August 13, 2025 • 22 mins
Have you ever found yourself in that strange, disorienting space where you used to feel your desires clearly, but now, all you hear is silence?
In this episode, Brenda and Catherine explore what happens when desire goes quiet. After spending so much time learning to follow the whispers of longing, what do you do when those whispers disappear?
Rather than rushing to fix it, they invite you to pause and listen differently. These quiet seasons aren’t failures—they’re invitations. Invitations to slow down, return to the body, and deepen your trust in the natural rhythms of desire.
They discuss how speed, overthinking, and life circumstances like grief can muffle desire’s voice. They share personal stories and practices that help them reconnect - like Catherine’s ritual of doing absolutely nothing for two hours, or Brenda’s reflections on trusting the unknown in her longing for home.
Most of all, this episode is about trusting that desire doesn’t abandon us. It simply changes form. Sometimes it simmers. Sometimes it rests. But it’s always alive inside you.
Episode Highlights
• Experiencing a lack of desire after learning to follow it isn't a problem - it's a signal
• When desire feels absent, check if you're in your head instead of your body
• Pivoting your attention often restores connection more easily than forcing clarity
• Reconnection strategies include movement, stillness, time in nature, relational support, etc
• Moving too fast can drown out desire - slowing down helps you hear and feel
• Life’s desires have a natural hierarchy - you can’t fulfill every want at once
• Grief and hardship often quiet desire; it’s not wrong, it’s human
• Gripping too tightly to desires creates resistance, practicing trust is more effective
• Holding the “what” while releasing the “how” is a powerful desire practice
• Desire isn’t a constant flame - it ebbs and flows, like everything else in nature
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome to Desire is Medicine.
We are two very different womenliving a life led by desire,
inviting you into our world.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
I'm Brenda.
I'm a devoted practitioner tobeing my fully expressed true
self in my daily life.
Motherhood relationships and mybusiness Desire has taken me on
quite a ride and every day Ipractice listening to and
following the voice within.
I'm a middle school teacherturned coach and guide of the
feminine.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
And I'm Catherine, devoted to living my life as the
truest and hopefully thehighest version of me.
I don't have children, I'venever been married.
I've spent equal parts of mylife in corporate as in some
down and low shady spaces.
I was the epitome of tired andwired and my path led me to
explore desire.
I'm a coach, guide, energyworker and a forever student.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Even after decades of inner work, we are humble
beginners on the mat, stillexploring, always curious.
We believe that listening toand following the nudge of
desire is a deep spiritualpractice that helps us grow.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
On the Desires Medicine podcast.
We talk to each other, weinterview people we know and
love about the practice ofdesire, bringing in a very
important piece that is oftenoverlooked being responsible for
our desire, piece that is oftenoverlooked being responsible
for our desire.
Welcome back, family, friends,listeners.
(01:34):
I'm here with the lovely Brenda.
We're here talking about desire,as per usual, but we have some
topics coming up around desirethat we haven't necessarily
touched on, gone in to reallyexcavate, and one of the things
we're talking about is how doesdesire feel when we've never
felt it before or you haven'treally been listening to the
(01:55):
soft whispers or the loud knocksor been looking at the big, big
picture dreams, the big visions, the vision boards.
What it looks like when youhaven't done any of that, what
it feels like when you haven'tdone any of that, and what it
feels like when you have.
What it feels like specificallytoday.
What we're talking about is howit feels when you know what the
(02:21):
whisper sounds like.
When you know what the whispersounds like, you know how the
loud knocks sound, you know whatit feels like to take
responsibility for your desireand all of a sudden, you don't
feel any and it's like womp,womp, womp.
Nobody's home, there's justsilence.
(02:47):
When you I asked Brenda, Ithink earlier, this question and
I think I'm going to have hersay it out loud I think you said
you haven't really experiencedthis.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
I would say I don't really experience this very much
lately.
This is something that I usedto experience a lot, but if
we're talking about how do weexperience the lack of desire
after we've studied desire, Idon't think I feel that very
much lately anymore.
Which can we just celebratethat over here Like?
(03:17):
woohoo right, congratulations,all right.
How does it feel?
Feels great.
This isn't perfection, but it'sa marker that when we do the
work, we do move the needle andwe do arrive somewhere,
(03:38):
somewhere where I feel in touchwith my desire and I can
recognize it when it comes in,feel in touch with my desire and
I can recognize it when itcomes in.
