Ashley Judd has been struggling to find peace after 40 years of pain from her upbringing.
The Hollywood actress has been on a ‘long journey to reconnect with herself and find joy in everyday things during the few decades she has left,’ a source has told the Daily Mail.
Growing up in a famous family – her mother is the late singer Naomi Judd and her sister is country crooner Wynonna Judd – has been a source of trauma, as working for them when she was younger did not allow her to experience a normal childhood.
She later found herself in a completely different, yet still demanding, environment as an A-List leading lady with roles in films such as A Time To Kill, Double Jeopardy and Kiss The Girls.
The pressure to look good under the spotlight was intense.
But the 57-year-old icon has now begun her healing process by listening to her ‘inner voice’ with the help of a ‘wisdom teacher’ that is guiding her to unfiltered happiness, Daily Mail has learned.
‘She wants to experience the joy she never had as a child,’ said the pal. ‘Her hope is to loose all the drama and expectations and splash around like a silly child enveloped in light.’
Ashley Judd has been struggling to find peace after 40 years of pain from her upbringing (pictured above in a recent social media post)
Her mom Naomi Judd and sister Wynonna Judd backstage at the 2022 CMT Music Awards; when Ashley was a child she worked for them
‘Ashley hopes to become totally unselfconscious so she can find her true self,’ the insider added.
This lines up with a late August Instagram post that Judd made while on vacation in Greece.
The star said in her caption that was looking inside of herself to find answers as she said she wanted to fall in love with herself again.
The movie icon also hinted that her family, as well as society, had ‘distorted our natural feelings of self worth and self care.’
‘I cannot give what I do not have, & trauma & deprivation I do not transform, is trauma & deprivation I will transfer. Thus, I start with myself. Trusting myself, my inner knowing, growing own capacity & nurturing inner resource, has been the yield & bounty of 20 years of recovery,’ she wrote.
Judd then said a ‘Higher Power’ was serving as her ‘actual parent’ so that she could honor herself and connect with others.
That is what led her to the Mediterranean region over the hot months.
‘This summer, I had the opportunity to take a vacation. I checked in with myself and some younger versions of me “showed me” blue & white. I instantly recognized the parts of me that longed to go to Greece. I chose Patmos Island. It was me with my inner journey & selves. It was innocent, pure, beautiful, fun, exploratory.’
She then asked a profound question: ‘How can you access your own inner knowing to provision for yourself today that which you lacked growing up?’
Adding to the mix is a massive Hollywood career that focused on her stunning looks and hot body. Her hit films were A Time To Kill, Double Jeopardy and Kiss The Girls
The 57-year-old Hollywood icon has begun her healing process by listening to her ‘inner voice’ with the help of a ‘wisdom teacher’ that is guiding her to unfiltered happiness
‘She wants to experience the joy she never had as a child,’ said the pal. ‘Her hope is to loose all the drama and expectations and splash around like a silly child’
‘Ashley hopes to become totally unselfconscious so she can find her true self,’ the insider added. This lines up with a late August Instagram post that Judd made while on vacation in Greece. The star said in her caption that was looking inside of herself to find answers
In late July she made a post about ‘letting yourself be free and… letting go of what others expect, think, need, want?
Judd then shared that she wanted to be ‘seen, heard, play.’
‘If as an adult, I am caught up in what others think of me, I ignore, neglect, & abandon my own tender Self. Today, that’s off the table. Into the Sea for me, to splash & play! Love, Ashley.’
Judd was an A-list movie star who worked on blockbuster films with big-name costars for over a decade.
She was paired with the best: Al Pacino, Robert De Niro and Matthew McConaughey, to name a few.
Her female costars were just as impressive: Sandra Bullock, Natalie Portman and the inimitable Salma Hayek.
Judd even played the biggest pinup Hollywood has ever seen – Marilyn Monroe – in 1996’s Norma Jean & Marilyn.
For the past decade she has been in supporting roles, though she has had some big hits like The Dog’s Way Home in 2019.
But since she injured her leg in 2021 in the Republic of the Congo, the bombshell daughter of Naomi Judd has slowed down.
She has also been in school: Judd graduated from the University of Kentucky in 2007, earned a Master of Public Administration (MPA) from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government in 2010 and enrolled at UC Berkeley in 2016 to pursue a PhD in Public Policy.
In July she talked about loving her body after menopause and not caring what people thought
Judd was a top movie star in the 1990s; seen on the left in the film Someone Like You and on the right on the cover of GQ magazine
But she still posts often on Instagram proving she looks fabulous even in her mid-50s.
In April 2024, Judd delivered a poignant speech about suicide prevention as she opened up about the sudden passing of mother Naomi Judd who died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
The star appeared alongside other notable suicide prevention advocates – including singer Aloe Blacc and campaigner Shelby Rowe – at the event at the White House complex in Washington.
She opened up about her mother’s struggles with mental health, saying that on the day Naomi took her own life ‘the disease of mental illness was lying to her and with great terror [had] convinced her that it would never get better.’
It comes after Ashley recounted the heartbreaking moment she discovered her mom’s body after she took her own life aged 76 on April 30, 2022.
Ashley took to the stage in a flowing white summer dress but wrapped a hessian blanket over her legs as she took the microphone in hand.
She began: ‘I’m here because I am my beloved mother’s daughter and on the day she died, which will be the two-year anniversary in one week, the disease of mental illness was lying to her and with great terror convinced her that it would never get better…
She was paired with the best: Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Matthew McConaughey (seen with Matthew in A Time To Kill in 1996)
With Morgan Freeman in Kiss The Girls in 1997
With Bruce Greenwood in Double Jeopardy in 1999
An image from Double Jeopardy where she was in jail
Judd was a rich wife opposite Kevin Kline in 2004’s De-Lovely
‘I have a firm belief that we deserve to be remembered not just for how we died but how we lived.’
Ashley went on to share details about her mom as she divulged: ‘She also lived most of her life with an untreated and undiagnosed mental illness that lied to her and stole from her. It stole from our family and she deserved better.’
Naomi died from a single gunshot to the head and left a suicide note near her body at at her home in Leiper’s Fork, Tennessee.
She had battled with ‘significant’ anxiety, depression and bipolar disorder, according to an autopsy report.
Ashley talked about her own experience with depression as she explained: ‘I’m also here because I was molested by a man for the first time that I remember when I was seven years old.
Ashley has recounted the heartbreaking moment she discovered her mom’s body after she took her own life aged 76 on April 30, 2022 (pictured 2013)
‘That’s when I had onset of childhood depression and I know the feeling of not wanting to be here but I had a different experience because I went to treatment in 2006 for unresolved childhood grief and sexual trauma.
‘I’ve been in good recovery for 18 years and I’ve had a different outcome than my mother. I carry a message of hope and recovery.’
In January, Ashley appeared on an episode of CNN‘s All There Is with Anderson Cooper to discuss her mother’s death.
Ashley said: ‘It was traumatic and unexpected because it was death by suicide and I found her’ but added she was ‘so glad’ she was there for her mother after her death.
‘Even when I walked in that room and I saw that she had harmed herself, the first thing out of my mouth was, “Momma, I see how much you’ve been suffering and it is okay… I am here, and it is okay to let go.”‘
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