Some Thoughts on Desire

Is desire bad? Some religious and spiritual teachings seem to say it’s how individuals and communities get themselves into trouble.

But even some religious leaders have said we need desire. Desire is part of who we are as humans. It is part of our motivation to do the good that we do, as well as the bad.

As a deeply, wildly, intensely passionate person, I think about this a lot. And the way I see it, things boil down this way:

Extreme, mindless desire can derail a life, a family, a community, a nation, a hemisphere, a world. Extreme, mindless, unmitigated desire creates a Bernie Madoff, a mortgage crisis, a Holocaust.

These are the low desires. The venal, me-first-everybody-out-of-my-way-I’m-coming-through desires. You see it not just in global issues but in the rude, careless, dismissive ways people treat one another on the road, in stores, at work, even at home.

Low desire can manifest, too, in self-destructive urges like addiction. The addict who cares more about her next binge or score or hit than anyone or anything, she’s succumbing to low desire.  Cravings, those gut-punching, mind-bending thoughts that you have to have it (whatever it is) right now or you’ll die are extreme, physical manifestations of this low desire.

But there is also high desire. It is characterized by the passion to help others, live with integrity, do the right thing, share privilege, use no more resources than you need, and work for the greater good. It is also, not only in my experience and observation, but in the science of developmental psychology, characterized by the born-in passion to connect with a source of power and guidance bigger, grander and more mysterious that a solo individual.

We all have both kinds of desires in us. We all have seeds of war and seeds of peace. Which will we water?

When we feel into and channel our higher desires, starting with the yearning to listen to and heed the inner guidance, lovely things happen. Following my higher yearning helped me to be a good enough mom, though I had a lot of early mis-training to overcoming. It has helped me write words of healing and hope over the years, including my recent book The Hungry Ghost, about how I healed from binge-eating and how others can too.

And it helps me now, as I ask the Universe to show me, just for today, what can I do to increase the peace? How can I help myself and then others transform irritation, pain and trauma for the greater good?

These, I hope you’ll agree, are desires to be fed and shared. When we pool our desires good things happen. Babies are born and nurtured. Crops are sowed, reaped and brought to market. Broken families reunite. Illness and injury heal. Friends discuss misunderstandings and clear the air. Enemies make eye contact, shake hands and lay down their arms.

High desires, well nurtured and mindfully directed, enable us to walk through this day, doing as little harm as humanly possible and, maybe, doing a little good.

Recovering from Recovery

Just a butterfly among the leaves. Photo by Ed Edelman.

Who doesn’t want to be a better person? I sure do. From the time I was small—and this was no doubt influenced by the Puritan culture of upstate NY where I grew up—I strove every day in every way to be better and better.

This is okay, but only up to a point. That point being, where the message and motive becomes, “I’m not good enough. And that’s why I have to get better.”

Years ago I read a wonderful book: Stop Improving Yourself and Start Living. Love it! It was one of the earliest things I’ve read that talked about just letting yourself be.

We can get addicted to self-improvement. Self-improvement is great. If we’ve got problems, we need to overcome them. We all require diversity to live. It’s a need of the human mind. It’s fun to explore new ways of learning and being.

But only up to a point. That point being, when we keep trying the next right thing, falling for shiny object syndrome, hoping some person, program, book or seminar will be the thing that fixes our broken little selves, once and for all.

Here’s why we need to slow down sometimes: We are not broken. God don’t make no junk, as the poster says. We are beautiful creatures striving for health, peace and harmony. We all also seem to be dealt a fair amount of pain. I don’t know why it should be so. But there it is. As Pema Chodron says in The Places That Scare You, we have to sit still and be with the hurt, neither running away from it nor acting out from it.

Just letting ourselves be, in other words.

Sometimes it’s okay to close the self-help book, skip the recovery meeting, say no to yet another compelling offer of a perfect-your-life workshop, and just let ourselves be.

Go through our day, in other words, not looking for more tools to perfect ourselves, but using the tools we have. And using them gently, lovingly, kindly, thoughtfully.

Maybe even going outside for a bit and just being a big ole bump on a log.

 

Put Yourself Into Intensive Care

I love my picnic breakfasts, with my oatmeal, decaf, books and notebooks in my jungly backyard.

If you are wounded, you need extreme self-care. If you are hurting, you need radical self love. We are all wounded. We are all hurting. If you are in crisis, this is not hot news. If you are not in crisis, you probably still most likely have dark times, moments, relationships, pockets in your soul. Frustrations, disappointments—they’re always there. It’s the human condition. “Be kind to everyone you meet,” said the philosopher Maimonides, “for he is fighting a great battle.”

Extreme self-care. Radical self-love. If there’s anything I know to be true, these principles say it. I’m not talking about greed, or escapism, or profound self-indulgence. I’m not talking about hurting others to help myself.

I am ever more dedicated to what my friend Betty calls, “putting myself into intensive care.”

Grace is a gift that must be claimed. What if my friends and family gave me a birthday party and I didn’t show up? Silly me! My gift to myself—and to the people in my life—is attention to health, soul and sanity. If I am not centered and clear inside myself, in my soul and spirit, what I give to the world is suspect. This I know. I do not what to put out a polluted product. I can’t let my little light shine if I don’t feed its fire, can I?

I’m finding at this time in my life I show up to the party by giving myself abundant time to connect with my inner higher self: In the mornings, prayer, meditation, reading inspiring literature, scribbling in my journal and reflection. During the day, brief moments to stop and breathe, conscious effort to mindfulness, music, movement in the form of walking, cycling or Qigong. But even when I had three little kids and a full time job in NYC, I grabbed what moments I could. On the train. In the bathroom! With the kids—I’d put on some rhythmic music and we’d all dance our pants off.

All to cut through the suffering and embrace life on life’s terms and be well-equipped to live an abundant, generous life.

Intensive care. That’s the ticket! Are you ready to ride?