Thought Project With Ashley Rothstein

The earth & it’s inhabitants are hurting. What can I/we do?   I am guilty of choosing to look away when it comes to many serious issues the world is facing. The roots and structure of these complicated problems are confusing to process. Brainstorming solutions seems even harder. I don’t usually know what to do or how to help. When I try to visualize potential solutions, my mind starts buzzing and bouncing around all over the place in a seemingly never-ending loop of ‘problem > potential solution > different problem that solution would bring > potential solution for that problem that leads to a different problem > and on.’ My body becomes hot with emotions like sadness, anger, confusion, and empathy. I hate when I don’t know how to fix something. When I feel helpless, it’s easy for me to get engulfed in these powerful emotions, so I’ve learned to look away and shut myself off to paths that lead to these intense feelings. I don’t necessarily like this about myself, but its a defense mechanism. It feels easi

Sometimes I feel like a broken record with how much I talk about my attempts to slow down after I realize I'm moving too fast. Since it keeps coming up, there's obviously something for me to learn here. Because this is something I'm struggling to resolve, I like to try different things...perhaps with the hope that I will finally land on the 'end all' answer that will help me fully and wholly relax forever (ha, even though I know an 'end all' doesn't truly exist, it's still fun to hope and shoot for it). In this scenario, I tried something new and it worked this time around. It was the end of the day. I had multi-tasked too much and my mind was buzzing. Lots of time on screens, and no time outdoors. I had a packed plate, and found myself trying to tack more and more on. I tried to continue to work through the evening, but found myself overwhelmed with nausea every time I continued to work. The nausea seemed to be tied directly to working. So I stopped everything, turned off the lights, laid down, and let my mi

I will fight to the death to prove that I am right. And there's a part of me that loves doing it.   I've been this way since I can consciously remember. I file every email I receive and save it into a labeled folder that I can pull from in case I need to show proof of something I or someone else said or did. I prefer to communicate in writing for this very reason. If questioned in a conversation, I enjoy pulling up statistics or articles to prove what I am saying has scientific backing. I also love to counter studies and statistics with anecdotal evidence that science can't explain. On top of this, I have a crazy memory. I can often recall specifics of past experiences, situations, or conversations. I use this data as 'ammo' if I am ever in a confrontational situation with another person. I sniff out contradiction easily, and I don't hesitate to point it out if I see it.   The point: I have a wired mechanism within me to manipulate whatever is in front of me to prove that I am right. If I am right, the opposi

The phrase 'underworld of chaos' makes me feel a certain way.   It feels dark, peculiar, and filled with terror. It also feels mystical, ancient, and freeing. I am often drawn to dark, magical, ancestral, primitive things. I love myths, themes, and stories, and how they make their way across history and become embedded in our conscious/unconscious minds.   Do you ever feel like you're in one state of mind, and then BOOM...something pops your 'bubble' and suddenly you're in another state of mind? This could be something as simple as a few words, a song, the presence of another person, or something quick and dirty that triggers a memory. Sometimes, the recall sends you to a pleasant place. Other times, it sends you to a not so good place.   A few simple words spoken by my dad sent me descending into this 'underworld of chaos' I speak of. I would label it as a not so good place, at least at a surface level view. I talk about what I learned from my quick descent, how scary it can be to feel like you're set loose

When I mention my past obsession with working out, I'm shocked by how many people have experienced something similar. Many people seem to have a similar story: attempting to control themselves and their minds through manipulation of their physical body, whether it be through food, hydration, supplements, substances, working out, or lack thereof.   Back in 2012/2013, I spent nearly all day at the gym almost every day. I would rest only when my body and mind would force me to/shut down, usually in the form of sickness, extreme fatigue, or mental distress. During these 6-8 hour gym days, I would do 3-4 workouts. Many of them were high intensity/high weight/high rep where I pushed myself near max. Working out became THE core activity in my life that I used to measure my self worth and self identity. I was a 'CrossFitter' and slid right into what I thought was expected of a CrossFitter.   Some days, my peers would joke that they were coming in to try and beat my time. I would laugh for social acceptance, but insid

"I don't know."   I'll leave you with that as a hint for what this episode is about.   Part of me thinks this is creative messaging/marketing for the episode. A bigger part of me is too mentally exhausted to come up with anything else.   So, here we are....   Connect with me: ashrothpodcast@gmail.com www.ashleyrothstein.com IG/Twitter: @ashrothstein   I love hearing from you people! Send me an email with your thoughts, personal experiences, insights, or hell…what you had for lunch.

