This show was independently created by iHeartMedia. Novartist Pharmaceuticals Corp. Is the exclusive advertising partner. It is intended for informational and educational purposes only and is not intended as medical advice. Please speak with your healthcare professional before making any treatment decisions. Welcome to Good Game with Sarah Spain, where we're taking
you beyond the goalie box. It's Wednesday, June eleventh, and on today's show, we'll be skipping the need to know and getting right into the first installment of our new series, Life Beyond Living Beyond Labels, a powerful podcast campaign brought to you by Iheartwomen's Sports.
Our Life Beyond.
Series will showcase the extraordinary resilience and strength of successful women diving deep into their lives, highlighting their personal journeys, passions, and the ways in which they're living beyond the labels they've been given by others. Our first guest is World Cup champion soccer player, activist and fellow iHeart podcast host
Ashlyn Harris. She joins me to talk about finding identity and strength beyond the soccer which at motherhood, mental health, facing criticism, and the work require to heal from the pressure of performance.
My conversation with Ashland is coming up right after this.
Joining US now.
She's a former longtime US women's national team player and two time World Cup winner. She played for a long list of pro clubs, including the Washington Spirit, Orlando Pride, and gothamme FC of the NWSL, and was a two time Goalkeeper of the Year twenty eleven in the WPS and twenty sixteen in the NWSL. She played her college soccer for the UNC tar Heels and helped the team win three NCAA championships. Mom of two, her tats are many,
her fits are legendary. It's Florida woman, Ashland Harris. What's up, Ashley?
What an intro?
Are you willing to claim Florida right now?
I'm not willing to claim anything in this country.
I'm like, I'm booked and busy, Like just I want to.
Take a snooze for four years and wake back up and say this shit is gone.
It was a bad dream, right, you know what?
I think It's a bad sign that yesterday I told someone I wanted to fake a coma for a week so that everyone.
Would leave me alone.
Right.
It was like, but I'm not going to sleep.
I'm going to get stuff done so that when it come out of the goma, I feel prepared for all the emails and frond culsters.
And ready to snooze.
It was just put me out, put us both to sleep, put me to sleep.
Just a tranquilizer dart to the neck. What was that? Was at an old school? That was well?
Thank you for joining us to talk about life beyond soccer, beyond the goalie box, beyond the usual things that come up in sports interviews.
I want to actually start at the beginning though.
One why you ended up in the goaliebox, Because I've listened to interviews and you described yourself as a liability on the field. Oh, you were an angry kid playing with boys, slide tackling everyone, and you ended up essentially getting banished to the box so that you could do less damage. Why were you so angry? Why did the field become a place for you to get that out?
I wouldn't say that I was angry, Like, I played with boys growing up, so it's not really like a competitive women's girls team where I lived. Because I grew up on a small beach town in Cocoa Beach, Florida. And I was born in Cape Canaveral and everyone surfed and skated, so everything I did was around guys and my brother.
I had an older brother and that was my only sibling.
So for me to hang out with my brother, I had to be good enough at everything because I didn't want to get picked last. And I became such an asset because I was such a competitor, and I would do I just played dirty because sometimes like facts are facts, like when the guys got bigger and faster and stronger, like I had to find a different way. So with soccer, because I played baseball with my brother, I played basketball,
I did it all football. But with soccer, you know, the guys, just as I got older, were a little bit faster than I was. So I did a lot of things like leaving my feet and two I would two foot tackle people often. And but you know, back in the day when we were young and it was like raining and wet, which is Florida every single day, all it turned into was a slide tackling mess and there wasn't really like soccer used to be way more
dirty than it is today. So yeah, I would like take people's legs out, like I just and my coach was like, every game, we're getting so many yellow cards and red cards because if you don't get the ball, like you could really hurt someone. So he was like, I got a good idea for you, Like let's put you in goal and you can be on.
Your feet all you want.
You can get away with tackling and hitting people and not making it a liability for the team. And then I got in goal and I was just hammering people and I.
Loved it, you know, I think I've I've also heard you talk about childhood just being a struggle at times, how things for your family were tough, and so sport was sort of an escape or a way to help or a way to get out. Did you put pressure on yourself in that way. Did it become something where you thought, I need to be great at this because it's necessary, or did you always have a natural drive.
