.675):
It's just, like, kind of a mess.

Ashley Neese (00:33:37.996):
And as someone who grew up going to art school,

Ashley Neese (00:33:40.238):
it was always so important to be like,

Ashley Neese (00:33:41.819):
oh,

Ashley Neese (00:33:41.939):
no,

Ashley Neese (00:33:42.099):
this is my influence or I love this photographer or this genre or this period of

Ashley Neese (00:33:46.061):
art.

Ashley Neese (00:33:46.241):
And we're always kind of calling back that history.

Ashley Neese (00:33:48.243):
And

Ashley Neese (00:33:48.883):
I think that's important.

Ashley Neese (00:33:49.884):
It contextualizes things.

Ashley Neese (00:33:51.585):
It gives us an anchor.

Ashley Neese (00:33:52.746):
It kind of points to work that's already been done and kind of lets us be in this

Ashley Neese (00:33:56.749):
larger conversation,

Ashley Neese (00:33:57.850):
right?

Ashley Neese (00:33:58.190):
So anyway, that's a total sidebar, but always cite your sources, people.

Ashley Neese (00:34:02.614):
Please give credit where credit's due.

Ashley Neese (00:34:04.075):
It's so important.

Ashley Neese (00:34:05.496):
But I was working on the rest book while I was really learning to rest and while I

Ashley Neese (00:34:09.720):
was a new mom.

Ashley Neese (00:34:10.680):
And it's funny because I had friends say like,

Ashley Neese (00:34:13.100):
you're like the most tired person I know.

Ashley Neese (00:34:14.941):
Are you really qualified to write this book?

Ashley Neese (00:34:16.861):
Like, this is kind of weird.

Ashley Neese (00:34:18.302):
Like,

Ashley Neese (00:34:19.062):
I mean,

Ashley Neese (00:34:19.562):
in a very like sweet kind of fun,

Ashley Neese (00:34:21.102):
you know,

Ashley Neese (00:34:21.402):
fun way,

Ashley Neese (00:34:21.843):
but they're like,

Ashley Neese (00:34:22.663):
and they were like,

Ashley Neese (00:34:23.403):
oh wait,

Ashley Neese (00:34:23.803):
that's actually exactly why you should write this book because you're actually

Ashley Neese (00:34:26.724):
doing the thing and you're teaching your nervous system new tools for resting and

Ashley Neese (00:34:30.185):
you're seeing how important it is.

Ashley Neese (00:34:32.546):
And that was a big part of it.

Ashley Neese (00:34:33.466):
And it was also like, as someone who's gone through

Ashley Neese (00:34:36.587):
you know,

Ashley Neese (00:34:36.867):
many different cycles of burnout and had a lot of like APA access dysregulation in

Ashley Neese (00:34:41.668):
my system and different things.

Ashley Neese (00:34:42.988):
It's like the resting is so important.

Ashley Neese (00:34:45.549):
And,

Ashley Neese (00:34:45.849):
you know,

Ashley Neese (00:34:46.149):
I grew up like so many of us did thinking that like rest is the thing we get after

Ashley Neese (00:34:50.070):
when we retire,

Ashley Neese (00:34:50.770):
when we're like 70 or something.

Ashley Neese (00:34:52.090):
It's like you work really hard and just keep climbing that corporate ladder.

Ashley Neese (00:34:55.531):
And eventually, if you make enough money, you can lay down and take a nap.

Ashley Neese (00:34:58.852):
It's like, well...

Ashley Neese (00:35:01.789):
Right.

Ashley Neese (00:35:03.271):
And I'm like, but I'm tired.

Ashley Neese (00:35:04.872):
I need a nap now.

Ashley Neese (00:35:05.853):
Like, I don't want to wait like 40 more years for a nap.

Ashley Neese (00:35:09.137):
So that was a big part of it, too.

Ashley Neese (00:35:10.959):
Just sitting with all the discomfort and all of the programming,

Ashley Neese (00:35:17.246):
both from my family,

Ashley Neese (00:35:18.287):
both from culture,

Ashley Neese (00:35:19.508):
both from,

Ashley Neese (00:35:20.009):
you know,

Ashley Neese (00:35:20.850):
systems that were really telling me like,

Ashley Neese (00:35:23.252):
no,

Ashley Neese (00:35:23.452):
no.

Ashley Neese (00:35:24.150):
Your worth is measured by your productivity.

Ashley Neese (00:35:26.571):
And as someone who is also was then on social media,

Ashley Neese (00:35:28.972):
it's like,

Ashley Neese (00:35:29.413):
oh,

Ashley Neese (00:35:29.513):
well,

Ashley Neese (00:35:29.673):
if that's true,

Ashley Neese (00:35:30.253):
then the more I post,

Ashley Neese (00:35:31.694):
the more valuable I am,

Ashley Neese (00:35:32.894):
right?

Ashley Neese (00:35:33.175):
The more people who see my stuff,

Ashley Neese (00:35:35.015):
the more important I am and the more value I have as a human being on this planet.

Ashley Neese (00:35:39.658):
So it was writing that book really was like just dislodging all of this stuff.

Ashley Neese (00:35:45.081):
And it was so

Ashley Neese (00:35:46.542):
hard and so emotional.

Ashley Neese (00:35:48.023):
And it was really one of the main drivers to kind of get me off social media completely.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:35:52.526):
Yeah.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:35:54.468):
Oh, that makes so much sense.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:35:56.449):
Just the way you traced that sort of really insidious logic,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:36:00.232):
like a modus operandi that you were like operating under...

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:36:03.434):
That sense of my worth is tied to my productivity.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:36:07.896):
On social media, the most productive thing I can do is post.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:36:12.157):
So the more I post, the more I'm worth.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:36:15.599):
And the more people see it, the more important I am.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:36:19.780):
It hurts, but it feels very true.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:36:22.361):
I know that story.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:36:23.682):
It is one that was encoded in me for many years.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:36:26.883):
And I think it's the one that you...

