This episode is a behind-the-scenes look at what really happens when success comes faster than your nervous system knows how to hold.

I’m sharing the full story of what unfolded after a wildly intuitive, expansive year in business and how unworthiness, perfectionism, and fear quietly took over once things felt “too easy.” What followed was burnout, over-efforting, identity collapse, and ultimately a five-month sabbatical that changed everything.

We’re talking about the nervous system science behind becoming the woman you desire to be… not through force or mindset hacks, but through safety, practice, and embodiment. Why “acting as if” actually works, how success can feel threatening to the body, and why breaking was the doorway to everything I was trying to create.

This is about becoming her from the inside out.

TOPICS & TANGENTS:
• What happens when success outpaces nervous system capacity
• The hidden unworthiness that follows “too easy” wins
• Perfectionism as protection, not discipline
• Why success can feel unsafe to the body
• The be–do–have model vs. chasing outcomes
• Acting as if through nervous system rehearsal, not pretending
• Identity, safety, and practicing your future before it arrives
• Why abundance requires regulation, not effort
• Micro decisions that rewire who you’re becoming

POINT OF THE STORY:
You don’t become her by achieving more.
You become her by teaching your body it’s safe to be who you already are.

MENTIONED:
• Microdosing as a nervous-system support for neuroplasticity and regulation
• Golden Rule — including Superflow and Soul Gummies
• Code ASH10 for 10% off

If you’re setting goals for the next season of your life and wondering why they feel heavy instead of exciting, this episode is your reminder: becoming her starts with safety, not pressure.

Are you loving it? Send Ash a text!

MORE ABOUT ASH
I am the definition of duality — I swear like a sailor and break rules like it’s my job, but I also hold incredible space for my clients and work my ass off to help them achieve the success they’re after. But I'm also here for the non-preneur woman, too. My background in counseling gives me a unique perspective on what it means to show up, serve, & create connection for those who feel like they've never belonged before.

LINKS:

• Become the Regulated Woman
• Get emails that feel like your best friend (if your best friend was a therapist and actually told you the truth).
• Use code BB20 to get The Burnout Breakthrough for only $7
• Follow me on IG (dropping in once a quarter for updates & gossip)
• Website: ashmcdonaldmentoring.com

Work with me 1:1

• Therapeutic Mentorship
• Business Therapy (therapy + strategic mentorship)
• ...

Sometimes you’re doing “fine”… but your body is exhausted.
Irritable. Tight. Overstimulated.
And you can’t quite explain why.

In this bonus episode, I’m sharing a behind-the-scenes audio from The Regulated Woman private podcast. This is one of my favorite micro-tools for releasing stress that gets trapped in the body throughout the day.

We’re talking about emotional residue... the irritation, disappointment, pressure, or overwhelm your body absorbs when you don’t have time (or space) to fully process what you feel. Even when your mind has moved on, your nervous system might still be holding the weight.

This episode walks you through a simple, 60-second somatic release you can use in real life, no journaling, no deep dive, no long breathwork session required.

Just practical nervous-system care for women who are carrying a lot.

TOPICS & TANGENTS:
• What emotional residue is and why it drains your energy
• How stress and emotion live in the body, not just the mind
• Why “pushing through” costs more than you think
• A simple three-step somatic release you can use anytime
• How incomplete stress responses keep you exhausted
• Reclaiming mental, emotional, and physical energy without effort

POINT OF THE STORY:
You’re not tired because you’re weak... you’re tired because your body is holding too much. When you allow stress responses to complete, you get your energy back.

MENTIONED:
• My conversation with Alison Hardy on Six Figure Secrets — a raw discussion on success, burnout, and redefining what “enough” actually feels like

If this episode lands for you and you want more support like this — short, effective, body-based tools you can actually use — The Regulated Woman might be exactly what your nervous system has been asking for.

Are you loving it? Send Ash a text!

MORE ABOUT ASH
I am the definition of duality — I swear like a sailor and break rules like it’s my job, but I also hold incredible space for my clients and work my ass off to help them achieve the success they’re after. But I'm also here for the non-preneur woman, too. My background in counseling gives me a unique perspective on what it means to show up, serve, & create connection for those who feel like they've never belonged before.

LINKS:

• Become the Regulated Woman
• Get emails that feel like your best friend (if your best friend was a therapist and actually told you the truth).
• Use code BB20 to get The Burnout Breakthrough for only $7
• Follow me on IG (dropping in once a quarter for updates & gossip)
• Website: ashmcdonaldmentoring.com

Work with me 1:1

• Therapeutic Mentorship
• Business Therapy (therapy + strategic mentorship)
• ...

