Piece Of Mind Podcast
Welcome to Piece of Mind, where we piece together the parts of your mind to help you live a life that’s authentic, unapologetic, and absolutely fulfilling.
I’m your host Ashley Badman, a mindset coach and psychology student, here to guide you through the world of subconscious re-programming, relationships, belief systems, and patterns.
This isn’t your typical mindset podcast. We’re diving deep into the core of who you are, tackling everything from self-sabotage and people-pleasing to attachment styles and beyond. We’ll uncover the deeper shit that makes you who you are, so you can grow, evolve, and build a life you’re obsessed with.
Expect a mix of evidence-based insights, energetic shifts, and a touch of chaos as we explore how to heal, optimize, and re-program your life.
This podcast is for those who refuse to settle, who are committed to living life fully and getting the best for themselves.
Get ready for straight talk, practical strategies, and a few surprises along the way. If you’re ready to stop hiding from yourself and start living unapologetically, you’re in the right place. Tune in and let’s get into it.
Piece Of Mind Podcast
Ep 08: Breaking Free from Self-Doubt and Shame
Ever feel like your inner critic’s keeping you stuck, holding you back from chasing your dreams?
In this episode of Peace of Mind, I’m diving deep into how showing yourself a little compassion can actually boost your resilience and help you go after the life you want.
We’ll talk about how that constant self-criticism messes with your ability to make bold moves and why it’s time to let go of perfection and start embracing the beauty of messing up.
I’ll be sharing my own story—growing up around domestic violence and addiction—and how I had to fight through my own struggles with self-criticism and shame.
We’ll break down the difference between feeling guilty for things you’ve done and feeling shame about who you are, and how letting go of that shame can totally shift your perspective on life.
Plus, I’ll walk you through some simple ways to flip that negative self-talk into something positive.
I’ve got a morning routine that’s all about using mantras and mindful breathing to set the tone for a better day, and I’m sharing it with you so you can start affirming your potential every day.
Join me as we spread good vibes and work on this journey towards self-compassion and growth—together.
Welcome to Peace of Mind the podcast. This is all about piecing together the parts of your mind so that you can live a life that is authentic, unapologetic and actually fulfilling. I'm your host, ashley Badman, and I'm here to help you get real with yourself, embrace who you truly are and unleash your fullest potential. Get ready for a no bullshit, straight talk and a little chaos, because I'm here to give you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear. So let's go. Welcome back to the Peace of Mind podcast. I'm very excited that you are here. I'm lucky enough to be able to see how many downloads we get per episode, and I have a feeling that the people who are downloading it are the same people week after week. So if that is you, I am incredibly grateful that you are here. I am incredibly grateful that you want to take the time to learn from me and, more importantly, that you want to take the time to learn more about you.
Speaker 1:I think that the relationship we have with ourselves is one of the most important relationships that we can have, but also probably one of the most complex relationships that we can have, if you think about it and think about how you treat yourself, how you speak to yourself, the thoughts that you have about yourself. How many of those do you have about other people? Would you speak to other people the way that you speak to yourself? Would you even want people to witness you in how you speak to yourself? When you look in the mirror and you tell yourself that you're not good enough? Or you look in the mirror and you roll your eyes at what your body looks like, or what you look like when you tell yourself that you're not enough and you're not good enough and you're not smart enough. When you get into a scroll hole on social media and start comparing yourself to what everyone else is doing and start telling yourself inside your mind everyone else is better than me. Everyone else has their life figured out. I should have done this. I regret not doing this. Why me? Why this?
Speaker 1:And then you start to just criticize yourself. Is there anybody in your life that you criticize more than you criticize yourself? Is there anybody in your life that you judge more than you judge yourself? And it's such a fucking confronting thing to look at. Like even I had to look at this and I was like wow, I am really not kind to myself. Actually, I'm a bit of an asshole and if I spoke to other people in my life the way that I speak to me, I wouldn't have other people in my life. My family would fucking abandon me. I'm sure that they love me, but I don't know if they love me that much for me to look at them and say you're fat, you're not enough, you're not pretty enough, you look ugly. Whatever it is for them to still want to spend time with me, I would definitely not have any friends.