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:36:29.264):
kind of have to buy into to be an influencer because that's the logic of

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:36:33.406):
influencing so i'm curious then like when you left social media and you pulled out

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:36:41.991):
of this logic of like posting is no longer productive maybe i don't even care about

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:36:47.854):
being productive anymore

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:36:51.426):
What started to unravel and what started to make sense?

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:36:55.910):
Like how did your life and your work change once you stopped operating under this

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:37:01.554):
sort of like post first scroll more mentality?

Ashley Neese (00:37:09.460):
It's interesting sitting here like a year and a half later and kind of looking back.

Ashley Neese (00:37:14.264):
And I think it's nice to have the space to be able to look back.

Ashley Neese (00:37:18.618):
But in the beginning,

Ashley Neese (00:37:19.458):
I would say the first like three to six months were really challenging for me.

Ashley Neese (00:37:23.840):
And,

Ashley Neese (00:37:24.180):
you know,

Ashley Neese (00:37:24.480):
once I got past the initial just picking up my phone every two seconds challenge,

Ashley Neese (00:37:28.502):
then it became this almost this anxious feeling of,

Ashley Neese (00:37:32.923):
but what am I going to do?

Ashley Neese (00:37:35.284):
Like, how are people going to see me?

Ashley Neese (00:37:37.932):
Like, how am I going to stay relevant?

Ashley Neese (00:37:40.053):
How am I going to still be important?

Ashley Neese (00:37:41.814):
Like,

Ashley Neese (00:37:41.994):
it was really then this deeper layer,

Ashley Neese (00:37:43.615):
like what we've been talking about,

Ashley Neese (00:37:44.895):
you know,

Ashley Neese (00:37:45.176):
so much about what permission to rest was about.

Ashley Neese (00:37:48.097):
But it's like I still kind of had some tether to social media.

Ashley Neese (00:37:51.018):
But once the tether was gone,

Ashley Neese (00:37:52.219):
then it was even more intense to really face a lot of that stuff and really feel

Ashley Neese (00:37:56.361):
how shitty I felt and feel how sad I was that I bought into this

Ashley Neese (00:38:02.944):
lie, you know, that I believe the lie, right?

Ashley Neese (00:38:05.866):
And it's not even that it's necessarily my fault or that it's,

Ashley Neese (00:38:09.448):
you know,

Ashley Neese (00:38:09.768):
there's,

Ashley Neese (00:38:10.248):
it's not about placing blame or taking too much responsibility,

Ashley Neese (00:38:12.990):
but just be like,

Ashley Neese (00:38:13.851):
oh God,

Ashley Neese (00:38:14.231):
I've spent so many years of my life feeling like this,

Ashley Neese (00:38:17.293):
like this sucks.

Ashley Neese (00:38:18.233):
And also go like oscillating between that and like, well, I better do something.

Ashley Neese (00:38:22.275):
I better write another book really quick.

Ashley Neese (00:38:24.597):
I better like launch a course.

Ashley Neese (00:38:26.098):
I better like show everyone that I'm still doing shit on Substack or whatever.

Ashley Neese (00:38:29.800):
And

Ashley Neese (00:38:30.580):
And I tried that in a quiet way and like in a softer way.

Ashley Neese (00:38:34.661):
I launched some,

Ashley Neese (00:38:35.742):
you know,

Ashley Neese (00:38:36.042):
immersions on Substack that were really fun,

Ashley Neese (00:38:38.102):
that were,

Ashley Neese (00:38:39.122):
you know,

Ashley Neese (00:38:39.603):
successful in terms of,

Ashley Neese (00:38:41.883):
you know,

Ashley Neese (00:38:42.223):
not just a financial piece,

Ashley Neese (00:38:43.384):
but like I felt like it was really good to just connect with people and be,

Ashley Neese (00:38:46.505):
you know,

Ashley Neese (00:38:47.485):
in community with people.

Ashley Neese (00:38:49.125):
But it still wasn't quite it, right?

Ashley Neese (00:38:51.126):
It wasn't really scratching that itch in the same way.

Ashley Neese (00:38:54.467):
And it was just still really uncomfortable.

Ashley Neese (00:38:57.128):
And I...

Ashley Neese (00:38:59.099):
I got really deep into, around that time is when I got really deep into psychedelic work.

Ashley Neese (00:39:03.761):
And I'm actually, I've been for a lot, no one really knows this.

Ashley Neese (00:39:06.542):
I've never even talked about this,

Ashley Neese (00:39:08.282):
but I've been for the last year and a half in a really deep psychedelic therapy

Ashley Neese (00:39:13.024):
training to be able to guide people in psychedelic work.

Ashley Neese (00:39:16.105):
But I started doing my own psychedelic work because I noticed that I just,

Ashley Neese (00:39:19.866):
I still had these places that I couldn't quite

Ashley Neese (00:39:23.287):
get to in terms of my healing.

Ashley Neese (00:39:24.768):
There was still some level of unworthiness.

Ashley Neese (00:39:28.190):
There was still some pieces of shame.

Ashley Neese (00:39:30.851):
There were still some trappings of, I just have to do in order to be.

Ashley Neese (00:39:36.074):
And I really wanted to shift that narrative.

Ashley Neese (00:39:39.156):
And the psychedelics have really helped me with that and really

Ashley Neese (00:39:42.077):
do some deeper level of healing around all those pieces.

Ashley Neese (00:39:44.978):
But I would say now it's just,

Ashley Neese (00:39:48.659):
it's so,

Ashley Neese (00:39:49.320):
it's,

Ashley Neese (00:39:49.580):
my life is just so different,

Ashley Neese (00:39:51.040):
you know,

Ashley Neese (00:39:51.600):
and it's different and it's not,

Ashley Neese (00:39:52.961):
but I would say the things that are different are my attention.