Now, that being said, do I evernot know what I want or do I
ever feel disconnected from mydesire?
Yeah, I definitely do.
I do have those experiences,but where that used to freak me
(03:59):
out in the past, I used to thinksomething was wrong with me or
I was starving or I would getscared.
I don't feel that way anymore.
Now I just ask myself what'sgoing on?
What's going on internally, theawareness right, and what do I
need?
Mostly, when it happens, I needto pivot.
(04:22):
I need to pivot my attentionand do something different, and
I don't need to get caught up inthe whole quote problem of I
don't feel my desire or I'm notsure what I want.
No, we don't need to worryabout that, it's not a problem,
it's usually.
There's something that I needthat I need to give myself.
(04:44):
Like I said, pivot.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
When you think pivot, do you just mean pivot away
from trying to fix the I don'tfeel desire?
Do you mean put your attentionon something else?
Do you mean all of the above?
Speaker 2 (05:05):
All of the above, all of the above, all of the above,
where I used to put myattention on it and focus on
that right Thinking it's aproblem that needs to be fixed.
Now I say, oh, you know, I'mtired, or I've just been doing
this for too long and I need toshift and do that.
Or I've been staying home a lotlately, which felt really
nourishing, and now I need toget out into the world.
(05:27):
Or maybe I need movement, ormaybe I need to call a friend,
or maybe I need more sleep, orI'm hungry, whatever the thing
is, or maybe I need to say atruth, maybe there's something
that I need to say in order topivot the energy.
So I'm saying, take myattention off of oh my God, I
don't feel my desire and justactually ask myself what does my
(05:48):
body need?
Speaker 1 (05:56):
So you're looking at your resources.
How am I resourced?
You know, sleep, eat, that sortof thing you're looking at have
I gone out to nature?
Have I been outside?
Have I seen sunlight?
Have I been in connection?
What potentially small resourcetweak can I make to myself, or
is there a physical state that Ihave to change?
You're sort of evaluating allright, if not feeling my desire
(06:17):
is not a problem, it's just okay, it's just a circumstance.
Then what else is happening?
You're sort of taking an aeriallook at what's happening for
you.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Exactly, exactly.
And I want to add something tothat, a really huge one that a
lot of women and my clients andmyself will fall into is being
in my head instead of being inmy body.
She laughs.
When I'm in my body, I'm verymuch in tune with what I need
and what I want, and I'm very intune with my desires.
(06:49):
I can hear them and feel them.
But if I get into my head, right, I get stuck in a problem, or
I'm trying to fix something, orwhatever that is.
I can feel very disconnected.
So that is a question that Iask myself am I in my head right
now or am I in my body?
And very often I will just bein my head and again, it's not a
(07:10):
problem, but it's pointing tosomething.
Oh, I need to get into my bodyFirst of all.
It feels so much better.
Being in my body is so muchbetter, and you know how to get
there, because I've spent thelast two decades understanding
what it feels like to be in mybody and how to get into my body
.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
I love that, I actually really love that.
You use the word disconnected,like how do I get connected,
reconnected with myself?
I think that's the biggest part.
Once you have felt desire andyou know the whispers, you know
the loud clunks, the loud sounds, the hard knocks, once we know
(07:50):
that if we, for some reason, arenot feeling our desire, we're
disconnected somewhere,something happened and it
happens.
We're human.
Right, it could be.
We got activated.
Maybe there's a trauma response, maybe we didn't sleep, maybe
we didn't eat.
We have this often.
(08:13):
We can have a go-to For you,brenda, I think you said I may
have missed it.
Am I in my body?
You said something like that.
Right, for me, I might be goingtoo fast, so I'm going from one
thing to the next thing, to thenext thing, to the next thing
and I have not paused.
And so where Brenda says, allright, I'm going to move, I know
(08:37):
that she does Koya or she doesmovement practices.
For me, movement practice wouldbe great.
Walking is a great one for meto sort of clear my head.
But sometimes when I hit what Icall a wall, maybe Part of it is
energy management for me, whenI can't feel something, I just
lay flat on the ground.
(08:58):
That's something I'll do.
I just have to actually pause.
Usually it's an experience I'mhaving because I'm moving too
fast and I sort of have to getreconnected with myself.
So maybe I meditate, maybe Ilay flat with myself.
So maybe I meditate, maybe Ilay flat, maybe I just lay on
(09:20):
the ground.
Laying flat and laying on theground are the same thing.
