Ep 24: My Biggest Regret in Life (it's not what you think!)
In this episode, Asha Wilkerson discusses the importance of trusting one's intuition and shares personal experiences that highlight the journey of reconnecting with inner guidance.
She emphasizes the need for self-trust, especially for women of color, and offers practical steps to strengthen the relationship with one's intuition. Asha invites listeners to explore their own intuitive abilities and the significance of listening to their inner voice in decision-making.
Key Points
Trusting your intuition is crucial for personal growth.
Childhood experiences can disconnect us from our intuition.
Intuition often feels like a gut feeling or inner knowing.
Past experiences can shape our relationship with intuition.
Reconnecting with intuition can lead to better decision-making.
Astrology and psychic readings can help confirm intuitive feelings.
Somatic practices like breathwork can enhance body awareness.
Testing your intuition can build confidence in your inner voice.
Self-trust is essential for navigating societal expectations.
The journey of self-discovery is challenging but rewarding.
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 (00:01.75)
You know, I was just reading a message from somebody in a group community healing situation that I'm in and with this full moon in Aries that is coming up, she asked us a question about what is the biggest regret that we have in life? Or what are the top three mistakes that we feel like we've made in life? And then also what are the lessons that we have learned from making those mistakes?
And I'm generally a person who doesn't feel like I have any regrets in life. I always am able to see the lesson even in the midst of something. And even when something's difficult, I understand that it's something I'm supposed to go through so that I can grow through it. But I started thinking to try and really answer the question, what is the biggest regret that I have in my life? And it's actually not trusting my intuition.
And I cannot wait to tell you all about it.
Asha (01:15.883)
All right, now let's get into trusting your intuition or how I stopped trusting my own intuition. I think that all of us as children are born with really strong instincts. There are survival instincts. Some have them stronger than others, but all of us as kids, right, we felt some kind of stranger danger at some point in our lives that was developmentally appropriate to keep us close to our parents who would keep us alive or close to our caregivers.
We've all felt that situation where something just wasn't quite right or we didn't like somebody, but we didn't have an explanation for why. And oftentimes our parents probably told us to say hi or to give a hug or to do this or to do that because it was polite and that's what we were supposed to do. And so we ended up doing it anyway, even when it was against what our intuition or what our inner voice or our gut feeling was telling us.
And when we have enough of these situations over time, we begin to lose the connection with our intuition and/or we don't trust it. And oftentimes intuition doesn't make sense. It's not a logical thing. It's a feeling thing. It's a gut thing because often you might feel it in your stomach.
Did you also know that your brain and your stomach were connected at some point during your development in utero? And that's the reason why there's such a strong connection between how healthy your gut is and how well your brain functions because they were once developed at the same time or connected at some point and then all these other organs grew in between. But that's besides the point. My point is, is that throughout life you've had
a number of different experiences that have taught you to listen to logic over your intuition or that have taught you to listen to societal norms over your intuition or have taught you to listen to your cultural norms over your intuition. And I want to share a little bit about my experience with that. And I'm going to tell you about how I got reconnected with my intuition in hopes that it will help you be able to do the same.
Asha (03:33.535)
So when I was little, I think I was really connected to my intuition. I didn't really know that I was. Of course, I didn't know that it was called intuition, but I just remember kind of knowing things as a kid. And probably just because this is the way that our brains work, I remember the negative stuff more heavily than I remember the positive stuff. And that's because we need to remember the negative stuff
in order to try and keep us alive. Like that's an evolutionary development that our brains have. But I remember one time when I was in high school and I remember my parents were going through a divorce at this time and my dad was really, really quiet about who he was dating because it was...
not an open conversation with him. And, and I knew that he was dating people because I would hear him on the telephone and he might get quiet if I would walk down the hallway or whatever. But for whatever reason, he didn't feel like that was a part of his life that he could share. And then one day as I was in high school, this woman came running up on my campus. Like she was
going for a jog, she was clearly a runner. And I remember I was standing outside waiting for cross country practice to get over. Don't ask me why I ran cross country. Maybe that's a decision I regret. I hated it, hated every step of it. But nevertheless, here I was. And this woman came running up and I turned and I looked at her and immediately I knew that that was my dad's girlfriend. And I had no memory
of seeing her before or meeting her before. I had no reason to know that that was her. I had no reason... I wouldn't look at her and think, she knows my dad. She didn't say anything to me. And just the chances, the timing of me being outside the locker room at the time that she was running up were in my mind coincidental. And, but I just knew it just dropped in and I thought that's his girlfriend. And I remember I went home later,
Asha (05:55.226)
and I asked him and I said, did your girlfriend come to my school today? And he was really shy about it, but he was like, yeah, she did say that she saw you. So I remember very clearly just knowing exactly who she was and going, hmm, I wonder how I knew that. I wonder why I knew that. And I couldn't quite put my finger on it. And it wasn't anything logical, but it was just this knowing in my body.
