E169: Setting Boundaries and Trusting your Intuition with Ashley Gordon | CPTSD and Trauma Healing Coach

Michael: Hey! What's up Unbroken Nation! Hope that you're doing well, wherever you are in the world today. Super excited to be joined by my guest, Ashley Gordon who is the founder of the quantum coaching certification program, Podcast host, hypnotherapist, and master NLP practitioner. Ashley, my friend, how are you today? What is going on in your world?

Ashley: Ah, so good. Thank you so much for having me on the show. Hello everyone! I am currently recovering from COVID but feeling so much better, I'm on day 10, so I'm doing well.

Michael: I'm glad you're well, I'm glad you have recovered. You know, I think that all of us are just like can this be over. So I'm happy that you made it through the other side.

Ashley: Yes, me too. I feel really grateful, super blessed, I feel lucky for sure.

Michael: Yeah. I hope that you have some time to rest in this and maybe even recalibrate a little bit.

Ashley: Yes, definitely. Full advantage of the rest and my husband and I, we were like, there's no place we'd rather be but together. So yeah, rest together.

Michael: Oh good. Well, I'm glad you are on the other side lively smiling, and here. As we get into the conversation, create a little context here, can you tell everybody a little bit about your back story and how you got to where you are today?

Ashley: Yeah, absolutely. Grew up in South Jersey so I am a Jersey girl and grew up with a single mom and she did amazing with really, helping me feel like I have everything I need, helping me feel as safe and supported as possible and we've had our fair trials and tribulations and through it all I've always been a very introspective person and always been someone that people come to for advice or to lean on her shoulder to cry on and I was very, very lost for a long time but still that person that people ground into and come to for support. And I thought maybe there's something to this and I was a jack-of-all-trades, did a million different jobs, worked in real estate for a long time, and was working for my future in-laws. And what I realized looking back was that I was working in real estate believing that if I sold a lot of houses, I would gain a lot of love and acceptance from my in-laws. And at that time, being accepted and feeling good, enough was the most important thing and it was the most important thing at all costs. So I really was crushing my soul by saying in this career that was not my thing trying to please everybody in my life to get that acceptance until I got to the point where I was physically ill, manifested, thyroid disease, to really get clear on I'm not speaking my truth, I'm not living my truth and I need to figure out how to step into my purpose and if I have a purpose and what this purpose is and I found Yoga. Yoga, led me to personal development transformation, learning how to look within myself, ask questions that I've never asked myself before, why am I here and who am I? And what is my gift to the world? And what is the legacy I want to leave on this planet and how to make the most of my time here and be of service.

So yoga was the catalyst that was showing me this world of transformation and how you can change your life by going within yourself and once I started to get curious about myself I started to realize that coaching was a thing. I was at a wedding and I remember having a previous conversation with a beautiful soul prior wedding she was at the bachelorette party and I looked at her on the dance floor, she was glowing, she had this aura, and I was like – little bit tipsy on the dance floor, dancing my way up to her and I looked at her and I said, Carly, you look amazing and she turned to me and she said, Ashley, you changed my life. And at that moment, everything froze, I turned to my husband and I was like, I think I'm supposed to be a life coach like – I think this is what I'm supposed to do, I don't even know if that was a thing because I said, at that time, I was very, very lost, searching for answers, praying for answers and in a flash, the download came through and that's kind of how I got on this path, that's the long and the short of it, of course, there's more, but that's a good start.

Michael: I love that. I think that often, you know, it's funny. I see some similarities and parallels in my journey, you're getting introspective getting serious about yoga, like learning how to become introspective in a way that led me down this path unexpectedly I'd never had any intention of doing what I do today was not something I signed up for, but it started because I was looking at my life I had all these different jobs, I worked in corporate, I work for a Fortune 10, I’ll try all these things and it was like, I just cannot figure out what the hell I'm supposed to be doing. And there's so much of that, that I think involves really following and trusting your intuition. How much of that is played a role in putting you in the position you are today?

Ashley: Oh, my goodness. I mean, when I got that download of becoming a life coach, I'm like – oh, okay, I'm gonna follow this and that was my intuition speaking to me I just didn't know it at the time. So hundred percent following intuition has been so huge, but I could honestly say I didn't know what that was for a very long time, but I was doing it unconsciously. Can you relate to that?

Michael: Yeah, totally. Do you feel like that was not what was happening while you were in real estate, you're trying to I'll put words in your mouth, people please, and try to binge yourself to the will of others.

