Meditation: Making the Ask

A somatic, compassionate practice to regulate your nervous system before making the ask.

📘 Episode Summary

This bonus meditation is a guided somatic practice designed to support you before donor meetings, fundraising conversations, or any moment when anxiety begins to take over. In this practice, Erin gently guides you through grounding in your body, noticing your felt experience, and working with Byron Katie’s inquiry process (“The Work”) to loosen the grip of anxious thoughts that often show up before making an ask.

You’ll explore a real fundraising memory—at a level that feels manageable—and uncover the belief fueling your anxiety. Then, through awareness, inquiry, and compassionate self-forgiveness based on the Spiritual Psychology tools from the University of Santa Monica, you’ll shift into a regulated, steady internal climate.

This meditation helps you:

• understand your body’s signals
• release pressure around specific donor outcomes
• reconnect with your inherent worth
• step into donor conversations with grounded confidence

Use this practice anytime you want to regulate your nervous system before fundraising, asking for support, or stepping into leadership.

💡 What This Meditation Supports

• Nervous system regulation before the ask
• Reducing anxiety in donor interactions
• Building somatic awareness of your emotional patterns
• Loosening the belief that your worth depends on a donor’s “yes”
• Creating spaciousness and grounded presence in your body

🛑 Important Note

This meditation includes checking in with your body and revisiting memories. If you know you carry Big T trauma, or if certain memories feel overwhelming, please practice this with a licensed therapist or trained somatic practitioner.
Your wellbeing comes first. If at any moment you feel flooded or unable to stay in the present moment, you have full permission to stop, drink water, step outside, or do whatever helps you return to safety.

📝 What You’ll Need

• A quiet place to sit
• A journal and pen
• Willingness to slow down and meet yourself with compassion

🎧 When to Use This Meditation

• Before donor meetings
• Before crafting a fundraising appeal
• When procrastination or avoidance kicks in
• When your body feels tight, pressured, or anxious
• When you want to reconnect with your own regulated presence

👥 Join the Community

Come share your experience with this meditation inside The Brave & Balanced Fundraiser Facebook Group, where fundraisers support one another in cultivating emotional mastery, nervous-system regulation, and grounded leadership.

➡️ Ready for deeper support?

If yo

✨ Stay Connected & Continue Your Fundraising Growth

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The Brave & Balanced Fundraiser Facebook Group
👉 https://www.facebook.com/groups/braveandbalancedfundraiser

Book a Brave & Balanced Breakthrough Call:
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👉 https://calendly.com/vitalistcoaching/brave-balanced-breakthrough

Learn more about Erin’s coaching & nervous-system based support:
VitalistCoaching.com

Connect on Instagram:
@erinmcquadewright

Transcript

Erin McQuade-Wright: 0:04

This is a guided meditation to prepare you for making me ask. Before we begin, I'd like you to know that this meditation invites you to check in with your body and be present with sensations and memories. If you know you carry Big T trauma, or if certain memories feel overwhelming to you, please consider doing this work with a licensed therapist or a trained somatic practitioner who can hold a safe container with you at any point during this practice, if you feel flooded, overwhelmed, or unable to stay with the present moment, you have full permission to stop. You can open your eyes. Drink some water, step outside, take a walk, or do whatever helps you feel grounded. Again, your wellbeing comes first. You get to take care of yourself in the ways you most need. You'll want a journal and pen nearby for this practice. We'll be writing down insights as we go. So take a moment and settle into your seat. Feel the support beneath you, the chair, the cushion, the ground, holding your body without requiring anything from you. Let yourself release a little more of your weight into that support. Notice how you don't have to earn it. It simply meets you. Now bring your attention to your heartbeat. That steady, reliable rhythm inside your chest. A drumbeat of support that has been with you since before you open your eyes to the world. You don't have to ask for it. You don't have to control it. It's just here. Let your breath begin to follow that rhythm. Slow and steady, and unhurried. And if it feels comfortable to you, you can gently close your eyes. Today we're exploring fundraising anxiety. Not as a personal flaw, but as a body-based intelligent response trying to protect you to work with this clearly we're going to touch into a memory, and we're going to use the work of Byron Katie to do this, and I wanna honor her for this method of inquiry. So bring to mind a time you were about to make an ask and you felt anxiety in your body, not a 10 out of 10 moment. Choose something around a six or an eight in terms of something you can revisit without overwhelming yourself. If it was an in-person, ask, see that prospective donor seated in front of you. And imagine your request for their donation is right on the tip of your tongue. Just notice what begins to happen in your body as you revisit this memory, as if it were a short movie scene we can pause and re-script together. Maybe there are butterflies in your belly. A tightening in your chest, a constriction in your throat. Maybe your hands are feeling a little shaky. Just notice now ask yourself, what thought was I believing in that moment? Maybe you were believing I need a donation. I need them to say, yes, I need them to like me. Whatever thought comes up, write that down in your journal. So you're simply exploring the connection between the feeling in your body and the thought that goes with it. Now gently question that thought. Is it true? Do I need this person to say yes? Can I absolutely know beyond a shadow of a doubt that it's true? I need this person to say yes. Now, ask yourself, what happens in my body when I believe this thought? Where do I tighten? Where do I brace? Does my chest go in and my shoulders go up? What feelings arise? Just notice with curiosity what happens in your body when you believe that thought that you wrote down. Now you can ask yourself, who would I be without this thought? If the thought I need them to say yes was not available to me, how would my body feel? Maybe I'd feel lighter, more spacious, maybe I'd sit taller in the chair. Let your body reveal the answer. Who would you be without this thought? Now turn the thought around to its opposite. So if you, if the thought you wrote down was, I need them to say yes. The opposite thought would be, I don't need them to say yes if you wrote, I need them to like me. The opposite would be I don't need them to like me. So write down the opposite of the thought you originally wrote down. Just try it on. And say this to yourself. Whatever the opposite is, say it to yourself. I don't need them to say yes. I actually don't need them to like me. Feel that thought in your body and notice what shifts even slightly. I don't need them to say, yes, I don't need a donation. Now, write down three concrete reasons that that thought. Might be true. So if you wrote, I don't need them to Say Yes as your new thought, then you might write. There are many donors who have already said yes. This one Ask does not determine the success of my organization. My Worth as a person is constant. It doesn't rise or fall based on donor decisions. My emotional climate is mine to manage. I don't need a yes in order to feel grounded or whole. So write your three examples about how your opposite statement might be even truer. Than your original statement. And now we're gonna offer ourselves some compassionate self forgiveness, and this process comes from the University of Santa Monica. It is spiritual psychology program. You can place a hand on your heart and repeat silently after me. I forgive myself for buying into the misunderstanding that I need this donor's. Yes, in order to feel safe. The truth is, that's just a story I was telling myself. I forgive myself for buying into the misunderstanding that my worth depends on outcomes. The truth is my value is inherent. No one can give it to me or take it away. I forgive myself for buying into the misunderstanding that anxiety means something is wrong with me. The truth is, I'm learning to meet myself with compassion and take a deep breath in. Hold it at the top, sip in a little more air and let it go through your mouth and let your breathing return to normal and just take your awareness back to the support beneath you, the steadiness of the chair, the faithfulness of your heartbeat, the ease inside your breath. You've given attention to a part of yourself that has been trying to protect you. You've questioned a belief that once felt unquestionable. You've created space inside your body for calm, clarity and expansion. And now as you gently open your eyes, I want you to notice how your inner climate feels now compared to when you began. You are learning to regulate your nervous system, and that changes how you show up with donors, with your mission, And with yourself, and I wanna honor you for doing this work, for showing up for yourself in this way today.