To be great.
I think you talk about like community and family and safety. I think in sports I just could be me and I didn't quite understand that as a kid, but as I'm older, I wanted to play and do everything that was organized sports. And I think for me in a house that felt very unsafe for me as a kid, I was like, oh, like, sport gives me community, it gives me safety, it gives me an active way to get off the streets. Because I was doing drugs in
sixth grade. I was you know, I started smoking in sixth grade, learning about drugs, you know, stealing cigarettes at the local like Cumberland Farms. And it was just the people I was hanging out with. I was absolutely an average of the friendship group I chose at the time. And yeah, I don't know, there was something about sport that made me feel a sense of belonging that I may not have felt otherwise.
And you know, I moved differently in.
School at a very early age, and my parents worked two jobs, and they, you know, they had a lot going on within you know, their their own lives.
That is hard. You know now as a mom, I get it.
Because I have access to the things my parents could never So they were trying to live and figure out in real time how to provide and it just it was a lot on them, which becomes a lot on
a household. And yeah, I guess for me to just go back to the question without making it the story insanely long, is when I was thirteen, I started getting college letters, and I'm talking handwritten letters from like Harvard and places like I didn't kind of laughable a little bit as a kid who couldn't pass a standardized test and you know, early development child education because it never was a priority in my household.
But I was like, Oh, I can get a free education.
Oh I can get out of here, and they can pay for all these things. And I think that became the reason why I chose soccer and the reason why I realized that was going to be my ticket out to greatness. And I just put all my cards into that right to that bucket and I went for it.
And it was well, it's an escape in the future, and it's a community in the present. Yep. You said you needed to feel safe somewhere. Why did your house feel unsafe?
Well, I just think that my family was going through really hard time. My dad went he had a really really bad accident that put him in the hospital for a long time, and he couldn't work and he couldn't do the things that he was used to doing, and it put a strain on my family's relationship. My mom was dealing with mental health problems and depression, and you know, financial problems that made it unbearable. So you know, things
started getting introduced, more drugs, more alcohol, more fragmented. Like there's just a ton of loneliness in the house. And I was so resentful because of it for so long until I became a mom and realized how hard it is, how hard it is to provide, how expensive it is, how mental health is a real thing, how you know, health insurance and things like that to get the right medication to you know, make sure everyone was functioning at
the best as their best self. Like they didn't My parents didn't have access to that, right.
There wasn't the stigmas back then too of actually dealing with it.
It was mostly people were ostracized for struggling.
Yeah, exactly, or it was like, oh, she's crazy, let's throw her into circles of care. And then I'm like okay, and then what and now what, like, how do we handle this? How do like we just didn't have the you know, access to therapy and to good doctors and to the education piece. We all just tried to figure it out and move forward as best we could, but it just was so toxic.
That's a lot to deal with and you did find this outlet in soccer, and your high school achievements are beyond beyond, you know, Gatorade Player of the Year. It's like multi time awards that most people don't win once, let alone multiple years in a row. Like you are very clearly one of the best in the country. You're getting calls from UNC early end up going to UNC, but you don't leave behind some of the things that
you struggled with at home. Right, you had addiction issues, and I've heard you say the same sort of story about colleges. You are the person you know sort of that you surround yourself with, and so you found similar circles that UNC, and ultimately your coach had to sort of help you realize that your path could be better going forward if you found a way out.
Right.
Yeah, he gave me a book man Searches for Meaning, and he would take time every week to sit with me and explain to me the values of real connection, community, character, and my goalkeeper coach would show up with me and I was quite embarrassing at the beginning to all my.
Classes, but your coach would go with you to class.