Ashley: Totally. I was definitely working against my higher intuitive self. Definitely, like trying to control it all on my own instead of allowing it to happen and move through me. I was like – okay, I'm going to sell this house, I'm going to get this love, we're going to go to dinner and I'm going to be celebrated, I'm going to be seeing for my work, right? So yeah, definitely working against it for sure.

Michael: You know, so there are people listening right now where they're like, okay, my life has led me to these places things seem okay, I'm making money, maybe I'm doing these things over here, but I'm still miserable, right? And we go through the throes of the day in the day out saying tomorrow, I'll quit, you must have said this a million times, right tomorrow I'll do what's next. How do you like really starting to step into creating change?

Because I think there's a conversation about the idea of manifestation but manifestation without action is nothing. And so how was it that you started to shift even though you're being called, right? Because here's what happens people like, I know this is what I should do and they don't do it. So what do you think is the catalyst for change?

Ashley: What a powerful question. There are a couple of things coming through. The first thing that came to me to create change was I had to surrender and actually ask for the next step. So instead of me trying to figure it out and control the next step on my own I had to surrender the control and say, God, Universe, Angels, whatever you believe in Universe, I am asking for help like asking for a clear sign of what my next step is. So I believe that you have to get really clear and be willing to ask for the support that you're looking for. That was the first step that initiated some energy to move in a different direction because I asked for that I was led to yoga, right?

So I was led to connect to myself in a way that I wasn't before so I had to intuitively follow that nudge of like, because I have been asked to go to yoga so many times in the past wasn't open to it. So this will next time I became open to it, something happened I was actually dared to go and I was like, yeah, I'll make it there, fine, I'll go and that invitation that dares change the whole trajectory.

So, being willing to ask following your intuition, when the chance comes up to take the action, like you said, taking that action and the third part that really, really created the most change was when I had to have a serious clearing conversation with my future mother-in-law to say, actually, I'm operating from the place of feeling like I need your acceptance and love and I'm quitting real estate and I was actually held accountable to having that conversation. So having someone to hold you accountable is also very powerful and creating that change but what got me to that place was being in so much discomfort, as the comfort zone of saying, in real estate became so uncomfortable and so painful that I would do anything, literally anything, to change it.

And so, I was told at my yoga training, you know, we're holding you accountable, don't show up to the next like, part of training before you have this clearing conversation and so, that was a big part of it as well.

Michael: Yeah. Where do you didn't use that I'd like to add, if that's okay, are you faced your fear? And I think we get so caught up in this idea of the worst-case scenario, weakest atrophy’s, everything and I think at some point you just gotta rip the fucking band-aid off like you have to go and you look at what's in front of you and you say, what's the difference of whether or not my life is going to be what I want it to be or not? You know, one of the things I'm constantly thinking about as I move forward as this idea that fear is going to be there, right? But I think that a part of that is people are so terrified of the idea of facing that fear because of the traumatic experiences we have had whether they be like in a little trauma sense or otherwise, whereas it becomes this really simple, scapegoat to look at past behaviors and say, well, when I tried this thing 13 years ago, it didn't work so well, right? What I'm curious about and I think you'll have insight here, I think there's healing in facing your fear and I think coaching is a big part of that, that's obviously why I do it and why I have coaches myself, but what are your thoughts? How can coaching help you heal in this journey?

Ashley: Well, yes. And I definitely faced my fear, which was, you know, I was always overcompensating, or under compensating in my relationships and so, I had to do the one thing that I was terrified to do is just be like, hey, I don't feel good enough like be vulnerable, right? Be vulnerable and show me in a way I never have before. And so I think the way that coaching can help others heal is like some of the elements that I already talked about is really being able to process through what's going on behind the scenes? What's going on behind the patterns and the behaviors? Because I was operating from the place of little Ashley, right? I always talk about my inner child and how little Ashley did everything that she could do to keep herself safe and protected and stay in those patterns and those jobs that we don't like and those relationships that are hard. You know, they're keeping us safe to some degree there is a secondary gain.

