Ep 25: Stop Waiting for Guarantees: Trust Yourself to Create The Life You Want
In this episode of 'Because I've Healed,' Asha Wilkerson discusses the importance of breaking free from limiting beliefs and embracing discomfort as a catalyst for personal growth.
She emphasizes the need for self-comparison, encouraging listeners to evaluate their current situations against their potential for happiness and fulfillment.
Asha shares personal anecdotes and insights on the journey of self-discovery, urging listeners to reconnect with themselves and trust their intuition in making life decisions. The episode serves as a powerful reminder that healing and self-empowerment are essential for creating a life aligned with one's true desires.
Key Points
You have the power to create a better life for yourself.
Self-comparison should focus on your own potential, not others.
Discomfort in your current situation is a sign to make a change.
Trust your intuition when making life decisions.
Healing is a journey that requires self-reflection and courage.
You deserve to live a life that aligns with your true self.
Embrace the uncertainty of change as a path to growth.
Reconnecting with yourself is essential for personal fulfillment.
Kids do not solve relationship problems; they can complicate them.
The work of healing is challenging but ultimately 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 Wilkerson (00:02.286)
Hey y'all, I am going to go on a rant right now and I hope you come along with me because I keep hearing the same phrase in so many different contexts and it actually just drives me crazy, number one, but also just bothers me kind of at a soul level. If you have ever said, I don't know if I should do this next thing because I'm not sure if it'll be better than what I have right now. I need you to keep listening. If you have said,
I don't know if I should break up with this person, cause I don't know if I'll find someone better. If you have said, I don't know if I should start to exercise because I don't know if it'll cure my knee pain. If you have ever said, I don't know if I should look for another job because I'm not sure if I can find something better than I have now. I need you to keep listening. So come right back after this intro and I'll tell you all about what I have to say.
Asha Wilkerson (01:04.438)
Okay, as I said, today's episode is a little bit of a rant and I don't have any notes because I just wanted to turn on the camera, turn on the microphone and just get started. Because I realized that when people say things like this, and I have definitely had these thoughts before, you have stopped dreaming and you have stopped creating in your own life. So right now you are in a position where you are letting life happen to you.
You have stepped into this mode of, I want to say like a victim mentality where you have given all of your power away. Why would you ever stay in a situation that is uncomfortable for you when you don't know what else is out there? And I get it. Our brains are hardwired to try and keep us safe and the unknown is absolutely unsafe. But honey, I need you to love yourself enough
and I need you to believe in your power of creation enough to know that if you are in a situation that is uncomfortable, you 100 % can create something that is better than what you have right now. So let me give you an example from my life. There's a, there's a couple that I can give. The first one I'm going to give was somebody that I was dating in the springtime and...
I was so offended. He was trying to convince me that we should keep going in this relationship. And he got me for a little bit until I decided it just was not gonna work out. But one of the things he said, it's like, look, we're both, I'm 40 now. He was approaching 40. He's like, look, we're not getting any younger. We know that we have some things in common. We might as well just do this. Cause who knows if we're gonna find anything better. And I remember when he said that to me on the telephone and my jaw just dropped,
because first of all... mean, so many things though! I was like, how great do you think you are, number one? Number two, you are comparing my next level or your next level to what you know right now. But when I'm dating somebody, my comparison is not person to person. My comparison is my baseline of I enjoy my life a lot when I am single. I enjoy my peace, I enjoy my happiness.