This one is for you people who love fixing others and vomiting out unsolicited advice.   In case you were wondering, I am a fellow people-fixer and unsolicited advice vomiter-outer.   I wish I could come up with something better than 'vomiter-outer' because it doesn't make much sense, but I couldn't. So that will have to do. I'm sure you get the idea. This is what happens when an over-thinker attempts to be funny or witty.   Changing gears...does the following scenario sound familiar?...   You find yourself giving the same nagging advice to your partner (or maybe a friend, family member, or colleague) repeatedly. You see what they could be doing better. If only they would just listen to you, they could fix their problem. It would be as easy as that.   You keep giving this advice because you know it would work. You're surprised that it's not as clear to them as it is to you. You find yourself volunteering this advice constantly, maybe with an occasional preach or rant telling this person what they should do. M

Last week, the episode on grief was oddly perfectly timed with Thanksgiving. Ironically, the new one I just posted is also perfectly timed. It's an episode on binge eating....the day after Thanksgiving weekend. I swear I didn't plan it. I love serendipitous things like this. Makes me feel a certain way. It feels good. Like things are rolling as they should.   The new episode is a follow-up to Episode #018: Binge eating - the cycle of restricting, binging & shame. After the realization I came to in that episode, I practiced mindfulness around eating and paid attention to my other behaviors and habits (that I could notice) around food.   If you listen to the end of the new episode, I discuss the possibility of completing a radical sacrifice when it comes to food. I envision this sacrifice as a step that may propel me toward who I envision myself to be. What would life look like without constantly living for/chasing the cravings? What would my experiences look like? How much space would I clear up in my mind

I didn't plan for this episode to be released right before Thanksgiving. It just happened. Based on the order of episodes I recorded and how the days fell, today was the day it ended up being released. This is interesting, because it feels like the perfect episode to post right before Thanksgiving. I never strive to play God, and I don't know what you need. But this is a message that I think many people would find useful, especially as we gear up to see our families for the holidays. So...cool timing. A few months back, I was doing yoga. A song I had never heard before began to play. It struck me deep. I'm not sure if it was the melody, the lyrics, both, or something else, but it hit a part of me that obviously needed to be released. In what felt like an instant, I began to mourn the loss of my mom. The mourning felt like a tidal wave and grew intense. I cried, I felt, and it seemed was like I was being split open fast. Here's the interesting thing....my mom is still alive. Through the experience, I learne

I get warm and fuzzy feelings in my tummy when I think about flow states. When I say 'flow state,' you are probably envisioning the same feeling that I am. How you and I each achieve our individual flow states is probably not the same. Maybe you get into yours via rock climbing, playing an instrument, speaking on stage, doing comedy, reading, painting, drawing, or another activity. I get into mine via dancing and yoga. But once you've touched your individual flow state, you know what it feels like. And it's a feeling we can both probably agree upon. Divine, effortless, amazing, blissful, right...a space with zero resistance that you never want to leave.   Because this space can feel so perfect, it's reasonable to desire it often. Sometimes that desire can turn into greed. It can for me, and it does. When I get greedy with my flow state, I start pushing, striving, and forcing it to come about. My efforts become half-ass and inorganic, and the results are often sub par. I usually feel 'off' with the entire expe

Raise your hand if you've ever been in that "I have a million things to do and there is not enough time to finish them but I must get them done so I must rush but rushing won't get me anywhere because it only brings me stress so I should probably slow down and take a break but I can't because I have a million things to do that must get done" trance. And then you keep going until your body or mind forces you to stop.  That was a mouthful. Or a 'keyboard full' rather, since I typed it and didn't actually say it. I can't see who is raising their hand, or if anyone actually raised their hand while reading that. But I would place a bet that most people have probably been in the above trance. I've been there many times. It doesn't feel good. Your body and mind are moving a million times faster than you can process. Maybe it's because you've filled your plate with too much and set a time period for completion that is unrealistic. Maybe it's because you're running from trauma, emotions, or unpleasant/foreign feelings

I did something I was really scared of at work. By pushing past a powerful manifestation of fear, I was rewarded with growth and insight. Listen in for the full story. Maybe you will feel encouraged to push past your fear barriers. It's hard to do something that you resist. It feels unnatural, horrible and it really, really sucks. But maybe that 'something,' while not comfortable or pleasant, is what the highest and best part of you is calling you to do. And you just have to get past the 'suck' to see it. Connect with me: Email: ashrothpodcast@gmail.com IG/Twitter: @ashrothstein www.ashleyrothstein.com love hearing from you people! Send me an email with your thoughts, personal experiences, insights, or hell…what you had for lunch. Who’s going to be the one that actually does the latter? And I wait…

Binge eating is my vice, and has been for quite some time. I've been through countless iterations of trial and error with diet, feeling great with some ways of eating, and not so great with others. I eat good, wholesome food, but my psychology around food needs some serious work. With all of the years of flip flopping with different diets and integrating the rapidly changing/new information about diet/health that I've learned over the years, I've conditioned myself deep into the 'dieting mindset.' In this episode, I talk about a recent bout of experimentation with a new 'reset diet' that uncovered a large piece of the puzzle I had been missing for many years: the cycle of restricting-binging-shame, and the realization that binge eating and emotional eating are two different things. These realizations help shed light on this vicious cycle I've been in. Now I feel a little less unstuck and have something new to work on. Hopefully if you're dealing with similar things (even if it's not food-related), this episod

Connect with me: IG/Twitter: @ashrothstein www.ashleyrothstein.com Think you would be a good fit for the podcast? Send me an email with your story. ashrothpodcast@gmail.com Or send me an email with anything..your thoughts, your experiences, what you had for lunch. I love hearing from you people!

