Sing and Dance.

When you take a look at your life. Take the last month perhaps. Does it look like “singing and dancing” to you?

Now this isn’t a question that is supposed to shame anyone into feeling bad about a lack of thematic “singing and dancing” throughout their lives, but rather a challenge and encouragement! Now I don’t mean necessarily physically singing and dancing, but it could be! But I mean more so, a theme, a way of life that is like singing and dancing. A joy, a declaration, uplifting people, places, situations, a heart of thanksgiving, praise, and so on…

I recently was running my usual park path in downtown Kitchener, Victoria Park, and I was thinking about some challenges that I wanted to overcome. And this song by Hillsong came on shuffle, “Echo’s”. And the lyrics hit me hard.

“We will sing, we will dance, until the earth reflects the heavens.”

Wow.

When we face an obstacle or a trial, we often turn to telling other people how they can improve, or what they are doing wrong, or we start trying to course correct people, or try to strive to figure things our on our own…

But in fact, the response to these trials, obstacles and challenges, the solution, is really found in: SINGING, DANCING. Illustratively meaning to stay joyful, remain faithful to loving God and others, proclaim words of belief and not doubt, positivity and not negativity, uplift and not criticism… UNTIL, the earth, and our situations actually begin to reflect HEAVEN!

It totally makes sense, you don’t turn a dark room light by telling it that it’s dark, you bring light in.

Bring light into your situations, your challenges, by being light, by singing, by dancing! And watch the earth start to reflect the Heavens!

Here’s the full song for a listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFBuh72C2zo

XOXO

Ashley

10 commandments -- WHY?!

Sometimes we don’t want rules. We just want to be able to do whatever we feel like in the moment, but I heard a fantastic illustration today from a podcast out of Transformation Church in the U.S.

God has given us His Word to live by, just as parents give rules to their children to live by. It’s for their benefit, for their success, for their health and for GOOD.

This is gonna be short and sweet. But just think, God’s Word is for us not against us, just in the same way that we raise children to wear seatbelts, to wash their hands, and to not fall over the stairs by putting up a gate. God is doing the same for us in His Word as He guides us on the path of Truth and FULL life.

Let’s approach God’s Word with an eagerness to obey, not a hesitancy, knowing that His Word is FOR us.

XOXO

Ashley

BLEACH

So I’m most familiar with bleach in my hair at the salon as I achieve that white out blonde. But this past week I experienced bleach on a whole new level, and let me tell you… bleach and I are not friends. So as many of you following my journey of marriage would know, I am learning to live in 650 SQFT of space. I could probably fill a 600 SQFT closet with my clothes (not a brag, I actually wish I didn’t have this issue haha! WORKING ON IT). So, it’s a challenge. And God bless my husbands patience with my clothing collection.

ANYWAY back to bleach.

So I was organizing the laundry room to be a quasi laundry room, closet. I found the perfect home for my husbands baseball bag, and that’s on top of the stacked washer and dryer. Half of the top is washing products and the other half was empty. So up went the bag. But there was something at the back of the top of the dryer that I couldn’t see. And that was the bottle of bleach that my husband uses to keep his white shirts as white as possible (OCD.)… and all I heard was “glug, glug, glug…” Full bottle of bleach spilled in a very confined closet space BEHIND the stacked washer and dryer. UGH.

Not only did this create an impossible stench of a smell, but it was behind tow heavy objects making it hard to clean. And let me tell you, cleaning up a bottle of spilt bleach is hard on the eyes, nose and lungs. As I was cleaning it up I realized that it had spilt on many a clothing item that I had just organized in my quasi-laundry room closet.

When relaying this story to my husband his response was, “God answered my prayers! How man bags of clothes did we get rid off?!”

So other than sharing a humorous learning lesson on avoiding knocking over bottles of bleach… There’s another illustration to my story.

It is CRAZY the affect that bleach has on ANYTHING that it touches. It is powerful and it leaves it’s mark. There was an H&M bag back there and the red logo colour was completely wiped out. And then a pair of new grey sweats now are tie dyed with white speckles, but I’m going to rock it!

