Have you ever finally had a chance to rest, only to realize you could not actually relax?

Your body may be sitting still, but your mind is making lists, scanning for what needs to be done, and reminding you of all the ways you could be more productive. You are resting, but you are not at rest.

In this solo episode, Ashlea explores why slowing down can feel so uncomfortable, especially for those of us who have spent years being the strong one, the dependable one, or the person who keeps everything moving. She talks about the old programming that teaches us to earn our rest, the nervous system patterns that keep us braced for the next problem, and what happens when productivity becomes part of our identity.

This conversation is an invitation to look beneath the guilt and become curious about the message underneath it. Rest is not a reward for reaching the end of your list. It is not something you have to prove you deserve. It is part of being human, staying connected to yourself, and remembering that your worth was never dependent on how much you could carry.

Friends, take your foot off the gas for a moment. Relax, breathe, and be curious. You are allowed to rest before you collapse.

What if resilience is not about being tougher, pushing harder, or pretending that difficult things do not affect you?

What if resilience is actually a collection of skills that can be learned, practiced, and strengthened?

In this episode of Sit Around the Fire, Ashlea sits down with Dr. Rose Aghdami, coaching psychologist, resilience specialist, and author of How to FUEL Your Resilience, to explore what it really means to become more resilient.

Dr. Rose introduces her practical FUEL Your Resilience framework and explains how flexibility, the use of resources, energy, and an internal locus of control can help us respond more effectively to life’s challenges.

Together, Ashlea and Dr. Rose talk about the patterns that often make resilience more difficult, including perfectionism, emotional avoidance, rigid thinking, unrealistic expectations, and the pressure to maintain control.

They also discuss why accepting our emotions does not mean allowing those emotions to control us, how vulnerability can become a source of strength, and why “good enough” may be one of the most freeing phrases a high-achieving person can learn.

In this episode, you will learn:

• Why resilience is a learnable skill rather than a fixed personality trait
• The four elements of the FUEL Your Resilience framework
• How flexibility helps us navigate uncertainty and change
• Why using available resources is a strength, not a weakness
• How perfectionism and rigid thinking can undermine resilience
• The difference between experiencing a feeling and treating it as a fact
• How to develop a stronger internal locus of control
• Why self-compassion and consistent practice matter
• How resilient people create a fuller, calmer, and more meaningful life
• Why strengthening yourself allows you to support others more effectively

This conversation is especially valuable for high-functioning adults, leaders, helpers, professionals, and anyone who appears capable on the outside but often feels overwhelmed, anxious, or depleted internally.

You do not have to become unaffected by life to become resilient.

You can learn how to recognize what you are feeling, respond with greater intention, use the resources available to you, and trust yourself to handle what comes next.

Dr. Rose Aghdami is a coaching psychologist, resilience specialist, supervisor, trainer, international speaker, and the author of How to FUEL Your Resilience: A Practical Guide to Developing Resilience Skills for Professionals.

Through her FUEL Your Resilience framework, she helps high-performing professionals develop practical resilience skills so they can respond to pressure, change, and uncertainty with greater confidence, flexibility, and self-awareness.

Learn more about Dr. Rose Aghdami:
https://www.drroseaghdami.com

Connect with Dr. Rose on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/roseaghdami

Purchase How to FUEL Your Resilience:
https://www.amazon.com/How-FUEL-your-Resilience-Professionals/dp/1041062591

So many people believe they need to be fully healed before they can be in a relationship.

But what if that belief is actually keeping us isolated?

In this episode of Sit Around the Fire, Ashlea Dillard explores why relationships are not just something we enter after healing — they are often one of the places healing actually happens.

Drawing from psychodynamic theory, Jungian psychology, attachment theory, object relations theory, and humanistic psychology, Ashlea breaks down how relationships reveal unconscious patterns, activate old wounds, mirror hidden parts of ourselves, and give the nervous system new experiences of safety, repair, and connection.

This episode is not about staying in unsafe or harmful relationships. It is about understanding the difference between being activated and being harmed, and recognizing that safe-enough relationships can become powerful spaces for growth, awareness, and healing.

You do not have to be perfect to be loved.

You are allowed to be loved while you are still learning.

What does it actually take to go from survival mode to a settled nervous system? In this episode, I sit down with Mark Blacknell — who grew up navigating a tough childhood in Philadelphia, served in the Marines, and found his way to meditation and a life built around balance.

