I have been chewing on the latest issue of my friend’s Michael Neill’s ezine – okay, not literally chewing – because it may help you if you’ve read my last two books and because I’m having such a hard time with this so-called retreat I’m in the midst of.
A bit from Michael’s newsletter:
“In ‘You Can Have What You Want”,‘ {his very useful and powerful book} I identified three keys to
recognizing that you are living an inspired life:
1. You are doing what you love and want to do
2. You feel guided
3. Things seem to unfold as if by design
I then suggest that in order to get to this point, there are really only two things you need to do – consistently ask yourself “What would I love to do today?” and whenever possible,
do it.”
Which is the major theme of The Life Organizer, my hope is the weekly questions keep bringing you back to desire, true deep desire, and helping you see it and hear it and feel it.
But here is where I have gotten tied in a knot which is confusing desire with mood. My mood these days is low – I’m doing a ton of deep grieving – and that low mood convinces me I don’t want anything. That mood likes to say, “What the point of anything?” So this nine month retreat I’m in the midst of is is being eked away, without renewal happening, because I don’t feel like renewing! (And this lack of deep renewal is also because life and work goes on and I’ve been subscribing to the swaths of time theory, which is another retreat boondoggle i.e. don’t wait for them, those swaths of time are often deadly anyway). Then enter Michael’s brilliant distinction which is…
“…the difference between navigating by desire and navigating by
mood.
Navigating by desire means you base your decisions about what to do or not do on the question “Do I want to?”. If the answer is yes’, you do your best to move forward; if the answer is ‘no’, you do your best to stand pat.
Navigating by mood, on the other hand, is when you attempt to base your decisions on the answer to the question “Do I feel like it?”. If you don’t feel like doing something, you put it off until later; if you do feel like it, you move forward.
While at first these two ways of making decisions seem similar, they take people in two completely different directions. Since our moods are often tied up in old habits and patterns of
thinking, following them tends to just create more of the “same old, same old” in our lives. Somehow, we just don’t get around to making those changes we know we’d love to make, and things that seem like they’ll take too much effort are put off until the last minute or don’t get done at all.
Your wanting, however, is a living, breathing, fluid process. Each time you do what you want (or don’t do what you don’t want to do), your actions seem effortless and inspired ideas become
almost commonplace. Over time, it becomes easier and easier to read and follow your inner compass. Life gets a lot simpler, and the pursuit of success becomes a lot more fun.
Today’s experiment is a simple one:
This week, before deciding on any course of action, ask yourself “Do I want to?” Wherever possible, allow your answer to influence your decision and guide your choices.
Do this irrespective of whether or not you’re “in the mood” – if you do, you’ll notice that your mood begins to change “all by itself”. ”
Desire says, “Let’s write” or “Let’s paint” or “Let’s call a friend and then Mood says, “Why bother?” In that moment between the two impluses, there is choice!
What might happen for you today if you became very curious about the distinction between mood and desire and if you remembered that moods are always malleable, even when we are depressed or have PMS or are otherwise sunk in the mire.
“You are what your deep driving desire is. As your desire is, so is your will. As your will is, so is your deed. As your deed is, so is your destiny.” From The Upanishads
14 responses so far ↓
1 Paula Nov 24, 2007
Excellent post, Jen! Yes there is a BIG difference between “what I want to do” and “what I feel like doing.” Fears, doubts emerge so easily with the latter. When you ask what you feel like, it’s like asking if everything is perfect before actually doing something. It’s letting your weakest, whiniest part take the lead. When you ask yourself what you want to do, I think your highest self takes the lead. And it’s lovely and even more motivating to allow yourself to do the very thing that you do want to do.
That said, there ARE times when grieving in hibernation is what a person needs regardless of any desires or necessities.
You know me, I’m a strong believer in action–that’s how my idea for a travel business has become a reality (just got back from my first tour with customers).
2 Anonymous Nov 24, 2007
This could not have come at a better time for me than right this very minute. It is what I need to hear and what I have to ponder to get me through the next 14 months.
