Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Ashley Holloway . We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Ashley, thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?
My resilience was built over the years of going through difference traumatic experiences that have shaped who I am today. Growing up I had experiences of being the only African American student in the entire k-12 school. This by far was one of my hardest experiences in life . Dealing with teacher and students using racial profanities . After I was eventually moved to being home schooled. While in the process of being homeschooled we became home less and living in our car. It was at that moment I realized that I had no choice but to keep building my resilience.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
I grew up the oldest of three kids and in charge of taking care of a medically sick mother at a very young age. While being homeless I was accepted into college and worked 2 jobs while taking the max load of credits. In college I met my husband and after marriage we decided to have kids. During that time I had two micro preemies. Which lead me into my current passion of helping women in transitions and NICU mothers dealing with the ups and downs of the NICU experience. Right now I’m working on postpartum groups for NICU mother’s . Any amount of NICU time can be traumatic for mother’s.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
I would have to resilience ,self awareness and willingness to learn have been the key for me. Throughout the years experiencing such traumatic experiences with being the only minority in my entire school . To having two micro preemies . To being a military spouse and dealing with bing a married single parent. To opening my own private practice. All three qualities have been apart of all major life lessons I have learned. You must be self aware to grow. so my advice too others is if you can be open to being self aware and willing to learn from your mistakes or ways to improve you can always do better in life.
To close, maybe we can chat about your parents and what they did that was particularly impactful for you?
The most impactful thing my parents did for me was teach me that it’s okay to question things. The instilled that you can just believe anything someone tells you and that it’s okay to question things that don’t make sense. This information was also transferred into them teaching how to stand up for myself and advocate for myself. This helped me build resilience.
Contact Info:
- Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/ashley-holloway-89473142
- Other: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists/mindful-peace-counseling-services-llc-wimauma-fl/887012