Asha Wilkerson (03:25.728)
I enjoy my friends, enjoy my family, that if I'm going to bring somebody else into my life, it has to be an addition, a positive addition to what I've got going on. So my comparison is not to the next person. My comparison is this situation better than what I can create for myself. And most of you all are
losing the thread because you're comparing people to people and that's not it. Your comparison needs to be to what the situation is right now and what you know that you can do for yourself. And I remember that I had to like I don't know six seven maybe eight years ago I had to take some time out and I actually called it a man fast which my friends thought was hilarious my thought it was kind of funny too I had to stop dating because I was dating
people here and there, and nobody was like anybody that I wanted to commit to, and nobody was like the whole sort of package. And I realized that it wasn't necessarily about them and that I had gotten comfortable kind of getting bits and pieces from people. But I didn't want to continue with a bits and pieces relationship. I wanted something that felt more complete, more of what I was looking for, more well-rounded. And I realized that I was saying yes to a lot of things
because I had lost the connection with myself. And so not only did I go on this Man Fast, but I also recommitted to sort of dating myself. So I recommitted to getting to know the things that I liked to do. I love to read. I love waking up on a Saturday morning and not having any place to go or maybe going to the gym and coming back home and spending a few hours by myself or with myself, not by myself, but with.
I love going to try new food. I love traveling and I have no problem traveling alone. I love... Not really cleaning my house but like getting stuff in my house together and I made a commitment to get to know the new version of me and to do the things that made me content and lit me up without anybody else being involved so that when I started talking to people again
Asha Wilkerson (05:50.062)
I could compare not the men to each other, but is this enhancing or adding on to what I'm already able to do for myself or is it taking away from what I like to do? So if you are in a situation, in a relationship or a situationship that does not feel great, but you're having trouble deciding to let go, I don't want you to think about, can I find something better?
What is guaranteed, because we're looking for that guarantee that the next thing is going to be better. What is guaranteed is that this situation is not the right one for you. Let that be your baseline and know that you are loving yourself when you decide to move out of situations that are not the right one for you. And if you are afraid to be by yourself, if you are afraid to be alone,
then that's when you need to do the inside work to get really comfortable with who you are, to reconnect to your spirit, to reconnect with your divinity and to begin to love all parts of yourself and know that whether you are partnered or you are solo, you have value and you have worth and that you, my dear, are capable of creating a life that you love all on your own. And this is not to say to dismiss
the desire to have a partnership or to dismiss the desire to have kids. I'm not saying that at all, but I'm telling you that sitting in a situation that is uncomfortable, sitting in a situation that you know is not the one that you have envisioned for yourself, does you absolutely no good. What do you do? Add more responsibility on top of a situation that has a rough foundation. You're going to bring kids into a situation with somebody that you don't really like or that you know it's going to be problematic. Let me tell you something.
Kids do not make life better. I shouldn't say that. Kids do not make relationships easier. That's what I mean. Kids are great in their own right and all of that stuff. I love children, but they put a strain on relationships. So if you are already feeling a strain in your relationship and you think that children might enhance that relationship, child, you got another thing coming. So what I'm trying to tell you, your baseline comparison point is not one person to the other.
Asha Wilkerson (08:11.33)
Your baseline comparison point is, is this situation comfortable for me right now? Is this situation what I want for my life right now? Is this situation what I have envisioned? Does this situation add on to what I've already got going on and help me to bloom and to flourish and to be everything that I thought I was going to be? Or does it take away from my peace, from my joy,
from my vision for myself, from my confidence, or anything else that is not here to serve you? Let me give you another example. My, ooh, am I gonna talk about my mother? I'm gonna talk about my mother. I love my mother, I love my mother. I have a comparison between my mom and my dad. My dad was always physically active his entire life. And at the end of his life, had cancer, And he had prostate cancer twice in his life. Once when I was,
in my early 20s in college and then at the end of his life when I was approaching my 40s. So about 15, 20 years apart. And my dad had always been physically active. Like he always like used his body. He was building stuff outside. was, we had a Christmas tree farm when I was a kid and all the way up into adulthood. So he was always doing these physical things. My mom is not that physically active and has been much more of a bookworm and an introvert and like loves to be in the house.
And she was a principal for a long time and so a lot of her energy went out and so the way that she would recharge was by being stationary and getting lost in her books and I get it because I am really a combination of both of them. But my mom has had knee problems for really long time and my dad had some health problems as well and I noticed the difference between the two is that my dad would pick one thing at a time to try so that he could get better.
