The Emotional Alchemy Podcast
Welcome to the Emotional Alchemy Podcast where safety is medicine, connection is never automated and everything is relational.
The Emotional Alchemy Podcast
129. Manipulative Power Dynamics and their Parallels in Religion and Coaching with Gentle Business Coach Ashley Beaudin
Have you ever felt the constrictive grip of high control environments on your personal freedom and questioned where real safety is found? Gentle Business Coach Ashley Beaudin unravels her own journey through the rigid structures of a Pentecostal church and into the tumultuous world of online entrepreneurship. Together, we traverse a landscape peppered with challenges including external authority, the relentless pursuit of hustle over rest, and the complex interplay between emotional health and business success.
Navigating the treacherous waters of personal agency can be daunting, especially when external voices attempt to steer the ship. In our rich conversation, we dissect the impact of 'good girl' programming, probe the importance of listening to our body's wisdom, and embrace the art of finding balance amidst the intense pressures to overcommit. Ashley's raw narrative on the quest for self-sufficiency serves as a beacon for anyone looking to reclaim their autonomy from the clutches of external validation.
We explore the dance between power dynamics, ethical marketing, and authentic human connection. Our discussion peels back the layers of manipulative power dynamics in both religious and entrepreneurial spaces, examining how these forces can both empower and ensnare. Ashley, the Gentle Business Coach, leaves us with a refreshing perspective on forging genuine relationships in business, steering clear of manipulation, and nurturing an environment of safety and consent.
Resources:
In this episode, we reference a post that Ashley shared on Instagram. You can find that post HERE.
Ashley Beaudin helps gentle hearts create a business that feels safe, so that they can find ease, care + results in their work. She holds the heart of a coach and is known for her compassionate presence and soul-stirring voice. When she is not holding space, you can find her discovering new donuts or cold swimming in the river.
Connect with Ashley:
Kat HoSoo Lee is an Emotional Alchemy Coach, Spiritual Business Mentor and host of The Emotional Alchemy Podcast.
She loves playing in the space where science and spirituality converge because this is where we get to experience emotional alchemy. In her work, she educates space-holders about somatic physiology and environmental biology so they can deepen their practices of listening and presence which ultimately helps them expand their capacity to hold space for others.
As a Spiritual Business Mentor, she guides soulful entrepreneurs to approach their business as a spiritual practice. The work bridges the emotional landscape with practical tools which allow them to cultivate businesses that are rooted in conscious values, relational marketing and purposeful service.
This podcast is made possible with sound production by Andre Lagace.
Hello and welcome to the Empowered Curiosity Post. Oh, actually, I'm going to say that again because I've changed the name of my podcast. Here we go Hello and welcome to the Rooted Business Podcast, and today I've got a new friend on. His name is Ashley, and I've been quiet following you, ashley, for a little while, and a few months back you posted something on Instagram that just like was so juicy and it's not a concept that I am super familiar with, and so I thought you're the perfect person to have you come on and unpack this, mostly because I kind of want to learn about it myself, and so I'll just read the post out loud, real quick, just to give people context for why and where our conversation is going.
Kat HoSoo Lee:So you start out by saying often those who have been involved in high control or abusive religious settings find a home in online entrepreneurship because it mimics familiar dynamics, already Oof. And then you have this beautiful like side by side comparison of religious settings have externalized authority in church leadership. Online entrepreneurship has externalized authority and experts. Religious settings bypass your body as it's not holy. Online entrepreneurship bypasses your body as it's not valuable. Religious settings hustle to belong to the community. Online entrepreneurship hustle to be a success among your peers. Religious settings if you don't give financially, you are not devout, or devout Online entrepreneurship if you do not invest in your business, you aren't serious Religious settings, public shaming for certain sins and online entrepreneurship cancel culture for certain mistakes, and so that's what we're going to talk about today. So, thank you, thank you so much for being here.
Ashley Beaudin:Yeah, I'm honored honestly honored to be here.
Kat HoSoo Lee:So you know, in the intro folks got a chance to like get your bio, but can you give us a little bit of context for what your history is with this particular topic, what your upbringing was, because I imagine that it's. It's a lot different from mine because I grew up in in church, but not to the extent that it felt like it was really traumatizing. Yeah, yeah, give me, give me a little bit of you.
Ashley Beaudin:Yeah Well, and I think, yeah, that's, it's definitely like information that would not be in the traditional bio in. So I'm excited to you, I'm excited to have this conversation. This is something that I've been reflecting on for a long time, and I think anyone who's been interviewed I think sometimes interviews like just have this ability to like pull things out of you that have been stewing inside and so this has been definitely a journey that I've been unpacking personally, you know, specifically around like the impacts of some of the environments that I grew up in, and then, through that unpacking, was starting to see similarities in some of the, I guess, the toxicity that I had stumbled into in online entrepreneurship earlier in my journey, and so, to give a little bit of context for how I grew up in more of the religious setting, I was someone who had a lot of trauma early in life, you know, really struggled to find the sense of safety, and I could not find it in my home, and so church rescued me. Church became a place where I felt safe. It was the safest place I knew.
Ashley Beaudin:As you know, in my early teenage years Because of that, I became may have murdered and fixated, and I wanted to be there all the time.
Ashley Beaudin:I wanted to be at home, I wanted to be a church.
Ashley Beaudin:Because of that I really became swept up, I would say, in the culture and what I was learning and because there was this visceral sense of like these needs that are very real to me are not being met at home, it just became like a deeper and deeper entrenchment. And so I went to a Pentecostal church and I would say, on the spectrum of like you know, like zero control to high control, I wouldn't say it was like on the extreme end of the power and dominance over my life, but it was more, in some ways, what feels at times more dangerous is the more subtle way of submission and disconnection from myself. And so I got really swept up in that from the time I was around 14 to probably my mid-20s. There was a lot of intensity there for me and I honestly, because it was such like a safe space for me, it was like it took me a really long time to process it because I was like don't touch that, because if I figure out like that that's not safe, then what is.
