Awareness Is Not the Work: How to Stop Watching Your Patterns and Actually Change Them | Episode 27

In this episode, I'm getting radically honest about something I've been confusing for most of my life—and I know I'm not alone.

Being aware of your patterns is not the same as changing them.

For years, I convinced myself that seeing my limiting beliefs, naming my generational cycles, and acknowledging my habits meant I was doing the work. But I was still in the cage. I just knew what the cage looked like.

I talk about:

• The difference between awareness and accountability—and why confusing them keeps you stuck
• The identity I built around being the martyr, the savior, the chaos coordinator—and what it cost me
• What shadow work actually looks like when you stop talking about it and start sitting in it
• Why transformation is uncomfortable, painful, and hard—and why that means you're finally moving
• Letting go of the need to make your dreams smaller so other people can hold them
• Learning to receive help, support, and accountability without feeling like a failure
• What it means to forgive yourself and stay accountable at the same time

The hardest truth I had to face:

I wasn't doing the work. I was watching myself not do it and calling that growth.

This episode is about the moment I stopped abandoning myself. About choosing to be an active participant in my own expansion—not just an aware observer of it. About naming what I want out loud, without softening it, without shrinking it, even when it makes someone else uncomfortable.

Because awareness without action is just a really pretty cage.

And you were never meant to stay in it.

✨ This week's reflection prompts: Where are you aware but not yet taking action? What patterns are you still feeding? What do you truly want—and what have you been making smaller? Write it down. Name it. And decide.

RESOURCES + CONNECTION:

Find Ashley on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/itsashleycrabb/ 