Speaker 1:And then it's a really important moment to question yourself. Then in like, well, why do I treat myself like that? And why is it so hard to be me in feeling confident, in having self-worth, in having self-trust, in feeling like I'm more than enough in going after my biggest fucking wildest dreams, in overcoming all of the challenges and hurdles that I face? And it's because spending time with you is probably really hard. It is really really hard and this is why I believe that when we can work on our relationship with ourselves and we can start to have compassion for ourselves and we can learn to stop judging ourselves, our life becomes wildly different. We become someone who is really resilient, who has challenges and has hurdles that they face, but we can actually overcome them. We can get through them because we're not speaking to ourselves like shit. We become someone that dreams so much bigger. It's very hard to dream big or allow yourself to dream bigger than you currently are, when you are met with you're not good enough, you're not smart enough, you're not smart enough, you're never going to be able to do that, and then you procrastinate and then you self-sabotage and it becomes really hard to achieve a whole lot of anything. So when you improve that relationship with yourself, you also improve your reality, your external reality, your life, the things that you're doing, the things that you're chasing, the achievements and the accomplishments that you actually have. So why are we so hard on ourselves? And the conversation that I wanted to have today was really about you removing shame and judgment, and we can even throw into that conversation regret.
Speaker 1:So many people don't make decisions because they're scared that they're going to make the wrong decision, and I want you to think of one person in your life that you know, or even if it's a celebrity, someone famous, someone that you follow on social media, and I want you to think about how many decisions that they've made in their life to get to where they are right now, and I want you to ask yourself do you think every decision that they made was the right one? Do you think that they were always perfect, never made a mistake, always made the best decisions, or not? Because I can guarantee you they didn't. But why do you place that expectation on yourself? Why do you put the pressure on yourself that every decision that you make has to be the right one? I can tell you right now, I've made decisions in my life that I'm like questionable, like why did I do that? Why did I make that decision? Why did I start doing that? Why did I stop doing that?
Speaker 1:But the difference is I've learned to let go of the shame and the judgment that I put on myself because of that, and what I want you to accept is that you are human, which means that you are going to make bad decisions. You are going to make decisions that you look back on in hindsight because hindsight is such a beautiful thing and think, wow, I really wish I didn't make that. But by being scared of making the wrong decision, you are also avoiding making really brilliant decisions for yourself. You are avoiding making decisions that change your life in the best possible way and you are lacking the trust in yourself that you're actually going to be okay If you make a bad decision, if you fuck up, if you do the wrong thing, if you invest in something and it's not the right thing to invest in, if you start studying something and you realize it's not for you, whatever it is, whatever the decision may be, if you make the wrong one, you have to trust that you will be okay. You have to trust that you will learn the lesson that you need to learn. You have to trust that you will be able to move through it, because you will. And if you don't believe me because you might be like you don't fucking know me, you don't know, I'm not going to be able to handle it I want you to think of all the things that you've experienced in your life up until this point. I can guarantee you it's a lot.
Speaker 1:I seem to attract people who listen to my podcast or who follow me on social media, who have been through quite a lot in their lives, who have dealt with more than the normal person has dealt with, who has been through challenges or hardships, whether that be marriages ending breakups, childhood trauma, parents treating them in ways that they shouldn't have treated them, whether it's mental health issues and anxiety and depression, whether it's losing a job, whether it's financial struggles, whether it's feeling lost in your life, whatever it is, whatever it is, I am sure that every single person listening to this podcast has experienced something in their life. Some people have probably experienced more than others when it comes to struggles or hardships, or overcoming challenges and hurdles and all those different things, because we're all unique and we're all unique in our story. But you have experienced something. And are you sitting here today and did you get through it? Because if you're not going to listen to me because maybe that's a little challenging to just believe what I'm saying, use yourself as evidence, because that is what I do.
Speaker 1:I look at everything that I've been through in my life, all the challenges, all the hardships and all the hurdles, and I know that I survived them. So any decision that I now make, moving forward, I'm like, okay, I can get through this, and if it doesn't work out how I wanted it to work out, I'm actually going to be okay. It's probably something I'm going to talk about on my podcast later, and I do know. What's so interesting about this is a majority of the things that I talk about are actually the things that I've found hard in my life and the lessons that I have been able to pull from those hardships. And it's like if I was so cautious of always being perfect and never making the wrong decision all those things I wouldn't have much to talk about. I wouldn't offer you much value, because, whilst I'm going to university at the moment to do a degree, to learn all of the things, I truly believe there is no greater lesson than the life that we lead and there is no greater lesson than the challenges that we have overcome or the experiences that we have faced. And it's not just challenges. There is good things as well in our life. Maybe it is getting promotions, maybe it is running a successful business, maybe it is building a beautiful relationship or beautiful friendship. I'm sure you've learned many lessons from that as well Trust that you have a lot of wisdom, trust that you are the best person to make the decisions for you in your life, and trust that you are going to be okay regardless of what happens.