Yeah, Chris Ducar would show up with We call him Big Bird, my goalkeeper coach. He would show up to all my classes because like to make sure, not to make sure I went, but probably just so I felt supported. And like, it's interesting, right, Anson is a believer in
built Dorance your coach at Yeah, he's a believer. And you invest just as much as your physical ability as an athlete, but you have to really focus on being a good person to really develop this level of character you want to take with you the rest of your life, whether soccer is your gateway or something else. And I just was so lucky, and I had so much love
around me that I wasn't used to. I wasn't used to people showing up that way, and they did that for me, and lucky enough for me, I started and I say this, lucky enough. It's it's very important for me to phrase that. I got very injured, very quickly when I went to Carolina. I blew out both of my knees within the first year, one after another. And I was in a really, really bad place because soccer was supposed to be my ticket out. It was supposed to get me off of food stamps, get me off
of government money. You know, I was supposed to help my family, like I was the golden ticket and now I was damaged good and like so many people invested so much time, money, and energy into this dream of mine, and now what was I going to do? So I dove heavily into this both and where I became a normal student, which came with partying, which came with adderall addiction,
which came with depression and mental health issues. And then I also focused so heavily on building who I was outside of the game, and I almost was forced into it by Anson, but it was so pivotal and instrumental in developing who I was outside of what I did that I was like, it was this both and terror for me because I was working so hard on myself and my body, but at the same time I was trying to numb out.
Because yeah, like damaging it.
Yeah yeah, So it was a really conflicted time for me, but was so pivotal and who I am today.
Well, and thank Goodness for him because that's such a natural response.
So the book I just wrote, I ended up diving into so many different outlets of research, reading other books about generational trauma pathologies and why people end up the way they are. Numbing self, you know, harm all the other things. You know, the body keeps the score. I can't recommend it enough to peoples. This incredible book about understanding how our body is not separate from our brain. It doesn't like go a head up and then head
down and they operate differently. It's all very connected. So your desire to heal some of the trauma from growing up is at the same time damaging this prop that you know is of importance to you and your family and everything else. So you end up balancing it out, finding a way to have success, leading the team to national titles. You end up becoming a US women's national team player, having great success on the highest levels. But
because you learned who you were outside of soccer. When you talk about life after soccer, you sound so very different from other people who talk about the moment where their identity as an athlete sort of ends and they have to start anew. It doesn't feel like it's black and white like that. For you, was soccer ever really who you were after that point in college where you recognize that you needed to find out what was past being a goalkeeper.
That's a great question everyone. I'll even take it back one step Sarah, because I do think this is important and we're so quick to judge in this current world and landscape. Soccer was sort of vibe for me, like I had no option b if it didn't work. No one was paying for my education, not one person at the time, and my family even graduated from college, let
alone how to college education. Everyone always used to be like, God, you're just so hungry and you're so intense the way you play, the way you move, but off the field, like you're just this gentle, soft human that wants to connect and wants to do good in the world. And I have to be very clear because I think people often misunderstood me in a lot of ways because they couldn't understand my upbringing. They couldn't understand what survival mode
looks like. They couldn't understand getting in a lunch line and trying to steal pieces of you know, fruit or bars or more milk or you know. I had to steal a lot as a kid for survival. So not that I had to, I don't want to say that I had to, but it was a means of survival. Yeah, So I didn't wrap all my worth into the game. I just knew it would be worth it in the end to get me out of the experience.
That I was like, yeah, And also, nothing heals like sport, So it's not just that intellectually you understand it's an outlet. Physically, you are going somewhere where you're taking deep, gasping breaths and tells your body that times of fight or flight are over, that you're not in a traumatic situation.
You're able to run, stop, breathe.
Like, communicate with others, like in all these things that are inherent to sport that we sort of take for granted are in opposition to the traumatic moments at home.
And allow you those breaks that part. So I'll take it a step further. I was so damn good at my job because I was so comfortable and suffering because I already knew it, you know what I mean, Like the air is very thin at the top, and it takes a very unique mindset to be that brainwashed to want to choose and do it every single day. And I felt so much comfort and ease and suffering because I felt like it's all I ever knew that it
was weirdly my superpower. And I don't know if most people can say that, and I think that is the unlearning I am in now, in the phase that I'm in, that I don't have to suffer to feel at home anymore. Like there's so much more beauty to life, and I think being great I just was, you know, because I say this all the time, Everyone's like, what was the secret? And I was like, I just did the shit other
people weren't willing to do because I had. I felt so much comfort and ease and pain and it was familiar. It was weirdly comforting.
