71. What Do You Really Want? How to Find Your Way Back to Yourself

Dr. Vanessa Calderón: In today's conversation, I'm joined by my dear friend Dr. Chrissy Ott. And we spent time today exploring one of the most misunderstood forces in our lives, and that's the concept of desire. We went deep and it got really, really juicy. And you will listen and hear why desire itself isn't selfish or indulgent. In fact, it's a compass pointing you towards your most authentic life, a life of integrity. Welcome to The Authentic Path. I'm your host, Dr. Vanessa Calderon, Harvard-trained physician and healer. I integrate science and ancestral wisdom to support you in creating the success you desire in all areas of your life. I'm so glad you're here. Let's get started. I want to tell you a little bit about today's episode before we jump right in because it's a little different, it's a little unusual. A while back I sat down with a very dear friend of mine, Dr. Chrissy Ott, And a few weeks ago she invited me to be on her podcast, and we got into a conversation that was so juicy and was so good that I thought, hold on a second, my audience needs to hear this too. The conversation we talked about was a conversation on desire. And the reason why I'm bringing it to you is because we don't talk about this at a surface level or really in the abstract. we dive into the complexity behind desire, all the different types of desires. What desires are okay for us to follow? Which ones should we question? And I thought that was important because I did an episode a couple of weeks ago with Dr. Sadie Rodriguez, and we talked about desire there too. And I had recently re-listened to that episode and I realized it was so good, but we approach the concept of desire a little bit more kind of high-level abstract, maybe even a little spiritual. And I think that that's beautiful. And this episode is kind of filling in the gaps of what that left off. Because in this episode we're talking about where desire actually comes from, where it's being driven from inside of us, what what is calling for us to desire certain things and why desire really matters. What I want you to deeply understand, and you'll see as we're going through this, is that desire can be sort of a compass for you that can walk you home to a life of deep integrity, where you are in alignment with who you are here to be, where you are living a life that feels full and joyful instead of just kind of going through the motions and enduring and doing all the things you think you're supposed to do. So sweet friends, let's jump right in. I hope you enjoy this episode.

speaker-0: I want to know, Vanessa, what kinds of things are circling in your mind these days about desire and especially if you see a relationship between desire and joy?

speaker-1: I one hundred percent agree with you that joy and desire require or have to be or are just by nature intertwined. I think there's this sense of being in integrity. You know, whether you've realized this or not, not you dear friend, but like listener, whether you've realized this or not, being in integrity is incredibly important. Living a life in alignment with who you are, who you are meant to be, who you continue to evolve into. The choices you make, are you choosing them based on your values? All of that is incredibly beautiful. And desire is a huge part of that because where are we making choices from? And if we are making our choices from what I think probably ninety percent of the human population is making choices from, which is programming and social conditioning, that sometimes takes us out of alignment with who we are. Sometimes that creates a chasm because we are not making choices in integrity. And when you zoom back in and say, hold on a second, what is it that I desire? Can I make a choice in alignment with what I desire? And when you do that, you realize you're making a choice in alignment with who you are. And that's choosing integrity. And I and the more and more you follow your desire and you allow yourself, you give yourself permission to follow your desire. The more you come home to who you are, because I think you're you walk a path of integrity just by nature of following your desire. And I already know all of the red flags that show up when we have this conversation, right? It's like, isn't that irresponsible? Isn't that selfish? What about everybody who relies on us? If I was always just choosing what I did, wouldn't I be living living a hedonistic life? Wouldn't I just be all, you know, like just all day sitting by a pool and and I you know, maybe some people's purpose on this planet, some per like I believe a soul comes and incarnates into human form to evolve and have its soul's experience. And some maybe there's people's purpose to sit by a pool all day. I don't know. And and I think that if you are listening to this podcast, my sense is that you're probably driven by something else, something different. you're likely mission driven because Chrissy is incredibly mission driven. So my sense is that's who you pull towards you. And so if you were to just trust yourself enough to trust your desires and just start to notice where they're taking you and give yourself so much permission to just like go slow and see what happens and really know like where is the story of like irresponsibility coming from? Because my sense is if you're listening to this, you're probably pretty responsible person. A lot of people probably rely on you. You know? So it's just I think those two things. One can't live without the other. You can't have f because you tell yourself you're happy, but usually if you have not followed your desires, at the end of your life you look back and there's resentment. There's sadness, there's guilt, there's something missing, or you have convinced yourself that this was the life you were supposed to live and you didn't let yourself fully live the life you wanted to live.

