John and I working towards our desire to be warm.

On the Monday’s post; ‘She has no desires only goals‘ I described how my daughter is typical of so many of us; she has been taught to be goal focused, is achieving goals and yet lives an unfulfilling life where her unique personal desire and passion are missing. I too was once doing just the same, appearing successful but failing to love my life, until now that is.

Why might we choose ’safe’ goals over ‘unknown’ desires? Jenn shared her own experience of how her desires did not go to plan;

I stopped desiring things after an incident in my past where I made plans (full-out passionate plans) and then it got turned on me… I didn’t want to believe, and hope and desire again to that fullness… because I assumed it would be taken away again, and that was a lot of wasted good quality energy.

We all have seen our desires come to grief and leave us thinking we won’t do that again; lets play small instead. Little Voice then has the chance to come up with all kinds of justifications such as Jenn went on to share;

I think of it as selfish sometimes, or as an extra, or high-maintenance…
If I was to desire out loud, I feel it wouldn’t come true.
I secretly desire to … but I don’t want to believe entirely it could be real, or I might get crushed again.
…I feel what right do I have to desire too much … I don’t want to ask for more than I should and be ungrateful,

Many of us can recognize our own brand of Little Voice (ego) chatter that steadily undermines our right to desire and our courage to boldly declare our desires OUT LOUD for the Universe and everyone to hear. Congratulations Jenn for daring to declare your secret desire out loud on your blog.

Aysel sees clearly how goals are a set up by society and that goals on their own are not our desires at all or as she so eloquently puts it;

People spend years chasing the goal that was never theirs and once achieved they don’t really know what to do with the outcome… As a result we have a crowd that follows the same  fit-all “dream” template to discover later on that apparently there was more than one train leaving the station. What a disappointment it must be to discover that you got on the wrong train after going such a long way, what a hassle to go back and start over.

We have a dichotomy here, between Jenn’s experience of struggling to come to terms with desires that do not go to her expected plan, giving her lots of grief and Aysel’s realization that we get persuaded to take the wrong train, and pursue a society inspired fit-all ‘dream’. 
We each face the challenge of choosing between an apparently knowable society inspired dream or the Great Unknown of going for our unique desire. Peggy Nolan knows this;

Right now, I’m standing in the middle of this huge unknown landscape. I have no idea how things will turn out, I just know that I love being and doing what I truly desire. I’m excited, a little nervous…
I’m off and running towards my desire, with full open arms, and an open heart.

Robin Easton shares how it is for her to live in her desire’s Great Unknown;

Ever since I let go all that I thought I “should” be in society, and allowed myself to return to Nature and become what I ALREADY was and am, my life has taken me always, forever, into the arms of The Great Unknown. I embrace it willingly, hungrily, as my soul’s sustenance. The Great Unknown keeps me vitally alive. Even writing my book is a journey not of my ego, but rather a calling by Nature to let her speak through me, a calling that fills me with such intense Love that there are days I sit, write and weep because I’m filled with such piercingly intense Love.

While the ‘how’ of our desires belongs to the Great Unknown, it doesn’t mean that clear fixed goals, like milestones along the way, are not a useful and necessary part of the journey as Kristie Ryan recognizes;

I know what I do desire and I know that this job position will help to get me there.

A job or writing a book is a goal along the way, part of our desire rich journey but is not the desire itself. Once this is understood, it allows us to accept the challenges and difficulties as stations along the way; as part of our bigger dream. The details of our desires evolve too, an example of which Robin, the queen of living life from desire explains;

I am thinking of a way to bring people to ME and NATURE as opposed to me ONLY going to cities and towns to talk “about” Nature. It’s something that I feel will find it’s own course, if I just trust and “put it out there”. The way will reveal itself in the right time.

For a nature girl such as Robin, I can see that choosing to “go to cities and towns to talk ‘about’ Nature” is a considerable sacrifice that comes from desire and a true act of love.

Nature and me, both here on my blog and on Robin's blog, desiring real food.

I have a guest post today on Robin Easton’s blog and it fits beautifully with all the posts on intimacy and LOVE and what it means when I observe that my daughter doesn’t have a life.

