Desire. This subject has been a massive theme in my group and 1:1 client work this week, but it also gives way to universal questions at the heart of human experience:
What do I want?
What “should” I want?
How can I trust if my desire will lead me in the ‘right’ direction?
Am I bad for wanting what I want?
What if I’m not good enough to get what I want?
So, I figured it was as good a time as any to do a newsletter series on this topic. I have a lot to say about desire—entirely too much for one email—so we’ll make it three emails over three weeks. I might leave it free, or paywall some of them; I haven’t decided yet. Either way, my goal is to create a high quality resource you can return to whenever you need to get unstuck and clarify your direction.
I also feel like this would be a great focus for our next monthly workshop for paid subscribers. If you’re feeling that too, drop a comment below this post with your questions—I want to create a class that addresses your needs as specifically as possible. See? We’re clarifying desires already :)
And with that, I welcome you to part 1/3…
What is Desire?
Desire is Embodied
We can’t talk about desire without talking about the body, because desire is, first and foremost, an embodied experience. Think about the last time you felt drawn to something—you probably felt sensations of lightness and warmth in your chest, a sense of expansion, or a magnetic pull toward something or someone. That experience? That’s desire. It’s life force energy moving through your body to be expressed in the world—an innate impulse to connect, create, and seek fulfillment. It's the same current of aliveness that drives the flow of water in a river or the unfurling of a fern. Desire is simply the pulse of life in perpetual motion. The human body is just one in an infinity of material conduits for this flow. To follow that flow as it manifests within the vessel of your body is to say “yes” to more life—yours, mine, and everyone else’s.
Desire is Relational
Desire, when followed with integrity, keeps you meaningfully connected—to the world, to other living beings, and to yourself. It’s a compass, guiding you toward unmet needs or unfinished experiences, and a thread weaving you and the entire ecosystem into greater wholeness.
Desire is Creative
Desire is also a creative force, urging you to evolve and grow through the act of bringing something new into reality, whether that’s a project, a relationship, or even just a fresh perspective. Desire, in essence, is life guiding you into harmony with what you truly need and value most—it’s the current that unites you with the eternal creative unfolding of the universe.
Desire is Neutral
“Desire” is just a word we use to describe energy moving in a particular way. The energy itself is neither good nor bad—it’s neutral. However, the subject of our desire—the person, object, or outcome we project our desires onto—is not always neutral. This is a key distinction most people fuck up. It’s very important to avoid confusing desire with it’s subject, because doing so can keep us stuck and unfulfilled. Here’s what I mean by that…
Let’s say, for example, that you have a goal of earning one million dollars. Consciously or unconsciously, you have chosen “one million dollars” as the subject of your desire. However, your actual desire is not for one million dollars—it’s for the embodied experiences you believe one million dollars will allow you to access: relaxation, exhilaration, expansiveness.
Now, maybe earning one million dollars is the most efficient strategy for accessing that embodied experience, but it might not be. Your most efficient strategies for accessing more relaxation, exhilaration, and expansiveness might actually be:
Pivoting and restructuring your business to pursue work that excites, energizes, and challenges you in all your favourite ways.
Getting better at perceiving and responding to your physical, emotional, psychological needs.
Developing stronger communication skills to foster greater emotional intimacy and safety in your closest relationships.
Letting go of excess belongings that create unnecessary stress through storage and upkeep.
This is also why I don’t play moral police with your goals—no matter how corrupt or superficial they may seem, I trust in the deeper intelligence driving them. My role as a depth coach is to co-create the supportive conditions your system needs for that deeper intelligence to emerge and find coherence. It’s to help you clarify and fulfill the true desires behind your goals—to separate your cravings (subject) from your hungers (desire).
Without this crucial step, you risk burning out in the endless pursuit of cravings, only to wonder why you still feel starved, because even a million, ten million, or a hundred million dollars can’t ease the tension of chronic misalignment with the flow of your innate life force.
It’s easy to see how humanity’s current grim predicament could be traced back to our collective inability to take this step, time and again. In that sense, coaching—when it’s done competently (which, to my endless exasperation, it so often isn’t)—inherently supports a thriving future for life on earth.
Desire vs Attachment
Remember earlier when I described the embodied experience of desire as sensations of lightness and warmth in your chest, a sense of expansion, or a magnetic pull toward something or someone? Those sensations are also what distinguish desire from attachment—yet another distinction that people fuck up a lot (yes, yes—incl me).
When you’re operating from desire, it feels alive and dynamic, yet relaxed and grounded in the present moment. Attachment, however, feels heavy and tense—like a gripping or clinging to specific outcomes or identities, usually driven by fear and insecurity.
If you think about it, you’ve probably felt the difference: wanting to try something for the sheer joy of it (desire) versus desperately needing it to turn out a specific way to feel okay (attachment). Desire flows from empowerment; attachment grasps from disempowerment. So, naturally, pursuing attachments creates a sense of stuck-ness that only calcifies the longer you fail to release your grip.
I’ll unpack the process of letting go over the next two weeks, so stay tuned for that! In the meantime, I encourage you to explore group coaching as your next step…
Desire is what moves us—toward growth, joy, and the version of our life that feels most true. If you’re ready to explore yours more deeply, I invite you to join UnfoldingSpace my twice-monthly group coaching membership, where we turn sparks of insight into meaningful shifts.
Members also get access to discounted 1:1 sessions with me, which are a phenomenal way to deepen your growth without the intensive time and financial commitment of long-term, one-on-one work with me.
The cost to join is USD 155/mo, cancel whenever. Signing up now locks in your rate at the current price for as long as you stay a member.
Enrollment closes at the end of the week, November 30th, after which the price will go up. So if this feels like the right moment, I’d love for you to join us!
Our next live call is happening Saturday, Nov 30th at 10am Pacific.
That's all for this week!
Stay curious :)
— Antonia
And when you're ready for the next step…
Read “How to know what you want, part 2” here:
How to know what you want | pt. 2
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Happy Monday! This week, we continue our deep dive into desire by exploring what blocks it. If you missed part 1, you can read it here:
Learn more about UnfoldingSpace, my twice-monthly group coaching membership here.
Learn more about 1:1 coaching, and apply for a complimentary, commitment-free discovery session with me here.
Up-level your self-regulation and mindfulness skills with Open Studios—an app that looks, and feels, like riding in a sexy wellness spaceship.