My husband just left last night for Iraq, it was so difficult to let him go, impossible to describe how emotional it was for both of us.
I keep trying to tell myself that a gift of a year alone should be seen as a blessing, especially now that I have escaped the stress of the flowershop. Under any other circumstances I would be giddy with joy at the prospect of a year off, all to myself. Yet now any goals or thoughts or ideas I would have for spending this time alone seem trivial. It’s amazing how forced isolation seems so diffrent than when you choose it for yourself.
As I sit here unable to fall asleep, your words have given me insight. There is going to be alot of “I don’t feel like it” for me, yet I don’t have to let the mood become how I spend my days.
If I ask myself “do I want to hibernate for awhile” the answer is yes. 100% yes! In this moment of loneliness it’s almost impossible to untangle it from the mood. The mood wnats it, I want it too.
I know from past experience that sometimes when I hit the bottom of moodiness, retreating from the world, whether it’s hiding or just going within myself is something that becomes like a caterpillar going into it’s cocoon. I burrow in deep, I sleep, I do absolutely nothing that I do not want to do, and plenty of whatever I do want to do. It’s almost like I let instinct drive me and guide me.
It’s different than depression I think, where you just get under the blankets and don’t come out. That’s what I ‘feel’ like doing. That’s the mood, and boy is it ever a mood!
What I ‘want’ to do is a simplifying and distilling of life down to the absolute essentials only, sleep, cook good food for myself, create a comfortable sanctuary in our home for myself, read, read and read some more, be in my garden and just SIT there staring at the clouds, walk the dog, watch the waves on the beach. I don’t want to be around other people. The simplest things, with no agenda or outside expectations attached, these are what I want to do, just the thought of which brings me peace right now.
3 BlueHealingHand Nov 25, 2007
I am sure I am echoing many others when I say, “Thank you, Jen. That’s exactly what I needed to hear right now.” I, literally, moments before reading your post, finished reading Twyla Tharp’s “The Creative Habit.” Now you have me thinking about the relationships between creativity, habit, mood, and desire. I, too, have been grieving and struggling with the “I don’t feel like it” mood. By illuminating the mood vs. desire distinction, you just turned on a big floodlight for me. Thank you. Thank you so much for your willingness to struggle right along with me (uh, I mean us), so that we can together grow and change. You’re right where you need to be, doing just what you need to do. Trust it. And that goes double for all the rest of us!
4 cindy Nov 25, 2007
Jenn- excellent post. this distinction has given me something to ponder. and to diedre(i think) im glad you are getting a year off from the flower shop. you deserve it! hugs all around cindy
5 Jennifer Louden Nov 25, 2007
Powerful reflections – as always I am in awe on your minds — thanks too for helping me feel less alone in this struggle.
I’m out in the “studio” right now, watching the mood that says, “Quit” and then listening for the desire that says, “Create.” It’s a desire I haven’t felt for seven weeks so it’s faint.
Another thought: when we have been privileging mood over desire, desire feels weak and mood feels strong, desire feels flabby and mood feels muscular, desire feels made up and mood feels real.
And congrats on leaving the flower store and I’m so sorry for the extreme unknown of your sweetheart being gone to Iraq. May all the powers keep him safe.
6 Irene Nov 26, 2007
Enlightening. And it builds so well with your “shadow comforts” notion. Mood is a “shadow desire” oveshadowing and eventually leading us away from what we trully long to do. Thank you.
7 Helga Nov 26, 2007
Great post, Jen, and point well taken (all too well, I’m afraid).
But I gotta put in a little plug for the “mood” here. If mood CONSISTENTLY takes you to avoidance, denial, and other unhealthy places, as alluded to in the post, then, by all means look for your “desire”. If, on the other hand, mood means following immediate inspiration, idea sparklers, instinct, spontaneous joy, it’d be a loss not to go with it. “Positive mood” directly connects with desire and is a spontaneous expression of it.