It means my daughter is pursuing goal after goal with no real desire where to take her life. She is missing out on a life that is rich with diverse experiences and LOVE and she is fooled into thinking that distractions like holidays and material things are her desires.

I know how hollow life is that follows a predictable pattern, I once lived like that too and I was as Peggy Nolan said in her comment “a rat running around in a cage going nowhere“ until it finally dawned on me;
But damn it, I am NOT a rat, I am a creative being with a purpose who should follow her growing personal desires with actions of Love.

Within purpose I can achieve goals, but goals on their own are like dead end railroad tracks, useless for expansive travel plans.

When I was thirty I had it all but was bored. Ironically I worked in career counseling assisting people to find their desires and how to make them come true. How ironic indeed.

I was lucky enough to anchor one ‘unconscious’ desire and that was to be in nature. 
My annual seven week holiday in nature was the highlight of my life, there I blissed out and tasted what loving life meant and at the time I never gave it a second conscious thought why I did this.

Don’t get me wrong, I liked my job. It was a very good one. I had the privilege to hear a lot of life stories and learned a lot about how life never goes to plan.  BUT although the job had a noble goal to help people, it had nothing to do with a personal desire and it didn’t give my life a purpose. All it did was make me feel good, earn me money and give me status and security.

Thank God that I got a chance to experience the difference that following a heart felt desire can make to the quality and intensity of one’s life. 
The difference is huge BUT . . .
Like intimacy, committing and following a desire has consequences and requires letting go of the very things society says you must have.

A desire requires being intimate with pure heart-felt JOY. Money, security and a fixed waterproof plan have no place when pursuing desires. 
Desires lead you astray from what you have been taught you must have.
Desires take you into the unknown, they go against what the ego perceives as ‘good economical practice’.
THAT makes pursuing desires extremely difficult and not for the faint hearted.

I followed my desires twice in my life.

The first time was when I migrated to the abundant nature of New Zealand without really knowing what I was doing. 
The second time I am following my desires more consciously and I am doing it NOW. 
Both times had me scared witless, had people around me frown and I was and still am unable to explain and predict how it all would and will work out.

Pursuing my desire the first time has payed off. I adore living in New Zealand and that vague dream has grown into a very ambitious desire; to return to living on this Earth as we are meant to;  to co-create with the, until now, unknown intelligence of nature. This desire will make a huge difference to me and to the world as well. It is ME and yet far bigger than ME. 
It has me write this blog, it has me work on becoming a strong basecamp so I am resourced enough to make this happen despite the status quo, it made WomenLikeMe.
It urges me to think and act differently around money, security and who I am being.

THAT is what desire does.

It leads me into the unknown, it makes me courageous and committed to deal with insecurity and it makes me smart as I have to find my own unique solutions. It makes me grow in ways I could never have imagined and it gives my soul the experiences it longs for. In my case I am to fulfill my ultimate desire to live in God’s Garden of Eden, in my Space of Love in a way that God intended us to live with Nature as the mighty co-creator that it is.

Desire lets me live from the purest feeling of all, Love, all day every day as I go about ordinary daily life.
And yet there is nothing ordinary anymore about my ordinary life.

As I said there are consequences though when becoming intimate with your heart.
You have to learn to do things differently and become a strong basecamp to handle going out on a limb like some of my blogging buddies.

Peggy Nolan’s desire from Infinite Yoga and Reiki and The Stepmom’s Tool Box is very clear when you read her blogs. Peggy wants to teach. Her passion is definitely Self-Care and she too understands that only a strong base camp can create a life how it is meant to be. Peggy pays attention to what there is to learn and thus increases her own understanding and ability to become the change she wants to see.  She too has to go down paths unknown. When learning you obviously are not practicing things you already know! And of course teachers who learn from their own experiences are the best teachers!

Hilary from Positive Letters is following her desire to be with her Mother, it sure is giving her ‘rich‘ experiences although some of them must have left her scared witless. But I see Hilary as vibrantly alive while she pays attention as her desire is taking her on a very unknown path. As a result she is curious, she is doing things she never dreamed of and she is creating a whole new future for herself.

