We all want things.

We want to be accepted, we want to experience love and we want to feel like we are on the right path in life.

Unfortunately, an overdose of wanting and the obsession with trying to figure out how to make everything work out just right can often take us further from our goals rather than closer.

Direct experience can often be the best way to get a real-life feel for this concept. Most of us have had moments that feel like more than coincidences. Where we have made a wish and it comes true without even trying.

Could it be perhaps be that the not even trying is the crucial step in the process of getting what we want in life?

Imagine the energy of how it feels to be around someone who is desperate. Is it light or heavy? Is it welcoming or repellent? This isn’t about judgement. This is just about gaining information that can be of benefit to ourselves and the people we love.

When we are feeling desperate, we cling and fight. We worry and get caught up in fear. These are not comfortable ways to be.

Most of the time it isn’t even the thing we are desperate for that actually really matters to us. Instead it is what the thing we are desperate for symbolizes or what we think we won’t get if we don’t obtain the thing we are desperately trying to bring into our lives.

I would like to suggest that there are really only two steps to getting what we are looking for in life.

1. To be thankful for what we have. Right now. To experience it, to feel it. Or if you relate to the word mindful then to be mindful of what is here right now. At least a little of what each of us wants in our lives is right in our midst in this moment. And by not truly experiencing it, and instead focusing on what we don’t have, we are missing out on a lot of joy and pleasant experiences that are rightfully ours.

2. To relax. How does it feel to be around someone who is relaxed? Does it feel light or heavy? Does it feel welcoming or repellent? Each of us needs to answer this question for ourselves. Or more importantly what does it feel like to be around ourselves when we are relaxed?

For many of us it is difficult to relax. We have a lot of shame and judgement about being lazy or inadequate. Or perhaps there are other negative connotations connected to the state of relaxation. But, if we look at the core motivation of our goals, it is to finish running the race of our lives so that one day we can relax. However, many of us are learning that the only moment we can live our life in is now. So if relaxation is what we are looking for, we might want to bring it into our lives today.

This is an important recipe. This recipe of noticing the goodness we have right now, relaxing into it and then, if we are feeling courageous, we can sprinkle in a little light-hearted daydreaming about what we might want the future to bring.

Give it a try for one day and let me know how it feels.

Relephant: 

Is it Love or Desperation?

Author: Ruth Lera

Editor: Catherine Monkman

Photo: Helmuts Guigo/Flickr