Following the Deeper Desire
Seguir el deseo más profundo
A question about distinguishing genuine desire from conditioned resistance, and how to recognize which impulses carry real energy and which leave us feeling drained.
Following the Deeper Desire
A question about distinguishing genuine desire from conditioned resistance, and how to recognize which impulses carry real energy and which leave us feeling drained.
I'm trying to get in touch with what I actually want. When you first mentioned it, I wasn't even sure what it was I would want. There's just a feeling of being held back from it.
One way to explore this is to wonder: if your life ended in a month, what would you want to do? Really contemplate it. That's what happens with people who have terminal illnesses. They become suddenly either very depressed and in denial, or awake. You only have those two options. It becomes very polarized, because you don't have much room to pretend.
It's an energy that, once we start tapping into it, becomes a movement of vitality and love for life. It's creative, and it's always new. It could be "call my father," or "sit at the piano," or "go to work." But it's a vitality, and the more you dive into it, the more it will develop all of your potential.
Resistance as a signpost
What about the opposite? When there's a desire, or something you feel you have to do, and there's resistance to it. How does that play out? Is that a place to start looking?
The distinction would be: when there is resistance, look at why and what the risk is. You can imagine things you want, but you don't really want them, and there's going to be resistance. So there isn't yet enough clarity.
You can consider resistance as a place where there is fear or pain. Resistance is a good sign, especially worth exploring. You could explore and realize there isn't a lot of energy there, there isn't a lot of interest. But it's a good way to start breaking through mental patterns and beliefs. It's always in the direction of exploring what you want. And if you want it, you might have resistance.
Joseph Campbell described it as "following your bliss." Exactly. And it feels vulnerable. It feels risky. It has a quality of risk and scariness.
Maybe that vulnerability is telling. If there's resistance and the feeling is more dead, stagnant, or hard, that's different from this vulnerable feeling. Is that a useful distinction?
Yes. If it feels hard, dead, and stagnant, it's likely conditioning. At some point it becomes more useful to speak specifically rather than in the abstract. If anybody feels like looking into it and sharing what you want, what's coming up, that would help.
The art project
The example I was thinking of is that yesterday I did a presentation about an art project I'm involved in. It's quite difficult for me to do things like that, not the project itself, but the asking for help, the selling point. There was fear and vulnerability. Some of it felt alive, like the project had real energy behind it. But some of it felt like I was forcing myself into a position or direction that isn't the right way to go. There's a push and pull with it.
There's a whole aspect of learning what we don't want, because that's part of how we make room and energy for what we do want. But that also requires a lot of discernment, because there's an immature kind of not wanting. There's a tantrum quality: "I don't want to have to work, I don't want to have to do this or that." That often happens when we lose touch with what we do want, because when we are in touch with it, the things that are required become easier.
For example, if I'm deeply in touch with the desire to write music, then sitting at the instrument and going through tedious processes becomes more clearly something I want to do. But if I'm just putting myself in that situation without being in touch with that deeper energy of desire, it will be very painful. It will feel pointless, and I would likely stop doing it because there won't be enough energy.
It's also common to end up doing things we really don't want to do. So, is the art project something you want to do and still want to do?
Yes. It's very alive in me.
And is the presentation something that's a requirement, part of the process, something you feel and choose? Or is it maybe expendable?
I think it's expendable. What you described helps with that discernment. The energy is in the project itself. After the presentation I could see where the energy hit and where it fell flat. That's a difficult learning, but it is a way of following that energy. It feels so much better to do that, and to write about the project, and to put energy into it where it actually needs to go.
Energy versus drain
Follow the energy. Follow the expansion. Often when we do something in service of that deeper desire and resistance comes up (for example, the tedious craft work), the mind will say, "I don't want to do this. This isn't necessary. I shouldn't have to do this." But often, if you do it and work through the resistance and the contraction, you will experience a release of energy. There will be a vitality afterward.
By contrast, the things we do that we don't really want to do, the things not coming from a deeper, universal desire, will feel draining. Not the kind of tired you feel after a long, satisfying day of work. It will be a deadening. That's something to really listen to.
In a sense, it's a matter of distinguishing the universe not wanting something from the ego not wanting something. The ego doesn't want to do anything. It wants everything for free.
The hurt underneath resistance
I sometimes think the ego doesn't want to do something because there's a hurt underneath it. There's a reason for the resistance. It's a place it doesn't want to go, like asking for help or marketing your skills. You're fearful because of beliefs and filters formed in childhood. I think it's a very valuable place to go, right at that point of resistance. Sit with it, meditate, and go there. Ask: what's here? Why am I feeling this? Where did I feel this before? It's gold there.
Exactly.
I think of the ego as a bubble. It just wants to float in there. Anything it touches, it pops.
Yes. This life is not a rehearsal. It is now. What do you want deeply? Take the risk. Don't let fears and pains hold you back. What is your song? What is your passion? What do you love?
There are no guarantees on that level. What is guaranteed is your being. And regarding the question of whether a desire is coming from ego or from something deeper: just go with what you want most deeply now, and then time will tell. That basically aligns the ego, puts it in service.
Otherwise we can get stuck in "but is this ego or is this something deeper?" Just go with the deepest desire, always discerning. For example, if the desire is to step in front of a bus, that's probably not it. But where there is fear, resistance, and pain, that is often where the real movement is.