Behind The Smile with Ash Butterss

What if the part of you that you keep trying to change is actually the part of you that most needs to be understood?

You can know your patterns, understand where they came from and have plenty of self-awareness, yet still find yourself repeating the same cycles. Because insight is only one part of the story. Sometimes, the deeper work is learning to listen to what lives beneath the pattern.

This week, I’m joined by therapist and spiritual guide Laurie Nouchka, for a conversation about the parts of ourselves we often try to fix, silence or move beyond, and what becomes possible when we meet them with curiosity instead.

Laurie shares how a painful breakup at 25 shaped her relationships for years, the unexpected path that took her from life drawing and yoga to Internal Family Systems therapy, and what she’s learnt about distinguishing intuition from fear. We talk about the wisdom held in the body, the ways our nervous system can keep us living from old stories, and what it really means to trust ourselves again.

It’s a conversation about going beneath the surface, meeting the parts of ourselves we’ve spent years trying to outrun, and creating enough space to hear what they’ve been trying to tell us. Because we can’t think our way out of what we haven’t yet allowed ourselves to feel.

Episode chapters:
01:13 Meet Laurie and Her Daily Rituals
09:12 The Photo: Smiling Through a Painful Breakup
14:07 Fear of Being Alone and the “I’m Not Enough” Story
19:09 From Life Drawing in Melbourne to Yoga
24:58 Discovering Internal Family Systems
27:32 What IFS Is and How Our Parts Protect Us
33:38 Why We Run From Discomfort
38:04 Creating Safety in the Nervous System
42:49 Trusting Your Intuition Versus Fear
47:04 Nature as a Go-To Practice
49:32 A Celebration of Life and Death
55:10 Laurie’s Three Non-Negotiables

Connect with Laurie through the links below:
Instagram: @laurienoucka
Website: www.laurienouchka.com

Join Ash’s community newsletter! Click the link here to join.

Upcoming Retreats
The Embodied Woman One Day Retreat | October 25th | Find Out More
The Embodied Woman 5 Day Retreat | April 21 - 25, 2027 | Find Out More
Courage To Heal: Childhood Trauma Retreat | June 14 - 21, 2027
Email hello@ashbutterss.com for more information

A Sacred Return | Bali | August 16 - 20, 2027
Email hello@ashbutterss.com for more information

Follow and connect with Ash on:
⁠Instagram⁠ @ashbutterss
TikTok @behindthesmilewithashb
Website⁠ www.ashbutterss.com
Watch Ash’s TEDx Talk here!
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My guest this week is Jason Dobbie, a chef of 26 years who got sober while still running professional kitchens. Sobriety, though, did not answer the question underneath it all: who am I? Eight years on, Jason leads a community of more than 750 people working through that same question, and he joins Ash to unpack what it actually took to rebuild a sense of self from the ground up.

Jason and Ash talk about quitting marijuana years after quitting alcohol, the moment a spiritual awakening cracked his life wide open, and the discomfort of becoming a different person. He shares how learning to put himself first, speak his truth and trust his intuition eventually led him to walk away from a lucrative head chef job for a life built on purpose and alignment.

It is a conversation about the long, often unglamorous work of self-discovery, and a reminder that sobriety is only ever the beginning of finding out who you really are.

Episode chapters:
00:08 Meet Jason: 26 Years a Chef, 750 People in Community
01:02 Building a Community From a Meditation Group
02:43 A Day in Jason’s Life Now
04:13 Where His Drive Really Comes From
06:02 The Photo: Successful on the Outside, Empty on the Inside
08:52 Quitting Weed After 25 Years
10:43 The Veil Effect of Weed and Alcohol
12:07 Why He Finally Quit Drinking
14:34 Free Health Care, Group Therapy and Finding Meditation
18:18 A Shared Story of Spiritual Awakening
20:43 Sober but Lost: Who Am I Now
22:13 The Turning Point at the Mirror
26:39 Learning to Put Himself First
30:52 The Body Signal That Pointed Him Toward a New Career
38:09 Reframing Meditation as Just Paying Attention
44:26 Jason’s Three Non-Negotiables

Connect with Jason here:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jason.dobbie/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@jason.dobbie

Join Ash’s community newsletter! Click the link here to join.