Ashley Beaudin:It's gonna shake me a little bit right. So it's kind of a I mean, I think that's kind of the beautiful work of healing, of discovering that at the end of the day can you cultivate that safe place in you and the purity that I've been on. So that gives it's a little bit of history.
Kat HoSoo Lee:Yeah can I ask what shifted in that relationship between you and church where you started feeling like, oh, I do want to find that safety within myself instead of an external entity?
Ashley Beaudin:Yeah, it was a really slow process. It wasn't like a light bulb moment, let's go, and a lot of my story has to do with find, discovering ways of coping that really came into contrast with what belongs in a church, and so I've shared about this a lot publicly about it's been thrown. I've used a lot of names for it sex addiction, shutting down through sexting, all those types of things, and when you have a problem like that, when you have a problem like that, that really conflicts with the culture of the church and problem in air quotes.
Kat HoSoo Lee:Yeah, yeah.
Ashley Beaudin:So when I and then when I was like they're like trying to fix me and I'm not like getting better in like one day or two weeks or a year, I was like I need, this place isn't safe for me in the same way that it once was. And that's a little bit of a difficult thing to process, because it can feel like you, it's your fault that it's no longer safe, when in reality it's actually not your fault. It's like the burden of the system.
Kat HoSoo Lee:So one of the things that I find really refreshing about the work that you share online is and this is why I feel like there's a lot of alignment in both of our works is like somatics, nervous system, intuition lives in the body, and so what is it about the relationship to like? I kind of want to unpack that one of the pieces that you shared about. You know, the wisdom is basically cut off from your body in both the coaching industry and in religion, so can you unpack that a little bit?
Ashley Beaudin:Yeah, yeah, I. So in religion, in church context, it was there's very much the sense that I had of like so much of the authority. It does not come from me, but it comes from the pastor the pastor, the leader or the leaders and I had gone into this pattern and when I was a teenager, where I had, like, really developed a mentorship with one of the prominent pastors and I really struggled to make a decision on my own about anything, I would think about making a decision and I would have to pass everything by him, and it wasn't necessarily a thing where he was like you have to, which is that's what makes things a little bit complicated for me, but it was definitely the how it operated inside of me of like tell me, like is this okay, I don't want to make a mistake. Like tell me, if you tell me, this is the right decision. On the same notion of like if you come at me and you say you need to stop this, I would, I would do basically whatever he said.
Ashley Beaudin:Yeah, a lot of power, yeah, over me. And I felt that very reflected because when I came into the online business industry, I been worried for myself since 2015, and when I came in 2015, I really felt it prominent and like there were this elite group almost of experts that everyone followed and subscribed to you and if you just did everything they said, if you followed that plan step by step, right, you would belong or you would have success or you could be like them.
Kat HoSoo Lee:Yeah, I feel like that's how it still is.
Kat HoSoo Lee:Yeah, if you know, there's a I actually don't follow a lot of people on Instagram anymore.
Kat HoSoo Lee:I've like curated my feed to like just the people that I want to like connect with, and but before I did that, like there is a lot of this like just tell me what to do, sort of energy and and online coaches capitalizing on that, and so I can definitely see how there is that correlation in your life of you know, I just want to do the right thing and instead of looking within yourself to figure out what is the most genuine and authentic thing for you, you know, asking an elder in your church to make those decisions for you, and that's, oh my gosh, let's. I like look at my, my coaching clients now and it's like that's the opposite of what I want to do for them, because it really hits on that like I'm not enough wound, I'm not wise enough, I'm not smart enough, I'm not, you know, hustling enough, like what I like fill in the blank of whatever that is, and if you're just stepping in instead of teaching them how to listen to their bodies, you know you're you're doing them a disservice.
Ashley Beaudin:Yeah, I agree completely. I agree to that. Like I see it come up in clients all the time they're. They're like just tell me what to do, or do you think that I should do this? What do you think of this and that? That nudge, I guess, to redirect themselves can sometimes as well feel pretty scary for people. Yeah, of course, and I really understand that.
Kat HoSoo Lee:Yeah, yeah, what I'm realizing now is we're talking is, like you know, I I didn't become like super infatuated with the church, but like the themes are the same, to be honest, because, like I mean to to sort of simplify it, it's almost like, good girl, programming is what we're talking about here, and I certainly, growing up, like asked my parents to make a lot of decisions for me and they took those decisions on because they thought that that was good parenting, you know, versus like encouraging me to problem solve and look within myself and try to come up with a decision, and it's like like actually I had the opposite experience of if I made a decision that I felt really good about, they'd be like, oh, that doesn't make sense, like why would you want to do that? And so I feel like I think I came into this conversation being like, well, teach me about religion, program, religious programming, and it's like no, these are universal things that we're talking about. You know, these are absolutely universal things that we're talking about here. So, yeah, I'm curious about, I feel like I'm like you basically just like wrote the outline for our talk here in that post. So I'm like we're just gonna, we're just gonna go through each of these and like to like unpack each of them. So you know we've covered externalized authority and church leadership, bypassing your body, as it's not valuable.
Kat HoSoo Lee:I think that the little piece that I want to add there is something that I practice that you know listeners might find helpful is being really careful about giving advice. As a practitioner, I'm not gonna say like advice is never warranted, because I think that it is warranted sometimes, but for me the distinction is is this person in a regulated state? Because if I sense that there's like some nervous system dysregulation, as they're like asking for the advice, that means that they've automatically pushed that authority into me instead of themselves, and so then my role as a practitioner is to, as you were saying, like redirect and be like okay. So where's that wisdom coming from within you so that you can feel empowered to make those decisions for yourself? Yeah.
