PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT

INTUITION

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8 Instagram Shops You Should Know

It’s always great to find really cool, unique new shops that sell really awesome stuff, especially when they’re upcycled, earth friendly, all natural, charitable or just plain amazeballs. I follow several on Instagram that are to die for and today, I’m sharing them with you, just in case you need a last minute gift idea for Christmas!

Crystal Bar Soap – Canada

@crystalbarsoap
www.crystalbarsoap.com

100% vegan & cruelty free handmade crystal soaps and bath bombs. Each one of these lovelies comes with a crystal tucked inside.

Nectar & Bumble – UK

@nectarandbumble
www.nectarandbumble.co.uk

Gifts, homeware, and natural skincare. Nectar & Bumble donates 10% of its profits to bee charities to help save the bees.

Lonesome Hobo Glass – Wisconsin, USA

@lonesomehoboglass
www.lonesomehobo.com

Hand crafted terrariums from recycled window glass.

The Sacred Dimension – California, USA

@thesacreddimension
www.thesacreddimension.com

Spiritual treasures for the body and mind.

ShowMe Orgonite – Missouri, USA

@showmeorgonite
www.showmeorgonite.com

Orgonite artists and reiki masters. Each piece is reiki infused.

Poison Apple Print Shop – Pennsylvania, USA

@poisonappleprintshop
www.poisonappleprintshop.com

One person print shop. Handmade illustrations and prints.

Sisters of the Black Moon – Sweden

@sistersoftheblackmoon
www.sistersoftheblackmoon.com

Eccentricities for the shadows of your soul. Clothing, jewelry and accessories.

Becca Douglas Art – Virginia, USA

@beccadouglasart
http://www.designbyhumans.com/shop/BeccaDouglasArt/

Dream paintings, tattoo design, and personal portraits.

Get creative this holiday season and support conscious local businesses and artisans with your gift giving!

Xo,

← Manifesting Your Life Goals 2017 is the Year to Begin or Expand Your Heart-Based Business →

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@ASHRISING ON INSTAGRAM

Instagram post 1997357290547420323_2925114972

I'm realizing that I take serious issue with the commercialization of spirituality.
✳︎
Once the desire for success overtakes the desire for service to the greater good, you cross the border into service of your own ego, and the work loses its integrity.
✳︎
I think this is one of the reasons I've taken a sabbatical from offering paid services. If I'm in a position where I *need* to make my spiritual work support me financially, then I'm inherently driven by a state of lack wherein my primary motivation is to make money, rather than to be of service.
✳︎
If I'm inherently driven by a state of lack wherein my primary motivation is to achieve status and success, rather than be of service, the work also loses its integrity.
✳︎
This concept applies to business, as well as life—when you lose sight of your mission, you find yourself out of alignment with your higher purpose.
✳︎
Spiritual work is sacred work. People are trusting you with their deepest level of vulnerability. You have a responsibility to honor that within your interactions.
✳︎
It's important to periodically check in with ourselves and give our motivations a hard, honest assessment.
✳︎
You might be sitting there thinking, “Well Ash, nobody ever became a millionaire with that attitude.”
✳︎
And you’d be erroneously assuming that I desire to be a millionaire. I don’t. I’ve known a few. They’re rarely happy and are frequently followed by a trail of regrets. The happy ones are the people who followed a passion, the money was just a pleasant side effect.
✳︎
You can be successful and still do what you love. The difference is that if you do what you love, you're more likely to be successful. You can't help but attract that to yourself. If you strive primarily for success and lose sight of what you love, you're just like everybody else at the end of the day, wasting your life, sacrificing real happiness while working your ass off for something that never truly fulfills you.
✳︎
Have you checked your motivations today?
✳︎
#motivation #commercialization #spirituality #bereal #behonestwithyourself #spiritualbusiness #soulpreneur #heartbasedbusiness #growyourlove #fuckthehustle #businesswoman

