Ashes to Grace is a story about a girl, who never really knew where she fit in. With her friends, her environment, sometimes her family, in her own body, in her own mind

She always felt that no matter what she did, it just wasn’t good enough.

So therefore, she became “not good enough”.

Through years of desperately trying to find, accept and love who she truly was. She found herself constantly in the middle of trying to find happiness by being someone else and also trying to muster up the courage to just be her.

It was a constant battle back and forth, back and forth, until she wound up surrounded by domestic and drug abuse.

Ashes to Grace is about a girl who suffered feeling broken, hopeless, and desperate.

A girl who felt her mere existence was just ashes, ready to blow away with the slightest gust of wind.

A girl who cried out to God in the middle of the night, alone in the hospital after just giving birth to her first child “PLEASE GOD SAVE ME- I'M SO TIRED AND I'M SO SAD”

Ashes to Grace is about a girl who barely made it out by the Grace of God.

A girl whose spirit never broke, even though everything around her did.

A girl who became a woman, fueled by faith, mercy, forgiveness and acceptance.

A woman who knew the journey was long and hard to rediscover and rebuild herself, but that no matter the cost, the pain, the time, it took she was never looking back.

Never settling again

Never staying silent

Never backing down

Never giving up

Until she rose from the ashes like a phoenix. A sleeping dragon awakened.

Mighty and Fierce.

Ready.

A woman who never stopped searching for that girl.

A woman renewed by her Lord Jesus, empowered for a greater purpose.

Stronger and more courageous than ever.

From the Ashes she rose by the Grace of God.

Ashes to Grace is built on My story and I'm here to tell it. 

Show Notes Links: Work with Me 

Ashes to Grace 6 week empowerment program click here 

To schedule a 30 minute Discovery call Click here 

You can find me on Social Media 

IG: @megandelaconcha

FB: "The Grace Space" Community hosted by Megan De La Concha

Twitter: @conchamegan

E-mail: [email protected]

ashes-to-grace.teachable.com/p/ashes-to-grace

Emotional Intelligence is important, the value and benefits of developing your EQ are extensive and in many areas massively under-utilized. Emotional intelligence is the gateway to living a more fulfilled and happy life, and here’s why:

Introduction:

What is Emotional Intelligence and why does it matter?

Emotional intelligence (EI) refers to the ability to understand and manage emotional encounters.

Ability to Recognize, understand and manage our own emotions and;

Recognize, understand and influence the emotions of others.

In practical terms, this means being aware that emotions can drive our behavior and impact people (positively and negatively), and learning how to manage those emotions – both our own and others

Individuals who score highly on emotional intelligence tend to be better able to handle everyday stress, foster a greater number of meaningful close relationships, and be more socially competent in general  individuals who are high in emotional intelligence may also be more likely to experience higher levels of well-being, or “optimal psychological functioning and experience”

Click here for more information and enrollment to the Ashes to GRACE group coaching program : ashes-to-grace.teachable.com/p/ashes-to-grace

Hey!

I feel like it’s been so long, yet it’s only been a week!!

And I don’t know about you, but I have been going THROUGH IT!!!

The uncertainty, the struggle, the unknown. At times it seemed way too much; I just couldn’t take it anymore.

I cried out “God I don't get it, I just don’t get it!”

I started to debate on whether or not I should just go back to the job I had and start over. I felt like I was failing my family, that I was single handedly driving us down into financial destruction.

I asked my husband, “What do you want me to do? Do you want me to get a job?”

And he replied ever so sternly “I want you to do exactly what you’ve been doing.”

I paused, caught my breath and then balled again.

I KNOW God has confirmed me to travel this journey even when I have no idea what lies ahead of me, because the truth is, It’s none of my business.

See, it’s not for me to see my own hand in front of my face

It’s only for me to TRUST that it’s there.

Trusting God even when you don’t understand is a journey within itself.

Carving sacred time out for God creates an intimate relationship with Him and he will show you how to trust him.

I trust God, so much that I fear no bad news; for my heart is steadfast on his promises and his mercy.