This conversation is for anyone who's ever thought meditation "isn't for them," or tried it once, white-knuckled through 30 minutes, and quit. Mark breaks it all the way down: start small, build slow, and stop chasing some far-off enlightenment. Because as he puts it, enlightenment is just acting naturally.

We get into Mark's story from Philly to the Marines, how nature and meditation cracked something open for him, what it looks like to bring this practice into a real community, and why balance — not perfection — is the whole point.

You're not broken. You've been programmed. And practices like these are how you start living from the future forward.

In this episode:

• Mark's childhood and military background, and what set the stage for change
• How nature and meditation became a turning point
• Practical, beginner-friendly meditation techniques (no incense required)
• Why "balance is life, like the sun and earth"
• Meditation as a lifestyle — not a 30-minute chore
• What death and the present moment taught Mark about being alive

Chapters:
00:00 Introduction to Authentic Conversations
01:41 Creating a Safe Space for Discussion
03:12 Mark's Journey: From Philly to the Marines
09:29 Transformation Through Nature and Meditation
15:48 The Impact of Meditation on Life
22:50 Bringing Meditation to the Community
29:45 Understanding Meditation: A Practical Approach
31:04 The Interconnection of Life and Spirituality
32:48 Meditation: Starting Small and Building Up
36:16 The Journey of Meditation: Expectations and Realizations
38:41 Understanding Enlightenment and Authenticity
41:08 Balance in Life: The Art of Meditation
45:09 Life as a Continuous Practice of Meditation
48:13 Appreciating the Present: Lessons from Life and Death

Resources mentioned:

• StareAtTheWall.org → https://stareatthewall.org
• Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind by Shunryu Suzuki → https://www.amazon.com/dp/0804814804
• The Tassajara Bread Book by Edward Espe Brown → https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00A4U4V4Q

Connect with Mark:

Website → https://stareatthewall.org

🔥 Listen, subscribe, and sit around the fire with us:
sitaroundthefire.org
ashleadillard.com

Once upon a time, there was a girl named Ashlea. She was good at everything, she was the one who kept everyone okay, and from the outside she looked like she had it all figured out. She was also exhausted all the time and had no idea who she actually was.

In this solo episode, I'm telling that story — mine, and maybe yours too — and unpacking the two survival patterns that ran my life for a long time: perfectionism and people pleasing. We're not treating these like bad habits you need more discipline to break. We're looking at them the way they actually work: as nervous system strategies your body learned to keep you safe.

We get into perfectionism as a flight response — the foot-on-the-gas, plan-for-everything, control-it-all way of trying to outrun threat — and why it leaves you frozen and exhausted at the same time. Then we get into people pleasing as the fawn response: the gazelle who pours tea for the lion to make the threat go away, and the quiet, devastating cost of that — the masks, the lost preferences, the disappearing self.

And then we turn toward the way out. Because here's the thing you've heard me say before, and I'll keep saying it: you're not broken. You've been programmed. And programming can be rewritten.

• Why your nervous system is a prediction machine — and how the "what-ifs" are a survival system doing its job
• Perfectionism as flight: control as a strategy to make the world feel safe
• Why perfectionism keeps you stuck, indecisive, and exhausted with your foot on the gas
• Why a small mistake can feel like an identity-level emergency
• People pleasing as fawn: befriending the threat instead of fighting or fleeing it
• The real cost of people pleasing — the loss of self, the masks, not knowing what you even like
• How these patterns get wired early, before we have language or choice
• Why we keep recreating the exact situations and relationships that reinforce them
• The turn: thanking the pattern, sending your nervous system the memo, and living from the future forward

Where in your life are you still running a strategy that you don't need anymore?

Tiny experiment: pick one low-stakes place this week and let it be imperfect on purpose, or let yourself have the unpopular preference. Then notice that you survived it. That's a rep.

• Nervous system work, hypnotherapy, and coaching: ashleadillard.com
• More episodes and resources: sitaroundthefire.org
• Share this episode with someone who's always been "the strong one."

Most of us think the clock on trauma starts the first day on the job. Keven McNeill is here to tell you it started a long time before that.