Instagram post 1993786221894947589_2925114972

I’ve had this picture since September. I’ve almost posted it on multiple occasions, but then didn’t.
✳︎
I’m not sure why, but it makes me slightly uncomfortable. Maybe it’s the vulnerability it evokes. It makes me feel silly. That must sound odd, coming from someone who regularly spills their deepest thoughts to 14,000 people, but writing my feelings for thousands of people I’ll never meet provides a safe buffer. There’s still a computer screen between us. You can feel me, but you can’t see me. Not really.
✳︎
You see, the thing is, for years and years I never cried. I could count on one hand all the times I let a tear escape—maybe four or five times a year? Certainly never in front of people.
✳︎
Up until a couple of months ago, I’d cried in the presence of exactly eight people in the past 20 years. Three of them were therapists, another three were singular occurrences with friends, two of whom were both with me when it happened. One was a single tear shed in front of an ex from college, and the last was my ex-husband, and I’d never cried in front of him until our divorce (with the exception of when we put my cat to sleep).
✳︎
I’m still not comfortable being THAT vulnerable in front of people. I can really only think of one occasion where I really allowed myself to be a full on train wreck in front of another human being. It was 13 years ago when I showed up at @magdaziza ‘s apartment at four in the morning sobbing uncontrollably, and she let me lay in bed with her until I cried myself to sleep.
✳︎
Having another person witness your deepest pain is the most vulnerable any of us will ever feel. But when that pain is met by steady presence and total acceptance, it can also be the most healing thing any of us will ever experience.
✳︎
When was the last time you cried in front of someone?
✳︎
#crying #healing #vulnerability #tears #cry #writingtoheal #wordsthatheal #instadaily #creativewriting #words #honestlyworded #thoughtoftheday #lifequotes #soul #instagood #wordporn #spiritual #spilledink #wordsofwisdom #writer #healer #lightworker #awakening #quoteoftheday #lifequotes #personaldevelopment #reflectingoutloud

Instagram post 2140083881605081405_2925114972

Question submission:
“Hi Ash 💕 I want to understand how you managed to change this [negative body image] mindset. I have it too! Always angry because I gained weight 😪 I need guidance on this. I don’t know where to start.”
✳︎
I think this is rooted in looking for love and acceptance outside of ourselves - from society, from men, etc. and allowing other people’s reactions to us dictate our value. We mistakenly believe that it somehow has something to do with how we look.
✳︎
The reality is that nearly 100% of the time, if/when we are rejected by someone, it’s because of THEIR own issues and has nothing to do with us.
✳︎
Changing THAT mindset— the belief that YOU are the source of the problem—is key.
✳︎
Most of the time that involves looking at how past relationships influenced our self esteem and how our relationship with our parents influenced our self esteem, and working on healing that.
✳︎
Usually we had disapproving or hypercritical parents and we thought we had to earn their love and approval by being whatever it was that they wanted us to be.
✳︎
It’s only when we begin to find acceptance for ourselves as we are, begin the process of individuation and truly become our own person, find our own authenticity, that we really begin to develop self-love, and that changes EVERYTHING, including how you see yourself and your physical body.
📷: @tantric.alchemy

Instagram post 2018574136143361494_2925114972

I wrote in my very last blog post (link in bio) that I take serious issue with the commercialization of spirituality. Once the desire for success overtakes the desire for service to the greater good, you cross the border into service of your own ego, and the work loses its integrity.
✳︎
Spiritual work is sacred work. People are trusting you with their deepest level of vulnerability. You have a responsibility to honor that within your interactions. You have a responsibility to model integrity, not just in how you do business, but in how you live your entire fucking life.
✳︎
It’s easy to tell people the fundamentals of how to create change in their lives. It’s a wholly other thing to show them in the way we carry ourselves day-to-day. It calls us to elevate ourselves, our actions, and the entirety of our lives to a higher level of integrity. To live fully within our purpose in every moment and be a beacon of hope for the masses.
✳︎
THIS IS THE HIGHEST CALLING, THE GREATEST PURPOSE – TO BE THAT WHICH YOU PRESENT YOURSELF AS.
✳︎
The more time I’ve spent marketing on social media, Instagram in particular, the more disillusioned I’ve become with people who claim to be something they aren’t, the people who follow them, and the people who help create them.
✳︎
Many spiritual and heart-based entrepreneurs aren't comfortable marketing themselves.
✳︎
Most traditional business coaches will tell you that it's fear of putting yourself out there. They’ll tell you, in the most flowery, inspirational language possible, to quit being a coward, toughen up and power through it. They’ll disguise this message as, “You’re letting your fear control you. It’s imposter syndrome. You just need to put yourself out there.”
✳︎
They’ll write post after post “challenging” you to overcome this fear and “take my course” or “join my training program” for just $[insert ridiculous price here] and they’ll have you rolling in clients in no time, making all the money, working from home, and living your best entrepreneurial life, no doubt attached to a photo of themselves in a thong bikini working poolside with a margarita.
✳︎
[Keep reading 👇🏻. It gets better]

