Does anyone else ever feel kind of dirty for wanting things?

Maybe I care too much about how other people perceive me, or I got it into my head that wanting things means I’m not satisfied or grateful for what I have. But sometimes I feel guilty about the things I want.

Desire is the engine of creation. I read that recently in The Desire Map by Danielle Laport. It gave me something to think about.

Doesn’t desire give all of us a window into ourselves? The nature of how I feel about certain desires provides answers for where I’m at in life. For example: Do I feel desperate to fulfill this desire? Do I feel in flow with it? Those two questions right there can show me a lot.

Laport says: when you stop desiring, you stop evolving. I think that’s true. Desire is at the base of our material existence and spiritual growth. Our relationship with desire and response to whether or not we fulfill them (or believe we can) is literally the fabric of our evolvement on this earth. So why do I feel all kinds of ways about some of my desires?

 

 

Want what you want. Don’t be attached to the results.

Recently, I closed down a web site my husband and I started in 2018. I do this a lot, start projects that have me all jazzed up… and then punish myself with guilt when they inevitably don’t turn out to be the thing I thought they’d be. When the web site renewal price came in, I knew we had to talk about whether or not it was worth keeping our blog. We decided, ultimately, no. And I felt like a failure.

What I thought The Greene Home blog would do was make me feel connected to Jaime and I was looking for validation and an audience. Despite wanting that, I felt guilty to share it, embarrassed to be “that couple,” and on and on were the stories that kept me from fully growing it. In other words, I wanted it and then felt bad about my desire. Ugh.

Today, I cancelled The Greene Home. I mined the site for a few posts that I liked and may repost here, then I hit “do not renew.” Another thing I did on a whim that didn’t pan out – my ego harshly said as my shoulders slumped and I looked at the web site that will be down in a month.

 

 

How do you want to feel?

I guess the right books really do fall off the shelves when you need them. I’m grateful that i’ve been following the universal signs lately on my surrender experiment. For the last few months, i’ve been so blinded by my own experience I couldn’t see when the right things were literally falling on my lap, knocking on my door or emailing me. It’s actually painfully obvious how much life wants to help us once we open open our eyes. But, hey, I’m human. And sometimes my desire is panicky and desperate and blocks all my awareness.

Last week, as I was on my couch taking a 10 minute break from hating myself when The Desire Map made its way onto my screen. The premise that sold me is this: Don’t make goals from what you want to get. Instead, think about how you want to feel… and then think about the actions you can do to feel that way.

I seldom do this because we’re not taught to think that way. We live in a capitalist society that pushes us to constantly think we need stuff and achievements. But underneath all those desires is the reason you think they’ll make you happy… the way you want to feel.

 

 

What am I hoping to get out of this thing I want?

A long time ago, when I really wanted a partner, I surrendered to the process. It felt like giving up at the time, but that’s cutting myself short. I was onto something. I looked at what I was hoping to feel in a partnership… and getting clear on that changed everything for me.

My desire for a partner was suddenly not about staving off loneliness, it was about feeling seen and connected and sharing pure enjoyment with someone. So I completely changed the things things I was doing to attract a partner. I stopped going out (which my ego FAUGHT me on because how the hell was I going to meet anyone if I stayed home?), but I stuck with it.

I did the things that made me feel connected and seen, which meant hanging out with friends not fishing for dudes at bars. I won’t bore you with my meet cute because I go into it in my book, but that’s how I met my husband.

 

 

So what about The Greene Home blog? (failed project or purposeful exploration?)

Deep down, I know that my propensity to create stuff is wonderful. I like that I’ll have an idea and randomly make it happen. I’m not afraid to explore my creativity and make stuff, even if it means it wasn’t the right fit. I’d rather have a million projects that ultimately didn’t pan out than ideas that never made it to reality. I have plenty of those too, by the way… which is why I know I prefer the feeling of having done the thing.

I wanted to share our life as a family and make an impact on other people’s lives with The Greene Home blog. I wanted to gift the enjoyment and connection I got from reading other family blogs. And it turns out I did–– only not in the original way I intended. When I made The Greene Home blog with Jaime it was fun at first, but ultimately not the thing we enjoyed creating together. Writing is more solitary, and it wasn’t Jaime’s hobby, so we just didn’t connect on it.

Months later, we decided to create a Youtube channel with the same name. And I can’t tell you how much pure enjoyment and connection we’ve gotten from creating that. We get countless emails, direct messages and comments from people who watch our videos. We have a community! It’s one of the most fulfilling creative projects I’ve ever done and we did it together. If I hadn’t started the blog, it would never have evolved into the channel.

 

 

Follow your curiosities, they are leading you somewhere great

Not to mention, just this week, I received a direct message from someone telling me they wanted to send us good vibes. They noticed it had been a while since we posted a video and they just wanted to share how good they felt when they saw our videos. They feel like we’re friends! I read that while I was feeling really low about myself. Talk about good timing. And talk about universal signs.

Liz Gilbert points out in Big Magic that ultimately we get to follow the creative call. All the random projects and things that come into our mind to explore will lead us somewhere great (even if that somewhere is not where you initially envisioned). If we talk ourselves out of exploring them because it’s not practical or we don’t have time, we could totally miss out on our next great thing. I would have missed out of an entirely new creative venture had I not explored making The Greene Home blog.

For anyone that read The Greene Home, thank you. And for those of you reading this, thank you, really. And for anyone who has sent us an incredibly sweet message, you have no idea how much those have meant to us. How much they’ve meant to me during this particularly hard year. I love you with all my creative soul.

Following the signs & honoring my work,

C.