And my mom wanted to guarantee that whatever she was going to do was going to work. And so she would often not try because she wasn't certain in the outcome. And my dad would often try because he was hopeful that the outcome would be better than what he was experiencing. And that, my friends, is an important distinction to make. Again, your comparison, your guarantee,
Asha Wilkerson (10:35.946)
is not in the outcome that you are seeking. Although we want this positive outcome, your guarantee that you should be making your decisions on is what is your present situation? If you are thinking about getting back into the gym, taking care of your health, quitting smoking, cutting down on your drinking, and you're not sure if you're going to be able to do it or that if you eat healthy for a couple of weeks, whether you're going to lose any weight or if you start exercising and
doing cardio if your lung capacity will get better. Those are all the hopes and those are the things that you're working for. You do not have a guarantee for what's going to be the outcome, but you have a guarantee that right now you are uncomfortable. You have a guarantee that right now your knees hurt. You have a guarantee that right now you're carrying around too much weight for your body. You have a guarantee that you get winded every time you walk up some steps. You have a guarantee that your blood pressure is raising. You have a guarantee that if you continue on this same path,
you know where that's going. So that is the guarantee that you need to make your decision off of. Not that the future necessarily holds something better, but that if you continue in the same way that you were before, your outcome is guaranteed. And so be willing to take a risk to try something new when the outcome is uncertain, because again, you know what this is.
And let this situation that is uncomfortable for you be enough to spark you into action. You're looking for a guarantee that may never come. So base your decisions on the present moment and know that even if you don't get something better, it's important for you to at least try because you're not becoming a victim. You're not
sitting back and letting life happen to you, you are choosing to make a decision or to make choices that will undoubtedly change the trajectory of the path that you are on because it will change the path that you are on. And if you are afraid to do that, or if you are one of the folks who has been afraid to take action, I just want you to think about where you're placing your guarantees and where you're actually headed.
Asha Wilkerson (13:00.014)
And I want you to get some courage up and decide that it is enough. The discomfort that you feel right now is enough to make a change in your situation. And I get it. It's hard. I'm going to tell you at the end how you create this sense of self-trust. The third situation, the third example that I have is when I decided to leave my full-time job, my whole life basically in California,
to pursue this dream of living abroad and to have a career shift and career change from law and teaching at the college level to becoming a healer and to really tapping into my intuitive gifts and the wisdom that I carry to be able to help heal people and to bring them back into right relationship with themselves. I think I said it last week, but there was no logical reason why I should have left California. I was
a licensed attorney in California, income potential was high. I knew how to navigate California. I was a tenured professor. I couldn't, Which means that I could not be fired unless I did something super egregious. So I had job guarantee for the rest of my life. There's a great retirement plan. My friends from college and from law school were around. had a great social life, loved to go salsa dancing. I was an hour and a half flight away from my mom. Like everything was...
Good enough in California. Logically, it made sense, but there was something that was happening inside of me where I knew my time in California had come to an end. I knew that I didn't want to teach full-time anymore. I wasn't giving it my all. I wasn't as invested in the program as I had been before. I didn't want anything to do with taking on any more legal cases. Even the business advising that had once lit me up was like, eh, I don't really want to do this. And it took me a while
to get comfortable with the conclusion that even though this situation was really good, it wasn't aligned and that misalignment was enough for me to change. I did not know and I still do not know what the outcome of this decision is going to be. I have received so mini outcomes, some like little outcomes, which have been great, but at the time that I made the decision, there was no guarantee I was gonna be able to actually get
Asha Wilkerson (15:26.814)
to Portugal. There was no guarantee that I was going to get clients as a healer. There was no guarantee that I was going to be able to develop my skills enough to actually ask people to pay for them. There was no guarantee that I was going to be able to get involved in the community in Lisbon and really feel good about the decision. But I wasn't basing my decision or my choices on the guarantee of what was going to be here in Lisbon for me. I based my decision
on the complete 100 % guarantee that this situation that I was in was no longer aligned with me. It was draining my energy. I hated it. Not because... I still love teaching and I don't want to say like, it was terrible. It wasn't terrible. It was, it just wasn't aligned with what I wanted to do anymore. And so it made it really hard to open up my email . It made it really hard to be innovative with the program. It made it really hard to care.
