Grown Girl Confessions

So I stopped speaking up.

I stayed in situations I should have walked away from years earlier, and the entire time I was telling myself the same line they told me. Some people don’t even have this. Who am I to complain. And I would feel bad, and I would smile, and I would sit back down.

I want to be honest about what that cost me, because it wasn’t small. It was years. Years in a job I had outgrown. Years in a dynamic that was never going to become what I needed it to be. Years of talking myself out of my own knowing because I had been trained to read that knowing as a character flaw.

The thing nobody explained to me is that gratitude and dissatisfaction are not opposites. They live in the same body at the same time and they always have.

I can be grateful for the roof and still know the roof is temporary.

I can be grateful for the job and still know the job is not the ceiling.

I can be grateful for the person and still know that this is not the love I’m supposed to end up in.

None of those sentences cancel each other out. I spent a long time thinking they did.

There’s also a difference between complaining and refusing to settle, and we have gotten lazy about telling them apart. Complaining is naming a problem you have no intention of solving. Refusing to settle is naming a problem out loud on your way to fixing it. When somebody says out loud that they want more, that is almost never complaining. That is usually the very first move of someone about to change their life, and if the first thing they hear is a list of what they already have, they’ll put the thought away and go back to sleep.

I’ve watched it happen to women I love. I’ve watched a woman say she’s unhappy and get a reminder of her blessings, and I’ve watched her go quiet for another two years.

So here is what I’ve stopped doing.

I don’t tell people to be grateful anymore. Not when they’re in the middle of telling me something hurts. Gratitude is not a correction. It’s not something you hand someone to make them stop talking, even when you don’t mean it that way, and most people don’t mean it that way. It still lands that way.

Now when somebody tells me they want more, I ask them what more looks like. I ask them what they’re reaching for. I let them say it out loud, because sometimes hearing yourself say it is the whole thing.

I’m grateful for plenty. I’m also nowhere near done.

Both of those are true, and I’m not going to keep apologizing for the second one.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit growngirlconfessions.substack.com

You were told it was “too grown” when you were a child, and now that you’re grown… they’re calling it “childish”. Which one is it?

The truth is, societal expectations about how you should show up are arbitrary and contradictory.

I had to realize that part of my healing was giving myself permission to wear what I wanted-to AND explore the phases I was denied when I was younger.

Reclaiming your identity means prioritizing your own joy over someone else’s comfort.

If you’re still letting external opinions dictate your standards, you’re still operating in survival mode.

Healing your inner child starts with the courage to figure out who you actually are, not who you were told to be.

Wear what you want.

Heal the girl.

Become the woman.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit growngirlconfessions.substack.com

I was filling out my TEDx application when I caught myself doing it again. “What category would your talk fall into?” My brain immediately went to “I don’t know”, right before I proceeded to explain exactly what I do and who I help.

That’s the pattern. “I don’t know” becomes an exit door, a way to soften the blow of stepping into something that makes us visible. But everything that comes after “I don’t know” is actually a belief, whether it’s true or not, whether it serves us or not.

In this video, I break down why this protective reflex kicks in when we’re facing uncomfortable feelings, imposter syndrome, or fear of success. I share my own messy middle of working through the fear of being fully seen on a TEDx stage, and I walk you through how to sit with that discomfort instead of outrunning it.

This is me doing the work in real time, and bringing you along for the process.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit growngirlconfessions.substack.com

The JP Mom Program reached out years ago. I wasn’t ready then. My son was waiting for a transplant, life was lifing. Years later I finally committed, got waitlisted, got in and almost immediately felt out of place. I’d already lived every lesson. But I stayed and while I was pouring into the other women in the program, the facilitator, the cohort, all of them started reflecting something back to me: you should be coaching, you should be speaking, you sound like a therapist. The program didn’t teach me the material. It handed me the mirror…

full story here

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit growngirlconfessions.substack.com

We celebrate women for being strong and silent, but stopping the tears isn’t the same as healing the wound. In this episode, we’re breaking down the dangerous difference between true emotional recovery and simply getting better at hiding your pain.

what we cover:

- the myth of “quiet healing” and why bleeding privately is still bleeding

- how we confuse silencing our pain with finding peace

- when “setting boundaries” is actually just avoidance and self-deception

If you’re tired of just surviving and want to know what real growth actually requires, this is for you.

Ready to start your healing journey? Read my book “the mind reset” and connect with me on threads: @therealashlimccoy

#healingjourney #themindreset #traumarecovery

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit growngirlconfessions.substack.com

You already know what’s wrong. You can name the pattern. You can see the cycle. And you’re still stuck in it. Everybody keeps telling you how self-aware you are like that’s supposed to fix something. It doesn’t.

In this episode I talk about why knowing isn’t enough, what actually has to shift underneath the awareness, and what happened when I realized the tools I was using to heal weren’t built for someone who already understood the problem.

Order The Mind Reset — here

Pre-Order Triggered — here

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit growngirlconfessions.substack.com

If you have to ask how to submit to a man who isn’t leading, that’s your answer.

Nine times out of ten, the woman who built him is not the woman who benefits. So why are we still having this conversation?

Your desire for a relationship should never outweigh your standards for yourself. Stop shrinking your standards to fit a man who isn’t showing up.

Stop building men who aren’t ready. Find the ones who are already ready to build with you.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit growngirlconfessions.substack.com

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit growngirlconfessions.substack.com