Instagram post 2133673324702500547_2925114972

Another something I wrote one morning in June: Abandonment is a term we’re all familiar with and have likely experienced to some degree in a relationship at some point–the guy you met on Bumble and dated for three weeks who ghosted you; the one you dated in college who moved away; the friend who broke up with you after a disagreement.
✳︎
Then there’s traumatic abandonment. I don’t know if that’s an official psychological term, but if it’s not, I’m about to coin it. Traumatic abandonment occurs when someone you have developed a long-term, intimate emotional relationship with suddenly cuts off all communication without warning. It’s being ghosted, but not just by anyone–by someone you love and have a deep attachment to.
✳︎
Traumatic abandonment leaves a devastation in its wake rivaled only by death–except it’s worse, because at least with death (suicide being the exception), the loved one didn’t choose to leave you.
✳︎
The stages of grief are similar, though they come with one addition: confusion. First, you are confused. Why aren’t they responding? You make excuses. Maybe they’re just busy. Maybe their battery died. The hours go by and then the days. Maybe they lost their phone. Still nothing. After a few days, it begins to sink in.
✳︎
Then comes bargaining: once you recognize the person has no intention of responding to you, you keep keep trying. You send text messages trying to fix things. You apologize, or beg for forgiveness, or forgive, or otherwise try to smooth over whatever happened, only to be met with more silence. ✳︎ Next comes the anger. Why would they do this to you? How could they do this to you? How could anyone, but especially them–this person who said they loved you? How can they just disappear without saying a word?
✳︎
Weeks begin to pass and the denial begins to work it’s delusion. You tell yourself they’ll come back. You build yourself up with hope. It gets you through the days. Every time your phone buzzes, you think, “Maybe it’s them.” And then you crash each time you see that it isn’t, until it happens enough times that hope becomes cynicism. (continued 👇🏻)

Instagram post 2130686715937821274_2925114972

Someone told me on on Monday that they unfollowed me on Instagram, and it was one of the best compliments I could ever ask for.
✳︎
She started by asking me if I could officiate her wedding vow renewal ceremony.
✳︎
“I really wanted someone who I feel in sync with and have always enjoyed as an authentic teacher and knowledgeable in the spiritual community.”
✳︎
That in and of itself is flattering, but her reason for unfollowing me was what I really took to heart:
“I go through phases where I delete or unfollow a bunch of people so that I’m not constantly reminded of heavy work (which I’m addicted to reading about).”
✳︎
This, to me, is the greatest compliment. I went to a conference over the weekend where they gave up intention bracelets that we could have any word stamped into. I chose dharma. (The girl making the bracelets didn’t even know how to spell it, but that’s another story...). If I’m reminding people of the heavy work, it means I’m doing my service to the collective. That’s my path. That’s my purpose.
✳︎
#purpose #thework #theworkisworthit #personalgrowth #spiritualgrowth #personaldevelopment #mentor #livebyexample