Sometimes the plan for the episode… totally sucks. In this conversation, I scrap my original idea mid-recording and bring you into what’s actually alive in my world right now: parenting an 11-year-old, navigating big emotions, asking scary questions, and coming back (over and over) to my values as a mom.

We talk about what it means to hold space for your kids’ real struggles, why “because I said so” isn’t a value, and how to stay in the room when your child is wrestling with belonging, insecurity, and the very human fear of not being liked. It’s an honest peek into how I’m fumbling, regulating, repairing, and choosing relationship on purpose.

TOPICS & TANGENTS:

• Life updates: Colorado snow, moving (again), and starting 2026 in a new home
• Parenting an 11-year-old: hormones, friendship dynamics, and fitting in
• The conversation no parent wants to have: asking your child directly about self-harm
• Why kids need us to ask the hard questions out loud
• Creating safety: therapy for boys, emotional literacy, and modeling vulnerability
• Why “because I said so” is not a parenting value
• Mutual respect, consequences, and holding boundaries after a big emotional moment
• Curiosity as a parenting tool: better questions than “How was your day?”
• When your child’s biggest fear mirrors your own (and what to do with that)
• Remembering: you can’t be the parent you want to be from a dysregulated state

POINT OF THE STORY:
You will never feel “ready” or fully qualified for the version of parenting you’re in, it’s all first-time territory. But when the plan falls apart, coming back to your core values, staying curious, and being brave enough to ask the hard questions builds the kind of relationship where your kids actually bring you their real life.

MENTIONED:

• Surrender Retreat: the place where women recalibrate safety, capacity, and self-trust so they can show up to life (and parenting) from a regulated, grounded nervous system rather than reactivity. If you want to experience what it feels like to soften, trust yourself, and expand your capacity to hold more… Surrender is where that work begins.

Are you loving it? Send Ash a text!

MORE ABOUT ASH
I am the definition of duality — I swear like a sailor and break rules like it’s my job, but I also hold incredible space for my clients and work my ass off to help them achieve the success they’re after. But I'm also here for the non-preneur woman, too. My background in counseling gives me a unique perspective on what it means to show up, serve, & create connection for those who feel like they've never belonged before.

LINKS:

• Become the Regulated Woman
• Get emails that feel like your best friend (if your best friend was a therapist and actually told you the truth).
• Use code BB20 to get The Burnout Breakthrough for only $7
• Follow me on IG (dropping in once a quarter for updates & gossip)
• Website: ashmcdonaldmentoring.com

Work with me 1:1

• Therapeutic Mentorship
• Business Therapy (therapy + strategic mentorship)
• ...

Are you loving it? Send Ash a text!

What if your business could feel steady instead of like a monthly rollercoaster? In this episode I walk you through my nervous-system-first profit planning, and how I map the year, choose what to sell (and when), and protect my creativity, energy, and peace while hitting my numbers. Today I’m sharing the exact quarterly profit planning process I use to grow my business and protect my nervous system. No more feast-or-famine energy. No more “I have to hit X this month or everything is falling apart.”

We talk about why month-to-month planning keeps you dysregulated, how quarterly goals create actual ease, and the system I swear by — from mapping my annual intention down to quarterly numbers, to creating a 100-idea money list, to filtering everything through desire, capacity, and season.

TOPICS & TANGENTS:
• Why month-to-month planning spikes anxiety
• The quarterly structure that keeps your business steady
• How I map my annual goal into spacious quarterly targets
• The 100-idea money list (possibility = regulation)
• Desire, capacity & season: my simple decision-making filter
• Building a business runway so you’re not creating from panic
• Planning in a way your body can actually hold

POINT OF THE STORY:
Strategy only works if your nervous system can hold it. Sustainable profit isn’t about perfect months… it’s about rhythm, regulation, and a plan that supports the life you actually want.

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

• Episode 158. The Money Myth That’s Draining Your Energy (start there for the energetics)
• The Surrender Retreat & therapeutic integration: recalibrate your relationship to success, safety, and expansion.

MORE ABOUT ASH
I am the definition of duality — I swear like a sailor and break rules like it’s my job, but I also hold incredible space for my clients and work my ass off to help them achieve the success they’re after. But I'm also here for the non-preneur woman, too. My background in counseling gives me a unique perspective on what it means to show up, serve, & create connection for those who feel like they've never belonged before.

LINKS:

• Become the Regulated Woman
• Get emails that feel like your best friend (if your best friend was a therapist and actually told you the truth).
• Use code BB20 to get The Burnout Breakthrough for only $7
• Follow me on IG (dropping in once a quarter for updates & gossip)
• Website: ashmcdonaldmentoring.com

Work with me 1:1

• Therapeutic Mentorship
• Business Therapy (therapy + strategic mentorship)
• ...

