Going through a challenging time and wondering how to find even a glimmer of joy? In this uplifting episode, we explore practical strategies for finding joy during life's toughest seasons.

Listen Here:
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Show Notes:

• Introduction to Ashley Henriott and her unwavering faith in God.

• Discussion on the role of faith in dealing with past challenges, including abuse and neglect.

• Ashley's self-identification as a "Christ-centered confidence coach."

• Personal anecdotes about handling stressful motherhood moments with humor and sarcasm.

• Emphasis on choosing joy, even during tough times.

• Biblical narrative: Sarah and Abraham's story to illustrate God's understanding of human emotions.

• The belief that true confidence is rooted in Jesus.

• Ashley's advice for those going through challenging times: It's okay not to be okay.

• The importance of acknowledging pain rather than masking it with positivity.

• Reiteration of God's supportive role during our hardest moments.

• Mention of Ashley's book and other online resources.

Key Takeaways:

1. Faith plays a crucial role in navigating life's most challenging moments.

2. Joy is a conscious choice, even during hard times.

3. God understands and empathizes with human emotions, as seen in Biblical stories.

4. Acknowledging pain is vital; masking it can be counterproductive.

5. God provides comfort and support during the hardest seasons of our lives.

6. Ashley’s coaching is intrinsically rooted in her strong Christ-centered belief system.

Transcript:

Welcome back to Better Than a Pill. Today, I'm so excited to have Ashley Henriott on as a guest,

and Ashley is a confidence building coach, a speaker, an author, and a podcast host and a

TikTok regular. She has over 300,000 plus fans and is connecting with people and, and she's

showing them what life, faith and motherhood are really like behind the scenes, and she has a

lot of fun with that too. So through coaching, speaking events and podcasting, she's made it her

lifelong mission to share her experience with others so they can find the same hope and

confidence that she has found. So today we're gonna be talking a little bit about how to find joy

in really hard seasons.

So I just wanna welcome you Ashley.

Thank you so much for being here. Yay. I'm so honored to be here and really excited, just to

connect with you and your listeners, and I just pray and believe that this message is for

someone and it'll give them a fresh hope and maybe a difficult season that they're facing.

So let's start a little bit, if you wouldn't mind just kind of sharing a little bit about yourself and how

you got involved in the work that you do.

Yeah, so I am, I, I just, I'm one of those people that hate labels, so I try to be really careful about

like, introvert, extrovert. I love to be around people for the most part, but I really appreciate

being by myself as well. So, in regard to all the things that I do, my personality is that nothing

scares me and I, the secret to that is I just don't really think about it with the struggle of being a

perfectionist. And so I just know that from my past, the things that I've overcome from teaching

from loss, the Lord brought me to a place to tell me to write a book.

And in that, we had a pandemic, and then in the pandemic I wanted to get online and just again,

didn't overthink it and just showed up to make people laugh. And the people on the internet

really connected and resonated with just being able to find joy and laughter in such a very

confusing, difficult time.

And for me, I was like, wow, like writing this book or marketing yourself or whatever, you can be

yourself, and that's all I ever wanted was to be myself, and to show up as I am, because

ultimately I don't want people to look at me for the answers, but to look for Christ, which gives

me the freedom to be myself in every aspect of who I am.

And so I did that. My social media presence grew. God was really bringing all the things

together, making it clear as I just kept going, just showing up as myself, which gave me the

inspiration for the podcast, the confidence connection. Now, we just revamped it. It starts back

in September. I'm really excited.

And then the book Confidence is An Inside Job is coming out next fall, and I'm still showing up

on TikTok and Instagram just being real, hopefully adding value, giving people nuggets to really

understand what confidence is and how to walk in it every day through Christ. And so, Yeah,

that's, that's the gist of it.

And then on my home front, my main job is not just a daughter of Christ, but I'm a wife to a

pretty amazing man. his name's Doug. I never thought I'd marry Doug, but here we are. Okay.

and then, I'm a mom of four, three boys and a little girl. So we're getting back in school so you

can, uh, just imagine how, how busy life is and how chaotic it can be.

But, uh, joy is what gets me through. So I'm excited for what we're gonna talk about today.

Awesome. Yeah. Thank you so much for sharing that relate a hundred percent. I'm the mom of

Twin Boys, and so they're 11. They're a little older, so it's getting a little easier, but yeah. And

you know, I love what you said because that's what it's all about, being able to be yourself, and

that's what God created us all, you know, for, I mean, I think the role would be a better place if

we all recognize those things and, and, and find our gifts, you know, and, and use those to

serve people.