Download the Tell My Story Firestarter: https://ashley-crabb.mykajabi.com/opt-in 

Book a Vibe Check Call with Me: https://calendly.com/itsashleycrabb/30min 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Wealth in Mothers, the show where we rewrite the rules of success for women who are building businesses, creating wealth, and raising families all at the same time. I'm Ashley Krabb, and this is not a show about balance, productivity, or doing more. This is a space for mothers who know what they are caring more than anyone acknowledges, and who are ready to turn that into power, into leadership, and into wealth. Here we talk about what it actually looks like to build a business inside the reality of motherhood, the invisible labor, the identity shifts, the ambition, and the pressure. And the truth that none of it disqualifies you from wealth. It qualifies you for it. Because mothers don't need to shrink to succeed. They need to be seen. Let's get into today's episode. So I'm I'm going to be really honest with you all again today. Like, really, really honest because I am not just living something. I'm not just living a legacy right now. I am living inside my legacy right now. Not from the outside looking in, not from this space of just thinking what I'm going to be leaving behind right now, right here, fully inside of it. And I truly believe that that is actually one of the most important things I can do here in this show with all of you is not just show you the inside, but truly bring you along for the ride. Because my mission, my life, my business, my divine purpose is this work, is truly the work that I am doing right now and being able to share it with every mother I can, every mother who wants to hear it. And today I want to bring something to light that I very much realized I have been doing, and I have been confusing for the better part of 33 years. And I think a lot of us have been confusing this for a very long time. Being aware and actually doing something about it. And for such a long time, I proclaimed that that awareness was also the work that I was doing to break all of those. I thought that by seeing it and acknowledging it, it was the same thing as changing it. And it's not. And that is such a simple thing, but it's so mind-blowing because finally, finally, I realized that by being aware and taking no true action, that I was just keeping myself in a cage. And I was keeping myself in a cage and blaming everybody else, and thinking that I was always the victim, and thinking that I always had to be the martyr, to be the savior. And I was stuck in that toxic cycle of seeing it all and then not really understanding how I got there. But it it was all me. I let myself stay there. What I'm living right now, what I'm experiencing right now, is me for what feels like truly the actual first time in my life, is actually moving, is actually changing, is actually coming into my true magnetic power. And it's because I no longer subscribe to the narrative of being aware and taking action as being the same thing. I want to take action. And in taking action, I am holding myself accountable. I am taking responsibility for all of the patterns and habits and cycles that I want to break, but I keep leaning into. And here's the thing that nobody says out loud about these moments, about these moments that I have been living through the last three months, is that they have been fucking uncomfortable. They have been painful, they have been hard. And it's not because I've been doing them wrong or because I'm not enough or because I'm not worthy. It's because I'm finally doing it at all. At all. So what does that actually look like for you, for me, for us, for me right now? What I have decided to do is shadow work. And in doing that, I am facing the parts of myself that I have spent years and years and years saying I was aware of, but actually turning away from. You know, the martyr, the savior, the one who takes on the role that literally nobody asked me to take on. I took on the role of doing and carrying everything, and I never had to, but I built my whole identity around that woman, around the woman who is the chaos coordinator, who handles that, who holds that, who works in that energy. And I had to understand that I did that because at some point in my life, that felt like love. That felt like me being needed. That felt like the people in my life telling me I was enough just the way that I am. But taking all of that on, taking on that identity, that was that was allowing me to one, prioritize everybody else's comfort over my own, but also it allowed me to not have to take responsibility in my own truth, in my own actions. And I allowed myself to do that again and again. And so my big shift in doing this work, you know, it's not just reading about it, it's not just talking about it here on a podcast, it's actually sitting, sitting with myself, sitting in silence, making the space to face myself. And it is intentional. And when I look back at the choices I had and the decisions I made, every time I thought, oh, you know, I'm not growing, I'm not going anywhere. It's because I didn't show up in those moments where I had to for myself. So I had to stop abandoning myself. I had to allow myself to remove myself from the narrative, right? And I had to take a moment of looking from the outside in so that I could fully immerse myself in everything I'm doing right now. The first person that I have to believe in, the first person that I have to keep the peace with, the first person that I have to show up for and carry anything for is me. And I had to forgive myself for all of the things I carried and all of the things I didn't carry. And it wasn't so that I could let myself off the hook, but in those moments of forgiving myself, I freed myself. That forgiveness is one of the most powerful things you can do for you. And the thing, and the thing that makes this journey so confusing sometimes is that it's never one or the other. It's the and, it's not the or. You have to have forgiveness and accountability, or you're just avoiding it. You have to be accountable in your forgiveness, or you're just punishing yourself. You need both at the same time. And we're mothers, so we know how to be firm and soft, to be nurturing and guiding. And we do it all day long for everyone around us, and we need to start doing it for ourselves. And in doing, in doing all of this, it has allowed me to realize that by being the martyr, being the victim, being the savior, I was, I was creating a barrier for me and my higher purpose, right? Like I am a freaking channel. I am a divine channel, and I am here to share truth and goodness and love. And I get to own that. I get to own my connection to the universe, my connection to a higher consciousness, my connection to a higher dimension, and the desire to raise the freaking vibration that we are living in. And I have always been connected to something bigger than myself. Always. But I couldn't ever quite name it. I wasn't quite ready to be in this spot. So no wonder I was confused, right? Because when we don't take the time to name what is inside of us, but what we feel day in and day out, no wonder our nervous