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Shamelessly Ambitious I Helping Ambitious Women Prevent Burnout + Create Nervous System First Success in Business, Motherhood, & Life
Shamelessly Ambitious is an honest, grounding, and vulnerable podcast for ambitious, emotionally intelligent women who are done proving themselves, tired of living in constant high-functioning burnout, and craving a life and business that actually feel good.
Hosted by Ash McDonald—therapist, nervous-system-first business mentor, and speaker this show blends clinical expertise with lived experience to deliver nervous system tools, embodied strategies, and radical permission so you can expand your capacity, root into emotional steadiness, and build sustainable success that supports your whole life.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed, stretched too thin, caught in productivity guilt, or stuck running on stress, this podcast meets you where you are—with therapeutic insights, embodied practices, and heartfelt stories that create real shifts. Whether you’re navigating motherhood, entrepreneurship, or the messy middle of redefining success, each episode helps you slow down, regulate, and return to a felt sense of safety in your body.
With over a decade of experience at the intersection of therapy and leadership, Ash pulls back the curtain on what really works—offering grounded guidance you can apply in real life.
What you’ll hear:
- Honest conversations about burnout recovery, nervous system regulation, and redefining success
- Somatic tools, meditations, and practices that build inner safety and capacity
- Stories of motherhood, mom-life, ambition, and the courage to create a life and business that feel rich and real
If you’re asking the following questions, you’re in the right place:
- How do I stop tying my worth to productivity?
- How do I know if I’m experiencing high-functioning burnout and what do I do about it?
- How do I balance motherhood and leadership without losing myself?
- How do I calm my body when I feel overwhelmed or overstimulated?
This is the podcast for when you’re ready to reclaim peace, expand what you can hold, and create success that doesn’t cost you yourself. Tune in and take the next step toward a regulated, rooted, and deeply fulfilling life.
Shamelessly Ambitious I Helping Ambitious Women Prevent Burnout + Create Nervous System First Success in Business, Motherhood, & Life
152: Why I’m Taking a Year (minimum) Off Social Media
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Hello hello, my love. Reporting live from my social free era with coffee in one hand and a board game under the other. On my 38th birthday, August 28, I broke up with social media for at least one year. Two months in and I do not miss it even a little. Not the scrolling, not the performative selfies, not even the dopamine glitter.
This episode is the tea and the receipts. Why I left, how I did it without burning my business to the ground, and what has shifted in my brain, my rhythms, and our home now that my thumbs are not living on an app. Let’s talk about presence, peace, and how good life gets when you are not trying to be everywhere at once.
TOPICS & TANGENTS:
• The birthday decision and what “off” really looks like for me
• Parenting with integrity: saying no to my son’s social media and holding myself to the same standard
• The book that shifted everything: how attention, intuition, and coping get rewired
• Addiction, dissociation, and why “I have to for business” kept me stuck
• Comparison fatigue: kitchens, lifestyles, and wanting what you never wanted
• Friendship fallout and the highlight-reel problem
• Presence over performative living: documenting less, remembering more
• Business without socials: remembering companies existed long before apps
• What I’m doing instead and how I’m staying visible without a feed
POINT OF THE STORY:
Social media can offer connection and sales, but if it steals your peace, energy, and presence, the cost is too high. Choose the life you want to be inside of, not the one that looks good from the outside.
MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
• The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt
MORE ABOUT ASH
I am the definition of duality — I swear like a sailor and break rules like it’s my job, but I also hold incredible space for my clients and work my ass off to help them achieve the success they’re after. But I'm also here for the non-preneur woman, too. My background in counseling gives me a unique perspective on what it means to show up, serve, & create connection for those who feel like they've never belonged before.
LINKS:
- Become the Regulated Woman
- Get emails that feel like your best friend (if your best friend was a therapist and actually told you the truth).
- Use code BB20 to get The Burnout Breakthrough for only $7
- Follow me on IG (dropping in once a quarter for updates & gossip)
- Website: ashmcdonaldmentoring.com
Work with me 1:1
- Therapeutic Mentorship
- Business Therapy (therapy + strategic mentorship) ...