I'm just thinking lay flat inmy living room or lay flat in my
bedroom, one is cooler than theother, thank you, ac.
And I just be with myself forabout 10 minutes to see, all
right, what am I feeling.
And sometimes I will say, oh, Ifeel a lot of noise in my body.
(09:43):
It's not even thoughts.
I'll feel almost cluttered.
I don't have a better way ofdescribing that experience and I
just say, okay, it's time to gooutside and I just go out for a
walk.
In the beginning of that walk Iwill not be listening to
anything, it's just sort of meand myself and walking and just
(10:08):
paying attention to my breath,paying attention to some
thoughts.
And that's one stage of how toget reconnected when you're not
feeling your desire after beinga woman that has felt her desire
.
Brenda and I were talking abouthow tricky this is, because
(10:31):
when you practice feeling yourdesire Brenda said earlier she
doesn't really come across thesemoments anymore where she can't
feel what she wants it's reallyeasy, I mean in comparison to
where you couldn't, incomparison to when I wasn't
practicing my desire.
You know, I just wanted to makesure I did a good job at work
(10:53):
and I got my paycheck and I sawmy family once a month or once
every quarter or six months,that sort of thing.
I'm looking at sort of theseparticular markers in life to
see am I being fulfilled and amI doing my duties, whatever
those human duties are?
Then you bring desire into themix and you just want so many
(11:17):
things.
You just want this, you wantthat, you want this, you want
that.
And then you're practicing that.
You can get really masterful atpulling them up or knowing what
they are.
And then, when it goes quiet,sometimes it's because we need
stillness, we're going too fastor we're disconnected from our
bodies.
And then sometimes we go quietbecause there's a hierarchy
(11:41):
Brenda says this often right youcan have everything, just not
at the same time.
And some of us can look at thatlike ugh, universe, why can't
you give me everything I wantall at the same time.
But this is less universal andmore of.
Can we be responsible withevery desire that we want at the
(12:03):
same time, and that one's a bigfat.
No, that one is really hard todo to be on top of everything
that you want, and that's why wetend to be working on one thing
at a time because of ourattention span.
Right, brenda?
Like there is a hierarchy, yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
Also, you can't have everything at once, right.
If you want children, you'renot going to also have peace and
quiet and lazy Sundays whereyou get to sleep in.
It's just not going to happen,right.
You can't have youth and thenalso have a ton of wisdom.
It just doesn't work like that,right.
We can't actually haveeverything at once, and so it's
(12:46):
really a misconception that wecan have it all at the same time
.
It would kind of feel like oneof those buffets on a cruise Did
you ever go on a cruise?
And they have these buffetswhere it's like so much it's
like you can't even really eatit.
There's so many things on thatbuffet that I would really love
to try, but I just can't fit itin my body.
(13:07):
I think desire is like that andthat's okay.
You know, god willing, we livea long life and we get to
experience a lot of differentthings and have different
desires at different times.
I think that's the way it'smeant to be.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Yes, I love the buffet analogy.
Yes, you can't we can'tnecessarily binge on everything
and be satisfied by everythingall at the same time.
We have to kind of choose andthere is a hierarchy, like you
said.
You can't have peace and quieton a Sunday.
If you have, you just havenewborns right, like crying
(13:40):
every three hours.
You have to choose and it'slike, oh, this is going to be a
louder time in my life.
Okay, I'm going to be focused onraising my children right now
Not focused on traveling theworld with a two month old, like
that's not, doesn't really makesense, right, and what makes
(14:02):
sense for us?
We have to be the ones that say, okay, this desire, now this,
now this, now this, now there isan actual hierarchy.
It does require us to beresponsible to not just feel our
desire but choose the ones thatwe're going to follow.
Feel our desire, but choose theones that we're going to follow
(14:24):
, not just be like, oh, I can'tfeel my desire, but also feel
into how do I build morepossibility?
Do I need to be still?
Do I need connection?
Do I need to connect withmyself?
What is missing from me at thismoment in time, so that I can
really feel what's happening?
What's the humming sound that'shappening in my body and for
(14:45):
myself?
Where is this all threaded?
But for sure, if you're someonewho has been practicing desire,
chances are it's really easy foryou to pull up the desires.
What do I want now?
What do I want now?
What do I want now?
But when it goes, quietresources is a great place to go
.
How fast am I moving?
(15:05):
That's another great place togo.
Stillness is a great place togo.
And then there's.
What do I actually want?
What's really true for me inthis season of my life, with all
the competing desires?