I mean, there's a million psychological reasons for that. You could talk to a whole lot of people who do things like ultra running or other sports where you sit in the suffering and it actually feels like healing to their brain because of the wiring from what came before. You know, I want to talk about what you said
about greatness. I've been listening to some former athletes talk about greatness as a goal being inherently unhealthy, because the pursuit of greatness as an achievement ultimately feels hollow once you've gotten to where you thought was going to solve all the problems.
And you know, listening to Megan Rappino and Sue Bird and.
Aby Wambach talk about it feels amazing standing on the podium, It feels amazing that night celebrating, and the very next morning, even as you try to continue the celebration, the predominant feeling is I want to.
Do it again. Now I got to go do it again. Now I got to figure out how to do it again.
So can you pursue greatness and have the process or the journey be the thing that you're actually seeking as opposed to the end results. Because your medals are in a ziplock bag in your closet, clearly that's not what you were actually going for.
You don't see jerseys hanging up in my office, right, I see my kids. I think that's the greatest trophy I won is being called the mom. So I don't know. I think we have We all have a different why, I guess, and you know, I have a lot to unpack and as I'm on this journey of self discovery and actually choosing what I want because for a long time a lot of things were out of my control,
it was not my choice. So like what, Well, you don't choose your coach, you don't choose your teams, your circumstances, or where you have to live, or how you have to get on a plane, or your schedule. Every single day, I choose nothing. I was a machine. I was told to get up to be here, then to do this. This is like the playbook. This is how you stay. You know, like it's it's a different.
Some people like that and feel a little lost when they retire and have an open day in front of them. Did you like that ever at the time, like you said, you're a machine and you were built for that, or did you always feel like I'm willing to do this, but I look forward to a time when I will get my own choice.
Yeah.
I for me, I just never put so much weight on what I did. I mean, they say the greatest athletes of all time have short term memory, and I just like I didn't overthink. I didn't you know, I always knew that if I made one mistake, that made me human, But what I did after that mistake would decide the fate of that game. Did one mistake turn into five? Did I dump it?
Like?
There's just so many things that just worked for me. I was a little less emotional in terms of I just knew. I wasn't crying cancer there. I was like, Okay, we lose this game, Like damn, that sucks because I'm a competitor and I want to win. But it's not like what I do after the game and how I show up for the people in the stands that paid for that type of entertainment was more about who I was than what my performance was for ninety minutes. Like when I'm pissed off at the world and I want
to throw shit and walk into the locker room. A hundred people are there paying, you know, more than a hundred, but like this matters to them. This moment of interaction is what they've been dreaming for and waiting for a long time, and it's my responsibility and my privilege to make that a priority. So for me, it was really always it became about the people and the fans because I knew what it was like to not belong. I knew what it was like to feel as an outsider
and unsafe. So if I can make the walls of that stadium carrying opening and accepting I'm doing something greater than the sport could ever give me, it's purpose. And I carried that with me forever, and it's instilled in everything I do. My weight is not on championship games or medals or this and that, because it really left me. It really left me damaged. I don't know a nicer way to put that. Yeah, it's called the blues. Like we work. You know, people are like, oh my god,
the World Cup. You know how many years when in a lifetime went into that tournament, and then once you win, it's like, okay, now what.
The post Olympic blues is very real thing that a lot of people talk about. And that's the result of achievement culture. Once you've achieved a thing, if it didn't all your problems, which it usually doesn't, now here you are with all the problems you had before and not the goal anymore.
We're going to take a quick break when we come back more.
With Ashlyn Harris, it doesn't feel like you prioritized achievement quite the same way a lot of other athletes did, but it still was very much a part of your life and it was the thing that kept you moving toward whatever the next practice was, whatever the next game was. When you're done with soccer, you've moved beyond soccer. How do you find a way to make life be a series of processes and journeys as opposed.
To needing to have some goal at every turn.
You know, I had to do a lot of work, and I don't say that lightly. I've had to do a lot of work. And I'm still on this journey of self discovery and I'm still on this evolution of who I want to be. And am I there yet?
No?