Yeah. And that's what you're. Doing, you know? Yeah. Just talk a little bit about maybe an

example of how adversity in hardship led to unexpected joy in you, in your life, in your growth

and so on. Yeah. Well, I never really understood. Joy, right? None of us really do. I think that we

like to connect joy to happiness, and then we create this picture in our head of what happiness

should look like or what it should pertain or what we should gain.

But it's nothing. It's not any of those things. And I learned that actually through the things that I

had gone through because when you're forced to focus on. The positive in such a negative

situation. You know, my past just very briefly is full of, you know, my mother is a drug addict. Uh,

she still struggles with addiction.

This isn't a Hollywood happy ending restoration story. God restores in so many different ways,

and I, and I hope to talk about that if we have time and, you know, my dad, my real father

abandoned me. And then the abuse of my stepfather and just lots of moving, lots of instability,

lots of like homelessness and abuse.

I was always, I always remember just being this person who was always very bubbly and

grateful for what she did. For what she wanted. But what's so funny about growing up is that

striving to be kind and to be bubbly and to be around people was from a place of wanting to be

loved and accepted.

And that's just an example of how God uses whatever. Our weaknesses and our strengths for

his glory and for our strength. That's where strength comes from. And so even though those

things were something I needed to overcome, they were the things that got me through. And just

like that, that's me seeing joy, right?

In what God does. And so it humbled me. Humility, you know, was, a strength of mine from

where I came from to where God was taking me. So when I faced trials, it always brought me to

a very, um, grateful. Humble place knowing that God was in control. He brought me this far

right? So the reflection of like, I came through all that and this is a hardship, what I'm going

through, but God is gonna get me through because he always has.

And so just that perspective, the real, the tangible perspective, that our feelings are valid, our

hardships are valid. We don't take away from those things. We don't gaslight ourselves or

others. Spiritually by trying to minimize our hardships, right? We don't wanna fall into the

comparison aspect, but we do reflect on the strength and when we did face a hardship and how

we overcame that, which will give us the peace and the joy, which is already installed in us.

When we have the Holy Spirit, it's not something that we gain, it's something that's already

there. We just need to connect it, in the right way by bringing God to those places. Absolutely.

And so let me ask you, did you have, you always had such great faith and a personal

relationship with God? I mean, just curious.

I don't believe that there is a good Christian. I don't know where that came from. I have not

always had great faith, and I still walk in doubt sometimes. I still get mad at God. I still don't

understand, and I don't think I ever will fully have. I actually don't think that that's possible. I

believe that God reminds us a million times to have faith and makes it an example as small as a

mustard seed because he knew we would struggle with it, right?

Because we naturally wanna take control. And an instance when I, you know, in regard to not

having or not having great faith, and I, and I wanna be careful with that. Understand there were

times when fear over faith would take over, because of triggers, right? So, I believe in science. I

believe in chemical imbalance.

I believe in medication. I believe in these things and I don't ever wanna take away from that. Uh,

and I believe the Holy Spirit guides us through those things. I have faced postpartum depression

and the Lord helped me overcome the lies. Right? So that's really what I think about when,

when you're asking.

And, and one of the things was, a story that I feel led to share with you and I'll, I'll share it really

briefly, was at when I had my fourth child, Things were really rocky. My husband and I were a

part of a prosperity gospel church, a word of faith church. We were very involved. It was very

toxic, and at the time I didn't realize what it was doing to me, and I.

Kind of like triggering my past in a bad way because I had fallen into, if I have enough faith, then

God will move in my life. Right? And when he didn't move in my life because of this perspective,

I can somehow control and manipulate God. And if I just speak it enough that God will move in

my life.

And then if I don't, then he is not gonna move in. Like I have this control over God. Like I laugh

at it now, but. Genuinely, that's what that belief is. And so I thought if I just say that I'm healed,

then I'm healed. If I just say that I'm not gonna be sick because of Jesus, because he bears his

stripes, then I'm healed.

And I, and I kind of like made this an idle ship to kind of control God because I was working for

Worth, rather working from worth in a humble, I'm weak, key, strong kind of place, if that makes

sense. And. It was a cycle that actually almost killed me because I had come to a place where I

was like, you know what?

I'm never gonna be enough. I'm never gonna do enough. I don't have enough faith. I can't get

better. I, I keep going back to these behaviors, uh, that I've later on, found out was PTSD.

