You Can Have What You Want

The Union Path Podcast

"You Can Have What You Want"

Transcript:

You can have what you want. No seriously, no really, you can actually have what you want. Do you know that? Do you hear that and say, yeah, I know, of course, or do you hear that and say, I don't think so. No, that doesn't sound right. Does that feel in some way of fantasy? Does that feel some way of trick? Does that feel, some way is shiny lure that you've bitten onto in the past only to be reeled in to be a part of what someone else wants to be a part of someone else's plans to be a part of getting what someone else wants at the expense of what you want. I think this is an important thing to ponder. I think this is an important thing to realize, to know, do I actually believe that I can have what I want because the ramifications of this awareness are multifaceted.

Touch all sorts of things in our life, affect and impact our life in so many ways. Yet it sounds simple. In fact, it might sound silly. And maybe I'm just speaking for myself, but it seems like one of the lessons of adult life is to let go of what you want. That's too selfish. That's too self centered.

That's too short sighted. That's too silly. That's too childish. But if we don't embrace what we want, We'll simply find ourselves being a part of what someone else wants. Desire is inescapable. Desire fuels and animates our entire world. It's the whole reason why we do things. Because we want to, ultimately.

And of course we can have different reasons why we want to do things and those reasons can shift over time and When that shift happens, we can find ourselves doing different things but ultimately we do what we want because we want to we do what we do because we want to so if Desire was what's driving us in some way We can look at our behavior and look at everything we do and realize that we're doing that because we want to Perhaps it's not as cut and dry as that.

Perhaps we're doing things because we actually want to keep something from happening. We want to avoid something that our want is actually negative. That we're trying to negate some sort of circumstance and make something else happen instead. That we're working to live through the rebound of our choices, sort of indirectly, through the void, through the vacuum, through the space.

That our choice is great. But regardless, I think it's hard to make the argument that we do anything for any reason other than we want to. Perhaps... It's as simple as we do something just because we want to experience it, just because we want it in our life, that we have a deep attraction to it, we have a deep desire to it.

It seems delicious and alluring and wonderful, or just seems like something we'd like to participate in, or like to do, so we do it. Other times we do something. Because we're trying to avoid something else. Other times we do something because indirectly we're trying to get some other need met, some other appetite satiated.

We're doing something out of fear. We're doing something out of insecurity. We're doing something out of some belief that we can't actually have what we want, at least directly. We have to find our way to it indirectly that someone or something else has to give it to us. That we're not entitled and equipped to both ask and pursue and experience what we actually want.

But when we look at what we do, when we look at why we do what we do, when we look at it through the prism, through the lens of we do what we want, a lot of times those wants are influenced, are products of our beliefs. Again, especially if we're doing something indirectly. Especially if we're trying to give to get, or especially if we're trying to have someone else give us the thing that, for whatever reason, we feel reticent or reluctant to ask for or pursue ourselves.

We can see that these behaviors are fed out of beliefs, out of beliefs about ourselves. And more importantly, our beliefs about our desires themselves, our beliefs about what's actually possible, what we actually deserve, what's actually right and what's actually wrong, what's actually good, what's actually bad.

Of course, beliefs matter. Beliefs are real. Just in the same way as desire matters and desire is real. But what matters is when we look at our own alignment with our own beliefs, with our own desires. It's important to ask ourselves, are we pursuing what we actually want? Are we going for what we actually want?

Are we expressing what we actually want? Are we being who and what we really are? And if we're not, then it's important to look at our beliefs around what we want. Do we actually believe we can have what we want? Because if we don't, we can find all sorts of ways. We can find myriad examples of all the ways we've compromised, all the ways we've moved away from what we actually want, all the ways we've subjugated our true desires, our passions, our wanting, our attraction, our own aliveness, our own feeling.

For some reason, and why this is important, this is my opinion, but it's also been my experience, is that our desires matter. What we want, what we truly want, deep down within ourselves, these desires matter. These desires are important because these desires are a reflection of who we actually are. And the deeper we go within ourselves, the deeper more heart and soul felt these desires are, the more of a reflection of who we really are, they are.

