Ep. 5 Sharing my Engagement Story and Why Your Self-Worth is Everything!
In this solo episode, Ash Butterss shares two major events in her life: getting engaged and running the Radiant Woman event. She discusses the story of how she met her fiance and the beautiful moment of their engagement. Ash also delves into the importance of self-worth and how to reframe negative self-talk through mindfulness, affirmation practices, and gratitude. She highlights the power of neuroplasticity and the ability to rewire our thinking. The Radiant Woman event focused on physical transformation, skincare, makeup, and empowering women to rebuild their self-worth. Ash emphasises the importance of self-love and treating oneself with kindness and respect.
Episode highlights include:
00:00 Introduction and Engagement Announcement
13:12 The Radiant Woman Event: Empowering Women
21:26 Rewiring Negative Self-Talk and Practicing Mindfulness
25:32 The Importance of Self-Worth and Self-Love
Follow and connect with Ash on:
Transcript
Ash Butterss (00:01.43)
Hello everyone, my name is Ash butters I am the makeover mentor here to guide you through a physical emotional and spiritual makeover How is everyone today? I am so excited to record this solo episode I have got so much that I want to share with you guys It's been a crazy couple of weeks actually, maybe even a couple of months
There's been a lot going on and a few things that I haven't shared with you guys yet that I am going to share with you here today. And the first thing that I want to share with you is that I got engaged. Yes! So, some people know that I got engaged a few weeks ago now. But it isn't something that I have shared publicly yet. Although by the time this episode comes out,
I'm sure it will have been put across my socials by that stage and I'm going to share it with my email community first. So if you're not signed up to my emails, make sure you jump onto ashbutters .com and sign up for my weekly newsletter because that's where I share all of my secrets and insiders and everything first. So definitely you want to be there. But yes, I'm so, so excited to share with you all that I got engaged and it was...
Really really beautiful moment. I you know what? I'm gonna share it with you. I am I'm gonna tell you what happened because I've had a lot of people asking me How did he do it? So? Firstly, I have been with my fiance so getting used to that. I've been with my fiance for Two and a half years now, so we actually met at a mutual friends going away party so we were both friends with this
person and she was moving to the Gold Coast and we all live in Melbourne and she was having her going away celebration at this place on Chapel Street called Speak Easy and it was a Friday night and on Friday nights they do drag which I absolutely love. I love a drag show, RuPaul's any day of the week and so I absolutely said yes.
Ash Butterss (02:20.694)
So this girl is called Ellie. said to Ellie, absolutely, I'm gonna be there. And I went there with absolutely no expectations of meeting anyone. I just kind of went because I wanted to connect and to wish her well and send her on her way and hang out with my sober friends. And so that's what I did. I went along and I remember sitting there with a couple of my friends at one of the tables.
And this man walked in and the minute that he walked in, I immediately turned to one of my girlfriends and I said, he's cute. And I remember her actually sort of saying to me something along the lines of, yeah, but you don't want to go there. and for no other reason than we are sort of all in a similar community. And she was advising against that. And so I didn't really think much of it, but
The two of us were introduced to each other maybe five, 10 minutes later. And from that moment, it was like an instant connection. I remember we shook hands with one another and he introduced himself and yeah, I was really taken aback and that doesn't happen very often at all really. I'm sort of somebody who, yeah, takes some time to warm up to people. I think I'm very open with people.
but having that sort of instant spark or instant connection isn't something that happens very often for me at all. And so I remember that night, he was actually really shy and we said hello to each other, but then he kind of went off and sat with a group of the guys and I was sort of sitting where I was sitting. So we didn't actually talk again that evening. And then he must've left at some stage because I didn't see him leave, but I was one of the last people there.
And I remember going home that night and he was on my mind. He really was. But I didn't think too much of it to be perfectly honest. And then I woke up the next day and he had messaged me on through social media. And I thought that was really sweet. And we were just kind of chatting back and forth for a little bit. And then, hang on, my puppy dog wants to jump up. Frankie, come on, come on. All right, buddy. Sorry, Frank wants to join the story.
