Ep 28: Inner Peace Comes from Within...But How?
In this episode, Asha Wilkerson discusses the journey of healing and self-discovery, emphasizing the importance of finding inner peace and trusting oneself.
She reflects on lessons learned from her mother about true happiness coming from within and shares her personal experiences of navigating life decisions while leaning into intuition.
Asha encourages listeners to shed external expectations and opinions to embrace their authentic selves, ultimately leading to profound peace and fulfillment.
Takeaways
True peace and happiness come from within.
Trusting yourself is essential for making the right decisions.
The process of self-discovery is ongoing and transformative.
Shed the expectations and opinions of others to find your path.
Embrace your desires and trust that they are valid.
It's not about the destination, but the journey of self-alignment.
Learning to trust your intuition can lead to peace.
Recognizing past advice can help in the present, but it's okay to let go.
The way you show up in relationships matters more than the outcome.
Finding inner peace opens up new possibilities in life.
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 (00:01.016)
Hey y'all, I hope you are doing just fine. I just wanted to jump on here and record this video. I'm on my phone because I was thinking I have so many downloads and ideas, but then I wait too long to put them out there, whether it's typing them through email or setting them up to record through my podcast. So I just pulled out my phone. So the thing is a little bit crooked. I might be looking in a funny direction. You could see my laundry over there in the background. Everything's just a little different, but let me get to the point. I was thinking this morning,
or yesterday, both yesterday and this morning, I was talking to my mom and I remember my mom saying when I was a kid that true peace and true happiness comes from within. She would say that all the time, like, Asha, you have to get settled within yourself. True peace and true happiness comes from within. And she would say that to me in middle school, in high school. She would hate it when I would say that I was bored or that I was restless. She'd be you gotta find peace within. And I remember...
hearing that and I remember when I would go through decision making processes or like conflict with friends or you know, trying to decide what I wanted to do next and she would say again, true peace comes from within. And it didn't really make sense, right? I mean, I got the words, I understood the words, but let me tell you, I feel like I have found peace. And the way that I have done that has been by getting really in tune
with what I want and trusting myself to make the right decision for me. It sounds cliche and I know I keep talking about it and I keep going back to your intuition, but there's something about when you learn to trust yourself and trust that your desires are your desires and that your desires are okay. And then when you decide to make moves in alignment with those desires, that's...
like when you find real peace or at least that's how I have found real peace and contentment within myself. It doesn't mean that everything's perfect. It's not perfect at all. Like I'm caught up in Portugal's immigration backlog. I'm supposed to head back to California in February for some work stuff that I'm really excited about. I don't know if I'll be able to get back in the country. I'm doing things. Some of the things are taking a little longer than what I would like to catch on business-wise.
Asha (02:26.52)
But there's a sense of peace and connectedness that I feel and trust that I'm on the right path, really trusting that I am on the right path and really trusting that it's all gonna work out when it's supposed to. I have uttered those words a million times before. I've said them to other people. We all know the platitudes, but until you really feel it, you're just saying them kind of emptily. Is that a word? You're just saying them with a hollowness about them because you're saying them because you know you're supposed to,
but you don't really understand or don't really feel in your body what they mean. So my message to you today is that if you are feeling unsettled about something, if you're trying to make a decision about something, whether it's a career, somebody you're dating, what to do next, what your purpose is in life, how you should interact with family, anything, look for the thing that will give you peace. But I don't even know
that it's a destination. I think it's the process of trusting yourself, trusting that you know what is best for yourself. And the reason why I thought about my mom in alignment with this is because I learned very early on to care about what other people thought about me. My mom taught me to care about what other people thought about me because we grew up very isolated. I grew up very isolated. I was the only black kid on my sports teams and my schools.
My mom was the only black administrator in the same school district where I attended school and she was really good at her job. She was a middle school principal when I was in middle school, also when I was in elementary school, also when I was in high school and I played sports with a lot of her kids and people knew me and she would tell me, Asha, people see you and you have to be careful. You have to protect your reputation. You have to protect my reputation, meaning hers. And it didn't feel like pressure at the time, but I learned very early on that people saw me differently and it was true.
And was thinking like some of us, sometimes I get angry about the advice that I got, but I realized that advice got me through to this point right here. That advice may no longer apply, but it was the advice that worked to get me to where I am today. And so now as I am shedding different pieces of advice and rules that no longer apply today, I'm really leaning into trusting myself and trusting my intuition and knowing that I can make the right decision for me, no matter.
Asha (04:48.994)
what somebody else's opinion is, no matter what somebody else's path is, no matter whether you understand me or not. So it's that process of recognizing the advice that we have been given has got us to where we are today. And also knowing that to get forward, to move forward from this point on, we have to lean into ourselves, lean into our intuition, lean into our...
process, lean into knowing that whatever decision that we make, as long as it is in alignment with who we are, what we want and like how we're being asked to show up, it'll be okay. It will be okay. And as I'm learning, it's not the destination. It's not that I'm gonna make a choice that's gonna put me in a position that gives me the peace. It's the process of choosing something for me that because
comes peaceful. And so even if the destination is not what I wanted or what I thought I was going to get, for example, a relationship, right? I was dating this guy here in Portugal and I thought probably because of cultural differences, it probably wasn't gonna work out, but it's ending sooner than what I anticipated. there are some things, the old me is like, Asha, probably should have known.
Was it a waste of time? All this critical stuff, right? But when I went into it, I told myself, trust your instincts, trust how you feel when you're with this person and enjoy the experience. And for the first time, I have not like tried to understand the outcome or tried to control the outcome or been so scared to open up. And even though it's ending sooner than what I thought that it might end, I feel so at peace with how the relationship went
because I showed up the way that I wanted to. I trusted that, I trusted not that the relationship was gonna work, but I trusted that I was gonna know the right thing to do with the information that I was given. And I trusted myself to make the decision. I trusted that my intuition would kick in when it needed to. And so even though it's ending, there's this sense of peace that I feel because it's not about the outcome, it's about how I showed up in the process. So all of that to say,
Asha (07:16.064)
true peace really comes from within and I get it now. I get it now, but how you get to that true peace is really diving in to understand what it is that you want to understand what it, how you want to show up. What are the characteristics that you want to exhibit and making decisions that are aligned with how you want to show up, with how you want to prioritize yourself, with how you want to be in this world. And first you have to shed
other people's opinions, you have to shed, "doing the right thing," that's what I had to shed, both of those things. And you have to really lean in and practice trusting yourself. And I promise that when you do, the world will open up to you in ways you couldn't imagine, but you will experience a peace so profound that you couldn't have written about it, you couldn't have understood it, people talk about it and you're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, whatever, I get it. You don't get it until you get it, right? So.
I hope that this is inspiring to you. I just wanted to send you this message. And if you have questions about how you can find your inner peace and trust your intuition, please send me a message. You can find me on Instagram and send me a DM, @AshaWilkersonEsq, or you can send me an email at hello@ashawilkerson.com. All right, ciao ciao.