Ashley Hastings

02/27/2026

The “empty mind” idea sets people up to quit.

Because most minds do the opposite when you sit down.

They get louder. Faster. More dramatic.

That doesn’t mean meditation isn’t working.

It often means you just removed the distractions that kept everything quiet.

The practice is not wrestling the mind into silence. It’s watching the agitation without feeding it.

No arguing. No chasing. No panic.

Just noticing, returning, and letting the nervous system learn that it can ride out the wave.

Eventually the mind does what all tantrums do when they aren’t rewarded.
It runs out of fuel.

01/30/2026

01/29/2026

📌today's concept to reflect upon: anger as compost

01/26/2026

In the early 1980s, biochemist, Dr. William H. Frey, II at the St. Paul-Ramsey Medical Center discovered that emotional tears contain high levels of stress hormones and protein, leading him to theorize that crying functions as a biological waste removal system.

🗂️Key Findings of the Study:

📑Chemical Distinction: Frey’s research found that emotional tears (psychic tears ) are chemically different from reflex tears (such as those caused by onions). Emotional tears were found to contain roughly 24% more protein.

📑Stress Hormone Removal: Emotional tears were shown to carry higher concentrations of stress-related compounds, including:

🗒️ACTH (adrenocorticotropic hormone): A key indicator of stress.
🗒️Prolactin: A hormone associated with stress and milk production, found in much higher levels in women after puberty.
🗒️Leucine-enkephalin: A natural opioid peptide and painkillers produced by the body during stress.

📑Excretory Process Theory: Based on these findings, Frey proposed that crying is an exocrine process- similar to exhaling, sweating or urinating - designed to physically expel toxic biological byproducts that accumulate during emotional distress.

NEVER HOLD BACK YOUR TEARS. Doing so too often can actually make you quite sick. The process of releasing emotional tears was created in you to actually help you feel better. ❤️

12/30/2025

It’s a lifelong practice 🕯️

05/27/2025

My Saturn return is ending.
My Reiki master training is beginning.
My old journal is ending.
My new journal is beginning.
My fears and anxiety are…
still with me bc life is a continuous cycle of feeling and processing and releasing and evolving through it all 🤷🏼‍♀️

The cycles of life and death and rebirth are potent and necessary for our personal evolution. What’s out of alignment becomes so deeply uncomfortable, there is no choice but to transform it.

Saturn returns tend to draw us into deep introspection. Solitude may seem forced upon us but the purpose is to prepare ourselves for the next stage of our life. Five years ago I came to TX to live alone and learn how to be content with myself. 5 = change, and girlll, the changes have been ROLLING in now 😅

And despite the insecurities and nausea-inducing anxiety, I love the journey for what it teaches me
and I trust my feet to take me where I need to go
and I open my heart to receive every last drop of beauty this life is offering me 💕🙏✨

And I invite you to do the same💫

HAPPY NEW MOON IN GEMINI 🌚 love you babes

03/21/2025

happy spring equinox 🌞🌸🌿🌺🌻✨

At the equinox, the earth finds balance between light and dark. But nature knows there is destruction in creation and pain in growth. And she continuously reveals to us this universal truth:

a seed cracks open before it grows beyond the soil 🌱
the storm rages before the rainbow arcs in the sky 🌈
a caterpillar melts before it grows wings 🦋

If you’re in the splitting open part, keep going. We’re at the tipping point where light can begin to overcome the shadows. There is momentum here to expand beyond your wildest dreams.

Abundance is coming. Opportunities are coming. And you have the strength you need to carry you through 🙏🥰

🌸

06/22/2024

International Yoga Day 🤸‍♀️

I chose not to share an asana pic, because what I cherish the most about my Yoga practice isn’t a pose~

It’s the ability to be present in my body.
It’s the way I can have grace for my faults and let myself be human.
It’s holding space for myself to move through experiences and emotions.
It’s me being able to look in a mirror and smile.
It’s the kind of person I’ve become after so much time on my mat.

Because there was a time I couldn’t do any of that.

Yoga has helped me regulate my anxiety, depression, and racing thoughts.
It’s challenged me to push myself to my limits and find peace there.
It’s uprooted a lot of negative thought patterns that used to plague me.
And it’s proved to me that everything will in fact get better in the end. Andrà tutto bene.

It feels like some kind of miracle that I get to be a part of sharing this ancient practice ✨

Love all you yogis 🫶

06/21/2023