Until recently, hearing the word desire brought up uncomfortable feelings: I felt having desires was selfish. Let me introduce you to Jennifer Louden. She helps women identify and celebrate their desires. I am a member of Jen’s Oasis group but have until recently ignored her teaching on the word desire. I want to thank Jen as she is largely responsible for what I am sharing with you today. You will see how she helped me recognize and honor my desire.
I’ve been wanting, or as Jen would say, desiring, a meaningful heading for the blog post I send out on Saturday mornings. I voiced this desire to the person I have been working with to prepare for my next book launch and to redesign my website. They got right on it and sent me an excellent design, my name, and blog title in sophisticated fonts with a background that was an abstract representation of a blue sky with puffy white clouds, as an expression of self-exploration. I loved it.
But I couldn’t silence the annoying voice of my unconscious, the part that knows my authentic desires. This pesky voice accused me of not learning anything in over a decade of Freudian psychoanalysis. The voice was insistent. Don’t you remember what you learned in analysis? No matter how good you are, no matter how successful you are at designing your life, there will be difficult times. My unconscious was informing me that representing just white clouds on an azure sky would not be enough.
Could they also include a representation of storm clouds as well? I explained the design needed to show life’s suffering as well as life’s magnificent interactions, and they understood. This was a wise person who had suffered through tough times. After a few hours, they sent me the second version you see below. They wondered what I thought?
I stared at it. My unconscious was silent. I loved it. This new heading illustrated what I learned in analysis – that there are good times and that there are hard times no matter what you do. Because I paid attention to my desire to illustrate my new reality and asked for what I wanted, finally paying attention to Jen’s wisdom, the banner fulfills my desire. Do you feel capable of identifying and then making your desire a reality?
You can find Jen at jenniferlouden.com where you can order her latest book – Why Bother? Discover the Desire for What’s Next, a book I highly recommend – especially Chapter 7 which is entitled, “Settle.” She writes, “The grounding grace of inner stillness is always inside you, waiting to receive you.”