Right now, I honestly have no idea what tomorrow looks like and I am perfectly ok with that.

I have peace beyond understanding and joy beyond logic.

Not because I am financially well off, have a ton of friends, living in an 8,000 sq. ft house, bills paid, debt free etc.

But because through any storm I weather, I know with no doubt that the blessing that lies ahead of me is beyond my own comprehension.

When you surrender all of your understanding and all of your insight, when you lean on the staff of trust with all of your weight while following the Lord uphill, you will find that you become more excited about what he has in store for you than you are scared about your current circumstances.

When you walk the golden pathway of trust, what a sweet path it is- hand in hand with the Lord, in a childlike manner.

He will reveal your journey step by step, and it is through this trust you are able to live above your circumstances.

I hope this episode blesses many of you on this journey with me.

This journey is real and raw and vulnerable. This journey is my journey shared with you in real time.

Thank you for being here with me.

You know I appreciate every ounce of you.

Xoxo

Megan 

As we continue our journey into transformation and finding our highest self, full of confidence, resilience and grace, God will bring us into an isolated space of our own.

A space to really connect to our beliefs, a space to connect to our faith, our identity and our core values.

This space feels like we’re all alone; this space was meant for us to find grace and who we are in Christ.

This is a space where it’s just you, the passenger, and God, the bus driver.

As Joyce Meyer puts it; at every bus stop somebody has got to get off.

As we move from the now to the future, we will find ourselves in the space between where we may not have all the people around us as we once did.

People may not understand the journey that we’re on, they may not know how to support it, they may not want the same experiences that you want. They may not understand that you want different experiences.

As we continue we often find that we look around us and realize that we are alone and we feel disconnected to people who were once in our lives.

But God has brought us out of the old and into this in between space so that we have no security in anything or anyone else but God, because this is the type of faith, this is the type of trust, this is the type of grace, is what we need in order to move into what’s ahead of us.

It’s painful most often, because we’re not prepared for this.

It’s painful because it’s unfamiliar.

We are so hardwired to be social beings and we long for that connection that when it’s gone, when we feel disconnected from people, we often feel ashamed or guilty or doubtful that we are doing something wrong. It feels like we’re losing people in our lives when in fact we’re not losing anything, God is simply removing. In order to get to the place that he has laid out for you, complete with like minded people who love, support and encourage you, and in order to get to a place where we have deep meaningful relationships, we have to show up as our complete selves.

So God gives us a space to shake everything that is unstable in our lives, to remove everything that no longer serves us in order to prepare us, and to build up the things that we have been asking for so that we can step into our new life, our new transformation, fully armed and prepared in order to sustain and grow in the way he wants us to.

We can’t show up unprepared or as who we are today, so we need to take the space and embrace it to find who it is that we truly are.

This space uncovers your identity. It allows you to  rediscover yourself, take care of yourself, find that true faith that you say that you have, trust like you have  never trusted before.

Allow that space to be just you and God and ask him to prepare you through the pain  and trust him through the pain because this is the pain that brings you into a better place,  it is not a pain that keeps you in the same cycle and gets you nowhere.

Learn to trust him and find his grace in this space.

Xoxo

Meg

The word of the year? Favor YUP at it AGAIN!!

The reason I am choosing the word favor this year, is because it is an unfamiliar word to me. Why is it unfamiliar?

Not because God has been neglecting me and horrible things have happened over and over in my life, not because I have struggled my entire life and I was dealt a bad hand.

But because I have been actively pushing away favor instead of accepting it and THAT is unfamiliar to me.

The action of choosing to accept God’s favor is unfamiliar.

And these past 3 months I have been living a truly unfamiliar, yet favorable life.

Familiarity is the enemy of favor and for years, I always chose what was familiar to me, because it was predictable, I knew what feelings to expect, what emotions or anxieties came with the territory, I could control it, because I knew the ins and outs of staying in familiar environments, jobs, relationships, mindset, daily life.