So the power of coaching is to have a coach help mirror back to you, what you are gaining help, you understand a deeper level of what you're gaining by staying in these patterns and these relationships that are ultimately keeping you small and what I mean, by helping you gain something like, I think initially a coach could ask you, you know, how is it serving you to stay in this job that you hate? Or how is it serving you to believe these beliefs that you keep believing? And when we say, oh, how is that serving me, we might initially think that's not serving me, right? It's not serving me to stay in a job I hate or stay in this uncomfortable situation. And coaching can help you dig deeper to see really, there is something powerful for you here, there's something here that's protecting you, and what is it? And if you can understand through the power of coaching, what that is, and so much so many other things, but this is what's coming through right now.

You can really help your clients reprogram that protection in a completely new way because the way that you're protecting yourself by staying in those scenarios that aren't actually serving you, but are giving you something, you can change that energy's, just energy, it's just energy, our beliefs, our energy, our thoughts are energy but if you can give that energy a brand-new job, that's the power of coaching; coaches can help you do that. Does that make sense?

Michael: Yeah 100% I've seen that happen not only in my own life but in the people that I've worked with and you know, I think what's really interesting about this idea is like the more that you hold onto this narrative that you've already created the life that you're capable of having that you're effectively for lack of term because I think what happens is like keeping yourself small and is a feeling of safety, it's really at the crux of it when you break it down, is an autonomic response built within a defensive mechanism, right? We learn to keep ourselves small, it's safe when you're in a traumatic household when you're in school when your community, and eventually what you come to find out like your question, which I think is really brilliant is how does that serve you? And I think finding your voice is part of the thing I've identified of what happens in coaching? And I know that, like – even in this experience of yourself going through yoga, being in this position, facing your fear on the backside of it like, is that not finding your voice as a part of it, like, learning how to speak up for yourself to stand up for yourself, to be who it is that you are?

Ashley: 100% absolutely. Finding your authentic voice, your authentic expression ultimately for me has been a gateway to freedom to living this life that I literally couldn't have imagined just like you said, I love that you said that, because it's so true, never saw this coming and yet, it's a perfect fit, right? It's like my freedom, my expression, my gift to the world, right? And finding your voice is so powerful.

 Michael: Yeah, and I think it is a form of communication and I know that you talked about new forms of communication. So I'd be fascinating, if you go into that, and give us some context there.

Ashley: Yes. So I trained coaches on how to coach and ends up happening, is they realize through the process that they're actually learning a new way of communication in their life. And one of the most powerful forms of communication that I have that's changed my life, changed my relationship, specifically, with my mom, but in my coaching career as well, like really being able to hold space is being able to acknowledge and validate the feelings of others. And acknowledgment is one of the like we all want to be seen and heard and understood and if we can start to understand that we all have different opinions, right? Opinions are like assholes we all have one and really if you can honor and hold space for other people's opinions, especially in today's world. It could actually change your whole life; it could set you free in a really powerful way.

So, for example, you know, I don't know about you guys listening, but I've tried to change and fix my mom my entire life. Like, you should think this way, you should eat this way, this is so much better for you, I know what's best for her, right? Anyone else can relate to that.

So in this process of always trying to fix her, I wasn't actually listening and so, if you can actually listen to the people in your life, listen to what their needs are, listen to what their complaints are, what they're saying, what they're venting to you about, they're not looking for you to fix their problems like what if your best friend called you with a problem and you didn't have to fix it, right? But instead, you could acknowledge what they're going through. Listen, I hear you, it's so understandable that you feel pissed off right now because he wasn't there to support you the way that you needed him to. And she'll be like, yes, how do you not like that's exactly how I feel, right? Being able to hold space and communicate and listen and acknowledge what they say and validate it, tell them, it's normal to feel that way. Like holding that safety for them to be in their emotions, to be in whatever their experience is even if you don't agree with it, even if you don't think that's where they should be and having really powerful communication is less about talking and it's more about listening purely, not from your filter of life, not from what you think they should do, or say or feel but purely listening to what they're saying and being able to be quantumness with them and equanimity is like one of my favorite words ever and it means being able to meet yourself where you are but in this case, it's about being able to meet others, exactly, where they are without changing it or without thinking that they should be somewhere other than where they are.

Michael: That's fascinating to me. And one of the things that come to mind is, you know, going back. I have this moment when I was like, 22, 23, and I was thinking to myself, I'm pretty sure that I'm a sociopath, and the reason why is because I learned the turn of the emotional capacity that I had as a human being to protect myself, right? So as I started to get into through the healing journey coming on the other side, learning how to be in communication with people to give them the space, to not try to fix them but instead to exist, I started to understand something really pivotal in my life, like, oh no, I am a human being, I have emotions I just didn't know how to like use them. When someone's coming through this journey and their healing, and their starting to for lack of better term become more human within themselves, and they struggle in this place where they're like, I hear you, Ashley, I know what you're saying at this very like, front forward-facing level, but I don't understand what you mean like, how do I just listen to people when I'm not even being heard or I don't know how to hear myself? For lack of a better way to phrase it, it's a chicken and egg scenario, in which you have to start with yourself first. How do you offer that to Is and try to find that, not only symbiosis but Equanimity?

