We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Ashley Lewis a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Ashley , appreciate you joining us today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

Backstory: I was in a place in my life where my emotions felt like a rollercoaster and I literally spent most of my time in church. One Sunday in 2019, I went to church and I felt like the pastor was talking directly to me and he said, “If you are frustrated about something, don’t just sit on it. Change it! Do something about it!” And when I say that stuck with me, it did. I wanted community for women like me to share their thoughts on different topics without being judged and to be able to help one another. Having somewhere to talk about how outside influences and issues currently affects or affected us is so important!

Ashley , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Here are some examples of our past events: Our Annual Boobs, Babes, and Brunch (Breast Cancer Event), Raffle Fundraiser for Mother’s Day, Beauty From Within: Panel Event, Galentines, Cocktails & Convos I & II with the topic of Mental Health, Race & Privilege, Sexual Assault, etc., Christmas Toy Drive and more.

From our past events, I have been able to talk to women who have internal issues and help them find ways to see self-love as a priority. We often prioritize others before ourself, but how can we help others affectively if we don’t know how to love ourself first. It’s actually very interesting to see women stop me outside of events to ask me for advice and for them to ask for ways to help I’m With Her. I love that others see me as a woman who they can come to cause I want to be able to be there for women, just like my circle of friends/sisters are there for me. Everyone needs someone to lean on.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I’ve had to unlearn imposing my views on others and accepting people’s perspective on things. I use to go into conversations already knowing what I wanted to say, but now I literally will tell myself to actually listen and comprehend. This allows me to be open to changing my thoughts on certain things when presented with new information. Sometimes, people forget they are allowed to change their mind about topics because they don’t want to seem wishy washy, but it can be a sign of growth.

Backstory: I worked for student activites in college and had the role of co-executive director (president role for diversity and inclusion organization) and I had to give my input on what we should do to make the organization successful. With our executive board being so diverse, we ran into issues where we didn’t see eye-to-eye because of everyone viewing things individually instead of collectively. But, with my role, I had to sit back and listen so I could make everyone feel included and important because everything they said made sense from their own personal experience.

I had to understand that we all come from different backgrounds (race, gender, age, socioeconomic status, etc.) and have different upbringings which influences our thought process. I can’t invalidity how someone feels; they all have their own story to tell. By letting everyone express theirselves, me and my fellow co-ex director were able to find solutions to include the whole group.

Before this role, I definitely felt the need to get my point across, even if it knocked other’s ideas. But I had to change (or be open-minded) in order to get things done in this job. Since then, I’ve approached many situations with the thought of hearing other’s perspective and to not knock it from the beginning.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

We have built our audience on social media by posting relatable content that we feel everyone can use to uplift them in their everyday lives. Like who doesn’t like seeing positive content like daily affirmations on their timeline? No one, we all need positive vibes around us! Atleast, I believe so lol.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: imwithherorg
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/977230032884771