What do I want that I haven't let myself ask for?

"There's something I want. I haven't said it out loud, not even to myself. I already know what the answer would be."

I can see it on the mat.

When there's something the body wants, and it's unaddressed, unspoken, unresolved, it shows up. Stiffness. Holding the breath, or breathing so shallow it barely moves. A shoulder that feels frozen. "Tight hips."

Skipping over the pose instead of getting into it with confidence.

I watch people not express themselves in their posture, in their poses, in their breath. Nothing moves fluidly or easily. It's a holding in. A withholding.

Here's what I would want you to understand about the thing you haven't let yourself ask for. Something that could change how you live.

You can give from what you have. If you had a billion dollars, you could hand out millions.

It's not selfish to ask. It's not egotistical to ask. It's not wrong to ask.

It is so right.

That ask inside you was placed there for a reason.

It's not arbitrary, and it was never meant to be held in. Holding it in is like holding a beach ball underwater. Eventually you're going to have to let it go. And while you're holding it down, it takes everything you've got, and all your balance, to keep it there.

So many people think, if I ask, it'll be a 'no' anyway.

Here's what they get wrong. They are asking. They ask it inside their own head, and then they answer it themselves, with a 'no.' They never give another person, or life, the chance to answer with a yes.

What changes is the moment you realize no one is going to do this for you. And you understand the deeper truth: your asking opens something in you that lets you be who you're here to be, and bring your richness and beauty to this world.

Try this: cross out the 'no.'

If you were willing, what would you ask for? Write it in one sentence. Start with "What I've really wanted to ask for is..."

Under that, write the reason you've been telling yourself it's a 'no.'

Now cross out that reason. That 'no' was never yours to give.

Now say what you've really wanted. Out loud, to a person, or to life.

And one more thing. Ask for more than you actually want. I learned that on Wall Street.

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Sending love,
Wendy