Ashley: Hmm, interesting. So you're asking if someone is in a place where they feel like they're being heard, how they can heal others, what they're worth whether we're at they are at? Very interesting question. You know, I don't think the healing process ever is complete and I don't think we're ever fully arriving, I think it's always a journey and I don't know if we are ever at a place in our life where we feel 100% heard all the time. So there might be, moments where you're in a place of feeling misunderstood or not heard in your life so, how can you hold that space for others? I do think that it's possible because from my own experience, I've been in a place where I have felt very alone and It is unheard and I still have the capacity to hold space for others and listen, with an open heart even if I don't fully understand it.

So I think it depends on where you're at in your journey and giving yourself that grace and being able to set a boundary if it's needed where you can simply say to someone listen to like, you know holding space for you, but I'm right now not in a place where I can, I have nothing to give right now and that's okay. Does that make sense? Being able to kind of set that boundary and be like listen, I don't have anything to give right now.

Michael: Yeah, 100%. And so I think part of this is and setting boundaries which would really be curious about your insight really comes into understanding who you are. I think that for many people setting boundaries is arguably the most difficult thing that they do. I know that was part of my experience because I didn't understand that I was allowed to no, or yes, within the context of boundaries. I'd love for you to go back into that a little bit deeper because I'd love people to have a baseline understanding of not only what boundaries mean, but how they get familiar with how they start to implement them into their own lives.

Ashley: Boundaries. I'm really working on this right now actually, and I'm learning what my boundaries are because I'm still learning myself, but as you said, it's really ultimately learning yourself. So, for example, this summer, my mom came to stay with us and she lived in our home for two and a half months and that was really, really interesting and right off the bat I didn't have a boundary on the end date that she could leave, right?

So there was this, like open and date, and looking back, I didn't give her a date because I was afraid that would hurt her feelings or make her feel unwanted. So compromise me to make her feel comfortable and really I think that's what boundaries come down to, for all of us. But for me is, like, not compromising what I need, what my needs are, and what my wants are, to make someone else, feel comfortable at my expense. And I mean, ultimately, I think it comes from love like having, a lack of boundaries is ultimately rooted in love, but it can also be rooted in fear of hurting somebody or not making somebody feel 100% comfortable and the way that that manifested was, I had to have a really hard conversation with my mom, that's like, so when are you leaving? When are you planning on? What's your end date? And it was so incredibly painful and I learned so much through that conversation where she was crying and she felt unwanted and she thought unseen and whatever her experience was and at that moment, instead of trying to fix it, I had to let her have her experience, even though it was uncomfortable for me to listen to that and to be part of that.

So setting boundaries, number one, I think a really good tip is whenever you are feeling like you're compromising something within yourself that's your cue to look at that, to look at yourself and say, what am I compromising within myself that is making someone else feel more comfortable and me, feeling less comfortable. I think that's a really good place to start.

The second thing is like, when you're in it and when you realize that you actually have gone past a boundary, you're going to feel uncomfortable, you're going to feel shitty, it's going to feel like, oh, I can't believe I did that to myself, I'm kind of mad at myself and that's where we need to bring in a lot of grace, and compassion and forgiveness and curiosity, right? If we can be curious about what's going on for you, what's coming up for you, and be able to reroute and say, okay, maybe this time I can't go back on my word or I can't change this boundary but the next time I can. So put yourself back in the driver's seat instead of becoming the victim of a failed boundary setting. That make sense?

Michael: Yeah. I love that you mentioned this idea about compromise and I think all too often we come to compromise because for the sake of other people and we feel selfish, we feel guilty, we feel that will be judged or shamed for those things but I will argue this the most important thing that you will ever do is put yourself first while being in alignment with your values with your wants, your needs or interests, and who it is that you are.

And sometimes, like, this is the hard thing and I want people to understand this, there's no simplified way to move through moments like this sometimes in holding true to your boundaries you have to accept the other person on the other side is not going to be happy.

