Ep 20: How I'm Healing Perfectionism with Ancestral Healing
In this episode, Asha Wilkerson shares her personal journey of healing and overcoming generational trauma.
She discusses the fear of failure and the pressure to be perfect that she inherited from her family history as a Black woman in America. Asha explores the impact of these beliefs on her business and personal life and how she is working to heal and let go of these expectations.
She also introduces her four-week Ancestral Healing Deep Dive program and explains how it can help others heal from their own family lineage.
Learn more about the 4-week Ancestral Healing Container.
Takeaways
Generational trauma and beliefs can have a significant impact on our lives and hold us back from reaching our full potential.
Identifying the origins of our fears and expectations can help us understand and heal from them.
Healing is a continuous journey, and it's important to be kind and compassionate to ourselves along the way.
Ancestral healing can provide a powerful framework for healing and releasing the burdens of the past.
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.
Join Asha's email list here.
Follow Asha on Instagram @AshaWilkersonEsq
Join the WhatsApp group for the African Diaspora
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Asha Wilkerson (00:01.072)
Hey y 'all, welcome back to another episode of Because I've Healed. This episode is special to me because I'm going to be peeling back the curtain a little bit and to let you know what's going on inside of me. So as you're probably aware, at least I hope that you're aware, I am in the launch right now for my four-week Ancestral Healing Deep Dive. We start on Sunday, September 1st, so there's still space if you would like to sign up for the Healing Deep Dive.
It's a four week program where we are first connecting to our ancestors, two, releasing any trauma or patterns that we need to let go of. Three, we're going to connect to the joy and love that our ancestors have for us because it's not all bad and it's not all suffering, but we need to remember that. And then on the fourth week, we're going to be diving in and asking our ancestors what they want for us moving forward. So I have to tell you about some
leftover, I don't want to use the word trauma, but like residual, it probably is trauma, actually generational trauma that came up for me as I was launching this container. And I'm going to tell you exactly what I'm doing to work through it. So right after this intro, come back and I'll give you all the details.
Okay, so as I mentioned, as I was launching this four week healing container, some things started to come up for me that really came up for me when I was doing business full time, when I was business coaching full time and practicing as an attorney. And what happened is I started to deviate from the script of just doing litigation cases or just following it everybody else was doing and really putting myself out there and putting my own programs out there. This fear came along with it of
Is it good enough? Is it, what does it mean if I can't make it work? Actually, I'm going to just read to you some of the journaling that I did last night before I recorded this podcast, just so you can see really what it is that comes up for me. And it's a little bit, I feel like sometimes it's embarrassing because I feel like I should be further along than this. I feel like I shouldn't be having these thoughts or these doubts.
Asha Wilkerson (02:20.588)
People will remind me of all the things that I've accomplished, but it doesn't always matter. Sometimes it's just that internal thing that is going on within us. So this is what I wrote last night. I said, okay, so how do I feel about launching this container? And I wrote, I feel dread, I feel terrified, I feel anxious. I feel it in my solar plexus or in the pit of my stomach. I feel doubt.
And that fear, anxiousness is really, really present or it's still present and it's coming up again. And then I asked myself, what am I actually afraid of? Because one of the things I really prided myself on in creating this four week healing container was following my intuition and really trying to stay connected to my guides and ancestors as I created the program. One of the goals that I've had for myself for the last couple of months is I don't want there to be any separation between what I do and who I am.
So I am always working on healing and working on trusting my gut and my intuition. And I want to use those same skills that I have or the same practices in my life, in my business. But as I launched this four-week healing container, the old stuff really started to come up. And so instead of pretending like it's not there, said, let me actually dive in and see what I'm afraid of. This is what I wrote:
not getting clients, a failed launch, a still not understanding how to make money. And what do these things mean? Right? Because it's one thing to have the emotions, but then also what am I making that emotion mean about myself? What do I think these things mean? That I still have to figure it out, that I'm still not doing what I'm supposed to be doing, that I'm still struggling, that I failed somehow, that I'm not as good or as capable
as I need to be to survive. And then I asked myself again, but what does that really mean? What would it really mean? And then I realized, I guess I wouldn't have to mean anything other than it didn't work to get clients. And once I came to that conclusion, it made me feel a little bit more free. And I realized that I believe it, not 100%. Like I'm believing more that if it doesn't work out, it doesn't actually mean very much about me. I'm like, ...