speaker-0: Yeah. You named our uneasy relationship to desire, which I think is one of the most important things to realize so we can bring it into the light of awareness and then interact with it from awareness, as opposed to casting it as a signal that we are selfish or that we are driven by base desires. I also heard you really speaking to desire at the higher octave. Right. We have our carnal desires or our materialistic, hedonistic desires. But even those I think can be interpreted like you can do the same action with different energy. Let's say there's a really sexy car that somebody desires. You can desire it, you can crave it with that illusion that it's going to bring you happiness, that it's going to actually change your inner state forever. But it's not. But if you'd want to experience that, you know, driving this car, owning this car, because you understand that that is a celebration of life-affirming choices, that it's because there is abundance and celebration in the universe. And you understand that life is still going to flow with the goods and the not so goods, with the I prefer this, I don't prefer that. It's not the car that's wrong, right? It's like how are we interacting with that desire?

speaker-1: Yeah, that's I'm so happy that you brought in the complexity because I think it's really important to talk about the complexity of desire because the the come from is incredibly important. Where is this desire coming from? And if the desi and so this is for everyone, where is your desire coming from? It's so important to ask yourself, why is it that I desire that? Because I mean, so we are we're we're in a human body. Which means we have both social programming, but we also have biological programming. You know? And so that biological programming means that I might desire somebody that looks physically attractive. And in this lifetime, I've chosen to live in a heterosexual relationship in marriage. And we've chosen to be in in a monogamous relationship and intentional choices, you know. I've and so so I have the desire. And where is that desire coming from? Biological programming. That's okay. I'm a human with biological programming. And I get to check those desires with my integrity. With my integrity and the choices I'm making in this life, is that something that I want to act upon? Because we, our soul self, our essence, is incredibly powerful. But that is what gets to choose, not just the programming underneath, both social and biological programming. And so Checking the come from is so important. I love the example you used about the car because I think that's exactly right. Like checking your come from is your come from because you're trying to prove yourself. Is your come from because you're trying to buy yourself a feeling that you're looking for? Or is your come from a life affirming decision? And whatever your come from is, get clear on that and make sure you like it. Because here's the thing, your come from can be whatever. Like maybe you're come from is like I'm just gonna listen to my biological programming, like I'm a human, I'm just great, do that. And then just notice how it makes you feel afterwards. Cause if you continue to do that over and over again, how does that make you feel? And if you notice how that makes you feel and you like it, but but maybe you won't. And I think that I think that that's really important. And I'm so happy that we're talking about the complexity here because it's all fun and good to say follow your desires, you know? Hey, follow your desires. But what is that what does that really mean? How does that play out?

speaker-0: Yeah, it's not just yellow.

speaker-1: Yeah.

speaker-0: the the call to, you know, aware of desire, following desire and then checking with integrity is so so crucial because you can have a high integrity non monogamous relationship or you can have a zero integrity non monogamous experience, right? Same action

speaker-1: You can have a zero integrity biochemist relationship.