Ash Butterss (04:44.534)
For those of you who are watching this, Frank's now sitting on my lap. Say hi, buddy. Okay. So we were messaging back and forth and that's when he said, I'd love to catch up. I'd love to, you know, do you want to go for a walk? That's, it was all it was. And so like, again, it didn't really feel like it was a date. I was kind of like, does he want to be friends? Does he want to be more than friends? And I remember calling my mentor.
and asking her what she thought. And she was just like, just go, I mean, do you want to go for a walk? And I was like, yeah, yeah, I do. And she said, okay, we'll just go for the walk. And like typical me, my head was already racing like a million miles an hour. And like, well, what if this happens? And what if this happens? And da da da, da da da. And she was great. She just said like, let's just keep it in the moment. Let's just keep it in the day. You're just going for a walk, see what happens. And I'm so, so glad that I went for that walk. So funnily enough,
he actually got COVID after he'd asked me to on the walk. So that meant that we weren't able to catch up for that week because he was isolating. But the week after we managed to go for this walk and it was really interesting because we caught up just sort of down where I live near the beach. And obviously Frank was there too, weren't you buddy?
and we went for this walk and we just hit it off and we were talking and talking and we'd probably been walking and talking for about an hour and a half. And I, that evening was meant to be taking one of my friends actually to a meeting and I, a 12 step meeting and I got a call from him canceling. And so I turned to my partner.
And sorry, he wasn't my partner at the time. But I turned to him and I said, do you want to come with me? And he said, sure. So that's what we did. We ended up going to a meeting after the walk. And then after the meeting, we went for dinner. And then after dinner, we went back to his car. I drove him back to his car, which he'd left in the car park down at the beach. And we sat in my car and kept talking until...
Ash Butterss (07:06.438)
midnight. And then I remember and it's so funny you know that like when that like you first start dating someone and you're really excited and you've got that adrenaline and so you stay up really late and you you know you've got to get to work the next day but you're kind of just on this like amazing high that was all happening and I remember but that's right here's the part where I got confused
He got out of the car, like we finished the conversation, we sort of ended the night and he got out of the car and he didn't kiss me and I was like, okay, maybe he just wants to be friends. And so that was that. And then the next day he messaged just saying that he'd had a good time and we sort of left it there. And then later that day, he had said that he wanted to catch up again and that he needed to tell me something.
And I remember thinking, this sounds serious. But we ended up catching up a couple of days later. And when we did, he made it very clear that he didn't just want to be friends, which was great. We were on the same page. yeah, like I guess they say the rest is history. We've been dating ever since. And it's just been the most beautiful experience being in a relationship with somebody.
who has taught me so much about myself and someone who is so, so different to me. I've learned so, so much from my partner over the last two and a half years. And I can honestly say that he has made me a better person. And I think that goes both ways, you know, like we really, we're each other's biggest champions. We've both achieved so much in our individual lives.
as well as together as a couple in such a small amount of time. And you know, the idea of marriage was something that was, I guess, a little confusing for me because for those of you who know my story, I have been married before and I was divorced at the very beginning of 2021. And that was a really painful experience.
Ash Butterss (09:25.376)
You know, I'm incredibly grateful that my divorce wasn't nasty because I hear horrific stories and I've seen firsthand just how horrible that experience can be for so many people. And that hasn't been my experience. So I'm very, very grateful for that. But it still does leave you a little bit scarred and marriage doing it again wasn't of a huge importance to me.
but it was to my partner. And so respecting that, was definitely open to the idea of marrying him. But it definitely wasn't something that I thought we were gonna be doing anytime soon. I, you know, we'd had the odd conversation about it, but I didn't think that he would be proposing this year. And so let me fast forward to how that happened. So yes, it was maybe about four weeks ago now.
and we were, it was a Monday afternoon and I was working in my studio here and he had the day off and I said to him at about three o 'clock, do you wanna walk Frank with me? Which is something that if we have a day off together, we will normally do. And so we went down to the beach because I live, we live right near the beach.