Choosing favor feels funny because we don’t know, we can't see what lies ahead, we don’t know what feelings we are going to feel if we start to change our lives and ourselves, we don’t know what life is going to look like on the other side, what job we will have, what we will be doing, who are we doing it with. It's uncertain and uncomfortable because we can’t predict this new space or anything in it.

The last 90 days has truly been uncomfortable and so unpredictable, but instead of having an expectation of what I think God is supposed to do and how he is supposed to do it, I am merely accepting the favor that he is presenting in my life.

I was addicted to being miserable. Are you?

When things were actually happening in my favor, it felt so weird and uneasy that I would  start to create what I was familiar with, frustration, fear, anxiety.

We find a way to have bad attitudes, we find a way to sabotage or find fault with our favor and return to the familiar.

Are you too familiar to receive the favor that is sitting right in front of you? Are you so used to rejection that you will find it when it’s not even there. Are you so unfamiliar with acceptance that you can’t receive the love he is sending you?

I will finish with favor

I know that in order to see change, I have to create a vision for myself that I have never created before, I have to experience and see things I have never experienced or seen before.

I have to make decisions I have never made, I have to take action in ways I have never had before, I have to think differently, i have to speak differently, I have to live differently,  I have to trust differently. I have to do everything differently

I don't know how I am going to feel on this journey, I don't know what it's going to look like, sound like, taste like, smell like, but I do know that this is God's favor for me and that I will accept what he is doing in my life. I do know that no matter how this started that I will finish with favor but God has willed it for me. It is written. It has already been done.

Time to focus on our favor - the favor God has given us.

You will find what you're looking for. Goodness, mercy

Favor is right in front of you. It is not found in money, it is not in that big house, that car, that tropical paradise, that 6 pack, that relationship- It is in front of you because God gave it to you.

No matter how it started, it will finish with favor.

Are you going to accept favor or chase it away?

Y’all I’m gonna say this time and time again.

To create REAL change, I mean the everlasting change that is firmly and forever cemented in to your entire being takes real work- Like the uncomfortable, most time scary work.

It is not enough to just set goals and resolutions. What action steps do you have in place that support you in achieving your goals EVERY SINGLE DAY?

It is not just one act, it is not just one habit, or one boundary, it is a conglomeration of 10,000 acts every day that get you to where you truly desire to be and who you want to be.

It may feel like you are starting all over again every single day, but the truth is, is that you are just picking up where you left off.

Diving even deeper, actions are not the only thing you have to change.

Actions are the byproduct of feelings, and feelings are birthed from thoughts.

So to get to the very core of where change begins, we have have have to look at the input and output of our minds.

What are we allowing, what are we accepting, what are we not allowing, what are we not accepting?

We have created our current environment through a very long reactive chain of thought.

When we think about present and usually past situations, when we worry about what was, what is and what’s to come, when we are constantly in a state of stress and survival, then our feelings that come along with these thoughts, tell our bodies how to physically react.

Ever made hasty decisions out of anxiety or a sense of desperation?

Lord knows up until recently, my whole life was based on one decision after another that was made purely out of fear.

Recently, I mean about 6 years ago.

But what would happen, is I would set goals and have the best intentions, I would create habits that I wanted to do every day in order to attain my goals, but my thoughts remained the same.

So when I began to make a little bit of progress, it got. REAL

And my real, I mean uncomfortable.

The discomfort and the fear of uncertainty and the unknown allowed me to crawl right back into what had been familiar to me for so long. Anger, frustration, anxiety, worry and fear.

When I finally gained the wisdom to know that my mindset directly created my life, in conjunction with my ever present awareness, AND the decision to every little thing differently than I had before, and live fully in the present and in favor, that's when freedom, magic, miracles, liberation happened.

I truly mean it.

When you start to put new habits, new thoughts, new feelings in to play and really practice self awareness, then you create your new environment and then we don’t feel so fearful anymore,

We no longer fall back into our familiar world that has up until now, kept us stuck. Stuck like Chuck.

So let’s start with becoming aware of our old patterns, thoughts, habits, actions and behaviors and let's actively replace them with new things. ALL NEW THINGS.

