The Art of Intimacy

“The key to success is to focus our conscious mind on things we desire, not things we fear.”

-Brian Tracy

Reading – Trying to Control Desire

As we come into contact with this sovereign force, we find that there are intersections between the thread of desire and the outline of our preferences. We are a fair-weather friend to desire, offering it our praise when this intersection occurs in a way that fulfills our positive preferences and cursing it as the devil incarnate when it flaunts them. We try to hold on to what we deemed good, constricting against our narrow and shortsighted sense of “bad”. We constrict in a few primary ways:

Controlling Another’s Response to Desire 

When we move out of relationship with desire itself, we try to control how others respond to our desire. We become focused on outcomes and, as a result, instead of being honest about what we want, we use seduction or flattery to obscure the vulnerability of its exposure. Alternately, we try to bully or cajole people into fulfilling our desires because we don’t trust that the gratification comes from being in relationship with desire itself rather than what it would potentially bring. We don’t trust that gratification will come with all of the potential outcomes, including not getting what we desire. 

Constricting Desire Within Ourselves

When our ideas or conditioning of who we should be collide with who we actually are, we constrict our desire. In the worst case scenario, our best efforts to dam desire succeed, and we experience shutdown, apathy, and emptiness. For most of us, though, eventually the dam breaks. We violate our “values” to discover our deeper desire, letting go into indulgence and consumption. We can, however, learn to deliberately uncover desire so that we are working in concert with it rather than being a victim to it. 

In the process of constricting against our desire, we generate the very detritus that has us mistakenly demonize desire itself; any feeling unfelt will create residue. The now orphaned desires that we tend to demonize and legislate continue to permeate our consciousness like an itch until we finally tear off the scab. Having pent up our most concentrated desires, tearing off the scab creates a massive release of energy which leaves us feeling depleted in the aftermath. We go unconscious, unable to accurately observe this pattern within ourselves, and we conclude that the desire itself makes us lazy. This creates a demonization of the itch; we judge it as being too nuclear and dangerous to work with consciously. The involuntary becomes taboo. Finally, we decide that nothing involuntary will ever be appropriate. 

Our demonization of desire is further supported because we have caged it for so long it has become contorted. We don’t recognize it in it’s unnatural form which leads us to believe the contortions define it instead of realizing that it’s condition is the result of our relationship with it. We have made desire into a shunned, feral animal, restrained in the basement, pushed down to the basement of our consciousness. Because it has been denied a home within consciousness, it moves outside us; our projection of it manifests as a force coming at us rather than a power coming from us.

Meditation – Being With yourself as you are; sitting with fear

Get into a comfortable position, either in a chair or seated in a meditation cushion. Set your timer for 20 minutes. Close your eyes and become aware of your breath and the sensations in your body. 

Think of a desire you have that you wish you didn’t, something you deem unacceptable in some way. Use these minutes to simply be with that desire and everything it brings up. Just for these few short minutes, feel the various emotions and sensations that arise in response to it. The yearning, the avoidance, the fear, maybe the anger at denying it, or grief at the idea of what might happen if you did it. Try to bring your attention back to the feelings if you drift away. Just be with all of it, gently. No need to do anything about it but feel it.  

At the end of the meditation, slowly bring yourself back into the room. Feel the seat beneath you and the sounds around you. Slowly open your eyes when you are ready.

Journal any insights or inspirations that came to you without judging or censoring. Don’t worry if you didn’t have any “aha” moments. That does not mean meditation doesn’t work. There will be times when you just relax into the present, and times when the lightbulb goes off, so always have that journal handy.

Exercise

This week, follow a desire that you haven’t let yourself have yet. Consider what might be in range for you in your own personal growth. Pick something that feels at your edge, not something that will blow up your life, and not something that’s really easy. Something middle ground that creates a little disruption. Journal about your experience: what was confronting about it, what did you like about it? What did it teach you? Is it something you’d like to do more often? If you need help pinpointing a desire, try working with these prompts.

I have always wanted to ______________________________________.

I have been afraid to try this because ____________________________.

The benefit of trying this is ____________________________________.

If I don’t try this, I might regret _________________________________.

Example

Planning a wedding was such an intense experience. I had no idea how many people’s opinions would be involved, or want to be involved. I had always known I wanted to have a Jewish wedding, and my fiance, though not Jewish, was fine with it. His mother was not. Though they are not particularly actively religious, suddenly their distant Anglican background was everything to her. She fought me hard on it, and at first I yielded, agreeing to have a more Christian wedding. I told myself it wasn’t that big a deal to me. But for weeks after I had agreed to it, so much anger built up in me. I became snappy with my fiance, tight about money, beyond picky about every little detail of the wedding planning. A real bridezilla – except that just wasn’t me. I am usually cool under pressure and I love planning events and am comfortable in chaos. Finally I realized that I had denied a desire and this was the result. I had convinced myself it didn’t matter to me when it did. It wasn’t so much about the wedding itself or the type of ceremony; it was about being true to me, and going through the discomfort of that. Otherwise I just become a people pleaser and a not very nice person in the process, projecting out on others my inner anger at having betrayed myself. 

“Our life energy goes with the flow, so when there is no flow, it’s usually because of a desire that is unfulfilled or blocked. Acknowledge it, then release it to the flow.”

Summary

This lesson was about working with desire for your growth and not allowing unfulfilled desires to create an energetic clog or create anger and resentment. You also looked at the ways desire might become challenging and how to overcome those challenges in a positive way.