Un-Scaring Yourself About Your Desires

Have you ever noticed inner conflict about your desires?

Probably your answer is….OF COURSE.

 [stextbox id=”custom”][Tomorrow, free webinar on Desire, 90 minutes from 10-11:30 am Pacific, see all the information to dial-in below, no registration required].[/stextbox]

I’ve often had debates about my own desires.

Should I want that thing? What if I just stopped wanting it? Is it OK to want what I want, or is there something wrong with me?

I had the terrible experience of having what I apparently wanted become very painful when it came to things like eating, smoking, drinking.

Or what about the struggle of wanting more money when you don’t have enough?

And what about attraction for people? When people are in mutually agreed monogamous relationships, and one person wishes to leave because they want to be with someone else instead, it appears to cause anguish and pain.

Can’t desire be easier? What’s going on when desire seems to bring a mixture of pleasure AND pain?

Can we trust our desires to lead us down paths of peace and enlightenment…..or difficulty and trouble?

Pursuing what we desire seems to go badly sometimes!

Yikes!

But it’s fascinating and very liberating when you study your desires, allowing all your judgments or grabbiness to be there, without being so afraid of this tricky topic.

Where to begin?

The place I love beginning first, is to look at my desires….

….and see what it is I believe the object of my desire would give me, if I had it or experienced it.

For example.

Take five minutes and write down everything you desire in your life. What do you want to add? What are you drawn to? What do you wish for, dream about, long for?

Write small to large desires. Write anything that comes to mind. Allow yourself to be petty, immature, or expansive and idealistic.

Then, start with the very first thing you wrote.

What would you have, if you had that thing, or that condition, or that new situation, or that person?

What kind of feeling would you have? What quality?

Money is a common desire for many people. More money, tons of money, endless money, millions and zillions.

Notice the image that comes to mind and how exciting you believe it would be to have all that money in your bank accounts.

What do you feel? What would you have?

When I did this work around money, I saw that I would feel secure, relaxed, safe, independent and free.

Wow, no wonder I wanted more money!

But then, I could also investigate why it was I was not secure right now with the amount of money I already had, what I was thinking that created anxiety, and how I believed I was dependent and trapped.

This helped tease out and drill down into my objections to reality!

Juicy situations for inquiry!

I could see deeply what I felt insecure about in the present, that I believed money would resolve.

Where was I really insecure? How was it true that I was not independent? Who was to blame?

I discovered in the midst of all the looking at desires in my life that I could actually enjoy the process and the experience of desiring, without feeling desperate to GET the thing.

Strange paradox. But oh so fun, and such a relief to really know what is true for me!

Tomorrow I’ll dive deeply into facilitating you to discover your desires in your life, and see what shadows or judgments arise when you admit what they are!

There are three ways to connect to the webinar tomorrow, which is entirely free: phone, skype or on the web. You need to have a computer to see your screen–there will be a slide show.

If you watch the webinar on the web, you’ll be able to send your questions and comments to me online, or you can simply listen and follow along.

The webinar will be a delicious appetizer to the full 6 week telecourse program starting next week, but there’s no obligation to join the whole course if you come to the webinar.

You will leave having a better understanding of how to enjoy your desires, and question your fears about having them, or not getting them, or the reason these desires live inside you in the first place.

Here’s how you can join (and bring a pen and paper).

Everyone please click the “event” link to see the slide show. If you want to participate, and do The Work (I highly recommend) then dial in AND click the web link.

That way, you can share and you can watch the slide show, too.