Meet Ashley DeAcetis | Healthy Living Advocate for Women, Families & Children

We had the good fortune of connecting with Ashley DeAcetis and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Ashley, how did you come up with the idea for your business?
When I first started dreaming up my business, I was a part of a mentorship with a coach who was, what I like to call, a Corporate America dropout, and someone I was SO inspired by. She calls herself an Imagination Farmer and its truly so fitting. I wanted the level of ownership, the level of accountability, the level of authenticity and grit that it took to design something from the ground up for myself. In order to truly understand my vision, I need to explain a few things.

Through and through I know that I was put on this planet to help heal the world; to help people get out of their own way to be able to achieve their own goals and visions; to help people truly find the things that make their spirit feel alive and their soul light up with that knowing that you are on your right path. From a young age, I always knew that I was here to help, but with my squeamish stomach, I knew it wasn’t from a place of being a doctor or nurse. I look at my business like an umbrella with different rain drops falling from the edges. The umbrella is Spirit and Soul Awakening.

The pillars of my business are things that I am personally passionate about: holistic health and wellness, balanced eating & living, heavy lifting for long term health, low-tox and holistic healing, energy balancing and intentional living.

As I have grown, so has my business. My meal prep service, Conscious Culinary, was originally intended to be more of a holistic coaching service and perhaps some high vibration catering. As I grew, so did my business. When I needed to pay for my mentorship mentioned above, I realized that it was time to stop dreaming and start producing. So I shifted my vision to meet my needs and was able to make all the money I needed to pay for that mentorship in 3 months. Since then, the idea has grown and evolved and blossomed into what it is today. I have just launched a beautiful Postpartum Mama Meal Support program that I am so aligned and in love with! I used to look at Conscious Culinary as a separate entity, but when I began to think of my business as a whole – things really started to gel, and that’s when I truly started focusing on reiki and the energy and vibration behind the food I was creating, helping me really niche out in the market of meal prep services and attract people that truly understand my vision and appreciate the foods I create.

As I have grown, so has my business. My training and nutrition coaching services that I offer used to be for everyone. I used to try to be a 1-size-fits-all coach, and then I became a mama. I started to realize how much of a disservice I was doing to my mama clients trying to coach them without having gone through this experience myself. So, as I grew, so did my business. After my son was born, I designed a program specifically for mamas called Babes, Babies & Barbells. I started dedicating my education, my resources and my marketing specifically to attract mama’s from all over the country. By niching down like this, I was able to create an incredible program producing amazing results for so many women and a beautiful container for us all to feel supported, loved and right where we are supposed to be inside this world.

As I have grown, so has my business. Since the evolutions in Conscious Culinary and Babes, Babies & Barbells, I have added another pillar to my business model as well – one as a holistic, low-tox living advocate and partner with a company that I feel like truly aligns with my overall vision for the healing of this world. By bringing this pillar into my business, I now have ways to support women holistically with their health beyond just nutrition and movement guidance. I have supplements, oils, low-tox cleaning products and even health share options to help support families in the most natural ways possible.

So as you can see, how I came up with the idea for my business is a loaded question … it wasn’t just one thing or one event. Its been an evolution, a growth process for both myself and my business and a huge exercise in adaptability. I am a huge believer in following the flow of energy and trusting my intuition to guide me. As I feel the call, my business will continue to evolve.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I used to think that in order to say I have a “career” that it needed to be in one specific field, doing one specific thing, for one specific company, for some arbitrary amount of time. I tried that, in a few industries (food, food technology, health and wellness) but I never felt fulfilled doing just ONE thing. I have changed career paths in a major way 4 times in my 34 years of life, and I FINALLY feel like I have arrived to the place I belong, on the path I was meant to walk. The path is being created under my feet as I step, I am the architect. I have ideas of where I’m going, but I am open to flow of where its meant to evolve into as well. I am so proud of my willingness to change, of my courage to start again, of my adaptability to overcome obstacles, and my insane amount of radical belief that this crazy umbrella of a business makes sense and WILL work, despite doubts and insecurities that pop up.

I truly believe that it’s my life-experiences and ALL the career paths I have tried, that led me to where I am today, both professionally and personally. I read a quote the other day that went something along the lines of “You can’t discover the path you are MEANT to be on, without first going down paths that you AREN’T meant to be on” … and that really struck me. Every single path I’ve taken, every single career I’ve pursued, has led me right here, to this moment in time. I use a lot of the skills I’ve acquired over the years from these different paths to create and operate Spirit and Soul Awakening and am grateful for them all.

Don’t get me wrong though … It definitely wasn’t easy. It was confronting and messy. I was full of self-doubt and even at times, failure. I was worried I let my family down, that I wasn’t good enough. Financially, its been scary at times. Moreso now with a family. But with time (and lots of external support and validation) I slowly started to realize that I never fit in these careers because I was meant to create my OWN way. No judgement to those who do follow and thrive in the corporate world … but it’s just not me. I am an entrepreneur through and through and when I finally realized and accepted that, and just radically trusted and believed in myself, the forward momentum began and has continued to grow.

