Episode 11 - Finding the Sweet Spot Between Extremes: Suffering, Joy, and Emotional Balance

New Episode - Finding the Sweet Spot Between Extremes: Suffering, Joy, and Emotional Balance

What if the goal isn’t to stay “high vibe” all the time, but to learn how to live in a grounded, sustainable middle — where you can hold both suffering and joy without getting swallowed by either?

In the newest episode of the Builders of a Better World podcast, Ashlieya and Neff dive into what they call the “sweet spot between extremes” and how finding it can transform the way you relate to yourself, your emotions, and the people around you.

Why extremes keep us stuck

We live in a world that loves extremes: all-or-nothing thinking, polarized opinions, and pressure to be either “high vibe” or “a mess” with nothing in between. In this conversation, Ashlieya and Neff unpack why living at either end of the spectrum — whether emotionally, energetically, or politically — tends to create rigidity, reactivity, and unnecessary suffering.

They explore:

• Why chasing constant euphoric bliss isn’t realistic (or even human).

• How duality and contrast are built into the nature of existence.

• Why staying closer to center actually expands your capacity for acceptance, understanding, and peace.

A vulnerable story of grief, anger, and resilience

In one of the most tender parts of the episode, Ashlieya shares the story of losing her beloved pit bull, who had been with her through her entire adult life and felt like her “Achilles heel” and guardian angel rolled into one. She talks honestly about:

• Walking through diagnosis, treatment, and an incredibly difficult passing.

• Feeling an almost unbearable level of pain and anger at the divine.

• The very human pull to numb out — and the conscious decision to stay sober and actually feel it, in honor of the love they shared.

This experience became a living example of an “extreme” on the emotional spectrum — and what it looks like to move through it and come out feeling stronger, more grounded, and far less easily shaken by the smaller storms of life.

Core values, “sky is falling” moments, and fewer buttons to push

From there, the conversation turns into practical inner work. Together, they explore how to:

• Define a short, honest list of what truly matters most to you — the things that actually qualify as “sky is falling” moments if threatened.

• Let go of giving everything in life the same level of significance, so you’re not living in constant crisis mode.

• Have “fewer buttons to push” without becoming detached or apathetic, by reserving your deepest emotional investment for a small number of core values and relationships.

They also connect this to nervous-system health: how our survival wiring can make everyday inconveniences feel like emergencies, and how consciously re-framing what counts as a true threat helps you return to a more coherent, regulated baseline more quickly.

Choosing a sustainable high-vibration baseline

Rather than idolizing endless “highs” or fearing the inevitable “lows,” this episode invites you to build a stable, high-vibration baseline you can actually live from day to day. You’ll hear:

• Why some discomfort is essential for growth and genuine appreciation of joy.

• How to orient yourself toward optimism without denying pain or bypassing reality.

• How caring for your own alignment first naturally becomes a quiet form of service to everyone and everything you interact with — your family, your students, your clients, and even your animals and environment.

If you’ve ever felt exhausted by your own emotional highs and lows, struggled with triggers, or wondered how to stay open-hearted without being constantly overwhelmed, this episode is for you.

Listen now

🎧 Episode title: Finding the Sweet Spot Between Extremes: Suffering, Joy, and Emotional Balance🎙️ Hosts: Ashlieya & Neff, Builders of a Better World podcast

You can listen on your favorite podcast platform or directly from our site. When you do, we’d love to hear:

• What made it onto your own “sky is falling” list?

• Where are you ready to shift from the edges back toward the sweet spot in the center?

Content note: This episode includes discussion of grief, pet loss, sobriety, emotional trauma, and references to substance use. Please listen with care and give yourself space to pause if needed.

Episode 11 - Finding the Sweet Spot Between ExtremesBuilders of a Better World

50:25

Transcript:

Welcome to Builders of a Better World Podcast, a space for depth, clarity, and honest conversation, where presence matters more than performance. Let’s begin.

Ashlieya: Welcome back to Builders of a Better World podcast. I'm your host, Lieya. Here with Neff.

Neff: Hey.

Ashlieya: What are we talking about?

Neff: Um, okay, we are talking about extremes.

Ashlieya: Mm-hmm.

Neff: That's what we're talking about. We're talking about extremes. We're talking about judgment of extremes, you know, what's good, what's bad, perspective, those kind of things, and where the sweet spot is on the spectrum of all of that. Or what you feel like the sweet spot is.

Ashlieya: I feel like extreme to the detriment to existence. No, I mean, I do. I think, again, like, I inherently just naturally want to gravitate towards the center of the spectrum, erring towards the positive, right? But in my opinion, just my experience honestly, whenever you start to get to one extreme or the other, you have to understand that every action is going to then trigger the countering reaction to the opposing extent.

And so being mindful of that, it's really important where you decide to place your energy when you're assigning meaning to things of significance. It's really important to be mindful of what you're, you know, putting positive as well as negative energy into, because what goes up must come down, and everything is temporary, you know, it's just transient.