And I think we're never always quite there yet. But I'll say this, I don't chase so much of the extremes, highs and lows that sport brings us, which is a beautiful thing and a curse all at the same time. I actually am trying to find purpose and meaning and really just the small moments in life that I was too busy in the pursuit of greatness to even realize there is so much beauty and the most simple, mundane moments of your life, especially having children. And like, I'm
not on this journey of perfection. I'm on this journey of being at peace. And I think it's not about you know, at the beginning, it was like how can I be happy? Like I don't know what joy looks like or happiness looks like and you know, I did a lot with Deepak Chopra, I've done a lot with the Wellness Oasis. I've done a lot with my friends
and healing and interviews. But what I'm realizing more than ever, it's just I don't know if I've ever been at peace, and it is something I am embodying and living in in the moment that if it doesn't bring me that type of steadiness and peace, I don't have to choose it. Because I think if we, you know, whatever we choose to accept, we are choosing, like we are literally choosing
it every single day. And I'm in a beautiful space now where I can pick what I want to do and pick my friends, and you know, pick my family and pick my partner, and all of it is going to matter to bring you know, these walls in my house security and safety and ease and love and kindness. And to me, that is the biggest win.
Yeah, how do you reconcile your pursuit of excellence?
I've heard you talk in a lot of places about like you want to show your kids what it means to be strong and powerful and emotional and complex and complicated. It's not perfection you want to show them, but it
is excellence. How do you reconcile that with the inevitabilities of motherhood, which is mistakes happen, accidents are common, Plans change, things break because I am a bit of a control freak, and so watching people navigate parenthood and how many times there's a plan and it falls apart immediately before you've even left the house.
And I'm like, oh my god, I would not be able to handle it.
So how do you adjust your standard of living from when it was just you to all these people that are now a part.
Of your life.
I think having children have really softened me. It has changed my perspective greatly. It is one of the hardest and most beautiful things you can do. And both you know each day presents something different. But I do feel that the way I see the world is very different than before I had kids, and I am so much more like I check myself is like I have two kids that are looking at me every single day for
guidance and understanding in a world that's very cruel. So I yeah, I have this insane purpose not to overcorrect because I think, I think, and this is I talk about this and therapy quite often is when you come from a background of trauma, most parents and people try to overcorrect, and I think that can be toxic too. Yeah, and yeah, I it's like smotherings.
It's like everything's gonna be so perfect, I'm gonna nail it so hard, and then they're projecting a whole bunch of new shit.
Exactly for their kids exactly.
So I think for me, it's just been this beautiful exploration of just figuring it out as I go and there's nothing wrong with that, and being so humbled and open even when I get it wrong, to make sure I'm apologizing and making sure I'm holding myself accountable, and I'm just I'm actually raising my kids to be good adults, you know. And I think that is the hardest thing
to do. And I don't have the secret sauce, but like I think, time is the greatest gift you can give someone, So showing up for my kids is all I can do to continue to help them build these beautiful lives. And for me to be a small part of that, it's really been such a joy and a gift. And I love being a mom.
Yeah, time an example, right, I think there are parents who think do as I say, and the kids are always going to do as you do. And I know that it was hard for you to choose something different than what you had built. You built a marriage and kids and a life that was something you thought you always wanted, and you've said you looked back and you thought, oh my gosh, this is a decade of building something, and now I'm in it and it's not for me.
It's not what I want.
Knowing that you live your life publicly, both as an athlete and as a podcaster, or and as someone who is wide open quite literally, the name of your show about your struggles and your life and your challenge is what fears did you have about getting a divorce very publicly from someone everybody knows as well and starting anew in a way with a new partner. What did you worry about in terms of it or did you worry about what others might think?
Yeah? I think you know, for so long your brain lashed as a team. You know, you've you've got to play this role and you've got to you know, you've got to do your part, and you know not every time. Do you like that role or do you like that part? And I just like, I think my biggest concern has always and my priority has always been my teams, and
then it became my kids. And I think most people who've experienced big changes and shifts, I just constantly felt I was losing who I was in the process and I wasn't making enough space for the things that I wanted. And I think it's a really selfish thing to do. I think it's a brave thing to do. And I know I hurt like a lot of people in the process, and that is something like I have to learn to deal with and cope with, but also like I found myself in the process, and I can't apologize for that.
