Women in Bloom | Multigenerational Talks for Women of Color
Women in Bloom | Multigenerational Talks for Women of Color
Ep. 6 God Doesn't Waste a Storm with Ashley Fell of the Imperfectly Perfect Space
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This week kicked off Women in Bloom's mini-series titled Women Healing & Leading Boldly in honor of Women's History Month. In this episode, Ashley Fell of The Imperfectly Perfect Space, LLC shares her spiritual framework for transformation and how she supports women navigating those “in-between” seasons—the ones where everything feels uncertain, but something powerful is being formed.
If you’ve ever found yourself in a season of becoming, this conversation is for you!
You're tuned into women in the mother daughter personal development podcast for women in the bloom season. Life comes at you fast until that we said.
SPEAKER_01I can't create frameworks, courses, community, materials, anything to share with other women to keep them from having to go through what I did for as long as I did by myself, just sitting in the corner of my brain, because at that time I was an extreme perfectionist too. Or yeah, it was just you had all the things.
SPEAKER_02Perfectly imperfect space. Exactly. Welcome back to Women in Bloom, y'all. It's your host, Jasmine Bad. I'm here with Eldris, and we are welcoming on a very special guest today. Her name is Ashley Powell. She is a speaker, author, identity mentor, and kingdom builder. She's the founder of the Imperfectly Perfect Space and the Becoming Room. Ashley is a voice for the woman in the in-between. Y'all know what I'm talking about. The one healing, becoming, rebuilding, and stepping back into the identity God always had in mind. Through her signature becoming frameworks, the becoming her book, and her transformative teachings inside the becoming room, Ashley guides women from confusion to clarity, from drifting to direction, and from broken identity to bold purpose. With a prophetic sensitivity, a poetic voice, and a practical framework-driven approach to spiritual formation, Ashley creates rooms on stages, in communities, and in arts where women finally remember who they are. We are in business. We are in business. Did you know that Ashley and I went to high school together?
SPEAKER_03No.
SPEAKER_01Excuse me, where are you now? I've I am in Rochester. Um I actually I left for quite some time. I moved in, uh I moved to St. Louis for 11 years. Oh wow. And then a whole bunch of stuff that has all everything to do with my story. Oh, St. Louis was a mess. But yeah, I'm back in Rochester now.
SPEAKER_02Well, wonderful. Yes. So um just to share some background, um, Ashley has is building space and community for women who are in transition and growing and expanding and developing. You know, it's really important for me, obviously, as we build women in bloom and as I build my coaching practice to kind of reach out to women who are kind of getting started on that journey and connecting and just kind of being in in in space and sharing space with women who are on that same journey. So that hence the reason why we're here. So one of the things that um I was just really impressed with is Ashley has a book. So we're gonna get into that. We're gonna get into um all the details of what her world is like. Um, but you know, first of all, I congratulations. Thank you. Yes. So um I also want to share some background, you know, Women in Blue podcast was born out of um just a desire to want to share wisdom, multi-generational wisdom, um, and perspective from black from black women. So hence Eldris and I embarked on this journey together and we're just having a lot of fun with it so far. So Ashley, for the people that I love that Ashley, for the people that um are meeting you for the first time, how would you describe the perfectly imperfect space and your your um your journey?
SPEAKER_01I'll start by saying that the imperfectly perfect space is a a place where women can come and exhale because so many women have just been through so many things and are wanting to or feeling that they're called for more or that they deserve better and may not necessarily have the framework or all the pieces to get there. So it's like when I first start talking to them, it's like just breathe, you know. It's a place for women to heal and grow and rediscover their identity in Christ after they've been shaken, um, after they've experienced trauma, you know, things of that nature. Um, because trauma, you know, divorce, disappointment, all things, it's like they can really shake you. And it's like, where do I go from here? Like, I know I was not put on this earth to just go. So that's how the perfectly imperfect space was born. Um I am creating a space to push women into identity, reclamation, and wholeness and aligning themselves with the Lord because I just feel like the Lord just has so much in store for us and drama. We're more than just our trauma. Drama. Um, and the becoming space is kind of born out of that. Um, it's an online community for women to be a part of a sisterhood and heal and walk the becoming journey together. Um, so I have um like courses, I do um Bible sessions around women in the Bible to kind of show these women that you know these these are things, first of all, they're cyclical, they're generational, but there is a light at the end of the tunnel if you put your mind to it and you develop the frameworks and become aligned to move forward in a positive way.