Joy from Unfoldingyourpathtojoy is committed to her desire to sail and live on a boat. She too oozes Love and makes her life joyful despite what circumstances bring. But she is also honest enough to share the frights and uncertainties as she veers off the trodden path.  However Joy is also paying attention as she creates her life full of wealth and richness while letting go of security and old fashioned money ideas.

Then there is Robin Easton from Naked in Eden.
Robin committed to her desires when she lived in the Australian Rain Forest and ever since then Robin’s desires has kept her free, fully self-expressed and authentic in connection with Nature Intelligence. You only have to read the comments on Robin’s blog to know how her pursuit of her personal desire is inspiring others.

Desire filled people recognize each other, they live differently and they do things differently.

I have a guest post on Robin’s blog today where I show how accessing Love makes our lives rich and how ‘cold’ our lives are when we don’t. Of course I desire you to go and have a read.

What I am doing with WomenLikeMe is give women the strength and clarity on how to dream and go for it.

My biggest desire is to have you be a strong basecamp who is resourced enough to follow your desire; that is why WomenLikeMe is created for you and me.  I love you to join, why not give it a go for one month so that you can taste what is possible.

Following your desire is a personal path and yet it is the most generous act of Love you can give to yourself and your loved ones.

Your comments, especially Tess, Peggy and Mark all echoed Jannie Funster’s assertion that;

The ego and love and intimacy do not mix.

Which begs the question; if they do not mix then one must go, which is it to be? I love to vote for the ego to go, but it seems that currently ‘love and intimacy’ is on the outer. Aysel noticed this and has questions too;

why is it that intimacy is such a taboo with people close to us… Why I would rather share my intimate thoughts with strangers as I do through blogging, then with my mom?

While Aysel didn’t answer her own question, she did go on to talk about her experiences of what happened when she took a risk and dared to be intimate;

I remember sharing a rather intimate thing with my friends – how little reaction did I get, how quickly they changed the subject… I was shocked and disappointed.

We probably can all remember instances where we plucked up courage to share intimately to be dismissed one way or another by those very people we consider to be closest to us.
BTW if we pay further attention then the very fact that we need courage to share intimately deserves a questions mark too, doesn’t it?

Evita looked at what happens with blogging where we get to say whatever we wish, often intimately, to the whole world, strangers and family alike and how it is no problem for strangers but does have consequences with close family;

one day when my mom did decide to go on the site and read, it lead to a very unpleasant situation to say the least. I won’t explain, but what I am saying is I totally understand this particular “fear” or better put “cautiousness” that we have when we lay it all out. On the site, I get to be really honest, really me and say what it is that is within my heart or mind. Our closest ones do not always realize that part of us, as they see us through their often “Ego-based” lens.

Yes, it shows that currently sharing intimately does have consequences. One of those consequences is that ‘ego-based’ lenses are going to react to our love and intimacy. Courage is indeed needed because we all have experienced that there is no avoiding the consequences when we do go ahead and be love-in-action, when we do dare to share intimately.

As for Aysel’s question; “why is it that intimacy is such a taboo with people close to us?” My answer is; everybody is avoiding living a life rich with consequences. I for one would have been afraid of what I would unleash when I told the emperor that (s)he has no clothes on. People have been burnt at the stake for being love-in-action and while not literally any more, certainly still figuratively in other ways.

It is clear what Evita is choosing;

Today however, I am not afraid anymore. When I write I realize that I am making myself open and at the same time vulnerable to those I know and strangers. People are free to make what they choose of my writing and what I have to say, and I have to, or better yet I choose to be okay with that.

What do you choose?

To let your ego-based thoughts dominate and do your best to avoid consequences or go for love and intimacy and all the consequences that unleashes?

BTW intimacy is NOT sharing MY opinion willy nilly, intimacy for me starts with observing and sharing with great honesty the wholesome ‘what is so’, my own in particular. 

This wonderful intimacy is soon to be rejected by ego.