Kat HoSoo Lee:And then that's a very, very different energy from somebody who's coming to me and I feel like they've done their nervous system regulation work. They're feeling really good about. You know, I've narrowed it down to these like two things and I just genuinely like want some advice, and it's not coming from a place where, like they're like asking me to like make the decision for them. That's a very, very different energy, right, and so, like, if just like on a practical level as a coach you know sitting with like being able to read people's nervous systems, I think is really important so that you can then dole out whatever it is that they're they're asking for and looking for in a way that's actually healthy for them.
Ashley Beaudin:Yeah, I love that, and I love even the question of even posing that question to them of based on, maybe, what you're picking up on. What are you really looking for here? Yeah, sometimes I think people are looking for. People are looking for a sense of assurance or they want to trust themselves, but that feels scary. They want acknowledgement, they want to feel heard. I mean, there can be so many things. This actually reminds me. I've never connected this before, but I had years ago when I was like, really in church, I had heard someone say a lot of times, when people are asking for you to pray for them, what they're really asking for is to be heard, and I feel like we could use that in the same context here of like, when people are looking for advice, it is easier to ask for advice than it is to ask to be heard.
Kat HoSoo Lee:Yes, oh, I love that. And if we I'm like for the flip flopping between client and practitioner roles here, yeah Is like and here's a concept that I hadn't really put together as well is when a client starts being really explicit and clear about what it is that they're needing from me. I know we've like passed some sort of like threshold and portal. You know, I'm like I'm thinking of a particular client right now where, like she was really really clear about like hey, I'm asking for advice in this moment, and like I didn't have to prompt it and she even was like I feel really good about the decision that I've made, but I am just like honestly and genuinely curious about what it is that you would have done in this instance, and I love that Like.
Kat HoSoo Lee:To me it's like like that person is acting in a very, very sovereign way, in a way that's really powerful for them, and then the conversation turns from this hierarchical dynamic where I'm the expert and she is just this like lowly person who like can't make a decision for herself which obviously that's not how I think about my clients but like, and rather it ends up being like a collaborative, co, creative conversation where it's like you know, we are oftentimes, I'll say, you know, to my, my one on one clients like I'm going to step into the role of like co CEO of your business, and what that really means is like like we're really kind of like a close co CEO of your business. And what that really means is like like we're really going to be in this like dynamic, dynamic conversation about what's best for you and your business, and it's not coming from a place of like you have to do it my way and like follow my signature program, you know yeah, absolutely.
Kat HoSoo Lee:I love that. Yeah. So this next piece, hustle. Can we talk about hustle? You talk about hustle to belong in the community, in the religious setting, and you also talk about hustle to be a success among your peers in the online space.
Ashley Beaudin:So talk to me a little bit about hustle, yeah so I mean also, you know a lot of this is so like a lot of what I had described in that is from my experiences, and so my experience in church is there's often quite a demand for labor to like volunteer or serve or put the work in, and on a base level I understand it. You know, like community contribute, but when I think it's done which has often been my experience of a demand and if you don't do it, like you, there's this like sense of shame. Or you know, I've heard things from from the front of the room where it's like like if you haven't signed up to volunteer, like basically what's wrong with you or you should feel guilty because the rest of the church is like holding it and you aren't contributing. What would really drive me a little bit wild is when you have like a lead pastor who has these gigantic ideas without considering the care of those underneath him in the church and then it's like we have to do this huge thing yeah, we don't have enough people, but like we we're going to do this.
Ashley Beaudin:Then the increases that sense of pressure, increases the, the, this culture of burnout and it can be like a really difficult, honestly, I think, a really difficult space to not submit to all that, like all that pressure and all that shaming, it can run close into coercing through the culture of guilt and manipulation, honestly, yeah, and so there, I've had a lot of experiences of that and of being sort of like where you're not really like honoring your boundaries. You know you're like giving everything you have, and that's very encouraged. And so then, to compare that to online business I mean, anyone who's been in online business for like two seconds knows that there's major components of hustle that can be present, messaging around like really working for it.
Kat HoSoo Lee:Well, it's not even just like present. It's validated and encouraged in a way that, like you know, I personally found really uncomfortable when I first got into the online space. You know, like I, I think the reason why I started following you is because your handle is gentle. Business coach.
Ashley Beaudin:Yeah.
Kat HoSoo Lee:And like if that is the opposite of boss babe Right, right, and I feel like that was all that was out. There is these boss babe wannabes who really I don't know like I could see that happening in the corporate space, and it's like, you know, you basically just changed nothing and like moved it into like an online business where you're working for yourself, but now you're the dictator, not the corporation, you know. And so I almost feel like we need to have like a third column in your, in your post, where it's like what is the balanced version of this? So like, what is what is your? And recognizing that this is like an ongoing practice and relationship to like hustle and rest, like what is your version of hustle now and how is that like a changing landscape for you?
Ashley Beaudin:Well, I would say that the like, as I was reflecting on what you asked me and then what you shared, I think, and what's really sticking out to me is that in these cultures of hustle, that there is a lot of shame present, Like if you're not doing this, you're not doing enough, and so I think that that that really opens up probably my a lot of my perspective on the more balanced way which would be without shame and operating really out of you know, a connected sense or self.
Ashley Beaudin:It really you can see, like through all of these I feel like through all of these examples, like how connected they are all to one another, but that like being able to check in with myself, see where I'm at, honor my capacity, respond to what's going on in my body at that moment.