Right, because life is alwayslifing, things are happening and
we get to choose where we wantto go Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
And sometimes, when life is lifing, things come our
way and we find ourselves indifficult circumstances, like if
you're experiencing grief, likeif you're experiencing grief in
(16:00):
some form or if you just had ababy or you had just a big life
event happen.
You might, your body, you mightjust be landing and going
through something that maybe youchose, or maybe life chose for
you, and it might be a time ofmore quiet and stillness, and
that's okay.
You know we don't recommendpanicking.
You know there's a time wherewe just need to be with what is,
and it might not be reallycomfortable, and I found that
(16:20):
the best way through thosedifficult moments in life is by
just having a lot of approvaland taking really good care of
myself during those times, andyour desire will come back, your
laughter will come back, yourlife force will come back if
you're in a really difficultpoint.
And this is where I think oneof the biggest pieces of desire
(16:44):
comes in, which is trust.
Trust, right, there are timeswhere it doesn't happen very
much anymore, but there aretimes where I'm not sure
specifically what the desire is,or definitely there's a lot of
times where.
I'm like, oh, I have this desireand I don't know how to have it
(17:06):
.
Well, now, that's somethingthat I experience a lot and I
could get into my head and starttrying to figure it out, but
that's not the way desire works.
I just need to trust.
We need to trust that what wewant is on its way to us and we
don't know how.
(17:26):
It's actually none of ourbusiness, and I recently had
this where I have.
Okay, I'm going to share one ofmy biggest desires, truly like
one of the really, really bigones, which is I have a desire
for my own home Again.
I've owned two homes and Ireally want to own a home again
(17:48):
and to live in my beautifulhouse.
So I don't know how that's kindof come to me, but I do need to
trust that it's on its way tome, okay.
So a friend pointed out to meand this was brilliant, thank
God for women and sisters that Idon't need to constantly be
(18:09):
saying this desire.
I don't need to be all day,every day, saying I desire my
home, I desire my home.
I was like a little bit graspy.
I could just let it go andtrust I'm actually doing the
work behind the scenes, to havethis desire because I really do
want it, and in doing so I makemyself available for it.
(18:29):
And we just have to trust,because we cannot wheel it into
place.
It just doesn't work that way.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
Thank you so much for that tender share.
But yes, I think that when wehear the whisper and we don't
know how to become the personthat gets to have it, that we
can get grippy and just want itnow.
And, yes, there is A desireteaching that what you want
(19:00):
wants you back and it's alreadyhere and it comes into sight
once you become the person thatcan have it, that somewhere, the
only thing in between you andthis other thing is the person
that you're becoming.
What you just shared had methink about when we do know what
(19:22):
desire feels like and there isa hierarchy and you know we're
potentially moving too fast.
We have to get resourced, wehave to get back to the basics.
Sometimes it's just uslistening and you just listen
what's next, what's next, what'snext and you're just really
(19:43):
just putting your attention onyourself.
I've had practices where coacheshave said to me and this was
hard, I did this, I can't it wasrecently where I would pause in
the middle of my day sometimein the afternoon and just stop
everything for two hours and donothing no scrolling, no
(20:06):
listening to external, like justnothing, so that I could
reconnect with myself, and thegoal was to be bored, to have
that level of connection withmyself.
I don't think I did thatexercise because I couldn't hear
my desire anymore.
I did the exercise because Iwas just going so fast that I
(20:30):
couldn't feel fast anymore.
And going really fast, justlike if you're in a fast car or
on a plane, you just can't see,you don't have the same sight.
Yeah, so this era, when you'rehere and you're a woman who can
feel her desire and you start tofeel like, oh, I don't know
(20:51):
what's next, there are all theseways for you to be with what's
next.
And if you do know what's next,remember that gripping is not
required, it's not part of theequation.
You get to just let go remindyourself it's something you want
and put your attention on thedesires that are more up front,
(21:15):
that have the hierarchy, thathave your attention, that are
the now.
If they're not in the forefront, you can put that down and just
trust that you're getting to it.
It's going to, it's going, it'sin the queue and it's coming up
.
It's in the queue and it's upnext.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
And you're not doing it wrong.
No, you're not doing it wrongor you're not doing life wrong.
If you've studied desire, ifyou've listened to all of our
episodes perhaps right or you'vebeen practicing this for a
while and you don't feel yourdesire, or you don't know how
you're going to have your desire, that's not a sign that you're
doing it wrong or that you'rebroken.