Ashley Neese (00:39:56.222):
My attention is just, I feel like it's more mine

Ashley Neese (00:39:59.056):
Yeah.

Ashley Neese (00:40:15.319):
I'm not tapping out for that dopamine hit every three minutes.

Ashley Neese (00:40:20.823):
Which sometimes means I have to sit in a lot more discomfort and a lot more of my

Ashley Neese (00:40:26.688):
own anxiety and a lot more worries.

Ashley Neese (00:40:28.849):
And I feel like especially since the election, there's just...

Ashley Neese (00:40:34.474):
Yeah,

Ashley Neese (00:40:35.875):
there's just been a lot and there's definitely been times where I'm like,

Ashley Neese (00:40:38.575):
maybe I should just get back on.

Ashley Neese (00:40:40.016):
This would be a nice little reprieve from the insanity.

Ashley Neese (00:40:43.677):
But I also know that it's not going to be a reprieve for me ultimately.

Ashley Neese (00:40:47.379):
So I stay away and I go pet my horses or go out with my kids and just do the things

Ashley Neese (00:40:51.780):
that I know to do to resource myself.

Ashley Neese (00:40:54.241):
And I think that's been a big piece is just where can I find resources that are

Ashley Neese (00:40:58.422):
actually regenerative and restorative?

Ashley Neese (00:41:00.422):
How can I resource myself?

Ashley Neese (00:41:02.183):
How can I self-soothe in ways that are really helping me stay grounded and present

Ashley Neese (00:41:07.664):
in the ways that I want to rather than just checking out,

Ashley Neese (00:41:10.064):
right?

Ashley Neese (00:41:10.304):
And as someone who has a long history of dissociation,

Ashley Neese (00:41:12.525):
like Instagram and social media is great because I'm totally checked out in some

Ashley Neese (00:41:16.586):
ways and it's awesome.

Ashley Neese (00:41:17.486):
But it's also, you know, I become a person who, and I think I would say this in the past,

Ashley Neese (00:41:23.467):
But with all the like, like the crutch of social media, right?

Ashley Neese (00:41:26.669):
And the crutch of being able to just pick up my phone whenever,

Ashley Neese (00:41:29.530):
like now I just really want to feel more and feel more of everything.

Ashley Neese (00:41:35.553):
I love that.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:41:37.114):
I really want to feel more and feel more of everything.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:41:39.675):
That's really beautiful.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:41:42.556):
Do you ever wish you had like stayed on that meteoric wellness rise?

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:41:49.720):
Like,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:41:52.122):
Do you look at the other people who I imagine were on some of those panels that

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:41:56.667):
you've referenced and like have these very like Hollywood,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:42:00.311):
you know,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:42:01.812):
millions of followers,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:42:03.274):
whatever now careers and think like that could have been me.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:42:07.338):
Like, do you grapple with that or not?

Ashley Neese (00:42:12.347):
I love this question.

Ashley Neese (00:42:13.749):
And absolutely.

Ashley Neese (00:42:14.850):
And some of these,

Ashley Neese (00:42:15.431):
you know,

Ashley Neese (00:42:15.852):
some of these wellness folks are some of my closest friends,

Ashley Neese (00:42:19.516):
you know,

Ashley Neese (00:42:19.837):
still to this day who have these very massive,

Ashley Neese (00:42:23.962):
like really impactful careers on like huge,

Ashley Neese (00:42:27.427):
huge scale.

Ashley Neese (00:42:28.248):
And it's

Ashley Neese (00:42:29.369):
It's awesome.

Ashley Neese (00:42:29.969):
And it's so amazing in so many ways.

Ashley Neese (00:42:31.710):
And I'm so like genuinely just like their biggest fans and their biggest cheerleaders.

Ashley Neese (00:42:36.772):
And I definitely have moments less so now.

Ashley Neese (00:42:39.573):
But I think especially as I was coming off social media, that was a big part of it.

Ashley Neese (00:42:43.255):
I was like, at least I again, I have that tether, like I have that one foot in this world.

Ashley Neese (00:42:47.056):
So I can kind of seem like I'm still where I was five years ago,

Ashley Neese (00:42:51.838):
even though I'm like totally not.

Ashley Neese (00:42:54.039):
Not mentally, not like emotionally, not financially, like nothing.

Ashley Neese (00:42:57.862):
So it's really different now.

Ashley Neese (00:43:00.563):
But yeah, I have had to go through.

Ashley Neese (00:43:03.706):
It's almost like grieving a life that I could have had.

Ashley Neese (00:43:08.129):
It's a death.

Ashley Neese (00:43:09.129):
It's a loss.

Ashley Neese (00:43:10.110):
And I've gone through a lot of different waves of grief and different times of

Ashley Neese (00:43:13.592):
grief around that.

Ashley Neese (00:43:15.854):
And for different reasons.

Ashley Neese (00:43:16.994):
I mean,

Ashley Neese (00:43:17.315):
one of the reasons being that I really want to just be able to support my friends

Ashley Neese (00:43:20.657):
and not have that like

Ashley Neese (00:43:22.642):
I don't know.

Ashley Neese (00:43:23.323):
I think jealousy and envy are great.

Ashley Neese (00:43:25.104):
I think they point us back to our own deeper work, right?

Ashley Neese (00:43:27.807):
They're portals for growth, of course, and I've been grateful for that.

Ashley Neese (00:43:32.351):
And I have definitely had moments where I've been like,

Ashley Neese (00:43:35.915):
oh,

Ashley Neese (00:43:36.115):
I could have X,

Ashley Neese (00:43:37.376):
Y,

Ashley Neese (00:43:37.476):
or Z,

Ashley Neese (00:43:37.997):
and that would have been great.