Constantly fight, fight or flight. My marriage was falling apart. Like obviously I'm the problem,

right? My faith is the problem and it, I, it almost killed me literally, and I almost walked away from

God because I felt like here we are again.

Like in my past, I was not good enough for him. God never did what he did with Jesus Christ

because he said we were good enough. He just loved us. Right. That revelation, and it wasn't till

I was going to give up that he came in. He was like, finally, right. But the way that I gave up, the

one thing that made me hit the wall was when.

I was not myself. I'm a go-getter. I'm ambitious. Obviously this has always been me, like I am

gonna go, go, go. I'm very passionate about the things that I believe in, but after postpartum

depression, I started to not feel like myself. I started to go to dark places. I couldn't get off the

couch. It was a lack of control of myself that I had never really experienced before.

And I knew that I needed to talk to my husband, talk to my doctors. And when they told me that

and they gave me medication, I thought I failed. I thought a completely failed God and. I isolated

myself and I didn't take the medication. 'cause I thought if I take that knowing my mother is an

addict, my body's gonna depend on it.

I'm, I can overcome this. Like, I, we got this, God, we, we got this. And my friends and my pastor

and my husband would always leave notes by this medicine every day. Like a new no Ashley,

it's like taking Tylenol when you have a headache, it's only temporary. It's like when you're sick,

your brain is sick for just a little bit of time, like this doesn't make you a failure.

And in going through that journey and finally being able to do that and go on the couch, Jesus

met me on the couch, so did my husband, and so did my children. And we ended up playing

video games and I connected with them in a way that I had never before and I was depressed.

And so I actually understood grace and joy in a way that I had never experienced before.

Never. I was easy about giving grace to everyone else except for myself. And I learned that in

that season of life that nothing I can do or can't do can take away from what God will do in my

life. And it says in the Bible that his will will be done in our life. He will finish his good work. I.

And through us.

And I just in that started to see, see more truth and a fresh perspective of who Christ really was,

and it gave me a newfound passion to show others that same grace in a way that shows them

not just the good things about our faith, but when we are struggling with doubt, when our faith is

weak, that God is still faithful.

Right. Hi. His faithfulness doesn't go away because of our lack of faith. He meets us where we

are. It just may take a little bit longer, but he's a patient God. And so that's one of the times that

when my faith was weak, did it become stronger by acknowledging that I was weak. And so,

That in itself was very, very fresh for me to see Jesus in such a mighty way, which drove me to

the passion of what I do now.

Wow. Well, that is an amazing story, thank you so much for sharing all of that. And you know, it,

it, you, it sounds like you had a point where you let go. You, you stopped trying to control the

situation, which was not taking your medicine right. Yeah. And, you surrendered by taking it.

Yeah. Isn't that crazy?

Yeah. So flossy, it's so, you know, flips flopsy in a, in a way because. I always tell people too,

that they struggle with this, I don't have enough faith, or I'm still scared, right? Of the end times.

I have a lot of questions from people as a coach, where it's like, Ashley, I, I don't know if I'm

going with Jesus when he comes or whatever, and I'm like, well, you're gonna feel the fear.

You're gonna know the unknown, right? There's not this feeling of knowing. There's just this faith

of believing and there's a difference. There is such a difference, and the way I help people, I.

And guiding them in that faith, right, in that strong faith to be bold, to stand out, to walk with

Christ, have peace, have joy, as I tell them that you don't have enough power.

The world takes away from what God wants to do for you. Like you, even if you wanted to, you

couldn't get in your way unless you fully walked away from the Holy Spirit. You just couldn't do it.

He's going to bring you through this. It's going to be painful and, and we again, like God's not

going to stop something that he wants to do in our life based off.

Something we're doing or not doing, he's not gonna do it. And one of the stories that brings me

to that is Moses, like, there's so many, right? But Moses, he had a stutter. And when God called

him to deliver the Israelites and there was no other man like Moses, okay, Moses immediately

was like, I ha, I don't speak clearly.

I can't do this. Like, why are you asking me to do this? I'm average like, there's no way. But God

didn't say, You know what? You have doubts. You have a lack of faith. You're totally right. You're

dumb. No. He reminded Moses, who. God. He reminded him who he was and he reminded him

where his strength would come from and he validated it and affirmed what he wanted to do

through him.

And he did it every time. 'cause Moses kept going to him and be like, these freaking people are

gonna make me kill myself. Okay. Like, these Israelites are just getting on my nerves. This is a

lot to handle. And he would, he had this safe place to go to God with all those doubts and I. And

I believe from what, as a coach and like from talking to people all the time that we, we believe

this lie of faith and joy and peace as.

