riverside_ep31_podcast audio _ aug 26, 2024 002_ashley_brickhouse's

The speaker discusses the importance of examining one's relationship with receiving, wealth, and oneself. They reflect on their own beliefs about success, hard work, and money, and how these beliefs have led to burnout and dissatisfaction. They use the example of training their dog to illustrate how behaviors and beliefs impact relationships. The speaker emphasizes the need to reflect on one's openness to receiving, and to understand and decide what one truly wants. They also mention the role of subconscious beliefs in manifesting desires. The three key points for getting what one wants are: deciding what one truly wants, reflecting on one's relationship with receiving, and addressing subconscious beliefs. A relationship is just something that is formed when you are interacting with something else. So I want to ask you, what do you know what your relationship is with receiving? Do you have a healthy relationship with receiving or do you have an unhealthy relationship with receiving? What is your relationship to wealth? What are your beliefs about money? What is your relationship with yourself? How worthy do you feel? Are you able to practice self-care? Are you constantly overextending yourself and prone to burnout because you tend to give and give and give? What are your relationships and where are they coming from? What beliefs are impacting how you're showing up in your relationships? I've been working on my relationship with success. What do I believe about success? What do I believe about money? What do I believe about myself? What do I believe about hard work? And I've realized that to me, success means I have to work hard to get what I want. But that's not true. I know that that's not true. But do I know that's not true? I didn't consciously. I know that's not true, but I have a lot of stories from my childhood and evidence from my life that reinforce the belief that if I work hard, I'll succeed. If I work hard, I will achieve whatever my goal is. And it's led to me overworking myself in the gym and getting so many injuries. It's led to me getting so burnt out that I had to take three months off from my tech job. It's led to me imploding in relationships because I just give and give and give. I work really hard. I'll do my work and I'll do your work because I just want to make it work. I know that if I work hard, I will be successful. But I'm learning that hard work is not what makes you successful. I mean, yes. You know what? Let me back up there. Yes, hard work can lead to success, but then that also poses the question, what is success to you? Is success amassing a bunch of wealth or is success being able to show up authentically and do what you love? Because if your beliefs about hard work and success are that you have to work hard to be successful and then you make a lot of money, but you're miserable, is that what you want? Is that what you really want? To have a lot of money and be miserable? Or is your idea of success to do what you love, but it doesn't feel like work and therefore attract a lot of financial abundance because you're aligned with your purpose? I just wanted to pose some of these questions. They've been on my mind and I was just out at the dog park with Rocket. We were playing ball and I had this idea that came to me. I was like, oh my gosh, this is the perfect way to describe this. Your relationships, the dynamics in your relationships are based on the guidelines that you've provided and you do that with your behavior. You do that with what you're willing to give and what you're able to receive. I used the example of when I was first playing fetch with Rocket because she didn't just understand how to play fetch. I had to teach her. I would throw the ball and for a while she would run to the ball and then leave it there. I would go and pick up the ball and then throw it again. Eventually I was like, this is me playing fetch and by me repeating this process that we're doing, I'm teaching you that this is how we play fetch, that I throw the ball, you run to it and then I go pick up the ball and then throw it again. Nope. So I changed my choice that I was making. Instead, I created the situation where she would have to bring the ball back to me and then I would pick it up and throw it for her. And I had to take baby steps to do this. So then I was reinforcing, I throw the ball, you go get the ball and then you bring it back. And then after a while I noticed that she would come back with the ball in her mouth, but then if I went to grab it from her, she would kind of run away. And then that kind of turned into a game where she would walk off and go smell stuff. And so I was like, okay, that's also not how I want to play fetch with you. And this is me teaching you the way that I think that should be played. And this applies to your relationships too, applies to your relationship with everything, people, concepts, yourself. The way that you act over and over, the things that you believe impact the way that you're showing up in your relationships. It impacts the way you teach others to treat you. It impacts your ability to receive. And so eventually I was able to teach Rocket that whenever she's ready for me to throw the ball, and if she doesn't want me to throw it, that's fine. Walk around, go smell stuff, drop the ball somewhere else. I will not go get it. I'll be right here when you are ready to give it to