Ashley Neese (00:43:39.518):
But I'll tell this one little story because I feel like it's a really important one.

Ashley Neese (00:43:43.560):
And it was an important one on my journey.

Ashley Neese (00:43:45.001):
There was this woman, very, very famous.

Ashley Neese (00:43:47.743):
She was an intuitive to the stars in Hollywood.

Ashley Neese (00:43:50.004):
And I looked up to her for a long time.

Ashley Neese (00:43:51.625):
She's older than us, like, probably like by 15 years or so.

Ashley Neese (00:43:55.470):
She was super famous, wrote a book a long time ago and was like, she even worked for the LAPD.

Ashley Neese (00:43:59.996):
Like she would like,

Ashley Neese (00:44:00.717):
she was a crazy medium and she'd be like,

Ashley Neese (00:44:02.720):
oh,

Ashley Neese (00:44:02.880):
this child is like over here in Santa Monica and this house and this floor.

Ashley Neese (00:44:06.405):
Like she was just super, super gifted.

Ashley Neese (00:44:08.948):
And I always looked up to her.

Ashley Neese (00:44:10.566):
Anyway,

Ashley Neese (00:44:10.806):
I was at this influencer event party and she happened to be there,

Ashley Neese (00:44:13.488):
which was rare because she didn't have a lot of sightings of her.

Ashley Neese (00:44:15.850):
She was very,

Ashley Neese (00:44:17.231):
very famous,

Ashley Neese (00:44:18.151):
very well-known,

Ashley Neese (00:44:19.092):
but she also was like kind of kept to herself in a way.

Ashley Neese (00:44:22.034):
So she was at this party and I had just led this breathwork session and I was

Ashley Neese (00:44:26.137):
pregnant at the time and

Ashley Neese (00:44:28.482):
had already left LA and was like living up in the Bay Area with my partner at the time.

Ashley Neese (00:44:32.605):
And it was in this phase of grappling,

Ashley Neese (00:44:34.787):
like missing LA and kind of missing that life,

Ashley Neese (00:44:37.409):
but then also really wanting to put down roots and like have a different kind of a

Ashley Neese (00:44:40.432):
life.

Ashley Neese (00:44:41.412):
And so I was kind of living between worlds and I loved this class.

Ashley Neese (00:44:44.415):
And then she came up to me afterwards and I was totally like starstruck.

Ashley Neese (00:44:47.237):
And I'm like, oh my God, she's coming over to me like, ah, like this is so cool.

Ashley Neese (00:44:50.780):
Like what's going to happen?

Ashley Neese (00:44:51.741):
You know?

Ashley Neese (00:44:52.521):
And she was so grounded and so present and so calm.

Ashley Neese (00:44:56.886):
And I don't even remember exactly what she said,

Ashley Neese (00:44:59.990):
but she just came up to me and stood pretty close to me.

Ashley Neese (00:45:02.533):
And she was like, you don't belong here.

Ashley Neese (00:45:05.476):
She was like, you don't need to be here anymore.

Ashley Neese (00:45:08.055):
Like all this.

Ashley Neese (00:45:09.236):
And she was kind of like pointing not to the specific people,

Ashley Neese (00:45:11.818):
but just like,

Ashley Neese (00:45:12.418):
you know,

Ashley Neese (00:45:12.718):
what was happening?

Ashley Neese (00:45:13.339):
Like the whole influencer scene, the whole kind of L.A.

Ashley Neese (00:45:16.141):
thing,

Ashley Neese (00:45:16.701):
like looking around and we're up at this house in Hollywood and there's like this

Ashley Neese (00:45:19.784):
whole view of everything.

Ashley Neese (00:45:20.684):
It's like so I was like, this is the pinnacle.

Ashley Neese (00:45:22.566):
Like I fucking made it right.

Ashley Neese (00:45:23.867):
I'm here.

Ashley Neese (00:45:24.247):
And she's like, this isn't you.

Ashley Neese (00:45:26.188):
She's like, this actually isn't you.

Ashley Neese (00:45:28.490):
She's like, your energy needs something different.

Ashley Neese (00:45:30.573):
You need something different.

Ashley Neese (00:45:32.175):
And I was like, holy shit.

Ashley Neese (00:45:35.800):
And it was like,

Ashley Neese (00:45:36.741):
I felt like for the first time in so long,

Ashley Neese (00:45:38.784):
someone was actually seeing me,

Ashley Neese (00:45:40.947):
you know,

Ashley Neese (00:45:41.247):
not what I was projecting,

Ashley Neese (00:45:42.309):
not what I was teaching,

Ashley Neese (00:45:43.130):
not even like,

Ashley Neese (00:45:44.151):
you know the physical me but just like she was really seeing into my soul in this

Ashley Neese (00:45:47.353):
particular way and i never forgot that and i was like yeah she's right she's right

Ashley Neese (00:45:52.517):
you know this isn't me and not because again i'm better than this or there's

Ashley Neese (00:45:55.939):
something even wrong with this but my life was going in a different direction and i

Ashley Neese (00:45:59.721):
was so scared to let go and she really helped me see that no it's okay like you can

(00:46:04.064):
let go of this and like you're gonna be fine wow what a gift jill if you're

(00:46:09.808):
listening thank you

(00:46:13.374):
And yeah,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:46:14.174):
what a gift to actually get a clear channeled message like that in a moment when

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:46:21.417):
you are between worlds.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:46:23.037):
And I think that it can be so hard to say that or to recognize it or discern it for ourselves.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:46:29.780):
But there is that noticing.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:46:31.300):
We can sense there's that inkling.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:46:33.221):
I mean, I think

