Desire isn’t about getting

A great deal of the time, I don’t get what I want. This is not a sad story.

A misunderstanding about the practice of desire is that it IS about getting what you want all the time - that life is a magical process of wishing and receiving. Nope. It’s not.

Desire is about ignition. It’s about being woken from slumber, stirred to aliveness, and pushed out of the metaphorical nest to engage with a life we might otherwise avoid.

So when the plans don’t work out, he doesn’t respond to the text, or they say I’m not welcome there (true stories ) here is what I do:

1. I acknowledge the ouch of the disappointed parts of me, listen to their pain, and give them some extra love.

(Caution: proceeding to step 2 without doing step 1 puts you at risk of some serious spiritual bypassing).

2. I reflect on how life’s rejection just might be god’s protection (thank you 12 steps). I’ve learned that god* often has a better plan for me than I could ever come up with for myself.

3. I let go of the OBJECT of desire and return to the PROCESS of desire. I didn’t get the person, place or thing I wanted, but I remain loyal to my desire for what I hoped to have with them - be it six, intimacy, adventure, purpose, awakening, whatever. I open to it arriving in a different form.

The crux is to stay in this raw, shaky, uncertain space of wanting - without grasping, rejecting or collapsing in the face of it. That is staying open to life.

And that’s the real practice of desire.