SPEAKER_02In our preliminary call, we just kind of chatted about your journey. And um, I really think it's important as I'm just personally gone through, have gone through my own really um baptism by fire, so to speak. And I I never really understood. Right. And I never really understood or knew what that term meant. And I think it's very important when you having had the experience of going through a fire in your life, and we all experience it in some way, shape, or form. So I'm curious what what happened in your journey that was that pivotal moment that got you to the point where you were like, you know what? I want to be a resource to other women because yeah.
SPEAKER_01Oh my gosh, there's been so many things, and so many things overlap. This has been, oh my gosh, my daughter is 13. So this has been pretty much like a decade of just tumultuous trauma that really I kind of went through all by myself. I didn't know what to do. So, okay, let's start from the beginning. Kind of like how when we first started, I said that I'd lived in St. Louis for 11 years. That's where I um that's where I finished up my um my bachelor's and my master's degree. Um, I met a gentleman. A gentleman. A gentleman.
SPEAKER_02Always a gentleman, right?
SPEAKER_01You know, he was he was much older than me. It just seemed like he had so much wisdom at the time. Um, we got together, we got married, planned for our daughter, took out my marine. You know, I thought everything was gonna be great. My pregnancy was phenomenal. He was very supportive, came to all the doctor's appointments with me and everything. And then literally the day I went in for uh to be induced, but as soon as they rolled me into that recovery room, he like just disappeared in thin air. Like I it I can laugh about it now. Oh gosh, but it it took me through the ring and like I became suicidal and everything. I had um postpartum depression, it was a lot. I had people, you know, the nurses and doctors were coming in asking me where he was. I had no idea, so I started lying. I'm like, oh, you know, he's got the flu, he'll be back. No, he did come get me, you know, when I got discharged, thank God, in my car, mind you. You know, us women, you know, when we're young and dumb, we just go through so much. And I'm like, no, like I know we cleared this.
SPEAKER_03This is what we but you had a lot of evidence to say that he was gonna show up.
SPEAKER_01I mean, it didn't like even when it happened. Like, this can't be life. Like it felt like I was in a movie, like I was watching someone else's story. So, but luckily, you know, I had my mom there, I had his mom there, um, some of his family members, they came to help me. But I I for the longest time didn't know what happened to him. And then I found out that unfortunately, I don't know if it was the realization that life is really real now, like the baby's here, but I found out that he's he had been out there on the streets just on drugs. And I'm like, wait, so then you start questioning yourself. Like, was he doing this the whole time? Did I miss the signs? And if he was doing this the whole time, how did I miss these signs? Like, I'm a highly educated woman. I go to work every day, I take it like no, this is not.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, very on point too. Like I just in the email exchange, I'm like, this is this is gathered.