Speaker 1:Because when you do that and you realize, wow, I'm actually quite a valuable person, I'm actually quite insightful. I actually know myself better than anybody else because I'm the one that's experienced it all. You start to realize that you're not the person that you should be criticizing. You're not the person that you should be coming down so hard on. You are the person that should be like wow, I actually know a lot, I've experienced a lot, I am capable of a lot and I should actually treat myself with the respect that I deserve. I should treat myself with the respect that I have worked to get. You know everything that you've achieved in your life, everything that you've experienced, just to get to a point where you're like you're fat, you're ugly, it's like bitch. I deserve more respect than that. I deserve to look in the mirror and be like wow, thank you for getting me here. Thank you for getting through all of those hard times. Thank you for navigating what you have navigated, even though it was hard, even though it was painful. Thank you for making the decisions that you have made up until this point, because I'm sure there has been some really hard ones. You deserve to treat yourself with kindness, you deserve to treat yourself with compassion and, most importantly, you deserve to stop shaming yourself.
Speaker 1:So when we think of shame. Shame is very much your I'm not enough, right, I'm not enough, I'm not smart enough, I'm not skinny enough, I'm not rich enough, I'm not doing enough. It is your I'm not enough. And the difference between guilt and shame which is something that I heard that I think is brilliant is that guilt is I have done the wrong thing or I have made a mistake or whatever it is. Shame is something that you believe about yourself as a person, not I did the wrong thing, I am wrong, I am a bad person. We need to stop shaming ourselves, because it is us that is judging ourselves for what we have done. And we hold shame because we're worried that other people are going to see that and think that we expect ourselves to have always been perfect and never fucked up and never done the wrong thing. We hold so much guilt and so much shame and when we can actually just have compassion for that. Yeah, maybe I have done things in my life that weren't the best thing, maybe I have hurt people along the way, maybe I have made bad decisions, but can I have compassion for the part of me that was human in that? Can I learn from that? Of course I can. I'm not saying yeah, just go around treating everyone like shit with just no regard for how they feel. No, but it's no longer shaming and judging yourself. It's looking at the parts of you, of your story that you are still judging and shaming.
Speaker 1:And I did this for a very, very long time. I was very scared to let people see that I'd actually experienced a lot of trauma in my life, that I grew up in government housing and I didn't have this amazing, amazing upbringing and childhood where everything was perfect and I had the perfect parents who were still married and just this, you know, glorious childhood, because that wasn't my reality. I experienced a lot of domestic violence. I had a dad who was an alcoholic and not alcoholic as in like drank too much, I mean like an actual addiction, an actual addiction to alcohol where it changed who he was, the anger, the aggression. I witnessed things in my childhood that I definitely should have never actually seen the domestic violence. My mom was in a relationship after my dad where, again, it was very much domestic violence. Only then my brother and sister were much older and they weren't around. So it was just me it was just me as little Ash experiencing this who was addicted to drugs, that boyfriend, he was addicted to drugs. So it went from alcohol addiction to drug addiction and it just it wasn't very nice.
Speaker 1:The environments that I was in and the things that I was seeing weren't very nice, and I remember when I joined the police I did not want anyone to know that that's what I had experienced. I was embarrassed about it. I held shame around it. I thought it would make people look at me differently and see me differently, and I can't even put into words what I was worried. They would see. What was I worried that they would think about me. I don't even know. I used to hold a lot of shame and embarrassment around the fact that I had disordered eating and eating disorders. I thought it was so embarrassing. I thought if people knew this about me, they would think that I was weak. Maybe Again, I'm not really sure exactly what I was worried about, but I remember being very worried about it. It took a very, very long time for me to let people see me in my true experiences, to let people see me in my hardships, in the things that I had held onto for so long that were shameful.
