Hello, welcome to or welcome back to Try Not To Care.
If you're new here, my name is Ashley.
I upload every single Monday and we just sit down and we chat and I give you advice and I talk about anything and everything that's on my mind and it's a good time.
I like to call this podcast, My Diary, just for the whole world to listen to.
So we love that here.
If you don't know, which if you listen to this podcast, you already know because I I never stopped talking about this, but when I first started my podcast in 2022, I've been doing this podcast since 2022.
That's crazy. When I first started in January of 2022, I had zero expectations.
I did not know that podcasting could be a career.
I didn't know I could make money off of it.
I obviously had dreams of it being big and blowing up and doing this full time, but I just didn't think it was something that was achievable for me and I also just didn't know how podcasting worked from January until July I didn't really have an audience like no one listened to my podcast which was fine
and then in August I started posting on TikTok about it and that's where things really started to pick up and that's where I developed my audience and when that happened networks started reaching out to me being like hey do you have management do you have a network do you want to get on a call with us
and that's where I realized like oh I can make money off of this like that's sick because I had quit my job to pursue this I didn't really have a plan I just had a dream and that's really all it was like I was doing DoorDash and selling my clothes and I was doing little side hustles on social media but I
wasn't really making money so to hear that I could make money off this thing that I had been doing for months for fun and that I loved so much and I was trying to help people was crazy.
So when networks started reaching out to me, I was doing my research.
And then also there were podcasts that I was listening to, and I was a fan of, and I was a huge fan of this one specific network.
And in the back of my head, I was like, there's no way in hell they would ever want to bring me on and work with me.
I'm and it didn't happen right away, but I just put this network on such a high pedestal and I thought that only the best of the best could be with this network.
So, when I was given the opportunity to work with this network and they had reached out interested about trying to care, I thought it was like a no -brainer.
I was like, oh absolutely, like I need to work with them.
Like it's just gonna validate everything for me and people are actually going to value my podcast and take me seriously now because I'm with this network and I just got so ahead of myself and I really did let my ego win I wasn't thinking logically I wasn't thinking about what was actually best for me
and what was best for my audience I was thinking what is going to look the best to other people like my ego just definitely was driving that whole situation and I thought that it was just going to be the best thing for me and it actually ended up being the worst possible thing for me in 2024.
I'm not going to talk much about it right now but I struggled a lot behind the scenes with that network and with my podcast all of 2024.
It was a really really hard year for me and I got the option to renew my contract with that network and there was still part of me even though I struggled so much that was like if I don't renew is that going to look bad for me are people going to think that I'm a failure I thought like having my podcast
and my name attached to a big network could bring in so many potential opportunities for me and if I were to walk away from this network then I would be losing out on all of that and I was just trying to convince myself like no maybe it's not that bad like maybe you should just stay with them but after talking
to people in my life and just like being real with myself I was like if I stay in this situation that's not making me happy I'm just going to prolong my suffering and my discomfort and things aren't going to get better.
It was definitely a very difficult decision for me but I'm so proud of myself for making the decision to leave and do what's best for me.
But when I look back at other decisions in my life, I kind of have to acknowledge that there is this pattern of me doing that, of me knowing that I'm unhappy and things aren't working out.
But I stay in that situation.
I don't change the situation because I am scared or I'm anxious or I'm like afraid of the unknown.
And I stay doing these things that make me so unhappy and make me so uncomfortable and I just make my life so much harder like so much harder than it needs to be.
So today I want to talk about holding on to things that no longer serve you and what happens when you hold on to these things that aren't meant for you.
So with that being said let's get into today's episode.