systems are screwed. No wonder we feel so confused in our mission of life. That's what I'm understanding now is that our human design, the design that God gave us, the design that the universe gave us, through intentional work, through this season of my life, this, this moment, this journey that I'm on, and bringing you all along for the ride, this is the purpose that I was always meant for, but never truly tapped into. And to realize that I was connected, but not claiming it, that I was connected, but I wasn't holding it. I wasn't channeling anything with intention. And I thought that I always had to fully understand it, fully understand it before I could own it or say it out loud. And I wasn't willing to. I was never willing to until right now. And so this is what I am. This is what I carry. This is what I'm here to do, be a light in this freaking world. And you know what's wild? You know what's wild. My boys are channels too. And if I wouldn't have become a mother, if those boys would have never come into my life, I don't think I ever would have truly recognized this and truly stepped into this and truly claimed this because they are a channel. And I refuse to squander that for them. I refuse to be the start, the experience, the moment that hands them any limiting belief that they'll turn into their truth. I will not allow them to watch me dim my life so that other people can be comfortable. I will not teach them that my gifts are something to apologize for. I will not tell them that my wants and desires and my dreams and goals are selfish. I will show them what it's like to commit to living this life with feral, audacious rootedness. That is why I am called to do that work. And it's a non-negotiable for me right now. This is what I am all in for, not just for you, not just for me, but for them. So this has been really hard for me lately. And I think it's also been why I have been hesitant to fully share the story from the inside, is because not everyone who means the most to me in my life right now understands what I'm building or who I'm becoming or why this is so important to me. And I wouldn't, I wouldn't say that it's a total lack of support. On some level, it is, but it is a lack of understanding. And I have recognized moments where I have still been finding the need to defend myself, to minimize my dreams, to make this journey and what I want and why I want it smaller so that it's easier for someone else to hold. And as mothers, as wives, as daughters and friends and partners, I don't think I'm the only one who has been doing that. But I do want to say that I refuse to do that anymore. Like I can no longer take any of those roles that I have been carrying. And when you, when you are in relationships with people, when you are in a marriage, when you have a close family, when you're, you know, like I said, a mother, it is genuinely hard, because you are doing this out of love, to see the people around you not understand that. It's genuinely hard when you choose to finally tap into the higher version of you, and you feel like the people around you can't hold it. And you're already holding it yourself, right? So you want them to put in the work, you want them to put in the effort, you want them to put in the intention that you're putting in. And I've I have been trying to force the people in my life to do this with me. And one of the one of the heaviest things I have recently let go of is feeling the need to worry about if they can hold it or not. And that's hard to say when you're married to someone that you love and care about and want to do life with, because you want them to be on the same exact level as you. And we can't forget that we're all human beings. And I've had to forgive myself for wanting to take on the responsibility of making someone else change, because the only person I can control is me. And that's the whole point, is that we as mothers are leading by example. We are leading by living our lives the way that we are. And so when we actually start doing it, when we start changing the people closest to us get uncomfortable. And in some way, they have to change too. And that's what's hard for them. And I genuinely get that because people change, we all change. Becoming a mother changed me. This work is changing me. And not everyone moves at the same pace. And I have to accept that. But I also have to accept that I'm only willing to hold my own discomfort. I cannot hold theirs. And that's that's the fear that I was holding on to, and what I was allowing me to stop this work is that I thought I had to hold on to that in order to show love and to show care to the people in my life. But by letting that go and and by saying out loud, I'm sorry, I can't hold your discomfort. That's not being cruel. That's not abandoning the people I love. That is, that is modeling. That is modeling the work of saying out loud what I want and what I need. And I'm no longer willing to manage or smooth or make myself smaller. So you don't have to feel that. And so you you all know that I love, love to tell you specific stories, right? But this past weekend, this past weekend was one of those truly pivoting moments with my mother, with my husband, with life and business and all of the things. And at one point in our conversation, she said, Ashley, like, I don't think you know what you want. My relationship with my mother is a story for another day. Um, but in that moment, I looked at her. And I'm really working on reflecting and responding, not reacting right away. That's really hard to do when you're communicating with people because they want quick responses. But, anyways, I digress. Um I paused, really thought about what I wanted to say, and I looked at her and I and I was just like, mom, no, you're not hearing everything I just said. I know exactly what I want. It makes everyone uncomfortable. It is against the narrative that I have lived, that you lived, that Nana lived, that we have been told to live. No one likes it. No one understands it. And also, I'm okay with that. And in in that moment, in that moment, it honestly made me want to throw up. It made me want to throw up and it and it made me want to cry. But it was also this massive weight off my back, this massive weight that I have been carrying, and I didn't even truly realize how freaking heavy it was until I put it down. And I will continue to do that again and again and again because naming what you want out loud without softening it, and that doesn't mean that doesn't mean being nasty about it, but without softening it, without qualifying it, without making it small enough that it fits into this box that we've all been shoved into, that is terrifying. It is nauseating, it might make you cry, but it is also the most free you will ever feel. Ever. And I want you to feel that. I really want. You to feel that. In going through this, in going through this transformation, in going through this change and making decisions for myself, what I also had to do was admit that I needed help. And we know how hard it is for us to admit that we need help because we don't know how to ask for it. We've been told it's weak, all of the things, all of the things that we know. And I, in