Desire.
One of the great dilemmas in my life, something I used to fight, or fall into like drowning.
The way I once felt about desire was that it must be controlled, very carefully approached, and hopefully extinguished like a campfire getting put out with five buckets of water.
And yet.
Did I really hope to turn out the light of desire forever?
When I used to binge-eat, or smoke, or drink in my early twenties, or fantasize….
….I thought of all these activities as terrible, escapist, wrong, shameful.
I went to lots of therapists trying to dig out the dark festering parts, and squash the desire.
But here’s the strangest unexpected surprise.
When I found the way to question what I was thinking, and see if it was really true, I stopped having such a terrified feeling about myself and my urges, cravings, impulses or desires.
I once listened to a recording of Byron Katie facilitating a man through his beliefs about attraction. He admitted attraction to his own sister.
Most of us might find that horrifying. And so did he.
I could hardly believe he let himself be recorded.
And yet, as I listened, I realized he was allowing his innermost shame to come to the surface and be seen.
Without suppressing, controlling, and attacking himself for being so awful, he could study what he was feeling, with compassion.
Who would you be, right now, without the belief that you have something terrible inside of you that needs to be either cut out, or destroyed, or suppressed, or hidden?
What if you let whatever’s there….be there?
What if you just let go of the thought that you might be bad for others or bad for yourself?
What would you act like, feel like, be like if you had respect for everything you felt, thought, and desired?
I know, as I became friendly with my own desires and cravings, even in the long distant past (like when I had a raging eating disorder) looking back….
….I became friendly with my own mind.
Turning these thoughts around: my desires, cravings, or what I wanted was NOT evil, did not need to be controlled, was not something to be destroyed.
These feelings were to be brought forward, not hidden.
Wow.
I found, exposing my desires had so many advantages.
It made me normal, a regular human, it created intimacy through the honesty admitted, it created a place for true investigation, for understanding, for connection.
No longer cast out like a sick person, to be locked in jail.
Instead….following my desires, acting on my desires, studying my desires created transformation.
Freedom.
Take that one step to stop pushing your desire down. Find out what you really want. Write about it. See what you think is missing. Study this idea. Question your thinking.
“When the resistance is gone, so are the demons.” ~ Pema Chodron
Love, Grace