Meet Ashley, resilience story #1, Creativity, music, education, dance, putting her foot down!

In this episode, I talk with the inspiring, creative, educated, soul-powerful Ashley…

When she was five her family moved back to Fiji, during which time she experienced CSA from the landlords son who lived upstairs - who at the time was in his teens. The abuse lasted until she was almost 7, when she and her family moved back to New Zealand. Then, sadly, when she was 16 she was raped by someone her family had known. She had snuck out to meet him so there was so much self-blame going on for her. Ashley ended up in a toxic, controlling and unhealthy relationship as a 17-year-old for three years.

Resilience to Ashley is all the things she had disregarded until recent years as being strengths of hers. Things that kept me going. Not being afraid of hard work and being willing to do the work (even though it may have been reluctantly at times!) And the things in her life that provided her with support and strength.

The types of resilience that Ashley used in her childhood and adolescence to support her were: Creativity!!! She played the piano, flute, harmonium, singing, ballroom dancing, Latin American dancing, Indian classical dancing. Music and dance were her ultimate resilient go tos.

She came from a musical/dancing family and these were some of the tools her used as a family.

Another resilient tool her family used was education. When Ashley’s mother lost her father at age 16, everyone pressured Ashley’s nana into, "Marrying off her daughters because they are so dark-skinned, who will marry them?" To which Ashley’s nana response was that her daughters “will be well educated before they decide who they want to marry!” (Awesome stuff Nana!)

Education was a huge pillar of support passed down from the women in Ashley’s family. Ashley has been studying for 7 years and has found her calling educationally and professionally.

Ashley also used spirituality as a source of resilience. She says, “I was raised in a very religious Hindu household, and attended a Catholic high school. I was very involved in our religious gatherings, being the youngest person to play the harmonium, and sing the lead for our prayers - while I recognise the resilience this provided me, this also meant I was placed on a pedestal by other members of the community who asked their daughters "why can't you be more like Ashley" which is its own level of pressure.

She did become angry at her religion and spirituality five years ago believing that if there was a god, she wouldn't have let this happen to her, and therefore religion is all rubbish. However, in the last two years, through her own journey of healing, she has increasingly felt as though she has returned home to her culture, religion and spirituality.

“I never stopped to realise how powerful meditating, chanting, praying, singing and dancing through prayers must have been for me,” she says.

Some of the pivotal moments that have been a source of resilience for Ashley include meeting her current partner. She says he would have been one of the first healthy relationships she had experienced. He challenged some things in her life that allowed her to see what had happened to her wasn’t okay. And he encouraged her independence, to be her authentic self and helped her to slowly integratate all her secret lives into one whole authentic being.

Ashley says, “I spent my life trying to be the ideal woman that was taught to us while knowing I would never be it because I was not a virgin. This was really hard. But once I shared my story, I felt so liberated!”

So many women from Ashley’s community have also reached out to me to say, “Me too,” to her.

“I thought it was just me,” she says.

Since sharing her story, Ashley has started a podcast and started some research on sexual violence and South Asian women, and run peer support groups. Through taking all these steps she has found meaning in her suffering.

Another pivotal moment for Ashley happened last October during a regular annual prayer at her “godesses”. She says, “I had this spiritual moment where I broke down because all of a sudden I realised my godesses only gave me what you knew I could handle.”

She realised for herself that she would not have been here, doing this research, breaking the silence and creating a space to talk about these things in her community, had she not gone through the pain and suffering of it all. What she was doing wasn’t just about her, but the pain of all the women who came before her and for the ones who will come after. It was in this moment she reconnected with her religion and spirituality again - so powerful!

Finally, another pivotal moment Ashley had was five years ago when her therapist recommended Brené Brown's Ted Talk on vulnerability. When she finally got around to watching it, she says how it changed.her. life.

It was this powerful quote she said that really made the impact:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.”

This changed everything for Ashley.

It was in this moment that she realised that experiencing the full spectrum of human emotions is part of the human experience, and by not allowing herself to do so, she was robbing herself of her own life.

This was where her shift happened.

Another source of resilience for Ashley were from Harry Potter quotes. “This was possibly one of my biggest types of resilience - reading a series about a boy who had experienced trauma, and lost his parents, and how friendship and love truly was his biggest strengths. HARRY POTTER SAVED MY LIFE so many times,” she says.

Ashely has done so many things to help herself on her healing journey.

“Counselling, actually being vulnerable with friends and asking for help (this was the biggest!), blogging, journaling, writing, online support chats with other survivors, a complex PTSD support group on Facebook, trauma-informed yoga, craniosacral therapy, medication, psychiatrist, dance therapy, pelvic health physiotherapist, sports massage therapist, sex and intimacy therapy, bodywork, pole fitness, ballroom dancing, movement meditations, singing,” she says are some of the things she has engaged in to support her healing along the way.

When I asked her what are some of the words of wisdom she has for others on their healing journey, this is how she replies:

“Forgiving myself for the way I treated my body and myself after what was done to me. I didn't know at the time that those things were wrong, and I spent years hurting myself for something that was done to me. I know better now. I know that I coped and survived in the best ways I could. My mind and my body helped me there. So now, I make a promise to show myself so much self-love, and compassion to truly forgive myself for not knowing better then, while making changes now. Now, I take the time to check in on what's going on inside me, and allowing myself all the permission to say no to things that overextend me, and making time so that I may be gentle with myself.”

Thank you again, Ashley, for taking the time to share your voice of resilience. It has been an honour and I feel most privileged.

Lots of love to you,

Chrissy

Listen to Ashley’s story of resilience on Spotify

*Image is not of Ashley*