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:46:35.422):
it just becomes more and more challenging.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:46:37.123):
Like the more success we find in one world,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:46:40.045):
the more stories we have for why that's the one for us.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:46:43.588):
And then the harder it can be to step away from it, even if we know it's not quite right.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:46:49.492):
I think that this has been something I've grappled with recently,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:46:52.935):
like in my,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:46:53.955):
like something I've grappled with in my own work.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:46:55.837):
I mean,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:46:56.037):
I can think of like when I left social media,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:46:58.559):
I did not have any of the success on Instagram that you did,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:47:01.341):
but I wanted it so bad.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:47:03.382):
that it was really hard to just recognize like I wasn't going to get it.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:47:06.884):
Like I could not meritocracy my way to 20,000 Instagram followers.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:47:14.527):
My work was just not landing there.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:47:16.308):
Like it wasn't going to go viral.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:47:18.309):
It wasn't going to grow.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:47:19.109):
And that was OK.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:47:19.809):
But it was hard for me to acknowledge that.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:47:22.671):
And I see I think for many of us,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:47:24.972):
it's like we have a dream that we want and it's just like not coming true for us.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:47:30.074):
Which means it's probably not meant for us, at least in this lifetime, in this moment.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:47:36.844):
And,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:47:37.725):
you know,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:47:38.086):
leaving social media eventually got me to this podcast,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:47:41.611):
which I love doing and feels completely,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:47:43.633):
totally my path.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:47:45.779):
But then also,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:47:46.780):
even more recently,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:47:47.720):
I think I found a lot of success through softer sounds and podcast editing,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:47:53.305):
but that's also not quite right.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:47:54.886):
And so I've been taking these steps to plan a sabbatical for 2026 and move away

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:47:59.929):
from editing because...

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:48:02.031):
But it's scary.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:48:03.432):
But like because your own success proves to you that like that's what you should be doing.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:48:08.574):
And even when the success lessens and it's like not really working anymore,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:48:12.555):
the fact that you used to have it makes it even harder to let go of sometimes.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:48:16.917):
So I wish there had been a Jill telling me to get off Instagram sooner, I guess.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:48:24.181):
And there were many friends in my life telling me to take a sabbatical from Softer

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:48:27.662):
Sounds long before I did.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:48:28.963):
So thank you to those people and your clarity and all of that.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:48:34.625):
But yeah,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:48:36.666):
I think that's a really beautiful and I just appreciate that so much that like the

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:48:43.708):
the like tension and liminality of that moment of leading that breathwork session

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:48:48.810):
in a beautiful house in the Hollywood Hills of reaching that pinnacle of like I

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:48:52.392):
have fucking made it.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:48:54.466):
And also of the one person there who like sees things clearer than anyone else

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:48:59.268):
being like,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:48:59.809):
you don't belong here,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:49:01.269):
you belong elsewhere.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:49:02.410):
Wow.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:49:02.490):
I want to hear more about what your life and your business really looks like now.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:49:12.414):
So you've talked about like you left LA,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:49:15.516):
you have three kids now,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:49:17.677):
you live,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:49:18.317):
I don't think it's actually on a farm,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:49:20.258):
but it always feels like a farm in my mind.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:49:22.259):
Yeah.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:49:25.533):
And your life looks pretty different than it did at the peak of like LA wellness

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:49:30.196):
influencer lifestyle,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:49:31.536):
but also in a funny way,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:49:33.437):
your business looks different,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:49:34.658):
but also similar to some of the early things that you were doing.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:49:38.180):
So could you tell us a little bit more about what your business is like now and how

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:49:42.342):
that's evolved over the past few years since you left social media?

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:49:45.724):
Yeah.

Ashley Neese (00:49:46.943):
Yeah, it's interesting.

Ashley Neese (00:49:48.384):
Like,

Ashley Neese (00:49:49.164):
I know we've talked about this kind of this endless like escalator growth and then

Ashley Neese (00:49:53.806):
also this concept of like scaling down right in degrowth.

Ashley Neese (00:49:59.169):
And I just love the way you always frame that because it makes sense to me.

Ashley Neese (00:50:02.010):
And as someone who for so many years was just like,

Ashley Neese (00:50:05.532):
yes,

Ashley Neese (00:50:05.772):
bigger,

Ashley Neese (00:50:06.152):
more expansion,

Ashley Neese (00:50:07.012):
more corporate clients,

Ashley Neese (00:50:08.333):
more retreats,

Ashley Neese (00:50:09.113):
more this,

Ashley Neese (00:50:09.934):
you know,

Ashley Neese (00:50:10.714):
more digital offerings,

Ashley Neese (00:50:11.794):
just bigger,

Ashley Neese (00:50:12.295):
bigger,

Ashley Neese (00:50:12.535):
bigger,

Ashley Neese (00:50:12.755):
bigger.

Ashley Neese (00:50:13.095):
And to be in this place now where

Ashley Neese (00:50:15.636):
Yeah,

Ashley Neese (00:50:15.877):
like you mentioned,

Ashley Neese (00:50:16.417):
I have three kids,

Ashley Neese (00:50:17.619):
all under seven,

Ashley Neese (00:50:18.880):
and we live on a,

Ashley Neese (00:50:22.044):
we call it a rescue ranch because we have so many rescue horses here.

Ashley Neese (00:50:24.927):
It's not a nonprofit officially, but we're basically a rescue ranch.

Ashley Neese (00:50:29.132):
And it's amazing, like being with the animals and the horses and the land and all the things.

Ashley Neese (00:50:35.018):
But what I have found is that as I,

Ashley Neese (00:50:38.339):
you know,

Ashley Neese (00:50:38.659):
tend to our children and the land and these animals,

Ashley Neese (00:50:42.241):
I have a different level of bandwidth.

