Learning to discern the difference between an impulse and a desire is the key to unlocking the life of your dreams.
An impulse is driven by the mind. By ego and by fear.
A desire is an expression of your soul. The most divine and sacred part of who you are, ready to manifest in earthly form.
Sometimes they are the same thing. Sometimes they are WILDLY contrasting and competing entities.
What you choose to follow and how you get to where you’re going counts.
Because here’s the thing: following an impulse will lead you to a place of discomfort, whereas making space for desire will lead you to a place of ecstasy.
But how to discern between the two?
How to hear the subtle whisper of the soul over the blaring horn of the ego?
And then: how to surrender yourself enough to let desire flow through you and become an earthly experience?
Developing a relationship with the wisdom temple of your body will help you tap into the codes of your soul. It will also help you conjure the courage for the trust fall of surrender.
But it’s not always easy.
In fact, it’s downright disorienting at times.
Because in order to tap in, you have to first tap out of all the noise around you. All the fear, all the anger, all the shame, all the rhetoric and indoctrination and confusion and PAIN. And then DROP into your body. Let it hold you. Let it guide you. Let it speak to you. And that counterintuitive experience can make you feel like you’ve just had your mind erased.
Which is actually a good sign. Because that’s how your body speaks.
At first it will tell you about its’ pain and sorrow. Of all the times it was abandoned or abused or betrayed. And then it will tell you the story of your ancestors.
It will ask you to heal the pain and trauma and shame that lives inside you.
And then it will reveal to you your destiny.
And along the way, it will teach you to know the difference between an impulse and a desire. And you will learn to trust yourself and your desires and follow them as your path forward.
Imagine: a life designed by desire.
As a practice.
A devotion.
A destiny path.
But understanding what prevents us from choosing to follow desire is a necessary step forward in rewiring our impulse/desire response.
If we look at the root of DESIRE, we find PLEASURE. The org@smic thunder of the universe. That which makes life both possible and worth living.
Found in almost every single moment, infinite and infinitesimal.
The *glitch* in the matrix, however, is that most people struggle to feel pleasure, both physically and emotionally.
This is because shame and trauma block pleasure. And blocked pleasure means a disconnect from desire. And a disconnect from desire means a life spent searching for meaning and connection with the outside world and - most importantly (and often destructively) - with yourself.
I’m not going to tell you that it’s easy to unwind from trauma and shame. To connect with yourself and the world and experience pleasure after years of feeling unworthy or unsafe. It’s not.
But I will tell you that the effort you put in and rewarded exponentially in the life you live on the other side.
Stepping into a world that makes sense and feels good and flows with a sense of ease is the most empowering and liberating experience you can have after years (or a lifetime) of struggling to know yourself, your purpose and trying to understand why life has turned out the way it has.
You just have to let go of the shame and the patterns of trauma that have been holding you hostage.
Which will connect you to pleasure. Which will introduce you to your desires. Which will enable you to confidently choose the next best and most aligned step forward in creating a life you THRIVE in.
Join me on the other side…
There’s a deeper nuance to the impulse (ego)/desire (soul) conversation…that of realizing that the ego is part of the soul, and therefore impulse is a fundamental part of desire.
Your ego is what sets the stage for the lessons your soul incarnated to learn. The struggles you encounter in this lifetime aren’t arbitrary - they are a carefully composed symphony of experiences designed to bring you from an unconscious state into a conscious one.
So therefore, your ego is a desire of the soul. The ego exists to call in and receive the experiences that create the necessary friction to bring you from an unenlightened state into an enlightened one. But that friction isn’t meant for you to endlessly loop around with, but rather to feel, learn, process and release.
Once you learn a lesson you can’t unlearn it, so there’s no need to relearn it…and yet one of the most frustrating facets of the human experience is our almost hysterical compulsion around repetition.
Because also: one of the most comforting facets of the human condition is our hysterical compulsion around repetition.
Because repetition = rhythm and rhythm = flow. And flow, my friends, is bliss. Our rhythmic intelligence in motion is how we understand our soul.
So your work isn’t to cast out your impulses as a lesser version of yourself, but rather to welcome them in as part of the greatest version of yourself. To become acquainted with what is at the root of your impulses and to allow that to simply become information that informs - not directs - your journey.
Your work is to become the architect of your desire. To choose the pull of the soul over the compulsion of ego while still being in full awareness and acceptance of the ego. To surrender to the divine calling from within.
Living from a space of embodied wisdom, in deep communion with your rhythmic intelligence. That is enlightenment.
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