My brother recently confessed that he ‘secretly‘ reads my blog?! 
WHAT?!  However I ’secretly’ thought straight away; “O hell, did I write anything compromising?”
WHAT?!
NO wonder that our closest friends and family do NOT read our blogs, when it solicits these reactions. I panicked and my brother obviously felt as if he has done a dirty deed AND that when nobody did anything wrong. Having got over my first fright I love having my brother read my blog; “hi Peter, I love seeing you here!”
But what was going on?

What went on is the result of the fact that the ego hates intimacy and resists it at all cost. THAT was what happened.

I’d say the ego is doing that for a good reason though. 
Intimacy is Love-in-action.
Love makes you pay attention, love has you being present to whom is in front of you and the ego knows that intimacy means someone is getting too close for comfort.

The ego knows it is in danger of having its cover blown, having its underlying selfish, dishonest agenda exposed and therefore the ego resists love and intimacy.

It is quite obvious when you honestly observe what is going on. When you really are Love and pay attention you cannot help but notice a whole lot of things about people.
The issue is that the ego is NOT comfortable with that at all, the ego does not want to expose anything to anybody. Neither can the receiving ego cope with what is revealed. 
Lisa, Mommymystic mentioned it in one of her comments; we feel vulnerable when honest observing comes into play and I agree.

As Love goes beyond the ego’s facade, the ego will feel attacked and will attack back or go into defense; being lovable is the last thing it wants to be; it becomes nasty and in doing that love and intimacy is being rejected.

One of my daughter’s ego is currently smelling a rat and is therefore resisting my love and my being intimate with her.

Her ego has got it sussed.  She landed an amazing job and is now on a seven year journey to qualify to the highest level after already 3 university degrees. Her ego is very proud of what she has done so far and that she will become a very wealthy and powerful woman in her field. Her mother is very proud too and yet not totally fooled by her success. Yes, she is an amazing clever young woman, yes she has achieved something amazing but where is her ‘life’?
I love her, so I observe her and see beyond the ego. Instead of happiness I hear in her conversations the underlying boredom now that the challenge is gone and only one long straight road ahead is left.  I let her talk and listen beyond her pretenses. I hear that deep down she feels stuck and confined but there is no way she is going to openly say that.
Instead she is stroppy and easily irritated. I do not take this personally and do my best to keep my ego out of it.
Here is my proud daughter who has done amazing things to get where she is and now her success has become her prison. She cannot see her way out, seven years of study is a long time and what her heart-centered self wants is to explore the world now.
She longs to travel, she aches to play and yet she locked herself in.

My Love observes; this is very serious, she is on the road to become an empty albeit wealthy shell; blow that damn career.

I phone her, gently proposing some immediate adventures to give her some sense of fun back. 
One weekend we have a great time swimming and walking. She talks about her jealousy when yet another friend moves overseas. I talk about more adventures together and her having a holiday in Nepal or Jordan. I even dare to mention she could take longer to get qualified. Seven years is the minimum but nobody says you have to do it in that time. You can take 30 years, nobody would care.  But her ego does care, it wants to achieve qualification in record time.
After my casually proposing more adventures, she withdraws, gets irritable and unlovable.  It is time for me to go. Love and intimacy nicely thwarted by ego.

She loves kayaking; I do not give up, after some weeks I say; “let’s go kayaking.” She reacts enthusiastically and I give her a membership to a kayak club. 
I email her to make a time to use that membership but I get fobbed off. When I phone I get the brunt of a foul mood. She apologizes later and yet, I am not allowed near, no she has no time to do fun things .
I am being kept at arm lengths as her ego knows that I am not impressed with its agenda that prevents my daughter to have a life.

I am not fazed now I know what is going on. I am not pushing, I am listening and supporting her as much as I can on her terms BUT I am not getting fooled by her OR my ego. 
My ego wants to feel hurt, my ego wants to make it a drama that I can not come close. 
My heart-centered self is patient, it is not about forcing her to see it my way, it waits and when she is ready I am there.
In the meantime I am gently letting her know that I am hearing all she is saying without judgment and expectations. I let her know she is safe, despite the fact that her ego justifiably feels my company is dangerous. 
I am Love-in-action by paying attention. I am carefully observing and biding my time that will come BUT the ego is no longer able to fool me.