speaker-0: Right. That's right. All of the options are available. The example with the car came to mind so easily because there is a time in I want to say it was like two thousand nine, two thousand ten. Sue and I had been trying to get pregnant for quite some time. It had already been like three or four years of unsuccessful fertility adventures. And I felt like nothing was going right. And there was an opportunity, there was a desire for a car. We were not driving cars that felt very supportive or easeful. It just felt like another thing that was hard was our relationship to our vehicle. And you know, symbology aside, I just wanted to experience this car. I wanted an external signal that I could have ease, that I could include luxury in my human experience at this time. It felt life affirming to me. And I was willing to face the fact that it was a a superficial choice on on one level, but I knew that I was it was actually calling me to experience this, right? This I don't know how people will experience this story, but I it just trust me, this is what it was like for me. And it was a it was an Audi Q five, Q three back back in the day, whatever. It was, you know, an the nicest car I could have ever thought I would own. And it was, yeah, it felt like an attainment. I was harshly judged by one close friend, harshly judged for making this choice. Like I actually had conversations where I had to defend this choice to this friend. And that's their social programming and it's their story about it. In one way, he did me a favor by requiring me to understand deeply. my choice to do this action, to attain this car. It did not alleviate, you know, what was going on in my fertility world, which was a longing, a yearning, a different level of desire that I could not immediately control. But no regrets.

speaker-1: It's so fascinating because when so if you look back at that time of your life, thirteen years ago almost, fourteen years ago, if you look back at that time of your life, at your level of consciousness at that time of your life, the fact that you knew all of these things and you questioned all of these things and you still made a decision, you were making a conscious decision. And I think that that's so important. The other thing that I think really matters with what you said is you used the word super. I have not sat with and entangled that word, but but one thing that I've been sitting a lot with is the separation of conscious living and material living or like spiritual living and what's on this three-dimensional plane. And I just want to name that because I I believe or have come to understand that just by societal programming, we've been told the story that those two things need to be separate, that there's a chasm between the spiritual and the material. And just like there's duality in everything that we experience, there's duality in the spiritual and the material. And they're two sides of the same coin. There's a tension there. And the beauty or the invitation is not just to sit on one side or the other side of that, but it's to walk that in balance. And so the fact that you were conscious when you were making that decision and chose something like that. You were w walking that imbalance. At least that's my interpretation of what you said based on based on this is the first time I'm hearing the story. For the listeners out there, Chrissy is a dear friend of mine. I know her very well. And so but this is the first time I'm hearing the story.

speaker-0: We haven't talked about cars a lot.

speaker-1: but I I will just say, I guess I just wanna name that because if your desire is to go out and buy, I don't know, a Birkin bag. I actually don't know a lot about bags because that's not something I value, but

speaker-0: Yeah.

speaker-1: that's your thing, yeah. Like I there's no judgment here, but like but I understand that those are expensive bags. And so if that is what your desire is, go a little bit deeper. What why? Like what is that bag gonna give you? And if it's gonna give you like a life affirming choice like what Chrissy named, great. Go for it, you know. I don't spend my money on a lot of things, but I do love s experiences. I do love to travel. That's you know, so like so it's float whatever floats your boat, that's coming from a place of integrity. And it's not about because here's the other thing that I sense your listeners, if you're listening to this podcast, you probably are also consciously aligned. You want to live a life of consciousness. And sometimes that's that means you get deeper and deeper connected to some sort of higher self. like a universal consciousness. And I just I just want to name that. That does not mean that we are now separate from the three-dimensional experience, walking this planet and having material things. Like that's part of the three-dimensional experience. Or else we wouldn't need clothes.

speaker-0: Yes, it's that's the path of the ascetics that actually reject all desire. And honestly, that's not realistic. It's not it's not a an ideal to pursue because we are in this three-dimensional world. Most of our listeners are in the United States of America, for better and for worse, right? We are here, we are in this economy, we are in late stage capitalism. All these things are true, and it is skillful to care for yourself in whatever circumstances you find yourself. Right? If you found yourself on the ocean, it would be skillful to have something to float on, right? So all of these things are true at the same time. I have sometimes suggested an exercise around desire, especially for clients who have practiced renouncing their own. personal desires for a really long time. I have this idea that if we renounce all of our desires at some point we feel numbness, we feel disconnected from our own selves, that having a a sense of desire, even if it's just desire for awakening, you know, I'm not talking about desire for a Birkenbag or, you know, the next Instagram product that snags your attention, right? Like your heart's desire. What do you deeply desire for yourself? And just journaling with like starting at the top of the page, what I deeply desire is. And this like free associate.