The idea that I want to talk about in today's episode is let go or be dragged and what that means is if something is no longer serving you if it's not working out for you if it's causing you pain if you feel like you're not aligned with where you want to be in life you need to let it go because it's
going to cause you more harm than good the longer that you hold on to this thing the more uncomfortable you're going to feel the more shitty you're going to feel you're going to feel weighed down and it's just going to make your life so much harder this thing could be a relationship a friendship your
job a toxic situation it could even be your belief system and just like your mindset overall if you want to live the life that you want to live you need to let go of this thing that's holding you down otherwise you're never going to achieve it it's never going to be the way that you actually want it
to be your choice is to allow things to stay the same and be unhappy or make a change regardless of how uncomfortable it is and go after the life that you want to live the choice is to let go and move on or continue to be weighed down by something that's no longer serving you all because it's predictable.
A lot of the time we stay in these really shitty situations, shitty relationships and friendships and jobs because we're so afraid of the unknown.
We're so afraid of not knowing what's going to happen next.
And I mean anything new is scary.
Anything that you've never done before is going to be scary because it's unpredictable and you've never done it and that's normal but a lot of us stay in these situations because we're like okay I know I'm unhappy I know I don't want to be doing this but if I go ahead and try this new thing and it doesn't
work out what if I regret it what if I make my life even worse what if I make the wrong decision and of course there's also that thought in your mind of like okay well what if it does work out what if the best thing ever happens and my life changes for the better and everything works out although that's
a really great thought to have and that's all you could hope for there's still that thought of like okay but what if that doesn't happen like what if things get even worse like what if my situation gets worse than it is right now the idea of that happen can make us stay in these terrible situations
because we're like okay yeah right now I'm not happy but I can tolerate it and I would rather know how my life is right now even though it's crappy than not know what's going to happen next and maybe mess up my life even more.
If you've listened to the podcast you've heard the story a million times you're probably like grandpa we've heard this story get a new story like we don't have to hear anymore some people haven't heard it yet okay so before starting my podcast I worked in an elementary school working with children with behavioral
needs and disabilities.
And I did like my job.
I loved working with children, but I just knew it wasn't what I personally was supposed to be doing.
It was also a very hard job and I felt so burnt out at the end of the day.
It gave me a lot of anxiety and I also just wasn't getting paid well and I just didn't want to be there anymore.
anymore and I would dread going to work every single day and I would cry on my way to work.
I would cry at work.
I would cry on my way home.
I would cry at my house and I think everyone in my life, even my co -workers, even my boss knew that I hated my life and I hated my job and I did not want to be there and this went on for a while and I had so many discussions with my boss and with my co -workers being like, I'm gonna quit.
You know, I'm gonna do it.
This is my last straw.
I'm gonna quit tomorrow you're not gonna even see me and they'd be like well can you like put in your two weeks and I'd be like yeah and then I just I never would because it was just such a scary idea to do because I knew that I didn't have a backup plan I knew that if I quit I would have to get another
job and I didn't know what I wanted to do I mean I have a degree in psychology and I think any college degree is wonderful but you are kind of limited with what you can do with a psychology degree and I was like I don't know like if I quit this job do I really want to get a similar job or like am I
gonna have to go back to working at Subway like I just didn't know and one day I was driving to work and I kind of realized like I'm never gonna have a plan I'm never going to be able to like save up and have money to coast on for a couple months when I quit But like nothing's really going to change.
So it's like I either quit now and I have no plan or I quit in two years and I have no plan or I stay here for the rest of my life.
And that sounds awful.
And I'm not recommending that you do this.
I think what I did was kind of really irresponsible.
And I was so lucky to have someone like my now fiance who is able to take over rent and other bills if I wasn't able to make them that month.
but anyways I just came to a point where I was like okay it's never going to be easy I'm never going to wake up one day and be like I'm ready to quit my job it's going to be easy peasy I knew it was going to be a hard decision and it took me like two years to do this to pull the trigger and be like
okay yeah I quit but I finally did it and after I did it I was able to pursue everything that I wanted to pursue and make this podcast work and here I am now and the thing is I wouldn't be where I am right now if I didn't make that hard decision to change my life and to quit my job the decision wasn't
easy it was really hard and I was really uncomfortable I remember the last day when I quit and I like went home I was laying in bed I just broke down crying because I was so happy that I was done but I was so scared of what was going to happen next but I knew that that was what had to happen and I'm
so grateful that it happened but making changes isn't going to be comfortable but living a life that you hate is also not going to be comfortable.