I think for far too long, you know, people live this life because they feel they have to, and then you know, when they're in their seventies and eighties, and it's a little more convene than leaving, Like I just didn't want to feel that. And I think a lot of criticism comes with people saying, well, you know, I take a lot of the heat and I'm the one that did you know, did this? And I'm the one that put my kids in a broken home. But sometimes it's like, but I was already broken in the process.
So what would I have projected on those children building this life and bringing them into it and hating it, Like my children would carry that more than you know, a home where I feel safe and I feel happy and I feel you know that I have purpose and I have space to be exactly who I want to be.
And I think, yeah, it's hard, and it's constantly hard because you know you don't you don't you love someone and you try these things out and sometimes like you build these lives and you're kind of strangers within the walls of them, and you have to make decisions. And I made a decision and I, you know, it was what's best for me, And I know that sounds so selfish, but I needed to because for so long I sacrificed my whole life and everything for the team, for the family,
for the partnership, for the kids. And you know, you look at yourself in the mirror and you're like, who theck have you become?
Well, I think you said it selfish, but I think it's selfish potentially in the moment, and then it's generous in the long term. And I think a lot of I have personal friends and I've heard a lot of people talk about staying together for the kids, but ultimately, what you're showing your kids is unhappiness, dissatisfaction, feeling stock making a choice once and then living in it forever
instead of the opportunity. When I was younger, I used to think divorce was a failure, and now I think every day you wake up and you make a choice, and if you keep choosing that person every day, that's great. If too many days in a row happen where you wouldn't choose them anymore, then do you just stay in that forever? That's not life for anyone, even for a partner that still wants to be with you. If you don't want to be with them, that's not the best that they can get or that you can get.
But everybody thinks they know what everybody else is going through.
Yeah, how do you prevent yourself from getting lost in the opinions of others or the feelings of others about the choices that you've made and the life that you have, Knowing that they don't know about it, and knowing that you should just be able to say they don't know shit, who cares?
That's hard as someone who's in the public spotlight.
It's hard for me when I think people misunderstand me or misrepresent me, and.
I know that that happens to you sometimes.
Oh it happens all the time. And it is a very cruel world out there. And I have learned a lot about tabloids. I've learned a lot about friends. I've learned a lot about people at their core. I've learned
who people are when moments get hard. And I know the greatest gift that I've learned through this process is knowing who will show up when shit's hard, and I think that has been invaluable for me to make smart, educated decisions about who I will bring with me in this next chapter of my life I'm building, and who I absolutely won't. And I think the Internet is a really toxic place to live. I have very clear boundaries
around it now. I think people are extremely hurtful and they do it on purpose, and it's hard to not let those things penetrate because I am sensitive and I have built a life and a reputation based on love and kindness, and currency is in those moments of connection and interaction and making this world a better place, especially for the queer community. It's very It's the very community that ended up stabbing me in the back and telling me I was wrong and telling me I was this
and that and all these things. And yeah, it's like it's like whiplash. It's like, oh my god, Like how could people say this? How could people? No one's lived in my walls, no one's lived the life. And let me be very clear, like, even if four people are living in the walls of a home, they're all having different experiences and we have to be able to make room for that.
Yeah, and I do.
It has been hard. I mean still to this day, it's like, I, you know, it's really hard for me to say this, and I'll say this. I haven't said this to anyone, but in a place that I felt so safe playing soccer. I have not stepped in a soccer stadium since. It is actually the place I feel the least safe right now, and that's because of the people in it.
Yeah.
I think there's a million reasons why.
And without knowing the specifics of your life, I think there's a million reasons why. It's easy to quote unquote pick a side when one side hadn't found someone new yet was beloved in soccer had been high achieving, and for you to be with a woman who had been married to a man, that's the queer community's going to
make judgments about that. They're going to make judgments about her being a beautiful and successful actress, and whether you're just reaching for this celebrity and fame and leaving behind someone that everybody like. There's a million ways to very simply try to turn this into, like you said, a tabloid style story with a.
Villain and a hero.