Instagram post 2004074075900592429_2925114972

ON SELF-RESPECT
✳︎
People talk about self-love all day long, but rarely does anyone talk about self-respect. The two are intertwined, and you certainly cannot have one without the other.
✳︎
Self-respect encompasses a lot of things. It means upholding your boundaries and maintaining your integrity. It's the staunch refusal to give yourself away to please other people, to maintain relationships, or to keep someone in your life.
✳︎
Self-respect means not forcing yourself to do things you're not fully comfortable with as a transactional approach to achieve an end.
✳︎
I'm not talking about things that are simply outside of your comfort zone, I'm talking about things that are outside of your moral compass.
✳︎
Telling that nagging sense of discomfort to fuck off when it tells you that you can't do something or that you're not capable is healthy. Telling that nagging sense of discomfort to fuck off right before you do something that will ultimately lead to feelings of shame and regret is self-destructive and harmful.
✳︎
People with no self-respect can't tell the difference between the two.
✳︎
Create a dialogue with yourself around your discomfort. Ask yourself where it's coming from. Is it because the negative voice in your head is telling you that you can't do something? Or is it because your soul is alerting you to the fact that this isn't who you are and you're about to sacrifice a piece of yourself for the sake of whatever or whomever you're trying to hold onto?
✳︎
In the end, it's not worth losing yourself.
✳︎
📷: @astrofashionista
#selflove #selfrespect #boundaries #shame #personaldevelopment #personaldevelopmentcoach #personaldevelopmentjunkie #selflovequotes #respectyourself

Instagram post 1997357290547420323_2925114972

I'm realizing that I take serious issue with the commercialization of spirituality.
✳︎
Once the desire for success overtakes the desire for service to the greater good, you cross the border into service of your own ego, and the work loses its integrity.
✳︎
I think this is one of the reasons I've taken a sabbatical from offering paid services. If I'm in a position where I *need* to make my spiritual work support me financially, then I'm inherently driven by a state of lack wherein my primary motivation is to make money, rather than to be of service.
✳︎
If I'm inherently driven by a state of lack wherein my primary motivation is to achieve status and success, rather than be of service, the work also loses its integrity.
✳︎
This concept applies to business, as well as life—when you lose sight of your mission, you find yourself out of alignment with your higher purpose.
✳︎
Spiritual work is sacred work. People are trusting you with their deepest level of vulnerability. You have a responsibility to honor that within your interactions.
✳︎
It's important to periodically check in with ourselves and give our motivations a hard, honest assessment.
✳︎
You might be sitting there thinking, “Well Ash, nobody ever became a millionaire with that attitude.”
✳︎
And you’d be erroneously assuming that I desire to be a millionaire. I don’t. I’ve known a few. They’re rarely happy and are frequently followed by a trail of regrets. The happy ones are the people who followed a passion, the money was just a pleasant side effect.
✳︎
You can be successful and still do what you love. The difference is that if you do what you love, you're more likely to be successful. You can't help but attract that to yourself. If you strive primarily for success and lose sight of what you love, you're just like everybody else at the end of the day, wasting your life, sacrificing real happiness while working your ass off for something that never truly fulfills you.
✳︎
Have you checked your motivations today?
✳︎
#motivation #commercialization #spirituality #bereal #behonestwithyourself #spiritualbusiness #soulpreneur #heartbasedbusiness #growyourlove #fuckthehustle #businesswoman

Instagram post 1993786221894947589_2925114972

I’ve had this picture since September. I’ve almost posted it on multiple occasions, but then didn’t.
✳︎
I’m not sure why, but it makes me slightly uncomfortable. Maybe it’s the vulnerability it evokes. It makes me feel silly. That must sound odd, coming from someone who regularly spills their deepest thoughts to 14,000 people, but writing my feelings for thousands of people I’ll never meet provides a safe buffer. There’s still a computer screen between us. You can feel me, but you can’t see me. Not really.
✳︎
You see, the thing is, for years and years I never cried. I could count on one hand all the times I let a tear escape—maybe four or five times a year? Certainly never in front of people.
✳︎
Up until a couple of months ago, I’d cried in the presence of exactly eight people in the past 20 years. Three of them were therapists, another three were singular occurrences with friends, two of whom were both with me when it happened. One was a single tear shed in front of an ex from college, and the last was my ex-husband, and I’d never cried in front of him until our divorce (with the exception of when we put my cat to sleep).
✳︎
I’m still not comfortable being THAT vulnerable in front of people. I can really only think of one occasion where I really allowed myself to be a full on train wreck in front of another human being. It was 13 years ago when I showed up at @magdaziza ‘s apartment at four in the morning sobbing uncontrollably, and she let me lay in bed with her until I cried myself to sleep.
✳︎
Having another person witness your deepest pain is the most vulnerable any of us will ever feel. But when that pain is met by steady presence and total acceptance, it can also be the most healing thing any of us will ever experience.
✳︎
When was the last time you cried in front of someone?
✳︎
#crying #healing #vulnerability #tears #cry #writingtoheal #wordsthatheal #instadaily #creativewriting #words #honestlyworded #thoughtoftheday #lifequotes #soul #instagood #wordporn #spiritual #spilledink #wordsofwisdom #writer #healer #lightworker #awakening #quoteoftheday #lifequotes #personaldevelopment #reflectingoutloud