And so when we're talking about, trying to establish, like, a baseline homeostasis that is that of, you know, higher vibrating, it's maintainable is the idea. We can't stay in a state of euphoric bliss, right? You have to know suffering in order to understand joy. And so that's the polarity. That's the nature of existence. It's a law of creation. You have to have opposites. You need to understand contrast.

However, when you place yourself on the spectrum, you know, going from that more negative, low vibrating, “bad” side versus the “good” side, I think it's important to just be somewhere in the middle and kind of erring on that side of more positive. I think extreme perspectives are a part of, you know, it's a part of that rigidity that makes people a little less flexible.

And whenever you assign meaning to something that has a significance, you are potentially giving yourself an opportunity, a potential trigger, a potential reaction, if that thing gets compromised or hindered in some way. It's not to say, don't have value in things and don't live life fearing that it's going to be taken from you. Don't develop this semblance of detachment so as to never be wounded. Understanding woundedness is what's gonna help you understand fulfillment and contentment and peace.

So, you know, it's a fine line, and it's definitely a balance, but I think whenever we can consciously control, it's always good to be kind of dancing around that center, knowing that some negative is essential, and honoring and accepting that, and then just choosing to focus and just, again, stay a little more on the side of positive.

Neff: Yeah, I think that, um, you know, it's unrealistic… It's like you said, it's unrealistic to think that you can stay high vibrating—slash at the very far, you know, positive, like always in this place of, you know, euphoric bliss. Like, it's unrealistic to believe that you're going to be able to stay in that place.

Ashlieya: Well, it's not human to do that.

Neff: Yeah, yeah. 

Ashlieya: You know, we talk about thriving in the human existence and the human experience, and we must take a turn around the entirety of that emotional wheel, you know. It's the good, the bad, and everything in between, and that's the whole point of this, is you touch on the not so pleasant and you stay there, you know, for the least amount of time as possible. You kind of jump back out again ideally, but you need to know it, feel it and understand it, because that's what's gonna give you the truest appreciation and therein true conceptual understanding of what is on the other side of that negative spectrum.

Again, though, like any time there's extremes—and I'm talking about perspective, I'm talking about emotion, I'm talking about energy, I'm talking about opinions on things—you know, it's the idea that that is going to again trigger the opposing reaction. If you're definitively, you know—I mean, we could use so many examples, politics are a really easy one. If you're so far liberal, or you're so far, you know, conservative, you're going to have limited opportunity to be flexible. There's a rigidity that is inherently instilled in that extreme perspective of your opinion. There becomes little room for those that are on the other side of the spectrum to have value to you.

And if you're so far to the extreme on the one side, you're viewing—that's where the separation comes from. That's where the “oh, I'm different than you” comes from. You know, their differing opinion becomes polarizing. It's intense, right? And the opposites are so, you know, focused upon. Whereas the closer you get to that interior of the spectrum, that sort of middle area, the less distance there is between you and that opposing view. So it's all around just less extreme. And that's where I think we can develop more acceptance and understanding, forgiveness and peace, when people are on the other side of the spectrum.

Neff: Yeah, I think you, you right there, the words that you use, especially peace, you know. A lot of suffering happens when you're on the far side of the spectrum, and somebody does something that you think is so far on the other side of the spectrum, and that causes you dissonance. It causes you suffering, it causes you pain. And then you express it in a way that may be destructive to either yourself or to others.

And I think that that exaggeration of, you know, your understanding creates somewhat of a limit on your responses and on your reactions and on, you know, how maybe you can be—and we're talking about this in a different way—maybe a little more high vibrating, in the sense that you use the words accepting and forgiving and understanding. Now we're talking about an entirely different way of approaching this idea of, you know, “yes, I want to be as high vibrating as possible, and this is good, and this is good, but that's bad. Oh, that's bad,” you know?

Ashlieya: Exactly. Your orientation, from the purview of your perspective, is broader when you're closer in the middle. And I'm not saying neutrality. You know, we need duality. We need duality in order for this life to exist. It's literally ingrained in every aspect of creation. It's required.

But again, the closer you are to that middle point, the closer you are towards neutral—again, just erring on the side of positive, because we all want to choose to be high vibrating when we can—you're going to have a broader perspective that allows you the orientation to view something on the other side of the spectrum. And I think when you're able to understand it, or even just have compassion for the, you know, the understanding that, well, we're a little different and that's okay. The whole “let them” kind of theory, and “me do me, you do you,” and that's totally fine.

Because it's not that they're not extreme, it's just it's easier to find a more amenable coexistence. And I'm not trying to tell anyone, you know, don't have definitive, you know, values, don't have definitive opinions about things. But where on the spectrum of extreme are you placing yourself, you know, as it pertains to other people being allowed something different, being allowed an alternative way of viewing or navigating the world?