Ashley Neese (00:50:43.881):
And so my business just has to look different naturally,

Ashley Neese (00:50:46.442):
not even because I'm tired a lot of the time,

Ashley Neese (00:50:48.683):
but just because I have so much output going to all of the beings,

Ashley Neese (00:50:54.065):
all the sentient beings that I'm taking care of and the land that I'm tending to

Ashley Neese (00:50:57.266):
and my partner and myself and all the things that I

Ashley Neese (00:51:01.427):
Having that kind of one-to-many output just didn't resonate for my system anymore.

Ashley Neese (00:51:05.890):
I was like, I don't want to be one to 100 or one to 50 or one to whatever.

Ashley Neese (00:51:12.233):
I was like, I actually want to be one-to-one.

Ashley Neese (00:51:15.415):
That's actually what feels grounding to my nervous system right now.

Ashley Neese (00:51:18.597):
That's what I have capacity for now.

Ashley Neese (00:51:20.458):
That's also what lights me up.

Ashley Neese (00:51:21.958):
You know,

Ashley Neese (00:51:22.258):
I've talked to a lot of practitioners over the years and some people get really

Ashley Neese (00:51:25.319):
burnt out.

Ashley Neese (00:51:25.859):
They're like, I can't sit with clients one-on-one, especially with the type of work that I do.

Ashley Neese (00:51:30.560):
I mean, folks who come to Breathwork, there's usually always some trauma in there.

Ashley Neese (00:51:35.381):
They've already tried a bunch of stuff that hasn't worked for them.

Ashley Neese (00:51:37.862):
They're feeling really stuck.

Ashley Neese (00:51:39.042):
They're feeling anxious.

Ashley Neese (00:51:40.023):
They're needing a lot of support, right?

Ashley Neese (00:51:41.403):
Yeah.

Ashley Neese (00:51:42.023):
And so,

Ashley Neese (00:51:42.583):
you know,

Ashley Neese (00:51:42.783):
I have colleagues who are like,

Ashley Neese (00:51:43.783):
I can't just sit in session like that hour after hour.

Ashley Neese (00:51:46.004):
And I'm like, I've always been the opposite.

Ashley Neese (00:51:47.644):
Like working with people gives me energy.

Ashley Neese (00:51:49.684):
And doing the larger stuff on mass on the internet has always felt really draining to me.

Ashley Neese (00:51:56.065):
I love teaching in person.

Ashley Neese (00:51:57.366):
That's super fun.

Ashley Neese (00:51:58.086):
That lights me up.

Ashley Neese (00:51:58.986):
I could do that for hours.

Ashley Neese (00:52:00.306):
But the, you know, one-to-many online has just never totally resonated.

Ashley Neese (00:52:04.647):
I've tried to,

Ashley Neese (00:52:06.247):
you know,

Ashley Neese (00:52:06.487):
during the pandemic,

Ashley Neese (00:52:07.207):
like so many of us had to take our businesses online and I did so much stuff like

Ashley Neese (00:52:10.788):
that.

Ashley Neese (00:52:11.048):
But

Ashley Neese (00:52:11.870):
After a while, it was just really clear that it wasn't working.

Ashley Neese (00:52:15.060):
And it also wasn't,

Ashley Neese (00:52:16.461):
I thought it was going to be so much more glamorous and I was going to be making so

Ashley Neese (00:52:18.982):
much more money than I actually was.

Ashley Neese (00:52:20.263):
So I'll just be honest about that too.

Ashley Neese (00:52:22.123):
It was not glamorous and I was not making enough money.

Ashley Neese (00:52:25.085):
So I was like, okay, I've got, you know, all these people paying me $5.

Ashley Neese (00:52:28.807):
I'm like, and that's great.

Ashley Neese (00:52:30.528):
And I also want to have work that is accessible.

Ashley Neese (00:52:33.089):
That's why in my sub stack, I have, you know, breathwork classes.

Ashley Neese (00:52:35.710):
There's a whole library.

Ashley Neese (00:52:36.671):
There's a lot of stuff that it's at a lower price point that is really important to me.

Ashley Neese (00:52:41.033):
But one-on-one work is, has,

Ashley Neese (00:52:44.955):
I'm a teacher's teacher.

Ashley Neese (00:52:45.856):
That's kind of who I've always been.

Ashley Neese (00:52:47.557):
My first yoga teacher told me that.

Ashley Neese (00:52:48.939):
He's like, you're like a true teacher's teacher.

Ashley Neese (00:52:50.861):
And that's not glamorous.

Ashley Neese (00:52:52.522):
That's not like sexy.

Ashley Neese (00:52:53.943):
That's not like selling out stadiums.

Ashley Neese (00:52:56.806):
That's not like any of the things.

Ashley Neese (00:52:58.347):
And

Ashley Neese (00:52:59.108):
I have really come more home to myself and my practice and just realized that,

Ashley Neese (00:53:03.432):
like,

Ashley Neese (00:53:04.172):
actually,

Ashley Neese (00:53:04.572):
this is what fits into my family life.

Ashley Neese (00:53:06.874):
This is what makes sense financially.

Ashley Neese (00:53:08.716):
And also, this is what fucking lights me up.

Ashley Neese (00:53:10.878):
Like, I just want to sit with people.

Ashley Neese (00:53:12.499):
Like,

Ashley Neese (00:53:12.679):
that's actually where I feel like my real gifts are,

Ashley Neese (00:53:16.482):
where a lot of my gifts are,

Ashley Neese (00:53:17.443):
I should say.

Ashley Neese (00:53:18.183):
And it's something that I was...

Ashley Neese (00:53:20.205):
trying to run from for a while, honestly, too.

Ashley Neese (00:53:22.387):
Like I was like, no, no, that's not it.

Ashley Neese (00:53:24.128):
Like everyone who's like big and better, like doesn't do that anymore.

Ashley Neese (00:53:28.131):
Like no one sees clients one-on-one and it's like, well, excuse me, that's what I want to do.

