Your Pink Glittery Muscle

And no, it’s not your vagina… this time.

I was raised on the notion if you don’t ask, you don’t get, and yes, I probably need to reflect on that one as an adult.

Why, you might ask? Well, the man who bred this belief in me is my dad, and he is a pusher of boundaries, a chancer, if you will. (Tongue rammed in my cheek here, FYI.) But he is right to a large extent.

Recently, we were having a coffee together, and the car garage called me to tell me my car was ready. €946 later, and I said to the man on the phone, “you wouldn’t ask the lads to give it a hoover for me because it’s manky”.

My dad nearly spat his tea in my face with the laughter. He was calling for my mother, “you’ll never believe this, Maria. Jesus, I’ll never be dead with this one around.” And then he recounted what I just said to the man on the phone….

Now what the fuck does this have to do with your pink glittery muscle?

Well, if you don’t ask for what you want, you don’t get, especially if what you’re asking for is a big ask like… and I want you to insert your own big ask here and see how it feels. It’ll only take a moment.

Now I am going to push you a little further because we’ve established that I’m a pusher of boundaries, I jest.

But seriously, how would it feel to ask for something wildly big, completely full of notions of yourself? Something that honestly was a complete luxury.

• Something that didn’t make any logical sense
• Something that you could live without
• Something that made no sense to the people you respected most

How would it feel to ask for something like that? That’s a different question altogether now, isn’t it?

Sit with that for a minute. Now ask yourselves:

• What feels different about that?
• Where do you feel it in your physical body?
• What thoughts, words or phrases are swirling around in your brain?
• Do they sound as scared or unsettled as your body does?

Now here’s the question. What if you questioned all of this? Could you challenge the feelings?

I wonder if you have been taking them as the gospel truth for all of your life without ever wondering, maybe there’s more here. Sit with that notion for a minute.

Now let’s talk about our pink glittery muscle.

It has been laying dormant for years. Decades even, and it doesn’t care how old you are, so don’t for a second tell me you’re too old to change it, because it doesn’t matter.

If you want to change and you want to find your voice, then we need that pink glittery muscle again. Let’s bring it out from the shadows. And I’m going to help you to do just that.

In fact, let me show you. This is a page out of the book, and it’s the page where I stop being nice about it.

So here is what we are going to do about it. We are going to get curious, because our ability to question everything is your greatest gift if you want to be a cycle breaker. I encourage you to:

Question what you are doing and why you are doing it. Question who told you that was the done thing. Question how you feel when you are around certain people. Pay attention to when your confidence depletes in certain rooms. Watch what you say to yourself when you are around them. Notice what triggers you to go quiet when you should be totally and utterly yourself.

And if you want an answer to something, ask the damn question, girl. If you are scared to ask it, ask it anyway, because nobody is going to do that for you. And if someone doesn’t celebrate your curiosity, then question that too.

No woman worth her weight in gold has done this alone. Every woman who refused to follow the herd has had someone who went before her. I had mine. And now I am here for you.

See questions as your thing for the next little while, and if that scares you, good, that’s part of it, so know you are on the right path and get to work.

That’s how I work. I tell you what happened to me, then I hand you the work. Story, then work. All the way through.

So here’s what I want you to do. Get on the waitlist.

The women on that list get the book first. They get to read chunks of it long before it’s out in the world. And they get first shout at preordering it, which, let’s be honest, is the only Christmas present you’ll get this year that you actually asked for.

Go on. Ask for something. Start here.

With love, Jennifer xoxo