You know, if you're saying, “this has so much meaning and significance to me,” you know, how susceptible to disappointment, to woundedness, to upset are you if that thing, in some way, according to your perception, gets in any way threatened or compromised or not allowed for a moment? You know, you prioritize something so heavily, and you're denied that for a moment for whatever reason, how does that compromise, right, your ability to be in that state of coherence in that moment?

Neff: Absolutely, yeah, absolutely. 

Ashlieya: That's where it's really important to assign meaning to things with very, with very conscious intention. You know, you can have a handful of things that mean everything to you. You know, relationships, for me, are one of them. My relationships are very important to me. So yes, you know, you died, that would be quite sad. I would be a bit upset about that. It would, you know, really rock my world and compromise my state of coherent alignment, for sure.

Neff: Oh, yeah, of course, absolutely.

Ashlieya: You know, and that's okay. Mac Ri getting injured was devastating.

Neff: Was a dramatic, it was a very dramatic, you know, thing from your perspective. Yeah. 

Ashlieya: Totally, that was really hard, you know, because I value my little fur babies and their health and their well-being, you know, oh so much. So yeah, like, that's gonna create, you know, a load of upset in a moment, right? You move through it, you move on, and he's okay. He's a happy little guy. Fortunately, he's young and he'll heal really well. But nonetheless, it was, you know, a sad, very traumatic experience for both of us. And that's okay. That's okay.

But I don't have 35 things that are gonna trigger that type of reaction. I only have a few that are gonna trigger that type of reaction.

Neff: Sure, I get what you're saying. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

Ashlieya: A few things in my life have that degree of significance to me.

Neff: Sure, sure.

Ashlieya: Anything else is like, “ah, small beer.”

Neff: Yeah.

Ashlieya: You know, “small beer.”

Neff: Yeah. 

Ashlieya: And without conscious awareness, we navigate things from a very reactionary perspective. 

Neff: Right. 

Ashlieya: And so I think it's important to have that list of things: “If it's not one of these couple things, it's not gonna get this kind of a rise out of me. It's not gonna get this degree of upset. I can be amenable to flexibility when it comes to the ebb and flow of existence pertaining to any other aspect of my life.”

Knowing that I'm going to experience temporary discomforts and displeasures as a means of growing and transforming and moving through the world, you welcome it from that perspective because it's not directly affecting your few things that have the most amount of value to you.

Neff: Well, and even with those few things, it's like you're saying, if you're aware and your perspective is there, then you can handle those few things maybe better. Do you know what I mean? Even though they are very dramatic and even though they are very hurtful, and they are very, you know, they're going to bring a level of suffering, a level of pain. And that—to your point—the observation of that understanding and that pain is a part of the existence. It's a part of the extreme of things, right?

So you place that much importance on that element and on that component, then you have to understand that there will be some suffering that comes along with that. You know, there is going to be some pain that comes along with that. And in a sense, you're saying, “I'm okay with that.”

Ashlieya: Yes.

Neff: Like, “I'm okay with that. I'm accepting the fact that this is going to be somewhat painful. This is gonna be somewhat frustrating or somewhat whatever.” And I think that's a really, really good understanding as well, because some people take suffering to such an extreme that it devastates their entire existence.

Ashlieya: Well, and they can be susceptible to devastation, like I said, from a variety of things. And it's like, why?

Neff: Yeah, yeah.

Ashlieya: You know what I mean? Like, if you really mindfully have your list, right, like these are my core values—which I talk a lot about, how to define and establish core values for oneself and be unwavering in that and not susceptible to external influence—because we really do need to be mindful of ascribing our own understanding and definitions and meaning to things. It's very, very important to do that, especially pertaining to our identity.

And our core values should really be the core—hence core values—of that piece of yourself, that sense of your identity, that sense of what matters most, that sense of “these are the boundaries to maintain unwaveringly.” The rest, I can be rather malleable, you know. And like I said, being flexible, being adaptable, is a very specific type of intelligence, a very specific skill set, and arguably one of the most valuable in navigating this life.

So it's really about, again, being mindful of that spectrum, being mindful of maintaining, you know, that navigation, erring away from the extremes if you can consciously avoid it. You know, honestly, like, what goes up must come down to the fullest extent, opposing wherever it originated from. You know, that's again a law of this world. So yeah, the high highs, the low lows, I kind of like to navigate a semblance of somewhere in between. I do enjoy a high high every once in a while, and you're gonna have a low low, but when you're talking about, a baseline, when you're talking about just navigating day-to-day life, I really like to stay somewhere in the middle.

So being mindful of that, but also your list of what is so important to me that it would take me to the high high or the low low. And having a short list. And you can have a list a mile long of things that bring you joy. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about the things that you find to be the most valuable in your life, the things that you don't want to live without, the things that you would die for, arguably. Like we're talking about “sky is falling” scenarios.

Neff: Yeah.

Ashlieya: You know, what are you wanting to defend, protect, and maintain? And how much of what you think is on that list could be removed? You know, where can we exercise more detachment in our existence? Because there's value in that too, exponentially, you know?