me. And so now she will bring the ball and put it in my hands. Sometimes she'll come up to me and she'll lie down because she needs rest. So she'll lie there with the ball in her arms and she'll pant and stuff. And when she's ready, she'll pick it up and she'll put it in my hand or she'll put it down right in front of me and then sit there and like, look at me. And this, it took a little bit of time. It didn't take a lot of time. It just took repetition and consistency. So when it comes to your relationship with yourself, when it comes to your relationships with other people, when it comes to your relationship with the universe, I just want you to reflect and ask yourself, am I open to receiving? And what is my relationship to receiving? And how am I showing up? What are the behaviors that I'm doing? And are those behaviors eliciting the reaction or the situation or the things that I want? Because when it comes to getting what you want, and I know a lot of people talk about manifesting and all of that, and I talk about it too. I'm saying that like I don't also talk about it, but when it comes to getting what you want, it's so funny because my best friend, she says that I always get what I want. And it's true. I do. I want something. I eventually get it. Sometimes it takes me a decade. Sometimes it takes me a couple of days. Sometimes it takes me a couple of years. Sometimes it takes me a couple of hours. But I always get what I want. And so it's taught me that I'm a very powerful manifester, that I do create my reality and I do create my life and the things that I'm thinking and the things that I choose to believe impact what I'm creating. They impact the way that I'm showing up. And so it had me thinking, I've been reflecting on it. I've been studying these universal laws and really understanding the way that energy works. And I know that a lot of people feel like they have a hard time manifesting, but you're always manifesting. So it's not that you're having a hard time. It's that you are manifesting things you don't want. And so when it comes to getting what you want, there are three things that go into it. And I'm going to keep this so simple. We're going to keep it very grounded. I'm not going to throw out a bunch of spiritual terms. The first thing is understand and decide what it is that you really want outside of your conditioning, outside of your buried unconscious beliefs that have been created during childhood. Really, really, really hone in on what it is you want truly. And I think deciding why it is you want that thing can help too. So like, let's say you want a lot of money. You don't want a lot of money just so you can have a lot of money. You want a lot of money because of the freedom, the opportunities that that provides, time freedom, not having the burden of debt, not having to sling away at something you hate for a paycheck that you're just going to spend on retail therapies. So first thing, decide what you really, truly want. If money was no object, if there were no negative consequences, what would you want? If you had all the time and no pressure, what would you want? Excuse me. The one time I don't bring a glass of water. The second thing is reflect on your relationship with receiving. Are you open to receiving? And this is going to be a tough one. You might think, yeah, of course I'm open. I'm ready to receive. But a lot of us have these beliefs, these programs that run in our subconscious that keep us from being as open as we think we are. And there are things like, I am an overachiever. I am a super go-getter. I take a lot of initiative. I give, give, give. I'm a giver. I identify with that. And because I identify with being a giver and I have these weird emotions about receiving, it makes me uncomfortable if I get compliments. I don't know how to say thank you because I'm like, oh no, you're complimenting me. What does that mean? There's so much wrapped into it. I don't want you to think that I'm conceited. I don't want you to think I'm full of myself so I can't agree with your compliment. How's that going to reflect on me? What is it going to make you think of me? Like, what is your relationship with receiving? Are you overgiving, overextending yourself, burning yourself out and then not focusing on self-care? If you're not able to focus on self-care, if you're not able to take care of yourself and allow yourself to receive love from yourself, you might need to look at your relationship with receiving. How do you feel about receiving money? Do you feel like when you get paid or when you get money from somewhere that you need to hold onto it because you're worried that you're going to lose it? Or it's just going to have somewhere to go immediately? Because if you think that, you might have a belief, you likely have a belief that, or you have unhealthy, you have an unhealthy relationship to receiving money and holding onto it. So again, I encourage you to reflect on what your relationship with receiving is. And then the third thing that I want you to reflect on when it comes to getting what you want. And I just drew a blank. Man, this is why I usually have notes. But I was like, nope, we're going to do stream of consciousness right now because I just want to talk about this. It was, oh, I've been thinking about it for the past hour. I wanted to get it out. So we started with deciding what you want. That's the first thing. The second thing is what is your relationship with