Ashley Beaudin:Something I've been thinking a lot about is because sometimes what people can say is they'll say, like general business, like so I'll do nothing. Basically it's not, it's not about never working, but it's about prioritizing your safety and care to such a level that you can work intentionally and with clarity and responding, working out of response, not to a sense of survival but to a sense of connection and enthusiasm, and that was a big thing for me being able to discern the difference between, I would say, the beginning of my business like 90% of the time I was working out of a state of urgency, survival and that was all I knew. Like that was all I knew how to do. Yeah, Now it's like being able to shift into a place of working that is responding to an internal sense of safety and enthusiasm, enjoy and delight. And I think what's interesting is like which I'm curious how you've seen this is that I end up obviously working with my clients a lot on the unit shift.
Ashley Beaudin:And then a lot of times people will say I wish, I almost wish I could be as productive as I was when I was working out of a place to survival. I'm curious if you have any thoughts on that.
Kat HoSoo Lee:Yeah. So I feel like the first thought that I had and I'll circle back to this concept of like productivity the resistance that I hear from folks as I'm like I feel like I'm pretty transparent about like let's create an intentional and slow business, let's, you know, create something that's sustainable and not a quick flash in the pan. And even though I have all that messaging out there, I still get a lot of resistance from folks when they like get into the actual work of it. And one of the fears that I hear is, if I slow down, I don't think I'm ever going to like be able to start moving again.
Kat HoSoo Lee:And to me, like that's an indication of the broken system that we live in, and also this like indoctrination of like we always have to be doing something to be productive, and so there's there's an aspect of this where, like my curiosity around a question or an inquiry like that is like how fucking burnt out are you that, like you can't consider rest as being part of a work cycle?
Kat HoSoo Lee:Wow, yeah, you know. And then we get to unpack that and there's almost this like sense of like safety that people start feeling once they give themselves permission to slow down and see that actually like with rest, you get to have like a line to action, and so the way that I like to think of it is, in the in space, in that slow space, what comes out of that space is intention, and then, with that value of intention, then your young gets to take over and do what it's really good at, which is aligned action. I think that what a lot of people end up doing is they get stuck in the action mode without really thinking about alignment and intention, and they get burnt out because they're doing 50 things when they could be doing five. Yeah.
Kat HoSoo Lee:You know, and so to me I feel like that's like a roundabout way of answering your question is like, yeah, you're probably actually going to be less productive Just in terms of, like you know, you got five things done versus 50. But those five things actually moved your business further along than the 50 things did. So like wouldn't you want that instead? And then you have time to like be a human, and for me that means like homesteading and playing with my horses, Like I want to free up as much time as I can so I can go hang out with my horses, Like I love that. Yeah, yeah.
Ashley Beaudin:Yeah, I love that. Yeah, that's a great. I love that you described that picture of like rest in the work cycle, because I think you're right that I love the way that we often think about it is not, we do not picture rest in that.
Kat HoSoo Lee:Yeah, I mentioned that, something that you teach as well. You know you can't talk about general business without talking about slowing down and resting.
Ashley Beaudin:Yeah, yeah, and I mean I think that people, like what you had said there about if I slow down, it's like there's a fear, yeah, it will all fall apart, like that's a very real fear and so often I have found to that in the slowing down there are. Also. It sort of goes against the way that we maybe have been taught but we think if we push, push, push and our capacity to create and grow, these businesses will grow. But it often shrinks.
Ashley Beaudin:Whereas when we slow down and tend to ourselves and get space, it actually allows for the expansion. It reminds me it kind of reminds me of like we are. We love to inhale in business, but we need to make room for the exhale.
Kat HoSoo Lee:Yeah, yeah, and you can't inhale without the exhale, like you know. I'm curious about, like, when you talk about not hustling, can you expand on that a little bit more? Like what happens in the slow, what happens in the like pause for you and your clients? Yeah.
Ashley Beaudin:So I think that one thing is really paying attention to. What's, in this, become important for me is really paying attention to where my nervous system is feeling, and if I am feeling like dissociative or I'm shutting down or I feel panicked or I feel like everything's urgent I have learned to give myself the gift of not working then I see this come up a lot with and I understand this in my own story of like you know, okay, you're working in your business and you're like I'm not making enough money. You know I like need to pay for things, I need to pay for rent. Or you know basic life, living things, which just gets more and more expensive as life goes on, and they're immediately because there's so much threat to safety in that like I mean, if I can't pay my rent, like am I going to lose where I'm living?
Ashley Beaudin:Like there's a very basic sense of safety that can feel threatened. So often the my nervous system will go into like either it'll go like totally up or it'll go totally down, and that I would. What would happen for me is that then I would create strategies out of those places. So I'd be like I'm going to do a sale, I'm going to do a flash sale, where I'm going to create a whole new product in like 24 hours and I'm going to sell it, and then, when people aren't buying it, like I'm going to be so mad. It's just like it becomes this like spiral, or not even spiral, but like little journey of intensity and fear and survival. And what I had found is that for me, I could implement those strategies, but it was never actually really going to work.
Ashley Beaudin:Yeah, because it was not one, it was not done out of a space of feeling connected and safe. In number two, the things that will actually move me forward, the things that will actually help me make money, the things that will actually work in my business, are often not going to be created out of that state. And so, you know, really creating like almost like a first response within me of I'm noticing that this is happening for me, it makes sense that I'm scared, like it makes sense I don't feel totally and I need to tend to that right now. And sometimes that's like, that's not like I'm going to spend months, sometimes that's like I'm going to I just go like 10 minutes, yeah, just turning inwards and tending to my sense of safety and tending to my nervous system or befriending my nervous system, and then coming back and looking at okay, how can I create a strategy to meet the very important need of mine? And out of that space, I have found that that's that's when the beautiful and effective work really happens. Yeah.