And people often do that when they're dissatisfied with their own selves and judgment of others feels good. It scratches an itch for them because they haven't done the work to figure out why they need to pursue that. Right, if you're spending your days reading about other people's troubles, enjoying the schadenfreud of people that aren't deserving of any
sort of whiplash, like it's your thing. And I'm not saying people can't have opinions, and I'm not saying people can't be critical, And sometimes that criticism does show us something about ourselves we were unaware of. Sometimes there are people on the internet, I'm like, you know what you're right, I should probably work on there. Actually, you know what, I never thought about that, but now that I realize I'm giving off.
That energy, let me go ahead and fix that.
Yeah, but ultimately you have to then take all that and say, I get why they quote unquote picked aside, I get why they're being judgmental, and what is my option for my life moving forward that both acknowledges that this space that was once safe isn't right now and finds a space that is, or finds people that are, or finds things that are in the hopeset. And I hope for you that you can return to that space and that it feels like a place for you again because you brought so much to it.
Do you have a toolbox for.
Those moments where you are looking around and you're thinking, I figured out how to get through this that you could help someone else with. Are there tips you could give people who are in that moment where it feels overwhelming of criticism or places that used to be there as in arts anymore.
Yeah, I'll say this, so I'll say the best thing everyone could have done for me is shut the door on me. Because you learn a lot about yourself when you're in a quiet room for a very long time and you don't have anyone to turn to. That's when the real work begins. And I was it was a privilege for me to sit in that type of darkness and that isolation to really learn who I am and
what I'm made of and what I want. So, you know, you talk about this burning into the fucking ground and rising from the ashes, like I get it, and I don't feel sorry about it. I don't feel sorry for myself about it. It was the greatest gift that everyone could give to me, because I don't know if I
would have done the work I've been doing. I don't know if I would have seen the world this clearly I did, And I was so reliant on other people to make me happy for so long that I now have dropped that and now I'm learning in real time and understanding the things that serve me and make me happy and the things that don't. And I think that's a great gift to all of us. Is isolation will
teach you a lot about yourself. And maybe I enjoyed it a little too much, but I am very particular now of the people I allow to come into my space and not. And I'll tell you this, Sarah one hundred times over. I rather feel safe in the walls of my house than in that stadium. So now the roles have reversed, and I hope one day I can feel the sense of belonging and safety that I brought to people as a performer and a player. And something
I don't take lightly is soccer saved my life. But also like I am now living a life that I imagined, and I feel the safety in my home and purpose here for the first time, and I hope eventually it balances out. But what I've learned about trauma and safety is I don't have to put myself in those positions and go three steps backward. I will know when that time is right. And I've had these conversations with Bri. It's like a deep bread yeah, a deep dark cover
or a deep dark dungeon, like a basement. And right now the basement is locked and I'm not whole enough to stand in it. But when i am, I can figure that out.
Yeah, right. Can I ask you a question? Yes?
Please?
The way you talked about and we're almost done here, but I'm curious the way you talked about the sort of people shutting the door on you and then you finding yourself in that dark room. It does feel a little them versus me. Did you feel like during any of this moment where you're sort of uprooting your life and struggling to figure out why am I unhappy?
What do I want? Who am I?
You did an interview with Carrie Champion where you said I don't like myself. You didn't like who you had become, so clearly you're going through a lot. Is there a part of you that feels responsible or takes responsibility for the ways that you interacted with people in that moment too that caused them to react that way, or does it feel like, no matter how you view it, it's
you versus everyone. They were against you, as opposed to a collaborative process whereby you were maybe hard to be around, or you were misunderstood, or you were acting in a way that they didn't understand. And now you can look back and say, oh, I found myself and I'm happy, But at the time it was disruptive for others too, and they weren't sure how to receive it.
Yeah, I think it just was a really hard thing because so many of our lives were interconnected. So I don't think it's in us first them. I think it's a reality of the state we live in. We're in a cancel cold sure, and you know it's.
Even your friends. Though you felt like that was part of what they were doing.