Are you loving it? Send Ash a text!

Today, I’m pulling back the curtain on what happens after a retreat, when life gets lifey and the work has to live in your body, your kitchen, your calendar, and your conversations. I’m joined by my dear friend and longtime client, Em, a single mom to twin girls, homeschooler, full-time student, and retired Marine officer, who shares how somatic work, breathwork, and real integration reshaped her capacity, boundaries, and motherhood.

TOPICS & TANGENTS

• From intellectualizing to embodiment: why “thinking about healing” kept Em stuck
• Hypervigilance, military conditioning, and the nervous system after a high-tempo life
• Somatic tools that moved the needle: breathwork, pacing, and structured downtime
• Motherhood in real life: anger as a wise signal, mess-friendly kitchens, laughing more
• “All-access pass” no more: boundaries that protect energy, home, and kids
• Capacity vs. control: living by rhythms instead of wrangling every minute
• Integration that actually sticks: what to do before and after a retreat
• Generational impact: modeling regulation so kids don’t carry adult emotions

POINT OF THE STORY
Life won’t stop life-ing. Capacity isn’t about doing more—it’s about holding more with less tension. When you center yourself (not everyone else), the whole house gets healthier.

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE
• Surrender Retreat (Tulum) — an immersive recalibration of success, safety, and self through somatic practices, ceremony, and integration (details in show notes)
• The Regulated Woman — private podcast & library for ongoing, nervous-system-first support

MORE ABOUT ASH
I am the definition of duality — I swear like a sailor and break rules like it’s my job, but I also hold incredible space for my clients and work my ass off to help them achieve the success they’re after. But I'm also here for the non-preneur woman, too. My background in counseling gives me a unique perspective on what it means to show up, serve, & create connection for those who feel like they've never belonged before.

LINKS:

• Become the Regulated Woman
• Get emails that feel like your best friend (if your best friend was a therapist and actually told you the truth).
• Use code BB20 to get The Burnout Breakthrough for only $7
• Follow me on IG (dropping in once a quarter for updates & gossip)
• Website: ashmcdonaldmentoring.com

Work with me 1:1

• Therapeutic Mentorship
• Business Therapy (therapy + strategic mentorship)
• ...

Are you loving it? Send Ash a text!

Today we’re naming a sneaky belief a lot of high-achievers carry: “If I just had more money, everything would feel easier.” I’ve lived that hustle. Many of my clients do too. Here’s the truth I’ve seen over and over… money doesn’t fix what’s unregulated; it amplifies it. The work is learning to hold “more” from a regulated, values-led place so the revenue magnifies your wholeness.

TOPICS & TANGENTS:
• The myth: more money will finally make you calm, safe, present, or secure
• Why money is a mirror for your nervous system, patterns, and unmet needs
• Earning from anxiety vs receiving from regulation: same revenue, totally different reality
• Capacity vs compulsion: wanting more without over-functioning for it
• How to find the root desire beneath “more money” and feel it now
• Focus as a force multiplier: what you water grows
• Redefining success so profit supports your life, not replaces it

POINT OF THE STORY:
Money doesn’t fix dysregulation, it magnifies whatever is already there. Build the inner steadiness first so more amplifies peace, presence, and power.

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
• The Regulated Woman: nervous-system-first support to grow with steadiness rather than speed
• Surrender Retreat in Tulum: an immersive recalibration of success, safety, and self for women ready to expand capacity without the frantic.

MORE ABOUT ASH
I am the definition of duality — I swear like a sailor and break rules like it’s my job, but I also hold incredible space for my clients and work my ass off to help them achieve the success they’re after. But I'm also here for the non-preneur woman, too. My background in counseling gives me a unique perspective on what it means to show up, serve, & create connection for those who feel like they've never belonged before.

LINKS:

• Become the Regulated Woman
• Get emails that feel like your best friend (if your best friend was a therapist and actually told you the truth).
• Use code BB20 to get The Burnout Breakthrough for only $7
• Follow me on IG (dropping in once a quarter for updates & gossip)
• Website: ashmcdonaldmentoring.com

Work with me 1:1

• Therapeutic Mentorship
• Business Therapy (therapy + strategic mentorship)
• ...

Are you loving it? Send Ash a text!

Hi sister friend. Back at it again... and today, we’re slowing all the way down. Because somewhere between instant coffee, instant Amazon deliveries, and instant validation, we forgot that most things worth building take time.

This one’s your permission slip to take the long way, to build something that lasts, to stop chasing the dopamine hit of “fast results,” and to start measuring success by how alive and at peace you feel, not by how fast it happens.