Because what is desire really? Especially deep heart and soul felt desire. What is it really? Why is it there? What is it trying to do? What's its purpose? What's its function? It's kind of stepping beside ourselves and looking at things from a more objective perspective. Why are we born with an experience?

And grow and nurture these wants. Is it to be tortured by them? Is it to prove what a good and worthy and strong person we are because we ignore and deny them whenever we get the chance? I don't think so. I think this is our guidance. I think this is, on some level, a more idealized version of ourselves calling us towards it, calling us forward.

Encouraging us to grow and change. Encouraging us to be more than what we already are, what we're already being, what we're already expressing. It's calling us in to the more full, more rich, more deep, more rewarding, more nourishing, more fulfilling life that we truly want. Then in a lot of ways, desire is our first encounter with love.

That oftentimes when we experience love in our life, it shows up as a desire first, it shows up as an attraction, it shows up as a wanting. And if we follow it, if we go with it, if we yield to it, then that's when we find our way towards love, that's when we find our way It puts a loving and enriching relationship with whatever the object of our desire is.

And it doesn't have to be a person, it can be a situation, it can be a circumstance, it can be an object, it can be an idea, but whatever it is, that feeling of love is first experienced through desire. And so if we start to think about it, we start to really ponder the idea of a higher power. And of course we can think about ideas like infinity.

We can think about ideas like creation. We think about ideas about energy, but ultimately I think we'd also have to consider an idea like love. That higher power, that higher state of being, that ultimate state of being, do we know anything better? Have we experienced anything better? Is that what that is?

That when we are fully occupying and experiencing love, is that our direct experience, our direct encounter with a higher power? Perhaps with THE higher power. If we believe in such a thing, it's just something to think about. But if we're more comfortable thinking in less grandiose, less impactful, and overarching terms, at the very least, it feels good to feel good.

And it would be a pretty warped sense of being, in my opinion, to adopt the belief that feeling good is somehow bad. That seems kind of backwards. At the very least, it's counterintuitive. That perhaps through our upbringing, we believe that life is really a trick. And that we find our way to a good life by not being a sucker.

We find our way to a good life by not being gaslit by the obvious. Because perhaps we were lied to. We were gaslit. We were led to believe things that weren't actually true about life, and led to believe things that weren't actually true about ourselves. That our level of trust in life is commensurate with the trustworthiness of what we've experienced, especially in childhood.

But just because that's what we experience doesn't make it so, doesn't make it universal. Because ultimately, we're living out our beliefs. We're living through our beliefs. Our beliefs are not only informing our life. But are really crafting it and shaping it, really choosing the shapes that manifest in our life.

And ultimately, if it's a good life we want, that life has to be wanted. That life has to be desired. And so if we're not following what we want because we don't actually believe in what we want, then isn't that in and of itself separating us from a life that we want? Aren't we saying no to the life that we actually want to inhabit just because we're rejecting our own desire?

Are we the ones installing a choke, installing a governor, installing a limiter on life in the amount of joy, in the depth of joy, in the frequency of joy that we experience because we ourselves are saying no to it. We ourselves are not trusting it. We ourselves are rejecting it. We ourselves are rejecting the part of ourselves that not only loves, but is love.

Are we saying no to love in our life before it even has a chance to show up, even has a chance to manifest, even has a chance to be experienced? Are we the ones sabotaging? and sequestering love away in our life because of our own beliefs. And again, these are only questions and everyone's answers will be different.

Not everyone has a dysfunctional relationship with love. Some people accept it and express it quite easily. To me, these people are kind of magical, because I've had to work on it quite a bit harder. It's not something that came naturally to me, but when I talk about love and desire, my opinions are informed by my experience, by what things have actually been like, by what my life has actually been like, in the ways that have shown themselves.

to be better, to be an improvement, to be growth, to be a fix, to be a way to live a life that feels better. And to me, the life that feels the best is a life that is in the most aligned, the most informed by, the most reinforced by, my own desires, what I actually want. That is kind of a funny idea that, wait a minute, are you saying that The life that I want is the life that I want.