In this episode, Keven shares his journey through law enforcement, a defining 2016 incident, and the depression and PTSD that followed — and the long road back. What makes his story land isn't just the hard parts. It's the honesty about how trauma accumulates quietly, how it follows you home, and how the same hypervigilance that keeps you alive on shift can quietly take apart your life off the clock.

As a former firefighter and paramedic, I've sat in a version of this. The culture, the pride, the unspoken rule that you handle it. Keven and I get into all of it — and where that culture has to change.

We talk about what proactive mental health actually looks like (not the version you reach for after everything's already on fire), why leadership has to be part of the solution, and how the bravest thing a responder can do is find their voice and ask for help.

In this conversation:

• Why trauma doesn't start with the uniform — and how childhood shapes who's drawn to this work
• Keven's 2016 incident and the aftermath that pulled him into a deep depression
• The toll 2020 took on first responders, and the weight of deadly-force decisions
• Hypervigilance — how it shows up at the dinner table, not just on duty, and why it's so hard to switch off
• Where leadership fails responders, and what it looks like when leaders "act like humans"
• Rebuilding identity and purpose after the career, and the journey to acceptance and giving back

Resources mentioned:

EMDR Therapy — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMDR

Acute Stress Adaptive Protocol (ASAP) — https://www.firstrespondercenter.com/

Connect with Keven McNeil:

LinkedIn — https://linkedin.com/in/kevinmcneil

Keven's Books

More from Sit Around the Fire:

If this one hit home, you're not alone — and you don't have to carry it alone. For more conversations like this, the podcast, and the work I do with first responders and anyone ready to heal, head to sitaroundthefire.org and ashleadillard.com.

We pour money, time, and energy into everything outside of ourselves — our kids, our businesses, our homes, the people who depend on us — and then we wonder why we feel so depleted. In this episode, Ashlea makes the case that investing in yourself isn't the luxury you get to once everything else is handled. It's the foundation everything else is built on.

Drawing on her background in emergency services and her work as a Licensed Professional Counselor and clinical hypnotherapist, Ashlea walks through three arenas of self-investment — therapy, coaching, and physical health — and reframes each through the lens of the nervous system and the brain. You'll learn why the guilt you feel when you choose yourself is just old programming defending itself, why you are the single asset that produces every other return in your life, and how to make one concrete investment in yourself this week.

This one's a permission slip and a strategy, all at once.

• Why investing in yourself feels so hard — and why the resistance isn't a stop sign
• How your brain runs the "path of least resistance" and why familiar isn't the same as safe
• Therapy as the investment in understanding where you've been — working on the rudder
• Coaching as the investment in where you're going — living from the future forward
• Physical health as nervous system care, not vanity — tending the vessel
• The compound interest of self-investment and why waiting is the most expensive choice
• The reframe that changes everything: you are the source

(Adjust to final recording.)

• 00:00 — Intro
• 01:30 — When was the last time you invested in you?
• 04:00 — Why this is so hard: the programming and the prediction machine
• 08:00 — Therapy: the investment in understanding yourself (the rudder)
• 13:00 — Coaching: the investment in where you're going
• 18:00 — Physical health: the investment in the vessel
• 23:00 — The investment frame: why this is the highest return
• 27:00 — One step to take this week + how to work together

You are the asset that produces every other return in your life. Investing in yourself doesn't take away from the people you love — it increases the value of the one source they're all depending on.

Clinical psychotherapy and hypnotherapy (Colorado) and one-on-one coaching (available inside and outside Colorado). Start a conversation at ashleadillard.com.

• Website & resources: sitaroundthefire.org
• Work with Ashlea: ashleadillard.com

This episode hits hard. Packy Dempsey, a retired law enforcement officer, takes us deep into the moment that changed everything — and how he turned that crucible into a mission of healing, not just for himself, but for first responders and military alike.

We don't skip past the hard parts. Packy walks us through the four seconds that nearly ended his life, the chaos on scene, and the aftermath that no academy prepares you for: the guilt, the shame, the silent onset of addiction, and the dangerous belief that strength means carrying it alone. Then he shows us the other side — the brotherhood, the faith, the daily practices, and the radical gratitude that brought him back to life.

This is a conversation about what it really costs to do this work, and what it takes to heal from it. Get ready to feel, reflect, and find the courage to face your own battles.

