Ep 14: Have You Asked Yourself What You Really Want Lately?
In this episode, Asha Wilkerson discusses the importance of knowing what you want and how it can lead to personal growth and success.
She shares two client success stories where tapping into their desires helped them overcome challenges in their relationships and career choices.
Asha emphasizes the need to expand our vision and believe our dreams are attainable. She invites listeners to book a coaching call with her to explore their innermost desires and create a plan to achieve their dream life.
Takeaways
Knowing what you want is essential for personal growth and success.
Tapping into your desires can help overcome challenges in relationships and career choices.
Expanding your vision and believing in the attainability of your dreams is crucial.
Booking a coaching call can help you explore your innermost desires and create a plan to achieve your dream life.
Chapters
(00:00) The Power of Knowing What You Want
(05:09) Expanding Your Vision for a Dream Life
(09:57) Asking Yourself What You Want
Learn more about Asha's Ghana retreat here.
Resources
To learn more about starting your healing journey, head to ashawilkerson.com!
Interested in working with Asha? Click here to get on her calendar for a discovery call.
Follow Asha on Instagram @AshaWilkersonEsq
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Asha Wilkerson (00:00.484)
When was the last time that somebody asked you what you wanted without being judgmental? When was the last time you asked yourself what you wanted? So far in coaching, none of my clients have come to me looking for the exact same outcome, but they have all come to me with some doubt or uncertainty as to what it was that they wanted, followed closely by a belief that what they wanted was unlikely to happen for one reason or another.
Well, I'm here to tell you that there's absolutely no way to get what you want if you don't know what it is that you want. Today, I'm going to tell you about two client success stories where we solve the problem by tapping into their wants and their desires. Let's go.
Asha Wilkerson (00:54.244)
All right, here we go. I asked you a question when I started this episode. When was the last time somebody asked you what you wanted? Close your eyes for a second as long as you're not driving and take a deep breath. Really inhale through your nose and exhale, release the stress and then think about it. Do you remember the last time that somebody asked you what you wanted? And when was the last time somebody asked you what you wanted and it wasn't related to food?
I know it's considerate, but sometimes I don't wanna have to decide what to eat. I just want someone to pick something. But seriously, when was the last time that somebody genuinely asked you what you wanted in life or in love or in relationships? Or how about what you want from work or your career? Now think back to the time, the last time that you asked yourself these questions. All right, you can go ahead and open your eyes again.
I'm willing to bet that if you grew up in a black or a brown household, your opinion probably didn't count a whole lot as a kid. Our parents often didn't ask us what we wanted for dinner, what we wanted to do during the summers, or if something was bothering us. So naturally, we likely didn't develop a practice for checking in with ourselves to see what we liked, disliked, or wanted to do or have differently. As an adult, you probably have bills, responsibilities, work deadlines, family obligations,
and many more engagements calling for your attention. And it's hard to make the time to get quiet and to tap in. But I get it, but it's a problem. Or at least I believe it's the root to a number of problems that you might be experiencing. How do you know what to fix if you don't know what you want? Let me tell you about two different clients of mine. One we'll call Regina and the other we'll call Simone.
Regina is one of four sisters and although she's not the oldest, in her opinion, she seems to get the brunt of her mother's attention and critical eye. Her mom is super old school and holds a deep belief that Regina's most important job is to keep her boyfriend happy. In her mind, having a man means stability. And so as a woman, Regina should do what she needs to do, wear makeup, lose weight, cook, et cetera, to keep her man.
Asha Wilkerson (03:10.788)
Regina is not just college educated, but she has a master's degree, she's a successful employee and an entrepreneur, and she owns a home. By many people's standards, she's doing great and there's not much to improve on. But her mom keeps offering opinions that shake Regina's confidence, anger Regina, and make stronger boundaries with her mom necessary. Regina and I worked together for just one session on this particular issue.
She was frustrated and hurt that her mom could so easily get under her skin. She wanted to spend more time with her, but she also needed distance. Her mom would call and say things like, oh, it's been so long since you've talked to me. It's been two weeks. You don't care about me anymore. How come you never come and visit? What her mom was really doing was asking Regina for attention, but the way that she was doing it was so off putting and manipulative
that Regina had to set boundaries and create distance between the two of them just to keep her peace. That pattern of relating of the mom chasing and Regina running caused a really big strain on the relationship. So much so that Regina just had to disengage so that she wouldn't be triggered, but that didn't sit well with her. And so she came to ask me for some advice about how she could move through the situation. The first thing I did was to ask Regina what she wanted.
