Transcript of Complex Trauma, Survival Identity & Disability Advocacy with Ashley Townsend

Phoenix has bizarre crime. The canals of Phoenix, Arizona are hunted by a serial killer. People are like, well, are we safe? He's a sexual sadist. 2 grisly homicides. I know I didn't kill anyone. But solving these murders is just the beginning. That can't be his first rodeo. This is season 6 of American Nightmares: The Canal Murders. Coming soon, wherever you get your podcasts.

Welcome to Notes from the Edge, where we have the conversations we should have been having all along. We talk about the things that we're not talking about. I'm your host, Lisa Lacey, writer, trauma educator, executive advisor, and author of the upcoming memoir Notes from a Certified Madwoman. Welcome to the Edge. Hey, hey, my friends! Welcome back to another episode of Notes from the Edge. I am your host, Lisa Lacey, and this is the place we have the conversations we should have been having all along. Guess what? You ain't talking about it. So today we're gonna— And we're gonna talk about what happens when a therapist has spent years inside the mental health system and then decides the labels formulas and traditional approaches just simply aren't enough and starts building a different path towards complex trauma recovery, disability advocacy, self-trust, and real transformation. Today's special guest is Ashley Townsend. Ashley is a transformational and integration coach, complex trauma recovery specialist, disability advocate, healer, and artist. We love people on here that have very nonlinear paths into what they are doing. After more than 15 years of experience working as an LCSW and music therapist. Actually, my husband is a musician, so we may need to go down that rabbit hole too.

She made the intentional decision to step outside the traditional therapy model and create a different way of helping people heal. Her career has taken her through addiction and recovery work, domestic violence services, foster care, homeless shelters, trauma treatment, individual and family therapy, and other systems serving people during some of the most difficult times of their lives. Ashley is also blind. In her own experience, fighting to be seen, respected, and employed within the mental health field has profoundly shaped the way she thinks about disability, identity, labels, healing, and the systems we ask people to navigate. Through Finding Your Phoenix, she works as a transformational and integration coach, helping people identify the deeper patterns— we love patterns— and belief systems underneath behavior, move beyond survival responses, and create lasting change. She also works as a psychedelic integration coach, helping people make meaning from profound experiences and then translate all of that into amazing insights to change their lives. She is a former LCSW gone rogue, Ashley Townsend. Welcome to Notes from the Edge. How are you today?

Amazing after that. Thank you so much, Lisa.

You're welcome. You're welcome. It's always better when somebody else says all the awesome things about you. It is. Well, Ashley, this is Notes from the Edge, so we are just going to, uh, jump right in. All right, so you describe yourself as a former LCSW gone rogue, which immediately made me want to talk to you. So after spending 15 years, and that's a chunk of change, inside mental health care, what did you see or experience that finally made you say, you know what, there's other additional ways to help?

Yeah, so many things. I guess first of all, I'll say I'm in the process of you know, uh, voluntarily letting go my LCSW, because of course there's paperwork involved in that, but I've already adopted saying former LCSW. Um, we're working that out. And, um, I've spent 7 years with that label that, you know, you spend years and years and years, um, working towards, um, in school, out of school.

Yeah.

And so before that, it was a lot of, uh, working towards licensure, and it was working as a music therapist, and it was like so many different settings. So across those different settings, I saw so many different things where I was like, do I really want this? Like, is this really like the only way we can do these things? And so, um, I got increasingly more rebellious, which by the way, it's not hard to be seen as rebellious within the U.S. mental health care system. It's really not. And especially if you occupy any kind of marginalized identity, and, you know, so for me, that's like being blind, being a disabled person. Good luck. So some of the things that I saw that— there's too many to list here, but I guess I'll just like do a couple highlights for you.

Highlight reel.

Oh God, okay, so I used to work in domestic violence and substance use, right? Because human beings are intersectional, and what a lot of people don't fully understand is that when people are surviving domestic violence, they're often coping or self-medicating, uh, and they're often being made to use substances by their abuser. There's a lot behind that. So I used to have an office in a domestic violence shelter as a therapist, and you don't make organized appointments when you work in a domestic violence shelter. It's not normal, like what people think of when they think of therapy, right?

Yeah.

And within that system— and I just want to like kind of put out a trigger warning, I'm not going to go into a lot of detail— but within that system, I actually saw people die from their trauma and their addictions. And then I saw the systems that were supposed to be serving them and protecting them not have any conversations about unintended consequences. It was always just like, well, there was nothing we could have done.

Hmm.

Nothing we could have done differently. And I was just like, so deeply disturbed. I start shaking just thinking about it. I'm just like, how can we possibly say these things? And then just to add, you know, insult to injury for everyone, they called in a different counselor to talk to all the people in the DV shelter, not me. Not me.

A brand new one?

Because it was basically like, here's the script, here's what, you know, we're supposed to tell them, let's not let them ask too many questions, you know, and they were all like, what, why can't we just talk to Ashley? She knows us. Yeah, you know, she knows this person that—

That has developed trust with you.