In this episode:

• The life-altering four seconds that nearly took Packy's life and changed his world forever
• The raw truth behind police trauma, accountability, and the mental toll of critical incidents
• How complacency, identity, and the "Superman complex" can be deadly in high-stakes roles
• The importance of vulnerability, trust, and brotherhood among first responders
• Practical tools — daily habits, training, and faith — that help Packy stay prepared and resilient
• The transformative power of gratitude and community in healing from trauma
• A first look at Packy's upcoming book, which pairs vulnerability with authentic proof of survival and victory
• A powerful call for men and women to break the silence, lean into support, and never fall alone

Timestamps:

• 00:00 — Introduction: One of the toughest stories we've heard
• 00:27 — Who was Packy before the moment that changed everything?
• 02:47 — From mundane to miraculous: the story behind the four seconds
• 04:18 — The chaos of the incident: a detailed recount of the critical moments on scene
• 07:25 — The struggle to control the situation and the near loss of life
• 09:40 — The mental and physical toll during and after the shooting
• 11:29 — Understanding the psychological impact of police trauma
• 15:10 — The real cost of high-stakes decision-making and the aftermath
• 16:43 — How the trauma affected Packy's mental health and his journey to recovery
• 21:06 — The role of support, vulnerability, and brotherhood in healing
• 25:05 — The long road to mental peace: guilt, shame, and healing
• 27:00 — How faith and community sustained Packy through his darkest days
• 28:34 — The subtle but dangerous onset of addiction and coping mechanisms
• 30:37 — The miraculous gift of gratitude in survival and recovery
• 31:08 — What to do when you suspect someone is silently suffering
• 36:52 — Behind the scenes of Packy's upcoming book and how it's a tool for healing
• 38:32 — Training your mind: the key to readiness in emergencies
• 39:28 — Final words of wisdom: face tomorrow with courage, not fear

Resources & Links:

• Packy Dempsey — Official Website: https://www.packydempsey.com/
• Crossroads of Trauma and Triumph (book coming soon — check back for release)
• Work with Ashlea: ashleadillard.com

Most women are waiting for permission to fully step into their power — but what if confidence isn't something you build? What if it's already inside you, ready to be claimed?

In this special release episode of Sit Around the Fire, licensed professional counselor and clinical hypnotherapist Ashlea Dillard delivers a fiery, unfiltered message for every woman who's been playing small, waiting for the right moment, or surviving behind armor she no longer needs to wear.

Ashlea breaks down the neuroscience behind why women hold back — how the nervous system codes growth as danger — and why courage isn't a feeling you wait for. It's a decision. A practice. A rewiring.

You'll discover the powerful concept of "living from the future forward": how mental rehearsal and visualization aren't positive thinking — they're a brain-building blueprint. And you'll be introduced to the queen mindset: deep self-possession, unwavering decision, and the ability to walk into any room radiating authority — not because you've healed everything, but because you've decided who you are.

This episode is for the woman who's tired of shrinking. Who's ready to stop leading from fear and start leading from love, abundance, and her own unshakeable truth.

Your power is already in you. All that's left is to claim it.

In this insightful conversation, Adrianne Lind shares her journey through trauma, healing, and the transformative power of mindfulness and yoga. Discover practical tools for managing PTSD, grief, and stress, and learn how to cultivate a resilient nervous system for a healthier, more balanced life.

Topics Discussed:

Trauma and PTSD recovery

The role of yoga and mindfulness in healing

Nervous system regulation and resilience

Adrianne Lind

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Healing Conversations

01:24 The Message of Forgiveness

06:07 Understanding the Nervous System's Role

06:32 Yoga as a Healing Tool

11:39 Navigating Grief and Trauma

12:34 Mindfulness and Daily Life

17:15 Responding vs. Reacting

19:56 Incorporating Music and Meditation

22:05 Mindful Walking and Nature Connection

22:29 The Power of Breath and Posture

25:50 Yoga and Grief Management

29:30 Consistency in Mindfulness Practices

33:10 Breathwork Techniques for Everyday Life

35:54 Navigating Stress and Emotional Responses

38:31 The Connection Between Trauma and Physical Health

39:49 Closing

Resources

Yoga Nidra for PTSD - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6313445/

Mindful Resilience Certification - https://yogaproject.org/mindful-resilience/

Adrianne Lind's Website & Books - https://adriannelind.com/

https://mybook.to/AdrianneLind