Meet Ashley Herod

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Ashley Herod a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Ashley , thank you so much for joining us. You are such a positive person and it’s something we really admire and so we wanted to start by asking you where you think your optimism comes from?
I won’t lie – a lot of things went wrong in my life all before the age of 20. One time in a therapy group I was in we had to make a timeline of all the bad traumatic things, I needed 2 pages of paper. I have a very vivid memory of sitting in a hospital waiting room while my Dad had a kidney transplant ; I have a lot of vivid memories of hospital rooms, dialysis centers, doctors offices, As a teenager my Dad was in ICU for what felt like years, it was only 4 months but at 13 you really have no sense of time especially when you are constantly staying the night in waiting rooms. MRSA turned Gangrene turned into a Bi-lateral Amputation for the man that I looked up to the most. At 15 my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer and cue the spiral of feeling like the never-ending story of unfortunate events. I spent the better part of my childhood watching the two most important people in my life unravel – I spent the better part of my childhood being a caretaker. I will say the two consistent things I had – it was magic and it was laughter. No matter how dark it all got – in my home, in my heart, in my head – our parents still made sure we were active and social and taken care of and knees deep on activities.

In my very early 20’s things didn’t seem that bad, until my Dad took his own life and the following year my undiagnosed depression and post traumatic stress disorder landed me in a behavioral center after trying to take my own life. While I was in that behavioral center we had to make a list of why we were still alive. A list of things to look forward to and more that a list of things we had to offer the world. At first my lists were short because I felt like I had nothing to give and then a Doctor looked at me and told me “once you hit rock bottom the only way is up, so you might as well enjoy every floor the elevator opens up on until you get to the roof”.

As far as my optimism goes, I think I adapted as a kid to any situation and learned to be positive with whatever cards I was dealt with. After seeing my parents so sick for so long all I wanted was to be the one who helped keep everyone above water and to be the one who wanted to create magic and laughter in all my spaces the way they had created for me in my childhood among the darkness. After years of healing and therapy, optimism and humor have been the focal points of surviving the hard things. Optimism and humor and goodness can exist in the darkness – and can thrive in the shadows. With all the bad things come good things and with all the good things comes a 30 something female determined to share her story to give others permission to share theirs.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
My whole life all I ever wanted was to literally just sprinkle glitter and goodness on everyone I have ever met, loving people and creating color and light is my brand. After losing my Dad I started a nonprofit organization called Sparkle Mental Health Connection! Sparkle is an organization dedicated to creating platforms for individuals to share their mental health experiences on as well as spreading awareness in the community. Sparkle quickly became my passion project and I realized how much I loved people and hearing their stories! I have had a podcast dream in my pocket for the last few years – waiting for the right time to dive into a new project. I dreamed about a podcast that talked about the big hard things while making light of the darkness, a show that could highlight stories and bring awareness to the realness of people and their trials . My new podcast called ‘The Yellow Feeling’ comes out in the New Year and I can’t wait to share these amazing stories with whoever will listen.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
Communication. Kindness. Mental Health. I don’t have a beautiful masters degree in psychology and I don’t know every nook and cranny of the brain – what I do have is experience and what I do know is that people need people. I have been to years of all kinds of therapy so i definitely consider myself an expert on communication and empathy. My advice for anyone wanting to start a nonprofit or a podcast or anything in between would be to really sit down and find what you are passionate about and to read as much as you can and talk to as many people as you can about what you are wanting. Be open minded and thoughtful while building your brand and be willing to put the work into yourself to grow to be the best version of yourself for that brand and for yourself.

Alright, so before we go we want to ask you to take a moment to reflect and share what you think you would do if you somehow knew you only had a decade of life left?
I really do believe that even after all the time I spent in therapy I 100% feel like I still deal with some version of imposter syndrome. Even as we lead up to this podcast releasing and prepping for branding shoots and interview questions and learning new tech – I wonder if I can even exist in this space with so many different brilliant creators. I wonder if I have anything valuable to offer or if anyone will care what kind of message I’m spreading. Even when I put my brave hat on I think that sometimes there will still be this part of me that is scared.  You know what I would do with a decade left?  Feel the fear and do it anyway and hold onto the magic that was given to me during the darkest times of my life and then give that magic to everyone else.

Contact Info:

Image Credits
Sparks Fly Photography, Stella Images, Lyberty Latham Photo

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