The BIG Ask by Valorie M Taylor

It’s time for The Big Ask. It’s time to set in motion the kind of earth shaking change that makes your life happier, more productive and effective. And it all starts with The Big Ask.

Okay, you say. Exactly what won’t happen if I don’t take The Big Ask challenge?

Good Question.

Not asking will render you foolish! Seriously not asking will literally make you The Biggest Loser like the only kid who’s Mom couldn’t afford a costume for the annual Halloween parade at school!

Not asking could leave you stuck in a causality loop keenly aware of a possible solution for survival but you’re unable to stop the warp core from exploding. Only my fellow Trekkies can appreciate the importance of that example but the rest of you, I’m sure, get the gist of it. The Big Ask challenge is just like exercise, do it or stay the same.

I have to warn you, The Big Ask requires big commitment, bold honesty, brazen transparency.

Let’s jump in, shall we?

The Big Ask: What?

Tummy troubles. We’ve all been there, yeah? The belly rumbles. Something not right is stewing in your insides. Proof of the ungoodness escapes out your backside.

Clinching your but cheeks together, grabbing your phone because you know you’ll be in there for a while, you swivel down the hall to the toilet. Door closed, pants down, you let out what should be instant relief. Alas, it is not.

You will be in there for a while—at least until your family comes rapping on the door to ask if you’re alright.

Thumbing through your phone and maybe even crying a little bit due to such painful gas you ask yourself the very first Big Ask challenge question; What did I eat?

What did you eat? What did you ingest your body so hates that your stomach is doing backflips to get rid of?!

But it looked so good, you remember as you wipe a painful tear.

It’s important to know that things get in us that don’t belong in us simply because it looks good. I’m speaking metaphorically so you literal folks will have to keep up.

Again, what is in you that doesn’t belong and is causing you alienation, embarrassment, pain?

My kryptonite? Ice cream. Sends me sputtering down the hallway every time. Yours might be avocados, wine, nuts, cheese, beef. And if so, it’s an easy fix. Just avoid those foods and you’re good.

But what if it’s not so easy, huh? What if you’re one of the millions of people who have ingested something that doesn’t pass through your digestive system in 24 hours but has actually become a painful, alienating, lonesome, embarrassing way of life? OMG. And people who love you and even ones who simply know you are wondering why you can’t be part of the dinner conversation, can’t come by for a visit, won’t meet for a cup of coffee or tea. The answer is likely that

hunk of negativity you tell yourself 6, 8, 1200 times a day taken with several cups of presumed impossibilities followed by an hourly dose of fear.

Free your mind and your ass will follow.

—George Clinton, Parliament Funkadelic

Simple and to the point. Let’s dive deeper. The decisions we make like what we feed ourselves, our minds even—has a tremendous effect on our daily routine. Not feeling well makes us irritable, unpleasant, difficult to deal with.

Maybe that’s your family’s complaint about you. Well, begin exploring that Big Ask question; what did I eat?

What are you feeding yourself that creates the separation between you and harmony? You and peace? You and pleasantness?

Eyes + Ears = Conditioning

This is how we ingest negativity; through our eyes, ears and our conditioning. What we watch, binge on (porn, murder shows, atrocities, abuses, etc.) perfectly sets up residence in us. Just like the perfume/cologne we sprayed this morning still can be detected on our skin later in the day. Do that enough times and it becomes your signature scent; faintly detectable.

To what we lend our ears populates our thoughts and conversations, too. And then just like that 12-flapjacks every Sunday morning we look up 300 pounds later and realize that it’s just conditioning; we’ve always done it so we always do it.

The crazy thing about conditioning is that it doesn’t necessarily follow logic. Conditioning is literally an adaption to our environment.

In France, most people eat several times a day and they eat bread. French people are known for being thin smokers. What do they do different than their American counterparts who weigh heavy on this side of then pond? French people tend to walk everywhere they go.