SPEAKER_01Okay, like this is not the life that I'm supposed to be leading. Like, I have a whole daughter now, like mommy mo kicked in immediately. Like, Mama Bear, like, look, okay, let me let me make a plan, let me get myself together. So I just, you know, try, of course, that's another thing a lot of us women do. We try to repeatedly try to make things work. The red flags are there, probably had been there that we ignored, but it's like now there's no ignoring this. What girl, what are you going to do? So, you know, after my daughter was born, things just they just went wild. I stayed, unfortunately, for a little bit, a lot longer than I should have, like a lot of women do, and just the abuse just became too much. I remember there was this one time specifically, oh, you guys are getting the inside edition because I was wanted to save this for my memoir. But I will I'll never forget. There was this one day, um, it was a Sunday, we were on our way home from somewhere, I can't remember, and we had gotten into an argument. We had just left Krispy Kreme, and he threw the whole box of donuts, like jelly-filled, custard-filled donuts, on me in my car, and our daughter was in the backseat. And then I got out the car, I got our daughter, I went in the house, I closed the door, he left. He came home later that night. We got into another horrible argument. My daughter was already asleep at this point, and he forced himself on me. And I remember just praying and crying. I'm like, Lord, if you get me out of this situation, I promise I will never come back. So I woke up really early the next morning and I packed as much as I could into two small bags, a bag for my daughter and a bag for myself, and I was gone and I never looked back. I moved in with my mom for a month, which was just enough for me to save up my security positive first month's rent. And I was gone and never looked back. I started going to I found these um free group sessions. So I started group therapy and I thought that was all I needed because the women that I was in therapy with it seemed, or what I told myself was is that oh, their journey is harder than mine because not trying to like you know go racial or anything, but it was a I was in group therapy with a group of white women. And at this time, mind you, remember, I'm in St. Louis, Missouri. So it's the Bible Belt, like the good old boys crew. So as these women were telling me their story, it's like, yeah, you may have led a provided for lifestyle, but you haven't worked in 20 years. You've got all these kids, all you've been was a housewife taking care of your children and your husband, and now your husband don't want you no more. You have no skills to get a job, you have no money to get a house, you have no money to take care of your kids, but because your husband is a good old boy, he is telling the judge who he goes to play golf with every week that oh, I'm I'm taking the house and I'm taking the kids. So you're just you've just been kicked to the curb. So in my mind, I'm like, oh, like, yeah, I did go through all of this, but at least I can take care of my child, I can take care of myself, I can get my own apartment. So I I internalized it as, oh, well, at least I'm better off than them. But really mentally, oh my gosh, I was still suicidal at this time, you know, writing in my diary, like, Lord give me through the night. But what kept me was the fact that I was a mother. I had a one-year-old daughter, like I can't check out of here. So yeah, I just kept pushing forward, making a lot of mistakes along the way. And then um, my mother and I decided that the best thing to do would be to pack up and move back to Rochester, which is what we did. And um, I went, got back into therapy, you know, just solo therapy, and just had so many realizations. And I'm like, oh my gosh, if I can create frameworks, courses, community materials, anything to share with other women to keep them from having to go through what I did for as long as I did by myself, just sitting in the corner of my brain, because at that time I was an extreme perfectionist too.
SPEAKER_02Or yeah, it was just you had all the things perfectly imperfect space.
SPEAKER_01Exactly, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. So, yeah, I just I'm just here to pull women up, honestly.
SPEAKER_02Yes, thank you so much for sharing your story. Um, there's so much to be said about that experience of like hitting that bottom, whatever that bottom is for you, and feeling your way out. It's almost like you have on blinders, but you're just like you're like, okay, that's there, okay, that's there. And it's a one foot in front of the other kind of thing. Literally, yeah. And it's powerful that you've created this space to kind of guide other women because there are a lot of people who have those same feelings of wanting to check out or like wanting to disappear. Like, can I just like not do any of this? Yeah. So um, and I think it's also very interesting that you pointed out the difference between like as a black woman, our struggles are a lot different. Like the the the playing field in so many different ways is just a lot different. So even more emphasis on the need for spaces. Right for stories, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Definitely. Um I would um I'm I can uh just add an asha and an amen to your journey. Um uh having gone through a similar situation um with my husband of 43 years, who has been um drug-free and alcohol free now for a few decades. Um but early in our marriage, um, we had, and not so early, not with one year old, because um um Sasha and Jasmine were like six, seven, eight going through through that. And I I think we do tell ourselves, well, this isn't that bad. And then we compare uh what we're going through, you know, we hear other stories, and so other stories, oh wow, well, I can work this because it ain't it ain't that, right? But it we do have those moments where like this is this is too much enough already. Can I just not have this struggle?
SPEAKER_02I also love seeing women um who kind of in the same vein of just like overcoming. I really love seeing women that are able to transmute that energy from that season. Yeah, it's not something that everybody can do, and ever not everybody does it. Like some people go through really tough patches and they um become really resigned, you know. It's it's not it's not activating for other people, you know. So um you said Ashley, God doesn't waste a rough patch. No, he does not. He does not. So speak to me more about um your just that saying and what it means for you.
