Content note: this episode includes discussion of birth trauma and a life-threatening medical experience. Come to it when you have the space to.

This episode is unlike any I have recorded. Because the bravest thing my guest does is not in the story she tells. It is the fact that she is telling it at all.

Ashley Graham spent years in PR helping other people share their stories. This is the first time she is telling her own. And she is not speaking from the tidy other side of her healing. She is speaking from the middle of it, still finding the words, still learning to trust the very voice she is using to speak.

After two miscarriages and a hard-won pregnancy, Ashley's birth became an emergency that put both her life and her baby's on the line. And in the days that followed, a quiet voice inside her kept saying something was still wrong, while a louder, more familiar voice told her she was overreacting. That it was just postpartum anxiety. That she did not want to be too much.

She silenced it. And what followed changed the course of her life.

This conversation is about what happens in the space between those two voices. It is about the birth of her daughter, and the birth of Ashley coming home to her own knowing. And it is a living example of the exact work I do with women every day: learning to trust the quiet voice inside, the one so many of us were taught to silence.

In this episode we get into:

• The birth experience that changed her relationship with her own mortality
• The inner voice that knew something was wrong, and the conditioning that told her to ignore it
• Why choosing to be seen and share your story can feel as vulnerable as the experience itself
• What it looks like to use your voice before you feel ready
• The courage it takes to tell your story from the middle, not the tidy end

Ashley is not speaking from the finish line. She is speaking from inside it. And that is exactly what makes this so powerful.

If you have ever felt a quiet knowing you talked yourself out of, or a story you have been too afraid to tell, this one is for you. Your voice matters. You are not too much.

Links:

Ashley's Website: https://simplyashleygraham.com/

Connect with Ashley on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/simplyashleygraham/

Follow Ashley on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@SimplyAshleyGraham/

Listen to Ashley's Podcast: https://pod.link/1667617698

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