Like, of course it is. But it's when we really explore this idea that we realize it's not quite so simple. There's so many forces in our culture that will demonize what we like, that will make endless effort to try to yuck our yum, to try to tell us that we're wrong and bad for what we want, that we're foolish, that we're selfish, that we're self centered, that we're short sighted, because we want what we want.

And of course I'm not advocating for rash decisions. I'm advocating for saying, well, I want something. So I'm just going to run out the front door and do it as fast as I possibly can. Like, of course, discernment and responsibility matter. Of course, we need to understand the way our behavior, the way our choices affect and impact other people.

But we need to consider ourselves as well. And at the very least, again, this is my opinion. We shouldn't be scared of ideas. We shouldn't be scared to entertain the idea of something. But I think there's a belief that's fairly common, if not pernicious, that if we can just not think about the things that we want, we'll never be negatively impacted by them.

That if we can just ignore our own desires, our own wants, our own attractions, Our own passions, the pull that we feel with certain things, as well as the repulsion that we feel for others. If we can just successfully ignore this and pretend that it doesn't exist, nothing bad will happen. Because it is true, there are things we want that would create damage, that would create harm either to ourselves or the people that we care about, or it might just be a really foolish and irresponsible idea.

But it doesn't mean that we can't entertain the idea. It doesn't mean we have to squish it in its germinal state. We can sit with it. We don't have to do anything. We don't have to get up and run away with a circus immediately, but we can at least ponder what the circus life would be like for us. That doesn't have to be scary.

That's just an idea. We don't actually have to do it if we don't want to, because we get to choose. We get to choose what we do. We have. Agency and responsibility over our own life. We are the ones who do, and we are the ones who choose what we do. We're also the ones who choose what ideas we entertain and what ideas we reject.

And if there's something we want, especially something we deeply want, then I think it's incumbent on us to find a way to at least entertain these ideas. At least look at them, at least listen to them, listen to what they're trying to express at the very least. This is what they're showing us about ourselves, about who we really are, about what really matters to us, about what we really want.

That's important information. That's a very critical bit of self awareness because it's impossible to fully know ourselves if we don't know what we fully want, what we really want. If we hold parts of ourselves behind some sort of opaque barrier, then we'll never really fully know ourselves. Again, we can choose to do with this information whatever we wish.

If our strongest, most potent desire is to live on the other side of the world, then the right thing to do is probably not to just run out the front door, drive to the airport and take the first available flight, because after all, at the very least, rash decisions tend to lead to rash decisions, but what I'm advocating for is, why don't we entertain this idea?

Why don't we just... Not reject it outright rather than just saying to ourselves like yeah, whatever I guess maybe someday or that's what retirement's for or whatever. It's like no What would that actually be like? I'm gonna take a minute and actually engage. I might actually listen I'm gonna actually try this on I'm actually look in the mirror.

See how this fits. See how this looks I'm gonna spend a little bit of time with this. I'm gonna get to know this I'm going to befriend this idea doesn't mean I have to do it doesn't mean I won't reject it eventually anyway But I need to not be scared of it. I need to not be scared of myself. I need to not be reluctant to look at who and what I really am through the lens of what I really want.

Because at the very least, one thing I believe is the surest way to keep something from happening. is to reject it when it's in this state, reject the idea when it's in its idea form. And that's often the best way to keep something from happening. And if we're doing that, I think it's important to ask ourselves a question of why am I trying to keep myself from experiencing what I want?

Why do I keep quitting joy? What do I keep giving up on my desires and my dreams? Is that really necessary? Or maybe it's just too painful. Maybe if we've lived a life of unrequited, unfulfilled desires and dreams. It's just, it's too hard. It's too hard to want. It's too hard to try to feel even a little bit of love again because we've been so thoroughly heartbroken and disappointed.