Another experience of mine that I struggled with was having guests on this podcast.
If you listen to my guest episode with Natasha Dreamseer, we talked about dream interpretation.
I briefly mentioned to her like, you are my first guest.
And this is a huge milestone for me because I've been so scared to have guests on.
And the reason I was so afraid of that is because I've always been a solo podcast.
I am kind of a control freak in the sense of like, with my podcast, I have full creative control.
I plan it, I record it, I edit it.
I get to decide what you hear.
I get to decide what people see when I post my podcast clips, right?
So this idea that if I have a guest on, it means I don't have as much control.
Obviously, I can still edit it the way that I want it to be.
But when you're having a conversation with someone, it's two people, right?
So it's like, I was just afraid that I would say the wrong thing or I wouldn't be as impressive or I would be let down and my guest wouldn't feel comfortable or they wouldn't have a good time or the listeners wouldn't enjoy that kind of podcast episode.
And I was just so afraid of doing that.
But I knew it was something that eventually I would have to do and something that I also wanted to do.
I think having those kind of conversations is so important.
And I just got to that point again of like, okay, it's never going to be easy.
I'm not going to wake up one day and be like, okay, it's time, I feel good, I can do this.
It's always going to be uncomfortable because it's new.
It's not going to be predictable because it's new.
I've never done it and that's just how new things are and there's nothing that you can do about it other than stay the same or change and grow the longer that you stay in these kind of situations that make you so unhappy that make you so uncomfortable the harder it is to break away that's why you see
these people in really toxic relationships stay with their partner from the outside you're like why are you with this asshole like leave him he's terrible but although they're unhappy, they're like, well, this is all I know.
It becomes so familiar, becomes so routine that it's like, yes, I know I'm being treated so poorly, but that's all I know.
Like, I don't know what it's going to be like to be without him.
I don't know what it's going to be like to have to provide for myself and be on my own.
And that uncertainty is scarier to these people than being in a relationship with someone who is hurting them, who is disrespecting them, who isn't giving them the love that they deserve.
Just like me at my old job, I knew I wanted to leave.
I knew I was unhappy, but I was so stuck in my routine of like, okay, it's time to wake up at the ass crack of dawn and drive 45 minutes to my job and cry all the way there.
Like it's going to be so great.
And I got used to having those conversations with my coworkers and my boss of like, yeah, I'm going to quit.
But that's all I knew.
I didn't know what my life was going to be like once I did quit and that was a lot scarier to me than going into a job every day that wasn't paying me well and that I didn't like the thing is you know what you want you know what you want and that's not going to change and if you don't know what you
want you know what you definitely don't want and that's not going to change so it's like if you're going to stay at this shitty job just because you're uncomfortable right now do you really think that in five years and ten years you're going to be any happier there?
Do you really think something is going to happen overnight where you're like, wow, I really like this job.
I think I should stay here.
No, like you know that you're unhappy, you know this isn't what you're meant to be doing and that's not going to change.
All that's going to happen is you're going to prolong your suffering.
You're going to continue to be unhappy.
The same thing with knowing what you do want.
You know you want this thing.
I grew up knowing that I wanted to do something in the social media space I thought I wanted to be like a big YouTuber and you know that's something I still kind of want but I've always wanted to create and that's never gone away even through all of the things I've gone through in my life in relationships
with guys telling me that it's not going to work out and that you shouldn't do social media and friends that weren't supportive of me doing social media and me trying to fit in and avoid doing social media and going to college and getting a big girl job.
At the end of the day, at my core, I still want to be doing this.
I still want to be doing it.
No matter how much I try to suppress it and avoid it, at the end of the day, I still want to be doing it.
And like the situation with me having guests in the show, I was afraid to do it, but I knew I wanted to do it.
And I had to rip off the bandaid and just be like, let's just try it.