Instagram post 2140083881605081405_2925114972

Question submission:
“Hi Ash 💕 I want to understand how you managed to change this [negative body image] mindset. I have it too! Always angry because I gained weight 😪 I need guidance on this. I don’t know where to start.”
✳︎
I think this is rooted in looking for love and acceptance outside of ourselves - from society, from men, etc. and allowing other people’s reactions to us dictate our value. We mistakenly believe that it somehow has something to do with how we look.
✳︎
The reality is that nearly 100% of the time, if/when we are rejected by someone, it’s because of THEIR own issues and has nothing to do with us.
✳︎
Changing THAT mindset— the belief that YOU are the source of the problem—is key.
✳︎
Most of the time that involves looking at how past relationships influenced our self esteem and how our relationship with our parents influenced our self esteem, and working on healing that.
✳︎
Usually we had disapproving or hypercritical parents and we thought we had to earn their love and approval by being whatever it was that they wanted us to be.
✳︎
It’s only when we begin to find acceptance for ourselves as we are, begin the process of individuation and truly become our own person, find our own authenticity, that we really begin to develop self-love, and that changes EVERYTHING, including how you see yourself and your physical body.
📷: @tantric.alchemy

Instagram post 2018574136143361494_2925114972

I wrote in my very last blog post (link in bio) that I take serious issue with the commercialization of spirituality. Once the desire for success overtakes the desire for service to the greater good, you cross the border into service of your own ego, and the work loses its integrity.
✳︎
Spiritual work is sacred work. People are trusting you with their deepest level of vulnerability. You have a responsibility to honor that within your interactions. You have a responsibility to model integrity, not just in how you do business, but in how you live your entire fucking life.
✳︎
It’s easy to tell people the fundamentals of how to create change in their lives. It’s a wholly other thing to show them in the way we carry ourselves day-to-day. It calls us to elevate ourselves, our actions, and the entirety of our lives to a higher level of integrity. To live fully within our purpose in every moment and be a beacon of hope for the masses.
✳︎
THIS IS THE HIGHEST CALLING, THE GREATEST PURPOSE – TO BE THAT WHICH YOU PRESENT YOURSELF AS.
✳︎
The more time I’ve spent marketing on social media, Instagram in particular, the more disillusioned I’ve become with people who claim to be something they aren’t, the people who follow them, and the people who help create them.
✳︎
Many spiritual and heart-based entrepreneurs aren't comfortable marketing themselves.
✳︎
Most traditional business coaches will tell you that it's fear of putting yourself out there. They’ll tell you, in the most flowery, inspirational language possible, to quit being a coward, toughen up and power through it. They’ll disguise this message as, “You’re letting your fear control you. It’s imposter syndrome. You just need to put yourself out there.”
✳︎
They’ll write post after post “challenging” you to overcome this fear and “take my course” or “join my training program” for just $[insert ridiculous price here] and they’ll have you rolling in clients in no time, making all the money, working from home, and living your best entrepreneurial life, no doubt attached to a photo of themselves in a thong bikini working poolside with a margarita.
✳︎
[Keep reading 👇🏻. It gets better]