Please don't use it as that.
(21:52):
It's just a sign that you needto maybe slow down or pause, and
I love the practices thatyou're talking about, about you
know how to connect back to yourbody.
Desire isn't a constant flame.
It's not like constantly going.
You know it goes in and out.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
This has been so good to touch on and talk about.
Desire really is something tojust be with so that you can
learn more about yourself.
We learn so much aboutourselves through this practice.
Thank you so much for listening.
If something resonated, please,please, please, hit follow.
Write a review on ApplePodcasts.
Send us a screenshot.
(22:31):
We'd love to know what landedfor you.
Bye for now.
Thank you for joining us on theDes is medicine podcast desire
invites us to be honest, lovingand deeply intimate with
ourselves and others.
You can find our handles in theshow notes.
We'd love to hear from you.
Welcome to Desire is Medicine.
We are two very different womenliving a life led by desire,
inviting you into our world.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
I'm Brenda.
I'm a devoted practitioner tobeing my fully expressed true
self in my daily life.
Motherhood relationships and mybusiness Desire has taken me on
quite a ride and every day Ipractice listening to and
following the voice within.
I'm a middle school teacherturned coach and guide of the
feminine.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
And I'm Catherine, devoted to living my life as the
truest and hopefully thehighest version of me.
I don't have children, I'venever been married.
I've spent equal parts of mylife in corporate as in some
down and low shady spaces.
I was the epitome of tired andwired and my path led me to
explore desire.
I'm a coach, guide, energyworker and a forever student.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Even after decades of inner work, we are humble
beginners on the mat, stillexploring, always curious.
We believe that listening toand following the nudge of
desire is a deep spiritualpractice that helps us grow.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
On the Desires Medicine podcast.
We talk to each other, weinterview people we know and
love about the practice ofdesire, bringing in a very
important piece that is oftenoverlooked being responsible for
our desire, piece that is oftenoverlooked being responsible
for our desire.
Welcome back, family, friends,listeners.
(01:34):
I'm here with the lovely Brenda.
We're here talking about desire,as per usual, but we have some
topics coming up around desirethat we haven't necessarily
touched on, gone in to reallyexcavate, and one of the things
we're talking about is how doesdesire feel when we've never
felt it before or you haven'treally been listening to the
(01:55):
soft whispers or the loud knocksor been looking at the big, big
picture dreams, the big visions, the vision boards.
What it looks like when youhaven't done any of that, what
it feels like when you haven'tdone any of that, and what it
feels like when you have.
What it feels like specificallytoday.
What we're talking about is howit feels when you know what the
(02:21):
whisper sounds like.
When you know what the whispersounds like, you know how the
loud knocks sound, you know whatit feels like to take
responsibility for your desireand all of a sudden, you don't
feel any and it's like womp,womp, womp.
Nobody's home, there's justsilence.
(02:47):
When you I asked Brenda, Ithink earlier, this question and
I think I'm going to have hersay it out loud I think you said
you haven't really experiencedthis.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
I would say I don't really experience this very much
lately.
This is something that I usedto experience a lot, but if
we're talking about how do weexperience the lack of desire
after we've studied desire, Idon't think I feel that very
much lately anymore.
Which can we just celebratethat over here Like?
(03:17):
woohoo right, congratulations,all right.
How does it feel?
Feels great.
This isn't perfection, but it'sa marker that when we do the
work, we do move the needle andwe do arrive somewhere,
(03:38):
somewhere where I feel in touchwith my desire and I can
recognize it when it comes in,feel in touch with my desire and
I can recognize it when itcomes in.
Now, that being said, do I evernot know what I want or do I
ever feel disconnected from mydesire?
Yeah, I definitely do.
I do have those experiences,but where that used to freak me
(03:59):
out in the past, I used to thinksomething was wrong with me or
I was starving or I would getscared.
I don't feel that way anymore.
Now I just ask myself what'sgoing on?
What's going on internally, theawareness right, and what do I
need?
Mostly, when it happens, I needto pivot.
(04:22):
I need to pivot my attentionand do something different, and
I don't need to get caught up inthe whole quote problem of I
don't feel my desire or I'm notsure what I want.
No, we don't need to worryabout that, it's not a problem,
it's usually.
There's something that I needthat I need to give myself.
(04:44):
Like I said, pivot.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
When you think pivot, do you just mean pivot away
from trying to fix the I don'tfeel desire?
Do you mean put your attentionon something else?
