Deep Desires: Their Wisdom and Sacredness

"Something in me knows where I'm going." -Jackson Pollock

Hello loves, it's very early as I put these words down, which is atypical for me, but I felt inspired this morning to have my coffee with a side of writing and so I figured I’d act on the impulse. A favourite quote of mine that’s always stuck with me since first reading it is:

“Write while the heat is in you. The writer who postpones the recording of his thoughts uses an iron which has cooled to burn a hole with.” -Henry David Thoreau

I share this because it’s entirely relevant to what it is I felt compelled to write about, which is:

It’s very important that if you feel a desire to write, paint, podcast—honestly learn or create anything at all, that you act on this desire.

Deep desires are sacred. They are not flippant things that we are meant to ignore. Especially when it comes to those recurring desires. They exist for a reason. They are a part of your purpose in some fashion or another. They don’t need to be grand to be important. They just need to exist.

The reason for them does not need to be known either. In fact, we rarely know the reason for our desires when we first stumble upon them.

That’s not the point. The “why” is not for us to know, except maybe in retrospect—when we may connect the dots as we often do. But to be honest, even then, it’s not as if we know for certain. I often think of the Joan Didion quote:

“We tell ourselves stories in order to live... We live entirely… by the imposition of a narrative line upon disparate images, by the ‘ideas’ with which we have learned to freeze the shifting phantasmagoria which is our actual experience.”

In other words, we make up reasons for which things happened or didn’t happen. And that’s fine if that helps us live, as Didion wrote. My point is firmly that the reasons don’t really matter beyond this.

What matters is that we respect and honour our deep desires. If you’re spiritually inclined as I am, you may feel as I do that our desires come from the Up Above. And if you’re not, you may simply find that tuning into your desires is a way to honour your own intuition, your own intelligence.

Beyond ourselves, when we meet our desires and do the thing(s) we’ve been daydreaming about, we often find that we not only serve ourselves—our own growth, happiness and wellbeing—but we also serve others. That may be by way of inspiration or positive energy exchange or by literally serving others via our services or products/creations.

So, I wanted to write this today in case anyone is feeling hesitant about going out into the world and doing the thing that’s been on their mind.

Actually, we could take it a step further than this. Maybe you’ve been desiring to exist differently. Perhaps softer, or by contrast more disciplined. Trust this. Because the thing is that there is wisdom in your desires. You’re meant to learn something by acting on them.

I’ve worked with plenty of women on opposite ends of the spectrum. The work is most often the same: it’s developing trust with yourself enough to bump up against your growth edges. Ultimately, what we seek is deeper harmony, and when lean into our desires to be differently—while some may temporarily swing in the opposite direction, typically we settle into a place of greater homeostasis in the long run. And, again, learn so many invaluable life lessons along the way.

So, regardless of what your deep, recurring desire may be, please consider this your sign to begin actively exploring it. It exists for a reason.

Warmly,

Mackenzie