And we were, it's funny because when we got down to the beach, I said, do you want to go right or left? And he said, I don't mind. And so I said, okay, we'll go right. And we were walking up to this landmark right near my house and just through the bushes there, right on the foreshore is the place where we told each other that we loved each other for the first time. And so we had walked past the landmark and we were coming back around. And that's when he said to me, do you want to
sit down for a minute and I was actually like no it's okay like we'll keep going and he's like no no let's sit like it's a nice day and to be fair it actually was a beautiful day which is quite rare at this time of year in Melbourne and so we sat down and I had Frank off the lead and Frank was being really cute playing around in the rocks and being really adventurous so I was totally distracted watching Frank we were down there for about 15 minutes and that's when my fiance
Ash Butterss (11:44.428)
turned around and said that he had to ask me a question and got down on one knee and yeah, that's what happened. He asked those words, will you marry me? And of course I said yes. And yeah, that was the moment. It was really, really special. I actually couldn't have pictured a more perfect way for it to happen. And since that day, we have just been in that beautiful love bubble.
that comes with an experience like this. We've been sharing with our friends and our family and the love and the support has just been so overwhelming and so, so beautiful. I love love. Like there is something so pure and so honest around how happy people are for you when you go through something like this, when you experience something like this. And I'm just so, grateful.
that I've had the opportunity to experience this with my partner. And now we get to plan a wedding, which is really, really exciting, but we're not gonna be doing anything straight away. It's gonna, you know, we'll take our time to feel into what that's gonna look like. We've got some ideas, but we're heading away soon together. And I think we'll utilize that time to really feel into what we wanna do and what feels right for us as a couple, which is.
incredibly exciting and you know all of that fear that I had around getting married for a second time that's all gone you know I realized that a lot of that was just in my head and the judgment that I had on myself and being free of that now is really really beautiful and I just get to experience how special this really really is so yeah I deeply wanted to share that with all of you and
to let you know that big, big news, which is incredible. Now, the other super exciting thing that has happened recently is that I ran the Radiant Woman event. So for those of you who follow along on Instagram, you will have seen me talking about this event for the last couple of months. And this was my two day physical transformation event. my goodness, I could almost cry just.
Ash Butterss (14:09.664)
thinking about how incredible those two days were. The radiant woman was a dream of mine. It was something that came to me in a vision while in meditation. And what I wanted to do was to create a safe space where women could feel deeply empowered. And I wanted to do that by working on not only the physical transformation and the awesome
different ways we could experience that which I'll talk about in a moment but I also really wanted to get into the core of the way we talk to ourselves, negative self -talk and really helping women to feel empowered to rebuild their self -worth because here's the thing you can spend all the money in the world on skincare and makeup and looking good on the outside
But if you have low self -esteem and low self -worth, no amount of Botox, fillers, kilos lost is going to make you feel good. It has to be an inside out job. And so that's where a lot of the focus with the workshops that we did over the two days was really honed in on. It was this idea of actually rebuilding self -worth. As Jamie Kern -Leymer says, your self -worth is your ceiling.
Right? So however you feel about yourself is going to be the limit at which you meet yourself. And so we must, must, must focus on that. And one of the things that I spoke to the women about was the idea of neuroplasticity, because it's really important to understand that we have the ability to rewire our brains at any age. So just because you've been thinking a certain core belief,
for a period of your life doesn't mean that that has to remain. That doesn't mean that it has to be your identity, but you have to be aware of it first, right? I always talk about this with my clients. The first step to change is awareness. And so becoming aware of this negative self -talk means that you can actually catch yourself, reframe the negative thought, and then start to rewire the brain with neuroplasticity.