So when you have that list and you're like, “These are the things,” when you're going through something and you're like, “This sucks, but it's not one of these things…”

Neff: Sure.

Ashlieya: It really helps to put things in perspective and keep you from having just an automatic reactionary response to something, where it's like, okay, you know, I call it “sky is falling” scenarios. Like, we have this ingrained automatic survival biology that triggers these sympathetic responses, these, you know, kind of survival fight, flight, or freeze, these boosts of cortisol, the stress hormone, in response to things that are not directly threatening us.

We talk about that in Nervous System Mastery all the time in the I Thrive series, you know. And so having the awareness of what your list of “sky is falling” scenarios is, and really honestly comparing everything in life that happens to you to those things, and saying, “Well, the sky's not falling. I'm not gonna behave as if the sky is falling. I'm not actually being hunted by another human. I'm not gonna act and respond as if another human is hunting me.” That would be a very unfortunate extreme, right, putting us in a state of survival.

We navigate from a state of survival, you know, instinctually, when it's not necessary. So it's an extension of that same concept and conversation. We're just kind of intellectualizing it now and bringing it into our, you know, prefrontal cortex, where we can just assign, again, this judgment and meaning to things purposefully so that we're not having this, you know, triggered response to things that don't actually threaten that which means the most to us. And if it doesn't, then honestly, most of the time, why worry about it?

Neff: Yeah, I think I have so many thoughts right now, because one of the things that's coming through my mind is that potentially you have the ability to control that list and your response, right? And I do think that we have a difficulty, when we have one situation that is on that maybe “sky is falling” list—

Ashlieya: Sure.

Neff: To let it affect some of the other situations in our lives where it isn't on the “sky is falling” list, if that makes sense.

Ashlieya: What do you mean?

Neff: Well, like, let's say—actually, you know what, I have a really good example. I don't know if you want me to bring it up because it may affect you.

Ashlieya: Okay.

Neff: Do you know what I mean? But the really, really good example is when you, when Asti passed away.

Ashlieya: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Neff: Where that was a very, very hard thing for you to go through. And even though that was extremely dramatic in your existence, you know, you were still able to handle many other frustrating, negative situations with grace, with patience, with perspective, you know? And I think that, I think that it does become challenging when you're having those moments to be able to have that perspective. It's almost like you need to, like you said, make a list and go, “This isn't on this list. How do I handle this situation when, in this scenario, this part of my existence is very hard and is very frustrating and is causing me pain, and I don't let it bring everything to that extreme,” if that makes sense.

Ashlieya: If we're gonna bring up Asti—

Neff: Yeah.

Ashlieya: I mean, it has to be said, just to honor that chapter… I just, yeah, if we're gonna talk about it, it needs to be said for what it was. And I don't know, I mean, yes, thank you for giving me credit.

Neff: Oh, I went through the whole experience with you. And me seeing you the week after it happened, right? Because I'll be honest, my expectation was that you would be holed up in your room, you know what I mean, for maybe the next six months.

Ashlieya: Yeah.

Neff: You know? And me seeing you the week after—I mean, again, it's not about the degree of pain or the degree of suffering, it's about your perspective and your understanding and how you handle that stuff, right?

Ashlieya: And again, like, if we're gonna talk about it, let's talk about it for what it really was for me. Because the truth of it—and I'm just gonna share, I'm gonna pause now from the advisement perspective. We’re holding on giving advice. Now we're just having story time and sharing something really vulnerable. And I'm not necessarily saying that this is the best perspective and the best way to move through something, I'm not saying that at all. This is simply just my truth in how I responded and what felt really real for me in the moment. And because it was my truth, maybe this will resonate with people. If it doesn't, it doesn't.

But, you know, Asti, my dog, my pit bull, I had her for 14 years, which at that point, up until the day she died, had been my entire adult life. I got her when I was 18, 19, and, um, yeah, that was—she was with me through a lot of really hard chapters, and she was like my angel.

Neff: Yeah, she was your companion through, I would say, the more challenging aspect of your existence, like in your life, right? 

Ashlieya: She was definitely, she was like—she was. She was like my guardian angel. She was my primary companion. She was my best friend. It was she and I against the world. And it was—she was the most precious thing in the world to me. So she was a good example, pertaining to this conversation, because, yeah, she was definitely on that list of, you know—I mean, I would have said she was the most important thing to me. And she was how I navigated my day. So much of my life and lifestyle was based on being her mom.

Neff: Yeah.

Ashlieya: And it was a huge part of my identity, being a pitbull mom, and being Asti’s pitbull mom. And, you know, she was the reason I chose certain relationships, she was the reason I had specific places to live, specific schedule and lifestyle. It was so heavily associated with just what it took to provide for her.

Neff: Yeah, quick story: when I met Lieya, the statement was, “If Asti doesn't like you, then, you know, we can't continue being friends.”

Ashlieya: Yeah, you're not welcome here. Like, you know, yeah.

