Embracing Authenticity and Spirituality with Ashley Abramson

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Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Meaningful Revolution podcast. I'm your host, Shawn Butner, and in today's episode, I really love how authentic the guest is. And this is a little bit of a departure from the normal things we talk about on the Meaningful Revolution because sometimes when you run a podcast, you meet interesting people and have good conversations, and you do a lot of work on trying to figure out how it fits into your thing. And I spent a lot of time with this episode in particular trying to put it into the format of the Meaningful Revolution. Well, today's guest talks about how her Meaningful Revolution would be the Jesus Revolution Reloaded, which is a play off of the Matrix Reloaded movie, which is kind of fun. And what made this conversations so intriguing is one, Ashley's authenticity and her curiosity about how spirituality works. And we cover a lot of different things and the things to look out for or listen for in this episode as you're driving in your car or working out or going about your day, is to think about how she talks a lot about the ego belief system and how our ego is getting in the way of our happiness. We talk about personal development a lot of the times, focusing on the negative and not the positive, and we should really be amplifying the positive things out in the world. I thought it was a fascinating conversation in that regard, and I also struggled with trying to make it compelling for you. This is a little bit more editing on my end to try to group into different topics that I'll introduce and try this new format out. But overall, sometimes you have a really great conversation again and try to figure out how to put it into your thing. And I think I landed it. We'll let you be the judge of it. In any case, it'll be a very interesting conversation about spirituality and ego. And also, this is not a topic where we're talking about religion. So Ashley will use symbology and stories from religion, and that's fine. And these are her beliefs also. It's my job to just be curious and make sure we had a good conversation. And so whatever your religious affiliation or beliefs, I hope you approach this with an open mind. And I hope you take something away from this that is practical and that is to get out of your own way sometimes and to connect more with your true, bright self. So with that, I enjoy the episode. In this little bit, we talk about why a lot of personal development is focused on the negative parts of people and the importance of amplifying the positive parts. So let's get started here with Ashley.

I'm a firm believer that this is a projection from the mind and we have gotten ourselves into this mess and the only way out is to get back into the right minded thinking and to remember that we're actually not here. So I really feel that my message is all about that Jesus revolution reloaded and going back to what Jesus really tried to represent for us, which was to identify with the resurrection. I think so often we identify with the crucifixion and think we're sinners and we're awful people and we deserve to suffer and be in the darkness. And in my decades of personal work and work with others, I found that's not the case. You don't need to be in the darkness when darkness doesn't exist in the light. So when we say there's a question of can you find light by analyzing the darkness? And for some reason today the movement of a lot of personal development is going into the darkness to look for the light. But reality is if I go shut the light off in my bedroom right now and it's dark, I'm not gonna find any light because light does not exist in darkness. So it's really about standing in the light, clearing away all of the noise to hear your truth within and getting your journey outta here.

Could you describe a time before you had this idea of th, this revolution focusing more on the resurrection? Like maybe a time when you were more focused on that darker part? And how did you go go from there to where you are now?

