What do you want, really? How to get everything your heart desires

Let me ask you a question: how would you feel if I told you that from now on, in everything in every day, you could get your heart’s desire?

Does it sound like something a bit dangerous, maybe even a bit subversive? Or does life getting your heart’s desires met sound like something you can’t even imagine? Like maybe if you think about it, you’re not even really sure what your heart’s desire is? Or, like many other women, do you feel like wanting to get your heart’s desire met makes you selfish?

Actually, your heart’s desire is an incredibly important barometer of what you’re truly meant to do and what source wants for you, and meeting it is one of the most selfless (not to mention enjoyable) things you can do.

Your heart knows

You see, your heart is talking to you all the time, which you experience as little wants, big wants; big wishes, little wishes. But the sad thing is, we’ve been socialised to ignore that little voice that says, “Hey, what if…” and “I really wish that…” And so many of us stop listening to it and sometimes even actively repress it! When that happens, eventually your heart quiets down and becomes much harder to hear.

When the heart no longer talks to us, life takes on a pallor. It takes on a one-dimensional kind of reality that’s nowhere near as fulfilling, because we don’t even really know what we want, so how can we fulfil our desires if we can’t identify what we want?

But … but … but …

But isn’t it bad to get too focused on your desires? Isn’t it somehow selfish? Many of us have been raised with this idea, or the other very common beliefs that you have to earn what you get, “You can’t have everything you want, you know”, etc. etc. We’re taught, explicitly or implicitly, that desire is immature, bad, or even dangerous. But this is simply not true — desire is a great thing, and it’s a way to connect with your life’s deepest purpose, what source wants for you.

Wants vs desires

OK, so does this mean that you should tear into a bag of chips every time you feel the urge? Maybe … if that’s really a soul-level urge. But more often than not things like that are an ego-level urge. For instance, instead of wanting to down a bag of chips, what you really want in that moment is to express and experience intimacy. So it’s important to get really good at listening into your body and heart for the want and then doing your very best to fulfil it.

What does this desire-rich life look like?

When you start to really listen and act on your desires, three things happen. First, you get what you want more often. It’s a miracle of a thing, you actually ask for what you want, and hello, lo, and behold, the universe, the people around you, give it to you. It’s amazing, you get more of what you want, so you experience more pleasure, more love, and more joy in your life.

Second, resentment and crazy outbursts start to die off. Ever had that “What do you want to do tonight?” conversation take a turn and end up in a huge fight? This is really common, and it often happens because instead of actually speaking up about your desires, you’re trying to tamp them down, or you’re getting frustrated with your partner for not being able to read your mind and instantly know them.

Finally, the universe becomes a better place. When you start to get good at noticing your desires, sharing them and fulfilling them, the more that you’re doing in direct alignment with what it is that the universe or source wants for you. If you are doing more of what source wants for you, you’re contributing to being the change you want to see in the world. You’re contributing to being a difference and making the world a better more love-filled and pleasurable place for everybody.

OK, I’m in. How do I start?

The great news is that even if you have had your heart on mute for years, if you start to tune back in you can absolutely start to hear that little voice again. Here’s a pair of really great exercises to help you:

First, let’s do some psychological cleaning up. Over the course of the next week, find a couple of hours to do this journaling exercise. Finish these sentences:

“Desire is…”
“Desire is not…”
“I have desire because…”
“I don’t have the desires I want because…”

Start at the top and then freewrite until you feel like you have pretty much nothing else you could say about what desire is, then switch and do the same with the remaining sentences. Just to be clear, you don’t have to start every sentence of your freewrite with the prompt sentence, it’s just to provoke your mind and then you go down whatever rabbit warrens you need to go down.

Then the week after you do this exercise, do the second one. In this one, I want you to take a piece of paper and make a numbered list, 1 – 20. Then start with the sentence “I wish…” and finish it 20 times. There’s no right or wrong answers, and you can do big and small wishes, whatever comes to mind.

Now, here’s the really important part: you go back through your list and you do something about every single thing on it. Some might be easy. For instance, if one of your desires is “I wish I had more fresh flowers in the house”, then you can go out and buy some flowers. But if one of your desires is “I wish I could visit the Great Wall of China” then you probably won’t be able to do it today. But you can get a brochure about it or just do some research online.

Whatever it is, take that very first step — doing this builds rapport with your heart and gives it the confidence to keep talking, and to talk to you about bigger and bigger things.

These are two really powerful exercises, so do try them … and as a trial run, why don’t you tell me one thing that you wish for right now? Tell me below in the comments!

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