Kat HoSoo Lee:I think, as you're speaking, the word that I'm reflecting on is relationship. If I think about my business as being a relationship, then I treat it like every other relationship that I have in my life, which is it's okay to take space from the people that you love. Sometimes, you know, and to me, like that's kind of what happens in the like anti hustle landscape of business is, sometimes I take space away from my business Sometimes my husband even to like establish a relationship back to myself and from that place of reorienting my relationship of safety back to myself, then I can tend to that relationship with the business or with my husband or with my friends in a way that feels more stable. You know, like, like. The analogy that I want to make is like, imagine if he started dating out of this sense of scarcity, of like oh, my God, the clock is running down and I need to get married because I need to, like you know, create the American slash because you're in Canada, like Canadian dream of like 2.5 children and a white picket fence and all the. You know, like, like, like.
Kat HoSoo Lee:Imagine if you took that concept that so many of us validate in business, which is like hustle, so that you can have a six figure income and go live in Bali and just drink my ties all day, like, like, if we overlaid that into the dating world, that would not work, or it might work, but it there's definitely going to be some cracks in the foundations of that relationship, you know. And so then, to me, the reasons why I'm able to step away from my relationship and trust that it's going to be there is a because it I've had this business now for, you know, several years and it's been pretty consistent, and so I have that trust established with my business that, like, okay, so there's a consistency here, there's a pattern here. It's not this like I have to put in the coin to make the money come out of the casino, you know. And like that consistency is there because, like, I genuinely feel like I have a relationship with the people that I'm speaking to on Instagram or that I'm speaking to you through my newsletter, and so, if I need to take a week off of posting, like I'm not worried about, oh my God. Like are they still going to be there? It's like, yeah, they're going to be there.
Kat HoSoo Lee:Like, fuck the algorithm. I don't know anything about the algorithm, like you know, if they're meant to see my work. They're gonna see my work.
Ashley Beaudin:Yeah, yeah, I think something that's been interesting to you for me, is that which I'm not, I'm very like, I'm no expert in this but the overlay of attachment patterns in business, in the relationship that we have specifically with our business. And I grew up with a real sense of like a disorganized attachment and like sometimes your parents are great and sometimes they're not, sometimes they're there and sometimes they're really far, and I felt that a lot like when I started my business, like sometimes my business makes money, but not sometimes not. Sometimes it's consistent, sometimes it's not. Sometimes I feel connected, sometimes I feel afraid, and I think that can just be a powerful awareness tool to look at and be kind to ourselves around, what's happening?
Ashley Beaudin:slash. What do we need?
Kat HoSoo Lee:Yeah, it's something that I talk about. A lot is like. This is why I feel like business is a spiritual practice is because I thought I had worked through my anxious attachment style. You know, like I have a really secure relationship with my friends, like my husband, like, and it took a lot of work to get there. But then I got into business and I was like, oh shoot, my body remembers this feeling. This feels like really like if I messaged a client and they didn't get back to me within a couple of hours. Oh man, anxious attachment pattern right there. Or like if I got off of a connection call and I felt like we had a really good chat and they took like two or three days to get back to me. Oh, my goodness. And so here's another opportunity to like, work through those patterns that are rooted within my sense of safety and we get to play with it in a different playground other than a romantic relationship or a friendship. Here it is again.
Ashley Beaudin:So, yeah, absolutely yeah, yeah, it's a totally different context that can bring up things in a way that could not be brought up anywhere else.
Kat HoSoo Lee:Yeah, and I think that we do ourselves a disservice when we say things like, oh, there's no place for emotions in business, or you have to compartmentalize who you are in your business world and who you are in your personal life, because it's like, then, the feelings that you have in business if we just use that example of, like, anxious attachment patterns then you make those feelings wrong about you. And they're not actually wrong. It's a survival pattern that has helped you survive in the past. And so let's identify what's wrong, and so let's identify what feels threatening and then, like, take active steps to integrate that.
Ashley Beaudin:Yeah, part of me is. Sometimes it's like stop fragmenting me. I'm one whole person, and I'm one whole person no matter where I am Exactly.
Kat HoSoo Lee:Absolutely. I'm gonna look to your little thing here, because your dog you mean. Oh my God, I love it. If you do not invest in your business, you aren't serious in religion. It's if you don't give financially, you are not devout. So it's interesting that you use the word invest, because it's a word that I've been examining in my own language, because that's a very. I haven't made a decision about this and so, like full disclosure, I don't know. I don't know where I land on this yet, but it makes me wonder about when we use the word invest. Does it then encourage people to pay more than they actually feel safe? Paying.
Ashley Beaudin:Wow, yeah, yeah. You know, you totally see that.
Kat HoSoo Lee:And again, like I don't know where I land on it. I can't even remember what I have on my sales page right now, but like I'm kind of inclined to just call it like payment or this is the price, Like you know, Because the word invest I don't know it comes from like the financial world. There's like a I don't know. I'm throwing this at you because I don't know.
Ashley Beaudin:Yeah, yeah.
Kat HoSoo Lee:I pick it up Ashley.
Ashley Beaudin:Catch the ball. Well, something that I've been really thinking about, that I feel like I first learned how to do in religion, which is the types of cultures that I grew up in were very like if God tells you to do something, who cares if you have the money? Like if God tells you to do something, like do it, the money will come. Oh, which is so resonant with.
Kat HoSoo Lee:Yes.