SPEAKER_01That actually that's that that phrase means a lot to me. And um I forgot who first told me that. Someone told me that years ago when I was starting on my road of trying to pull myself back together. Um, I was going to this church, and um, the pastor of that church had said that the Lord, He doesn't waste a rough patch, He doesn't waste anything. And I'm like, at first I'm like, but then as I was going through the journey, I'm like, you know what? That is so true. You know, there's so many times where because of what we went through, we feel ashamed or we feel disqualified and we want to cover it up. But I know now I know that's a huge part of being a perfectionist. And it's like, I I wonder, first of all, I think there's so many people who are perfectionists that just don't know. But um, it's like the Lord He uses these seasons of wilderness to build us up. And it's like so many women don't know that they think that that's the end of their story, and it's like, no, it's like you turn your eye to the Lord, he will show you, like, oh no, baby, that's not the end. Actually, it's the beginning. Let me refine you a little bit, let me rebuild you in this season so you can start on the real assignment that I have for you. And that's literally what he's been doing through me. And I want to show women, I want to teach women that it's the case for them too. Yeah. Every experience that we have is a learning opportunity.
SPEAKER_03Absolutely. So in the midst of it, you have to ask yourselves, okay, so I'm supposed to be learning something here. What is it? Right. And is it something about me? Is it about the situation? Is it how I find myself in these places, or I need to go through this so that I can understand what to what to do and how to help someone else, right? And that's a part of your your journey.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely, it is. And also to learn how to not make that same mistake because we go in cycles. That's right. We go in cycles until we figure it out. And it's like, if I can keep someone from repeating the cycle, that's a win for me.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely, absolutely, yes, or shortening that that um that rebound time, like doing the healing that you need to do, but also like the stuffness will get you, like the stuff will get you. Yes, like you just gotta keep. I always say, as long as you put one foot in front of the other, like we're not trying to run a marathon, we're not trying to spread this. Excuse me, we're not trying to spread this. It is a marathon, so you just keep putting one foot down in front of the other in small chunks and just keep keep making small progress, but don't get stuck. Don't get stuck stuck right there.
SPEAKER_01Once you get stuck, oh my goodness, that enemy will grab hold of you.
SPEAKER_02I mean, we talk about like energy and like I mean, I'm a I'm a spiritual girly. We talk about like um the universe conspiring with you with your energetic field. So if you are um have a defeatist mindset, if you are beating down your own ore, your own crown, your own spirit for being in the wilderness, um you tend to call in you get more of that. You get more of what you get more of that. Yes. So you have to figure out how to how to Feel through and keep putting one foot on the ground in front of you. Yeah. Yeah. You really, really do.
SPEAKER_01You know what I love? I love how, and I think we talked about this in our first call. Like we are literally saying the same things, just using different words. I love that. So, because it it's, and that's literally what it is. We that is how life is. No matter what you believe in, it's still that forward movement, that forward progression. Like you were not put on this earth just to keep going through trauma after trauma after trauma. No, oh no, no, no, no, no. I don't care what you believe. I know you believe that you were put on the world for a better life than that. So it's like just unlocking those keys, which kind of goes along with what you said that for just putting one step in front of the other.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Yeah. And I I think that there are um sometimes we um there's a there's a story um that our old pastor used to tell in church about it was a man, yeah. A man was in a flood, right? And said, I'm waiting for God to come. And so somebody came by in a boat. Somebody first came by in a car, said, Hey, we go into higher ground. He said, No, no, God gonna save me. Somebody came by in a boat, we go into higher ground, God gonna save me, right? And so sometimes what happens is we're getting um sort of opportunities that we don't look at, right? And we out of either we don't think those opportunities are for us or um that we're not ready for those opportunities, but but those are the things that uh spiritually are in alignment for us to grab onto to continue our journey, but we don't look at those things. God sends them, you know, our ancestors are sending them. Yeah, you know, we're calling some things in, but we sometimes think we're not worthy of those opportunities. That's very true. That's very true.