Oh, geez. I would say the majority of my years of transformation and personal development have been intentionally going into the darkness, intentionally sitting in it, intentionally provoking it, revisiting it. And it is miserable. It is an awful place to sit for a period of time. And then I started to be like, there's gotta be another way like it. Why should we have to suffer to become amazing? It just, it didn't make sense, like as much. I've done so many different journeys in my lifetime as far as personal development and spirituality and human design and all of that. I sought out my answers everywhere, but every time I would do them, I was all in. I'm always an all in girl. It's like, why half foot in, let's really experience this and see if this works. And every time I would go all in, I would still feel this sense of longing and unfulfilledness that this just doesn't make sense. And ever since I was a little girl, I was very curious. Most children ask lots of questions, but I continue that and was Always told you ask too many questions, you ask too many questions. And I locked that up for a period of my life. And when I found my way back to that is when I found my way to truth. Like, taking things at face value, I think right now, as much as we believe that we are moving in this higher level consciousness, we have moved more into the ego than we ever have. And we're really sitting in a place of believing that creating a better illusion is the answer. When in fact, if you really sat back and thought about it, and I would love. If anyone's listening and they're like, ashley, you're crazy. I love constructive conversation. So by no means am I not open to other people's ideas, but if you really sat there and you're like, okay, so I'm here for whatever, 80 years on average, I think is the average lifespan in that time. I make a lot of money, I make a lot of friends, I fall in love, I get heartbreaks, I go through a lot of things, and then what, right? There has to be a bigger purpose. Otherwise it's just 80 years and then you're done. There has to be a better reason for why we're here. And at one point, I went down the venture of conversations with God where I am a piece of God, and he wanted to experience duality. And duality is a solution. For every good, there is a bad. For every dark, there is a light. We're in this dualistic, constant roller coaster. And I. That just doesn't resonate. Like, why would you want to experience such pain and heartache and misery? If anybody in this illusion right now had the option to never experience pain again, I'm sure they would. I don't think I would know anyone who actually truly would be like, no, I love the pain. Unless there is something else going on, right? Some sort of trauma that actually they correlate pain with pleasure, which is super easy to do, hence BDSM and different things like that, where people have decided that pain is pleasure. But I've gone off tangent. But the majority of my transformative time was in the darkness. And it was always like going against the river, right? Going against the current. It was painful. It took time out of my life. It made it feel like time took forever, right? When you're sitting in that dark, it's, oh, my gosh. And then when I started to realize that, no, it's about me standing in the light. Because when I'm in the light and darkness comes forward, right? Because we have traumas, we have things from our childhood. And they do get brought up, but you don't place weight on it. Because when you don't place weight, your light dispels the dark. Right. So it's if I went into that bedroom that the lights off and I have a flashlight, all of a sudden there's light.

One of the things that came up quite a bit was this idea of the ego belief system. So I asked Ashley to define it. So you keep mentioning this phrase, the ego belief system. I want to dig into that a little bit more just so the audience is on the same page with terminology. Because if you study any type of psychology there, you could have a couple of different meanings to that. So let's just get that cleared up if you're game.

Yeah. So at the simplest form, the ego belief system is coming from a place of duality, right? Acknowledging everything in this illusion. So everything in this illusion is created by the ego belief system. It is that place. It represents fear, it represents sacrifice, it represents separation. So anything that you see that was created for separation was created by the ego belief system. And anytime you feel fear, anger, sadness, anything but love, you are in the ego belief system. So the ego growing up, I remember there was always those cartoons with the devil on one angel or devil on one shoulder, the angel on the other. It's like that. It's like you have the ego belief system on one shoulder, which is the really negative I want you to suffer, and the crucified Jesus. And then on the other side, you have your highest self or the Holy spirit, some people refer to it as. And that's pure oneness and love, the one that knows truth, that is truth, and will not fight for your attention. The ego belief system is constantly trying to distract you with shiny objects so that you don't remember your truth, right? Because our truth is innate to us. So it's actually the easiest place to be, which is super interesting. And for my journey, at first it's so the truth shall set you free, but first it will piss you the off. And it is so true. At first, when you start to untie yourself from the ego, it is very frustrating and it feels so hard. But once you start to see it, you realize how simple it actually is, right? Easy. But it's simple because that's your innate state, right? So innately, that's how you want to operate. But the problem is you have all you've been in society, right? And so society has taught you all these things. You've operated in this ego illusion. So that feels like your first nature. But in, in fact it's not. So yeah, that's really what the ego belief system is anytime. And that's where darkness is too, right? Ego belief system. So when you're sitting in the darkness thinking you're gonna heal, you're never gonna heal by sitting in the darkness. I promise that you that maybe you do end up healing. But I can tell you it wasn't a result of sitting in the darkness. It was your decision at the level of the mind to heal.

