Today we’d like to introduce you to Brianne Ashley.
Hi Brianne, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I was born and raised in Clovis, CA and moved to Newport Beach with my mom and stepdad when I was 14. At the same time, my dad and stepmom moved to Morro Bay, CA with my younger siblings whom I was very close too due to our circumstances. I would go week to week with my mom and dad so I’d only see my siblings every other week when I lived in Clovis so it was a very hard change for me to leave my siblings and not see them even close to half as often. My dad has struggled with alcoholism since I could remember so I was raised to protect, love, and help way more than I should have at a young age to my siblings. Due to this I’ve always looked out for them and have had a lot of pressure on me to pick up the pieces of a broken family. When I had initially moved to Newport, I struggled tremendously with the absence of my siblings and feared what their life would look like without me there. Not to mention what my life would look like now… new school, new faces, new home, new stepdad, new everything. At this point in my life, I choose to be sad, worried, anti social. I pretty much fell into a depression and it wasn’t until a year after we have lived in Newport I decided I needed to turn things around for myself. I couldn’t be sad and act as a victim for the rest of my life. I think my experience of being a very big sister helped my resilience.
Day by day, week by week, month by month and year by year I have developed my relationship with myself. I have learned to love myself, be patient with myself and nurture myself. Throughout developing a relationship with myself I also wanted to expand to showing others how they can too love themselves and change their perspective on life from being negative and sad and victimizing to being positive, rational, and have a mature soul and brain. What I mean by mature soul and brain is compassion, the ability to understand others, empathy, this helps an individual grow because we can realize the impact we all have on each other as a society. Greatest example is my background. My dad held no empathy for his children so he lacked the ability to take care of us properly. Which damaged a whole household. Three children with three different stories of their own pain. His problem could have been solved a long time ago if he had decided to take a deep dive into himself and how he could help himself before it was too late. We all need to take care of our body and brains to thrive, to love ourselves, to love others, to understand why we act the way we act so we can make adjustments so we can co-exist with others. I have such a passion for mental health. Everyone has their own story with their own struggles but everyone has a choice of if they want to be the result of their struggles or be the difference in a world full of people who struggle every day. I want to be the voice for others who have no idea how to start their own journey of healing. I want to empower. I want to change lives for the better. Anything is possible.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
One of my biggest struggles was realizing my own faults as a human. Throughout high school, as every teenager goes through, I had ups and downs. I was involved in drama, I hurt people I cared about, people I cared about hurt me. All very typical for a high school experience. But I never took any of my losses lightly. I have always been very hard on myself and realized when I hurt someone I couldn’t possibly go through that again or put that person through that again. So I wanted to see my faults and fix them best I could so I could grow as a better human. It’s not easy though looking at your own reflection and seeing yourself for who you truly are. I was co-dependent on a boy. I spent a lot of time thinking he was my only source of happiness. I depended on him to love me, validate me, make me laugh, help me sleep, be there when things got hard. The thing is we were both doing each other a disservice by pouring so much into the other’s cup but none into our own. It was so hard to separate from him. It was so hard to sleep at all without seeing him that day. It really got ridiculous how much I needed his presence in my life and same for him. It ruined relationships with my family and friends because I spent no time showing them love or that I cared. The craziest thing too is when you’re so deep into something you can not see clearly for what the situation is.
So everyone can be yelling at my face what’s wrong and I still won’t understand because I’m blinded by my own emotions. They too can’t see my situation because they are blinded by their own emotions too of anger toward me. I needed to take a step back and let things settle so I could understand how to start mending. I left Newport for six months to go do school in my home town Clovis. I lived at my grandma’s house whom I was very close too growing up. It was very hard to step away from my family, friends, and the boy I loved for so long. But I knew I had too. It was also the most healing experience to be alone with myself again and let my body purge all of my emotions. I picked up songwriting as a way to sort out how I felt, I met new people and had new experiences, I also had days where I laid in the sun and listened to the nature around me, and I also had days where the tears wouldn’t stop and I didn’t think I could do it anymore. But I made it through the semester with a 3.6 GPA, new friends, and most importantly a whole new outlook on life. I had shown myself that love and patience and I let myself heal. Coming back from Clovis to Newport was completely different for me this time around. I learned how to live with myself, I learned how to pick myself back up, i learned how to be patient, and I realized how much my family, friends and that boy meant to me. Since then I’ve done everything I can to put myself first while showing love to the people I care about. Things have been so much better since.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
In July of 2022, I went through a very traumatizing experience that made me rethink my whole life. This experience made me reflect on everything I hadn’t done in my life or accomplished that I had hoped too. So while this experience placed me in a reflective state the next step was a complete determination to turn it around. In September of 2022, I booked my first modeling gig with a photographer through Instagram. I changed my hair, bought some new clothes and had a fire inside of me to not care what other people thought, I was going to chase what I wanted. Since then I’ve been modeling and have worked with multiple different photographers in a bunch of different locations with lots of different flavors. It was the most fun I have had ever in my life, doing what I wanted, sharing it with the world and deciding I wanted to make it something more. I’m currently redirecting myself with my modeling so it can be more focused on telling a story. Showing emotion through the camera so it can reach others. Empower others. It’s just the start for me and I can’t wait to share my projects coming up.
Do you have any advice for those looking to network or find a mentor?
My advice for finding a mentor is to one understand that the best mentor is yourself. No one will ever understand your situation like you do. Learn to be honest with yourself first. Although obviously as humans we need like-minded people to get us to where we want to be. So it’s just that! Find what you want to be more like and then find other people that have accomplished that thing already and learn from them. It’s like manifesting… act as if you are already that person you want to be and the rest will follow. You will attract what you put out. Don’t be afraid to be authentic, it will lead you to your destiny.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brianne.ashleyy/
Image Credits
@drey.es @martin.mmontes
