This is Ashlynn

This podcast was recorded with some technical & emotional difficulties. Ashlynn had found out her partner of 5 years was cheating on her on her way to this recording. The message is still a beautiful one worth sharing, hope you can hang with us despite how it sounds.

Heather Holmgren is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and founder of Simple Modern Therapy, a therapist collective in Salt Lake City specializing in relationships, LGBTQ+ affirming care, and faith transition. 

Over a 20+ year career, she's developed a clinical framework for understanding what high-control religious systems do to identity, attachment, and the capacity to know yourself - and built a public following on Instagram by giving clinical language to experiences that ex-Mormons and people in faith transition have carried without words for years. S he grew up in rural Northern Utah inside majority religion and majority culture. She knows from the inside what it costs to belong to something that requires you to stop being yourself, and what it takes to build a life on the other side.

Find her HERE & HERE

Ashlynn Mitchell is the voice behind This Is Ashlynn, where she tells the truth about relationships, reinvention, midlife, and becoming wildly more yourself.

A former cohost of the top 10 podcast The Betrayed, The Addicted & The Expert, Ashlynn has spent more than a decade helping people navigate betrayal, divorce, and starting over. Now she’s sharing the story she never expected to live: her own true-crime romance.

With humor, honesty, and zero interest in pretending she has it all figured out, Ashlynn explores what happens when you trust yourself, reclaim your voice, and build a life that actually feels like yours.

Find her at thisisashlynn.com & @this.isashlynn

Andrés Larios Brown (they/elle) is an Utah based Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist dedicated to healing for LGBTQ+ communities. As Training Director and Partner at Simple Modern Therapy & Institute, they focus on trauma healing and wellbeing for those who feel marginalized or othered. Andrés specializes in identity development and reclaiming healing practices for queer, trans, and BIPOC (black, indigenous, people of color) communities. They are trained in a variety of modalities like EMDR & psychedelic-assisted therapy. They and their husband of 7 years live in northern Utah, where they spend as much time with family and loved ones as possible.

Ashlynn Mitchell is the voice behind This Is Ashlynn, where she tells the truth about relationships, reinvention, midlife, and becoming wildly more yourself.

A former cohost of the top 10 podcast The Betrayed, The Addicted & The Expert, Ashlynn has spent more than a decade helping people navigate betrayal, divorce, and starting over. Now she’s sharing the story she never expected to live: her own true-crime romance.

With humor, honesty, and zero interest in pretending she has it all figured out, Ashlynn explores what happens when you trust yourself, reclaim your voice, and build a life that actually feels like yours.

Find her at thisisashlynn.com & @this.isashlynn

What does freedom actually look like after life falls apart?

This week, I’m joined by my friend Brandi Lee. She is a mother of four, intuitive soul healer, and founder of Iridescent SoulWorks. Her journey into healing wasn’t born from curiosity, it was born from profound loss and transformation. After losing her father and brother, navigating deep betrayal, and rebuilding her life after divorce, life stripped away everything she thought defined her, her certainty, her identity, and the future she had imagined.

In that space, she didn’t become someone new. She remembered who she had always been.

Today, Brandi helps others reconnect with themselves through intuitive soul healing, energy work, meditation, and transformational practices that support people in releasing what no longer serves them and remembering their own inner wisdom. She is passionate about creating safe spaces where people feel seen, empowered, and free to embrace their authentic selves.

Brandi believes our greatest wounds can become our greatest teachers and that healing isn’t about fixing ourselves—it’s about returning to the truth of who we are beneath the pain. She now lives unapologetically aligned with her spirituality and encourages others to trust their intuition, remember their own inner light, and create a life that feels deeply authentic.

Together, we explore what it means to trust your intuition, release old identities, move through fear, and create a life that feels deeply authentic. Whether you’re navigating heartbreak, a faith transition, midlife, or simply feeling disconnected from yourself, this conversation is an invitation to stop abandoning yourself and start coming home.

In this episode, we discuss:
• Returning to your authentic self
• Healing after grief, betrayal, and divorce
• Learning to trust your intuition
• The difference between fear and inner knowing
• Letting go of identities that no longer fit

Connect with Brandi HERE

If this episode resonates with you, I’d love to hear from you. Share it with someone you love, leave a review, or send me a message on Instagram. Your support helps these conversations reach more people.

Ashlynn is the host of This is Ashlynn and former co-host of the Top 10 relationship recovery podcast, The Betrayed, the Addicted, and the Expert. After navigating betrayal, divorce, a faith transition, and rebuilding her life as a single mom, she has become a voice for women choosing themselves and creating lives that feel authentic, joyful, and free.