my life, have never, never asked for help. So this is the part that was probably one of the hardest for me to say and come to terms with is that I needed help. I needed help. As a mother, as a wife, as a businesswoman, all of the hats I wear, I needed help. And we know the narrative that stops us from asking for help. It's weak. We should be able to do it all, all of the things, right? But I needed help and I wanted help. I I had taken the responsibility of doing life alone for so long and not learning how to communicate, learning how to listen to myself, learning how to sit long enough to really know what I want and what I need. And I thought that I was being strong by carrying it alone, by figuring it out alone, by never talking about it. Because needing someone else, needing insight, needing a guide or a path or a light forward, it made me feel weak. It made me feel like I failed. It made me feel like this woman who I had built my identity around was fake. And she was a phony. You know, I had such this firm belief that if I asked for help, if I said I needed help, if I said I don't have it all figured out, I'm not perfect, that no one would be there to catch me if I stumbled, that no one would actually help me. And I'm learning slowly, a little painfully, but very intentionally, that receiving is not a weakness, and that receiving is work. Receiving is knowing how to hold help, knowing how to release control of how that help comes to you. I admittedly don't know how to traverse the support yet that I have in my life. I am learning how to communicate all that is going inside of this brain in a way that can be understood because my responsibility is knowing it first. And I have recognized that I have been trying to have the people in my life understand and know what I want and what I need before actually sitting and knowing it and feeling it myself. And if I want support, if I want help, I have to also say, hey, I don't, I don't always know what I'm doing with this, but I'm an active participant in figuring it out. I am learning how to receive. I am learning how to let people walk alongside me who have been here before me. And in doing that, we have to allow ourselves on some level, in some way, of being critiqued in being taught. We have to be willing to be taught, just like we teach our kids. You know, it's it's it's teaching, it's learning, and we have to be willing to also have our guides point out the things in ourselves that we don't want other people to see. And that's that's part of what makes asking for help terrifying. Because in this new light, someone, someone is going to be able to see the parts of you that you have been trying to not let anybody else see. And they're gonna call you out on your shit. And that being called out on my shit has been so hard to swallow. So hard to swallow because I thought I was doing such a good job at hiding it. And I am sharing all of this with you because I know that on some level, you are living a version of this too. You are living a version where you are no longer accepting just being aware. You're ready to be an active freaking participant in your own expansion. And because you're no longer just aware, you're taking action, you're taking accountability. You are naming your patterns and habits and reading the things and doing the things, and you still feel stuck because we're all having these conversations, and in some way, we're still stuck. And that is because we all have to be willing to take action in this conversation, in saying, as a mother, as a woman, as an entrepreneur, this is what I want, and this is what I will no longer tolerate. Maybe you're in a season right now where you are looking at your husband and saying, I don't want to be a full-time stay-at-home mom. I don't want to plan everything. I don't want to carry the responsibility of being in charge of this household all by myself. You know, maybe you're having those conversations with your mom where she's realizing her shadows right alongside you. Maybe you're in a season where the people closest to you don't fully understand what you're building, where you still feel like you have to defend yourself, where naming what you truly want out loud feels like it's gonna break something else. I get it. I'm I'm in it, and I am moving through it, even though I am afraid in some ways still, but not letting that fear win, trusting, trusting myself, trusting God, trusting the universe, and and here's what I really want you to know: that discomfort, the nausea, the tears, the feeling that you're going to break, you're not. You're not. You might bend a little bit, but you're not gonna break. Because if it was easy, if it wasn't hard, if you didn't, if you didn't have to feel anything, it wouldn't be right. This, this, the some of these hurdles that you have to be willing to move through, they're not a sign that you're doing anything wrong. They're the sign that you're finally moving in the right direction. And I want you to move through this journey, not just with awareness, but with accountability in what you're deciding. And just freaking decide. Decide from the woman you are, the woman you know you have always been, the woman you know you are meant to be, because that is gonna change everything. And so, you know, throughout the week, ask yourself this. Write these things down. Where are you aware, but not taking action yet? What patterns are you feeding into? But this is it. What do you want? What do you truly, truly want? What have you been making smaller? And what narrative are you no longer subscribing to? Even if it makes somebody else uncomfortable. Write those things down, recognize those things, name them, and and move with them. Become the woman this week who decides. Because when you decide, you become the most powerful freaking thing in any room and any space you're in. And that scares other people. But I hold space for that woman. I hold space for where you are right now, the energy that you're sitting in and the woman that you are becoming and the challenges she faces, right? I hold space for that because I know that the change is already happening. It's happening in me, it's happening in you. You just have to fully move in it. I see you. I hold space for you. I love you, but I'm gonna hold you accountable. I'm gonna hold those standards because I know what you are capable of. And I am not willing to let you forget it anymore. Anymore. If this episode resonated with you, share it with another mother who is building something real right now. This is how we change the conversation. This is how we start the conversation by making sure women like us are seen, heard, and freaking paid. And if you are ready to step into your next level of visibility, leadership, and wealth, make sure you subscribe so you don't miss what's coming next. You can also connect with me on Instagram and TikTok where I share daily thoughts and conversations about and around motherhood, identity, and wealth. I will leave you with this. You are not behind. You are not too much, and you do not need to choose between your family and your success. You are the woman who decides that she gets to have both. I'll see you in the next episode.