Asha (06:24.973)
Now I have another experience that is also not that fantastic and it is a little bit hard for me to admit, my, again, my dad was not the most honest dater. I will put it like that. And the very first boyfriend that I had was like a replica of my dad. Just, it is really true what they say about you end up
dating your parents and if you don't have a good relationship, you will end up repeating the same pattern that you're trying to break until you actually do the work in yourself to break that pattern. But there were so many incidents, incidences along the way of dating my very first boyfriend in college that I knew were so much like my dad, but I wanted it to be a different story so badly.
And I was really, really cautious about not bringing what I had known in the past into the future. I was overly cautious because what it ended up making me do is that I would ignore or give the benefit of the doubt when deep down I knew that this was a situation that I had seen before,
because it was familiar to what I had experienced at home in high school and in middle school. But I wanted it to be a different story so badly that I just kept going and I kept ignoring all the little signs that were literally before my eyes, but also that I was feeling in my body that I just kind of knew for no reason, like why would I know this?
But I kept ignoring them because I actually wanted this situation to be different. I didn't want to have the same outcome. And I was embarrassed because I didn't want to ever date somebody who was like my dad. But of course, because I was so focused on not dating someone who was like my dad, I ended up dating someone who was just like my dad. And then there's another story. This one's a little bit happier at least. A couple last summer, I guess it was,
Asha (08:41.931)
I came to Portugal to really spend the summer here and to see if I could move. And I told myself that I was going to just listen to my gut. I was gonna go with my gut and I was gonna just figure it out. And even if it didn't make logical sense, I was just gonna go with it. And I spent some time here in Lisbon, was having a really good time. And then one day, one morning, I woke up in bed. And now, as I remember it,
It feels like that scene in the movies where someone sits straight up in bed and has this revelation of like, this is it. That's exactly what it felt like. It feels like in my memory, I just sat straight up in bed and was like, this is it. This is where you're supposed to be. Now I don't actually know if I had that physical reaction of sitting up in bed, but the experience was exactly like that. And there was no logical reason why I should have moved to Portugal.
I was making good money in California. I was the department chair of a paralegal program. I was a tenured college professor, which meant that I had job security until I decided to walk away. I was close to my mom being in Portland. My friends were mostly in California. I could do everything that I wanted to do. I was able to travel and had been to a number of countries already. Nothing logical
about that situation told me that I should up and move to Portugal. Yet in my gut, in my spirit, I knew that that's where I was supposed to be. So that is actually an example of following my intuition and listening to my intuition and being happy with the outcome. The previous situation about dating my ex-boyfriend back in college,
I wouldn't say that I was happy with the outcome. But I do understand that I needed to have that experience. And I've had experiences since then that have reminded me to trust my intuition. I'll give you a more recent one, another dating example. I'll give you a more recent one, another dating example, which I'm just telling all my business out here, but this spring I was dating somebody before I actually left the US to come to Portugal.
Asha (10:58.482)
And probably within the first couple of weeks, I knew that it wasn't going to be a match. But sometimes I tend to rely on someone's resume. I hate to even say that, but they look good on paper and I will ignore some of the things that I'm experiencing in person because again, I have that fear or that caution of bringing any
hurt or pain from the past into the present situation. And so even though I knew that this person wasn't a match for me, I had even broken it off with them. I don't even know if you can say that you break it off after like two or three weeks of talking to someone, but I decided it wasn't a match, said, let's not do this anymore. And a couple of weeks later, he'd reached out again and his energy felt different. And even though I knew that it probably still wasn't a match, I said, okay.
Let's explore and see what happens. And that relationship for me was really up and down emotionally because the whole time, y'all, I was battling my intuition. And it wasn't like there was anything that was glaringly wrong about the situation, but somewhere deep down inside me, I knew it wasn't the situation for me. I just knew we weren't compatible.