No matter what part of the umbrella you fall into with Spirit and Soul Awakening, it will wrap you up like a warm blanket and make you feel safe, make you feel loved, make you feel capable and empowered. It will be unlike any experience you’ve had before. The way I coach, the energy and vibration I center around all my cooking, the day to day ways I live my life and support others isn’t like I was trained in the corporate world. I blend the tangible skills I learned in corporate world, with the emotions and life I have lived in the real world to create an experience that is unmatched. I am an intuition-led, spirit-centered, new paradigm leader with a mission to really shake up what you know to be true about the way the world works and encourage you to dream big, take calculated risks and have radical self-belief.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Living in the sunniest place in the United States, we would for SURE be doing lots of outdoor activities. I am not the biggest drinker or partier. The friends I have and the things we like are more about being in nature, connecting with each other, sharing good food, having deep, mind-expanding conversations, and keeping our eyes peeled for heart shaped rocks.

We would plan multiple hiking adventures in places like: Sedona, the Superstition Mountains, The Grand Canyon and even Dirt Churches weekly rotation hike, Piestewa Peak! We would hit up the festivals and farmers markets in town. One of our favorite things to do as a family is to go to local events and eat unique and delicious food truck/street foods. First Friday, Arrowhead Farmers Market, Uptown Farmers Market, Melrose Street Fair, Food Truck Friday are all regular places to visit for our family.

I always brings friends and family to Papago Park to see the hole in the rock and we always look for road runners (so I can show people they are NOTHING like the cartoons told us they were back in the day LOL). Finding a place away from the city, where we can stargaze into the pitch black sky, thats my kind of adventure.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
Where do I even begin with shoutouts ,,, I am blessed to have been supported so graciously by so many. Lets dive in …

First and foremost, I’d like to thank Beana Burn from Rootstock Retreat in West Glover, VT. She was my mentor (previously mentioned) and the most influential part of the creation of Spirit and Soul Awakening and the entire concept that I could break free from the corporate machine to work for myself.

Sweet Bean, how do I even begin to recognize and appreciate all the time, patience, love, tears, energy and grit you put into working with me? As a Capricorn Sun and a perfectionist, birthing Spirit and Soul Awakening was a process that took a TON of growth, encouragement and support from your end and I am beyond indebted to you and your belief in me. Having you as a mirror for me; an honest, not afraid to say the hard things, hold me to my word type of mentor, has played such a HUGE roll for me in growing. And of course, the Conscious Creation Apprenticeship container that I was woven into with the girls (Melissa, Emily & Danielle) was the perfect safe space and just the right amount of pressure for me to dissolve into a goop and be messy, while I worked to figure it all out and emerge anew. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

I’d also love to collectively recognize my hiking group – Dirt Church – that is comprised of a large group of high-level entrepreneurs that I have been beyond blessed to be adopted into. Listening to them talk about their business struggles and successes on our hikes has been wildly helpful for me in envisioning all the places that Spirit and Soul Awakening can grow to. To one particular member of the crew, Chad Ridenour … you have gone above and beyond to help me set the groundwork from the business side of things, with spreadsheets, labor conversations and understanding my real profit and loss sheet. From the mentality side of things, you have been my sounding board when sh*t gets hard and you’re not afraid to tell me the hard truths I need to hear. I am beyond grateful for you and your continued support of me and my vision.

To all of my clients, customers, followers and friends who have worked with me in some capacity … THANK YOU. From the bottom on my heart. It was YOU who kept me going when imposter syndrome would (and still sometimes does) creep in. There were points in Conscious Culinary where I had 1-2 customers a week and that was it – honorable mention goes to Nicole Bajka and Amaris Conner – who have never left my side and are my BIGGEST advocates for referrals out in the world.

To Francesca Pillian, THANK YOU for all your support with this recent menu roll-out and your dedication and commitment to my growth of Conscious Culinary. Without you, I’d likely still be writing grocery lists out by hand LOL! Seriously, so grateful.

And last, but certainly not least, to my partner and father of our son, Nick Martinez and his incredible parents, Tabby & Billy Martinez, for their overwhelming support with the baby while I am up 10-12 hours a day over the weekend prepping and packing and working the farmers market and delivering, having coaching calls with clients, and even just those days where mama really needed some TLC and time to breathe in solitude. To you all, I am so grateful, thankful and blessed. And to Nick again, thank you. Thank you for holding the financial weight of the household while I worked hard to build these businesses to profit. Your support makes this entire dream possible.

Phewwww … okay. As you can see, the dream doesn’t work without the team behind me supporting!

Website: www.spiritandsoul.love

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fit_mama_coach/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ashley.elizabeth.39794

Other: I also have an IG for Conscious Culinary: https://www.instagram.com/consciousculinarycreations/