Ep. 3 What to Do When Fear Comes Back: Building Real Resilience
It All Begins Here
Ashley had a great week. Did the thing. Felt proud for three days. Then woke up on day four and the fear was back, louder than before. She lay in bed for 45 minutes avoiding her own life. And then she recorded this episode about it. 🎙️
Week 3: BUILD RESILIENCE — the one nobody talks about.
In this episode:
💭 Why falling back is part of the path (not proof it isn't working)
🔋 The courage battery: why willpower isn't the answer and what actually restores you
👀 The comparison trap Ashley fell into — and the thing she remembered
🧬 The fears you inherited that were never originally yours
📍 The halfway check-in: you are not who you were on Day 1
Resilience isn't about not falling. It's about what you do when you do.
Week 3 Workbook →https://www.effyourfears.com/free-workbook
Follow Ashley @nowstarringashley
EPISODE 2 · WEEK 2 RECOVERY REDEFINE FAILURE
It All Begins Here
In Episode 2 of our Week 2 Recovery series, Ashley Monique Menard goes deep on one of the most misunderstood forces in our lives: the fear of failure. Not the trendy "fail fast" version. The real one — the one that makes you shrink, stay quiet, and play a smaller game than you were built for. This episode is backed by research AND Ashley's own untold story. You'll hear from Stanford psychologist Dr. Carol Dweck (author of Mindset), self-compassion researcher Dr. Kristin Neff, and real-world proof from Thomas Edison and James Dyson — plus one of Ashley's most honest personal moments yet. In this episode:
• Why 1 in 3 Americans fear failure more than spiders or the paranormal
• What Dr. Carol Dweck's research reveals about the hidden cost of a fixed mindset
• How Dr. Kristin Neff's self-compassion work shows that being kinder to yourself = more likely to try again
• Thomas Edison's 10,000 attempts. James Dyson's 5,126 failed prototypes. What they actually prove.
• Ashley's personal story: the project that didn't work — and everything it built
Your challenge this week Week 2, Day 8 — Redefine Failure: Write about one past failure from a new angle: What did this teach me that I couldn't have learned any other way? Then do one thing today with full permission to fail at it. Resources mentioned: → Dr. Carol Dweck — Mindset (2006) → Dr. Kristin Neff — self-compassion.org → Linkagoal Fear Factor Index / YouGov Survey Subscribe, follow, and leave a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review if this show is helping you eff your fears one episode at a time.
Episode 1 "The Wound That Wrote the Dream"
It All Begins Here
Before the dream, there was a moment. Not the inspirational kind. The quiet kind. The kind that happened in a classroom, or a living room, or a car ride home — the moment something cracked open inside you and you reached for creativity the way other kids reach for a blanket. The moment you learned that expression was the one place you felt like yourself.
That moment didn't just birth the dream. It also planted the fear.
In the Season 3 premiere, Ashley Monique Menard opens the inner healing season by going back to the beginning — not the polished origin story you tell at networking events, but the real one. The one with texture and weight and a specific person's face attached to it.
Drawing on the narrative identity research of psychologist Dan McAdams — who found that the most resilient people are those who can find redemptive meaning in their hardest chapters — and the groundbreaking neuroscience of Dr. Bessel van der Kolk on how early fear gets wired into the nervous system, this episode asks the question most creatives spend their entire careers running from: When did you first learn it wasn't safe to want this?
This is where Season 3 starts. Not at the surface. At the root.
In this episode:
Why the dream and the fear almost always share the same origin
How early emotional experiences get neurologically wired — and what that means for your creative blocks today
The difference between the story you tell about your life and the story that is actually running it
The one question Ashley wants you to sit with before anything else this season
📚 Referenced this episode: The Body Keeps the Score — Bessel van der Kolk | McAdams, D.P. (2001) Narrative Identity Research | Bowlby's Attachment Theory | The ACEs Study — Felitti et al.
Bite Size Episode- Mckenna & Lily
It All Begins Here
I wasn't looking for a podcast moment.
I was walking through Washington Square Park on a regular Tuesday afternoon when I heard two strangers say something so honest it stopped me completely. Their names are McKenna and Lily. They had never heard of this podcast. They weren't trying to be profound.
They just said out loud the thing most creatives never admit — that their own work gives them the ick. That they post something real, something that took courage to make, and then immediately want to disappear. Not because of the comments. Not because of the algorithm.
Because of themselves.
That is where Season 3 begins.
For more on Effing your fears check out Season 3, Ashley Monique Menard opens the inner healing season by going back to the place where the dream and the fear were born in the same moment — and asking the question most creatives spend their entire careers running from: when did you first learn it wasn't safe to want this?
This episode, we focused on who inspires, what is the ick and what's cringe?
👭Guests: Special thanks to Mckenna and Lily for joining the podcast.💭 Listener reflection questions: effyourfearspodcast.com📲 Follow the show: @theeffyourfearspodcast
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