Desire and Uncertainty

[BurningBush]

I'm curious if anyone has dealt with being uncertain about a desire, how you dealt with it, and what happened as a result.

Thanks.

[Rawnrr]

Guess it would depend on what it is you are desiring, and why you are desiring it.

[kindheart]

I'm often worried that I'm wishing for the wrong things and that it will end up backfiring. Or that wishing for specific things will block the way for better things to happen. I try to deal with this by asking for "'this' or something that is better for me", or "'this' but only if it is for my highest good". It somehow doesn't always reassure me that what is truly for my highest good is what will come to realize. I know that "everything happens for a reason" and "bad" events are there to teach me lessons or to bring me back on my path, but it would be so much easier if what is truly right for me could happen without those "lessons" (or just bad choices on my end I guess) and without the sorrow that sometimes come with it....

[BurningBush]

Originally Posted by kindheart

I'm often worried that I'm wishing for the wrong things and that it will end up backfiring. Or that wishing for specific things will block the way for better things to happen. I try to deal with this by asking for "'this' or something that is better for me", or "'this' but only if it is for my highest good". It somehow doesn't always reassure me that what is truly for my highest good is what will come to realize. I know that "everything happens for a reason" and "bad" events are there to teach me lessons or to bring me back on my path, but it would be so much easier if what is truly right for me could happen without those "lessons" (or just bad choices on my end I guess) and without the sorrow that sometimes come with it....

I should have been more clear when I started the thread, but I was referring to uncertainty regarding whether you actually want the thing that you desire. Any wisdom to share?

[Mr Interesting]

I've been in a position, self imposed of course, for a while where I have so little money I've had to curb my desires and see them exactly for what they are... well not exactly but it has been educational about what desires really are.

As an Artist it's been that whole feast or famine thing so I've really had many years understanding my own needs to be desirous.

In a sense that feast part would have me going out and getting things I think would help and then going through famines wondering why I thought I needed such and such so the uncertainty wasn't really there before but would develop, if it did, afterwards and then I'd review in myself the building of desire to acquire in hindsight.

But I have, as this went on, seen the uncertainty before purchases and I would allow myself to play with that. One thing I used to do was see something I might want and go and find it and spend time around it just narrowing down what I wanted it for and appreciating what it was doing for me then I'd leave it there and go back in a few days, a week, then a month.

Often I'd realise I didn't even need it and there was an acquiring just for acquiring's sake or I'd still want it, realising it was part of a bigger question, but I'd go back and it would be gone.

I also wouldn't let the uncertainty develop into a thinking thing of pro's and con's but let it sink into a feeling thing, just be around something and feel what might come up and want review.

Eventually I was at a point where I wasn't ambitious any more, at least not on the surface, and I spent a lot of time with that kinda being with what kind of desires might arise and spending time letting them grow and prune themselves down to what might be called the root.

It has been difficult and it has been hard but theres a certain quiet space between the arising of desire and the acquiring, or the accepting of a path towards that, which I'm becoming quite settled in.

It's almost as if I'm left with a default desirous self... the one I started building as a child, a way I decided somehow to approach the world so in that respect the uncertainty has been worth the effort. Finding ways to look into that uncertainty that don't reinforce the default but give it room to move and be seen.

[kindheart]

Originally Posted by BurningBush

I should have been more clear when I started the thread, but I was referring to uncertainty regarding whether you actually want the thing that you desire. Any wisdom to share?

It's actually along the lines of what I was saying... fear of asking for certain things because I'm not sure I really want it, or not sure that it is for my highest good. After break ups, for instance.... many of us wish for them to come back in hopes that things would be different the next time around. At those times, the wishes are often from the ego... it can get quite confusing to know what you really want when the head and the heart go in 2 different directions. I've also felt uncertain at times I would apply for a job... part of me really wanted it, but was it really what I truly wanted? Happens to me often.

Perhaps in the uncertainty there is a story with feelings attached that wants you to listen deeper, which then might make the want more clearer to see what your really wanting..

[BurningBush]

Originally Posted by silent whisper

Perhaps in the uncertainty there is a story with feelings attached that wants you to listen deeper, which then might make the want more clearer to see what your really wanting..

I think that is sage advice.