World-renowned hypnotherapist Danna Pycher is trailblazing a new form of healing that bridges science and spirituality. Her goal is to bring hypnosis mainstream as a way for everyone to have the ability to access it because we all seem to be in overload lately. We touched upon some fascinating concepts: "show" hypnotists (are they real?), how hypnotism works on a neurological and practical level, chronic disease and if it's really just a disease of the mind, resisting spirituality even though it keeps coming to find you, how we can be more childlike/playful/creative despite the overarching expectations and demands of the workforce, shifting from a state of empty self talk to self talk we believe, repressed memories, regression therapy, not taking "no" for an answer, and so much more. This is a deep dive into the mind. I don't know about you, but I can't get enough. Enjoy. Connect with me: IG/Twitter: @ashrothstein www.ashleyrothstein.com Think you would be a good fit for the podcast? Send me an email w

In this episode, I talk about an amazing personal experience: completely lifting my own brain fog (that would typically spiral out of control and have me out of commission for the entire day, if not longer) in a matter of minutes. Listen to episode #014 first to gain some context around the brain retraining steps I reference. Connect with me: IG/Twitter: @ashrothstein www.ashleyrothstein.com Think you would be a good fit for the podcast? Send me an email with your story. ashrothpodcast@gmail.com

In this episode, I talk about the profound developments I've been experiencing in my own life with brain retraining and rewiring my limbic system, and how I'm restructuring old brain patterns away from anxiety, depression, chronic fatigue, panic attacks, and more, while creating new ones to support gratitude and mindfulness. Connect with me: IG/Twitter: @ashrothstein www.ashleyrothstein.com Think you would be a good fit for the podcast? Send me an email with your story. ashrothpodcast@gmail.com

Roxan McDonald is a writer, teacher, workshop facilitator, coach, public speaker, and creator of @spiritual_af. She currently leads writing and personal development retreats and co-teaches with poet Ellen Bass, author of The Courage to Heal, at 1440 Multiversity and Esalen Institute.   Roxan is the author of the inspirational decks Spiritual AF and Grateful AF published by Knock Knock Inc, where she brings her own wit and unique style to gratitude and self-help. Her short stories, memoir excerpts, and poetry have been published in The Porter Gulch Review.   Roxan got sober when she was fifteen years old and currently has 28 years of recovery. She was in the inaugural class of the world’s first and longest running clean and sober high school (this was fascinating to hear about!), and after graduating, Roxan went on to become the director of the school. She spent fourteen years working on the front lines of addiction and trauma recovery. If you deal with addiction, vices, or unproductive obsessive behavior, the

Travis Warner has a Bachelor’s Degree in Forensic and Investigative Science (emphasis in Crime Scene Investigation) and a Master’s Degree in Geology (emphasis in petroleum Geology), both from West Virginia University. He was a research/development reservoir geologist for an oil and gas company for 7 years (microscopy, organic geochemistry, spectroscopy), was laid off after a corporate acquisition, climbed cell phone towers for 7 months while he job-hunted, and as of mid-March 2019, he is now an energy analyst and contractor for the US Dept. of Energy. He co-founded Steel City Slackers - a Pittsburgh-based nonprofit that advocates slacklining in Pittsburgh. He has an insane passion for slacklining, unicycling, walking on stilts, and pretty much balancing on anything an everything he can find…which brings me to why I had him on the podcast.   When I think about who I want to bring on the podcast as a guest, I’ve been noticing a common theme – I love talking to people who don’t live a life the average person doe

Death is one of these taboo things – we don’t really want to think about it or hear about it, but then we’re like wait…I want to hear, or I want to see. We pull away from it and are drawn to it simultaneously. Death and curiosity go together, at least for me. I find myself existential often, thinking about how life is finite and how it will end for all of us. Death is the great equalizer, as I always say. Not one of us gets out of this life alive. So, who better than a mortician, a person around dead bodies 24/7, to speak to about death? So many things from this conversation blew my mind - from water cremation vs. fire cremation and how water cremation is 90% better in regards to energy efficiency compared to fire cremation (fascinating), how you can be turned into soil after you die (so interesting), how getting turned into a tree may not be the best option, and how donating your body to science is not all it’s cracked up to be if you don’t do proper research. Melissa told a story about her picking up