Yeah, yeah, and that was very intentional. Let's not act like it wasn't. Another example, uh, worked in foster care, especially with teens or children kind of in that like 7 through, um, prepubescent age, and, um, it's an organization that rhymes with Schmelter and Schmome Schmashiny. I don't care anymore. I didn't catch that.

You're good.

People will catch it. It's, I don't care anymore. So I, uh, I had already— I, I've gone rogue, y'all. Yeah, so, um, I got this job finally in foster care. I've fought for that many times over, especially as a blind person, because what you get, especially as a blind person, is, uh, They're all excited about you till they meet you and find out you're blind. And then they're like, how are you gonna restrain kids? What? And so, um, I finally fight my way back into working in foster care. And I'm all excited. I moved to a different town. And I, I'm like, this is my dream job, right? 2 months in, they dropped this bomb. that they're shutting down the group homes and they're going to shuffle these kids to the wind and they don't know where they're going.

Oh.

And I was told as a therapist that I am supposed to tell these kids that this is— if anybody's familiar with the sanctuary model by Sandra Bloom, I'm supposed to tell these kids that this is healthy growth and change, which is one of the pillars of the sanctuary model, which is really bastardizing that model, right? And I said, I'm not gonna do that. I got put on probation because I pushed back. And it, it really goes to show that the system doesn't care about workers. I'm just gonna say it. And they don't care about the clients they serve. And especially in the foster care system. It's deeply, deeply insidious. And the public is not very aware of the things that have historically gone on in the foster care system and continue to go on there. So I'm getting angrier and more rebellious along the way, if y'all can imagine. Okay. And so it's like, I don't care anymore. I'm gonna just be honest, you know, and like, knowing that I'm gonna get in trouble. And along the way, things continue to be more and more siloed in mental health care. And I keep being like, I want a team.

Like, I know there's people like me out there that are like kind of doing this guerrilla social work thing. Can we all just like band together, you know? And over and over and over again, we're siloed. Part of how we're siloed is so much of our attention is drawn towards things like insurance. bureaucratic paperwork, right?

Mm-hmm.

And things that don't serve clients and the majority of the time don't make them any safer. I am all for policies that actually help create safety, but a lot of it is not about that. And so, um, the other thing that I'll say before I stop myself is another thing that broke me over time is that while you're working towards licensure, if you're trying to get licensed, um, you have to go through this process called supervision. And I had an amazing supervisor, amazing therapist, so deeply compassionate, um, just so patient, so self-aware. And he was also blind, uh, which was just like amazing for me. You know, to have that kind of role model, and, you know, someone who also had to fight so hard just to get employed. So then I get licensed, and supervision just doesn't exist anymore. There's no ongoing, like, let's, as therapists, talk about what's going on, talk about maybe the countertransference we're experiencing, you know, like, let's check on each other. Are you okay? It just doesn't happen. And there's these models where, uh, companies, they want to hire really young therapists, like fresh out of their master's degree, like maybe 23, 24 years old a lot of times, and then they don't have to pay them as much, right?

Mm-hmm.

And then they don't really give them much meaningful supervision. It's more about ticking that box, right? Like, oh, we gave them an hour I don't know, once a month or something. And that's dangerous. It's dangerous for young therapists. That's dangerous for clients. That's ultimately a liability for the company. Um, and then it's, it's creating that siloed feel, right? Like there's no team. There's no team.

There's no mentorship. There's no team. And I'm just gonna say, as A 50-year-old woman in midlife, I do not go to 23-year-old therapists.

Why would you?

Yeah.

Why?

Yeah. So there's that. There's that piece. So, yeah, it sounds like— it sounds like you put your time in to make all these discoveries. And, you know, 15 years is giving it your best go. So Okay, you've spoke a couple of times about being a blind woman in this industry. How hard did you have to work to simply be seen, taken seriously, and employed in mental health care?

Yeah, I'm just gonna start by saying it's never enough, at least in my experience. It's never enough. And what, what I was doing was I was just saying, I'll fight harder. I'll work harder, I'll be more extraordinary.

Hmm.

And what I had internalized, and this is, this is part of internalizing ableism, is this belief that if I just demonstrate my capability, and if I work hard enough at that, that people will see me. And so one of the things that I teach people is like, we're probably all familiar with the phrase, we teach people how to treat us. And I like to say that's an incomplete phrase. Like, there's, there's some truth in it, but the other half of the sentence should be, and sometimes people are just bad students.

Hmm, I love that. Yeah, and we're into asking better questions in here, and I think that lends itself to a better question that gives us better answers. Yeah. Yeah, and then you've got to know when to walk away, you know?

Yeah, I mean, it took me so long to just be like, there's a lot of bad students out there. I think a lot of people want to believe that mental health care and, and as, as a whole, right— I'm not saying there aren't individuals within the system that like get it right, because of course there are. They're not usually people who have a lot of power ultimately in the hierarchy, but they're there and they're trying. But we like to believe that mental health care as a system, that it's not ableist, that it's not racist, that it's not homophobic or transphobic, it's not any of these things, it's not sexist, it's not, it's not, it's not. It is. It absolutely is. And so I just kept trying harder for people that were never going to see me. I think one of the things we teach with disabilities, and it's like, in some ways it's helpful, but in some ways it's really damaging, is like, you're so capable, right? And we really push them, like, demonstrate your capability. And it's a good thing in a way, you know, I want to instill that in anybody, that, that you are capable, right?