It got me thinking, the way we make people feel has a powerful affect on their day to day. Let’s wipe out negativity, self-doubt, stress and anxiety through our interactions with people, and let’s add a surprise splatter of love, faith, hope, comfort, encouragement and positive intentions.

Let’s get out there and bleach the world with love & kindness.

I can still smell the bleach days later, let them smell the love and kindness, days later.

Ash XOXO

HONEYMOON BOOK REVIEW: "Girl, Stop Apologizing"

Hey friends!

I’m itching to blog about the latest book I read on our honeymoon in Jamaica— I highly recommend it. There were so many great nuggets of truth in Rachel Hollis’, GIrl, Stop Apologizing. Here are my top 5 takeaways.

1) Don’t water down who you are. Don’t apologize for who you are.

Now, caveat when you read “who you are” think of your best self. Don’t water THAT down. Have you ever been around a certain group of people who make you feel like you can’t be your best self? For example, sometimes if I’m around people who are being negative or have a victim mentality, I’m afraid to be my positive upbeat self because I might annoy them, or they may resent me. That’s wrong. Rachel talks about how if we were to constantly be adjusting, adjusting adjusting to serve other people’s agenda’s even when we don’t agree with them, we completely loose ourselves and who it is we are supposed to be for the world around us. Be FULLY you without apology. There’s only one you and the world needs you. Obviously always love others, be polite and use wisdom, but don’t mistaken that for watering yourself down to be a less FULL version of who you are. Be YOU. If people have a problem with that, it’s probably really a problem with themselves.

2) Don’t create space in your life, or headspace for negative, conflict creating people to speak into your life. At first this may seem like it’s wrong or sounds bad. But Rachel talks about how yes, it’s important to love everyone and be there to support people, but that is different than allowing people’s negativities and insecurities to have a say and impact on our own lives, thinking and approach to life. When other people’s opinions are directing your thinking or decision making, there’s a problem. It’s the OPO problem. “Other-People’s-Opinions.” You’re giving your power away and everyone else owns you. Use wisdom, council of a few people you truly trust, seek God, and move forward. This life can be challenging as it is, don’t allow additional conflict creators to have a place.

3) Touch it once. Create efficiencies in your life!

When you open an email, reply to it then. Even if you don’t have the answers, let them know you’re finding them. Touch it once! If you start doing something, be disciplined to finish that task, or the part of the larger task that you are doing. This creates little efficiencies throughout your day that turn into BIG productivity in the big picture.

4) Set your vision, the goals to reach it & then serve your agenda.

This might sound selfish at first glance, but Rachel actually says that in a way, you have to be selfish to accomplish your vision. Selfish to your vision. For example a part of your vision may be to serve the community, so you have to be “selfish” to make the time and not allow that time to be taken away by things outside of your vision. So in that way, be selfish with you vision. Although your vision isn’t selfish. Make sense? You picking up what I’m putting down? Make decisions, fill your calendar with the things that serve your vision. Otherwise you will never get there. Let your Yes be yes and your no be no. A yes to someone else’s inquiry from you may be saying a yes to their agenda and a no to your agenda. Be wise!

5) Move your body everyday!

Bottom line. If you aren’t feeling good physically mentally or spiritually, move your body everyday. This isn’t the be all end all answer but it will ALWAYS help. If you aren’t doing that, you are doing a disservice to yourself. Do something, for 30 minutes intentionally to move, to be active. Maybe it’s 2 hours for you, but maybe you’re looking for somewhere to start. Walk for 30 minutes minimum a day. Don’t complain about something unless you’ve at-least done this. If you catch yourself about to get down, or complain, nip it in the butt and go for a walk first, and then see if you still want to complain after. And if you do, maybe do another lap :P ! The mental and physical benefits of exercise are well researched and AMAZING.

So there you have it! My top takeaways from Rachel’s new book. Let me know what you think!

XOXO Ash

My fake Louis

I break suitcases. I’ve probably went through 10 minimum. I think this says something about my personality... I try and fit too much in sometimes. Less is more doesn’t come easily to me (haha).

