CASE STUDY | Ashley C.

How Empowered People™ at City of Promise helped Ashley “reposition her power”, lift her depression and reconnect with her children.

Ashley, a single parent, met Yolonda through the Dream Builders program. Upon entering she was “in a bad place and depressed”. She shares that Yolonda helped to lift her out of that place. 

“Everyday I came to her [Yolonda’s] class, it was a break away from my everyday life and I learned to pay more attention to how I am.”

She praises the exercises that taught her to acknowledge her feelings and be ferocious about herself and how she feels, knowing that she matters. 

Ashley C’s Challenge: 

Mentally, Ashley says she felt stuck. She attributes that stuckness to living where she was at the time (on Hardy Drive in Charlottesville). She wanted to leave that neighborhood, but she didn’t think she could. 

Additionally, Ashley has a daughter with ADHD. She shares that this makes it “kind of hard to talk to [her daughter] instead of just talking at her.”

Ashley C’s Solution: 

Yolonda helped Ashley by giving her a “gentle yet powerful” extra push and reassuring her of her power. Ashley started to believe that there are no limits to the things that she can do. By connecting with other women, she knew that there are a lot of mothers, who are going through the same thing, as she said that “It was nice to feel that I wasn’t alone.”

“I just felt like it was over for me but it wasn’t. [Yolonda] helped me reposition my power. It was just very reassuring, you will feel powerful afterwards and you will feel able. It’s going to open you up into a light you didn’t know you had.” 

“It’s not like a therapy session, it’s very powerful without being aggressive. It’s kind, it’s soft but you feel like you can dominate anything.”

Ashley C’s Results:

Ashley is now speaking to her children differently. She credits the exercises she did in class with helping to really changed her.  “It was about setting a tone in a different way.” As a mother doing chores and taking care of her children, there are times when she doesn’t have the energy to talk in an uplifting way but it has become a second nature after Yolonda’s class. She is now talking to her children in a different manner. That made her children feel good and made her feel good as well.