And that we all— We all need that.

We all need that.

And we all need grit, and God knows you need grit if you have a disability. Like, that's just a fact. But again, it's like saying if you are just gritty enough and capable enough and try hard enough, then things will work out. 75% of blind and visually impaired people are unemployed. It's not because they're not employable.

Yeah.

Just gonna let that sink in, right? And I mean, if you heard that statistic and you think it's because they're not employable, I hope you go look in the mirror and, uh, I don't know, figure some stuff out.

So it's a pretty huge number. Yeah. One of my, uh, my favorite clients was also, uh, blind, and he works in the transformational, uh, coach arena now as well. And, um, and he had that, he had that work harder attitude so much so that I had to be like, you don't have to work this hard at this healing journey. You don't.

It's great.

It could be easy and graceful. And so there were times where, you know, know, I had to invite him to, to, you know, take some time and slow down and know that he would get there. And he did get there. But in the arena you're in now, which is in his own arena, you know? Yeah. Yeah.

I think there comes a point where like, we have to build our own channels. And I'm not saying that's the answer for everybody. It's going to take all types, right? It's going to take people who stay in the system, it's going to take people who break out and build their own channels. It's gonna take all types. Um, but then, you know, as you know, Lisa, like entrepreneurship is like no cakewalk either.

So it's not— It's not being the tech person, 5 minutes later being the marketing person, and then the salesperson, and then the website person. And yeah, it, it is something. It is something. And, um, you had brought up something, Ashley, that I think is, is so pivotal that was missing Um, and is missing, is currently, um, from your experience, and that's mentorship.

Mm-hmm.

And I am a big fan of mentorship and especially a big fan of transformational coaches because I'm gonna tell you, on my own journey through the psychiatric system on the other side of, uh, the clipboard, I had done all the acronyms. Friend, you name an acronym, I did it. DBT, CBT, EMDR, ACT, FGKLM. I had spent an astronomical, like a house, house. And, and I still was waking up going, I don't know if I want to keep doing this. And it was a transformational coach And coaches that followed that really got me into forward momentum. And that's what I appreciate so much about the transformational coaching space. That's why I became one myself. Um, that's why I advocate so highly for them is that I think the focus on forward momentum matters so much. So talk to us about what was the, what was the moment you said, okay, I know there's more. I know I'm capable of a different way. And, you know, the, the current arena will work for some people, and we're not saying it doesn't, but for me it didn't. And for some people, it's the modality. It has to be the right fit, has to be the right person.

But what was the moment you said, you know what, after all I've learned, I know there's a better way and I'm going to start creating it?

Oof, okay. The short answer is last summer, summer of 2025, I fully hit that wall.

Ah.

Um, but before it was, I know there's a different way, it was, uh, I finally said out loud, not just to myself but to somebody else, I don't want to be a therapist anymore. And it was heartbreaking. And there was a lot of fear because it's like, well, then is this a cussing safe zone? Do I need to like censor myself?

We, we need to keep the F-bombs out as far as I know. Yeah, keep the F-bombs out so we get a clean— we want a clean rating, Ashley.

Let's just say, let's just say it was like, then what am I gonna do? Okay, I'll just put that inflection.

We'll add it in there in our heads.

What am I gonna do? You know, there's like this This, um, just incredible sense of fear. And it, you know, then I go down this whole rabbit hole of, I can't just go like get a waitressing job, you know, like, because I'm blind and like, just low, low place.

And there's grieving involved too, right?

Oh, so much grief because I had to grieve all of the dreams that I had for how I was going to show up in the world. In this huge chunk of my life and that it never really panned out like what I had hoped for and what I had fought so hard for. And so you just feel like defeated, just like laid out. And then I was at the MAPS conference, which happens every 2 years in Denver here where I live, lucky me. And I had started to think about doing coaching, but I still was not sure and just scared. And I found a coaching company there, and I was like, well, maybe I can like finally build that team if I just get connected to some other people who are on a similar wavelength. Like, maybe I'm not as alone in this as I feel. And so I did go ahead with that, and I can say like I am so new in releasing the therapy stuff and embracing like the coaching, not just the label, but the, the community, the life, what it, what it requires me to change in myself. And like, my life is wildly different than it was a year ago, wildly different.

I feel so much less alone. I feel so much more connected to people who are like on a similar wavelength, but I had to just like completely break before I was like, wait, maybe there is another way. And, you know, before that, it was like so many turning points to get out of the maze, because what I really believed was in order for me to access the people, I have to go through the existing channels. It's the only way. So I just, I have to like eat all of this stuff that I know in my heart is unethical, that it's hurting people, that, you know, I have to just survive it because this is the only way that I can get to the people, and it's not.