speaker-1: That's so beautiful because what I have come to experience after doing the work that you and I have been doing for so many years and supporting others, coming sort of coming home to themselves is what I call it. What I've come to understand is we as tiny little kids, we have interest and we're curious and we do all of these things. And then of course, society and programming and all of these things. And this is specifically I would I would I think our generation, but I don't think younger generations are immune to this. And then we start getting told what it is we should focus on, what it is we should do. And then to put on top of that, just to layer on top of that the duality of gender. And, you know, depending on it it I don't think either gender is immune to this, but every gender is told who you're supposed to be and how you're supposed to act and what you're supposed to do. And and then you keep living your life like that. And then you have more and more responsibility, aging parents, who you're supposed to be when when your parents age. You have young children, who you're supposed to be when you have kids. You have responsibilities and careers. So you are just told by all of these things around you who you are supposed to be, what you are supposed to like, how how you're supposed to act. And then what do we do? We sort of contort ourselves to meet those needs because we want to be a good person. We want to be good. We want to be quote unquote moral. We we we wanna be in service, right? To the people around us that that require our our services, our family, our friends. And we're we're doing that all under the guise of like. This is what a good person is supposed to do. And along those lines, what we lose touch with is like who we are deep inside. Who what is it that I actually desire? What is it I like? And I'll tell you when I started my own journey home to myself, gosh, what a blessing. Thank you, thank you, thank you for having me walk so far away from myself that I needed to come home. But when I started my own journey home to myself, one of the first questions I remember asking the very first coach I ever had, I said, wait a second. How do even know what it is that I like? I don't even know what music I'm supposed to like. And gosh, even saying that out loud, I'm just like, it's so tender for me to say that out loud because to have gotten to a point where I didn't even know like what what what kind of food? What's my favorite food? What's my favorite music? Like, what do I want to wear? Like I like to have gotten to a point where like all of that like had been like whatever the kids me, whatever my husband, whatever, whatever, you know, like I can do. Whatever, I'm so easygoing to have gotten to a point where I was so far away from knowing myself. And what that opened up for me is kind of what you named, that beautiful exercise of like, well, what is it that you desire? And I started a this deep, intimate relationship with myself. Hey, who are you? What do you like? Do you fli do you want? And I remember even having this this is such a silly story, but I I I know sometimes This the stories that we think are the silliest are the most resonant sometimes because they're so like they really touch people. You know, like I remember when I was going through this journey, I had gone to like a dick's boarding good to return something for my kids, soccer shoes or something. And there was a really cute beanie. And I saw the beanie, and this is the version of Vanessa that I was trying to figure out. Like, who is she? What is she like? What does she spend money on? I grew up with so much financial trauma, you know, and so much. Like lived like real lived scarcity, like true scarcity that I inherited. And and this is not a mindset thing, right? It's not like a thing differently. Like this is real lived experience that lived in my my body. And so I remember seeing this beanie and being like and I tried it on. I was like, I think this is cute. I think I like it. I'm not sure. It was like twenty bucks or something. And I go and I'm like so hesitant, so much of mind drama around buying the beanie. And I buy the be and I buy the beanie and bring it home. And I'm like, my God, I can't believe I just put $20 on it. This is crazy. Did I really just spend $20 on this? Do I even like it? I don't even think I like it. And there was so much like I'm just hadn't just so much compassion for that version of me that like there was so much I had to learn because I was learning like, is that how I want to spend my money? Do I even like those things? Like, am I somebody and the truth was like the beanie was cute, but I don't really value spending money on just stuff. Like I was just not a stuffed person. But I was had to figure it out and I had to go through all of that to learn. And I'm so, so grateful that I had the time and the luxury and the space and the permission to do it because I think about my grandma. Gosh, I love her so much. And if I there were a lot of people in my life that showed me unconditional love. And she was incredible. She loved me so much. But I remember when I she lived in LA near me when I went to med school. So I saw her a lot when I was in medical school. And I would go over her house a lot and I would say, Hey, let's go do whatever. I want to take you to get your nails done. I want to take you and she's like, No, okay. If you want, you know, I'm like, Well, what do you want? She's like, well, well, whatever. And I reflected back as I was going through my own journey of coming home to myself, how like when you give so much your whole entire life, you lose who you are, which is why desire is so important.