And she sat there and she thought about it. She said, I've never thought about what I actually do want. She thought about what she didn't want. She knew that she was uncomfortable in the present situation, but she didn't know what she wanted the ideal relationship with her mom to look like. So as we talked about it a little bit more, I said, how do you want to feel? What do you want to do? How do you want to be? She came up with wanting to have time and spend time with her mom, but she didn't want to feel guilty about it. She wanted to spend time with her
because she wanted to spend time, not because she'd been manipulated into it. She wanted to have regular contact with her mom, not every day, but regular weekly contact, maybe twice a week, so that her mom wouldn't feel so neglected by the time that they would get on the phone, but also so Regina wouldn't feel so responsible for doing all of the communication. She also knew that initially,
Asha Wilkerson (05:30.916)
she would need to find a neutral location to meet up with her mom because if she went up to visit her mom, she would get trapped in the house and then she felt like if her mom would come down and visit her, then her mom could stay forever and ever and just say things that would trigger her. So we came up with a new set of rules and a new set of relating with Regina's mother that she could deploy. And when I asked Regina why she hadn't thought about doing this before,
she said, well, this is the way we've always related to each other. But then there was also the real fear there about what if changing the way that they were engaging actually upset her mom or what if it didn't work? And she also felt like she had never been able to change the boundaries of relating before. So why should she be able to do it now? And what happens if she's seen as a bad daughter? As the coach, I reminded Regina that she was already uncomfortable.
Her mom was already upset and if it didn't work, she could always try something new. And also Regina had already changed the boundaries with her mom, but it wasn't in a way that facilitated and fostered more communication. It was a protective mechanism, which is what boundaries do. And it was a good thing that she set the boundary, but it helped to create more distance or to keep the distance instead of being able to set a boundary that would foster
love and communication. So before working with me, Regina didn't realize that her ideal relationship with her mom wasn't a reality because her vision, Regina's vision of what was possible for her mom and her was just too small. So how did we resolve it? I'm proud to say, like a proud like little coach over here, that Regina invited her mom to a specific event. I believe they went to a garden
that was closing in a couple hours where they could walk and talk. It was a space that Regina loved to be in and it was a space that she knew that her mom would enjoy. It was neutral territory so they didn't have to figure out how to leave each other's houses. She also planned to talk to her mom twice a week because she knew that if she had more regular contact then her mom wouldn't be so desperate for the communication and she was hoping that she would get to a point where she could just update her mom about what was going on in her life regularly.
Asha Wilkerson (07:55.684)
Also, um...
Asha Wilkerson (08:04.868)
Right after Regina and her mom hung out, she sent me a message to say, thank you. Both of them had a great time and were so happy. She said that without talking to me, she wouldn't have thought about changing the way that they were interacting and would have kept doing the same thing over and over again, expecting or hoping for a different result. I am so proud of what we were able to accomplish in that one session and to see that it had lasting effects on their relationship.
Now, let me tell you about Simone. Simone is a woman in her late twenties and after leaving her former employer, she decided it was time to make her move abroad. We worked on a few things while coaching together from determining what an ideal work situation would look like for her.
Asha Wilkerson (08:59.908)
Oh, We worked on a few things while coaching together from determining what her ideal work situation would look like to also deciding what she wants in her home when she moves abroad. First, let me give you a little bit of background. Simone found success really early on as a first generation black female immigrant. Education and achievement were firm family values and discussions or questions about what Simone wanted for herself never ever came up.
