Welcome to the Ashleigh Deane show, I’m Ashleigh Deane.
Before we get started – thank you for listening, I hope this light hearted episode can brighten your week and bring a smile to your face! If you’ve been enjoying these weekly episodes, you could consider writing a review on apple podcasts or where ever you’re listening. And… the ultimate compliment – share the episode with a friend and tag me @the ashleigh Deane show
For this episode today – the word modge podge is coming to mind…. I’m sitting here enjoying an ice cold can of diet coke and I just ate a delicious chocolate chip cookie! Those 2 things – are basically my fuel for life, but they also make me happy, ya know? Just a lil thing – but really satisfying.
Earlier this week, I decided Id finally hang some pictures I’ve had ready to go. I had all the supplies, just didn’t have the effort to do it yet. So – I did and for about 10 minutes it was beautiful, then one came crashing down colliding with another on the way absolutely demolishing one frame. I was able to super glue one that just had one side come apart, but the other frame is in 4 pieces and there’s a bare space on the wall. I almost had my life together with this beautiful art on the wall… just like I almost didn’t get this podcast out today!
I grappled – that’s a word right, sometimes words just come to me, and I go with it… super confident its correct… so I mean to explain – I was back and forth – that’s grappled? I think so. Anyway- I was back and forth between just not doing an episode for the week because I didn’t feel like anything was really coming to me… there is a lot of news, but none I feel like sharing…. I don’t want to touch the abortion and supreme court situation, and the baby formula shortage just makes me sad to think about. But then, I got a text from a friend and I decided, I am going to put out an episode, and I am going to just BE ME… so modge podge here I come!
Last week – I asked to hear your best advice, and thank you for sharing. Some of the best advice I’ve ever received came to me right before I was headed out into a new life adventure, and it came out of the mouth of my dear ol dad! He said “Just be you!” He’s got a lot of one-line zingers, and that one stayed with me through this new adventure. It also lingered on long after, because well here I am talking about it years and years later.
Just Be You! So simple – yet so deep. Its a reminder to me that I am enough, just simply by being me. I am enough! You are enough! This world will tell you that you aren’t enough, and sometimes the wrong people will make you feel like you aren’t enough, but you are enough! Sure – we can all grow, improve, strengthen our weaknesses, but just by virtue of who we are created by – proves… we are enough!
I can’t tell you how many times I was tempted to “be someone else” on this life adventure I was on. Or rather – try to be who I thought I needed to be. Ooof – that sounds exhausting to explain… but I think you know what I’m saying. The pressure to perform and make everyone proud sometimes makes us, or rather me, think we need to be like someone else… when in reality – that is not the case!
RAI
You know those days where things are just harder than other days? I don’t always know why they happen, I feel like they just do! Despite my best efforts – some days I have to work a little bit harder at being positive. On those days – I watch a simple, short, clip that is guaranteed to bring a smile to my face. Its a Tonight Show clip when Jimmy Fallon had Bradley Cooper on as a guest to promote a broadway show Bradley Cooper was starring in. They were wearing visors with hair attached to the top and laughing uncontrollably.
Clip of – Jimmy Fallon and Bradley Cooper laughing uncontrollably
So – when life gets annoying… hard… confusing…. overwhelming… find something to laugh about!
And that’s what I call – A Random Ash Insight!
This last weekend – I watched “The Vow.” A true story, adapted into a book by Nicholas Sparks that turned into a blockbuster movie… I’d seen it already, actually in the theater, and loved it then.. but watching this time I looked at a few things differently.
I’m still me, its still me watching, but having been through more life experiences, this time I saw the story in a different way.
If you haven’t seen the movie – its about a married couple. In the first scene of the movie – they’re in a car accident and the woman suffers a head trauma which causes her to lose parts of her memory – the last memory she can recall – was at a time before she met her current husband.
Her devastated husband shows patience and understanding, but after all his best efforts… she doesn’t remember him and he ultimately decides its best that he walk away. He says – “How do you look at the woman you love and tell yourself its time to walk away?”
The first time I watched – I thought, things work out as they’re meant to, its just a short time that they will be apart. And the second time – I thought about how hard it must have been for him to walk away, not knowing for sure what the future held. I put myself in his shoes, and I was sad.
Which reminded me of the pearl earring story I shared a few episodes ago coupled with the idea of letting go.
When we do let go of something, it’s not a quick decision, it takes time to process the decision because I believe we are considering all the consequences. We take the time to make peace with each possible outcome, which does’t mean we are ok with it… it just means we understand…
We put away our own desires and have hope that its for the best, relinquishing control of the situation. There is something to…. Letting go!
In the movie – the wife came back to the husband, but only after arriving at every decision she had previously made without the husband watching. So – twice she broke up with her previous fiancé, twice she quit law school, and twice she moved closer to an art school downtown where she originally met her husband. She never regained her memory, but she was always herself. She was staying true to herself and her memories – and she gradually found her way back to her husband. But before, when her husband had to let go she told him – I hope I can love someday like you love me. She felt the love he had for her, but didn’t feel it back for him until she went back and made those same decisions that brought her to him the first time… for the second time!
I sometimes wonder if faced with a previous decision, would I make it twice? I’m still me. And hopefully I never suffer a brain trauma that causes me to find out… but I think this goes along with the advice I received from my dad – “Just Be You!”