But I wanted to give it a chance. I wanted to see if maybe I was wrong or I wanted to see if maybe my logic brain could win out and be more correct than my intuitive brain. Because again, intuition doesn't always make sense or it tends to make sense after something has happened, but you have to trust it first. It's not like one plus one equals two when it comes to dealing with your intuition. Your intuition may tell you to
move to this part of the world or to say this thing or to not go to this place and it might not make any sense at the time but after you listen to it it will become crystal clear. So these situations where I have not listened to my intuition and then later been reminded that I should have listened to my intuition are my
Asha (13:19.985)
biggest regrets, if I can call them that, but they really aren't regrets because I understand that they were opportunities and they were lessons and experiences that I needed to go through again to trust my intuition. And I can say, now that I have moved to Portugal, now that I've had that dating experience again, now that I have been able to look back and see where
my... what I thought was me bringing in past trauma was actually my body being aware of the similarities of a situation. I have so much more faith and trust and confidence in my intuition. But the only way that I knew how to develop that was really just to trust it. So I want to tell you, if you feel like you are disconnected from your intuition,
and disconnected from your body. I have three things that I can tell you to do to get you back in connection with it so that it becomes your decision maker and your guiding compass, which is actually really nice because it's internal and you don't need to check with anybody or anything outside of you once you figure out how your intuition works. So first, let me tell you what I did. I started getting
astrology readings and psychic readings. And I probably had my first psychic reading, I don't know, maybe in high school, maybe college. And at this point in time, I didn't really know anything about my intuition. I just knew that I wanted answers, but I've been getting readings for at least 20 years now, maybe 25 years now.
As I've gotten them over time, I realized that the readings actually just confirmed what I already knew and not in an obvious kind of a way and not initially because I didn't have any connection with my intuition or it was so faint and I was so dismissive of it that I didn't know what I had already thought. But as I've gotten older in these last like five years in particular,
Asha (15:43.992)
I tend to have an idea about what it is that I think is right or I have an opinion about something, but often I will dismiss it because I'm trying to use my logic brain. My logic brain is super strong, y'all. That's that attorney background for you. But now when I go and get a reading, it confirms what I know deep down inside. But sometimes I still need that outside source to confirm it for me, but I'm getting better.
I need it less and less because I've had the opportunity to think about things for myself, figure out what my gut is telling me, and then someone else has confirmed it for me, which then ends up strengthening my own trust in my intuition. I also started working with healers and engaged in somatic practices like breathwork and meditation to just learn how to read my body. I remember
doing a consistent meditation practice with a friend of mine who is a hypnotherapist and these meditation sessions were the same every single time and we would go through the chakras and we would tune into the energy that's in the different chakras and then clear out the energy and bring in white light in the chakras. The chakras are different energy centers in your body that start above your head.
There's the crown chakra and there's even chakras higher than that but the ones that I'm familiar with the crown chakra that's right above your head sits right above your crown. The third eye chakra which sits on your forehead between your eyes but on your forehead. Your throat chakra which is at your throat. Your heart chakra which is in your chest. Your solar plexus which is right below your rib cage like that little upside down U shape that's in your rib cage that's right there.
Your sacral chakra, which is in your reproductive center, and then your root chakra, which is if you were to think about a point kind of just below your tailbone. And so we would tune into these different chakras. And after I began doing this for three or four sessions, I started to notice energy in those areas. And if you haven't done this, it probably sounds super weird and esoteric and like out there. And it is, I guess, a little bit until you start to do it.
Asha (18:08.193)
But I would just notice how I would feel when I would think about my heart chakra. I would just focus my energy and my attention into my heart space. And I would notice, am I feeling any sensations there? What does that sensation feel like? Okay, now that I can pinpoint that sensation, what does it feel like when I move white light and good intention into that space? And once I started to get familiar with the sensations that were happening in my body,
then I could recognize when the sensations would change in different circumstances. But more often than not, I use my body as my intuitive reading source, especially when I'm reading for other people, but also for myself when I ask a question and I get quiet and I notice where there's a sensation in my body. And then I interpret that sensation, give it a meaning, and then make a decision from that point.
But I had to first just get connected with what was going on in my body. And your body may not speak to you in that same way. Maybe you will have this knowing or maybe you will hear a message or maybe you will think of an image or see a video kind of play out in your mind. And that will be how your intuition speaks to you. And the third way that I learned how to work with my intuition is that I just had to test it.
I just had to test it. And this is probably kind of the scariest of all because remember as kids we become disconnected from our intuition and the only way that you can know if it is accurate or not is just to test it, just trust it. And that's scary because especially for those of us who have a really strong logic center, because what if I trust my gut and my gut is wrong? But where if
I know that my brain won't be wrong or at least this makes logical sense and so it's easier to trust my brain. For example, when I decided to move to Portugal, it was an intuitive decision. There were some logical reasons why Lisbon would be a good place for me, but it wasn't more logical than staying in California with all of the reasons that I had told you earlier on in this recording.