Asha Wilkerson (04:43.408)
70 % into that belief, right? I'm still a work in progress. So even though I'm leading this container, I'm still on my own healing journey as well. So as I was thinking about this podcast episode, and it just came to me to record this episode about this process. And I realized that those feelings, those doubts, those fears that I just told you all about are really holdovers
from generational admonitions, generational trauma, that feeling that I have of not really being able to be free to try and to explore, that is pressure that I feel that has come down the line through generations and sits right on my chest and right in my solar plexus. Now it's not because somebody explicitly told me, Asha, you have to be the best or Asha, you have to be perfect.
I never heard anything like that, but there was an implicit expectation that I would make everybody proud or at least that I wouldn't mess it up. So I don't call myself a perfectionist. I call myself perfectionist adjacent because I never felt like I had to get it all right, but I definitely felt like I couldn't mess it up. So where does this actually come from? Being black.
in America, being African American in America, also with my family history, my grandfather worked alongside Medgar Evers. Being black or African American in America has a whole other set of pressure and context that you can probably relate to if you're a first generation immigrant, if you're a person of color in the United States, if you're a woman of color, if you're a woman, all of that stuff, right?
But my grandfather worked with Medgar Evers and Martin Luther King Jr. to fight for equal rights for Black people in United States. And once Black people got rights, all other groups got rights as well. And when I grew up in Portland, Oregon, it was a very white community. And my mom was the only Black administrator in the school district where we lived and worked. My mom was also the first Black woman to attend the University of Mississippi. So she broke lots of color barriers.
Asha Wilkerson (07:04.364)
And in the experience of my grandfather and my mother, because black people were not given the same chance and because there were legal barriers, they learned that they had to be twice as good to get half as far. And you've probably heard that phrase before, but when you hear that, you automatically start thinking, you can't mess up. You have to be
twice as good as the person next to you and it's still not going to get you the same result as the person next to you because you can only get half as far, right? Going back to my mother being the only black administrator in the school district while I was in school, I was also the only black kid on all my sports teams and most of my classes, all of that stuff. And people knew that she was my mother because she was a middle school principal and I was in middle school at the time. I played sports, so I would play
against a lot of her kids and she would tell me, Asha, people see you and you cannot do anything to mess up my reputation or your own reputation. And I really took that advice to heart and it didn't feel like pressure at the time, but I always knew that I had to behave in a certain way because it wasn't just me that I was responsible for, it was also her in a sense that I was responsible for. And she didn't say that to me
to put extra pressure on me, but she said it to me because it was true. I wouldn't get the same opportunity to mess up as my friends in the neighborhood would, because I was black and they weren't, it was just different. So all of that and so much more, right? And me being visible, I'm 6 '1", very white area growing up, played sports, was good at sports as well. There were eyes on me. And so while I didn't feel like I had to be perfect,
I also really knew that I couldn't mess up. So let me fast forward to today. Those things from childhood still show up. And I guess let me also tell you a little bit about like young adulthood, right? Being a black attorney is, there aren't that many of us around, even though there's a pretty good community of black attorneys in California. But I would often find myself as the only black attorney in the courtroom where I'd walk into a courtroom
Asha Wilkerson (09:23.204)
and people would assume that I was the defendant or maybe the court reporter if they were being nice. So I always had to over prove that I was entitled to be there, right? That I had not even just entitled, but that I had earned my place in this courtroom as an attorney and that people could trust what I said. And so as now fast forward, when I put myself out there and try something new,
that same fear comes up again as you can't mess it up, Asha. What will people think if you do? They're gonna think you weren't supposed to be here, that you just got through on so-called affirmative action, that you're not actually bright enough. All of these things that are really, really harsh judgments and criticisms of myself, but they come from my family history and from my family being a minority
in the United States because those things that my mom and my grandfather taught me that we had to be really good at what we did in order to get the respect and the opportunity, those were survival skills. And so they got passed on to me because that's what they needed. And I at some point also needed those things to survive. But now that I am grown, grown with my own business and the world has evolved a little bit,