Ashley: I'm really glad you said that because it is so true and it can be so hard when that happens of realizing that, when you have those hard conversations or clearing conversations it might not go the way that you want it to, it might be difficult and that's part of the growth of it, that's part of the learning.

Michael: Yeah, and that's the spot to where I think you hit it right on the head where grace must be allotted, like, you have to give yourself the space to understand. And especially, when you're first setting boundaries because it's uncomfortable, it's awkward, it feels weird, it feels selfish but it's also the most important thing that we can do. I mean as an adult, when you set boundaries, you're going to find out whether or not people take you seriously, whether they respect you, whether they're going to honor your wishes of who it is, that you are, and what you want and so I'm all about boundaries. Like, in fact, I have some clear and hard fast in my life, that they're not to be overstepped ever under any circumstance and that comes in time, that comes in practice, that comes in patience and grace, you know, a lot of the words that you've used here, which I think are phenomenal.

One of the things that I'm really curious about, and I want to give you some space to talk about is this idea about Quantum coaching, can you dive into that? Because I, myself very curious about the inner workings of this.

Ashley: Yes. I'm so happy you asked, and I love everything that you said about the boundaries and that you have really hard and fast ones in your life and I think that's really, really important and just back up and what you said about your values. Having those values in place to be able to know what matters the most to you is also a really good place to start and figure out what your boundaries are.

Okay, Quantum Coaching, so I created the Quantum Coaching Academy because I realized that there are so many coaches out there who want to help people and they're helping people based on, you know, they went through something traumatic and they're like, I don't want anybody to go through that so I want to help people and make sure that they never have to go through trauma or people they have a great experience with a coach and they're like, oh my gosh, I think I'm supposed to be a coach and then their coaching from their experience with their coach, or for me, in the beginning, it was like, I went through yoga training, I'm a coach, like, I have the skills and tools, no, you don't. So I'm very, very, very passionate about helping coaches, equipping them with Quantum coaching tools so that they can really be informed, trauma-informed, with working with their clients, be able to help their clients, go into some of the hard things, be able to help them move through emotions and belief systems that have been holding them back, release patterns, rewire energy and to create and receive something brand new in their life.

So, in Quantum coaching, we say that in the quantum field, all possibilities exist, right? And our clients are in the quantum fields, and we're in the quantum field with them and so work coaching from the field of unlimited possibilities, that it doesn't matter what has happened in their life, what they have done, what they have gone through, who they are, it doesn't matter what they've been through, where they came from they can create anything in the quantum field from where they are. So we see our clients in their unlimited potential and we coach from Miracle Consciousness.

And Miracle Consciousness, says anything is possible and so when you are with your client and you're working from this unlimited space of possibility, you're helping them tap into that potential that's within themself because you're holding them, energetically in such a high standard that they now see things in themselves that are possible that they did not see before, and a lot of this happens without words. Communication is 93% energy and 7% words. So it's really, really important to be able to coach from the space of unlimited possibilities.

Michael: Yeah, I love that, and sign me up like I'm a proponent, I believe, we live in the matrix, I believe that anything is possible when you changed the way that you think about the possibility in the world. And, you know, I'm a proponent of this idea that your past does not have to dictate your future by all stretches and scopes of the imagination I should be dead and or in jail, and yet here I am, that's not by accident. I'm not somehow special, I don't know anything anyone doesn't know. The one thing that I do believe in those that anything is possible.

Ashley: I say that all the time. I love that like all of it.

Michael: It's true. I just don't know how to exist, I've done things and I've seen things in my client's lives and around the world where I go; the only way you explained that is by understanding that you have, the ability to be the world to your will. This isn't like some magic moment that's going to happen, there is no Disney moment as I tell my clients every single day, you have to put in the work but on a long enough timeline, you can have the life that you want to have. Ashley, this is an amazing conversation before I ask you my last question, can you tell everyone where they can find more about you?

Ashley: Yes, I am on Instagram @thequantum.coach. My website is thequantum.coach and I love hanging out on Facebook, my Facebook group is Big Coach Energy and the Podcast, come listen because Michaels going to be on it, Badass Manifester Podcast.

Michael: Amazing, one last question for you, my friend, is, what does it mean to you to be unbroken?

Ashley: Being unbroken means that there's nothing to fix, there's nothing to even heal that I am whole, I am complete and who I am my existence is enough.

Michael: Beautiful, thank you for being here, my friend.

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