My most recent experience was with a fake Louis button duffel bag that I got in China. Boy did that thing look SHARP. It looked undeniably real, but it wasn’t. I packed that thing with as much as possible still being able to squeeze it shut between my legs and quickly zip it up. Perfect.

All my bags were set and ready to go by the door. And finally it was SHOW TIME.

We gathered all our things ready to go to the airport with our family, I got five steps outside the door, and pop, pop, pop, both handed tore off and the zipper popped from the weight.

An illustration comes to mind here. My bag looked the part, but when weight was added, it immediately broke and couldn’t not function to do its ONE job. Carry my things.

If it’s fake, it’s not going to be able to carry the weight of responsibility, the weight of its job when it’s show time.

I once heard Christine Caine speak a message I will never forget. She used the illustration of an old fashioned photo lab. That photo that is completely undeveloped, goes into a dark room for a certain period of time in order to fully develop before it brought back out into the light in order to show its true beauty.

This is much like us as people. God brings us through journeys of development so that we can be the real deal. Not fake. Tried and true and ready to carry weight.

Christine went on to say that if you took a photo out of development too early the photo wouldn’t be nearly as beautiful as the result it’s intended to have.

Same goes for us. If we try and get ahead of our season of development before our character has grown, before we’ve matured, before we’ve learned and put in the work, if we try to get ahead of God’s timing, we are like a semi development photo or a fake Louis Vuitton bag.

Let’s stick out the journey, let’s be the real deal, let’s become fully developed as we prepare to step into the big things that are next in our lives. Let’s be like a real Louis.

I bet you’ve never heard that motivational quote before.

“I’m like a real Louis Vuitton.”

Xoxo

Ashley

I QUIT!

I quit.

And I have to caveat, for any of my colleagues that may be reading this, I love you all, and I had a fantastic time and team. Sometimes we’ve just got to follow our hearts!

Sometimes you have to say no to a good thing, in order to say yes to your dream.

If you’re anything like my mom you’re re-reading that sentence with a dropped jaw. (Love you mom)

Yes, my safe, salaried, job with a reputable company with great benefits, I quit.

But sometimes you have to release one thing, so that you can receive another.

I remember once I was dating a guy who wasn’t for me, and this is totally wrong, but I kind of had the mindset that if someone better for me came along, I’d still see them and at that point could stop dating one person and go date the other. I know. Horrible haha. BUT come on ladies I am SURE some of you have been in that dating scenario.

Obviously that’s not how life works.

My dad always told me in that season, “you can’t receive something if your hands are full with something else. They have to be open and available.”

So dad, thanks—your relationship advice helped me not only meet the man of dreams who I’m about to marry, but years later also helped me make a decision to quit my job (ha-ha, he won’t necessarily like that :P)

But in all seriousness, I have often said growing up that I wanted to be Joyce Meyers. Not sure who she is? Google.

She is a firey passionate leader, speaker, author, mentor, all around gospel preaching life inspirational woman, wife and mom. And she’s 69 and STILL going. So I figure she’ll soon retire and I’ll have to take over. LOL.

But I have long had a passion inside my heart to spend the majority of my time speaking, writing, and creating content to inspire others’ to live their best lives, the fullest live, full of faith hope and love. A life chasing after all that GOD has for them.

So that is what I’m going to do. I am going to be volunteering a whole lot more at my amazing church, Slate Church, I am going to be kicking off VLOGS and a podcast in the fall, all geared to inspire others to live the best life possible as we learn and grow together. I want to emphasize the learning and growing together, because of course, I am by NO MEANS an expert haha. I’m equally as human with my meltdowns, and mistakes and needs of pick me ups and ice cream tubs and PMSing. But I have a desire to give each day the best I’ve got, and I want to bring others on that journey with me, so that together we can live our best lives.

I’m also excited to say that in conjunction with all that good stuff I will be running my media company, Bonne Media full time! I will be working with my current clients to really enhance their community presence, connect with the right audiences and bring all you folks great products and services that also inspire and help you live your best life. From beauty to food to plumbing, we’ve got a great variety of personalities on the client roster and are excited to add more! Only requirement--- be looking to add value to people’s lives.