Speaker 1:I used to hold shame around the relationship that I was in. I spent nine years in a relationship that was quite toxic. It was the dad of my kids and I used to hold shame around that. I wanted everyone to think that our relationship was perfect and it was amazing. And we, you know, we're just happy, and a lot of people do this right. We put up a front because we don't want people to see what's really going on, in case they think differently about us, and this isn't. I just want to preface as well this relationship that I'm talking about. I still have a relationship with the kid's dad because we co-parent, and this is in no way to say that he was a toxic person or it was his fault. I think that that's important because he is still very much someone that's in my life. We both played a role in that relationship.
Speaker 1:I was an anxious attachment. He was an avoidant attachment. I grew up with trauma. He grew up with trauma. He later on found out he had ADHD. I'm pretty sure I have ADHD. It was just a recipe for disaster. And then we had kids when we were really, really young and we just didn't communicate well. We didn't treat each other well, which is again why I become so passionate about understanding yourself so that you can communicate better, so you can have healthy relationships, have healthy relationships with yourself, have healthy relationships in partnerships. I nearly got so tongue twisted but I'm very, very passionate about all of those things.
Speaker 1:But again, things that I held shame around and when we can start to remove that shame and start to realize it doesn't mean something about who we are as a person. It is something that we have experienced and it's okay that we are not perfect and it's okay that we have gone through some shit in our lives. We don't have to criticize ourselves for that. We don't have to judge ourselves for that. If anything, we have to have so much compassion for everything that we have experienced and how it has made us who we are today and what I mean by that and most people say that in a really empowering way, and it can be empowering like it's made you strong and resilient.
Speaker 1:But do you know what it's also done that no one wants to freaking talk about Is it has made you develop patterns that aren't actually good for you. It's made you develop beliefs that aren't actually good for you, and I don't say that in a way where it's like we're all fucked, we're all doomed? Absolutely not. I say it as an opportunity to have compassion for those beliefs, to have compassion for those patterns that actually aren't good for you, so that you stop either ignoring them or shaming them and judging them. Instead, you acknowledge them through compassion, because that's where we create real change.
Speaker 1:If you have experienced hardship, trauma, you judge yourself, you shame yourself. Whatever it is, you are going to have developed patterns along the way, like self-sabotage, like perfectionism, like people pleasing, like all or nothing mindset. There is a whole range of patterns that you can develop from that. There are going to be beliefs that you develop I'm not lovable, people don't like me, I'm not capable, I'm not smart enough, I can never do that, I'm never going to have that. We can form beliefs around money and have a poor money mindset, like there are so many things, but it's like just acknowledge that Instead of being embarrassed about it.
Speaker 1:Like, oh my God, my childhood made me fear abandonment and now I get anxious. Instead of feeling embarrassed about that, be like, of course I feel that way, of course that has happened. Now, how can I show myself the compassion and the respect that I deserve to help me navigate this, to help me lovingly change this rather than hate myself and shame myself into this version of myself that I'm not, or push myself into an inauthentic version of myself so that I can appear a certain way. Let's actually look at it. Let's actually work on it. Now I want to preface. I came into this podcast being like I just have some shit to say. I just want to have a conversation with my people. I just want you guys who are listening to look at yourself in the mirror and be like I'm actually really awesome, I'm actually a really capable person. I need to stop judging myself. I need to look at where I shame myself and I need to work on removing that shame.
Speaker 1:Because, at the end of the day, the judgment that you place on yourself, the shame that you place on yourself, the criticism, the negative inner voice, it's making you miserable, it makes you unhappy, it makes you burnt out, it takes you further away from the life that you actually want, because you become someone who doesn't think they can. When you can change that voice, when you can remove shame, when you can remove judgment, you become someone who is confident, who has self-belief, who has self-trust. And when you become someone who has those things, oh, life is just so light, it's just not heavy anymore. The relationships that you have in your friendships, in your partnerships with your husband, with your partner, with your boyfriend, whoever it is, become so much deeper because you're not fearing being seen, you're not trying to protect your concept of self, you're not criticizing and judging yourself so much that you don't even like the person that you are. You become a loving voice to yourself and it allows you to communicate and connect deeper to the people around you. It allows you to drop your ego, which, when we have big egos in relationships meaning men and women can have these egos it makes it very hard to communicate relationships. Everyone's justifying, everyone's defending, everyone has walls up and that just makes it really hard to build loving relationships with ourselves, healthy relationships with ourselves and the people around us.