8 Mark Silver Nov 27, 2007
Excellent point. The ego is a very tricky thing, which is the level of emotion, and following the ego/emotion/mood as you write about, is always going to lead you astray eventually.
I’ve been led astray too many times now to doubt that.
9 Jennifer Louden Nov 27, 2007
Helga – what an fascinating distinction! So work with mood when it jives with desire but otherwise, resist? Or do you mean more?
And Mark, is ego in charge of mood? We’re always in a mood and we’re always in an ego – what’s the link?
Thoughts anyone?
10 ann Nov 28, 2007
A few questions arise for me, Jennifer, in reading your post on desire and mood.
How do you know you are not renewing, just because your mood is “low”. (Might you be renewing your “low” mood?)
How do you know, at the beginning of this process, what it takes for YOU to renew and how renewal looks, for YOU?
What if you are renewing even those parts you haven’t imagined you want to, need to, renew?
What might be renewing for you should you release (burn away) your assessments of what is the “right” process of renewal?
11 ann Nov 28, 2007
A few questions arise for me, Jennifer, in reading your post on desire and mood.
How do you know you are not renewing, just because your mood is “low”. (Might you be renewing your “low” mood?)
How do you know, at the beginning of this process, what it takes for YOU to renew and how renewal looks, for YOU?
What if you are renewing even those parts you haven’t imagined you want to, need to, renew?
What might be renewing for you should you release (burn away) your assessments of what is the “right” process of renewal?
12 Helga Nov 30, 2007
Aha! I thought I was in murky territory here, and sure enough … So now we’re also looking at Ego as a fundamentally bad thing? Basically, Ego does/wants (not in this discussion’s sense) whatever serves it. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, evolutionarily that’s a survival necessity. Mood – is that equated with Emotion, Mark? – may indeed serve the Ego in ways that can ultimately be “not good” for us.
Getting away from murky terminology – mine included -, I think the whole issue is not only a lot more straightforward than it seems, but also has been addressed by Jen for years. It all comes back to listening and choice. Irene spoke to this by coining “shadow desire” as derived from shadow comforts, and Ann by raising the question of how/when do we know that we’re not “secretly” renewing. We KNOW what’s good for us (i.e., mood that jives, and mood that doesn’t) and are free – watch out, Ego! – to choose it, or not. Sometimes things that aren’t good for us in the long run, are necessary to get us over a difficult hump until we can choose the good stuff again. The important thing to remember is to listen, be present, and not beat yourself up. It is what it is.
13 Diana Dec 7, 2007
How can you renew when you are full? You’re full of all the stuff that needs to be dealt with in your life. I call it the garbage and garbage needs to go. You can stuff any more trash in the bin when it is at the top.
Miriam Webster defines garbage as discarded or useless material; inaccurate or useless data 2 a: trash. What inaccurate or useless data are you holding on to that needs to go? What inaccurate thoughts, feelings, and emotions are building in you? If feelings are unacknowledged they build and build and become trash just like the garbage that goes to the curb each week.
We all have garbage in our lives we hang on to because it is comfortable, is “how it’s always been” or for any number of other reasons. It does not mean that the garbage is good for us mentally and physically. In order to dump the garbage, we must first acknowledge its presence, come to terms with what ever the issue, feeling, or emotion we are holding on to is, and then consciously rid it from our minds. We must consciously remove the garbage because that is the last step to ridding our house (self) of trash. Sometimes the garbage tries to sneak back in to our thoughts. When that happens we haven’t thoroughly come to terms with the issues and must revisit them again, work through the issues and dump them in the trash again. Only by coming to terms with the issues can we learn self-love which leads to self-acceptance. When we love all the past parts of ourselves that we can not change, then comes acceptance of ourselves, and that’s when we dump the garbage for good. Self-acceptance will not have room for trash because self-acceptance is self-love. Love has no room for garbage.
I do not say this process is easy – only essential for our self-worth and growth.
14 When Mood and Desire Are More Alike Than Not « How THW Gets In Gear Feb 9, 2009
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