It looks and sounds like something like we're confident in the regard of like, you know, like, oh

my gosh. I've always believed, I never had fear. Like everything was great. Like I ran those

Israelites. Moses didn't do that. He didn't like it, I'm a winner. I'm winning. Okay, God, we got

this. No, he went in his weakness and in his doubt, but he continued his faithful work.

He continued this paperwork because God is bigger and so God doesn't want us to look at

ourselves and be like, you don't have enough faith. He wants us to look at him and know that

he's in control and just to obey him, keep our eyes on him and his words, spend time with him

and, uh, he's gonna handle the rest of what he wants to do.

Yes. And look, I mean, in the situation you just described, which I would consider a rough

season, right? Going through depression and all of that, which was the hardest season, but one

of the most profound seasons of my life. Yeah. And, and you're not only that, you're a mom, I

mean, that's gotta be making you feel powerless and just look, he brought.

People to you. He worked through other people, right? Yeah. Yeah. And he always did that my

whole life, you know, like my past was, um, was really, really dark and unstable, and God always

brought people in my life, whether it was the neighbor down the street, a counselor in the school

office, or a police officer.

There was someone who planted a seed of love and normalcy in my life that gave me hope and

that seed. That person probably doesn't even know what they're doing by just giving me a ride

to school because my parents made me walk while my siblings got a ride. And I was just the

target child, someone you saw in the news that was just punished the worst.

And I will always hold onto that because it gave me the drive to continue to want to have a good

life and to want to be loved and believed that I could be loved. And. I held onto that even when I

didn't truly understand who God was, he was still moving in my life, and that is what drove me in

my faith.

You know, we were talking earlier about my faith on the internet and it humbles me really when

people are like, it's so amazing how honest and how bold you share your faith in what you do.

But for me, it's just who I am. Like I don't even, I really don't even look at it like that. If I. I speak

so humbly in that regard that I'm not getting on the internet and I'm not ever scared to talk about

Jesus.

I'm not ever scared to talk about the Lord, like he's just a part of me, and that humility of that

really, those hard seasons, the depression, the abuse, the neglect, those hard seasons are what

drove me to lean on him more and let him in on all the inner parts of who I am and. I don't know

any other way. I don't know any other way to show up online or to show up here or what to talk

about or how to coach.

And I'm very, I'm very bold about that. Like I'm a Christ-centered confidence coach. And if you

don't want Christ, I don't have anything to offer you, I, I have nothing because that's where my

confidence comes from. And so in regard to joy, if I may be real quick, yesterday I was actually

talking about this and somebody said, how do you have joy and hard seasons?

And I had a terrible day yesterday. Okay. My children, I have four kids now that we're talking

about kids. Mm-hmm. And they were just, it was one of those days that you wanted to, like, I

have a 13, 11 year old. I have a seven year old and I have a three year old who's gonna be four.

She's our little girl.

She's the hardest. Okay. She was pregnant. I love her big personality like her mother. I'm a little

scared, but she was like the hardest. And so you think a toddler's hard? I will take toddlers any

day over, you know, testosterone and hormones like any day. Okay. and so it was just a really,

really rough day and we were running around getting ready for school and I turned up the radio

and I was angry.

I was so frustrated, but I was sarcastic. So instead of lashing my expression of anger towards

my kids to discredit or downgrade, I actually took all this anger and I made it into sarcasm, and

everyone was laughing. It didn't take away from my anger to take away from my frustrations, but

I found joy in it.

And I found it through sarcasm and I was explaining that through somebody when they were

talking about motherhood. And I said, listen, I said, you gotta, you got to laugh. You have to be

sarcastic. Like me, for instance, my daughter was screaming, it was in meltdown mode and we

had just left the dentist and she has my sister-in-law, we call her Yaya.

And I was in the car and I was like, you know what? We're not going to Yaya. You're going to

Dodo. Okay. And dodos in the car over there. In that truck. Okay. And I'm just, my kids are

laughing at me 'cause I'm saying dooo and they don't really know that. Like mom's maybe lost it

a little bit, but I'm in the car and I'm driving and I'm like, look.

Look at all these cars, and I'm just saying out loud, I was like, I got four kids. Like, I'm willing,

I've got plenty of, I'm willing to like, let you have one and let you have one. And just everybody

being separated out and everybody's laughing and we're just, I'm singing a song and I'm

singing different words and, and, and everybody's like, mom is, is mom angry?