Ash Butterss (16:34.57)
And so what neuroplasticity is in essence is the brain's ability to change and adapt throughout life. It means that the brain can actually reorganize itself by forming new connections between brain cells. And this can happen, like I said, at any age, but it requires consistency. And something that I shared with the women was
this really disappointing statistic that says that 91 % of women are unhappy with their physical appearance. 91%. That breaks my heart. And here's something that's even more depressing. Only 5 % of women actually live up to the standard. And for those of you who are listening along, I'm doing air quotes right now with my fingers.
only 5 % of women live up to the standard that we see is presented through the media. And so no wonder there are so many people out there, so many women specifically, who have this low self -esteem, who have this really, really negative self -worth. And it's heartbreaking because it doesn't have to be that way because our self -worth is not determined
by our looks, by our achievements, we are all inherently worthy human beings, but we have to believe that to the core. And so something that I like to share with my clients is this idea of Hebb's law, which comes under the bracket of neuroscience. And what Hebb's law states is that neurons that fire together
together. So what this means in its essence is the more we think a certain thought, the more it goes from our conscious to our unconscious mind. And let me describe it like this. So for you to have a thought, your thought travels down a neural pathway. So let's hold on to the idea of this word pathway. So when you've been thinking the same thought,
Ash Butterss (19:01.072)
over and over and over again for decades, The pathway at which this thought travels down is going to be wide and roomy. Think about it being like a seven -lane freeway. It's spacious, the thought just glides along with ease. Now I want you to think about thinking a thought that is contrary to the negative thought. So
Say you wake up in the morning and the first thing that you say to yourself is, I'm ugly. And that you've been telling yourself that same story every time you look in the mirror for the last 30 years. That thought is going to travel down that pathway with ease. But if you were to reframe that thought to something positive, for instance, I'm beautiful, then that thought is going to have a lot of difficulty actually making its way through the path because
this path hasn't been trodden before. I want you to think of this path as like an enchanted forest. There's moss, there's rocks, there's trees, there's vines. You've got to almost like whippersnip your way through it, right? But every single time you tell yourself that new thought, you clear the pathway just that little bit more. And then eventually, if you start to tell yourself that thought every single day on a daily basis,
pathway clears until eventually this path is wide and spacious and the thought is able to travel through it with ease. This is what rewiring the neural pathways looks like and it's also where affirmation practices come in. So this is how affirmations work. It's how we start to rewire the neural pathway by repeating the same
positive or affirming statement. So that's something that you can start to implement. But before you even do that, I really want to encourage you, if you're not already, to develop some sort of mindfulness practice. Because without a mindfulness practice, you can't actually catch yourself stuck in the negative self -talk. You won't even be aware that you're doing it because it feels so natural. It's so unconscious.
Ash Butterss (21:26.796)
And so allowing yourself just 10 minutes a day to practice mindfulness and I've spoken about mindfulness in previous episodes. You guys know how much of a fan I am of this practice. Anything to do with mindfulness or meditation. If you can do that for 10 minutes a day, then you set yourself up with a fighting chance to actually start to rewire this thinking. It's not easy. It's uncomfortable. But I promise you the more consistent you are with showing up.
the easier it gets. And so mindfulness, step one, affirmation statements and practices, step two. And of course, you guys know I love a gratitude practice, a step three. So really rewiring and reframing those thoughts by seeing the positives. And again, I've spoken about gratitude practices in previous episodes. I cannot stress to you enough how powerful this practice can be.
just three things that you're grateful for every single morning as a starting point. And if you can share it with somebody, you know, grab yourself an accountability buddy and share it with somebody, then not only is that good for you, but it's helpful for them as well. And so that's a beautiful act of service in a way that you can give back to others by actually sharing your gratitudes. So that's just the first step in how we start to rewire our thinking.
and start to lean into this idea of neuroplasticity and being able to rewire the mind so that we can actually start to change our thoughts and our habits and our behaviors, because it all flows in together, right? And think about it like this. You might be sitting here now thinking, Ash, that sounds impossible. That sounds like really hard work. How am I possibly ever going to get to this point where I, you know, I actually truly believe that I'm beautiful?
instance say. Well I'm gonna ask you this. Let me just shuffle in my seat for a second. My legs going numb. Okay let me ask you this question.
