Desires
For this first post, let's talk DESIRES.
By desire, I refer to what burns inside of each of us. Things we burn to experience and manifest. Basically, things we think will bring us happiness, and want to see happen in the future for that reason. It can be anything - it's personal to each of us. Desires give us the opportunity to shape our very own existences based on what we like, feel, perceive. But what if they don't bring the expected dose of happiness? Indeed, desires can also come with or turn into obsession, rigid expectations and sour disappointment.
So how can we keep our desires as seeds for happiness? How can we make them elevate us and live a better life, whatever the outcome is? How do we balance our expectations to remain flexible and joyful?
Desire to grow.
Maybe a good way to start is to choose and nurture desires that are about personal growth. Desires that mean to develop capacities, intelligence, sensitivity, awareness, acumen... Desiring to become a better, more compassionate and educated person than the one we were yesterday, is a desire to grow. When the outcome of such desires is more of a pain in the ass than drinking a Cosmo in a trendy bar, we can be pissed off, or we can simply choose to remember that, initially, we desire to grow, and that whatever happens is designed to help us grow. But how can we remain focused on that in the long run?
Work on perception.
Train your mind to change your lens. Choose a new angle to see what's going on. Sometimes, things do not happen as we pictured them and we say "it sucks". By projecting on the unborn experience "what we think it should be", our perception of the experience when it actually happens can be negative. The attitude of judging not-so-pleasant unexpected stuff seems to be a habit of the mind. And we go from excitement to disappointment. So when I get frustrated about a desire I think I'm not experiencing the way I wanted to, it is time to relax and train my mind to release all labels about the experience and to wear my "it's part of the process" glasses.
Trust the process.
Because yes, it's all a process. Each of us goes through a unique set of experiences. Sometimes we can't change or modulate these. In such times, you can choose to hope for good results anyways, or to trust the process. To me, trust is faith, when hope is fear. So choose wisely. I do my best to trust the process. So I do my best to keep my faith making me visionary, instead of letting my hope making me fearful. And I can tell from my personal experience that it needs conscious work every fucking day. They say "it's hard to see a rainbow in the middle of the storm". True! Because we label what happens with "storm", it's hard to take it easy in the very first place. Back to perception: pick your filter and trust the process. Embrace your experiences. It's here, and sometimes it's not going anywhere. So deal with it, kindly, lovingly. Take comfort knowing it's part of a bigger picture. And...
Keep burning.
Keep desiring, keep feeling, keep experiencing, keep doing your best, keep creating your life the way you want to and keep sharing it all. You have a lifetime to spray your burning desires out. Make sure you consume them. Because unused, it turns bad. You never know how long you're going to live. So take your time, but don't waste it. And remember that the flame is eternal: you will ALWAYS be able to burn if you feel like it. It's always there, in each of us.
I am looking forward to engaging with you into doing things that make us happy. Reach out and say hi!