Let's just try it. The worst that happens is that it goes terribly.
and I don't air the show and I decide to not have guests on but the best thing that happens is that I try it and it goes great and I love it and I have more guests on the show and I step out of my comfort zone and I give myself the ability to do more with my podcast when we don't let go we stay stagnant
one of my favorite quotes is nothing changes if nothing changes if I didn't rip off the band -aid and try having a guest on my show I wouldn't have future opportunities to have other people on my show because if someone had come to me being like hey I want to be on the show I would turn them down and be
like oh I don't know I don't have guests on I'm not ready for that when that could have been an amazing opportunity for me.
When you stay in your comfort zone you miss out on so many opportunities friendships relationships jobs just experiences your comfort zone will quite literally kill you what I'm about to say there's gonna be people that think it's so like woo woo and it's not real and they just don't believe what I'm
about to say but I truly believe that the universe or whatever higher power that you believe in will make your life harder if you don't do the work I feel like the universe will push you in the direction that you're meant to go in when you're not going in that direction on your own.
Like the more that you deviate from what you actually want in life, the universe or that higher power is going to make your life so unbelievably hard that you have no other option than to align yourself with where you're supposed to be.
An example of this would be if your boyfriend cheated on you and you knew he cheated on you and you knew that the right decision would be to leave the relationship but instead you decide to stay the universe or whatever higher power that you believe in is going to make that relationship so unbelievably
hard that you have no choice to leave and if you still do not leave they're going to make sure that boy that cheated on you leaves you and like obviously you don't deserve that you didn't do anything wrong but you aren't supposed to be in that relationship you are supposed to walk away with your head
held high and move on and you're not moving on so the universe is going to do the hard work for you because you are not doing it like my ex -boyfriend I call him Brock his name's not really Brock but I call him Brock I knew that he had cheated on me I had people texting me and being like hey he is seeing
this girl this is what I've heard and instead of breaking up with him and being like this is so unacceptable this is not okay I tried to make it work and what ended up happening is he ended up leaving me for that girl and you could say like well that's not the universe you know that's just him making
that decision he didn't want to be with you whatever it is there was an easy way out and I still decided to prolong my suffering and stay in a relationship that was not meant for me and because it was not meant for me I needed to be her even worse than I just was to realize, hello, this isn't for you.
You deserve better.
Get the hell out of here.
When you don't make that decision for yourself, the universe is going to make that decision for you.
Whether you like it or not, if the situation is not meant for you, it is not meant for you.
But on the flip side of that, I really do believe what's meant for you will not pass you.
And that's also why I think like if something is so incredibly hard and it feels like you're forcing it it probably isn't meant for you because if it was it would work out it maybe it wouldn't work out the first time but eventually it would work out and it wouldn't feel so exhausting and I'm not saying
that the things that you want out of life don't deserve hard work they do but you shouldn't feel like you're sacrificing yourself for that thing it's going to feel like you're working together like you're working in alignment with one another but that's why I think when something is not meant for you
and you're trying to make it work you're trying to force something and it's not supposed to be for you the universe is like hello like let's go like this isn't what you're supposed to be doing like you're literally going in the whole opposite direction when you're supposed to be going that way like
wake up like it's time to work for you not force this thing and put all of your energy into something that is not meant for you the last thing that I want to end this episode with is giving you a realistic guide to letting go because here I am yapping being like quit your job break up with your boyfriend
stop talking to your shitty friends and it's like okay well that's great and all but like how first thing is you need to identify what's not working you need to be so real with yourself I know you love I know you love him I know you love your boyfriend but like how does he make you feel how do you feel
are you happy is the relationship actually working or are you just attached to them are you literally just staying because you don't know what your life is like without them what is not making you happy so a few ways to be able to identify this is one talking to your loved ones and just sitting down
and being really honest and open about what's going on because the people in your life should be your support system.
They should be there for you when you are struggling.
And that's why I think it is one of the worst things that you can do when you're in a toxic relationship to isolate yourself from your friends.
And I know it's easier said than done.