Ash Butterss (23:34.485)
Do you remember the first time that you learnt how to drive a car?
Yep. Are you thinking of that moment? Okay. So tell me this. Did it look a little something like this? Did you get into the car and you know, you put your seatbelt on, you check the mirrors, you put the key in the ignition. If you're driving a manual, you're starting to work out how to, you know, figure out the clutch and the gears. You're looking over your shoulder. You've got the radio turned down because you need to concentrate.
There's so many things going on, right? And you took that first trip around the block and then you got back to your starting point and you thought, wow, that was really hard. How am I ever going to do this with ease? Okay, now I want you to think about a recent time that you've gotten in the car and you've gotten from A to B and not even remembered how you got there. Tell me that's happened, right?
It's because you're totally on autopilot. You've gone from being super conscious to every little action that's involved with driving a car to dropping this into your subconscious mind. This is what we do when we're reframing our thoughts. So I know you can do it because you've done it before. The proof is in the pudding. It's just going to take a little bit of practice and a little bit of consistency.
But remember that to change your environment, you must think greater than your current reality. So I really want you to try to push yourself out of your comfort zone here so that you can start to create a new existence for yourself so that you can really start to love and respect and treat yourself the way that you deserve because you are worthy.
Ash Butterss (25:32.128)
You know, we get told that we're not worthy by society, by this messaging, by all of this stuff, all of this negative messaging, none of which is true. It's all been designed to sell you something. But when it all peels away and you're left with just yourself, like who are you at your core? And if you're not happy with the person you are, how can you change it? You know, negative self -talk can be so, so toxic.
The average human spends a quarter of their waking hours in self -talk. Now, some of you are probably listening to that thinking, Ash, I spend way more than 25 % of the day stuck in self -talk. I know I do, but that's just the average. And so think about how powerful the thoughts are that you think. And I want to ask you this question. Think about the way that you talk to yourself every single day.
And now I want to ask you this. If your best friend spoke to you that way, would you tolerate it?
Or would you speak to your best friend that way?
Ash Butterss (26:48.287)
I imagine no, right? I imagine it would horrify you to say the things that you say to yourself to another human being.
And yet, for some reason, we think it's okay.
Ash Butterss (27:06.943)
For some reason, the way that we talk to ourselves is not held up to the same standard as how we would talk to those we love.
And so I really want you to think about that for a moment and to think about how you can start to change the relationship you have with yourself, because guess what? The relationship you have with yourself is the longest relationship you are ever going to have in your life. And so it might be helpful to make a note of what are the negative core beliefs? What are those statements, those sentences that are on repeat that the inner critic just
Spend hours feeding into your mind. I'll share with you one of mine, right? My core wound is unworthiness and one of my most frequently Repeated negative core beliefs, which I'm not even aware. I'm doing most of the time is I'm not enough I'm not enough. I'm not enough. I'm not enough and it plays out in all areas of my life and so the way that I change that into an affirmation is
I am enough. I am enough. I am enough. And with affirmation statements, there's two different ways that I like to do it. One is to write the affirmation multiple times. So I might sit down and write it out 10 times while I'm journaling. But even more powerful than that is to actually say it to yourself in the mirror. I know some of you are probably squirming at the thought of that.