Yeah, wait, when, when we are in the place of endure, I have to just endure, There's always a better question and usually some better options right on the other side of that enduring. I agree with you wholeheartedly. So, um, you recently wrote something I love: we get good at whatever we practice. And that can include healthy behaviors, but it can also include people pleasing. We get good at that if we practice it. Self-sabotage, addiction, hypervigilance. And saying yes when we mean no. Ashley, you're going to hear the pups. We're apparently getting a delivery, or their dog dad came home early. Saying yes when we mean no. So I love your notion that whatever you're practicing on the daily, you're going to get better at. So what are you practicing? So let's get into some of your current work with people. How do trauma responses— These survival patterns become so practiced— this is such a good question— that eventually we mistake them for who we are and our own personality. Yeah.

Oh, I love this one so much. And I mean, first of all, I just want to come out and say, like, I don't believe that personality is fixed. I really don't. And I gotta say, working with people who are facing addiction and trying to find recovery, I don't know, if you don't know anybody that's in recovery, then maybe, maybe you buy into this whole idea that like personality is fixed, you're just like that. If you know people that are in recovery that have really done that deeper work, then you know personality is not fixed.

Right.

Like, I know people—

great examples. Yeah, my husband and I are celebrating, uh, almost 9 years now clean together. So our lives are exponentially night and different— night and day different than they used to be. So we are definitely walking proof that people do in fact change and grow with some, uh, hard daily work underneath their belt.

It keeps going, right? And, and that's that's what I think people lose is this understanding that like it keeps going, you know, and in recovery we talk about like your next right thing, one foot in front of the other. So we're not saying that you're like fixed or you're always the same.

Yeah.

You keep growing, you keep changing, you keep evolving, and I think we do people a disservice when we send messages through things like diagnosis, because part of worshiping the DSM is to believe that people are ultimately not really changeable.

Mm-hmm.

Right, and I don't worship the DSM. I never did. I got into this whole thing of like, let me go down the warpath of getting licensed, because I wanted to fight with people. I wanted to fight with psychiatrists. I saw how children in foster care were being overdiagnosed, overmedicated, dehumanized. And no one fights for them. So I was like, well, I'll go get the credentials so that I can get in the room with those people. It never really panned out like that. So like, coming back to this personality thing, I just, I just object on a fundamental level. I, I really go rogue. Rogue. Yeah, I don't, I don't, I just don't believe it. I mean, do we have certain tendencies and certain gifts and like certain quirks, absolutely. And that's a beautiful part of the human condition. Um, I really teach people that we get good at whatever we practice because I want them to see like where their control is and isn't. Again, like recovery language, your control is in what you say and what you do. That's about it.

Yeah.

That is about it. And so if you're outsourcing that to this thing called personality, you're never going to practice anything different. You're going to practice the things that, that prove that self-sabotaging narrative over and over and over.

This is who you are. This is just who you are.

And it's baked into our language. I'm somebody who— people like us don't do that. I'm just this way. Oh gosh, when people say I'm just this way, it's like—

Well, because there's a stuckness to it, right? It's like, oh, how am I going to make a difference in seeing you that there— this is an evolutionary journey. And so the goal is to consistently, even if it's, you know, a quarter of a percent each day, a little bit different, you know, making a different choice about anything simple, those, those baby steps, one step at a time. But this Earth school here is supposed to be so that we do evolve.

Mm-hmm.

Right. Into new chapters. Right.

And this is where I kind of took a swing at self-help, because a lot of self-help material, it's like, just do it, right? It's like, okay, but people have all of this lived experience and pain and trauma that blocks them. And when you get to know why they adapted to guard themselves in a certain way, you will find that the, the protection is always brilliant. and it, it evolved for a reason and it makes sense, they needed it, but our protections don't know when to quit and so we have to care about that because we can't make lasting meaningful change if we don't care about that, if we don't get to the root of the pattern of our, you know, get to the root of that, that blockage that we're experiencing, which we all have these. I have these. There's never going to be a point where I don't. It's just like, it's like weeding a garden, you know, like gardeners will say, like, um, you get rid of weeds when you're dead because you don't have to deal with them anymore, you know.

So you'll always be weeding. I love that. Well, and I love you. You also ask a better— I'm into asking better questions in here, and I think the question why is really important. Context matters in how somebody is, is being. So yes, if we could do it, we would do it, really, honestly. But some of us don't have the tools. We don't have the conditioning yet. I mean, there's a lot of factors. Going into why we're not doing the thing yet, just because somebody said, well, just do it. Don't try, just do it. Okay. Okay. Yeah. So I love the fact that you pointed to why, because it shows that the context of why somebody put up that armor— one, that you honor it; two, that it explains it. And explanations are not excuses, but they sure do help in that forward trajectory we were talking about. So speaking of that and transformational coaching, you talk about transformational coaching as focusing on liberation— oh, such a good word— rather than limitation and labels. So you come from a clinical world where diagnosis is the central to treatment. And where do you think mental health labels can genuinely help people?