Instagram post 2133673324702500547_2925114972

Another something I wrote one morning in June: Abandonment is a term we’re all familiar with and have likely experienced to some degree in a relationship at some point–the guy you met on Bumble and dated for three weeks who ghosted you; the one you dated in college who moved away; the friend who broke up with you after a disagreement.
✳︎
Then there’s traumatic abandonment. I don’t know if that’s an official psychological term, but if it’s not, I’m about to coin it. Traumatic abandonment occurs when someone you have developed a long-term, intimate emotional relationship with suddenly cuts off all communication without warning. It’s being ghosted, but not just by anyone–by someone you love and have a deep attachment to.
✳︎
Traumatic abandonment leaves a devastation in its wake rivaled only by death–except it’s worse, because at least with death (suicide being the exception), the loved one didn’t choose to leave you.
✳︎
The stages of grief are similar, though they come with one addition: confusion. First, you are confused. Why aren’t they responding? You make excuses. Maybe they’re just busy. Maybe their battery died. The hours go by and then the days. Maybe they lost their phone. Still nothing. After a few days, it begins to sink in.
✳︎
Then comes bargaining: once you recognize the person has no intention of responding to you, you keep keep trying. You send text messages trying to fix things. You apologize, or beg for forgiveness, or forgive, or otherwise try to smooth over whatever happened, only to be met with more silence. ✳︎ Next comes the anger. Why would they do this to you? How could they do this to you? How could anyone, but especially them–this person who said they loved you? How can they just disappear without saying a word?
✳︎
Weeks begin to pass and the denial begins to work it’s delusion. You tell yourself they’ll come back. You build yourself up with hope. It gets you through the days. Every time your phone buzzes, you think, “Maybe it’s them.” And then you crash each time you see that it isn’t, until it happens enough times that hope becomes cynicism. (continued 👇🏻)

Instagram post 2130686715937821274_2925114972

Someone told me on on Monday that they unfollowed me on Instagram, and it was one of the best compliments I could ever ask for.
✳︎
She started by asking me if I could officiate her wedding vow renewal ceremony.
✳︎
“I really wanted someone who I feel in sync with and have always enjoyed as an authentic teacher and knowledgeable in the spiritual community.”
✳︎
That in and of itself is flattering, but her reason for unfollowing me was what I really took to heart:
“I go through phases where I delete or unfollow a bunch of people so that I’m not constantly reminded of heavy work (which I’m addicted to reading about).”
✳︎
This, to me, is the greatest compliment. I went to a conference over the weekend where they gave up intention bracelets that we could have any word stamped into. I chose dharma. (The girl making the bracelets didn’t even know how to spell it, but that’s another story...). If I’m reminding people of the heavy work, it means I’m doing my service to the collective. That’s my path. That’s my purpose.
✳︎
#purpose #thework #theworkisworthit #personalgrowth #spiritualgrowth #personaldevelopment #mentor #livebyexample

Instagram post 2004074075900592429_2925114972

ON SELF-RESPECT
✳︎
People talk about self-love all day long, but rarely does anyone talk about self-respect. The two are intertwined, and you certainly cannot have one without the other.
✳︎
Self-respect encompasses a lot of things. It means upholding your boundaries and maintaining your integrity. It's the staunch refusal to give yourself away to please other people, to maintain relationships, or to keep someone in your life.
✳︎
Self-respect means not forcing yourself to do things you're not fully comfortable with as a transactional approach to achieve an end.
✳︎
I'm not talking about things that are simply outside of your comfort zone, I'm talking about things that are outside of your moral compass.
✳︎
Telling that nagging sense of discomfort to fuck off when it tells you that you can't do something or that you're not capable is healthy. Telling that nagging sense of discomfort to fuck off right before you do something that will ultimately lead to feelings of shame and regret is self-destructive and harmful.
✳︎
People with no self-respect can't tell the difference between the two.
✳︎
Create a dialogue with yourself around your discomfort. Ask yourself where it's coming from. Is it because the negative voice in your head is telling you that you can't do something? Or is it because your soul is alerting you to the fact that this isn't who you are and you're about to sacrifice a piece of yourself for the sake of whatever or whomever you're trying to hold onto?
✳︎
In the end, it's not worth losing yourself.
✳︎
📷: @astrofashionista
#selflove #selfrespect #boundaries #shame #personaldevelopment #personaldevelopmentcoach #personaldevelopmentjunkie #selflovequotes #respectyourself

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