Through honest conversations and powerful storytelling, Ashlynn explores healing, relationships, midlife, personal growth, and the courage it takes to come home to yourself. Her mission is to help women rise within, trust themselves, and be the buffalo, facing life’s storms instead of running from them.

Connect with me HERE

What if freedom isn't that deep?

Ashlynn is a retreat creator, speaker, and podcast host who helps women reclaim themselves after unexpected life shifts like betrayal, divorce, faith shifts, & midlife one honest conversation at a time.

FIND ASHLYNN HERE

This week, I'm joined by Kenedei Faber, a mother of two, dance instructor, burlesque performer, sourdough baker, and professional finder of glimmers and small joys.

After rebuilding her life from the ground up, Kenedei has spent the last few years reclaiming her confidence, rediscovering who she is outside the roles she once held, and creating a life that feels fully her own. Through dance, performance, community, and plenty of laughter, she's discovered that healing doesn't always happen in silence. Sometimes it happens in heels, under stage lights, covered in rhinestones.

In this episode, we explore what freedom looks like for her today, the beliefs she's had to let go of, what she's still unlearning, and the life she's intentionally creating for herself and her daughters.

Find Kenedei on Instagram:
@kenedeifaber for everyday life
@classwithken for dance classes and adult movement

Marcella is back with her favorite co-conspirator Ashlynn for a conversation that is equal parts hilarious, healing, and long overdue.

They were both raised in the Mormon church where sex was sacred, self-pleasure was a confessional offense, and your body was something to be managed, not enjoyed. So now that they're out? They've had to completely rebuild their relationship with one of the most natural things in the world.

The question on the table: is sex like salad nourishing, wholesome, good for you or is it like a donut indulgent, a little naughty, and something you still kind of feel guilty about after?

Spoiler: it's neither. It's both. It's the entire buffet.

They get into the programming that never fully goes away, the weird guilt that shows up even when you know better, and what it actually looks like to reclaim pleasure when you were taught it wasn't yours to have in the first place. It's raw, it's funny, and it's the kind of conversation that will make you feel a lot less alone.

Pull up a plate. This one's a full spread.

We give you full permission to indulge in the full buffet of self pleasure! Go check out our favorite intimacy toys made just for WOMAN like us!!! Browse OBOO.LOVE use code ASHLYNN15 for 15% off!

This is Ashlynn is a podcast about what it means to come home to yourself. After years of living by expectations, roles, and rules, midlife has become an invitation to question everything, reclaim what matters, and build a life that feels true.

Ashlynn has honest conversations about relationships, identity, freedom, healing, pleasure, faith transitions, divorce, motherhood, and the courage to live unapologetically. Through solo episodes and meaningful interviews, you’ll hear stories that challenge old narratives and inspire you to define success, love, and fulfillment on your own terms.

If you’re ready to stop performing and start living as your fullest self, you’re in the right place.

FIND HER HERE

Rebekah Anderson is a poet, trauma-informed somatic practitioner, Reiki Master, and single mother of three who is passionate about helping people come home to themselves.

Her work blends nervous system healing, inner child work, and embodiment with the transformative power of creativity and authentic human connection. Believing that healing is both deeply personal and profoundly communal, Rebekah creates spaces where people can reconnect with their bodies, express what words alone cannot hold, and remember who they were before fear, trauma, and conditioning taught them otherwise.

Through poetry, movement, music, play, connection, and community, she invites others into a gentler, more embodied way of living. Rebekah is currently completing two poetry collections and continues to explore the beautiful intersection of healing and the arts, inspiring others to embrace their humanity, reclaim their wholeness, and live with greater presence, courage, and love.

FIND HER HERE

Buckle up, because this one goes places. Marcella is joined by her friend and partner-in-chaos Ashlynn (@this.isashlynn) to talk about something they've both been sitting with for a while: the idea that nothing matters and why that belief might actually be the most grounding, most freeing, most feeling thing either of them has ever encountered.

As two women who grew up in the Mormon church, they were wired from the beginning to believe that everything mattered — eternally. Every decision carried cosmic weight. Fast forward to now, and a few meaningful experiences with psychedelics have completely rewired how they move through the world.

This episode is equal parts hilarious and profound. They talk about the moments that cracked them open, why "nothing matters" doesn't mean you stop caring or stop feeling — it actually means the opposite — and what it looks like to live a life where you're not performing for an outcome, you're just actually here.

If you've ever felt the relief of letting something go that was never really yours to carry, this one's for you.

If you’re between 35 and 55 and you feel like your body changed overnight… you’re not crazy. You’re not weak. And you’re definitely not alone.