How can they help? And where can some of those labels become prisons? And friends, if you want to check out another episode about this, I did an episode on how my own labels became prisons for a little while. And we'll attach that in the show notes with all of Ashley's links as well. So Ashley, When can they help and when can they keep us stuck?

Such a good question and first of all, I want to say ultimately it's not for me to determine, it's for you to determine. You get to determine if a certain diagnosis or label or conceptualization is supportive for you or not.

Oh, good.

Period. You get to decide. What I'll say is I often— I don't want to say that these things are never helpful because they are at times.

Mm-hmm.

And again, that's in the eye of the beholder. Uh, I tend to attract people who have felt that that was not helpful, um, and who have really, uh, gone through some, some additional trauma because of these systems and because of, um, our Western conceptualization of what, what I would call— I don't really love the term mental health because we're not just a brain, it's not all mental— of, I guess I would say, like, the way we conceptualize being a human and human pain is, uh, it's very narrow, it's very limited. So I guess it can be helpful potentially, and I'm— these are like broad strokes, okay, I'm generalizing a little bit here, but where I've seen it be more helpful A lot of times people grew up neurodivergent with no support, understanding, in a school system that is in no way designed to support their needs. And then as adults, they perhaps get like testing and, and, you know, they, they get a diagnosis and they, they feel a lot of, uh, relief and grief.

Mm-hmm.

And that it can help them moving forward with understanding themselves, communicating their feelings and needs, maybe getting accommodations in a workplace, right? That, that's helpful, potentially, very. Places where it's not helpful, again, I could go on and on and on. Yeah, the one that really just did me in is being inside the foster care system, having a view into that system. and what we do to children and then the antipsychotics that they get put on. And there are these labels like, um, oh gosh, I can't even think of what it's called. Um, what's that one that, that they put on all of the kids? Um, they call them— oh, like ODD, oppositional defiant disorder. First of all, that's redundant. Secondly, it's, it's saying that like a child has no right to express themselves or to be angry. And so we take all of these things that are a normal part of the human condition and that are also a normal trauma response, and then we put it back on the person and we say something's wrong with you.

Exactly the question, right? The, the question to combat the what is wrong with you question is the why question that you asked earlier. Absolutely. Because the context of why we are doing what we are doing absolutely matters.

Even the way we talk about anxiety and depression much of the time, much of the time, is saying this is who you are and how you are, period. Even the way we talk about post-traumatic stress and I don't put the word disorder on the end of that.

Thank you.

I'm over this word disorder.

You know how many disorders I got, girl? I went into inpatient rehab thinking I had a bad marriage and a minor drinking problem and I came out with a chart that was 2 inches thick and it was just— I was on the plane and it was disorder, disorder, disorder, disorder, disorder and You know what I equated that to? Well, I'm defective. I am disordered. I am defective. And on the last page, it said prognosis for recovery, poor to none due to lack of familial support.

Who are they to decide? Who are they to decide? I mean, it's—

But I was devastated. I was like, how the heck am I gonna do this then? Yeah. Yeah.

It's not Like, and I'm not going to say there are no conditions that, that people might, you know, experience in different ways throughout their entire life. Again, like, I just want anybody listening to, to note that, like, I, I am speaking to a certain kind of experience that many people have within our healthcare system. And it's, it's maddening to me, this idea of permanence. Nothing in life permanent. People are changeable and adaptable. We'd all be dead if we weren't. And so like, I just, I can't get behind it. I can't get behind this word disorder. It's so blaming and shaming and unhelpful. So even the way we talk about things like anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress, it's like, I'm not sitting here selling cures. And saying, hey, if you come work with me, you're never going to experience any kind of post-traumatic stress stuff again in your life. I'm not saying that because I don't know. But what I do know is I've seen that change dramatically for myself. I've seen it change dramatically for other people. And so I know it's possible. So I'm not going to sit here and participate in this system that tells you that that's not even on the table for you.

for things to get different. I just, I won't do it.

Yeah, yeah, it was, it was. And then what I did was identify with those labels for far too long. That's what, that's what part of— but I wouldn't be here, you know, if I hadn't gone through that. And I, of course, wouldn't have found, uh, the, the next modality and the next modality and finally modalities that actually fit how I'm built and designed. So I love this, the word integration. Such a, such a cool word. I think a lot of us don't know what that word means, and I, I want to talk about that because your work includes integration after deep psychedelic experiences. And there's a tremendous amount of conversation around psychedelics right now, but far less conversation— in fact, I've never even heard about what happens afterward. What does— first of all, from, from your philosophy, from your experience, tell us about the word integration. What does that mean? And then what does responsible integration actually look like after having a psychedelic experience?

Yeah, okay. So integration, people talk about this word a lot of different ways, and essentially it's, it's taking parts and putting them together to make whole. And so we all have a lot of parts, right? You hear people talk about parts work or IFS. We have different chapters to our lives. We change our beliefs over time. There's all these parts swimming around. And often we don't consciously make the time To try to see the parts and bring them all together. So I guess like what I can say is this: in the culture that we exist in— I'm going to focus on the US because that's where I'm at and that's what I was— that's the soup I was brought up in, right?