Asha (20:35.869)
But it was purely an intuitive decision and I do not regret that decision for a single minute. And I remember telling myself, go with it Asha, just trust it. And if it doesn't work out, trust that you'll be okay. But before that, I had to just, you know, take little leaps of faith. Maybe I'll take this trip here. Maybe I will hire this coach or maybe I will call this person and see if they'd like to have a breathwork session with me.
Little smaller tests of your intuition will then let you know that you actually can trust it. So again, as a recap, I ended up getting readings, astrology readings and psychic readings to just kind of read the energy of different situations when I had questions. And eventually I began to see that the readings confirmed what I already knew deep down inside.
But that came after I had gotten in touch with the feelings and sensations in my body once I learned how to read them. Because then that became my information source and I understood how my body was talking to me. And lastly, I just had to give it a shot. I just had to trust my intuition and see what would happen. So if you are somebody who feels like
you need to reestablish your relationship with your intuition, I invite you to join me in either some of my group working sessions or in a one-on-one working session. And I will give you the same experiences that help me to be able to trust myself. So in a group setting, we would either do Reiki or breathwork. You can check out my schedule to know when those sessions are.
And oftentimes I have us go through the chakras just to get in touch with what's going on inside of our bodies to begin to listen and to experience what's happening so that you know when your body's talking to you and what these messages mean. And in a one-on-one setting, I will work with you for four weeks, focusing mainly on giving you intuitive readings. Now, what does this look like practically speaking? That means we would meet once a week,
Asha (22:56.561)
and before you get on the call, I am going to read your energy with your permission, of course, but if you've signed up, you've given me permission. And I always get a message when I am reading for people. And then as we meet on the call, I will tell you what came up for me. And you will tell me how that applies to a particular situation in your life and together
we will work through the decisions that you want or need to make to either make something happen, to stop something from happening, to make a change, to change your relationships, to move abroad, to quit your full-time job and follow your passion, whatever it is. Whatever it is that you are wanting to do, however it is that you are wanting to follow your self-trust, your inner guidance and your intuition, I will work with you through that.
And this kind of a one-on-one session is 100 % led by you. So it doesn't have a defined outcome other than strengthening your connection with your inner voice and your intuition because it is so important, particularly as women and particularly as women of color, because there are so many expectations and rules and restrictions and ways of being and
all of these things that are placed on top of us and all of these needs that we have to meet for other people. And it's so easy to lose the connection with ourselves. But as I have rebuilt that connection with myself, it is probably my greatest pride and joy at this point, which I never thought I would say something like that because I was so focused on all of these other achievements and things that I could do out in the world. But I really think that my
favorite part of myself right now is the connection that I have to myself, which I'm just realizing that as I'm saying that to you now. And I want you to be able to have the same thing because that means that when you have doubt, that means that when you are unsure, you can come home to yourself and trust your own knowing. And one of the most frustrating things in the world for me,
Asha (25:13.496)
as I was growing up and as even as of just a couple months ago, and I guess I still can fall into this pattern sometimes is not trusting myself because of the experiences that I've had, because of the expectations that are placed on me, because of the socialization and the conditioning, because of whatever, all of these things, which are not excuses, they're actually reasons.
But the thing that I can say like right now that I am most proud of working on is really, really trusting myself, allowing my intuition to guide, allowing my inner knowing to be the compass and for following through even when it doesn't make logical sense. Because imagine how strong you are and not strong as in tough, but just how powerful you are
when you know that your inner voice is the thing that you rely on the most in this world. And it's only you who can separate yourself from that voice. And if you find yourself separated from it, it is you who can bring yourself back into relationship with your inner knowing. If you are ready to reconnect with yourself and to find your inner power,
please reach out to me. You can go to my website, ashawilkerson.com/register and you can sign up for any one of my classes or sign up to work with me one-on-one for four weeks for divine intuitive guidance and reconnecting you with yourself. Also feel free to send me a message on Instagram if you have any questions.
My handle over there is @AshaWilkersonESQ. I cannot wait to talk to you. I cannot wait to see where you are on your journey. I cannot wait to see you in your essence and in your power. And I want you to remember that this journey is not easy, but it is absolutely worth it. Absolutely worth it. I have zero regrets of walking down this path and I'm happy that I get to share my experience with you.
Asha (27:38.038)
Lastly, I want you to remember that it's because I've healed that I've been able to change old relationships and start new ones from a healthier place. It's because I've healed. What do I even say here?
Hold on.