And that is painful, and that is sad, but it doesn't mean we need to dwell there forever. We can softly, gently wake up this part of ourselves. We can softly, gently listen to this part of ourselves through engaging with ideas. Ideas are safe, and if they begin to feel unsafe, we can steer them into an area that feels better.

Again, we have agency. We have the power to think and believe and do whatever we want. We don't need to be a slave to our impulses, but we don't need to be a slave to our denial of our impulses as well. We can find the middle ground. We can find the in between. We can find a place to live with and experience and understand and acknowledge and maybe even appreciate our own desires, what we really want.

Because we realize this is us speaking to ourselves. This is a part of us. And we can never fully know ourselves. Unless we're fully willing, unless we endeavor to actually look at and experience and acknowledge and listen to our full selves. But if our denial of our desire is fed out of a belief that we can't actually have what we want, Then that's something worth looking at.

I believe that's something worth changing, worth working on. Because ultimately, we have to believe something is possible. We have to believe something is real. We have to believe that we deserve what we want before we can really fully pursue it and experience it. Because even if we ended up living what we want, but we don't feel we deserve it, we don't feel like it's for us, that is going to be a rough ride.

Because ultimately we don't believe that we are the one to whom this is right for and so it'll be a bit like a rodeo ride of where our desire, our dream will be trying to buck us off because we don't really believe it's us. We don't really believe it's right for us. So the first step in being able to fully experience, being able to fully inhabit, being able to fully encounter, live with, and live through what we really want is to first believe that we can have it, first to believe that we deserve it.

It's first to believe that we are it, that it is us, speaking to us, calling us forward, beckoning us on, encouraging us to grow, encouraging us to change, encouraging us to experience and do and be more than what we're currently doing. There's more for us to see, there's more for us to do, there's more for us to experience, there's more to this life.

Then what's currently happening? That this is growth and evolution Calling us forward inviting us to participate And if we don't believe we can have what we want. Well, that's a beautiful place to start just an idea to entertain What would life be like? If I actually believed I could have what I want, maybe start there, because on some level I am what I want, but I don't believe that I can actually have it, then there's a part of me that doesn't actually believe in myself.

Maybe that's worth looking at. Maybe that's worth working on. Like, at the very least, it's an easy place to start. An easy place to start. Really sitting with the idea, working to absorb the idea, I can have what I want. And the deeper I want it, the more deeply I feel it, the more I feel like it's a part of me, in my core, in my heart, in my soul, the more I can have it.

Because this is who and what I really am. This is a mirror, this is a reflection, this is evidence, this is a clue to my true identity, to my true being. And I do myself a big favor by at the very least not rejecting it outright. I can learn a lot if I can just look at it, I can just see, how can I integrate this into my life.

I can just entertain the idea. What would it be like if I actually inhabited this? What would it be like if I actually experienced this? What would it be like if this was actually my life of the life that I actually want and gain a comfort, gain a familiarity, gain a rapport with our own desires, with what we really want, befriend them, look to get closer to them, look to understand them and thus gain a deeper understanding of ourselves.

Because ultimately we're the only ones. who can choose. We're the only ones who can decide. We're the only ones who can declare and claim that we can have what we want. So why not try? Why not see what happens? See what happens with that one shift that if we don't have it already, absorbing the belief, I can have what I want and see what happens.

See what happens when we believe in what we want, when we believe in ourselves, when we believe in life, when we trust our desires as good and helpful. Instead of bad and corrupting, see what difference that subtle shift makes. Or maybe for some of us, it's not so much a subtle shift. It feels tectonic. But just see what happens.

See what happens when we change our minds. See what happens when we work to change our beliefs. See what happens when we work to change our rejection and disavowalment of ourselves and actually bring ourselves into union with our full selves, with our true selves. We achieve and experience this union through listening to and acknowledge and connecting with what we really want and we deepen this connection by integrating and adopting and accepting the belief that we can actually have them.
By coming to a place where we truly believe, I can have what I want.