It was soupy, wasn't it?

It is so soupy, it's still so soupy, but there's, you know, like this toxic productivity culture, you don't have time. You got to get out there, you got to work, you got to make money, or you can't survive. So our lives very much become about survival, and that is nobody's fault, um, you know, that, that we are putting a lot of our time and energy into that, because that's how things are rigged. But it creates a spiritual bereftness in our society. I didn't say religious, I said spiritual bereftness, because you cannot have the time to slow down and truly be in connection with yourself and in connection with something greater when you're hustling.

Yeah, you can't. Yeah, I had to teach myself how to rest without guilt.

Yeah, yeah, to rest without guilt, um, to not just fill space, right? We're taught like you have no worth if you're not constantly filling space, and, and that could be like doing stuff on your to-do list, or that could be like, I gotta fill space with TV, because, because we're, we're very like feelings resistant in this culture. Don't feel your feelings, you know. You see that in all kinds of conditioning, and then how we play that out on boys and girls and, you know, people of all genders. We just play this stuff out over and over and over and over again. So when I work with people on integration, a lot of it is around the psychedelic experience, and a lot of it is really around, let's get curious about that conditioning and how that's impacted you. Is there any part of that you want to keep? Sometimes there's parts of that we want to keep, um, and, you know, we can have conditioning that was actually really beneficial for us, you know, or that like helped shape our value system in a meaningful way. But a lot of it we probably don't want to keep.

And I, I also want to name that with integration, people think about like, oh yeah, let's make sense of the experience after it happens. So much of integration ideally is preparing for the experience. So I like to talk about integration work with people. It's like the bookends around a plant medicine or psychedelic experience. On the front end, ideally, I love to get people on the front end if I can. Let's talk about, is this the right time for you to do this? Why do you want to do this? What expectations do you have? Because Like, we have this magic pill culture, so it's very easy— it's like almost impossible not to project that onto a plant medicine or psychedelic on some level, because it's, it's the soup we've all been in. So like, that thing, whatever it is— psilocybin, ayahuasca, MDMA— it doesn't matter what the thing is, but it's like, that thing is gonna fix me. That thing is going to do it. And, and most of us have that kind of belief running on some level. So helping people explore that without shame or blame, because a lot of us, we want to bypass the expectation thing.

We want to just like get right to intentions and be like, no, no, no, I don't have expectations. Of course you have expectations because you're a person and it's what our brains do. It's like, I'm trying to anticipate what's going to happen Because having some idea of what's going to happen, knowing what to expect, is a big way that we feel safe, or that we tell ourselves we can feel safe. So we have to talk about that.

Yeah.

And, and so that's, that's the front end. That's, that's the first bookend. And I don't always get to have people there, but it's, it's a beautiful, beautiful thing. I also don't teach that everybody needs psychedelics. I do not proselytize. They're very, very powerful tools. It doesn't mean that they are for everyone. And it doesn't mean that just because it's powerful and maybe it could be an important part of your journey that you have to go do it right now. And then on the back end, that's a really magical place as well, because if you did go have the experience— also, I want to help people determine, like, let's make really safe choices about that. But if you did have the experience, then we get to sort of unravel what that felt like, and we get to really feel into that. This is a much more somatic, experiential kind of work than just like, tell me every detail of what you can recall, you know. A lot of times psychedelics don't really work like that. Anyway, and we get to start unpacking how do we want to translate this thing that often is really mystical or hard to put into words into those small actions like you were talking about, Lisa, like that next right thing, no matter how small, so that like day by day by day you get to shift how you show up.

Yeah.

That's your power. You get to shift that, and what we often underestimate is the ripple effect of that. And you don't have to try to make other people, places, and things change. You really focus on how do I take what I learned over here and how do I show up with that in my life, knowing that sometimes I'm going to go back to the old way. And that's okay. That's all part of the learning.

Exactly. It really is. But I think over time, what ends up happening is what used to take you for 2 months then only takes you out for a few weeks. And then eventually you get better at processing it in an hour. And then eventually it's like, oh, you know what? That no longer bothers me anymore because I know exactly how I'm going to manage through this. Yeah.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah, and you have to learn, and, you know, I believe that medicines will keep trying to show you this, and again, are you being a good student? You have to learn how to hold yourself, how to really be in relationship with yourself going through any kind of ceremony. And if you don't know how to practice that when you're not sitting with medicine, Then it's, it's going to be more challenging to figure out how to anchor in that way in a medicine experience.

Yeah, I love the before and after approach. I really do. I really do. And, and because you've worked with trauma, addiction, abuse, grief, disability, and people navigating these huge life transitions— and friends out there, transitions can be anything leaving a job, moving. Um, it's not just the, the loss of somebody you love. So many times we think of the word grief and that's all we think about, but grief can come in so many different forms. Losing a friend, like just a friendship.

Yes.