Do you mean all of the above?
Speaker 2 (05:05):
All of the above, all of the above, all of the above,
where I used to put myattention on it and focus on
that right Thinking it's aproblem that needs to be fixed.
Now I say, oh, you know, I'mtired, or I've just been doing
this for too long and I need toshift and do that.
Or I've been staying home a lotlately, which felt really
nourishing, and now I need toget out into the world.
(05:27):
Or maybe I need movement, ormaybe I need to call a friend,
or maybe I need more sleep, orI'm hungry, whatever the thing
is, or maybe I need to say atruth, maybe there's something
that I need to say in order topivot the energy.
So I'm saying, take myattention off of oh my God, I
don't feel my desire and justactually ask myself what does my
(05:48):
body need?
Speaker 1 (05:56):
So you're looking at your resources.
How am I resourced?
You know, sleep, eat, that sortof thing you're looking at have
I gone out to nature?
Have I been outside?
Have I seen sunlight?
Have I been in connection?
What potentially small resourcetweak can I make to myself, or
is there a physical state that Ihave to change?
You're sort of evaluating allright, if not feeling my desire
(06:17):
is not a problem, it's just okay, it's just a circumstance.
Then what else is happening?
You're sort of taking an aeriallook at what's happening for
you.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Exactly, exactly.
And I want to add something tothat, a really huge one that a
lot of women and my clients andmyself will fall into is being
in my head instead of being inmy body.
She laughs.
When I'm in my body, I'm verymuch in tune with what I need
and what I want, and I'm very intune with my desires.
(06:49):
I can hear them and feel them.
But if I get into my head, right, I get stuck in a problem, or
I'm trying to fix something, orwhatever that is.
I can feel very disconnected.
So that is a question that Iask myself am I in my head right
now or am I in my body?
And very often I will just bein my head and again, it's not a
(07:10):
problem, but it's pointing tosomething.
Oh, I need to get into my bodyFirst of all.
It feels so much better.
Being in my body is so muchbetter, and you know how to get
there, because I've spent thelast two decades understanding
what it feels like to be in mybody and how to get into my body
.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
I love that, I actually really love that.
You use the word disconnected,like how do I get connected,
reconnected with myself?
I think that's the biggest part.
Once you have felt desire andyou know the whispers, you know
the loud clunks, the loud sounds, the hard knocks, once we know
(07:50):
that if we, for some reason, arenot feeling our desire, we're
disconnected somewhere,something happened and it
happens.
We're human.
Right, it could be.
We got activated.
Maybe there's a trauma response, maybe we didn't sleep, maybe
we didn't eat.
We have this often.
(08:13):
We can have a go-to For you,brenda, I think you said I may
have missed it.
Am I in my body?
You said something like that.
Right, for me, I might be goingtoo fast, so I'm going from one
thing to the next thing, to thenext thing, to the next thing
and I have not paused.
And so where Brenda says, allright, I'm going to move, I know
(08:37):
that she does Koya or she doesmovement practices.
For me, movement practice wouldbe great.
Walking is a great one for meto sort of clear my head.
But sometimes when I hit what Icall a wall, maybe Part of it is
energy management for me, whenI can't feel something, I just
lay flat on the ground.
(08:58):
That's something I'll do.
I just have to actually pause.
Usually it's an experience I'mhaving because I'm moving too
fast and I sort of have to getreconnected with myself.
So maybe I meditate, maybe Ilay flat with myself.
So maybe I meditate, maybe Ilay flat, maybe I just lay on
(09:20):
the ground.
Laying flat and laying on theground are the same thing.
I'm just thinking lay flat inmy living room or lay flat in my
bedroom, one is cooler than theother, thank you, ac.
And I just be with myself forabout 10 minutes to see, all
right, what am I feeling.
And sometimes I will say, oh, Ifeel a lot of noise in my body.
(09:43):
It's not even thoughts.
I'll feel almost cluttered.
I don't have a better way ofdescribing that experience and I
just say, okay, it's time to gooutside and I just go out for a
walk.
In the beginning of that walk Iwill not be listening to
anything, it's just sort of meand myself and walking and just
(10:08):
paying attention to my breath,paying attention to some
thoughts.
And that's one stage of how toget reconnected when you're not
feeling your desire after beinga woman that has felt her desire
.