Not because it was bad work. think it's great work. And maybe at some point in my life, I'll go back into teaching full time again, but it wasn't aligned anymore with what I wanted to do inside of me. And so I made the decision to flip my life completely around because I knew that the guarantee was if I stayed in the same position and didn't make any changes, I would be miserable. I would be really unhappy.
And plenty of people said, you should just keep going. Like you have plenty of time off. I was like, yeah, I could. That makes a lot of logical sense. I can travel in the summers and go visit my mom as much as I want to. But something deep down inside of me knew that I needed to make this decision because sitting in discomfort, sitting in misery and letting life happen to me is not a choice that I'm willing to make. I will forever create
the outcome that I want and I will make all of the choices that I can to get to the outcome that I want as I am living and creating in my life. So if you are somebody who relates to any of these three situations and you're like, okay, I hear you, Asha, but like, how do I know that it's the right decision? You know, it's the right decision to make a change when you feel discomfort in your present situation.
Asha Wilkerson (17:53.71)
And it's more than the discomfort of like, maybe we could go to therapy about this. It's the discomfort deep down that you know that something is not aligned. That's trusting your intuition. And you have to trust yourself enough to know that whatever you decide to do, you will be just fine. It's not trusting that the outcome will be all the hopes and the dreams that you have. Although I think that's...
that's pretty certain that'll come. The trust is in that you know how to make the right decision for yourself and that whatever follows will be the right thing and that you will get through it and that the opportunity or the potential of creating something more aligned is more desirable and that you deserve that more than sitting in the situation that is not aligned with who you are at this point in your life.
So my friends, you have to come back into relationship with yourself. You have to ask yourself what it is that you want, what it is that you desire, what do you want to do, how do you want to live, how do you want to feel in your experience on this earth? And then you need to start making decisions that align with those wants, needs, feelings, and experiences that you are hoping to have.
There are two ways that I can help you do this through any of my group healing programs like Reiki or breath work, or we can work together one-on-one for four weeks in an intuitive healing journey. Where we will meet four times a month, so every week for four weeks, to tap into what is going on inside of you.
What are the things that you need to let go of? And what are the thoughts and beliefs that you need to believe about yourself and about your ability to create so that you can start making decisions and changing the situations that you are in that no longer align with you. It is so important that you reconnect with yourself because that's what it is in life, right? We spend most of our childhood becoming disconnected because we're socialized and taught how to act and
Asha Wilkerson (20:13.144)
what to do and what to say that now is the time when you actually have some agency and can take control. It is time to come back into connection with yourself and build the life that you have always dreamed of. If you are interested in working together, head to ashawilkerson.com/register. And you can see the options that I have on there, the group programs and the one-on-one personalized healing sessions that I offer.
to you. If you have any questions or you have any thoughts about this podcast, definitely send me a message on Instagram. I'm at @AshaWilkersonESQ, and I cannot wait to hear what you think.
Asha Wilkerson (21:11.64)
Now I know sometimes I talk about this stuff as if it's so easy as if it's a foregone conclusion and it's not necessarily easy. It's work, it's gonna take some time to make some of the changes and to get comfortable, but the work is so worth it. And as you do this, 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 healthy place.
It's because I've healed that I've been able to leave expectations behind that no longer serve me. And it's because I've healed that I'm able to currently live my dream life out loud with no regrets. The same is available to you. See you next week.