I don't need to have those same rigid expectations of myself. At this point, as a 40 year old woman, I can't really mess up, right? Even if nobody were to sign up for the healing container, which people have at this point, but even if no one were to sign up for the healing container, it's not like I messed up, right? And if I did, what does it really mean? It doesn't mean the same thing
as it used to when I was 16 if I didn't get the grade. It doesn't mean the same thing as when I was taking the bar and needed to pass to become licensed, right? But these are the things that I'm somewhat surprised but also understand are still coming up for me. The reason why I'm somewhat surprised is because I have done work on this before and now that I have moved my life to Portugal, I have set different standards for myself, I have
Asha Wilkerson (11:47.106)
really been operating in this way that feels much more free and expansive. I've been following my intuition and trying to get out of my logical brain more. I'm surprised a little bit that these holdover beliefs really had me in a chokehold when I launched this ancestral healing container. Even though I followed my guides, I followed my intuition, I trusted myself and I know that this container
is has been created because this is what I'm supposed to do right now in this moment. But my brain, my very human brain is like, but, but, what if, what if, what if? So now you understand I've like lifted the veil on what's going on behind me or within me on what I've been like processing through. And I think you understand where it comes from, right?
Maybe you have something similar going on within you. Do you feel like you're a perfectionist? Are you afraid to mess up? Are you the oldest daughter or the firstborn male in your family? Is there this pressure on you where you feel like you're carrying the weight of those around you? And what happens when you put yourself out there? Do you feel like it's okay to try and "fail?"
Or do you feel like you have to get it right? Or maybe it comes up in other ways for you. Maybe it's around burying your emotions because your great grandfather couldn't cry in this situation and taught your grandfather not to cry, who taught your father not to cry, who then taught you not to cry. But the situation and the context are completely different than when they develop that survival skill. So
I am using ancestral healing to help me heal from this perfection adjacent persona that I have or these thoughts that I have that I can't mess up because it's actually not true. I can mess up and who gets to define what a mess up is anyway these days? It's me. I don't mess up if I don't call it a mess up, right? That's semantics and I can get into that later, but it is true, right?
Asha Wilkerson (14:06.644)
I have identified where this perfectionism or this feeling like I can't mess up comes from. So in your own life for the things that you feel like just kind of have you in a chokehold, maybe that give you fear or when you hear yourself repeating something your parents said, identify where it comes from and why it existed. And then the next thing I want you to do, what did I say?
Asha Wilkerson (14:39.408)
And I really want you to identify how it comes up, how it shows up in your life. know, what does this, so for example, for me, the fear of failure doesn't stop me from putting myself out there, but it stops me from really going after it 100%. Because there's a part of me that's like,
well, if I don't do everything I could in marketing, then I can always say I didn't do everything I could. And that means it's not actually my failure, that it's just I didn't do enough, right? And instead of it meaning that I'm not smart enough or not bright enough, it means that I could have tried a little bit harder and maybe next time will be different. It's my like scapegoat. So identify how it shows up in your life and then identify where it comes from. So I told you in my life, it is
passed down from generation to generation and yours too. Where does it come from? Do you see it in your parents? Do you see it in your grandparents? Maybe it's something further down. Maybe it's a cultural thing. Maybe it's a country of origin thing. What are these practices or these beliefs that really, really, for lack of a better phrase, again, have you in a chokehold that make you feel like you can't try new things or...
or do something different or explore a new part of you. And then I want you to think about how you're going to heal it. So for me, this is how I started healing this part and working on it as I'm in my launch period for this ancestral healing container. I am journaling every day and I am checking in with myself about how I'm feeling. I'm letting the emotions, the ones that are negative, "negative," come up so that I can just
get them on the page, I can just get them in my journal. And then I'm asking, is it really true? Is this really true? And half the time it's not really true and I can identify that. And then I decide or write down how do I want to move forward or what do I want to believe? And for me, I've been really practicing, I have two goals for this launch, to get two people enrolled because that's a group, two people's a group, and to just trust and follow my...
