Diving Into Your Desires
“Absolutely nothing of human greatness is ever accomplished without desire. Not a symphony has been written, a mountain climbed, an injustice fought, or a love sustained apart from desire. Desire fuels our search for the life we prize” - Jon Eldredge
I’ve been thinking a lot about desire lately and how hard it is for us, especially women, to accept and articulate our desires. For centuries, we’ve been conditioned to suppress our desires, to quiet our appetites - for food, success, sex.
Women especially have been carrying around the idea that our appetite means we’re “bad”. To some extent, we fear our desires and see them as something dangerous that has to be controlled or tamed. Appetite - for food, for sex, for connection - is a biological imperative BUT one that we FIGHT with every ounce of our being - we fear and have been conditioned to think that ‘if I open up and experience my FULL appetite there will be no end to what I want to devour and my appetite will cause destruction’.
If you have an appetite for sex, you’re a slut. If you have an appetite for food, you’re a glutton and will get fat and not be desired, if you desire success, you’re a ball buster or ‘missing that nurturing bone’.
To avoid having to face that fact that a) we have desires and b) acknowledging and accepting them for exactly what they are, we talk ourselves out of what we want. We use justifications like ‘desire is selfish’ or ‘if I get what I want, someone else will lose out’. In doing so we become so disconnected from our voice, from our truth, that we are forced to look outside ourselves, to external sources for permission to have what we want.
When we shut down our desires, we can’t connect with our truth. If we can’t connect with out truth, we cant connect with our power. If we cant connect with our power, and express that power, we’re not going to feel fulfilled. Aren’t we all here with the purpose to feel wholeheartedly alive and fulfilled?
What if we take a moment, reject the conditioning, and give ourselves permission to get curious and entertain our desires. What comes up? What do you really want?
What if your desires and appetites were actually pointing you in the direction of your life purpose? What would you allow yourself to have? What would you give yourself permission to receive?