Um, across all those different stories, what, what do you think human beings most often, or what have you seen that human beings maybe needed to unlearn first in order to figure out what to learn? Because I know for me, you know, figuring out the big questions of wants, needs, values, desires, you know, again, going back to inpatient rehab was the beginning of my journey. And, uh, I had a team of 5 of the most brilliant women that I still to this day have ever known. I was so very fortunate. But one of them asked me what my wants and needs were.

And I was like, huh, what's that?

I thought she was speaking a foreign language. So how, how, what do we need to unlearn in order to figure out what we learn? Because I know a lot of times if I can figure out what I don't like, then it gets me closer to what I do like.

It's an important part of the process. And like you said, at some point you have to make the switch, right? We can't just stay in what I don't like, what I don't like, what I don't like.

Yeah.

That was a big part of my struggle in, in leaving behind conventional therapy world. Like, I knew what I didn't like. I could go on and on and on, but I didn't know what I did want. I didn't know what I did want, and I, I really started to believe that what I truly wanted wasn't possible. And so, um, this is, this is going to transition into answering your question. It was like, I'll just fight harder, I'll just fight harder, I'll just fight harder, no matter how much it hurts me. Because one of the things that I internalized, and I think a lot of us have internalized through no fault of our own, but it does become our responsibility to heal from it, is I'm going to be all grit and no grace. Because that's strength. That's strength, right? All grit, no grace.

Right.

And, and a lot of us are taught that so many different ways. And, uh, a lot of us also have this concept that grace is just like giving up and doing absolutely nothing. That's not grace, that's shutdown. Right? Grace is like, I can hug myself and feel myself and have compassion for myself. So I can have it for others. Yeah, because we really— I, I think there's, there's a couple things. I can't answer this question in just one thing, but there's this aspect of all grit, no grace. We got to unlearn that. We got to relearn, like, what even is grit? What even is grace? And why do we need both of those things? It's not, it's not pick one or the other. They're both so valuable, and they're meant to work together.

I love that. And you know what, self-compassion is such An important skill. It is a skill to practice.

And if we don't practice, we can't be good at it. Yeah, yeah, we can't be good at it. And we're gonna feel like beginners. We don't like to feel like beginners because it's vulnerable. And a lot of us adopted that grit also because situationally we needed it. We were not safe. And got us through, right? Yeah, yeah. So it's, again, it's not bad, but it's like, let's understand it. And one of the, the greatest messages that I've received and that I have to continue to work with is, and this is, this is in my own plant medicine work for myself, is you are safe to be soft. Because I am, right? But there are so many examples I had of when it, like, it wasn't safe to be that way. And so I rejected that in myself. I have to reclaim that in myself.

Yeah.

And, and that's what I love to bring people back to, is really, we are all very tender-hearted people. And one of the things that was thrown at me a lot as a kid was the word sensitive as an insult. But the direct opposite of sensitive is insensitive. So essentially, I was being told to aspire to be insensitive.

Mm-hmm.

So this is, this is all at the core of what I see time and time again, that people need to unlearn and relearn. And it's not easy. And it's not like a one-and-done checklist, like I learned it, I unlearned, I relearned, I did it. It's like there will be so many versions of this, and it doesn't mean that, um, you know, a lot of times it's like, oh, if I, if I had really done work on this, then I wouldn't keep getting more lessons on the same thing. No, you've done a lot of work, and that's amazing. And it's like this infinite onion. There's more layers and there's more layers, and you get to keep deepening in that understanding and in living into that understanding.

I love that. Yeah, there are, there are always other layers. There will always be, there's always a deeper layer, my friends. So there is, this is not a destination. So please, I actually, I thought I had read a statistic one time that said that at 5 years of recovery and sobriety from addiction, your brain was gonna be healed from all the damage you did. So I swear, at 5 years, I was expecting something miraculous to be happening in my brain, and no such luck. It didn't, it didn't happen. As a matter of fact, I hit menopause and then brain fog came on, and I was like, well, so much for, for brain healing.

But yeah. Yeah, brains are hard, you know. This whole like having a brain thing can be hard, and then like a being in, in a larger collective that tells you that like, all you are is a brain, all you are is your thoughts. It makes it so much harder, makes having a brain so much harder.

And we can't think, we can't just think our way through this process. And there's a whole body from the neck down.

Your brain needs a break. Your brain is a wonderful, beautiful thing. But like, Again, we just— it's like we abuse our brains. Your brain is supposed to just do everything. Your brain can't do it all. Like, give her a break, girl.

That's a good one to say. That's a good internal mantra. Give her a break, girl. Calm it down. It's cool.

Tell her thank you and say, I love you so much, brain, and I would just really— I think you deserve a break. I would love for you to have a break.

Yeah. I'm gonna go into my body now. Yeah, I love that. I love that. Well, Ashley, my friend, we are coming right up to the end of our convo. Um, how can people find you to work with you as an integration and transformational coach?

Oh, thank you so much for asking. Okay, so if you are, um, local to the Denver area and you like in-person, I just want to let people know I have an office with a wonderful private practice here called South Platte Counseling, and so we are a unique team of therapists and coaches. And so just wanted to put that out there because I love doing in-person work. I also have my own coaching company called Finding Your Phoenix Coaching. My website is www.findingyourphoenixcoaching.com, and there's a contact form that you can fill out there so that we can get started if you want to just have like a conversation about your needs and about what resonates for you and see if I'm the right fit. That is for free, that initial conversation. Um, and I guess one more thing I'll say, and, and I'll send all of this to you as well, Lisa. Um, one more thing.