Real success, I mean the sustainable, fulfilling, nervous-system-safe kind... is slow. It’s mornings where you show up with zero proof it’s working. It’s boring consistency. It’s quiet trust. Let’s talk about that.

TOPICS & TANGENTS:
• How social media rewired our brains for instant gratification
• Why we mistake impatience for failure
• The hidden cost of “I need it now” energy
• Why most people quit before the results land (it’s not lack of strategy, it’s lack of stamina)
• The difference between capacity and compulsion
• What it means to practice active faith instead of frantic action
• Building a pace you can hold for years... not just a season
• Success measured in peace, presence, and patience

POINT OF THE STORY:
Patience isn’t passive. It’s power. It’s self-trust in motion, the willingness to stay with what’s working long enough for it to work for you.

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
• My chat with Sophia Parra on Marketing Unfiltered — all about high-functioning burnout, what happened when I tried to be “more professional,” and how I rebuilt my business with nervous-system-led marketing.
• The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt — a must-read on how tech reshaped our brains and attention spans.
• If Only I Had a Bigger Kitchen — reflections on simplicity, home, and redefining “enough.”
• The Regulated Woman — my signature mentorship for women ready to grow slow, steady, and sustainably.

POINT TO REMEMBER:
The kind of success that lasts? It’s unsexy consistency. The mornings you show up without proof. The long road that makes you come alive.

Take the long way. You’ll actually enjoy the view.

MORE ABOUT ASH
I am the definition of duality — I swear like a sailor and break rules like it’s my job, but I also hold incredible space for my clients and work my ass off to help them achieve the success they’re after. But I'm also here for the non-preneur woman, too. My background in counseling gives me a unique perspective on what it means to show up, serve, & create connection for those who feel like they've never belonged before.

LINKS:

• Become the Regulated Woman
• Get emails that feel like your best friend (if your best friend was a therapist and actually told you the truth).
• Use code BB20 to get The Burnout Breakthrough for only $7
• Follow me on IG (dropping in once a quarter for updates & gossip)
• Website: ashmcdonaldmentoring.com

Work with me 1:1

• Therapeutic Mentorship
• Business Therapy (therapy + strategic mentorship)
• ...

Are you loving it? Send Ash a text!

Hello, my love. Today’s episode might ruffle some feathers… and honestly, I’m okay with that. Because this one matters. We’re diving into AI therapy — the rise of chatbots, self-coaching apps, and those “instant healing” tools everyone’s whispering about, and the blurry line between support and self-abandonment.

If you’ve ever found yourself venting to ChatGPT or journaling through a chatbot, this conversation is for you. I’m not here to tell you to ditch it altogether (you know I love innovation), but I am here to help you use it wisely, without accidentally outsourcing your intuition or your healing to a robot.

Let’s talk privacy, psychology, and the sneaky ways convenience can replace connection.

TOPICS & TANGENTS:
• The real risk of “AI therapy”, and why it’s not a safe replacement for human support
• What no one’s talking about: data, privacy, and how your most vulnerable moments aren’t protected
• The sneaky comfort of being validated vs. the power of being challenged
• Why AI is designed to agree with you, and how that can keep you stuck
• How to use AI intentionally: as a reflection tool, not a therapist
• Safe prompts for emotional processing (without crossing the line)
• How to build self-trust in the age of algorithms
• The difference between feeling better fast and feeling fully

SAFE WAYS TO USE AI FOR SELF-REFLECTION:
“Help me name what I’m feeling right now.”
“Ask me five questions that could help me unpack this emotion.”
“Give me three ideas to regulate my nervous system right now.”
“Reflect back what I just said as if you were my most compassionate inner voice.”

(These are bridges — not replacements — for the real work.)

POINT OF THE STORY:
AI can be a tool, but not your teacher. It can mirror you, but it cannot meet you. Healing happens in relationship… to self, to others, to truth. Let technology support you, not replace you.

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
• Episode with Nadine Nethery on creating emotionally safe group spaces
• My favorite journaling and self-re

MORE ABOUT ASH
I am the definition of duality — I swear like a sailor and break rules like it’s my job, but I also hold incredible space for my clients and work my ass off to help them achieve the success they’re after. But I'm also here for the non-preneur woman, too. My background in counseling gives me a unique perspective on what it means to show up, serve, & create connection for those who feel like they've never belonged before.

LINKS:

• Become the Regulated Woman
• Get emails that feel like your best friend (if your best friend was a therapist and actually told you the truth).
• Use code BB20 to get The Burnout Breakthrough for only $7
• Follow me on IG (dropping in once a quarter for updates & gossip)
• Website: ashmcdonaldmentoring.com

Work with me 1:1

• Therapeutic Mentorship
• Business Therapy (therapy + strategic mentorship)
• ...