I don't think people really knew what to do. I genuinely think that that's more of what it was because we were this, you know, this couple, and we loved each other so much when we were together for a really long time and we were teammates and kids together. Like, I think everyone was just like, what the just happened? So I don't I don't think it's like a them
versus us. I just think that the tabloids created a lot of isolation where it felt like that, Yeah, it felt like I had a big target and they wanted to destroy me at all costs. And I think that was the hardest thing. You know, it was just the tabloids will eat you up and spit you out, and that's just that's good, that's good clickbait.
Yeah, it's business. It takes somebody demonize them, get everybody. When we've seen it across like what we saw with like the Justin Belton Lively. We literally saw the behind the scenes of how that happens and how it's done with intention to turn everyone against someone, and so much easier to pick a black and white story where one person's bad and the other's good that it is to get into the messy reality of life.
Yeah, so I just think that that the tabloids are really what made me feel isolated and ashamed. I think that's because you read it and you see it, and you see what you know these people have to say about and you start believing it, you know. So it's a really dark place to live in. And then I just had to get rid of it all, get rid of my phone, get rid of my apps, because it's
just that's not who I am, and that's right. I don't need validation and I don't need other people to tell me who I am or who I've become or this or that, Like I had to do the work and search for it. But the biggest thing I'll say is we definitely don't create enough space to give people grace. I think we're all learning in real time and are there things I want to do differently or wish I could have done differently, of course, I think we all
do that. I mean, it was not an easy process, and you know, I learn from it and I'm stronger because of it, and you just got to keep it pushing, Like life is such a gift. Every day I wake up and there's another sunrise. I get another day with my kids, and I don't want to waste that. I don't want to waste energy of the expectations people are placing on me when they don't know me. Like, that's something I can't carry. I can't carry everyone's trauma. I'm
trying to unpack and work through my own. So yeah, the projection is quite hard, but like I get it.
The work is the thing that you keep coming back to, And that's what I want to end with.
You have taken so much care intending to your mental and physical health throughout your life, in different stages and in different ways. How do you continue the work and how do you recommend to others that they find the time to be a intentional enough to see themselves and decide what they want.
To keep and what they want to fix.
Yeah, I think for now I'm actually present in my body. I used to always like do these words of affirmation, and I did it all the time, looking at myself in the mirror, and I'm like, well, if I tell myself I'm enough over and over and over, maybe I'll
believe it. But I think just really being in my body now that when things like and having good communication, when something like with myself, when I feel something or something bumps up against me, I'm able to really sit with it and unpack it and not necessarily project it or push it down. Because I have a game the next day, I don't have that distraction anymore. So I can actually be in my body, which is such a
beautiful thing because I can listen to it. So when it does, you know, bump me in a weird way, or I feel this you know, moment of ugh, I can actually sit with it and be like, why why are we feeling this way? What is it triggering? Is this your seven year old self that's hiding in the closet that's coming out or are we going to go sit in that closet with her and tell her she going to be okay.
Yeah.
I think it's a real beautiful thing to know yourself well enough. Now I'm going backwards in time, being like, oh, this is triggering this response.
What needs to heal so that next time that doesn't come up correct. Yeah, it's really powerful. I really feel for people who still have the distractions or don't have the time to look at it, because that changes everything when you decide to look and handle it differently. Right, last question for you, If you look beyond the goalie box at Ashland Harris, you'll find what.
I feel like.
I'm just a connector through and through. I live life through connection. It's my greatest asset and gift is to see people. And I just really really love the human experience. I don't know how to say it better than that, but I love the fact that I'm a connector and I want to carry that out with me forever. That's what my late grandmother taught me. And there's a sense of gentleness to be able to care for other people
even when you're going through this exploration stage. But I find it very healing.
Yeah, I love that. Well, thanks so much for giving us some time and being so wide open.
Thank you. Thanks for having me. It's always nice to be with you.
It's my favorite.
Good game with Sarah Spain is an iHeart women's sports production in partnership with Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment. You could find us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Production by Wonder Media Network. Our producers are alex Asie and Misha Jones. Our executive producers are Christina Everett, Jesse Katz, Jenny Kaplan and Emily Rutterer. Our editors are Emily Rutterer, Britney Martinez, Grace Lynch, and
Gianna Palmer. Our associate producers Lucy Jones and I'm Your Host Sarah Spain