Our relationship with Desire
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Desire is not the problem. Attachment often is. — The capacity to want something is one of the most generative aspects of being human. The trouble begins when we become fused with the outcome we want.
Holding lightly is a practice — The freedom you are looking for is not on the other side of wanting. It is on the other side of learning to want without clinging.
The deepest questions are often the ones we are most afraid to ask — Inquiry into what we truly desire, and what we believe would make us whole, is one of the most important journeys we can take.
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“The discussion includes reflections on the challenges of recognizing one’s own worth and the societal pressures that contribute to feelings of inadequacy; how mindfulness, presence, and community are essential in cultivating self-acceptance and personal transformation.”
Click here to listen to the episode from The Way Out is In podcast!
Honoring the ache of wanting
Many of us are carrying some form of desire — whether it is something we want to build, someone we want to become, someone we want to be with, a dream that has been living in our mind, or even a new version of life that we want to live.
To want is a part of being human. Wanting moves us, its shapes our attention, and can give us direction, purpose, and a sense of what genuinely matters. Desire is where much of our aliveness lives as people. At the same time, we have all maybe experienced the other side of wanting where “I would like this” subtly transforms into “I am not whole until this arrives.” This is a soft and continual fusion of our sense of self with the outcome we are pursuing, now any threat to the outcome begins to feel like a threat to us.
That fusion and its associated feelings exist in the territory of attachment. Today, like many Mindful Mondays, is a from of expression for me and a form of speaking to universal human challenges. I am currently navigating the desire to accomplish something specific, and the honest work of holding those desires without becoming so consumed by them that the pursuit itself begins to cost more than the arrival could ever repay is challenging, though not rare and isolated.
Today, we are taking a look honestly at our relationship with what we want. To notice where desire has potentially become attachment, wanting has turned to needing, and to consider what happens when we hold our dreams, desires, visions, and goals differently.
Where desire ends and attachment begins
Building a foundation for today, it is valuable to notate the difference in types of attachment being discussed. In psychological contexts, attachment refers to relational bonds we form with caregivers early in life. The attachment that we are navigating today is the psychological state of becoming fused with a specific outcome, so tightly identified with what we want, that any distance between us and it produces suffering. With respect to psychology, attachment is something we are building towards. In a philosophical sense, it is often what we are invited to release.
Desire says, “This would be meaningful to me.” Attachment says, “I cannot be okay without this.” What would it mean to you to engage in full, committed engagement with the work of your life, while releasing attachment to the fruits of that work? This isn’t a call towards indifference or disengagement, but the recognition that we can act with our whole selves and accept that the outcome is only partly ours to author.
A metaphor that resonates for me here is to hold what we want like an open palm with water rather than a clenched fist. The clenched fist may feel like its protecting what is inside, but in truth it is often what prevents water from being received. The open palm holds the same water, but it doesn’t grasp at it for fear of it being absent, it simply remains available. It cannot only receive more, but it can also release what needs to be let go. Grounding this metaphor in contemporary psychology, Cognitive Fusion describes the state of being merged with a thought or belief such that we treat it as reality itself rather than as something we are having. When we are fused with an outcome, we lose the capacity to move flexibly around it.
You might currently see this in your life as:
A goal that once energized you now producing constant anxiety
A sense that your peace has become contingent on something happening in a specific way, on a specific timeline
A creeping identification with achievement, such that failure to reach it would feel like a loss of self
Whose desires are you carrying?
Not every desire we carry is authentically ours. Many of the things we are pursuing were absorbed from family, culture, social comparison, or an older version of ourselves that has since evolved. Upon examination, we might find that some of desires have never even belonged to us, and that the attachment to them has been costing us because we were never aligned with the outcome to begin with.
There is a body of research on Goal Disengagement (see below for linked resource) that is worth naming here, not as an invitation to abandon our pursuits, but to examine how connected we feel truly to a goal and being able to release it when necessary. Goal disengagement from alignment rather than avoidance, is not the same as giving up. Subjectively speaking, and maybe you can relate as you read or will experience at some point in your life, loosening my grip on desires that I was told to see as my own reveals a more authentic and fulfilling path ahead.
Related Read:
You Have to Let Go Sometimes: Advances in Understanding Goal Disengagement (click to explore)
Examining Fear
There is a moment in the practice of examining our desires that you may have already encountered, asking yourself honest questions and not liking the answers you are presented with. Or even being reticent to ask questions of yourself due to a fear that questioning itself might lead to somewhere unfamiliar.
Fear is at the door, metaphorically speaking, and it is real. Also, navigating fear represents a valuable threshold that we cross as we embark on a life of self inquiry. Sometimes that reluctance to ask ourselves what we truly want is often a sign that the question is that much more valuable. In these circumstances, fear in itself is the doorway to something new, something more authentic.
This is not comfortable work and it belongs to no one but you.
Off The Page: Actioning The Insights
Practicing with an open palm
Your practice this week
This week, the practice is to bring conscious attention to the way you are holding what you desire, and loosen the grip where it has begun to squeeze the life out of the pursuit. Take a look at the reflection questions and strategies below and notate what resonates with you.
Reflection Questions:
Where has desire become attachment in your life?
Whose desire is this, really?
What are you most afraid to ask yourself about what you truly want in life?
Are you whole as a person now? Or are you waiting for the acquisition of your desires to feel whole? What happens once they are accomplished?
Strategies:
Name the desire and name the grip
Choose one specific thing that you currently want, and ask how tightly are you holding it. Don’t release the desire, simply distinguish between the want itself and the grip that you have on it. Making this distinction is a valuable start to practice.
Practice the open palm
When you notice yourself tightening around an outcome this week, pause and place the desire in an open palm, metaphorically. What would it look like to continue to care, while holding more lightly? I am not asking you to care or want this thing less, rather you are being asked to hold it differently.
Examples: working towards a promotion while still being present in your current role, continuing to pursue a relationship while allowing the other person the freedom to move at their own pace, continuing to build a business while allowing the timeline to unfold how it will, continuing to work towards a health goal while accepting your body in the current stage it is in.
Where this might already happen for you: going for a daily walk without tracking it as a sign of productivity, the meal you savor without documenting it, the parent you love without needing them to become someone they are not, the child you are raising with curiosity about who they will become rather than certainty about who they should be.
Sit with one honest question
Choose a question about your desire that you have been avoiding and give it 15 minutes of your honest attention this week. Not to arrive at a particular answer but simply to sit with what arises in reflection around the question. This is not a “Life hack” — it is the real work of confronting self, that can not be truly bypassed or optimized to be something it is not.
Example: Am I whole now? If not, what do I believe would make me so?
You are whole. Right now, before the outcome arrives, before the version of your life you are reaching for takes shape, you are already whole. The pursuit was never meant to be the source of your wholeness. It was meant to be the expression of it.
Thank You
Thank you for joining me this week! I’m excited to keep sharing insights from my work, research, and personal journey with you.
Did something resonate with you? Curious about applying these strategies in your life? Or know someone who might benefit?
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A Listen for the Week
As I continue to consume relevant content, I will share it here to deepen knowledge, perspective, and inquiry on a variety of topics related to wellness. This week I am sharing an episode from The Way Out is In.
You are already the person you want to become
The discussion includes reflections on the challenges of recognizing one’s own worth and the societal pressures that contribute to feelings of inadequacy; how mindfulness, presence, and community are essential in cultivating self-acceptance and personal transformation.
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