Reconnecting To Your Desires

Wanting sounds simple until you realize how many of us were trained out of it. If you’ve gotten good at meeting other people’s needs, staying “easy,” and saying “I don’t mind,” this conversation is a gentle challenge and a practical reset. I talk about how reclaiming identity starts with needs and boundaries, but it doesn’t end there. Desire is where your real self lives, and it’s also the part that often gets buried under people pleasing, fear of conflict, and lifelong conditioning.

We dig into why wanting can feel dangerous, especially if you grew up monitoring someone else’s happiness to keep yourself safe, or if you learned early that your preferences were “too much” or “wrong.” I share my own experience of growing up queer and losing trust in my desires, plus how shame and social pressure can push us into numbness. Then we get concrete: the difference between what you want and what you think you should want shows up in feelings and body signals, because your nervous system registers a clear yes or no even when your brain tries to negotiate.

You’ll hear simple ways to start small without blowing up your life: using free time as a low-stakes lab, bringing back play, following inner child clues, and translating childhood “dream jobs” into the energy you want more of now. We also talk about conflict, how to let other people have their feelings, and how to make choices that are more aligned with your desires over time.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Hey Bestie, how are you today? I am doing well. Summer is in full swing, and while I wish I had exciting news to share with you, really, I've just been enjoying my downtime. That's pretty much it. So I hope that you are also getting to enjoy some downtime in your life. Today I want to talk about wanting. We've been talking a lot about reclaiming our identities. And if you've been following along

Summer Check In And The Topic

SPEAKER_00 0:34

on Instagram, last week was all about setting boundaries and having needs. Being able to acknowledge needs is one of the first steps in this work because you can't set a boundary if you haven't first uncovered what your needs are. Like where are your edges? So your needs is really the place to start. And while that's important work, it's only the beginning. Where we eventually want to get is to the place of desire. What do we want? Fulfilling your needs is the bare minimum. Expressing your wants and desires is when you know you're really uncovering your truest self. Our desires are what move us forward in life. We lose touch with our own desires because we have spent so much time thinking and considering the wants and needs of others. Maybe it started at home as a child when you needed to stay focused

Needs Versus Desire

SPEAKER_00 1:32

on someone else's happiness in order to get your own basic needs met. I know that's a big part of it for me. I learned early on that focusing on other people's happiness ensured that I was going to be okay. As people pleasers, we have adopted the habit of saying things like, I don't mind, it's okay. What do you want when other people present their desires? But not minding is not the same thing as wanting. It's going with the flow. We learn to be easygoing by never expressing our own truth to the people around us. I also think that growing up queer and wanting things that were typically seen as being for girls and being told that I was not supposed to want those things made me lose trust in the validity of my own desires. Wanting felt dangerous. I risked being picked on, being seen as less than for the things that I liked. I'm sure a lot of us have gone through something similar throughout our lives that started very young. So in order to not rock the boat, we learn to suppress our desires over time because it feels safer to not have any. We are literally shamed into not wanting or viewing our wants as deviant. And that follows us into adult life. So what do we do about this? Well, hopefully by now you've started expressing your needs and you're setting some boundaries with the people in your life that it feels safest to. Maybe you've even branched out to places that feel not as safe, like at work or with like random people. Now it's time to start telling yourself the truth about what you want. But first you have to know how to tell the difference between what you really want and what you think you should want. That comes down to feelings. Yes, feelings. We've been down this road before. It always comes back to feelings. That's because the body does not lie. You can try to deny it, but the sensations you experience when something is a hell yes versus when something is a no is unmistakable. So that's where to start. What does the body say? Not what do you think, but what do you feel? We're so good at intellectualizing and not actually experiencing our emotions that it can be hard to access that. But that's where we need to start. There's also a lot of deprogramming work to be done. I think about myself and go back to the example I've given before about deciding what I want to eat. That is a great example, unless you are like me and the millions of others out there that have food noise. It's not that easy to know what you want when you also need to simultaneously undo diet culture. So maybe we don't actually start there. I mean, you can if you don't have that problem, but maybe we start with something simpler if that's a roadblock for you. For me, I like to start with what do I do with my free time? Now, I have struggled with this question in the past. And there was a time when I did not allow myself to do anything but work through my free time. But since I've gotten over that, I've been able to really focus on spending my free time in ways that I want to spend it. So if we go back to last week's episode, a great place to start is what did you do when you were a kid? Play is such an important part of the healing work that we're doing. And starting with play is awesome. So think of a few activities that you can choose from. As I've mentioned, I like to puzzle. I also like to color. I like to watch TV. I actually got super nostalgic leading up to the new Masters of the Universe movie. Um, and I broke out my She-Ra DVDs from the basement and spent a Saturday morning watching cartoons. It was so fun. It doesn't have to be hard to reconnect with that inner child. It can be as simple as that. Another great place to start is what did you want to be as a child? And what was it about those careers that spoke to you? For me, I wanted to be mostly creative things, like a hairdresser or an interior designer or a stylist. That shows me that I like creating things. So I've recently started making drawings, not like drawing people or animals or anything like that, just some abstract kind of doodling. So I'll take a Sharpie and I'll like draw shapes on a page. Um, and then I'll color those in. And then I've just done a little art project. It's a great way to get out some creative energy. So, what are the things you wanted to do that maybe seemed silly or unrealistic to pursue? How can you bring some of that energy into your life? The point of this is starting small. We're not trying to tackle something big like what we want from life. We're just trying to tackle what we want in this moment. Because here's the thing: giving yourself permission to want is one of the most radical things you can do as a person that stopped asking themselves that question. When you finally start answering that question, you unearth the real you, the you that has been buried for so long. And even moving from I don't know to I know, but I'm afraid to say it out loud is a huge step. The next step is actually speaking it into existence because your wants are not random. They are a guide. They are what keep you moving forward in life. And only you get to decide what direction it is that you're going to move. Don't let the fact that you've been stuffing that down for so long stop you from actually going after your dreams. Now, there may be some conflict that arises for you once you get to the part where you're able to express your true desires. And this is where the previous work will be helpful. You get to let the people in your life have their feelings about what you want and not let it affect you and what you actually do. And this is not about being selfish. I'm not saying not to consider others in your decision making, but we're no longer letting what others want be the deciding factor or the sole deciding factor. And it's okay to have conflict. Conflict handled appropriately strengthens relationships. I mean, you might even have conflict with your own self, conflict between the life that you've built and the life that you want. That's just something to work through. What are your options? What can you do today that moves you forward without completely upending your entire life? This is something that you want to consider. And the point is not to act on every want and desire you have. The point is to start living a life that is more aligned with your desires. So start small and ask yourself every day what you want. Wait and listen for the answer and then move forward accordingly. Okay, friends, that's what I've got for you today. As always, it would be super helpful if you rated and reviewed the pod wherever you listen to the podcast. And if you're ready to do this work, reach out to me. I'm here for you. Let's have you on that path to really unearthing your true desires today.