✨Understanding Desire...How to Honor and Reclaim What You Truly Want

Just as naturally as plants sprout from the earth  a wide variety of wants, needs, and desires emerge from within us. These longings arise as we grow, evolve, and engage with the world around us.

Whether it's the simple craving for a piece of chocolate or the deep yearning for a more fulfilling career, desire is always present. It is human. It is alive.

Yet, how we relate to these natural impulses shapes everything - our self-image, our self-worth, and ultimately, the life we allow ourselves to create.

 🌱 Desire and the Self

We’re taught to suppress desire. To judge it, to question it, to hide it. 

(as you can see from a simple Google Search ➡️)

Society, religion, and cultural traditions have long conditioned us to believe that wanting is dangerous, selfish—even shameful.

And so, when desire arises, we often respond by turning on it—and on ourselves. We treat desire as separate, as something that doesn’t belong to us.

But in doing so, we abandon ourselves. Every time we ignore what we want, we fracture the relationship we have with our inner truth.

🔥 The Fear of Acting on Desire

Many of us fear desire because we confuse reacting to it with honoring it.

We assume that to acknowledge a desire is to be consumed by it, and that we'd lose control. 

But reacting is also disconnecting.

Reacting is impulsive. Surface-level. It’s like touching a hot stove—automatic and unexamined. This is what leads to cheating, binging, or overspending—not desire itself, but the disconnection from it. 

When we disconnect from our desire, we disconnect from ourselves. And that disconnection creates confusion, shame, anxiety—and often, despair.

💖 Honoring Desire: The Real Work 

To truly honor desire is not to obey its every impulse, but to be present with it.

That means:

•  Sitting with it: "What am I feeling?"

•  Getting curious: "Where is this coming from? What is it trying to show me?"

•  Listening without judgment: "Can I love the part of me that wants this—regardless of whether I act on it?*

When we meet our desires with compassion, curiosity, and neutrality, we unlock their wisdom. We discover that our wants are not something to fear or suppress—they are signposts pointing us toward healing, connection, and growth.

Like sprouts emerging from the earth, our desires need attention, love and care.They are invitations to go inward, tend to our inner world, and love ourselves more fully.

✍️ Self-Reflection Questions

• "What are some desires that might be alive in me that I am not honoring?""

• "Are there any past desires that had been suppressed or judged that I wish to reconnect to?"

• “Can I love the part of me that wants this?”

• "What are ways I could meet them with curiosity, care and compassion?"

• "What concrete action can I commit to this week to honor this desire?"

Try it out and let me know your thoughts!

💕 Stani