I’m creating a one-day Virtual Retreat on Saturday, both a way for you to dip into and “re-use” or experience for the first time the material from the big Virtual Retreat in January and simply as a way to create a day for yourself.
So in preparation, I took a retreat yesterday.
A retreat based on one of my favorite questions, “What would I love to do next?”
Not “What am in the mood to do?” which would be nothing because I was exhausted – it’s been a long six months of Jenny being a very busy bee and The Squirrel of Ridiculously High Standards was in fine form. One of the reasons retreats can feel unsatisfying is when we listen to our mood rather than our desires. I’ll talk about that in the first session on Saturday.
What I rediscover every time I lead a retreat and every time I create my own retreats is the life opening power of the questions,
“What would do I want?”
and
“What does my heart desire right now?”
and
“What would I love to do next?”
Each one has a slightly different resonance and flavor. Experiment to see which one feels good to you for this weekend.
Fear of Wanting What You Want
Of course, it can be rather scary to ask ourselves, “What does my heart desire right now?” As Geneen Roth said in the mini-retreat she lead in January, we are afraid to want what we want. Here’s a tad bit from the transcript (all the sessions have transcripts included).
Geneen: Yesterday I was working beginning at 5:30 in the morning on a couple of different writing projects and at some point, I realized I had had enough; there was much more I needed to do that day but I needed a break. I came in the house, I wasn’t hungry but I went inside the room where my husband has the TV in and I put on ‘All My Children’. I sat in a darkened room in the middle of the day watching that and it felt like the perfect thing to do.
There was no goal to achieve; there were a lot more ‘spiritual’ ways to rest, but I did it anyway because I just felt like it was the perfect thing to do. And when it stopped, I felt like I could go back to work.
There’s a way too if you listen really carefully to your own impulses, to being quiet and listening, checking into your body—am I hungry right now? No, I’m not hungry. I just ate an hour ago or whatever. And then, if it’s not food, what is it really? Not what’s your mind telling you? I call it the spiritual super ego telling you what a good person would do right now… What is it you really want to do?
Jen: That reminds me of one of the central themes of my last book, which is asking the simple question: What do I want? What obstacles do you see coming up for women when they ask that question? I know for my clients it’s not always an easy question.
Geneen: People are afraid of what they want. They’re afraid to look and see what they really, really want because they’re afraid that those wants are not cohesive with or congruent with this ideal that they have of themselves, the ‘me project’. I think that’s one thing—that we’re afraid, for instance, we might want to watch ‘All My Children’ in the middle of the day instead of meditate, so we’re in some disagreement with what we might want or we’re afraid that if we give ourselves a little of what we want, we’ll want more and more of it.
Part of what I do really well is make it safe for you to ask that question. And listen with tender respect for the answer – or the next question.
Join me in asking and in doing so, rediscover your joy for living. No shit, that’s really what happens. It can be that simple and that profound.
6 responses so far ↓
1 Joely Black Apr 24, 2009
Oh wow, yes.
I feel constantly that I should be doing something else, or that whatever it is that I *am* doing is wrong. And that applies to everything, no matter how small and trivial.
I’ve deliberately not investigated breathing classes because the last thing I want is to be sitting there angry at myself for not breathing right!
And yet it’s so hard to just stop. I feel guilty for it. Even taking just a couple of days to relax. I feel like I *should* be wound up and stressed and unhappy, even if the work I’m doing is something I love.
It’s amazing how this can get so deep you don’t see it. It’s all part of the desire to make yourself into who you think you ought to be – the message being that whoever you really are just isn’t good enough.
Thank you for a fantastic blog post.
J xx
Joely Black’s last blog post..The pull of a decision and what happened afterwards
2 Jennifer Apr 24, 2009
I agree Joely, it is part of our desire to change ourselves and the way out is accepting who we are moment by moment… and boy is that challenging and very subtle stuff.
It’s comfort in it’s deepest form, isn’t it?
3 Tara Apr 24, 2009
I love that question. It reminds me of Martha Beck’s “The Joy Diet.”
It amazes me how the heart’s true desires can change so quickly. Yesterday I would have said that what I wanted to do next was to buy the house across the street that just went up for sale.
Today I would say that the next thing I want to do is work on my novel with a professional editor.
I blame hormones.
4 Jennifer Apr 24, 2009
I blame everything on hormones. Especially religious wars, the weather, and my butt.
5 Jodie (journey girl) Apr 25, 2009
i ask myself those two questions DAILY, and constantly fight the fears. I’ve gotten much better in the last year or two, but it’s still a conscious battle and it takes a lot of work to not only stay aware, but to HONOR that truth. Instead of just putting some junk into my mouth or venting to someone or distracting myself online, I really do need to find out what’s behind that…what am I really lacking? And why do I feel that I don’t deserve it? Or what is so bad that will happen if/when I do it/go after it/admit it/voice it?
I’m actually blogging about this myself right now. It seems that just when I think I’ve conquered it, another example pops up…and I think “damn it! I thought I had that!” And then the self-doubt spiral begins…but often, if I let it, that can lead me into a very creative and honest place…and, eventually, I figure out what I want. Going after it, then, becomes the next challenge.
I’m very interested in hearing how others deal with this, as I not only struggle, but am also striving to become a life coach and want to be able to help others deal with it effectively, too.
6 Jennifer Apr 25, 2009
Jodie, hi darling one! It is a continual process, acknowledging and sometimes stopping to “talk” to the fears, voices, etc. about what they need. With practice, the hard wiring of worry and monkey mind in our brains changes and the intensity shifts but the voices are always there. We get to always choose how we react to them and interact with them but even the saints and sagas have them. Listen to Pema Chodron talk about hers. I used to find this depressing but now i find it comforting.