And if you don’t know where to start? Then just do the complete opposite of what you would normally do, think the opposite, feel the opposite, turn left instead of right. Look up instead of down.

Seriously it's that simple.

Listen in to Episode 22 for more insight, examples and just a deeper conversation on how to make authentic change in your life!

Xoxo

Megan

Y’all I’m gonna say this time and time again.

To create REAL change, I mean the everlasting change that is firmly and forever cemented in to your entire being takes real work- Like the uncomfortable, most time scary work.

It is not enough to just set goals and resolutions. What action steps do you have in place that support you in achieving your goals EVERY SINGLE DAY?

It is not just one act, it is not just one habit, or one boundary, it is a conglomeration of 10,000 acts every day that get you to where you truly desire to be and who you want to be.

It may feel like you are starting all over again every single day, but the truth is, is that you are just picking up where you left off.

Diving even deeper, actions are not the only thing you have to change.

Actions are the byproduct of feelings, and feelings are birthed from thoughts.

So to get to the very core of where change begins, we have have have to look at the input and output of our minds.

What are we allowing, what are we accepting, what are we not allowing, what are we not accepting?

We have created our current environment through a very long reactive chain of thought.

When we think about present and usually past situations, when we worry about what was, what is and what’s to come, when we are constantly in a state of stress and survival, then our feelings that come along with these thoughts, tell our bodies how to physically react.

Ever made hasty decisions out of anxiety or a sense of desperation?

Lord knows up until recently, my whole life was based on one decision after another that was made purely out of fear.

Recently, I mean about 6 years ago.

But what would happen, is I would set goals and have the best intentions, I would create habits that I wanted to do every day in order to attain my goals, but my thoughts remained the same.

So when I began to make a little bit of progress, it got. REAL

And my real, I mean uncomfortable.

The discomfort and the fear of uncertainty and the unknown allowed me to crawl right back into what had been familiar to me for so long. Anger, frustration, anxiety, worry and fear.

When I finally gained the wisdom to know that my mindset directly created my life, in conjunction with my ever present awareness, AND the decision to every little thing differently than I had before, and live fully in the present and in favor, that's when freedom, magic, miracles, liberation happened.

When you start to put new habits, new thoughts, new feelings in to play and really practice self awareness, then you create your new environment and then we don’t feel so fearful anymore,

We no longer fall back into our familiar world that has up until now, kept us stuck. Stuck like Chuck.

So let’s start with becoming aware of our old patterns, thoughts, habits, actions and behaviors and let's actively replace them with new things. ALL NEW THINGS.

And if you don’t know where to start? Then just do the complete opposite of what you would normally do, think the opposite, feel the opposite, turn left instead of right. Look up instead of down.

Seriously it's that simple.

Listen in to Episode 22 for more insight, examples and just a deeper conversation on how to make authentic change in your life!

Xoxo

Megan

E21 Summary

First Episode of the NEW YEAR AND IT'S A PARTY!

Welcome to the wrap up party of How to Build Better Boundaries Part 2!

As we hastily and boldly step in to this brand new year

I want to remind all of us that building boundaries is a skill and takes practice.

What we practice, progresses.

It’s not always the easiest thing, but it’s necessary.

As we talk about the final steps in building better boundaries, I want you to think about this newer concept as protection.

See, as we enter the new year with all of our resolutions, goals and dreams and desires, what we want most of all is to achieve some sort of result correct?

Pay down or off that looming debt, drop those extra clingy pounds, read more, go back to school, find a new career, etc.

In order to start even thinking about achieving any level of these goals, we have to change our current behavior which means we need to change our daily habits, thoughts and actions.

Habits support our transformation and boundaries protect our habits.

Boundaries keep our energy safe and our journey strong - they are essential to a healthy growth and a healthy life.

Today’s steps include

6. Consider your past and your present

7. Make your self care a priority

8. Seek Support

9. Be Assertive (CRUCIAL ALERT)

10. Start Small (my all time favorite)

Remember all of these things take time especially when you are just starting to figure out what your limits are. What will you allow and accept in your life? What makes you uncomfortable and steals your energy?