Yeah, guys, you don't have to write it down.

We'll put it in the clickable links.

We'll make it easy for you to find her.

Yeah, I guess one more thing I'll say is If you are the type of person to write things down, is you could text or call me right now at 720-316-4748. We can dive in.

You know somebody's committed to their work if they're giving you their phone number, my friends.

I can, I can also see people anywhere in the world as a coach. That's, that is the beauty.

Isn't that cool?

Amazing. So liberating.

It is. Well, Ashley, before we let everybody go, we always ask our guests 2 questions to close out with. Are you ready for the first one?

Okay.

All right. In your own life, what did you perform in order to survive and what did setting that role, mask or performance down do for your life?

Okay, too many to count. I performed being the good girl. So I'll be what everybody needs me to be. I'll be the most emotionally available. I won't rock the boat too much. I mean, like, growing up, my whole family called me the nice girl. Then I had to go through like a lot of work. Like, the nice girl is thinking about everybody else but me, and that's not really working out. But it was the role that was very much carved out for me, and so I felt like that, that gets me belonging. And then simultaneously, I was also performing being sighted, growing up as a visually impaired child who was gradually losing vision. And I told myself that that was all part of like, I'm demonstrating that I'm capable, right? Like sort of trying to play it off like I could see more than I really could. What it really was, was again, I, I wanted to feel a sense of belonging. I wasn't blind enough to like truly be blind and fit in with blind people, and I didn't really have access to them anyway. And I wasn't sighted enough to truly fit in with sighted people, but it's who I was around.

So I had access to. And so I was trying so hard again for other people, not truly for me. And it makes sense, right? I have compassion for that little girl, but I, I hurt for her so, so much because I didn't embrace learning to use my cane, learning to read Braille, all these tools that I was learning growing up. Growing up so that I could function as a blind adult, because society was telling me over and over and over again that blind people aren't capable and that they're not whole people. And so I didn't want to be that. I didn't realize that that's really what it was all coming from. So I had to—I have to continue to heal that in myself. And then I guess the third one, if I have to just. Keep it to 3. That's what I'm trying to do here. Um, is like, so I stopped performing being sighted also because at a certain point your vision drops off to a point where you can't keep up the performance and you have to deal with things. And then I performed being a rescuer. It's like, I'll do it all.

I'll make it seem like it doesn't hurt. Um, you know, I'll be the one to like single-handedly buck the system. It's like taking on all this responsibility that couldn't possibly be the responsibility of one person. That's an effort for all of us.

Yeah.

And I kept doing it and I kept doing it and I kept doing it And it was a way of surviving in the sense that it's like I'm trying to hold down a job in this thing that I got trained in, and I'm trying to do it in such a way that I still like myself. And, uh, it just didn't really work. It didn't really work. And so now I get to create things from a place of love rather than from a place of fear and always fighting. And I love my fighter, she's awesome, but I overworked her and I didn't listen to her, and I want her to have her rightful place now. And I really want to put so much more emphasis and energy on creating things out of love and collaborating with people out of love.

Yeah, isn't it so much more fun than that? Yeah, yeah, so much more fun, and it's graceful. There's some grace to it. Well, Ashley, last question: what do you want us to be having more conversations about that we're not talking about?

I want us to be having more conversations about our inner child. And when I say that, I don't mean it in this like— I think in this way that like goes over people's heads, or I don't mean it in like an intellectual way or even like a visualization way. I mean it in a sense of, can we actually feel that in ourselves? And a lot of us can't. And so we need to be able to ask for help because there's such a huge disconnect that's happening for a lot of us. It's like we're not allowed to play. We're primates. We're supposed to play. our whole life. We're not allowed to have imagination unless that imagination has been twisted into anxiety, which is like, it's imaginative, but it's only imagining bad things. And so if we don't get in touch with that inner child and that innate essence, then how really are we supposed to unlearn All of these things that we've been taught and that we've absorbed and relearn what our spirit already knows. How, how else can you really access that? And so I bring a lot of play into the way that I work with people because I believe that healing doesn't just have to hurt.

It probably will sometimes, but I don't subscribe to this idea that it always has to hurt. So I think I want us to be talking about how it can, it can feel beautiful and amazing and fun and weird and silly and confusing and everything.

Not be a trudge that takes a gazillion years, you know. It could be an ongoing— yeah, there are going to be some dips, but man, there's some, there's some really magical fun moments in this journey. Well, my friends out there, I'm going to ask you guys the same question I asked Ashley: what are you performing in order to survive, and what might setting that role, mask, or performance down do to lighten your load just a little? I'm your host, Lisa Lacey, here with my special guest Ashley Townsend. And when you find the answer to that question, we will both see you at the edge. Thank you so much, Ashley. Thank you.