Asha Wilkerson (16:55.926)
instincts to trust and follow my intuition. I am also pulling tarot cards and oracle cards for myself because it's harder to read myself and to tap in you know just through meditation or just with my mind to my guides and my ancestors because I'm really close to the situation but I feel like using oracle cards and tarot cards they speak to me just like if I'm reading for somebody else and so
I've been pulling cards and they have been really helpful. Yesterday I pulled, what was it? It wasn't rigidity. I think it was cumbersome. And that card, I was surprised because these cards that I had pulled were not like the happy go lucky, know, everything's gonna be okay cards. They really, really read into how I was feeling in that moment. And I think it was cumbersome.
But the card was this image of this woman who had all these bags and boxes that she was trying to carry in her hands. And the message was that what you're carrying is too heavy and it's time to lay it down or let it fall from your hands. And I immediately thought of, because I had just journaled on all the judgments and the negative self -talk and the negative thoughts that I had had about myself, if this launch doesn't go
the way that I wanted to. the message was put that down. You do not have to judge yourself by that weight or by that criteria anymore. It's too heavy. It's burdensome. It's detrimental. And so this morning when I got up,
And so this morning when I got up, I did a little cord cutting exercise to just acknowledge, yeah, these are the feelings that I've thought. This is the way that I've sort of motivated myself or held myself accountable for all these years. And it is no longer working. And I no longer want to be my own harshest critic. I want to be my biggest fan and talk to myself more loving than anyone else talks to me. I need to treat myself as if
Asha Wilkerson (19:13.346)
I'm treating a friend or a family member with that same kind of love and kindness and compassion. And so I thought about all of those thoughts that were in my brain and I said, I'm just, giving them up. I'm letting them go. They no longer serve. That's not how I want to judge myself or talk to myself anymore. And I imagined like just pulling these words and these thoughts out from the center of my solar plexus and just tossing them up into the air.
And I asked my guides can you help me take this? I don't want to feel this anymore. I don't want to be burdened by this anymore. Please just take it. And this whole process was happening mentally for about five minutes. And I felt so much better after I did it. And the next card that I had pulled was the goddess of the North. So in this Oracle deck, the goddess of the North, the North represents like cold and frigid and kind of barren places like the northern part of the hemisphere, right?
And this was about coming back south in the sense of letting go of the rigidity and the frigidness that no longer serves. And for me that showed up as like, yeah, these thoughts that I have are really isolating. Stop isolating myself and allow myself to plant new seeds and to really tend to what I am building right now,
because this is a seed planting and then I have to get ready to harvest. But I have to move out of that place of isolating thoughts, which are the, you're never going to be good enough. What will people think that keeps me small, that keeps me isolated. And I need to think about what am I planting and what am I cultivating so that the seeds that I plant can grow into a bountiful harvest. And again,
I feel like the ancestors were speaking to me directly through these cards and I really understood the message. Part of my healing, which is funny because I am also doing my healing as I'm launching this ancestral healing container, but it's to let go of the judgment and the criticism and the standards that I don't have to meet anymore so that I can grow and flourish in this moment. And again,
Asha Wilkerson (21:33.22)
these are holdover things left over from my lineage as I'm launching this ancestral healing container. It is not by coincidence. I don't believe in that being a coincidence. It's not by coincidence. And I just kept thinking, my gosh, that's just, that's wild. That's crazy. And I also pulled the intuition card again, which is the second time that I've pulled it as I've been pulling cards for this, my healing as I'm launching. And,
the intuition card was telling me to rely on my intuition, but it also said connect to your lineage. Again, I'm launching this ancestral healing container and I'm being told as the healer to connect to my lineage. And I just thought it's all divine, right? It's all orchestrated. I'm exactly where I need to be doing the things that I need to do and also helping people to come along that same path that I am walking as well. So....