Ashley Beaudin:The money will come with you and just and coach you or whatever. And for what happened for me, it is like that what would happen is that I would I didn't really do it when I was in religion, but then by the time I got into business I would make these financial. I would take financial risks on the belief that if I just that, because I had this good idea, or because I had this sense that I was supposed to do this thing, that it was all gonna work out, and then when I was kind of left in a mess because I never actually felt safe, to make that level, to take that level of financial risk without any security net.
Ashley Beaudin:It was like a total collapse for the scenes and the hard thing about it is that it seems like such a good story on the outside of like I had nothing. I had a dream, I gave everything I had and it kind of worked out. Yeah, yeah, and I think I've been processing that because I feel a little bit like mad inside, that, like they taught me that from the young age, it's very much not a balanced approach, it's not rooted in wisdom and it's a little bit reckless and radical to do that. But it was just like repeated over and over and over and it would just became like this is the way to do it, this is the way to respond to this sense, and I had to deal with some major fallout in my business that was incredibly difficult to deal with.
Kat HoSoo Lee:I think not that I feel like I've compartmentalized as part of myself, because I certainly do have a lot of feelings around it, but I haven't really shared that much about my grandparents, so, like I didn't grow up with a ton of like religious upbringing. I left the church when I was 16, but my grandparents are like the most devout of devout churchgoers and it's been upsetting to me watching them. They're now in their mid-70s that like, as they're sort of entering into their like elder years, their mentality is I can't take this money with me anyway and so God's gonna take care of me when I go to heaven and so I'm going to take care of him now, like through the church, and so they give so much money. It's like painful to watch and it's kind of like like maybe this is just because I'm a little bit more scientifically minded, but like blind faith, yeah, you know, yeah, like I do believe in an afterlife, I do believe that something happens to our souls.
Kat HoSoo Lee:I don't know that I necessarily believe in the Christian idea of heaven, but like there's this like blind faith of like blind faith and also conditional aspect of it.
Kat HoSoo Lee:It's like if I do this, then this is going to happen and I feel like I see that a lot in the online coaching industry of like, if you invest, then you're gonna get the fanciful promises, and then this is where it gets a little bit tricky, because I do believe in reciprocity, like, I do believe that there is a certain level of like you've got to be and again I'm going to use this word, not feeling completely comfortable with it, but like invested emotionally, energetically, financially for it to be meaningful for you.
Kat HoSoo Lee:It's got to hurt a little bit, it's got to be a little bit sticky For it to be really like and I hate that the human psyche is like this, but like at this current stage of capitalism, that's kind of what it is Is. Like, if I price my things super, super low, then I have a really high turnover rate and I have people who don't show up and value the work for what it is. I have my stuff priced very specifically because I know that for my client base, that's a little bit of a stretch. It's not so much of a stretch that they're like disassociating and like putting themselves in a state of danger, but it is a stretch, and so I'm curious, like what that's bringing up for you.
Ashley Beaudin:Yeah, I think what was coming up for me in holding those two things this pattern that we're seeing in religion and online business, and then also this even I'm just thinking of, like some of the rhythms in nature Planting and receiving I think what is sticking out to me is dynamics of power Say more, say more. And I think because in the example with religion and online business, there is always in those contexts, a person or individual who holds more power and is influencing the person and might be not even aware of all. Sometimes I think, yeah, they are, sometimes I don't know if they are, but all these ways of convincing people to give slash buy that is rooted in manipulation, shaming, overcoming objections.
Kat HoSoo Lee:God, I hate that. We could do a whole podcast episode about overcoming objections, a whole series.
Ashley Beaudin:Whereas, yeah, I don't know, like, if you are, for example, if I think of me in that church context of there, here's this person in authority that I respect telling me it is time that they're queuing the music up. The piano is getting louder, the drums are playing.
Kat HoSoo Lee:Oh, I hadn't even think about the somatic experience of it, because I was too young, right Like I didn't actually give alms Right.
Ashley Beaudin:And I mean the churches that I grew up in, because they were Pentecostal, they were very emotional. I think anyone who has the experience of being in those types of settings there is an emotional and sensory experience that holds a different kind of power. You know, like the classic. I mean I don't know if everyone listening will know what I'm saying here, but the scene of people falling over or getting slain in the spirit and quotes, that's what they normally call it. As a young person I was constantly falling over and I didn't understand, in some ways, what was happening to me. But it was described to me as like God is moving on you, he has chosen you, he's moving on you. I don't know what I totally think about all of this, but I do think that there is a level of sensory overwhelm, yeah, dissociation, submitting to you.
Ashley Beaudin:There almost feels like in my body, like this, like point of submission To you what's happening, like in the room or what's happening, because normally when you're in a setting where, like, you're about to fall over, there's someone in front of you usually someone who holds more power putting their hands on you yelling. I don't know, that could be like a lot of different things happening. Yeah.
Ashley Beaudin:I just think about all those things together. For me within that culture, how could I not have I don't know? It's like I almost like look at that and I'm like how could I truly have full consent in a lot of those settings to say what I believed or gave because I wanted to that power, volunteer because it felt good to me. It was really hard to really hard to do that and and so when I think about this conversation around money, I think when there's power present, when there's power dynamic present, when that power is not being treated intentionally or with care, yeah, I think I wanna sort of jump on this concept because there's essentially marketing.
Kat HoSoo Lee:I'm gonna bring it to the all-man coaching space. Yeah, essentially, with marketing, what we are trying to invoke is a motion toward us yeah, right. And that motion can be done in two ways. It can be done through activating the sympathetic nervous system, where we put a lot of pressure onto that individual so that they see that fleeing towards you means that you're going to rescue them from the thing that is scaring them in their life. Or you're activating an anxious attachment wound, which is a fight response right. And so then they're gonna move towards you versus and to me, that's everything that is wrong about traditional marketing practices is we are purposefully and whether people have a sense of the nervous system or not we're training people to activate people's sympathetic nervous systems by slamming on pain points, by putting yourself in as an authority, by saying the window of time that you can sign up is this much amount of time, and basically by creating a lot of scarcity and pressure.