SPEAKER_02Just adding another layer, but we just in a whole spiritual bag here, but um Buddhism teaches that you know, difficult seasons, the wilderness, difficult, difficult people in your life, um, to regard them as your spiritual mother. And by doing so, not only do you frame it as a teachable experience, like something that is being taught to you, um, and particularly with the other person, you are able to kind of put that um reverence that you put on a mother figure onto that person and the lesson. And that you're able to say, okay, this is meant to teach me something. I'm gonna remove this particular person, the name, and you know, but this representative is now my spiritual guide. So what am I meant to take from this experience? What am I meant to learn rather than being angry or getting upset that this is the experience? And it's a really peaceful for me personally, it's a really peaceful reframe for me, and Basin for me, and supported me in kind of like navigating through um those different experiences. And it's so it's so interesting to your point, Ashley, like all the different roads that lead to like the same kind of you know processing, understanding, navigating, yes, also uh I it's um it's wasn't lost on me, and I I appreciate you sort of understanding the difference between my journey and their journey, right?
SPEAKER_03Because as black women, we have a different context, a different way that we are being in the world, and sometimes their it not only does their experience not match our experience, but the their their solution, right? What works for them ain't necessarily gonna work for us, right? We gotta get it put in the right space. Yeah, absolutely, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um, so I'm curious, like I know there's a 10-step framework that you've developed and not giving away the secret sauce. Um you know, we already got a gem, something is supposed to be in the memoir. Um but what how do you guide people? Like, what's your if you had to like kind of simplify what it looks like to support a woman on this journey, what are some important things to go over with with that person or with your community?
SPEAKER_01Um I would say, well, at the heart of my framework is to kind of get women to reconnect with who they are and where they're wanting to go. Because once you have a visual or a concept of that, then you know you can now, you have something to focus on now. Because while we're on our journey, no matter what your journey is, if you're headed in a positive direction or in a line direction, um in my in my belief, the enemy is always going to be trying to get you to drift or to distract you, to not do the things that you've been called to do or to not put your life or keep your life in alignment on a straight and narrow, in a positive direction within your identity in Christ. So my framework, this particular 10-step framework is to a way to keep women focused on where they're going, um, to keep them in alignment, whether that is with their schedule, with their time, in relationships, you know, how to stop those emotional loops from going, um, how to um unlearn the things that no longer serve them. Um yeah, to so just to to basically how to align yourself with the woman that you know that you should be, the woman that you know you're called to be without all the drama, or or because no one is perfect, when those dramas or those distractions seep in, to not let it bottle you down so much to where you are completely off the path that you're headed in, and now you feel like you're starting all over again. Like, no, we need to learn to give ourselves grace. We need to learn that everybody makes mistakes. And when that happens, because I again being a recovered perfectionist, I it I was my worst critic. So I'd be going along my path and I'd be doing so well in something for so long, and then something swoops in and distracts me. Now I'm like just guilt tripping myself so bad. And it's like, no, no, we only ordered our lives.
SPEAKER_02Do you feel like you were like, I I relate to that in a lot of different ways. I was just telling my mother, like, I'm in my gray season, like I'm not beating myself up over to nothing. But were you always that way when you were younger?
SPEAKER_01I was not. I was not. I I have, you know, like obviously I've healed a lot from the trauma that I've gone through. But also while I'm creating these courses and these frameworks, things are coming up. It's like, oh, oh, I did used to do that. Oh, okay. So I'm still uncovering things about my own journey, even still to this day. But seeing the difference in how I used to react, like when I first left my ex-husband, and how I react to things now is like night and day.
SPEAKER_02That's beautiful. That's growth, growth. Yeah, that's growth. That's the journey. I love what it is. The piece about okay, where are you now and where do you want to go? And in your journey from walking from A to Z, um, the devil is going to send distractions to get you off. That is so so so so so so important. Because it creates the awareness like that you have to be able to recognize them. Like, is this absolutely like is this in alignment with who I'm becoming? Like, I was somebody else last week, I done made progress to become this new person seven days forward. Now, um, if I want to continue that journey, I can't be looking at um boo-boo the fool. And you know, if I come on now, come on now. Hey, if I want to continue on my journey, you know, so the incremental just understanding that those those things will be coming.