speaker-0: Thank you for sharing that story about the beanie. I think what I hear in that and I I think is so true is that desire is one of the ways we get to know ourselves. And it's not a signal that we give in to everyone, but you were trying on the version of you that would wear that beanie. Like, is this is this how I feel? Is this how I wanna look? Is this does this feel like me? You know, and we do that. We do it over and over again, especially if we've sort of renounced ourselves in The name of serving our roles over time. Another layer of exploring desire, and I think that you will have such insight about this, is the power of actively desiring that which we already have and what follows from there. Practicing desire for what we already have.

speaker-1: That is the most powerful thing anyone can ever do. If you think about the, if you think about different frequencies of emotions. So, okay, what what is what is an emotion on a like biological molecular level? An emotion on a molecular level are two action potentials communicating with each other, right? So it's like an energy current moving from cell to cell, moving through your nervous system essentially to your body. So it's a current of energy. So So we've been able to measure those currents of energy and we know how the frequency of specific currents of energy. And so we know that the frequency of gratitude, and by the way, the frequency of joy are two of the highest frequencies that resonate. So when people say high vibrational frequency or high vibe, you know, like on Instagram, when you see things being like that's high vibe, low vibe, like literally high vibe means you feel good, you know, or you don't feel good. So emotions that feel good in our bodies are high vibe emotions. Emotions that don't feel good, guilt, shame, are lower vibrational emotions. We've measured them. Okay, so gratitude is an incredibly high vibe emotion. And desiring what you have is the active practice of gratitude. my gosh, Chrissy. I was as I was coming to this podcast, I was making myself tea and I walked into my kitchen and I was like, I am so grateful that I always have everything that I need. There's I have clean water. This delicious tea bag. And then I looked over at where my espresso machine is and I have a charging station. I was like, look, it's here. If I we ever need to charge anything. And I'm just like looking around and I'm so grateful. And I didn't realize how active we all get to practice that because I think inherent in who I am was the sense of gratitude. And I I probably genetic and probably in, you know, all of it. But my mother was like that. And so I I just always s feel that sense of gratitude. But what that does is it opens us up to the sense of abundance because abundance is the other side of gratitude. The more you can be grateful for what you have, the more you receive, the more you're open to receiving. And it's, you know, the difference is like I should be grateful. Like, I shouldn't complain. I should be grateful that I'm fine. That's different. That's gaslighting. That's a that's really judgment and shame. Shame for what you're feeling. That's not gratitude. The opposite is like, wow, I'm so grateful that I just reconnected with one of my high school besties. I'm so grateful that we just reconnected, that we get to be in each other's lives. Not sure why divine brought us back together, but here we are. You know, and so desiring what you have. So an exercise, I don't you probably do this. I and maybe you don't, but here's something that I practice. A lot, especially when I would go through dark nights of the soul. Every time I'm back in a chrysalis and I have to grow again and something feels uncomfortable, I will get my journal out and I will just sit with and s and desire everything that I have. I want this this person and I describe my husband. I want, and I talk about my kids, and I want a business that does this, and I want a career, and I go through all of it, and at the end I look and I'm like, wow, I can't believe I want all that and I have it.

speaker-0: It's a miracle. It's powerful. I I just love that practice so much and so crucial to not be shooting ourselves into gratitude either. Yes, I think the practice of desiring what we have is a slipstream to real gratitude, which like also drops us into awe, which drops us right into joy, right? There's delight.