Kat HoSoo Lee:Or the way that I like to think about marketing is like this is a relationship, and so you have a lot of space and time to think about what your decision is going to be. I'm here to tell you exactly how I can support you. I'm here to help educate you on how we can point you back towards yourself and, essentially, people can move towards you through a sense of safety instead of scarcity and if they're looking to you for safety, like to me, that is a much more obviously a much more consensual relationship, and that's what I'm hearing in the church is like. By drumming up the music and having the pastor stand right in front of you and put his hands on you, and with the yelling and the screaming and the high emotional intensity of it, it's like we're activating people's sympathetic nervous systems and, in the case of falling over, like activating it to the point that you're actually disassociating.
Ashley Beaudin:Yeah, yeah, as a child, which is the whole other thing.
Kat HoSoo Lee:Yeah, and then on top of that you get validated because God's put his hand on you right, and so then we start seeking and looking for that. Yeah, and to me, like there's like the contrast between like a dopamine inducing sort of relationship versus like a serotonin inducing relationship. You know, like that dopamine hit of like oh dang, like now everybody's eyes are on me and like that's got to feel like a rush. On another level, yeah.
Ashley Beaudin:You know, yeah, I'm the chosen one. Yeah, yeah, I have a couple thoughts. Number one is I had actually been thinking about this recently because I found myself doing it. You know, when you're in those moments you're like, why am I saying this? And I was thinking that.
Ashley Beaudin:So a big thing in the church context I grew up in was the idea of altercalls, which is, like you know, usually where the slain and the spirit thing would happen, whereas, like, someone would give a message or a sermon, then they call up musicians and then they give this like, call, like if this resonates with you, basically like, come to the front, show your participants in this your response to this. And I was thinking about it because a lot of times what they would say was language like, if you feel something happening in your heart, come forward. If you feel like your heart has just started beating really fast, that's like that's God, come forward. I was thinking about it because sometimes I and I guess maybe I don't know if I learned this in church, I don't know if it just got mirrored in business but sometimes when I would talk about programs, I would say if you feel like something in your heart is like pulling you forward, come to the front.
Kat HoSoo Lee:Basically, yeah, I feel like I have that in my language even too how interesting we're like doing altercalls Something to examine for sure.
Ashley Beaudin:Yeah, it's just an interesting notice, like where is that language coming from inside of me and why am I speaking it forward in that way? And I mean it could be totally fine, but I think it's just an interesting point of reflection, especially someone who's experienced it. Yeah, in those contexts, oh interesting.
Kat HoSoo Lee:Hey, I think the fact that you're examining it is like a reflection of like this is why we ascribe to ethical business, right yeah Is sometimes we do things without knowing and we have to examine it. We have to go and look at it again and be like, hey, does this still feel in alignment? Where did that come from? Where is that language in coming from? Right yeah, and like I will fully admit to, I did the pain marketing thing because that was all I knew, particularly when I was an acupuncturist. That's how we're taught is like basically call out people's pain and let them see you as an authority and let them know that you're going to rescue them from that pain. And so this languaging around, if you feel resonance in your heart or if you feel flutter in your heart like interesting, I'm gonna sit with that too.
Ashley Beaudin:Yeah, I think it is interesting. The other thing I was thinking about, which, I suppose, is the idea of love bombing, is a lot of times when church is trying to get people to join, there can be a lot of love bombing of like cause you're, you know, maybe you're trying to get them to convert or stay, or whatever.
Kat HoSoo Lee:Whatever? Can you define? What love bombing is Cause? I only just recently learned about this term, so there might be people out there who don't know it.
Ashley Beaudin:I'll just give you my perception of the term, which is basically like an intense outpouring of compliments, attention, praise, love, to make an individual feel really, really good. So you know, I think it's used a lot in abusive relationships, used a lot in cults.
Kat HoSoo Lee:Yeah, that's the context. I know it is in narcissistic relationships.
Ashley Beaudin:Right, yeah, I had never thought of that until recently as love bombing, but I can see how it could be very resonant at times for folks of like, like, even I think, for me.
Ashley Beaudin:I'm this like 14 year old, I don't, I'm not getting a lot of love at home and I'm suddenly in church and I'm getting all this like attention and affection and hugs and like you have purpose and you're amazing and you're loved, and I was like give me more. I just like want to eat this up. When I was around 14, I remember saying to a friend of mine that the reason that I kept going back to church was because I loved getting hugs and I didn't feel like I could get that at home but I could get so many like on a Sunday morning. And the thing about love bombing is the idea that like, yeah, eventually it's sort of like fades right and then you know it might move on to other things, sometimes not the greatest things. But I was thinking also about this idea in business of nurturing leads and depending on how someone might go about these strategies, I think I was specifically thinking about it less than a general license of like I'm nurturing leads through like.
Ashley Beaudin:I don't know doing free classes or opt-ins or downloads or podcasts or whatever, but more when people go off. You know, really pursue people.
Kat HoSoo Lee:The cold DMs.
Ashley Beaudin:Yeah, yeah, like they're in your comments, they're in your DMs, they're responding to your stories and sometimes you can feel that sense right Of like. I feel like you want me to buy from you that feels very resonant to me of you want me to come to your church, some of these like nuances and complexities. It's I just feel so like. I feel like even through our conversation, I'm like, oh my gosh, like I just feel like I'm seeing more and more yeah, yeah, relationship for me.