Neff: Yeah. And I met Asti and she would bark when I was standing, but when I was sitting, she was fine. And then within like a week or so, you know, she really warmed up to me. But it was so interesting because it was like, “No, if Asti doesn't like you, then, you know, you're not, you won't be a part of the family.”

Ashlieya: So she was a very significant piece of my life, and I considered her—for lack of a better phrase—my Achilles heel.

Neff: Yeah.

Ashlieya: She was the way to wound me, if, you know—and I would say this: if God really wanted to hurt me, mess with my dog.

Neff: Yeah.

Ashlieya: And the idea of her uncomfortable was devastating to me. And her—not to, you know, get into a really dark, really sad, really heavy, very traumatic conversation—but that's what it became. You know, her diagnosis with cancer and then a series of surgeries, chemotherapy, and then, you know, she basically bled to death at some point. It was, it was the worst couple of weeks of my entire life.

Neff: Yeah.

Ashlieya: And it was me, very honestly, living through a worst fear, arguably the worst fear I had had until that point. I don't even know what my worst fear would be now. And that's where I'm getting at in how I responded to that situation, is I kind of went, “Well, I'm invincible now.”

Neff: Yeah.

Ashlieya: You know, that nothing can hurt me now.

Neff: Yeah.

Ashlieya: And that's really what my response was.

Neff: Sure.

Ashlieya: “Well, this was the worst thing that could have ever happened to me. I literally just went through my absolute worst case scenario ever.” You know, I don't need to describe it in all its detail. You were there.

Neff: Yeah. Ultimately, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. I mean, in that  scenario—

Ashlieya: Well, it was, it was dramatic.

Neff: Yeah.

Ashlieya: You know, it was very dramatic. Being with her in those final days, you know, I mean, I had to maintain a semblance of calm for her sake. And honestly, it wasn't that hard. However, it did take some time after the event was over, you know, and she had actually passed and we had buried her and done the, you know, ceremonial, ritualistic kind of, you know, just bringing that chapter to a proper cessation with honoring her and loving her and acknowledging that now, for the rest of my life, I'm just gonna miss her. And that's just part of…

Neff: Yeah, sure, for sure.

Ashlieya: …my existence moving through the world now. You know, in going through all of that, immediately following, it took a lot of work for me to not disassociate.

Neff: Yeah.

Ashlieya: It did. It took a lot of work for me to maintain my sobriety. I'm not, you know—I do, you know, consume on occasion some libation every once in a while. I'm not like, you know, this alcoholic, but in that moment I wanted to be.

Neff: Yeah.

Ashlieya: In those months immediately after, I wanted to be. I wanted to be high on ketamine most of the time. I wanted to be high on weed most of the time. I wanted to definitely not have to process what I had experienced. And because I was consciously aware of that, I did make a point to go—I think it was, what was it, 15 weeks completely sober?

Neff: Yeah, yeah.

Ashlieya: I purposefully then went, “Well, I have to feel this.” For the sake of her, for honoring her and what she meant to me, and also myself, and really transmuting the energy and going through the grieving process and, you know, kind of alchemizing my anger at God. I told Jesus I was gonna punch him in the face—

Neff: Yeah, yeah.

Ashlieya: throughout this process. So it's kind of you to acknowledge the graceful aspect in how I navigated, you know, the imminent obligations that came.

Neff: Well, you just said it. You were so aware of what you were going through that you knew you had to alchemize and to flip that switch, so to speak. You know what I mean?

Ashlieya: I had felt like I had literally gone through the worst form of torture I could have ever gone through in this life. And I was very angry at God. I was very angry at creation, very angry at the divine, very angry at all the things you cannot see. I couldn't be mad at another person.

Neff: Yeah.

Ashlieya: Right? It was just, you know—and I'm not a victim mentality human, so I'm not a “this was done unto me” kind of a person. But I was, I was very angry that she experienced that, and that she had to go through that, this pure, pure, pure, innocent, just angelic being. She was so good. Dogs are so good. They're so kind and they're so pure and they're genuinely angels, you know, and just companions to us—animals in general—just like such a blessing in this life. And, you know, not that any animal ever deserves to suffer to any capacity, but, of course, my opinion, for what she deserved in a peaceful passing, she was not given.

Neff: Right, right.

Ashlieya: And, you know, I sometimes had a hard time kind of allowing the understanding that sometimes it's the pure ones, it's the animals, it's the innocents that can get caught up in our karma and in our lessons and in our, you know, just human experiences. And it's not to say that I made her die that way. It is not to say that I, in some way, you know, had this direct influence over her having such a horrific passing, because it really was horrific.

I do think that we affect everything that we come in contact with, and it is all a part of our journey. It is all part of our experience. And I don't know to what extent, you know, animals actually do perceive suffering. And because of what I experienced with her, I really hope not very much.

Neff: Yeah.

