The Ask is the hard part. It’s easy to tell people about the benefits of your lovely thing, to show them how much it has helped you, to be excited about how much it can help them. But then you have to ask them to put money on the table, and many of us, including me at times, choke.

It’s not that different when you are talking to G-d, I think. We can ask for all sorts of things, and then we feel, who am I to ask for help, for healing, for support? Many of our prayers are in the plural, so it is a communal ask, which is a little easier for us to do. But when we feel small, our asks are small. How do we step up with a bold ask?

Now, of course, having asked the question, “who am I to …”, I have to quote Marianne Williamson.

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
― Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of “A Course in Miracles”

We have gifts to offer the world, and we shouldn’t be afraid to offer them, and to ask the world for its gifts, in return.

Is asking something you do easily? If so, can you teach me how? I’m getting better at it, but I’m still not good enough. Asking the universe to send me a teacher!