Ashley Neese (00:53:33.595):
So I reopened my practice in September of this year and it's just,

Ashley Neese (00:53:37.778):
it's been sweet,

Ashley Neese (00:53:38.539):
it's been slow,

Ashley Neese (00:53:39.359):
it's been sustainable and it's just been exactly what I've needed.

Ashley Neese (00:53:42.982):
And yeah, it's just, if this is not, if you had told me

Ashley Neese (00:53:48.061):
even five years ago, this would be my life.

Ashley Neese (00:53:51.764):
I'd be like, maybe, we'll see.

Ashley Neese (00:53:54.046):
We'll see about that.

Ashley Neese (00:53:56.308):
I'm like, living in the country, maybe.

Ashley Neese (00:53:58.611):
And to your point, it's different out here.

Ashley Neese (00:54:01.653):
When I was in bigger cities, I had different

Ashley Neese (00:54:04.366):
There was just more people, like more kind of like-minded people.

Ashley Neese (00:54:06.667):
There are more people that are into the kind of same stuff that I'm into.

Ashley Neese (00:54:09.007):
And that doesn't mean that we have to be aligned on every single thing.

Ashley Neese (00:54:11.588):
Of course, that's not what I'm talking about, but it's different out here.

Ashley Neese (00:54:14.348):
The community is a lot smaller.

Ashley Neese (00:54:15.668):
It's a lot harder to tap into.

Ashley Neese (00:54:17.849):
People come out here because they don't want to be bothered by people.

Ashley Neese (00:54:20.589):
So they're like, I live on five acres, so I don't have to freaking talk to anyone.

Ashley Neese (00:54:24.810):
So don't talk to me.

Ashley Neese (00:54:26.091):
I'm like, okay, cool.

Ashley Neese (00:54:27.131):
I get you.

Ashley Neese (00:54:27.591):
I get you.

Ashley Neese (00:54:28.391):
But yeah, it's just so many of those things are different, but I am...

Ashley Neese (00:54:33.263):
Yeah,

Ashley Neese (00:54:33.583):
it's it's just it feels really good and honest just to say that I am much more

Ashley Neese (00:54:39.968):
present and in so many ways much happier,

Ashley Neese (00:54:43.530):
you know,

Ashley Neese (00:54:43.950):
and I don't have a lot of the stuff that I had before.

Ashley Neese (00:54:46.632):
I had different stuff now.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:54:49.031):
And I'm just struck by the simplicity of so many aspects of your life.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:54:56.022):
And that doesn't mean it's easy.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:54:57.705):
Parenting three children is never going to be easy, I can't imagine.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:55:01.070):
But like, just the way that...

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:55:04.255):
Like your business is so simple now.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:55:06.177):
It's one-on-one clients and Substack.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:55:08.919):
And like that is the ecosystem and that's what's working for you.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:55:12.502):
And I love how you've sort of rebuilt that,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:55:15.664):
not from the sort of shoulds and how-tos of online business,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:55:22.990):
but from remembering and recovering like what has always felt good to you.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:55:28.274):
Yeah.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:55:29.415):
And it sounds like much of that is mirrored in your personal life with your partner

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:55:34.559):
and your kids and your horses and the land.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:55:44.967):
And this is something that I kind of accidentally end up working with plenty of

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:55:49.970):
clients on,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:55:50.730):
which is just this sort of like permission to do more or less depending on what the

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:55:56.874):
rest of their life is demanding of them.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:55:59.796):
I find that I have worked with many, many, many parents and mothers specifically who are like

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:56:12.399):
mired in grief in the gap between what their work used to be and what it can be now

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:56:20.845):
based on how much time they want and need to spend with their kids and I feel like

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:56:28.271):
almost every person I work with what parent or not actually this year is like just

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:56:34.675):
sort of grieving this like I actually can't do it all I actually can't have it all

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:56:40.157):
I actually have to have a priority.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:56:42.798):
I'm like,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:56:44.299):
I can't actually pick the career that my 23-year-old self envisioned and the family

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:56:50.302):
that my 33,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:56:50.882):
43,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:56:50.882):
53-year-old self wants.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:56:51.683):
Like, I can't have both.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:56:52.383):
And

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:56:56.565):
The hilarity of this to me is that my college graduation speaker was the woman who

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:57:02.688):
wrote the like Time Magazine essay on you can't have it all.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:57:05.809):
Like she wrote like the first one.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:57:07.070):
And when I graduated college, I was like, this is fucked.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:57:10.692):
Lady, you can't tell me that I can't have it all.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:57:14.674):
You're so wrong.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:57:16.074):
I could have it all.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:57:19.276):
And now, like 13 years later or whatever, I'm like, oh, she was correct.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:57:26.178):
Perhaps she was speaking to the wrong audience,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:57:27.780):
but she was foretelling the future of what I would experience.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:57:31.485):
And it's hard.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:57:33.147):
And I think especially like it's hard for all people.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:57:35.830):
It's hard for all parents.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:57:36.872):
It's hard for all mothers.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:57:38.754):
But what I'll come back to is like there is something uniquely hard about the

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:57:43.059):
self-employment space where

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:57:45.342):
Where you're not like just in your workplace where you have you're tracking like a

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:57:50.387):
specific number of people and how well they're doing.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:57:52.930):
You're like literally on the Internet looking at everybody being like,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:57:55.612):
well,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:57:55.793):
they have this and they have this and they have that and they have this.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:57:58.856):
And like maybe I should have that.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:58:00.077):
All right.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:58:00.357):
Like it's impossible to not compare yourself to these people and.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:58:05.462):
And to not have friends and peers who you're like,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:58:09.025):
wow,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:58:09.906):
look at them living the life I thought I wanted and I thought I would have.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:58:14.389):
And I just appreciate how willing you've been to talk through all of that and to