Like, what? What's happening? and so those are just tangible ways like breathing. Like affirm

that you're probably pod and then find joy in it by laughing, by choosing to laugh, even if that

looks like sarcasm. In that situation, I. That's great. Thank you so much for sharing that. That's

awesome. You know, and just, you know, not taking yourself so seriously or you know, lashing

out.

Instead you chose another route and that's a gift. That's awesome. Yeah. Well, it's a grown up

gift. Uh, I believe that we grow in our gifts. You know, like we can, it's, it's, it's also perspective,

right? We can look at what God has already done in our life. So that's the one way, but, and

then we can, you know, choose to not take ourselves seriously.

But if you look at all of it and the way that, like, I'm connecting everything. I'm not even, that's

the thing. None of this is on me. None of this is on me. All of this is on God, and I'm just along

for the ride. I'm just like here for the ride and parenting and coaching and writing and all the

things, and just trusting God, and I get sarcasm with him.

I get sarcastic with him. I'm like, like, come on. I don't want to be stronger. Like we don't need to

build my character anymore. Okay. And not looking at things in general leads so deep in that

regard as well. Just, that's joy where you can just look back and just be like, this sucks, but you

know. Okay. God, you said you were in control.

He's probably up there laughing at you like, what are we gonna do with you? Right. Sarah

laughed when God said that she was gonna have a child at an old age. Okay? Right. And you

know, he was having dinner, God was having dinner with Abraham. Whole nother story. Sarah's

being nosy. In the background, she hears that conversation and she laughs out loud.

And God goes to her not to reprimand her and be like, I'm God of the universe. Right. I'm the

creator of all things. You know? He was like, did you just laugh? And she's like, no, just, no, I

didn't laugh. Like I, it's just I'm old, okay, God. Like me, I'm old. Like, what are you talking about?

And he was so patient.

And I believe that that's our relationship with the Lord. And it's how we look at it, right? That's

where we build our confidence in Jesus. And that's how we walk Joy. It's a choice. It is really just

a choice that's already there to the Holy Spirit is like you can activate this tool if you just let go

because you're not in control anyways and your worrying is doing absolutely nothing for anyone.

Yeah, and, and you know, That being said, if you were to give someone, maybe that's someone

who's listening today, some advice, maybe somebody who's listening going through a really

challenging season of life and struggling to find joy right now, what advice would you give them?

Yeah my advice would be, to know that it's okay that you're not okay.

And don't reflect so much on the fact that you aren't okay because you're going through a hard

season. Stay in your feelings for a little bit. I give you permission to be validated that this is a

hard season, rather than deny what's really going on. It doesn't matter about any positive

thinking. Positive thinking isn't the root or the source.

It's admitting that this is hard for you. And in the ad and admitting that this is hard and admitting

that you're not okay is when that grace that you're choosing to give yourself is where Jesus will

meet you. He will meet you there. He will meet you there. He will, he will hold you there and he

will take baby steps with you through that season because he knows when we sit there.

We're in it and we, and we acknowledge it and we accept it, will it be the very thing that we will

also be able to walk with somebody else through? Because we didn't deny it and we didn't try to

look at it in a positive way, or gaslight ourselves by saying it could be worse. Yeah, sure. Right.

But this is bad too.

This is bad too. And so just give yourself permission. To allow yourself to accept that it is

because that's where Jesus wants to go with you. That's where he wants to go. So, Give

yourself a little bit of grace today. The world sucks and it is terrible and it is falling, and the Bible

says that the enemy is the prince of the world, but have hope because he's come to save the

world, which is you.

He's come to help you and deliver you. He knows that the storms around you are there and

they're scary and they're hard, and you feel the water hitting you and things are unstable, but

he's holding you. He's holding you, and that doesn't take away from your tears or your fear. You

just have a comfort now that you can lean on in it.

Yeah, that is probably the best advice I've heard. Exactly. Well said. And, and I know that to be

true in my life, you know? And, and I'm so thankful to have you here and share all that you

shared today. It's been a gift. So thank you for coming on. Thank you for having me. I, I'm

honored. You're doing great work.

Thank you, Ashley. And you know, I know you mentioned you wrote a book and I wanted to say

that I'm gonna have to get that. We'll, we'll, we'll include the link for that in this episode. And I

have also included the links for Ashley's all her social sites, her podcast and, and website in this

episode today.

So remember, we do new episodes every week on Wednesday, and I look forward to having you

join me then.