Ashlieya: I, as I said, really felt like it was the worst thing that could have ever happened to us, both she as well as I. So again, you know, back to our main topic here. That was an extreme situation, and my response to it was, yeah, to come out of it like, you know, a warrior now with impenetrable armor.

Neff: Yeah, your awareness of a few things, and I heard you many times say, “What lesson am I supposed to be learning from this?” You know what I mean? And I know that some of that was in almost like the fist-shaking, you know, kind of mentality, but at the same time, I do think that you applied that concept. I do think that you applied that understanding. That, you know, as challenging and as difficult as it was to go through, there were many lessons that were learned in that process.

Ashlieya: Yeah, it was brutal.

Neff: Yeah.

Ashlieya: It was brutal. I'm not gonna say I'm grateful for it, because I'm not. I'm not. I'm really, I'm not.

Neff: Right.

Ashlieya: I don't have any resentment anymore. However, I would like to think that, again, nobody should have to experience something like that, and I'm speaking more for her than it is my perspective of witnessing it or being a participant in her—as her nurse, her caregiver, her provider, her mom.

Neff: Right, right.

Ashlieya: I'm never a person that goes, “Oh, you know, what a blessing at the end of the day,” when it comes to some things. I'm not, I'm just not there yet. I don't think I ever will be about that situation. However, I think there's value in—I feel, like I said, I do feel kind of invincible now. You know, there's not much that can happen, knock on all the lucky things, because of my list.

And again, my list does not come from narrowing my vulnerability. It doesn't come from, like, reducing the amount of potential heartbreak, you know. It doesn't come from a paranoid place of trying to prevent suffering. It's not that at all. You know, it's really just having a honed-in understanding of what really has the most value to me.

Neff: Totally, totally.

Ashlieya: And in the nature of, you know, the way humans process emotions, the way our brains respond to things, you know, I'll never go through that again.

Neff: Right.

Ashlieya: I'll never go through that again.

Neff: No.

Ashlieya: An analogous situation will still be different.

Neff: Yeah.

Ashlieya: You know, my children, you know, if I ever do have human babies, it'll be different.

Neff: Oh, totally.

Ashlieya: You know, that's the closest I've had to, you know, a child. And now the rest, again, as I've said, all my, you know, parental theories are all just hypothetical because my children are hypothetical. But, you know, it will never be that again. And that does bring me some comfort. It does. It does bring me some comfort.

And I genuinely feel now, like, my ability to be offended, to be wounded, to be provoked to such an extreme is nearly impossible to do. Nearly impossible. Just because I have such an understanding of that perspective pertaining to that which matters the most to me. There's not a lot that someone can say or do, directly or indirectly, that is really going to pose much threat to those things, you know. It's just not in my existence.

It's why I did The Unbothered Blueprint. You know, it's like living life, understanding how to accurately assess that which is really compromising or threatening or, you know, in some way wounding, is so critically important, because a lot of us, you know, have these triggers that just—they're not really necessary to be walking around with. “I don't want someone to push my buttons, so I'm just gonna have less buttons to push.”

Neff: Well, and also, let's not have to go through something so challenging, so painful, before we get to that point, right?

Ashlieya: Well, that's what I'm saying, is it's like, you know, exactly. Having less buttons doesn't mean that you are more apathetic.

Neff: Right.

Ashlieya: It doesn't mean that you don't have strong emotional attachments to things.

Neff: Right.

Ashlieya: You know, it's a balance between understanding that which is, again, on that extreme side of the spectrum, that which matters most to you, and the ability to perceive an accurate sense of something quote unquote “harming you.”

Most of the time, we're not actually being harmed or threatened, yet we're just responding as if we are, because we haven't taken those situations or circumstances and put them on the “unimportant” spectrum.

Neff: Sure.

Ashlieya: Put them on the, “This doesn't penetrate my force field,” you know, side of just life. Insults, social media, bullying, like, you know, people being rude, people having extreme opinions about things, you know. I just kind of look at pretty much anyone who has an extreme opinion as if they're really silly.

Neff: Right.

Ashlieya: You know, like, my humor is just—it's a very prominent, you know, navigation tool as well in just, you know, how I respond to things. It's easy to kind of look at this as if it's just a big game. And so I'm not gonna take everything that happens, even in the unfortunate side of things, too seriously.

Neff: Oh, absolutely.

Ashlieya: Because the sky isn’t falling—

Neff: Right.

Ashlieya: I'm not gonna respond as if the sky is falling until the sky is falling. And, you know, my sky already fell.

Neff: Yeah.

Ashlieya: And so now I know. I know what it's like. I know what it's like to be—worst case scenario, this is my worst fear, this is literally the worst thing that could ever be happening to me, and I'm living it in slow motion for this extended duration of a couple of months, long weeks to a brutally long weekend, you know. And now I've done it.

Neff: And you're here. And you have moments of joy and happiness and, you know, enjoyment. And it's not a diminishing of that experience.

Ashlieya: My strength is a point of pride to me. This is where core values and identity is so important, because I identify as a strong person.