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:58:19.853):
open up and share all of that with us.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:58:23.513):
For folks who've enjoyed our conversation,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:58:25.274):
I obviously want to send them to your Substack,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:58:28.797):
thedeepercall.substack.com.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:58:31.759):
You write so beautifully and reflectively about your life there.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:58:35.522):
And something I really appreciate about your work is that I am like the first

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:58:41.587):
person to bristle at like false performativity.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:58:46.831):
When people write about social media and wellness or even parenting or like living

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:58:51.595):
a slower lifestyle,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:58:54.344):
For me,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:58:54.824):
it's always been super important to only read things about that or learn from

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:58:59.405):
people who are like living it and really living it out and practicing it.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:59:04.426):
And what I appreciate about your work is you're very clear about what you're grappling with.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:59:09.427):
But as we have been colleagues and friends for a few years now,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:59:13.188):
I've just watched you take step after step.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:59:16.909):
into deeper integrity with yourself,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:59:19.270):
into true permission to rest more and more and more,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:59:23.211):
and then also do things that,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:59:25.692):
like,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:59:26.712):
I can't even imagine doing,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:59:28.753):
like becoming a foster parent,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:59:31.294):
like rescuing horses,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:59:33.534):
truly beyond my imagination.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:59:36.095):
And the way you do it,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:59:37.156):
where you share honestly about it,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:59:39.296):
but you don't,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:59:39.916):
like,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:59:40.217):
turn it into a performative identity for the internet—

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:59:44.818):
I really appreciate because I have watched wellness influencers become professional

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:59:50.163):
foster parents online.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:59:52.805):
And it's gross.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:59:53.866):
Like, I really don't like it.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:59:55.708):
And you're not doing that at all.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:59:58.290):
You're doing the work of fostering beautiful children in your life,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (01:00:01.613):
but you're not like making it an identity that you just perform online.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (01:00:05.556):
So that's what I want to say to the people as they go to your Substack and they see

Amelia Hruby, PhD (01:00:10.521):
the work that you're doing.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (01:00:11.421):
It's just like,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (01:00:12.563):
I'm grateful to witness and experience the deep integrity of it and the deeper

Amelia Hruby, PhD (01:00:18.149):
call,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (01:00:19.370):
pun intended,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (01:00:20.011):
that you're inviting all of us into.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (01:00:22.854):
So thank you so much, Ashley, for everything that you do and for joining me today.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (01:00:28.703):
Will you tell people, in addition to your sub-stock, how can they work with you one-on-one?

Amelia Hruby, PhD (01:00:33.285):
Where can they find you online?

Amelia Hruby, PhD (01:00:35.146):
Yes.

Ashley Neese (01:00:35.946):
First of all, just thank you.

Ashley Neese (01:00:38.067):
I feel so seen.

Ashley Neese (01:00:39.848):
I was getting emotional, which is always a good sign.

Ashley Neese (01:00:43.349):
I'm like, there's feelings that are coming up.

Ashley Neese (01:00:45.850):
And yeah, just thank you for seeing me and thank you for articulating that.

Ashley Neese (01:00:49.272):
And

Ashley Neese (01:00:50.672):
I'm just reflecting on the first time I jumped on a Zoom with you.

Ashley Neese (01:00:53.934):
And well,

Ashley Neese (01:00:54.194):
the first time I came across softer sounds and I was like,

Ashley Neese (01:00:56.555):
yes,

Ashley Neese (01:00:56.795):
I'm all in 100 percent all in.

Ashley Neese (01:00:58.696):
And then I met you.

Ashley Neese (01:00:59.637):
And within it's again within like that, just that energetic read.

Ashley Neese (01:01:02.518):
I was like, oh, yeah, she's cool.

Ashley Neese (01:01:04.199):
We're going to be friends.

Ashley Neese (01:01:04.920):
I know what's happening here.

Ashley Neese (01:01:06.340):
But yeah, it's just been such an you have been such a.

Ashley Neese (01:01:12.504):
like,

Ashley Neese (01:01:12.924):
anchor for me over these last couple of years and have really just given me so

Ashley Neese (01:01:18.769):
many,

Ashley Neese (01:01:19.149):
like,

Ashley Neese (01:01:19.529):
key points to think about in my own evolution and growth and practice and degrowth

Ashley Neese (01:01:24.113):
and all the things.

Ashley Neese (01:01:24.853):
So, yeah, thank you.

Ashley Neese (01:01:26.575):
I just feel like you've been such a pillar.

Ashley Neese (01:01:29.177):
And people can find me just on my website, ashleynees.com.

Ashley Neese (01:01:32.339):
There's information about sessions.

Ashley Neese (01:01:34.021):
There's all kinds of stuff over there.

Ashley Neese (01:01:35.242):
My old podcast that Amelia mentioned, the Do You Recall podcast, and

Ashley Neese (01:01:39.369):
Yeah, that's where I am.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (01:01:41.772):
Thank you again for joining me in this conversation.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (01:01:44.174):
And thank you listeners for tuning in.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (01:01:46.516):
Until next time, we will see you off the grid.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (01:01:52.947):
Thanks for listening to Off The Grid.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (01:01:54.988):
Don't forget to grab your free leaving social media toolkit at offthegrid.fun slash toolkit.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (01:02:02.033):
This podcast is a Softer Sounds production.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (01:02:04.795):
Our music is by Melissa Caitlin Carter of Making Audio Magic, and our logo is by Natalia Studio.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (01:02:10.839):
I'm your host, Amelia Ruby, and until next time, I'll see you off the grid and on the interweb.

(01:02:16.723):
Let's go off the grid.

(01:02:19.785):
Okay.

(01:02:20.865):
Let's go.

(01:02:22.233):
Let's go off the grid.

(01:02:24.196):
I know that you really want to put your phone away.

(01:02:27.782):
Let's go off the grid.

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