Untamed

I wrote to my community recently: Do with your Self whatever it is you want to do. You can trust your Self. Someone responded,

Isn’t it irresponsible to suggest that we should do whatever we want to do? Most nights, by the time I get home I want to drink an entire bottle of Malibu. Pretty sure I shouldn’t trust all of my desires.

I have a friend who has struggled mightily with money for decades. She recently told me that she was this close to renting an expensive beach house even though she was deep in debt. She knew from her roots that she couldn’t trust this desire of hers, but she wanted this vacation for her family so badly that she was prepared to allow her desire to override her Knowing.

When I asked why she was so desperate for this house, she looked down at her hands and said, “I see all the pictures on social media of families at the shore. They’re relaxing together. They’re off their damn phones and just being together. My family is so disconnected right now. The kids are growing so fast. Tom and I never really talk anymore. I feel like we’re losing each other. I want to slow down. I want to talk to my kids and husband more. I want to know what’s going on in their lives. I want to have fun together again.”

Instead of renting the beach house, my friend bought a two-dollar basket and placed it on a table in her foyer. She asked her husband and teenagers to leave their phones in the basket for an hour each weeknight. Her family began preparing, eating, and cleaning up after dinner together. There was a lot of grumbling about this new system at first, but then came the laughter, talking, and connection she’d yearned for. Her basket turned out to be a two-dollar beach house.

So, that woman’s nightly desire for a bottle of Malibu? That was just a surface desire. I know this because her Knowing didn’t trust it. A surface desire is one that conflicts with our Knowing. We must ask of our surface desires: What is the desire beneath this desire? Is it rest? Is it peace?

Our deep desires are wise, true, beautiful, and things we can grant ourselves without abandoning our Knowing. Following our deep desire always returns us to integrity. If your desire feels wrong to you: Go deeper. You can trust yourself. You just have to get low enough.

I have spent the last decade of my life listening to women talk about what they most desire. This is what women tell me they want:

I want a minute to take a deep breath.

I want rest, peace, passion.

I want good food and true, wild, intimate sex.

I want relationships with no lies.

I want to be comfortable in my own skin.

I want to be seen, to be loved.

I want joy and safety for my children and for everyone else’s children.

I want justice for all.

I want help, community, and connection.

I want to be forgiven, and I want to finally forgive.

I want enough money and power to stop feeling afraid.

I want to find my purpose down here and live it out fully.

I want to look at the news and see less pain, more love.

I want to look at the people in my life and really see them and love them.

I want to look in the mirror and really see myself and love myself.

I want to feel alive.

The blueprints of heaven are etched in the deep desires of women. What women want is good. What women want is beautiful. And what women want is dangerous, but not to women. Not to the common good. What women want is a threat to the injustice of the status quo. If we unlocked and unleashed ourselves:

Imbalanced relationships would be equalized.

Children would be fed.

Corrupt governments would topple.

Wars would end.

Civilizations would be transformed.

If women trusted and claimed their desires, the world as we know it would crumble. Perhaps that is precisely what needs to happen so we can rebuild truer, more beautiful lives, relationships, families, and nations in their place.

Maybe Eve was never meant to be our warning. Maybe she was meant to be our model.

Own your wanting.

Eat the apple.

Let it burn.