In everyone's journey to find meaning, there's usually one moment where they make a decision to act. It's that point when you encounter a poor product or a piece of music or something else in your life that you love and you decide that you can do it better and you go about creating better. It's that point in your life when you look around and wonder, how did I get here? How did my life get so boring or stressful or just not how you imagined? And so you decide it's time to figure out how to change that. Or it's that feeling that you could, could be working on something that's more fulfilling, more in service to others and more exciting. And so you decide it's time to figure out how to have more of that in your life. And in each of these scenarios, there's this call to adventure, a call from your heart to change and the decision to act. So I'm Sean Butner and I help people heed their call from their hearts to change. As a certified high performance coach, I guide people through a science based process to help them live their life more aligned to their aspirations and dreams. And maybe that's you. And if it is, maybe your time is now to work with the coach to help you follow your call to adventure. So if so, you can apply for a free one hour strategy session with me at www.seanbutner.com coaching or check the link below in the comments. In there we will spend one hour building your high performance plan. We'll talk about what your call to adventure is. That decision that you've made or want to make and then the plan to make it happen and realize it. And so I've helped people start businesses. I've helped people change careers. I've helped people change how they feel about their lives through this process called high performance coaching. I know it can help you. I love coaching. I love the people that I'm able to serve with it and I hope that's you. So check that link below. Wherever you're listening to or watching this episode of the Meaningful Revolution podcast. Enjoy the rest of the episode.

There is stuff that mindset work can mask. It's like a band aid. It's beautiful icing on the cake. But if you have not built the cake, that icing will not last in the storm. And that is what I experienced. And I self destructed for close to a year and then was faced with some consequences at work that actually saved my life. And a woman held out hope for me when I had no hope for myself. And it wasn't even. She didn't even hold out hope for the Ashley that was married. She held out hope for the little girl I had locked up so, so long ago. The vibrant love for life. Curious isn't going to settle with just any answer until she feels it's true. That girl. And so I found my journey back to that. And then that's when I began to build my business and really come from a place of spirit and purpose. And then I got wrapped up in a business program that was going to teach you how to make $10,000 in 30 days. And that was their focus. Their focus was money. We at the Mastermind retreats, we talked about some really great deep stuff, don't get me wrong, but there was a lot of talk about how to purchase an airplane and have it tax wrote off and how to buy a G wagon and let's fly first class and it was very shiny objects and that's never been me. But I super easily get pulled into that, back into that ego belief system of things mattering. And I went from making a crap ton of money in my business and pretty much overnight I was making $0. But the problem was I was spending way more than I was making. And I had a really deep realization there that I couldn't keep going back and forth between the ego and the spirit. And I needed to find my way fully in spirit, fully on purpose. And I did. And things have just aligned beautifully. I did things like I readjusted my prices, all that stuff to really get my ego belief system in check. And then that began really the even deeper level of journey of understanding that I'm not meant to suffer. I'm here to identify with the resurrected Jesus and I'm here to help others see that as well and help others find their way home. And it's not even find your way home, it's remember, you're never left home.

All right, in this section we're talking about her program Big Miracle Energy and the Unicorn Effect, which is really great and we wrap up for the end. We have some questions about your brand, Big Miracle Energy. Could you explain what that is? And I know you have this thing called the Unicorn Effect. Maybe go into that a little bit, please.

Yeah. So I'll start with the Unicorn Effect because that was born first. And so the Unicorn Effect method is really the one on one work I do with individuals to clear out the noise, the societal conditioning, trauma, everything else, so they can hear their truth with it. That is a big thing with what I believe to be truth is what I believe to be truth. I'm not here to evangelize. I'm not here to push my truth on others. My true goal is to clear out everybody else's noise so that they can hear whatever their truth is. I don't care. Because there is thousands of ways to get home, right? I just have found my journey through a course in miracles, and that is my journey back home. But that is really the Unicorn Effect method. And the Unicorn Effect is just like the butterfly effect, right? A butterfly can flap its wings halfway around the world and cause a tsunami when you are standing in your truth. So remembering you are the light, right? If we go back to what you just talked about, standing in the light that you remember you truly are, and you go and interact with others, your brother, and you see the light in them, that one person can turn into 7 billion very quickly. So that's the whole Unicorn effect. And then big miracle energy is a play on. A play on big dick energy, actually. I'll just be honest, right? It was born from there, but essentially it's the reminder that miracles are innate to us. Miracle. A miracle occurs when you are coming from your highest self or the Holy Spirit's belief system. That is a miracle. So even though there is no level of hierarchy, big or small, it's like a fun play. Like big miracle energy. And also energy doesn't exist where miracles do. So that's another play. But it's really a community. It's a. A place and a community and a movement, right, that sparked the Jesus revolution Reloaded. And it's where we can get curious. It's a place free of judgment, where you can ask questions. You can really begin to explore things that aren't mainstream, things that aren't the current fact, but really just get honest with yourself, with other people, and hold each other accountable in the form of just being there. It's a place to walk each other home. And so from that I've built a Patreon Channel and Discord community that Goes with that. I have a YouTube channel, and it's really a place where I share my truth. But then we have the opportunity for other members to share their truth. And then the Discord community, where we hold one another accountable and have conversations. Yeah, that's really what the Unicorn Effect and Big Miracle energy are.