SPEAKER_01And I'm still stuck in this wilderness word that you use, like the you're in a season of wilderness because oh yes, there's so many stories of women in their wilderness season, the Bible. And because my niche is specifically for women, I am I'm teaching women. Oh my gosh, I just had well, I call them Bible studies, but I'm changing the name, I'm changing it to Becoming Bible Sessions because there's like 20 to 25 minutes, it's not a whole Bible study, but I'm showing women how to have a different perspective when it comes to reading stories about other women in the Bible. Like when I tell you the Lord has already given us the blueprint, but because so many translations, if you will, of the Bible or so many stories of the Bible are pretty much told from the perspective of a man, it's like once you read it from a different lens, you're like, oh, that's me. It's just it came to me last year as the revelation that the Lord gave to me. He's like, Look, I want you to teach women their stories in the Bible, their stories are there. And I'm like, you know what? Our stories are here. I mean, obviously, it's not exactly the same, but the trauma, the abuse, the neglect that a woman in the Bible may have gone through and how she's worked through the process and now has shifted. Oh, that's a lot of our stories all day long. And so I'm taking women out of the Bible as it relates to the things within the becoming room, and I'm basically having them see that yes, this is the Bible. What you've gone through is in the the in the Bible. The decisions you need to make now are in the Bible. The alignment you need to agree with is in the Bible, it's all there, right?
SPEAKER_03It's a new time, but the lesson is is still there. Yes, absolutely. Um uh you mentioned um so many um so many of our influences are um how we think of ourselves as it relates to to men, um, and the the system of patriarchy, right? So um and and as women, we don't necessarily see ourselves um equal to men. I mean, we're not socialized in that way, right? Right. Even any system that we have, whether it be religious, uh employment, uh housing, it's all um uh balanced on a man's preference. True um and what they sort of allow for us. So to understand who we are as women in this world, in this time, in this space right now, um, and the power that we do have, once we sort of feel that back and can really see where true, first of all, no life comes without a woman. Come on now, we can we can start right there, right? So, but what but it once we recognize the power that we do have, and then we understand that these things are let first of all authores. I'm gonna are you I forgot where I heard that. Somebody's an authoress.
SPEAKER_04I like authoress.
SPEAKER_03I'm an authoress, but uh as as as you were talking about your journey, right? It's of I'm understanding who I am as a mother, I'm understanding who I'm who I am as a woman, I'm understanding who I am as a black woman and the sacredness of all of those identities, right? And you dip it dip into that power, you almost understand. It's over, it's over.
SPEAKER_01It's over, yes, yes. So many women that they have.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely, absolutely, I love that. I really do. Um, Ashley, if a woman is in a rough patch right now, what's one thing she should stop telling herself?
SPEAKER_01That it's over or that she's behind for sure, because it's not over and you're not behind. You know, we spend so much time trying to compare ourselves to what we see on social media or what we see in the world, and none of that. Well, I'm not gonna say none of it, but the majority of it is not real. Yeah, no, yeah, everyone has their own journey, their own lane, their own story. So, yeah, that would definitely be the first thing I would say. It's not over, and you're not behind. You're probably exactly where you're supposed to be. You just need to figure out what you're supposed to do to be moving forward, yeah, right.
SPEAKER_02Paying and paying attention, tune in, put your blinders on.
SPEAKER_03Like I put your blinders on that, I ain't worried about that. We we sometimes look at other people, and um, everybody has a struggle. I don't know anyone without a struggle, and so sometimes you have to ask yourself, do I want to change my struggle for that struggle?
SPEAKER_01Okay, yeah, yeah, right?
SPEAKER_03That struggle, you might think you want it, but you don't even know all the stuff that that person is going to, yeah. You just see the smile, right? So, yeah, definitely you will make it through. That's a good lesson.
SPEAKER_02Okay, Ashley, how can folks stay connected with you? How can they learn more about your work and a becoming space?
SPEAKER_01Okay, so I am actually in the process of building my website and it is coming along beautifully. I cannot wait for it to be done. Um, but in the meantime, um, I can be reached through Instagram. Um, my personal one is at becoming ashley underscore fell. And then the one for the imperfectly perfect space is at the imperfectly underscore perfect space. I have a link in my bio on all of my social media platforms. Um, they can click in that to get the link to join the becoming room. It is a free community, and I would love for anyone who wants to join to join.
SPEAKER_02Well, that has been our women in bloom episode today. Thank you all for listening, and thank you all for watching. If you're on YouTube or if you're on Spotify or if you're watching Snippets on IG, thank you for being here today, and see you next time.