I know that you don't have much control over it.
But like as someone who was in a relationship with someone who didn't like my friends and didn't want me to talk to them, when we would fight, I felt like I had no one to talk to and I felt like I was just stuck in this cycle of like okay this thing isn't working but I also have no support system now
because I cut my friends off for this person and it just makes it so much harder for you so I think having a support system is really really important regardless of what you're going through just word vomit to your friends to your loved ones and get the support that you need and if you don't feel comfortable
talking to your loved ones or maybe you don't really have a support system I think talking to a therapist is really really good I think talking to someone who is unbiased and is going to tell you how it is and give you actual advice and guidance on like what is not okay what is not healthy what you
should do because like sometimes you talk to your friends and your family and you tell them what's going on and they try to be real with you but there is a little bit of sugarcoating and just like wanting to be supportive of you like I support women's rights and wrongs sometimes my friends will come
to me and I try to be as real as I can be but at the end of the day like I just want to show them love and support and I'm not going to be as upfront and real as like a therapist is going to be that therapist doesn't know your shitty boyfriend or your shitty friends or the ins and outs of like your
workspace they just know what is and what isn't healthy and like what isn't working for you and they're going to be like hey this is what you should probably be doing in this situation or maybe, hey, this isn't something you should be doing and maybe this isn't working out for you.
I also think journaling is a really good way to identify what's not working.
Like in the moment, it's great to just like word vomit into your journal and talk about what is going on and what you're thinking.
But it's also really good to look back on.
So like if you are struggling and you don't know what to do, go back to your journal entries from a couple days ago, a week ago, a month ago and see if it's consistent are you consistently unhappy is something consistently not working and if it's not working then maybe it's time to make a change i know
there's some people that struggle with being able to journal because they feel like it's kind of performative like when they're journaling they're not being real with how they feel it's like a weird thing i don't know so i do it sometimes too but if that sounds like you i think another good way to figure
out what's not working is write a list of like energy givers versus takers.
What is taking up your energy?
What is making you feel depressed?
What is bringing you a lot of joy?
What do you want more of in your life?
And that can be really helpful too.
The second thing that's going to help you with letting go is identifying what you can and can't control.
One of the reasons why we have such a hard time letting go is because we're afraid of the unknown.
We don't know what's going to happen next so we stay in these situations because they're predictable rather than venturing off to something new but I think when you sit down and you identify what is in your power and what isn't in your power it's much easier to be able to navigate through life without
feeling like everything needs to have a plan I think focusing on what you can control and releasing the need to like know what happens next and needing to know what the future holds.
No matter how hard you visualize what the future is going to look like, no matter how hard you try to plan for the future, you're never going to know.
It's never going to be exactly the way that you imagine it to be.
So it's like if you have no control over it, stop worrying about it.
You had no idea what your life was going to be like right now a year ago, but here you are totally fine.
So again, sit down with your journal, make a list of things that are in your control and what is out of your control.
You are not in control of how other people treat you.
You're not in control of their emotions.
You're not in control of their actions, but you are in control of how you react, what you do with your time, how you feel.
You cannot force someone to treat you good, but you can decide to leave you can decide to make a change.
You don't have control over how your boss treats you or how your job functions.
You have control over how you act at your job and how well you do your job and you have control over deciding if you want to stay at that job or pursue something else.
When I quit my job I was so afraid of the unknown.
I was like how am I gonna pay my bills?
How am I gonna make money?
What am I gonna do?
And there's only so much you can do.
You know I had somewhat of a plan I was like okay I'm gonna door dash and I'm gonna sell my clothes on Depop and I'm gonna do these side hustles and I'm gonna do my podcast and I just had to put my trust into the universe and know that I'm doing my part and this is what I can control and there's other
things that I can't control and eventually once I let go of the need to control everything that's when my podcast started to do well and that's when networks started to reach out to me and money started to come to me and I had no idea that was even an option because that was out of my control.
That wasn't something that I could control in that moment when I quit my job.
Focus on your power.