speaker-1: Can let's can we talk about joy for a second? Because I know I

speaker-0: My favorite.

speaker-1: Yeah. Tell me Tell me how not not how you would think about joy, but how you would feel like how do you know when you're feeling joy? What is the feeling of joy?

speaker-0: The feeling of joy is expansive and light in my body. It's like if a smile had a a vibration, which it does, but I feel the vibration of the smile in my heart and in my belly centers. I feel alignment, like things are working together. there is trust in the universe and in myself. You know, on an intellectual level, I talk about it being meaning, alignment, and delight. And I don't mean that it's limited to those things, but for me, that's that's my handle on joy is when meaning, alignment, and delight are braided together. There is resonance and lightness. Rashmi was calling it on our last conversation, the lightness of being. And that is the practice, right? Like not that we're supposed to Be in that state at all times because we're living a life that fluctuates. But I think if that is the energy that is hosting our experience, everything is gonna work out.

speaker-1: That's beautiful. You know, one thing that I started doing once I started practicing again understanding myself and learning myself and reconnecting to my body and my emotions is I wanted to I wanted to understand what emotions felt like in my body. And there's certain emotions that feel louder, like shame, oof, overwhelm, anxiety. Like they feel loud. And so I would name them. And then I what I realized is like, The higher vibrational emotions, I couldn't feel them. I there I couldn't feel them in the beginning. And so I was like, I'm gonna practice those just as much as I practice these other ones. So I remember once driving my kids home from swim practice. They were really young at the time. And we had Taylor Swift in the car and it was playing and everyone singing aloud. And I'm sitting in the car driving home and I'm like, wait, is this joy? And I remember pausing and putting my hand on my, I'm like, This is joy. And the more I said it out loud, the more I felt it. I was like, okay. I feel, I feel guilt right here in my chest, or I feel guilt right here in my stomach. I feel overwhelmed right here, but I feel joy in my arms. And I feel joy right. And I remember just like tuning in and being like, okay, this is what joy feels like. Great. I want to be conscious to it. I want to know what joy feels like. And I when you were describing what joy felt like to you, I felt myself light up again. I'm like, ooh, yeah, that is just how I feel, Joy, you know, because I think joy can feel like a heavy word. I I was coaching this woman who's first gen Korean physician leader, did all the stuff. Okay, woman, breadwinner of family. And I said, Well, what is it that brings you joy? She's Joy? Whoa, that feels like a really heavy word. Like, I don't know. I mean tell you what I think I think is fun. And I was like, huh, what is the what is the reluctance? What is the fear? What's the concern about allowing yourself to feel joy? You know, and this this is not a podcast on joy, but I think all of this is sort of intertwined together because when we are afraid to experience joy because it's foreboding, like what if the other shoe drops if I let myself feel joy? What if everything falls apart? Yeah. It's the same thing with your desires. Like, what if I allow myself to follow my desires? What are the consequences? And those are the those fears are the things that block us from living a li a life of alignment. And listen, fear is here to play a very important role in our lives. We should un we should listen, we should see it, we should observe it, we should decide. Huh, interesting that my mind is offering me this. What do I want to do with it? And My sense is when we make decisions based on fear, they will always be unintentional decisions, which will lead to unintentional actions, unintentional results. If you can make a decision from objectivity, like, my mind is telling me, like my body is telling me, go whatever, this dude over here that that's handsome or whatever. And I check myself and I'm like, well, well, hold on a second. I'm not afraid to do that. I just buy it with integrity and choice. That's not what I want to do. You know? And so I think that when we are afraid to experience joy or when we're afraid to allow ourselves to move into our desires, there's a sense of like not fully trusting ourselves.

speaker-0: As you were sharing that, cynicism came up for me. Like cynicism has the power to squash our capacity to connect with joy. And when we live in a state of such deep dysfunction, especially in the US healthcare system, it's easy to give in to that and believe that that's most of reality. And then to roll our eyes when people talk about joy in medicine and and such things. I've definitely I've definitely interacted with many physicians who are like, Joy, I don't I don't relate. And I think that that is the practice of cynicism, which is a a painful practice in a false sense of power, as if we could protect ourselves from deep disappointment and heartache and the actual vulnerability of being a human in an imperfect world with not awake beings.