Kat HoSoo Lee:But, yeah, I mean, I think that the question that I have there is like, like, what is the healthy version of that? Because, yeah, I'm imagining you as a 14 year old who didn't get hugs at home and you were getting that need met at church. Yeah, you know, like, why is that such a bad thing? And you know, like, I'm imagining and we can sort of like overlay this onto the like coaching space, but like I'm imagining, in that moment you're feeling seen, heard, known, ununderstood, and so like, like, at what point does it flip over into and I don't have an answer for this like, at what point does it flip over into manipulation and coercion? Yeah, versus, like, like, if I saw a 14 year old who wasn't getting loved at home, I would want to also like have some care and consideration for that 14 year old.
Ashley Beaudin:Yeah, 100%, and I think that, like, I think that that's why I can still say that in some ways, the church really helped me and it was a safe place. Yeah, yeah, I think what I think the thing that I'll say is that, or where it gets sort of flipped is in the why. Like is it, like let's forget, like let's talk about it, like I'm talking about me as 14. Like, am I meeting this little human because I see that they're in need of care? That's one thing. I think it's another thing of I'm going to meet this young person with care so that they can become a member or they can become a next big thing. Yeah, become a really big financial donor, like whatever. Yeah, that's the difference, I think, for me.
Kat HoSoo Lee:Yeah, and I'm even thinking of like. Reflecting that back to like marketing is like are you marketing just to get people to sign up for your programs, or are you marketing with, like, a sense of like non-attachment, and by non-attachment I don't mean like I don't care, but like from a sense of like hey, like I'm putting out valuable work because I think that it's going to serve people, whether or not they sign up for my stuff or not. Yeah.
Kat HoSoo Lee:And then the financial success ends up becoming almost like a byproduct of you nurturing these relationships, versus, like you, being singularly focused on, like, getting that next client or getting that, like you know, x number of enrollments in your program. Yeah, am I hearing that correctly?
Ashley Beaudin:Yeah, it's like. It makes me think, like, are you appearing to love or believe or care for me so that you can hit a mark or you can make a sale, or do you genuinely love, care, support, believe Because you want to?
Kat HoSoo Lee:Yeah, and you can feel that too. Like, even in like a, you know, even in the virtual space, sometimes I'll get somebody who like, likes, like 10 pictures in a row and then comments on like three of them, and then I get a DM that's like, oh my gosh, I'm loving your work and you know, I'll give a very sort of like Frank reply, because already my like Spidey senses are up and then eventually the like pitch comes right. It's like, you know, I'm looking for an entrepreneur, just like you, like, so like.
Ashley Beaudin:Yeah, I think it's a really good example of what I've been trying to describe in this yeah. When it's like, like, almost like, what's the word I'm thinking of? This is not it, but like something to be conquered.
Kat HoSoo Lee:Yeah, yeah, and like to me like the reason why I think my Spidey senses come up is because it's like we don't have a relationship. Like you, liking 10 of my photos does not mean that we have a relationship, and so, yeah, that feels really icky and like it's like a thing that's taught right, yeah, it is. Yeah, I know, you know. Like that's like a strategy, like a marketing strategy that people teach. Mm-hmm no.
Ashley Beaudin:No, yeah, I think what I want to say to you is that I just feel like this conversation, between the overlap of the two Well, I feel like I say this about everything, and I'm sure you probably do to some level too of like it's just so nuanced, yeah, and our experiences are all so different no-transcript group that's been involved in my own story or anyone else's, but I think that they're something really powerful and talking about these things and giving language for reasons why, maybe focal points between uhèleANCIT I feel like it's just kind of like a sort of relevance for people why maybe folks have felt uncomfortable or unsure or that seems like a lot to me, and I hope that that is what this conversation can do for people.
Kat HoSoo Lee:Yeah, and I think that the nuance there is so important because even in your story, like, we found the nuance of like well, that's why the church was actually healthy for me. Yeah, you know, like you haven't thrown out the baby with the bathwater and you know have said like, oh my gosh, like I was completely abused in the church.
Kat HoSoo Lee:It's like no there was actually love and care there that I wasn't getting at home, and so, like we can look at this with like a neutral lens, so that we can make decisions that feel the most aligned for us at the time, you know, knowing that we are constantly evolving, constantly learning, constantly practicing human beings, and we might make a different decision six months from now, a year from now, right.
Ashley Beaudin:Yeah yeah, holding space for whatever's present at the time. Yeah, yeah.
Kat HoSoo Lee:Is there anything else that you feel like you want to land in with before we close up for today?
Ashley Beaudin:I think I just want to say that if there's anyone listening that feels a resonance specifically with some of the overlap whether that's in a small way or a really big way that what I would deeply encourage is to find, even if it's like the smallest sense of safety within you, and also that you're not alone in these experiences and these overlaps and also like it makes sense that online business would feel safe if that has been, some of these like anchors or criteria almost have been present in other settings and also that you deserve an experience of business that it genuinely and truly feels safe and kind and connected and gentle.
Ashley Beaudin:And I think I speak for both of us when I say we wrote and desire that for you.
Kat HoSoo Lee:I love that. Well, thank you so much for spending your afternoon with me. I'm really excited to share this with me. People, I'll have all of your links and stuff in the show notes, but if people wanted to just find you and follow you on Instagram from this conversation, instagram handle, website, all those pieces, what are your addresses? Yeah, that's great. Yeah, do you want to say them out loud here so that? So that people can just go find you, oh, yeah, I guess they want to know?
Ashley Beaudin:Yeah, they might want to know. Gentle Business Coach on Instagram. Gentle Business Coachcom is my website.
Kat HoSoo Lee:Perfect, alrighty. Well, thank you so much for being here, ashley. Thanks for having me. Yeah. Yay.