I recently observed it in my brother’s comment and I observed it with my daughter; the ego and love and intimacy do NOT mix.

Learning to be a captain can be tiring.

On this Monday’s post; Allow yourself to be lovable and shine I argued the case for us to become strong basecamps and how important it is that we captain our own Life first and then we can become a leader for our family. Being captain is no longer the prerogative of men, times are changing and with that the need for everyone, women and men alike to accept the responsibility of being our own captains on our own life voyage. We need to start learning to think and act from our own inner indigenous power.

This is easy to say, but as Dorothy shared very challenging to embrace in daily life. Dorothy’s experience was one of;

I’ve been forced to, very reluctantly, take the captaincy of my ship. I struggled and fought with it and screamed into the wind, but ultimately the wind tore the words out of my mouth and carried them away. I was left with a battered ship amid an empty ocean which scared the hell out of me.

It took weeks and months of sitting with it and grieving before I slowly began to come to terms that I was IT – the only one who was responsible for how my and my children’s lives turned out from now on. My “selfishness” is keeping me intact, getting me stronger, so I can be not only a basecamp, but also a container for my children.

I’m sure Dorothy, that you and I are not alone in being reluctant to take the captaincy of our respective ships. I for one never really noticed for a long time that I was not even steering. It is indeed at first a scary thought that we are IT, always.

The opposite can happen as well, our authority as captain can be taken away from us as The Exception describes here;

I have been the captain of my family from the get go – a position I have enjoyed. The challenge came when my daughter’s father and his wife (who didn’t know about our daughter until last April) decided to attempt to take the wheel. Suddenly I was a captain with a boat but no one was really driving; no one was at the wheel. . .It took me a while to remember that I captain my boat. That I could practice what I believe.

From the place of being captain, it all makes perfect sense that we be ’selfish’, that we look at and take care of ‘ME’ first. Leading our family means there is a lot at stake here and being ’selfish’, taking care of ourself needs to come FIRST. For many of us that will take some unlearning.

Not only is there the unlearning required to let go of our ‘learned’ martyr tendencies to always put others first but there is as Joy shares a whole set of new skills to learn, the skills to ‘captain our Life’;

In life, I was always content to be the passenger.. I never even considered captaining my own journey let alone anyone else’s… I would think wow that looks like a nice direction but I would let others navigate and be content with wherever that took me.
Then.. then one day a friend suggested since I loved sailing, why wouldn’t I learn to captain.. what, *me* captain??? how could I when I couldn’t even captain my life.. As I learned captaining boats, I learned how to captain my life..
Now that I live on the boat, the boat and I have parallel journeys.. I had to overhaul her from the inside out, just as I had to overhaul *me* from the inside out.

For Joy the way forward has been to learn from captaining boats how to captain her life.

For TE it meant learning to find her voice;

I learned to find my voice . . . . It took me a while to remember that I captain my boat. . . . . To date, I am back at the wheel with the two families chartering different courses and traveling on very different seas. . . . My daughter has a rock in the form of her mom and the boat has a captain that is willing to open her heart and rise above when the opportunity arises

TE, that you are a rock for your daughter because you captain the ship after finding your voice is a beautiful declaration.
I’ve learned how to captain my life by practicing the skills of being in-integrity that WomenLikeMe teaches. I also agree with Joy, it is in the doing that we get to learn and I can so imagine that your sailing has been a beautiful context in which to learn ‘being in charge’.

And yes Dorothy,  in many cases we are IT; unskilled as we might be, reluctant as we may feel,  and difficult as it seems in the short term, taking responsibility and becoming leaders of our life is the way out from being ‘confused women’, discontent with being just passengers or being pushed to the side. 
However do not think for one minute that you have to figure it out on your own, or that you have to be on your own while you are learning the role of captain. As I keep saying, you cannot do it by yourself for yourself, let’s learn together.