Neff: Yeah.

Ashlieya: I identify as a strong person. My ability to be amenable to change, to be resilient, to be adaptable, to not navigate life with rigidity, right, to be flexible, to be, you know, open to transition and change and learning and growing is strength. And I take a lot of pride—I have my entire life—in feeling like a strong person, like a capable person, like a highly adaptable person, like a person who can go through life and still be good.

Neff: Right.

Ashlieya: You know, I'm not the evil queen anymore. We're reformed.

Neff: Yeah.

Ashlieya: We've changed our ways. I am going to be a warrior for light, right? I'm going to be the thing that hopefully perpetuates the most amount of goodness under any situation or circumstances, because that, to me, is strength. That's how I define strength. And being a strong person is a part of my identity. It's down to my core values. I am here to thrive in this human experience as a human, because I have that clarity and because I have defined that for myself.

That's how you're able to go through something and go, “I have to go through it. I have to go through it.” You know, the fire's ablaze and I gotta crawl through it on my hands and knees, and that's what it takes sometimes to get through some of these horrific experiences where at, you know, seemingly absolute rock bottom, the sky is falling. You know, your perception of self, your attachment and assigned meaning to things is gonna be what helps get you “through it,” and you become that person—that strong, resilient, adaptable, thriving human—because you've decided to do so.

Neff: Yeah, you have control.

Ashlieya: Yeah.

Neff: You have the ability to decide. And, you know, not all of us are called to be an example. I know that you are called to be an example. And so in some ways, your motivation comes from that, right? So you go, “I,” you know, you come up to a situation and you go, “I have a choice here,” and then you make the choice based on, you know, what you do want to convey, what you do want to put out into the world. And I think that that's amazing and that's awesome.

But, you know, we can also—those that aren’t called to be an example—we can also do this because we do want to protect our peace, to protect our sanity, to protect our happiness. You know what I mean? 

Ashlieya: Yeah. 

Neff: Because it's not just about, you know—it's like we've said, it's an inward-to-outward experience. Think about the fact that if you're reactive all the time to anything that is uncomfortable or frustrating or whatever, you will be most of the time vibrating at a lower vibration. And you will be the one suffering. It won't be the other people. It won't be the other thing, the other situation. The other situation has already happened, right? So it's not gonna—your suffering isn't gonna change that.

Ashlieya: Correct.

Neff: So alchemize it, turning it into something that will bring quality to your existence, you know? Whether you want to be an example to others or not, it doesn't matter. But what about being at peace, having peace, having happiness, you know, things like that?

Ashlieya: I think it's beautiful to acknowledge both. I think it's beautiful to acknowledge, you know, simply choosing to be selfish in a sense, but from a pure perspective, not selfish in the sense that I'm going to harm others for the sake of my own comfort—because that's honestly a delusion anyway.

Neff: Right.

Ashlieya: That's never a truth that is even remotely possible. You harm someone else, you are harming yourself.

Neff: You are suffering. Yes, you are suffering. That's right. That is right.

Ashlieya: So any semblance of mal-intent never produces a good result.

Neff: Right.

Ashlieya: You have to have a positive attitude to have a positive life.

Neff: Right.

Ashlieya: That which you see, you see with. So your perspective and your orientation, as you set yourself up to view things, does need in some way to err on the side of more optimistic than not. That's just the way it is if you're gonna have a happy, healthy life.

Neff: Absolutely.

Ashlieya: There's no way around it.

Neff: Yeah, absolutely.

Ashlieya: Having said that, you can come from the place of, “I simply want to be happy because I want to be happy.”

Neff: Right.

Ashlieya: There's so much value in that. And, you know, again, building a better world is an inward to outward process. Building your best self is what builds your best world. So investing in and contributing and caring and putting yourself first is the thing to do.

Having said that, regardless of whether or not you feel called to be a leader, be an example—as I do, I feel very called to be an example—nonetheless, for those of us that don't necessarily have that calling, you must understand that your interaction with anything that you ever come within proximity of is influenced by your energy, by your vibrational frequency, by your intentions. So even if your intention is simply to serve yourself, when you walk out into the world, if that puts you in a place of aligned coherence, you are amplifying aligned, coherent energy. And that still is of service to everything around you. 

Neff: Isn't that just an awesome byproduct?

Ashlieya: Your animals, your plants, the energy of your home—

Neff: Yeah.

Ashlieya: You know, the functionality of all your stuff. I mean, people don't understand. And that's not to say you're to blame when things break or don't work properly or a dog gets sick or your cat's vomiting. Like, I'm not saying you made your animals sick. But we know that frequency heals. We know that elevated emotions and elevated energy cultivates organization, optimal healing, and this coherent energy, meaning everything is in this nice, vibrating, optimally functioning order. That's what you're emitting when you're aligning with that which brings you the most joy, happiness, fulfillment, and health.

You can come from a selfish place and be selfless in return.

Neff: Absolutely.