This was a little bit all over the place. I hope it was easy enough to follow. was just talking from my heart about what I have been experiencing and I want to let you know that in our ancestral healing container, we will be letting go of some of these things that have you in a chokehold. So if you feel like you've been trying to change family relationships, if you feel like you've been trying to launch a business and have been too scared, if you feel like you want to...
move and groove differently in this world, but you have all these thoughts about what you can and should and shouldn't do. If there's abuse in your family, if there's a lineage of women over sacrificing in your family, these are all things that you can bring to this container to work to heal. I have specifically created it using processes that I have gone through and I know that it will help you wherever you are.
We have four weeks of breath work. We meet on Sundays to do the breath work and in between the meetings, I will support you with a tarot card reading for your ancestors. So in case you haven't met them yet or you don't know what they want for you, I will pull tarot cards to help you, to help guide you and to connect with them. I will give you journal prompts, not every day, but certainly weekly, every couple of days that you can continue to process what it is that you're feeling and experiencing.
Asha Wilkerson (23:53.688)
And then we will connect on WhatsApp. So whenever you have questions, you can send me a message throughout the week. Other people can also connect with you and give you encouragement along the way. And they will also share their own stories that we create this container for ourselves that is safe and focused on healing. And most importantly, I want you to know that it's not just going to be about the drama and the trauma. We do not allow ourselves to hold joy and love
nearly as much as we should. But we have to let go of some of this other stuff so that we can create the space for love and joy. And we have to tell ourselves that it's okay for love and joy. We are safe enough for love and joy. We are stable enough for love and joy. So a big part of this container will be tapping into the best things that your ancestors want from you. So whether you are a seasoned,
kind of reiki, spiritual, intuitive person, or if you're brand new, I really encourage you to give this container a shot. It is going to be a lot of fun. It is going to be a lot of growth and healing. I don't wanna say it's gonna be a lot of work. You will put in some work, but it's gonna feel really, really good as you do it and when you are done. So if you're interested in learning more about the container, please head to my website, ashawilkerson.com/ancestral-healing
to learn more. You can also send me a message on Instagram. You can use the voice notes to ask your questions and I will certainly get right back to you. But before I go, I have already shuffled this card deck. I have been using the Elemental Alchemist and I think it is absolutely amazing. And I already
talked to my guides and ancestors before I hit record for this podcast and I said that I was going to pull a card that the collective needs to know. And so, so good y 'all. It says spiritual awakening. This is the card if you're looking at it on YouTube or watching the video. And here is the explanation in the book about spiritual awakening.
Asha Wilkerson (26:14.7)
Stages of an awakening, the dark night of the soul, an event in your life has changed or will change your vision of how life should be. Don't ignore the call. It's time to begin the journey to make a change. Inner conflict, you begin to doubt everything you have been learning or doing and feel the call to do differently. You continue to search for knowledge, but you are feeling overwhelmed and exhausted. Shadow work can do that
a person. Do not let your ego prevent you from progressing on your spiritual journey. Metamorphosis. Start to rethink your behaviors, modifying them so that you become in alignment with who you really are. You might lose interest in certain things or even gain new interests. Think more about protecting your energy alignment. Mastering your lessons. Your old patterns and behaviors are starting to reappear. Don't fight it.
Things are resurfacing so that you can continue to grow, make changes and let go of what is no longer needed. It could be some unresolved issue that needs your attention or a behavior that you need to change. So take action, grounding and balance yourself. Look at the situation from your new perspective. Shadow work, process, feel and release the heavy. That's exactly what we're doing in this four-week Ancestral Healing Container.
Spiritual cleansing, baths and cleaning of frequented spaces. I think this is the perfect card if you are feeling like you are ready to make a change, you wanna do things differently, you don't wanna keep feeling how you've been feeling and you wanna do something differently for your kids or your grandkids or your nieces and nephews. This is the perfect time and opportunity to do it. I hope to see you inside the container. Let's stay connected. Let me know what you think. Ciao.
Asha Wilkerson (28:36.068)
And as you move on throughout your week, 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 you can too.