If you’re having trouble with just that part- NO WORRIES. I have a FREE gift for you.

Click here to download your “Not to do list of 2021”- this will help you get clear on everything you DON’T want for this upcoming year, which will create space for everything you DO want. Which then allows you to create the supportive habits you need to get what you want, AND and protect those habits by building better  BOUNDARIES.

Happy New Year’s my sweets~

Much love,

Megan 

Howdy!

 As we keep trekking along this discussion of toxic habits and red flags (if you haven't listened yet to the last 2 episodes, I HIGHLY suggest you do!) we find ourselves wondering what to do next.   

One of the biggest blocks to setting boundaries, saying no, or speaking up is not knowing HOW or WHY we should set these boundaries. 

Not knowing what to say or how to confidently say it is a huge hurdle for most- me included!  

So in this 2 part series, I will discuss 10 steps to build better boundaries for a healthier life, and most importantly a healthier YOU.  

Steps 1-5 include:

 Naming your limits 

 Tuning into your feelings 

Be Direct (when you have to) 

Giving yourself Permission 

 Practicing Self Awareness 

 These steps can be put to use today to help you set healthier boundaries in all your relationships, regardless of nature. 

 There is no need to continue to feel uncomfortable, resentful or drained when dealing with people, including family and friends, the way you interact with them or the encounters you have.  

 You can protect yourself, your energy, your journey - and your sanity while not having to cut people completely out of your life- but do understand, sometimes that is a necessary. 

I have had to do that on more than one occasion and let me tell you, as much as I didn't understand it at first, I look back now and thank GOD because my life is so much better without the toxic negativity.   

I hope you enjoy! 

If you haven't subscribed to this podcast yet, please take a quick minute to do so! 

 Stay tuned next week for steps 6-10. 

 xoxo-Megan

We’ve all dealt with or experienced not so great relationships at some point in our lives, and from those, we have made a list of our “red flags”- when we think of those red flags, we usually think of them in an intimate and romantic setting rather than thinking of red flags, in our friendships and in family relationships.

Last week we talked about hidden toxic habits that others and our own selves can quite often display yet we have normalized them so much that we had no clue the damage they were causing.

Riding the coattails of last week's episode, I wanted to continue with how to be more aware of red flags and cues in other behaviors that could be a threat to your energy, peace and well being.

When it comes to recognizing toxic behaviors, it's not always in your face and super transparent.

The ability to tune into our feelings and being aware and trusting of those feelings are essential when deciphering if something or someone is not good for the health and happiness of your overall life.

Two key feelings in others that are red flags or cues that something or someone has toxic traits are discomfort and resentment.

Have you ever left a conversation with someone, whether it was with one of your longtime friends, or just a brief encounter with a coworker, that left you feeling just blah?

Feeling exhausted, your energy a little jumbled? Maybe you didn’t feel good and resent how you engaged with them. Did you join in on the gossip or the judging?

Were you uncomfortable with information they were giving you but didn’t have the courage to stop them?

We feel discomfort and resentment after an interaction with someone, because we have pushed ourselves beyond our comfort zone or limits because we feel guilty.

Or someone is pressing their values, views or expectations on us (this is SOOOOOO common in family relationships because we are expected to be a good daughter, a good wife, a good sister and just accept it.)

When someone acts in a way that makes us feel uncomfortable, that is a sign that they are violating or crossing a boundary. That is a red flag.

Without giving away ALLL of the deets before the podcast, I’ll just stop here.

But once we become more aware of what our toxic habits are, we can tune in to how we feel around others who have more subtle toxic red flags and can then create healthy boundaries that protect our energy and growth.

We don’t necessarily have to cut everyone off at the limbs, but hey, if that’s what it takes (and sometimes it does).

Check out Episode 19 now on the Red Flags in your life.

Let me know what you think and thank you for being on this journey with me!

XOXO-

Meg