Upcoming Retreats
The Embodied Woman One Day Retreat | October 25th | Find Out More
The Embodied Woman 5 Day Retreat | April 21 - 25, 2027 | Find Out More
Courage To Heal: Childhood Trauma Retreat | June 14 - 21, 2027
Email hello@ashbutterss.com for more information
A Sacred Return | Bali | August 16 - 20, 2027
Email hello@ashbutterss.com for more information

Follow and connect with Ash on:
⁠Instagram⁠ @ashbutterss
TikTok @behindthesmilewithashb
Website⁠ www.ashbutterss.com
Watch Ash’s TEDx Talk here!
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this solo episode, Ash reflects on a recent trip to the Gold Coast, where she spent five nights at a wellness retreat, not as a facilitator but as a guest. Away from Wi-Fi and her usual pace of life, she unpacks five lessons that surfaced in the stillness. From remembering to trust the wisdom of her body, to rereading an old favourite book and discovering how much she herself had changed, there were plenty of downloads she wanted to share.

Ash also discusses the importance of balancing mental, physical, emotional and spiritual health rather than over focusing on just one or two, and how you can achieve this without creating more overwhelm. This is a reflective, practical episode about what it looks like to actually slow down, listen inward, and trust the shifts that quietly ask to be made.

Episode chapters:
00:00 Retreat Announcement
01:13 Coming Back From Eden Retreat
03:38 A Life of Bookends: Regulated Mornings, Full Steam Days
08:18 Choosing Your Own Adventure at Eden
10:39 Trusting the Body Over the Aura Ring
15:09 The Nervous System Check and the 99th Percentile Surprise
17:23 Hearing the Whisper to Step Back From Teaching
21:59 Saying Yes and Watching Life Respond
24:12 Rereading The Untethered Soul Years Later
28:53 Releasing a Resentment Through Energy, Not Defense
31:10 The Joy of Talking to Strangers
33:32 The Four Pillars of Health
43:01 A New Offering Coming in January

Join Ash’s community newsletter! Click the link here to join.

Upcoming Retreats
The Embodied Woman One Day Retreat | October 25th | Find Out More
The Embodied Woman 5 Day Retreat | April 21 - 25, 2027 | Find Out More
Courage To Heal: Childhood Trauma Retreat | June 14 - 21, 2027
Email hello@ashbutterss.com for more information
A Sacred Return | Bali | August 16 - 20, 2027
Email hello@ashbutterss.com for more information

Follow and connect with Ash on:
⁠Instagram⁠ @ashbutterss
TikTok @behindthesmilewithashb
Website⁠ www.ashbutterss.com
Watch Ash’s TEDx Talk here!
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week Ash sits down with Dave McGrath, a 47 year old carpenter and father who recently celebrated three years of sobriety. For a period of about nine months before rehab, Dave was living out of his car, seeing his daughter once every month or two, and losing himself completely to what he calls the alcoholic insanity. His rock bottom came in a friend's garage, staring at an extension ladder and a rope, before something in him snapped awake enough to call a rehab.

In this raw and honest conversation, Dave takes Ash through the chaos of early sobriety attempts that did not stick, the shame of losing contact with his family and his daughter, and the strangers along the way who quietly helped him find his footing, including a chance encounter on a footpath that led him to treatment. He also opens up about an unexpected and profound spiritual awakening in a church that changed the course of his recovery, and what it has taken to rebuild trust with the people he hurt along the way. This is a story about hope, redemption and never giving up.