Yeah, totally. I love where the origin of Big Miracle that is. It's hilarious to me. So something I'm noticing is a theme through everything we talked about is this ability in order to shine your light. Right. To be the light, but really just let the light shine from you is the. This withholding judgment. Right. And it's a tricky thing for many human beings. I think everyone has had that moment where, you know, you cast judgment. How do you approach withholding judgment in those moments when maybe you call it, your ego is trying to make that happen? And we're living right now.

Yeah. So I talk a lot about intentional living and awareness. So I'm. And I know there's a lot of people in the coaching industry that just say things, but they don't do it. When you meet Ashley, like, what you see is what you get. Everything I encourage others to do, I'm doing times a million within my own head, within my own life. So I am literally constantly checking my. What I say, check myself before I wreck myself. So when I feel that urge. And the other thing is giving yourself grace in the process. Right. Because if you beat yourself up, you're putting weight again. So it's finding that middle ground of bringing awareness. Doing what I call is a catch and release. Right. Something is coming in, you see it, you're like, okay, whatever. Nope, out, release. But it's more what I call an invitation. When that ego comes up, maybe I'll apologize or something. But even that is taking ownership at a level that places judgment. And that's another conversation for another day. Cause that's much deeper level. But it's. Oh, shit, what was I projecting? What is going on inside Ashley that she still has not forgiven at the level of the mind that I just projected out on you? So it's an opportunity. That's really what I tell people is like literally everything you do is a projection of what's going on inside. So you want to get to know yourself, start seeing how you interact with others, how you interact with the things around you. Because that's really how you're interacting with yourself. Because if I judge you, I have first judged myself. And that is so true. I think it's a Bible phrase. And I wanted to tell your listeners and you as well, Sean, when I use words such as Holy Spirit, God, Jesus, I am not coming from a religion place. I'm not coming from Christianity. I am coming from what these symbols I believe were meant to represent before man came in and fucked them up.

Yeah.

Because many times we have so many stories. My, myself, personally, I've had stories to work through before I could actually Jesus's name without being like church for myself. We've all, many of us have been hurt by the church or things like that. But when I say that I am coming from a non religious place, I'm just coming from my relationship with what I believe to be the higher power and what I believe those words symbolized and they're just words, Right? The F word, fuck, that's just a word. It only means something if you put a story behind it. So I think I went off on the tangent there and can't really bring myself back.

That's fine. We're talking about withholding judgment and talked about checking yourself, giving yourself grace, this catch and release.

Yeah.

And asking yourself what you're projecting.