receiving? Ah, and the third thing is your self-worth. Do you feel worthy and deserving of the thing that you want? Because if you don't, if you don't feel worthy, if you don't feel like you deserve it, it doesn't matter how much you want it. You're going to push it away from you. That's the energy that you're sending out there. So if you're having a hard time receiving what you want, achieving the goals that you're trying to work toward, fix your relationship with receiving and cultivate your self-worth. And those things will make it easier for you to get really clear on what it is you want. And then once you get really clear on what you want, so putting that energy out there, show up as that person. You don't have to be married to the identity of who you know you are, who you think you are. You can change your identity from moment to moment. You can wake up tomorrow and be like, I'm going to be a totally different person. And that's honestly what it takes for you to shift your life, for you to shift your perspective. You have to start showing up as the person that you want to be, not the person you know that you are. So many of us identify with this idea, these stories of who we are, the stories of who we've been. You're changing from moment to moment. And every month you literally have different cells. You have newer cells in your body. You are not the same person that you were yesterday. And the more you cling to these beliefs about who you are, it closes you off to the evolution that you're going through. You're going to go through it either way, but it'll be a lot more smooth if you are open to accepting new ideas about yourself, if you are open to showing up in a different way, if you're open to making different choices. And I want to give an example of this. So if you, so let's, I'm going to make it a personal example. I'm just going to do the first thing that comes to my mind because I'm practicing being vulnerable because you know what? I want more intimacy in my relationships. I want to be more authentic, which means I have to feel safe. I have to allow myself to let go of the shame and forgive myself for feeling shame about things that I couldn't even control that have happened to me in my life. And by letting go of these things that are not serving me, letting go of these stories that are repetitively reinforcing the beliefs I have that are not helping me to move forward. By letting those things go, I'm allowing myself to evolve. I'm allowing myself to be a better version of myself. And so it allows me to show up in a different way. When I hang on to those old stories of, oh no, what if I can't find friends? Oh no, what if I'm not accepted? Oh no, what if I'm really unlovable? Oh no, what if somebody judges me? What if somebody calls me crazy? What if somebody makes fun of me? What if my business is a flop? What if everyone I know stops talking to me? Instead of thinking about those things, what about thinking about, what if I really show up? What if me being myself helps somebody else to feel less alone and more seen? What if me expressing myself authentically and being vulnerable about my trials and tribulations and the challenges that I've overcome and the things that I'm going through, what if that helps somebody else who isn't quite where I'm at yet? I don't have to be perfect at it. That's another thing that I'm working through, like, oh, I can't show up until I've got it all figured out. I can't show up until I'm perfect. But no, these journeys that we're on, the progress that we make, any little bit of progress is progress. You are further ahead than you would have been had you not taken the step, had you not made a different choice. So when you're ready to transform your life, when you're ready to transform your beliefs, when you're ready to step in to the highest potential that you deserve to live, you have to start showing up and making different choices. So start becoming more aware of the choices that you're making and why you're making them. And for me, one of those was staying at my tech job. Why was I making that choice? You know why I was making that choice? I was making that choice because it felt good for me to tell people what I did. I was seeking approval. I was seeking... I thought it meant I was successful. Oh, I do this thing. Sounds like a hard job. And I make a lot of money. So if I tell you that, you're going to think I'm successful. And it was while I started my business, my spiritual business over a year ago. And along, so I did my tech job as a data engineer, data slash software engineer. I did both. And I'm still doing it. See, it doesn't matter. I worked in tech and I built things. And I also had my spiritual business. I put things on do not disturb when I'm doing my podcast. So, oh, dang it. So, I also had my spiritual business. But whenever I met people that I hadn't met before, and they were like, oh, what do you do? I wouldn't mention my spiritual business because I was so worried about what people would say. Instead, I would say, oh, I'm a data engineer. I work in tech. I build things. And because that felt safer, that felt better. That wasn't going to elicit a weird reaction from people. And then one day I realized I was like, wait a minute. I'm a business owner. I own my own business. I'm doing this. This is a big deal. That's something I could be proud of. Something I am proud of. I put my heart and soul into that. That was my passion. Yes, I do like