Brenda and I were talking abouthow tricky this is, because
(10:31):
when you practice feeling yourdesire Brenda said earlier she
doesn't really come across thesemoments anymore where she can't
feel what she wants it's reallyeasy, I mean in comparison to
where you couldn't, incomparison to when I wasn't
practicing my desire.
You know, I just wanted to makesure I did a good job at work
(10:53):
and I got my paycheck and I sawmy family once a month or once
every quarter or six months,that sort of thing.
I'm looking at sort of theseparticular markers in life to
see am I being fulfilled and amI doing my duties, whatever
those human duties are?
Then you bring desire into themix and you just want so many
(11:17):
things.
You just want this, you wantthat, you want this, you want
that.
And then you're practicing that.
You can get really masterful atpulling them up or knowing what
they are.
And then, when it goes quiet,sometimes it's because we need
stillness, we're going too fastor we're disconnected from our
bodies.
And then sometimes we go quietbecause there's a hierarchy
(11:41):
Brenda says this often right youcan have everything, just not
at the same time.
And some of us can look at thatlike ugh, universe, why can't
you give me everything I wantall at the same time.
But this is less universal andmore of.
Can we be responsible withevery desire that we want at the
(12:03):
same time, and that one's a bigfat.
No, that one is really hard todo to be on top of everything
that you want, and that's why wetend to be working on one thing
at a time because of ourattention span.
Right, brenda?
Like there is a hierarchy, yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
Also, you can't have everything at once, right.
If you want children, you'renot going to also have peace and
quiet and lazy Sundays whereyou get to sleep in.
It's just not going to happen,right.
You can't have youth and thenalso have a ton of wisdom.
It just doesn't work like that,right.
We can't actually haveeverything at once, and so it's
(12:46):
really a misconception that wecan have it all at the same time
.
It would kind of feel like oneof those buffets on a cruise Did
you ever go on a cruise?
And they have these buffetswhere it's like so much it's
like you can't even really eatit.
There's so many things on thatbuffet that I would really love
to try, but I just can't fit itin my body.
(13:07):
I think desire is like that andthat's okay.
You know, god willing, we livea long life and we get to
experience a lot of differentthings and have different
desires at different times.
I think that's the way it'smeant to be.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Yes, I love the buffet analogy.
Yes, you can't we can'tnecessarily binge on everything
and be satisfied by everythingall at the same time.
We have to kind of choose andthere is a hierarchy, like you
said.
You can't have peace and quieton a Sunday.
If you have, you just havenewborns right, like crying
(13:40):
every three hours.
You have to choose and it'slike, oh, this is going to be a
louder time in my life.
Okay, I'm going to be focused onraising my children right now
Not focused on traveling theworld with a two month old, like
that's not, doesn't really makesense, right, and what makes
(14:02):
sense for us?
We have to be the ones that say, okay, this desire, now this,
now this, now this, now there isan actual hierarchy.
It does require us to beresponsible to not just feel our
desire but choose the ones thatwe're going to follow.
Feel our desire, but choose theones that we're going to follow
(14:24):
, not just be like, oh, I can'tfeel my desire, but also feel
into how do I build morepossibility?
Do I need to be still?
Do I need connection?
Do I need to connect withmyself?
What is missing from me at thismoment in time, so that I can
really feel what's happening?
What's the humming sound that'shappening in my body and for
(14:45):
myself?
Where is this all threaded?
But for sure, if you're someonewho has been practicing desire,
chances are it's really easy foryou to pull up the desires.
What do I want now?
What do I want now?
What do I want now?
But when it goes, quietresources is a great place to go
.
How fast am I moving?
(15:05):
That's another great place togo.
Stillness is a great place togo.
And then there's.
What do I actually want?
What's really true for me inthis season of my life, with all
the competing desires?
Right, because life is alwayslifing, things are happening and
we get to choose where we wantto go Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
And sometimes, when life is lifing, things come our
way and we find ourselves indifficult circumstances, like if
you're experiencing grief, likeif you're experiencing grief in
(16:00):
some form or if you just had ababy or you had just a big life
event happen.
You might, your body, you mightjust be landing and going
through something that maybe youchose, or maybe life chose for
you, and it might be a time ofmore quiet and stillness, and
that's okay.
You know we don't recommendpanicking.
You know there's a time wherewe just need to be with what is,
and it might not be reallycomfortable, and I found that
(16:20):
the best way through thosedifficult moments in life is by
just having a lot of approvaland taking really good care of
myself during those times, andyour desire will come back, your
laughter will come back, yourlife force will come back if
you're in a really difficultpoint.