speaker-1: Wow, that is so true. And I think that there's a difference between cynicism, skepticism, and because what I hear from cynics often is like, that's not reality. You know, that's just not reality. And I am experiencing right now in my body so much compassion for those cynics, like the fear that they've lived with, the reality that they've seen, what they've decided to the lens that they're looking at the world through. So much fear. Things will never work out for me. The world is like this. That's not for me. It's for these other people. And I have I there for so long, I never, I never got it. I never understood because I just don't see the world that way. And there's a difference between a cynic and a skeptic because cynics, cynicism. You just always as you're close-minded and always assume the nothing will ever work out for you. A skeptic, which I believe I'm a huge skeptic, is curious and is open-minded. I'm so interested. Is that possible? Maybe, but maybe it's not. Let's try and see what happens. That's skepticism. And I guess the invitation, if you are if if you're afraid to lend yourself to the concept of desire, to the concept of joy. Because you're you're closed off to that, what would it be like to just soften a little bit? Like just be open. Just be open to like just be open to the possibility that something could work out. Just be open.

speaker-0: One percent. Just one percent more of it.

speaker-1: Yeah. I again I just want to name the deep compassion that I have for those like it's and for myself too, because I would always like want to convince cynics that the world is different. And that's not my job. That's not my responsibility. You know, it's not my job. My job is to be an example of what is possible when you're open and when your soul is ready, if your soul is ready, if it's supposed to be, you know, for your soul's evolution, maybe you'll open too, but maybe won't.

speaker-0: Yes, you do model that and you inspire. And I'm so grateful that you came from a place where gratitude was modeled and that it feels so woven in and that's a beautiful, beautiful place to start. I desire our friendship.

speaker-1: No, it's interesting. Desire as a thought versus desire as a feeling. Mm-hmm. Tell me more. I think I don't actually know, but I I was once asked by a fellow physician coach. I was on her podcast. We all know her, Kelly Kasperson, and she asked me many years ago, she said, What do you think desire is? Is it a thought? Is it a feeling? Is desire an action? Like what is desire? And I was like, yo, that's such a good question. Because I had always assumed desire was a feeling, but you have desiring thoughts. Uh-huh. And you have and anyway, I don't think we need to get into the nuance of whether it's a thought or a feeling or an action or whatever. I think the the point is that I think it's something that we get to listen to, whether it's a thought, whether it's a feeling, it's something that we get to just pay a little bit more attention to because it will point us home. It will either teach us a lesson because we're desiring out of integrity, or it will teach us a lesson by l by letting us know, like, hey, this is something that's meant for you.

speaker-0: That's beautiful. Yeah, I'm I'm going to leave this conversation with an intention to keep tending desire. Like you tend a fire, right? A fire can be warming, a fire can be destructive. The fire is not wrong in either case.

speaker-1: And so how are you going to tend desire?

speaker-0: My thought about tending desire is to practice awareness and and to practice desiring what I have with that level of just like hyper saturation in the awareness of that.

speaker-1: I love that. I'm gonna practice that too. I love the concept of being aware to your desires, but also being aware to what you do not desire. You know, like I've I take I I fly a lot, and so when I'm in the airport, I'm going to see like, is it is there something I desire that I see around me? Is there something that I don't desire? And to be very conscious of seeing it with neutrality. No judgment. I just I don't desire it because I don't desire it. It doesn't make it wrong right or wrong. and I think that that's kind of an important step for me when I practice tending to my desire and being aware is to not making other people's desires right or wrong. It's just what they desire and that's okay. It's not what I want and that's okay too. Mm-hmm.

speaker-0: Thank you so much for joining me and exploring desire today. It has definitely increased my joy.

speaker-1: Thank you, friend, for having me.