Yeah. So the more you do that, right. The more awareness you bring, the more catch and release as you do, the less it occurs. So it's not like you. And I think that's a big misnomer in the personal development world is we're like, don't judge, judge. You're judging yourself. But it's, oh, that's great, don't judge. But there is a shit ton of work before you can get to that place. And that's what we're missing. Right. It's not saying affirmations in the mirror. It's not manifesting the life of your dreams. This is some deep awareness of who, who you truly are. And for most people that's really freaking uncomfortable. Right. And I'm not talking about awareness of Sean today who has all of these beliefs that were based on society and everything else. I'm talking about unpacking all of that and remembering the Sean that was like a month old before anybody started to fuck him up. Right. I'm talking about you at your peerest state, which I say this a lot. We are not afraid of the darkness. We love the darkness. What we are afraid of is our light. We are afraid of the power that is contained in our innate state, which is light. I'm talking about figuring out who you are in the light, figuring out what that light is. And we are scared to death of that. And a lot of people who would say no we're not. Unless they've done some deep work of untying the ego, then they're not really. They're in another ego created light because the ego wants to keep you here in this illusion because it's created for the ego. So it literally has its own forms of love and forgiveness and light and all that. Otherwise we'd. We'd all figure it out real quick if there wasn't something else. So there's lots of false idols out there.

So the question is if someone is at that point in their life where they're like, there has to be a different way, right. They're ready for the change. They're ready for their personal journey on the course of miracles, whether that's with the program or just the metaphor for their journey. Right. And the first step is to become more aware. Is there a set of habits or something you're going to be doing for a long period of time or the rest of your life to help you get clear? Because becoming aware of your ego is a big kind of nebulous thing. What is something that somebody could start doing to start that journey, start their path towards finding their true naked self?

Yeah. So the first piece is asking where I started was like, why do I do the things I do? And even starting with the simplest question, questions of do you wear your shoes in the house or not? Let's say you do. Why? Why do I wear my shoes in the house? And then you start to understand, oh, because it's always been that way. My mom wore their shoes in the house. My grandma wore her shoes in the house. Then you start to see how many things you are doing just because. Right. So it's super small and simple, but it begins that journey of awareness. That's not. I don't want to immediately take you to, like, why did I talk crap to my sister? Like, that's going deep quick. But instead the surface level. And one example for me, like I said, I always eat my own dog food. That was really eye opening for me was when I was moving to Florida, mind you, I really brought lots of awareness in my life and literally was unpacking 24 7, which I'm not sure is fully healthy, but it worked for me. And I was gonna buy a brand new car and I. I never wanted a white car. I always had silver cars growing up. And I just. White didn't seem like a thing, but I didn't know why. And I called my mom and I was looking at a silver RAV4 and I was like, mom, I'm thinking of getting a new car. She goes, oh, you better not get a white car. And I said, what? And she goes, yeah, white cars are awful. And I was like, oh my gosh, this is not my story. So bet your ass. I bought a white RAV4 and I absolutely love it. But I had to see for myself. Once I realized it wasn't my story, I had to then take a step and test the waters to see if in fact, I want my story to be I don't like white cars or I don't. And yes, many listeners might be like, this is stupid. White car or not doesn't matter. It doesn't impact your life. But I am a firm believer how you do one thing is how you do everything. So if you are starting with those minute don't matter things, it's going to start to pour over into the more important things because you are, you're a high performance habit coach, right? So a high performance coach, it becomes habit, it becomes second nature. It's essentially like habit stacking in a way because you're adding it to something small you do anyway, which is a small decision, but you're asking yourself one question deeper, right? One thing deeper, and you'll just start to become more and more aware and then that'll spark your curiosity. And actually what it does is it sparks that inner child in you. You truly are a child at the core and that is the place you want to get back to. That is actually the untying of the ego is coming back to that place of childlike innocence, curiosity and wonder. So you are unintentionally sparking that by just asking silly little questions and beginning to understand yourself.

Oh, I, I love that question. How you do things or why things are, are the way they are. And my experience and with working with folks, when you're able to do that, you start to have a little bit more flex how you approach the world. And I feel like we are all descendants of rigid thinking and habits, right? And a lot of it we just inherit, like you said, we just, oh, this is just the way it was. I think of the, the turkey metaphor. Have you ever heard this where a new family invites their parents and great and grandparents over for Thanksgiving dinner and they're have this big oven and they get the turkey and they shave off the ends and they, they put the turkey in and then the person who's cooking dinner is like, why am I shaving off the ends? And she asks, or they ask their mom and mom's, you know, What? That's just how Grandma did, right? And she shaved out the ends and then just gets curious and then asks Grandma. Grandma's, oh, we had a small oven. We had to shave the turkey for the turkey to actually fit in the oven so we could cook it, and that's why we did it. And then it's kind of like, oh, like I inherited this generational habit from a constraint that no longer exists.