Episode chapters:
00:00 Introducing Dave McGrath
03:21 The Photo: A Visitation Day With His Daughter
04:16 The Unmanageability of Alcoholic Insanity
05:55 The First Drink as a Child
09:30 Hating Who He Saw in the Mirror
10:41 The Craving He Could Never Control
15:14 Failed Attempts and Dry Spells
18:52 Cold Water Plunges at 2am
19:33 Rock Bottom: The Rope in the Garage
21:31 A Stranger on the Street Who Showed Him the Way
23:21 A Daughter Waiting at the Window
26:03 From Dry Drunk to Actually Working the Program
44:51 A Spiritual Awakening at Church
47:57 Daily Conscious Contact and Letting Go of Rage
50:21 Three Non-Negotiables for a Happy, Authentic Life
Join Ash’s community newsletter! Click the link here to join.
Upcoming Retreats
The Embodied Woman One Day Retreat | October 25th | Find Out More
The Embodied Woman 5 Day Retreat | April 21 - 25, 2027 | Find Out More
A Sacred Return | Bali | August 16 - 20, 2027
Email hello@ashbutterss.com for more information

Follow and connect with Ash on:
⁠Instagram⁠ @ashbutterss
TikTok @behindthesmilewithashb
Website⁠ www.ashbutterss.com
Watch Ash’s TEDx Talk here!
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My guest this week is Megan Ashton, founder of Unity Breathwork and a leading voice for raising safety standards in the breathwork industry. Megan spent most of her adult life escaping herself, first through alcohol and bulimia as a teenager, then later through constant travel that let her outrun her feelings entirely. It took a devastating breakup, and a breathwork session in Bali, for her to finally crack open decades of unprocessed grief, so that she could start the long journey of finding a way back to herself.

In this conversation, Megan and Ash unpack what conscious connected breathwork actually is, why it so often brings up trauma the body has been holding for years, and what it means to build a practice around genuine safety rather than chasing catharsis. Megan speaks candidly about the childhood wounds that shaped her patterns of numbing, the importance of proper preparation and integration when facilitating breathwork, and her mission to make this kind of healing as accessible and understood as yoga. This conversation invites you to think about acknowledging the feelings you’ve spent a lifetime avoiding.

Episode chapters:
00:00 Introducing Megan Ashton
05:24 The Photo: Hiding Behind the Smile in Nicaragua
07:32 Travel as an Escape Strategy
09:33 A Sensitive Childhood and the First Time She Numbed Out
11:17 The Slow Slide Into Bulimia
12:59 The Breakup That Broke Everything Open
19:57 Trying Everything Before Breathwork
20:27 The Bali Session That Changed Her Life
22:17 Discovering Her Mission in Conscious Connected Breathwork
24:07 What Conscious Connected Breathwork Actually Is
27:08 A Year of Crying: What Processing Really Looks Like
28:07 Letting Go of Expectations in the Practice
00:18 Why Safety in Breathwork Matters So Much
02:28 The Risk of Retraumatisation Without Proper Preparation
04:33 Grounding and Integration After a Session
18:11 Three Non-Negotiables for a Happy, Authentic Life

Connect with Megan through the links below:
Website: (https://unitybreathwork.com/)
Breathwork Facilitator Training page: (https://unitybreathwork.com/breathwork-facilitator-training/)
Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/unitybreathwork/)
Retreats:(https://unitybreathwork.com/breathwork-retreat/)

Join Ash’s community newsletter! Click the link here to join.

Upcoming Retreats
The Embodied Woman One Day Retreat | October 25th | Find Out More
The Embodied Woman 5 Day Retreat | April 21 - 25, 2027 | Find Out More
A Sacred Return | Bali | August 16 - 20, 2027
Email hello@ashbutterss.com for more information.

Follow and connect with Ash on:
⁠Instagram⁠ @ashbutterss
TikTok @behindthesmilewithashb
Website⁠ www.ashbutterss.com
Watch Ash’s TEDx Talk here!
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.