Ashlieya: You are directly contributing to that which you encounter. And so, yeah, I mean, by all means, if you're not necessarily feeling called to outwardly speak, to stand up as I do and declare, like, “This is how I move through the world. I'm not saying it's the best way for you. I'm just simply shining a light on what's best for me in case anyone decides that the example might resonate with them, or there's a takeaway that they feel could be a benefit to somebody else, or there's an inspiration for them to simply investigate this whole idea for themselves.”

You don't have to follow me in the way that I do things. You don't have to follow the way I speak about things. It has nothing to do with that. It's simply the idea of, “Hey, I have made some improvements in my life. I have transformed in a way that I'm way more proud of myself, that I'm way more in love with myself, that I feel a lot happier about life. This is how I've done it.” I'm sharing it so as to inspire or invoke a semblance of, you know, just the idea of consciously thriving as a human.

Neff: Well, showing up in a specific way—I use that terminology a lot, you know—“How am I showing up? How am I showing up? How am I showing up?” And it's like, you have to realize that the way that you show up affects your environment. It really does. And yes, that comes from inside, no question about it. It starts inside. Unless you are living in a secluded place where there are no creatures, no nothing around you, the way that you show up does affect your environment.

So therefore, if I am being selfish and being like, “I'm doing this so that I can care for myself,” we all know that if we are taking care of ourselves, it's easier for us to be there for others, we know that.

Ashlieya: And other people will be inspired to take care of themselves because you're taking care of yourself.

Neff: That's right.

Ashlieya: So when we talk about this idea, we're trying to say, let's all show up for ourselves, and then therefore we'll show up for the people around us. This could turn into a whole 'nother conversation, I feel, all the ways we can digress from this, you know, just like this idea—I'm just gonna introduce it and then we'll wrap up—but it's the idea that if we all took the utmost care of ourselves, we would need not in so many other aspects of our lives, as it pertains to help.

Neff: Totally.

Ashlieya: We would need not. We would need not. If everybody took optimal care of themselves, can you imagine the world?

Neff: Yeah.

Ashlieya: If everybody just adequately, benevolently, with kindness in their hearts, took care of themselves—

Neff: Yeah.

Ashlieya: I mean, like, that would solve so much. You know, we come from this place, and this is where Builders exists. This is why Builders’ whole mission is what it is. It's the understanding that to be of service is not of self-sacrifice. To be of service is not self-sacrifice. To take care of others, to nurture others, to benefit things in a positive way does not require a sense of neglecting yourself.

I

f you are acting in the name of service, to try and contribute something, and that thing means you must directly prevent what you are needing, you're neglecting something. You're neglecting a living thing.

Neff: Absolutely.

Ashlieya: You're negating your positive contribution. I'm so sorry.

Neff: No, it's true though.

Ashlieya: But you're—we are all sentient beings. We're all living life-force energy inhabiting these bodies that require nurturing and require care, and we have these minds that require nurturing and care, and our souls that require nurturing and care. Whole self wellness. You're only gonna be most fit for service if you're most fit for service.

Self-harm, self-neglect, a lack of self-care is counterintuitive to all of that. I mean, it's just, it's the way that it is. You get burnt out, you get tired, you get fatigued, you get the semblance of entitled, you know, mentality: “I deserve. I'm doing this because I need this in exchange.” You know, it's still a perpetuation of some semblance of lack. And that's, you know, why? When you could just care for yourself first and then care for somebody else, care for a group, care for a thing, contribute, contribute, contribute your energy, because your cup overfloweth.

Neff: Absolutely. And if we could tie this back into what we were originally talking to, it's so interesting because you—if you don't do the work of making the list or thinking about, you know, where you are in the extremes—

Ashlieya: Yeah.

Neff: Right? You will be suffering. And in turn, most of the time we cause suffering, you know. And I think that that's kind of the idea. Let's all work on internally being at peace or whatever that might be, so that when we show up, we are higher vibrating in that area, that knows acceptance, that knows forgiveness, that knows understanding, right, and then contributing to a much better world. Absolutely.

Ashlieya: Your capacity for all of that acceptance, understanding, and forgiveness is so much greater—

Neff: Yeah.

Ashlieya: When you are navigating from the state of alignment. Because you have the utmost clear perspective. You have an embodied sense of clarity. Your judgment is gonna be far more accurate, and your capacity for, we'll say, tolerating things, is gonna be that much more.

So yeah, thank you so much for being here. We'll wrap up there. What are your list of things that matter the most to you? If you're gonna assign oh, so much meaning to something, I am very curious: what are the things that matter and mean the most to you? And what are you gonna do to ensure that you're not navigating from a series of extremes?

Neff: Yes. Thank you so much for being here. Builders of a Better World podcast. Like, comment, and subscribe. We'll see you next time.

Ashlieya: Be the change you wish to see in the world.

Thank you for joining us here at the Builders of a Better World podcast. Please share, subscribe, comment, and be sure to pass this episode along for anyone who may need it. See you next time.