And then the other piece that unlocks for you, Sean, is an understanding that I choose literally everything I do, right? Everything is a choice. Like when I. My grandma always told me there are two things certain in life, death and taxes. Taxes, you don't have to pay them. If you make the choice not to pay them, there's an outcome, right, that you are choosing because you don't want to experience that outcome. And to be honest with you, this journey I am on, I've debunked her other thing. There is not death, right? When you get to the place of enlightenment is the place of ending the cycle of birth and death and realizing your eternal being. But so anyway, if I wouldn't have asked questions, I would have never realized that I could debunk my grandma's myths. And that goes with so many things. So when you feel like we have to cut the ends of the turkey off because Grandma did it, if they wouldn't have got curious and asked more and more questions, they never would have found out. No, we don't. We've got a bigger oven. Like, we've got so much more room for more turkey. And the turkey doesn't have to sacrifice its head and legs or whatever got cut off.

Okay, one more question I have for you before we wrap up. It's. Could you share something on the podcast here that you haven't shared in any of your other podcast interviews or other media or anything?

I don't think I've talked about this. So my boyfriend and I plan to sail the world and. Cool. We are going to have a YouTube channel. I believe it's going to call Fifth Dimension, or be called Fifth Dimension Sailing. And that's another play, right? Because everybody thinks we got to get to a different dimension, when in fact there isn't. But so we, because of our way of thinking and understanding the world, they call television programming, right? Because they are literally programming you. They're literally telling you, Sean, like, you turn this on, and programming you. So we see our YouTube channel because of the way we think and how much we've deprogrammed ourselves as, like, a deprogramming channel. Right. So when you're watching a sale, because everybody wants to live vicariously through everyone else. Right. Essentially, you can't help but hear the way we talk about things. You can't hear help but hear the way we unpack our own life and own scenarios. That channel is going to be an opportunity to deprogram people through fun, crazy activities. And the fact of the matter too is, like you said, it humanizes me. We are the most silly individuals you will ever meet. We make some of the raunchiest joke. We are not what you think someone who is on the path to enlightenment is. But the cool thing is when you're on this path, you realize how much nothing matters. So it allows you to even be more free and goofy and make fun of things that usually would maybe be offensive or taboo. But yeah. So that I don't think I've ever shared. And I've been on probably 40 podcasts the last year and a half, so I don't think I've ever fully outed that. That's hopefully within the next year.

Awesome. It sounds like that'll be a lot of fun. And I'm all for people deprogramming and living their fullest Prius life, which is. It sounds like that's what that's going to be touching at least a little bit. Ashley, it's been great having you on the podcast. How can the great folks follow up with you if they'd like to, after listening to our conversation?

Yeah. First of all, thank you, Sean, for having me and being just so open. That's the beauty, I think, of some podcasts, and especially yours, is that you're open to hearing even if you don't align with those thoughts. And you, you're gracious and you provide a place free of judgment. So I want to say thank you for that because so many people have agendas these day, these days. But if you want to get in touch with me, Big Miracle Energy.com Big Miracle Energy YouTube Big Miracle Energy Patreon or I'm Ash Underscore Abramson on Instagram. And like I said before, I love conversation. I love constructive, positive judgment, free, respectful conversations. So please hit me up if this feels like you are at that wall and you're like, there's got to be a different way. I would encourage you to check out the YouTube channel and even the Patreon channel that has a seven day free trial. And there is, I think, close, oh gosh, we're probably close to 20 hours now of content on there and they're in nice little bite sized segments. I think the videos on average are about 12 minutes. So the feedback I've received is it's super easy to consume and then there's a discord that goes with it. But yeah, I would love, love, love to hear from you.

All right, I'll have all that in the show Notes. Again, thank you for an interesting and exciting conversation. Ashley and I will see you guys on the next episode of the Meaningful Revolution podcast.

Ra.