I can hardly believe I’m doing it, but I’m doing it. Is it a risk—YES. Is it exciting—YES. Am I sure? YES.

Funny thing is, I’ve known that I was supposed to do this for a long time. About 2.5 years ago I was sitting in the basement living room of my pastors, and I was telling them how I knew in my heart I was supposed to quit my job, and pursue more speaking, writing and ministry opportunities. But then I didn’t. I played it safe. I did the “responsible” thing.

And now 2+ years later. Nothing has changed with that. I still knew what I was supposed to do. And now I’m FINALLY doing it. And I had the same conversation with my same pastors a few weeks ago. (Thanks for sticking with me guys :P )

Sometimes it takes us awhile to take what we know we’re supposed to do in our hearts, and make it a reality through our actions. Sometimes we know that God has spoken to us about something in our lives, but we try and pretend we didn’t hear it. Our hesitancy and stubbornness only delay the promise that God has for us on the other side of our obedience. And it delays the rest of the world from getting to benefit from what it is you’re supposed to do. This could play out in a simple relationship of knowing you’re supposed to encourage someone, or forgive someone, right to whether or not you’re suppose to make a huge career decision or buy or sell a house.

Seek God’s direction and voice through prayer and listening, look to His word, seek the Holy Spirit and wise council. And when you know in your heart of hearts that you’re supposed to do something…

In the words of NIKE, Just Do It!

I love this bible verse:

I will HURRY without DELAY to OBEY your commands. Psalm 119:30

I’m so excited to share some hopefully inspiring content with you all soon! And hey—if you’re a business looking to market yourselves in authentic relational ways through digital media in order to add VALUE to the lives of others, HIT ME UP!

XOXO

Ash

How's He Doing - The Marathon Series FINISHER

Here’s the last instalment guys! Well, for now. HEHE.

I’m a huge romantic so at least half of the race I was thinking about Josh. Naturally. LOL.

But it’s true. At the beginning of the race we started by running the first 1-2 KM together, and I gave Josh the thumbs up to take off. I did so gladly, not wanting to hold him up, and wanting him to exceed to his best!

Watching him take off and pass literally hundreds of people down the long flat stretch of road ahead of us was quite incredible. I could see his cute little red half zip sweater making his way though all the people until eventually he disappeared so far ahead of me.

If we compare this to the marathon of life that we’re all running, I think we can have 2 different responses to a scenario like this.

A) Dejected by the fact that we can’t keep up pace with the person.
B) Excited by their success and motivate to do YOUR personal best as they rock out THEY’RE personal best.

Option B empowers everyone. And option A tears down everyone.

When we get down on ourselves about the successes of someone else when our success looks “lesser” in the moment, we limit ourselves, and we limit the other person by burdening them to feel bad about their success. How unfair we can be sometimes! To ourselves and to other’s who we should be cheering on in their success making sure they’re enjoying and savouring every moment of it! Imagine someone working their whole lives to achieve something, and then we rob them of the joy of achieving and experiencing it because we want them to feel bad for us. We’ve all done it. But I think we an all realize how yucky that is.

When we CHOOSE even though we don’t always feel like it, to motivate ourselves by the successes of others and be inspired by their work and growth and achievement, we empower ourselves and we empower that other person.

It’s crazy how sometimes we actually allow, and make other people’s positives, negatives for ourselves, when we can choose for it to be a win win for everyone!

Even when Josh was SO far ahead of me I couldn’t even see him, I still thought about him. And I didn’t resent the several KM’s ahead of me he was. I was genuinely SO HAPPY for him and would actually get GIDDY thinking about how good he was doing and the amazing time he was going to achieve. And it made me run faster!

I would think about how he was killing it, and how for me and my ability to run, I was killing it! It just looked a little differently. But I also knew how proud of me He was going to be when I did cross that line. Even though it would be at a slower pace than him, it was going to be amazing and He was going to celebrate with me too.

