A Diet for Your Soul – Desire

The third menu item on this “diet” is Desire.

Not the “I’d sure like chocolate AND vanilla” kind of desire.  Instead, it’s your heart’s desire.  The desire that shows up when life takes you by the hand and leads you toward your destiny.

“Sounds easy enough, doesn’t it? Birds do it, bees do it, even educated fleas do it… Any sentient being knows when it wants to eat, mate, run, sleep, or fight – any sentient being, that is, except most members of the human race. We are the only beasts in creation who systematically eradicate the knowledge of our own desire.”                – Martha Beck, The Joy Diet

So get comfortable in your moment of doing Nothing (menu item #1) and open yourself up to being truthful (menu item #2).  Then search around for a pebble of desire.  Once you find one, sit with it and visualize what it would be like to meet it.  Try and feel if it’s on the path to your destiny.

To illustrate, let’s explore the number one spoken desire of my clients: 

“I want to lose weight.”

In a state of complete compassion and truth, and without judgment, visualize yourself and your life at your ideal weight.  What is it about being lighter that you would enjoy?  Would your doctor be pleased?  Are you finally happy in your own skin?  If the time consuming obsession over food and your body ended, how would you spend that time differently?

While inquisitively sitting in your vision, you might begin to see pieces of your true destiny.  You might also see some pieces that are less authentic, possibly false, but part of the story. 

The below chart is from The Joy Diet (modified slightly for this example).  Continue to hold the “I want to lose weight” desire in your mind and see which column best describes your vision now and down the road.

False Desires     True Desires    Feeling:    Anxious    Grasping    Withholding / Deprivation    Joyful    Releasing / Relaxed    Generous    Logical Basis:    One’s success means another’s         failure.    Good things are scarce.    Life is about competition.    Everyone can succeed.       Good things are abundant.    Life is about cooperation.    Goal:    To impress others.    To eliminate risk.    To control self & others.    To express the self.    To eliminate regret.    To free self & others.    Means:    Deception    Secrecy / Deprivation    Demand for conformity.    Honesty    Openness    Invitation to be unique.    After-Effects:    Sense of hollowness.    Narrowing obsession.    Increasing despair.    Sense of fulfillment.    Expanding interests.    Increasing inner peace.

 

There is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to lose weight to impress friends that you haven’t seen in twenty years at a class reunion.  The point is… if that’s the ONLY reason why losing weight is on your wish list, it will result in deprivation dieting, obsessing over food, inevitable overindulgence and the despair that whole downward spiral seems to bring.  

The spoken desire of “I want to lose weight” acted out as if it’s the only answer to your happiness almost always ends up with false desire after-effects. 

Here’s the good news:
There’s a bit of magic when it comes to following your true desire and losing weight.

Action upon your TRUE heart’s desires comes coupled with a desire to relax into your own body’s rhythm and to treat yourself with ultimate self care and love.  This will lead to a sense of fulfillment in your life.   It eliminates the need get full-fillment from food. 

That’s the place we call “thinner peace.”

What true desire will bring you to this place?
Next week we’ll get creative (menu item #4) about getting there.