Just ask
Does part of you feel like you’re not allowed to have what you want?
Do you find yourself getting tense, feeling your defenses activating, even thinking about asking someone for what you want?
Do you find yourself getting defensive in conversations when your about to ask for what you desire?
This is real.
The defenses we have built up to protect our most vulnerable selves, the ones that are asking for what we truly desire, are real. At some point when you were a child you didn’t get your needs met. This is true for every single one of us even if we had a great childhood. There came a moment when we realized the human experience isn’t designed to provide us with the wholeness of unity consciousness. We are ever evolving towards this as individuals and a collective. However, it is the human journey to experience this “loss” of oneness and spend our lives finding our way back again with evermore faith and consistency.
When we were little our brains couldn’t process this. (Heck our adults brains are challenged as well 😂.) As children we felt abandonment, fear, frustration, and anger at why our deepest needs are not being met. Beyond our survival needs, I’m speaking to the needs of our souls, the needs of our hearts. This perceived separation is the source of our greatest pain and suffering. It is certainly the beginning of constructing the fortress around our hearts to protect our most tender parts.
I feel my defenses kick up regularly. It feels so deeply programmed it almost comes as second nature, like breathing. Without even thinking about it, I feel my chest harden and my belly muscles tighten. I feel an anxiety inside of me sometimes around the smallest asks. I have had to train myself to have incredible awareness, patience, and self-forgiveness to navigate this part of me that wants so badly to protect myself from opening.
There’s so much history and momentum in place confirming why it’s not safe, for women in particular, to ask for what they want. Though this is true of every human regardless of life circumstances. We all have mechanisms we put into place to reconcile the reality that as humans we have a yearning in our heart for oneness. It is this longing that is our guiding light whether we are aware of it or not. We often place this longing upon another human being to make us whole, where we can certainly have some of our needs met, it is not the totality.
We have a choice. We can continue to stay in our defensive postures - there’s plenty of evidence to support why this may feel like a wise choice, or we can begin to recognize the part of ourselves that are our protectors and let the wisest parts of ourselves hold our protectors like the children they are. When we can lovingly acknowledge our protectors, knowing she has serve us well, another opportunity presents. This being we can walk forth with vulnerability as one of our greatest allies.
In the process of separation from my husband, there have been so many moments where I have shown up in protection when I didn’t need to. It took me some time to realize the depth of fear I had around thinking I wasn’t allowed to have what I wanted. The thought of asking for what I wanted from him, even the simplest things, activated a cascading effect resulting in a defensive stance.
He was not my enemy and yet I was making him one. From this perspective, I had a hard time focusing on any other outcome. In my situation, I had no reason to believe I would need to defend my position. In fact, I had plenty of evidence that my asking for what I wanted was welcome and desirable. Yet still, almost every time when it came time for me to speak my desires, my deeply embedded protector would get triggered.
It is in the moments when I find myself starting to harden and my jaw locking down, I pause and breathe. I breathe intentionally and gently into my belly, into the hardness, and let myself feel whatever emotion it is I need to feel. In my tears, in my groans of frustration, I begin to find my way home. Now I can connect back with a part of myself that leads with my heart and I can allow myself to open and receive the support that is here for me.
It became a necessary practice for me to first envision myself asking for what I want and being present with the automatic response that would kick in before going to another person to make my request. With tender topics in particular, I give myself the time and space alone to experience my protector kick in, bring my acceptance to her through breath, and allow my emotions to flow. With expression and compassion comes space, space to engage with another about my desires from a place of openness, sincerity, and love.
This is a learning process. Being present with all aspects of ourselves is my definition of embodiment. Running away from parts of ourselves is never going to get us what we most desire. It can be scary as shit, and at the same time we are given this gift of a body to experience life for such a finite period of time. I don’t know about you, but I want to be as present as possible for this journey in all of its exquisite extremities.
Dare to Desire!
Kristen
Below is a link for a free 3-part class series I created for you all. The intention is to provide you with tools to be more present and empowered when faced with fear in asking for what you desire.
https://app.mastermind.com/masterminds/9782