Hello, my friend

Welcome back, and welcome to the final episode of this comeback week on Shamelessly Ambitious.

If you’ve been with me for Episodes 149 and 150, you already know it’s been part confessional, part therapeutic, and part “maybe I shouldn’t have said that out loud” 😂. But honestly—it just feels so good to be back in conversation with you again.

Because that’s what this podcast has always been: a conversation. About what it means to be ambitious and well. About letting it be messy and human. About remembering that slowing down isn’t giving up.

The Shift That Changed Everything

When I sat down to reflect on the last year, what actually moved the needle in my nervous system healing, what truly shifted my life and my business, it wasn’t another tactic or tool.

It was the moment I stopped trying to be the expert of my own life.

After my sabbatical, I came back believing I’d mastered calm and presence. I’d cracked the code. And then… real life started again. Deadlines. Kids. Responsibilities. All the things. Suddenly, I was back in the same patterns… buzzing, bracing, overdoing.

I had to ask myself: why am I still here?

The truth? Because I was still trying to get it right. To apply the next “right” healing tool or business method. When what my nervous system actually needed was permission to not know. To approach everything—business, motherhood, marriage, healing…with a beginner’s mind.

Curiosity and Threat Can’t Coexist

Here’s what I’ve learned as both a therapist and a human in process: your body cannot feel curiosity and threat at the same time.

Curiosity is a parasympathetic state. It’s open, receptive, safe.
Threat—control, perfectionism, urgency—is sympathetic. It’s tight and braced.

So when you intentionally approach something with a beginner’s mindset, you’re sending your body a powerful message:

“It’s safe to explore.”

And that changes everything.

How I Started Practicing Beginner Energy

When I let myself not know, things softened everywhere.

Within my marriage, I stopped assuming I knew everything about Jake after 15 years and got curious again.

When it comes to motherhood, I started showing up like, who are my kids today? instead of leading from “I’ve read every book.”

Inside my business, I released the pressure to find the “perfect strategy” and began asking, what feels good to try right now?

The more I let myself be a beginner, the more peace I found. The more abundance came in. The more my work started to flow with me, not against me.

Because curiosity is expansion.
Control is contraction.

And peace lives in the expansion.

The Problem With “Knowing Too Much”

The longer we’re in business, motherhood, or healing work, the more we accumulate—information, strategies, rules. And while learning is beautiful, the weight of knowing too much can keep us braced, constantly self-correcting, perpetually evaluating.

When I stripped it all back and asked, “What if I just tried something new? What if I let this be easy?”—that’s when my nervous system exhaled.

This is the true nervous system shift:
Releasing mastery and returning to curiosity.

The Beginner’s Mind In Practice

If you’re ready to bring this shift into your own life, try this simple reflection:

✨ Where have I stopped being curious?
✨ What would it feel like to approach this like I’m new again?
✨ What if I didn’t have to know?

Approach your next project, your next conversation, or your next moment of rest as if you’ve never done it before. Notice how your body feels.

That’s regulation in motion. That’s presence. That’s the energy that attracts both peace and abundance, without effort.

Where We’re Headed Next

This new era of the Shamelessly Ambitious Podcast isn’t about strategy or scaling. It’s about the woman underneath it all… the nervous system behind the business, the self beneath the success.

Living shamelessly ambitious isn’t about having it all figured out.
It’s about being curious enough to keep becoming.

Welcome to that era.

xx, Ash

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