So if you back peddle to what your Eyes and Ears ingest, it’s possible to create some different conditioning, yeah?

I know someone who is an alcoholic. He drinks secretly or so he thinks. He sneaks out in the morning to drink and returns home throughout the day and feigns sobriety. He rumbles with any and everyone. He denies he has a problem. He passes out and makes a spectacle of himself in front of his family.

We don’t need a clinical psychologist to understand that he’s feeding himself something that seperates him from harmony and peace.

But what about when you like being separated from peace and harmony?

Another Great Question!

There are those of us who are addicted to pain, confusion, dissension, drama and foolishness. If it’s not you personally, odds are you know someone who is and if you watch closely enough, their life follows a certain pattern. Everything is cool and then WHAM! Everything is out of order evidenced by wounded relationships or they themselves are unavailable. The reason? It’s what’s being ingested.

The Big Ask What morphs into something else most probing. What actually demands a timeline, a plan of action, a desired result. Consider a married couple you know who says “we’ve had some problems but we’re gonna give it another chance.”

Exactly what are they hoping to accomplish? That’s what the Big Ask What demands! A plan. A desired result. Someone has to speak the truth, admit to fault, create a plan of very different actions in order to guarantee success. And something as simple as “okay, honey, I’ll take out the trash each night after dinner.” Or “let’s gamble less and save more.” Or “I’ll be nicer to your family.”

Without the Big Ask What, that married couple won’t experience change or growth. They will keep doing the same thing expecting a change that’ll never happen because the people in the relationship haven’t committed to a plan.

A celebrity couple I know personally got divorced last year. It wasn’t aired on reality tv so don’t try to figure out who it is, guys. The problem was infidelity and the fact that it was an open secret for so long. There was promise to never, never do it again. But that promise slowly morphed into the secret leaking out with unabashed publicity. It broke my heart. To see these people, this family I loved an admired broken made me realize how vulnerable we all are without so much as a commitment and a plan.

To ask what can I do differently to save my marriage is a mouthful. It takes courage, guys. Real courage.

I love the human body. It’s mysteries are breathtakingly fascinating. While teaching a cosmetic science class, I enjoyed fascinating my students with what the body—the skin specifically—will absorb and what it will allow to stay in the surface of the skin. There is this incredible intelligence that cannot be explained away. If you apply a swipe of synthetic like mineral oil and a swipe of a natural oil like olive, grape seed, coconut oil on your skin, the natural oil will all but disappear. It’s not magic, it’s science. You might try this when you’re totally bored but in the meantime for the purpose of The Big Ask let’s continue.

Since your skin is the largest organ on your body, it’s only natural that it needs nutrients and it will try to absorb or eat what you apply to it. So, if your skin is intelligent enough to seek to survive by absorption, why does this super intelligent brain rattling around in our skull allow us to ingest the worst possible things?

And guess what? You can’t force the skin to absorb what isn’t healthy or vital to the body’s survival. Nope. Nope. Nope. If your skin detects a synthetic it will not ingest it! The skin will react to any irritant with rashes, hives even sweating to rid itself of a toxin or possible threat to the survival of the body.

A rash on top of tummy troubles? Exactly who is operating the override handle, huh?

And now for something scarier than a ghost story. And more potent than examining your personal truth without the benefit of Ashwagandah.

Spend the next hour answering these Big Ask challenge questions. Remember to love yourself, answer truthfully and to walk in the direction of the most beneficial changes.

1. What is my E+E=C specifically? (Eyes + Ears = Conditioning)

2. What affect do my negative, abusive, disharmonious choices have on the people who love me but may not always understand me?

3. Finish this sentence: The last time I (apply an action) it made (Name) feel bad, confused, a desire to create distance, insulted, unloved or unsupported.

4. What am I accepting/ingesting from others (their actions or words) that doesn’t turn out well for me?

5. If a simple ‘no’ won’t work, what else can I do or say, so that I’m not forced to accept other’s actions or words?