But I want you to give it a go. I want you to keep doing it until it doesn't feel uncomfortable anymore. And when you get to that point, that's when you know that there's been a shift. Life is too short to let negative core beliefs rule our lives. It limits us. It cuts you off at the knees. And I truly believe that living a life where we
Ash Butterss (29:17.386)
don't get to live up to our potential is one of the most painful existences known to man. And the reason that so many people are stuck is because of this itty bitty shitty committee. It's because of this negative self -talk. But as I was sharing with you earlier, we have the power to reframe this.
And so over the course of the two days with the radiant woman, we spent a lot of time doing this kind of work. Of course, we also spent time learning makeup tips and tricks. I had the women watch a makeup demonstration that I did, and then we actually got onto our makeup stations and everybody had the opportunity to recreate the look, which was so much fun. You know, I spent 15 years in beauty training rooms as an educator.
And we seriously got to do some amazing and really fun things when it came to makeup. And I had always wanted to be able to share that with you guys, with normal women, everyday women, like why was it just us makeup artists that got to have these amazing experiences? And that's really where the idea to bring the makeup and the skincare component to life in this event, that's really where it started.
And so I used all of my experience from that time to bring it to life and we had so much fun. And then later in the day, we removed all of the makeup and we did this incredible skincare routine with the gua sha facials. my goodness. The smooth society do the most incredible white jade gua sha's. Honestly, I got everybody to do half their face.
And just seeing the difference was incredible. One side of the face was so snatched, so lifted, so contoured. And of course, we evened up on the other side. And then everybody after that got to put on these beautiful face masks from Good Living Only, who if you've listened to Jess's episode, then you'll know all about Good Living Only. Those face masks are insanely beautiful. And while the masks were on, I guided them through
Ash Butterss (31:30.764)
a 30 minute meditation. Yes, 30 minutes of deep, delicious rest. So it was just so much fun. And that was just day one. Day two, we did a Pilates class in the morning. We had a naturopath come and talk all about metabolic balance and how to heal inflammation in the body, weight loss, overall health and wellbeing. It was so, so amazing. I know so many of the women got a huge amount out of that.
And then we did breath work, meditation, yoga and manifestation. And actually, you know what? It was the manifestation that I think the women actually took so much value from because a lot of people can be a little bit, I guess, unsure about manifestation and not really know where to start. But when you prepare the body with breath work and yoga beforehand, so we spent
two hours preparing the body to open up the channels to then be able to unlock the manifestation. The stuff that was coming out was so, so potent. And then we had this beautiful closing ceremony where we all lit a candle and that candle was really to represent the fire within each and every one of us. And we all set intentions for how we were going to leave the space and take the learnings because
It's one thing to take yourself into this environment and to the women who showed up and were there for the two full days for the event. Like I just want to honor every single one of you and I shared it during the event and I'm going to say it again now. The hardest part about putting yourself first is actually making the decision, the decision to show up. And so to the women who came along to the event and took those two days for themselves. my goodness. Like
The hard part is already done, but then it's about consistency. It's about taking the learnings and implementing them back into your day -to -day life. And since wrapping up the event and staying in contact with all of the beautiful women who were there, I know that that has been happening and it just fills my heart with so much joy to see the transformations that are continuing to unfold post -event. my goodness, honestly.
Ash Butterss (33:48.203)
My heart could explode with gratitude. just, I'm so overwhelmed with how amazing the experience was and just how incredible the women were who joined me for that. So I can't wait to bring the radiant woman back in 2025. We will be doing it again. And if it's something that you're interested in knowing more about, then please do send me an email. Hello at ashbutters .com.
and I can make sure that I pop you on the waiting list and send you the information so that you don't miss out for next time. There we go. That is the main two major things that have been going on in my life recently. I'd love to know what's going on in your life too. So please feel free to reach out to me through my DMs on Instagram at Ash Butters.
As always I would love to make a very special request if you would like some good calmer vibes then please please Make sure that you're following this podcast and leaving a five -star review. It would mean the absolute world to me. I Will see you all here again next week. Thank you so much for tuning in. Take care, and I'll see you then