Speaker 1:If you are someone who is negative to yourself and wondering, I just really wonder why I don't feel good about myself, why I don't feel like I'm capable of everything, why I stop myself, why I self-sabotage, why I'm a perfectionist. All of those different things start with how you treat yourself. That is the most important thing. So at the end of this podcast because we're going to wrap it up now, we've had a very swift podcast going on. Today we're going to wrap it up.
Speaker 1:At the end of this podcast, I would love for you to do something, and this is what I've got my unapologetic woman the unapologetic woman, girls, t-u-w girls to start doing, and it's something I was doing for a long time and then stopped doing and I've recently started doing it again. I'm like, wow, this is actually really beneficial. And it might sound a little bit like woohoo, a little bit crazy, and you're like that's not going to work. But of a morning, I want you to wake up. I want you to place your feet on the ground. That's your cue. Once your feet touch the ground, that is your cue that you are going to say your mantras to yourself. So what I do is I usually hold my heart, so I put one hand on my heart because I just like doing that. I don't know why. It feels like a comfort to me. I put my hand on my heart and I take some really deep breaths.
Speaker 1:Don't pick up your phone. Don't pick up your phone when you first wake up. In fact, probably don't have your phone in your bedroom. That's a whole other conversation. Don't be on your phone when you first wake up. Don't scroll. When you first wake up, don't have that bloody blue light in your face when you first wake up Anyway whole other conversation. Hand on your heart, do your breathing so in and out, really deep, like, really really allow yourself to like and exhale, and you can come up with your own mantras.
Speaker 1:But something that I would say to myself is everything that I want to achieve is available to me. Everything, everything that I want, everything that I envision for my life, everything that I want to be, it's actually out there. I'm actually capable of having it. In fact, it's out there for me to have. And why not me instead of why me? So I don't say all of that, but that's the energy behind it. I just say everything I want to achieve is available to me. And I used to say some other things which I can't truly remember what they are. But you can make up your own, it can be. I am capable of success, I'm confident, I'm worthy, I'm enough, I am someone who has everything that they want. You can come up with your own, make up your own, but what has to come with them is the energy of hope or gratitude or some high vibrational energy.
Speaker 1:It can't be like I'm just saying this is like a piss take and I'm not taking it seriously. I want you to take it seriously. I want you to actually try it. I want you to start your day like that. I want you to start your day with positive words to yourself, because your brain is listening and your brain is forming neural pathways and your neural pathways are always looking for evidence to confirm them. So if you are constantly saying I can't, I won't, I'm not enough, I'm ugly, I'm this, I'm that, your brain is like cool. We say this. Enough. That's our neural pathway. Let's look for evidence throughout our day to confirm this. If you can start your day by actually treating yourself with respect and actually saying kind words to yourself, that you hope will come true, that you hope you will be, that you feel complete and utter gratitude for the person that you are. Remember high vibrational frequency. These are the type of energies that are high vibrational. I want you to start your day like that.
Speaker 1:And when you do that and you listen to this podcast, message me, please, please, dm me. I see all of these people listening to the podcast. It just tells me numbers in data, but I don't actually see the people right and I love you and I'm grateful for you. Thank you for being here. By the way, thank you for spending time with me. I appreciate it a lot because I wouldn't be able to do a podcast if you weren't actually listening. But tell me who you are, come and send me a message, tell me what you took away from it and if you want to support me and the podcast a little bit more, add it to your stories. Tag me, let other people see this podcast, because I would be greatly appreciative of that. And if you want to go one step further, as soon as you get out of this episode, go to the top of Spotify, wherever you're listening to this.
Speaker 1:Just leave a rating. There are five of you that have left a rating so far. Whoever you five are, I love you a lot. It's very helpful. I see it, I do, I really see it and I love it. So if you want to add to that five and you are listening to this, please just go leave a rating. I can't see who's doing it. No one else can see who's doing it, but it helps me spread this podcast a little bit bigger and it helps me impact a little bit more people's lives, and that's really what I want to do. That's what I'm here for. That's what I'm dedicating my life to. So if you could help me out, be fabulous For now. Be kind to yourself. Don't be an arsehole to yourself. You're going to be happier when you stop judging and shaming yourself, and we are all about happier minds around here. Have a fantastic morning or afternoon or night, whenever you are choosing to listen to this, and we will chat soon.