Let’s think of other’s on their races, even when they’re ahead of us, positively, happy for them, and inspired for us. Win win!

All my love,

Ashley XOXO

Run with Me

I remember running up the initial incline of Crowsfoot road. If you live in the KW area, you know what I”m talking about. Throughout the race every KM is spray painted on the pavement, and every single one I made just to stomp on. Felt kinda good you know? Another one under my FEET. Shortly after I made it to the top of Crowsfoot and it started levelling out I made it to about 12 KM and all I could see is a long stretch that looked never ending ahead of me. All of a sudden my music was interrupted with the sound of my phone ringing in my ears.

“Hello?”

It was my brother Andrew calling me to see how I was doing, to give me encouragement and tell me how proud he was of me. Just that 30 seconds of encouragement breathed life into me for another 10 KM.

Sometimes it’s like Phone a Friend on who wants to be a millionaire. But it’s up to us to PROACTIVELY make that call to that friend who might just need to hear a simple “Hello, how are you doing, I love you, You’ve got this, you’re awesome.”

There is power in the “phone a friend.”

So on I went until about exactly 23 KM, and the 22-26 KM stretch was the hardest for me. My phone rang again.

“Hello?”

At this point I could barely muster the breath to carry on a conversation, but it was my parents. And they were cheering me on even from thousands of miles away, right there in my ear.

My tank was filled up again to push through the second half of the race. Who might need their tank filled up by some words of encouragement or act of kindness around you today? What might take you 30 seconds could get them through “many KM’s” of life.

It was about 28 KM and things were starting to hurt at this point. I had broken away from the pack and had found myself on the road by myself. Well besides the random tumbleweed on the country roads. And all of a sudden I saw these two crazies waving at me from a car <3 … It was my future Mother and Father in law, Lisa and Mark. I instantly felt l wasn’t alone and a burst of energy came over me! But you won’t guess what happened next.

Mark got out of the car. (Lisa had to be the much needed get away driver :P)

How many times do we want to just “help people from the car.” But when we GET OUT OF THE CAR and actually start running alongside people in their journey’s that’s where we make real impact. Mark actually ran beside me, encouraged and coached me along for probably just short of a KM. It impacted my heart so profoundly I had more in the tank to keep going.

You know sometimes someone does something once and it’s amazing. But when they are a consistent source of encouragement, it’s like a fountain of water that refreshes constantly. Sometimes it’s easy for us to say, “Well I did it! I did what I was supposed to do. I was there for them. I was there for them like 10 times. That’s enough.”

Do it again.

40 KM in. Mark shows up again. “Ashley you only have 2KM left! You are so close, you can do it!” He runs with me for a little, and when he knows I”m SUPER close he says he’s gotta get back to the finish line to get the other’s ready for my arrival!

Just amazing.

After the race I was debriefing with Josh and he shared an incredible story with me that I’ve asked him if I could share here.

Josh had run the marathon, much faster than me. He pushed his way through, maximizing every step he could with efficiency and speed. He got to 40 KM and his hamstring seized. All of a sudden his strong stride turned into a limping jog. Josh wasn’t even sure he was going to be able to finish running feeling instantly dejected.

It’s the LAST 2 KM of the race. People have been training for their times for a long time, they’ve endured 40 KM of running and they’re close to the end, this is where they kick into high gear to get their best time, they’re putting themselves “first” in their efforts.

But a lady stopped, slowed down, and said to Josh, “You are finishing this race. Come on.” Pat him on the shoulder and made him start running with her again. Somehow the pain left. Josh picked his pace back up, and raced ahead of 3 more runners to the finish line.

Josh didn’t know who that woman was, but was almost brought to tears thinking of the sacrifice she made when she could have been gunning for the finish line herself, to make sure that he made it too.

Let’s not be so obsessed with reaching our own “finish line” goals in life that we miss the people also running with us along the way. Your small sacrifice can actually be the difference between someone finishing or not finishing at all.

Thank you to everyone who “Ran with me” and inspired me to "run with others” in life.

All my love,

Ashley XOXO