On unapologetic desires
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Happy Sunday, Soothers. So. What do you want? Like, actually WANT? Desire, with all of your heart? Dream about? Think about in your spare time? Have constructed elaborate gorgeous fantasies about in your head? Your heart’s truest, most delicious and delightful desires?
And does anybody else know about these desires? Have you even written them down to yourselff?
I’m guessing not.
I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts this week, Simone Grace Seol’s Joyful Marketing. It’s on the surface a podcast about marketing your business, but as with all things in how you do business, it’s actually how to be yourself, accept yourself, and do life from those places. Simone had a guest on, Janette Dalgliesh, who brought up a lovely concept and distinction I hadn’t really thought about in the way she framed it:
Naming your authentic desires
Creating the distinction between naming that you desire that thing, completely apart from the feasibility of you ever being able to have it
Creating an “authentic desire” list that you update every few months
One thing that Janette said that really struck me was that, “We can let it be okay that you can have a desire and not have to fulfill it.” She continued, “We have to — if we think that we can’t have a thing, then we silence the part of us that wants the thing.”
She said, “One of the things that will always be on my unapologetic desire list is a hug from my dad. And I can never fulfill that desire because he died 10 years ago. So I’m never going to get that in this lifetime as a physical thing. And that doesn’t stop me wanting it. It would be ridiculous for me to say, ‘Well, now that he’s not here, I can’t fulfill it, therefore I’ll take it off the list.’ So being able to say, you know what, it’s okay. My capacity to say there’s a thing that I want and I know I can’t have it, and at the same time not remove it from the list because that would be a lie, there’s a power in that, in being able to be completely and utterly honest with yourself about what you truly want.”
Mind. Blown.
So often, in myself and my audience, I see our authentic, unapologetic desires locked away because 1. we think they’re silly 2. we don’t think we’re worthy of them 3. we’re afraid we’ll be judged for going after them 4. we’re not totally certain we can actually achieve them.
And to that, I would like to say…
So what?
I know many of you want to work on your vulnerability. You see the connection between your vulnerability and your growth but you’re not sure where to start.
Here’s one spot:
Write down your own unapologetic desires list. No matter how unlikely you feel they may be, no matter how much you doubt your own capacity to achieve them, no matter if you fear others would shame or ridicule yourself. Just write it down. Just for you.
Did it? Good. Now, tell one person. One person who may be a dreamer, just like you. We have to be careful of who we tell our unapologetic desires to. Don’t tell it to the wet blanket, the rain-on-the-parader, the one who tries to love you out of fear instead of belief. Tell it to the gentle, optimistic soul, who has their own unapologetic desires.
And then, just let it rest for a bit. We get so caught up in the how of our desires that we forget naming them is, uh… the first step in the how. And in the saying them out loud, and admitting them to ourselves and others, often, the openings are from there put into motion that we can’t quite see yet.
I’ll never forget about five or six years ago, I admitted to myself I wanted to do freelance writing for visible publications. Three days later I got an invitation in my inbox to contribute a piece to Vox.com. Shrug. Magic of admitting my desires or coincidence? You can decide, but you’ll surely know which one I subscribe to.
Another of my unapologetic desires was that I wanted to be a life coach, but I was riddled with shame and self-ridicule for wanting it. Who was *I* to think I could do that? My life was a mess! Also life coaching seemed so… fluffy. I was a serious lady! No, people would surely think I was ridiculous. *I* thought I was ridiculous. Better to carry on, in my seriousness, than to admit this dream out loud to anyone, let alone myself.
Three years later from first admitting that desire out loud to myself… here we are.
So.
What are your unapologetic desires?
Still feeling a little self-conscious? Here, I’ll help you. This is my current unapologetic desires list.
-what I’m calling my little “witch cottage” in nature on a river with room for a garden and a clawfoot tub
-a cottage in Italy I can spend part of the year in
-more interviews in media to highlight my work especially on being a highly sensitive person and inner child healing so I can reach more people to help them
-a book deal!!!
Phew. Feels a little silly to get out, to say that to all of you, but I did it.
You can too.
Write it down. That’s the first step in the “how.” The rest? It’ll take care of itself. But please, gather the courage (and it does take courage) to name that unapologetic desire.
It’s not ridiculous. It’s beautiful, and wonderful, and cherished.
And so are you.