Focus on what you can do and release the need to be able to control everything else.
Things are going to work out the way that they're going to work out as long as you're doing your part.
The third thing that's going to help you let go is setting boundaries and expectations.
Like I said before nothing changes if nothing changes and you aren't going to be able to make the changes that are going to actually help you and better your life if you're not being specific about what you want and what you expect out of your life it's going to be a lot easier to live the life that you
want to live if you know what you want your life to look like if you're just going through life with no idea about what you want how you expect people to treat you what you want to do for a job, what you want to do for your hobbies, what you just want your life to look like, you're never going to live
the life that you deserve because you don't know what you deserve.
You can't expect to have this luxurious life where it's so full of love and you have so much fun and life is just a breeze when you can't even visualize that.
When you have no idea what it is that you want.
If you're in a toxic relationship and you're unhappy and you want to leave but you feel stuck and you don't know how to let go of this relationship it is going to be a lot easier it's still going to be hard but it's going to be a lot easier to leave that relationship if you know what you deserve what you
expect and what you want out of your life it is going to be a lot easier for you to leave a relationship if you know that you deserve kindness respect loyalty honesty and you're not getting it whereas if you're in a relationship and you're like well like i don't really know what a good relationship
looks like and i don't know what i deserve so like maybe this is just like the best that it's going to get of course you're gonna feel stuck of course you're gonna feel like well i'm never gonna find better so i might as well just stay figure out what it is that you expect out of your life what you
expect from other people what you want set those boundaries and anything that doesn't align with that that feels like you're getting less than you deserve that is your sign to get the hell out of there and go find what you do deserve the fourth and final thing that is going to help you with letting
go and this goes off the last one is reinvent your life your life does not need to stay the same just because you've been getting the same thing for your entire life and you know nothing else doesn't mean that you don't deserve more things do not come to fruition without there being some type of plan without
some type of visualization of it.
And I've given this example before, but it's like even like the cup I'm drinking out of, like this would not be the cup that it is if there wasn't someone who thought of this idea, who had a plan and then sketched this out and then they created it.
There's always a vision before there is a product.
That's the same thing with your life.
You need to have some type of vision for your life.
Of course you don't have control over everything and it's not going to be exactly the way that you're visualizing it but it could be even better than you're visualizing it but you won't know until you have some type of vision some type of plan for yourself so how are you going to reinvent your life
what needs to change what do you want more of what do you want less of find inspiration watch movies watch shows read books go on pinterest find things that inspire you and light you up where you're like I want that I want my life to be like that who's someone that you look up to that you're like wow
I wish my life could be more like theirs I wish I could wake up every day and do social media for a living or go and be an actress or go and be a lawyer I wish I could do those things okay well you can but what you have to do to get to that point because there are steps to take before you get to that point
your life cannot change until you do you need to take the necessary steps to change your life I hope you liked today's episode I hope that it gave you some type of motivation or inspiration to change your life and I hope you're sitting there being like you know what Ashley you know what you're right
my life can't change unless I do you need to do the hard work things are going to feel uncomfortable and they're going to be difficult and it's going to be really hard to shed layers of your old self but in order to become this new version of you it has to happen you got to let go of the things that aren't
working to make room for the things that do but that is everything for today's episode i feel like i'm 90 years old i'm sitting on the hardwood floor and my legs are like getting out oh my god this year i'm gonna learn how to do a split i've been doing stretches and i'm gonna learn how to do a split
you heard it here first but i don't know how well that's gonna go because if i'm having trouble just like sitting here on my bony ass.
I don't know about all that.
Okay. Well, if you're not already follow me on Instagram, follow me on Tik TOK, follow me on YouTube.
They're all linked in the show notes, Ashley Corbo on Instagram, Ashley C Corbo on Tik TOK, Ashley Corbo 444 on YouTube.
Come on, go follow me, please.
Come on. Don't make me beg.
Okay. That's it. I love you.
and I will talk to you next Monday hopefully my crotch isn't out okay I gotta go I love you goodbye