So now that she's at a crossroads where she can decide to stay with the status quo and go back into the business world or build a beautiful life that is specifically tailored to her wants and needs, Simone has to figure out what she really wants. We spent the last few weeks getting clear on her vision and she started these exercises, these weekly journaling exercises where she wrote every day for about a week of what her ideal life would look like,
what it would include, and how she would feel if there were no barriers to making it happen. Then I asked her, then I asked Simone to write a letter to herself. Then I asked Simone to write a letter from her future self telling her present self how proud she is of the work that she's done and what life is like for her in the future. After we set the stage that way,
opened up her mind and got her to start dreaming, we got to work on mapping out her move abroad. We worked on the career stuff too, but for the sake of this story, we'll talk about the move abroad. Things were going well, but then the other day she said to me that although she wants to have a beach view when she moves abroad, she's afraid to tell the real estate agent helping her look for rentals that she actually wants the beach view. And I asked her why
she felt that way or why she was afraid to say anything. And she explained that she was afraid that it might be too expensive or that the agent would only show her property that she couldn't afford. She was afraid to only see beach views thinking that they would actually just be too big for what she was capable of receiving. And I paused for a minute and thought about how to respond in a helpful manner, because in my mind, I thought, how in the world can you get what you want if you can't
Asha Wilkerson (11:23.652)
even ask for it. You have to be able to tell the world, the people around you, the universe, God, whoever you think is listening, what your desires are so that they can come and find you. But if you are not willing to open up your mouth and share what you want and to put it out there and to believe that it will happen, it will not happen. And then it hit me.
I realized that she was still playing small because her vision of what was possible wasn't large enough. So we went back to work on her mindset to expand her vision for what was possible in the future. And the holdup for her was she knew what she wanted, but she didn't know how it was going to happen. And because she didn't know how she kept her vision small so that she wouldn't be disappointed if it didn't come true.
Both Regina and Simone were stuck in their patterns because initially they didn't know what they wanted, but after they figured it out, they had to expand their vision to understand that what they wanted was possible. Some of you listening right now haven't asked yourself what you've wanted in years. You were so disconnected from your body and from your desires that if a genie popped out of a bottle and granted you three wishes right now, you wouldn't even know where to start.
But beyond that, you have to create a vision big enough to hold anything that you want.
Asha Wilkerson (13:09.476)
So now my question to you is what do you want and is your vision big enough to hold it? As you can see from the two clients I just talked about, I have a proven process for not only helping you determine what it is that you want, but for also expanding your vision so that it can hold your dreams. Now, if you are in a space where you know that something that you are experiencing is uncomfortable,
you know that the relationship you have right now, whether it's with your parents or a loved one or a friend or a coworker, the job you have right now or the life you're living right now isn't it for you, but you're not sure what to do next to make a dream life come true. I invite you to book a one-on-one coaching call with me. I will help you tap into your innermost desires.
And if you were anything like me, and if you are a person of color, I will bet my last $100 that nobody has asked you and you haven't asked yourself what you want lately. It is like taboo sometimes in our families to say that we want to make a change because often the guilt of...
all the sacrifices that our parents have made or that our family members have made get put back on us. And we feel like asking for something different when we're 'lucky enough," to have what we have now is just doing too much. But I am here to tell you that your dream, your freedom to be and exist however you want to be is yours to claim.
So I invite you to book a coaching sales call with me so we can work together one-on-one to get you back in touch with your innermost desires. I want you to feel comfortable asking for what you want. I want to expand your vision so that you know that your dreams can come true. And I am going to help you not only make a plan, but I will support you along the way as you take the steps to get there. My coaching right now is six weeks,
Asha Wilkerson (15:18.148)
and it includes weekly WhatsApp access. I almost stuttered there because it used to be Voxer, but now I'm on WhatsApp. I like that app better. So that if you have a question, no matter what time of day it is, you can send it to me and I won't answer you in the middle of the night, but I will answer you when I get back up. Sometimes it is hard to step out of our present situation, our current situation and see that what we want is actually desirable. If we haven't... not even just desirable,
that what we want is actually attainable. If we haven't seen it done before, it's hard to imagine that it could be possible for us. But as woman to woman, black person to black person, BIPOC person to BIPOC person, just human to human, I want you to know that whatever it is that you want is absolutely yours for the taking. So head to ashawilkerson.com/coaching
to book a coaching sales call with me so we can get started and get you to taking action on your dream life in just six weeks. And as you go and do that, I want you to remember that it's because I've healed that I've been able to repair old relationships and start new ones from a different perspective. It's because I've healed that I've been able to leave expectations behind that no longer serve me.
It's because I've healed that I'm currently living my dream life out loud with no regrets. And the same is available to you too. See you next week.