And this is where I think oneof the biggest pieces of desire
(16:44):
comes in, which is trust.
Trust, right, there are timeswhere it doesn't happen very
much anymore, but there aretimes where I'm not sure
specifically what the desire is,or definitely there's a lot of
times where.
I'm like, oh, I have this desireand I don't know how to have it
(17:06):
.
Well, now, that's somethingthat I experience a lot and I
could get into my head and starttrying to figure it out, but
that's not the way desire works.
I just need to trust.
We need to trust that what wewant is on its way to us and we
don't know how.
(17:26):
It's actually none of ourbusiness, and I recently had
this where I have.
Okay, I'm going to share one ofmy biggest desires, truly like
one of the really, really bigones, which is I have a desire
for my own home Again.
I've owned two homes and Ireally want to own a home again
(17:48):
and to live in my beautifulhouse.
So I don't know how that's kindof come to me, but I do need to
trust that it's on its way tome, okay.
So a friend pointed out to meand this was brilliant, thank
God for women and sisters that Idon't need to constantly be
(18:09):
saying this desire.
I don't need to be all day,every day, saying I desire my
home, I desire my home.
I was like a little bit graspy.
I could just let it go andtrust I'm actually doing the
work behind the scenes, to havethis desire because I really do
want it, and in doing so I makemyself available for it.
(18:29):
And we just have to trust,because we cannot wheel it into
place.
It just doesn't work that way.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
Thank you so much for that tender share.
But yes, I think that when wehear the whisper and we don't
know how to become the personthat gets to have it, that we
can get grippy and just want itnow.
And, yes, there is A desireteaching that what you want
(19:00):
wants you back and it's alreadyhere and it comes into sight
once you become the person thatcan have it, that somewhere, the
only thing in between you andthis other thing is the person
that you're becoming.
What you just shared had methink about when we do know what
(19:22):
desire feels like and there isa hierarchy and you know we're
potentially moving too fast.
We have to get resourced, wehave to get back to the basics.
Sometimes it's just uslistening and you just listen
what's next, what's next, what'snext and you're just really
(19:43):
just putting your attention onyourself.
I've had practices where coacheshave said to me and this was
hard, I did this, I can't it wasrecently where I would pause in
the middle of my day sometimein the afternoon and just stop
everything for two hours and donothing no scrolling, no
(20:06):
listening to external, like justnothing, so that I could
reconnect with myself, and thegoal was to be bored, to have
that level of connection withmyself.
I don't think I did thatexercise because I couldn't hear
my desire anymore.
I did the exercise because Iwas just going so fast that I
(20:30):
couldn't feel fast anymore.
And going really fast, justlike if you're in a fast car or
on a plane, you just can't see,you don't have the same sight.
Yeah, so this era, when you'rehere and you're a woman who can
feel her desire and you start tofeel like, oh, I don't know
(20:51):
what's next, there are all theseways for you to be with what's
next.
And if you do know what's next,remember that gripping is not
required, it's not part of theequation.
You get to just let go remindyourself it's something you want
and put your attention on thedesires that are more up front,
(21:15):
that have the hierarchy, thathave your attention, that are
the now.
If they're not in the forefront, you can put that down and just
trust that you're getting to it.
It's going to, it's going, it'sin the queue and it's coming up
.
It's in the queue and it's upnext.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
And you're not doing it wrong.
No, you're not doing it wrongor you're not doing life wrong.
If you've studied desire, ifyou've listened to all of our
episodes perhaps right or you'vebeen practicing this for a
while and you don't feel yourdesire, or you don't know how
you're going to have your desire, that's not a sign that you're
doing it wrong or that you'rebroken.
Please don't use it as that.
(21:52):
It's just a sign that you needto maybe slow down or pause, and
I love the practices thatyou're talking about, about you
know how to connect back to yourbody.
Desire isn't a constant flame.
It's not like constantly going.
You know it goes in and out.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
This has been so good to touch on and talk about.
Desire really is something tojust be with so that you can
learn more about yourself.
We learn so much aboutourselves through this practice.
Thank you so much for listening.
If something resonated, please,please, please, hit follow.
Write a review on ApplePodcasts.
Send us a screenshot.
(22:31):
We'd love to know what landedfor you.
Bye for now.
Thank you for joining us on theDes is medicine podcast desire
invites us to be honest, lovingand deeply intimate with
ourselves and others.
You can find our handles in theshow notes.
We'd love to hear from you.
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