tech. Yes, I like building things. I still love coding, all that stuff. But right now I am way more passionate, way more passionate about helping people, about helping people connect with themselves, about helping people to embrace their gifts and understand their purpose and move into alignment, to let go of the things that aren't serving them, to help people to work through their limiting beliefs and stories. I want to help people to move through the things that I have moved through because I've gotten through so much and I've learned so much. I just want to share that. I want to be the person for other people that I wish that I'd had when I started this journey. And oh my gosh, it's... Oh man, that's an emotional thing to say. Oh, the vulnerability. So yeah, crying a little bit because being vulnerable is still uncomfortable and it's wild to say these things out loud sometimes. But that is my goal. That's my mission. If I could put it in one sentence, I just want to be the person for other people. I want to be able to show up for other people the way that I wish I'd had somebody show up for me when I was figuring all of this out. I want to be the person for other people when I was figuring all of this out. And give me like one second. That was a little more deep than I thought I was going to go there. And so I lost my train of thought again. The emotions, feel into my emotions, feel them. It's okay. I can cry. I can feel this way. It's safe. It's okay. And so I finally started opening up about that. I would meet somebody and I'd be like, oh, I'm a data engineer and I also own a spiritual business. And they would be like, oh, no way. What does that mean? What do you do in your spiritual business? That's really cool. And then the more that I started doing that, the more I was like, oh, I'm not being met with apprehension and people aren't looking at me like I'm crazy. They're actually, they're either interested or they're not interested. And if they're not interested, they will not ask me questions about it. And we'll just go on to the next part of the conversation. And if they are interested, then we'll talk about it. And when I started finding was that a lot of people, actually people I would never even imagine would be interested in it. People that I was sure would be like, oh, well, I'm going to go now. Started asking me questions and they were like, oh, well, actually, like, I'm not sure what I really believe in, but that sounds really interesting. Maybe I should get a reading. Like I've been thinking about it and stuff like that started happening to the point where I stopped identifying with being a data engineer. I stopped identifying with climbing the success ladder in the corporate world. And I started identifying with living my dreams and he started identifying with following my passions. I started bringing that energy to the table. And after a while, I realized that I'd outgrown my tech job and I quit and I didn't quit until I felt really good about quitting because I'd been thinking about it. I'd been feeling like it was out of alignment for a while, a while, but I was like, no, I was letting the fear control my decision. I wasn't sure what would happen if I quit. And so when you are making a decision out of fear, it's usually because you have an unhealthy relationship with uncertainty. So again, I pose this question to you. What is your relationship with uncertainty? And I'll go into the process of leaving my nine to five to go all in on my business in another episode. But today I just wanted to bring these things to light. I wanted to ask you some questions. I wanted to kind of get the cogs in your mind and your heart turning so that you could start exploring some of these concepts and opening yourself up and kind of digging into where can you take action so that you can be more in alignment with your purpose, so that you can be more in alignment with your soul, so that you can be more authentic and show up in a way that makes you feel good and in a way that invites abundance, that invites financial prosperity, that invites healthy, loving, fulfilling relationships. How can you show up in a way where you're able to make choices that are actually for your highest good? And that's what I want to leave you with today. Thank you so much for joining me in this newer kind of episode that I'm offering, which is just little talks that I want to have with you to kind of share what I'm thinking about and what I'm working through and bring you along on this journey and help you to be able to reflect on some of these things too. Because let's have conversations. I would love for us to all have conversations about this stuff. These are the kinds of conversations that fuel my soul. They feed my soul, talking about this kind of stuff. So as always, feel free to message me or email me. I'd love to know what you think about this. Did you resonate with anything that I said? Have you reflected on these things? What have you learned? Where are you at in your journey? Do you have other questions that I could have included that have helped you to reflect on some of these things? And what do you want to heal right now? And how are you going to start showing up so that you can move past these old stories that you're telling yourself that are limiting you and holding you back? I love you so much. I love you so, so much. And I'll see you in the next episode. Until next time. And I'll see you in the next episode.