Ashlynn Mitchell is the voice behind This Is Ashlynn, a podcast about reinvention, relationships, and the courage to become who you are beneath the roles you’ve been playing.

After rebuilding her life following a public betrayal and divorce, Ashlynn traded survival for self-trust and now leads honest conversations about midlife, desire, healing, parenting, and what happens when you stop living for everyone else.

Mother of two. Roller skater. Truth teller. Proof that your best chapter doesn’t have to be your first.

FIND ASHLYNN HERE & INSTAGRAM

Sarah is a Family Nurse Practitioner with over twenty years of experience in healthcare. Sarah doesn’t believe in the “one size fits all” health model and truly advocates for each of her patients as individuals. Sarah specializes in functional medicine such as hormones, gut health, mental health, women’s health and nutrition. 

Today we’re talking about what’s actually happening in perimenopause, what’s biology, what’s identity, and how to stop white-knuckling your way through it. 

There were moments I genuinely thought something was wrong with my personality. The anxiety. The 3 a.m. wakeups. The shorter fuse. The feeling like I wasn’t as resilient as I used to be.

1️⃣ What is perimenopause… simply?

• Why does it feel so chaotic?

• Why are so many women blindsided?

2️⃣ Symptoms no one warned us about

• Beyond hot flashes, what shocks women most?

• Why does it feel like a personality shift?

• Is the anxiety + rage + brain fog hormonal?

“If you’ve Googled ‘Why am I so angry?’ at 2 a.m., this might be why.”

3️⃣ Mental health + identity

• Why do high-functioning women suddenly feel less resilient?

• Is this hormones, stress, or both?

• Does perimenopause change what we’re willing to tolerate?

4️⃣ Hormone therapy myths

• Biggest myths keeping women stuck?

• Why can labs look “normal”?

• How is perimenopause actually diagnosed?

• When is hormone therapy appropriate?

“You don’t have to wait until you’re miserable enough to deserve help.”

5️⃣ What actually helps

• If someone feels barely functional, where should she start?

• What moves the needle most?

“Midlife isn’t about shrinking. It’s about getting stronger.”

Jennifer Hanks is a single mom and widow who lost her husband to cancer shortly after their twin boys were born. She now uses her voice to talk about grief, motherhood, and what it looks like to keep going after unimaginable loss. Her hope is to help others feel seen, supported, and less alone.

Find her HERE

Grief Journal HERE

Instagram HERE

____________

Ashlynn Mitchell is the voice behind This Is Ashlynn, a podcast for anyone in midlife who feels the quiet nudge that there is more.

After a public divorce ended her 21 year marriage, she rebuilt her life from the ground up and turned betrayal into a catalyst for power, pleasure, and radical self trust.

A former cohost of the top 10 podcast The Betrayed, The Addicted & The Expert, Ashlynn now leads bold conversations about reinvention, conscious relationships, parenting teens, perimenopause, desire, and the courage to outgrow old identities.

Through a decade of coaching, retreats, and unfiltered storytelling, she challenges both women and men to stop shrinking, start telling the truth, and build relationships that actually feel alive. Mother of two, lover of the outdoors, roller skater, truth teller. Living proof that it is never too late to become who you really are.

Find her at HERE and on Instagram @this.isAshlynn

Today’s conversation is for anyone who has ever whispered, I cannot live like this anymore, but I do not know how to start over. I’m joined by Olivia Howell, CEO and co founder of Fresh Starts Registry and a nationally recognized divorce educator. 

Her writing has appeared in New York Magazine, Newsweek, and Business Insider, and she is frequently quoted in The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, and Scary Mommy.

Olivia is also a solo mom of two and brings lived experience, clarity, and steadiness to conversations about endings, beginnings, and learning how to stand on your own again.

This episode is not about convincing you to leave or stay. It is about feeling more informed, less alone, and more grounded in whatever step comes next.

Find Olivia HERE

___________

Ashlynn Mitchell is the voice behind This Is Ashlynn, a podcast for anyone in midlife who feels the quiet nudge that there is more.

After a public divorce ended her 21 year marriage, she rebuilt her life from the ground up and turned betrayal into a catalyst for power, pleasure, and radical self trust.

A former cohost of the top 10 podcast The Betrayed, The Addicted & The Expert, Ashlynn now leads bold conversations about reinvention, conscious relationships, parenting teens, perimenopause, desire, and the courage to outgrow old identities.

Over a decade of coaching, hosting retreats, and unfiltered storytelling, she challenges both women and men to stop shrinking, start telling the truth, and build relationships that actually feel alive. Mother of two, roller skater, truth teller.

Living proof that it is never too late to become who you really are.

Find her HERE and on Instagram @this.isAshlynn