A question came in recently: "How do you know if what you want is for yourself or for the collective?"
At first I understood it as a co-dependency question, like, "Am I being too selfless? Am I telling myself that what I want is for me, but really I'm always just thinking about other people and I don't know how to own my own desire?" That can happen when we're stuck in co-dependent or imbalanced relationships. But that wasn't actually the question.
The question was more like: "Is my desire really mine, or is it some kind of programming I'm running from society? Is it me, or my subconscious, or something else entirely?"
When I asked, "Do you mean, how can we tell our heart's true desire?" they said, yeah, actually, that's kind of it.
Funny you should ask, because that's literally what I spend the solid first half of Liberation Magic working on. One of the assigned witchworks is to write down your “Heart’s Desire Statement”. It’s harder than it sounds.
As it turns out, many of us think we know what we want. I want my children to get into a good college. I want my cousin to be healthy. I want my boss to be kinder. But the moment we spend real time experiencing the nature of our desire, actually sitting with it, we find that at the end of the day, everything we want is simply an expression of spirit.
What I mean by that is: why do you want your kids to get into college? Why do you want your cousin to be healthier? Why do you want your boss to be kind? Because in some way, shape, or form, we want to feel content, healthy, and happy, and we think those things can take the shape of a good career or a fun workplace or whatever it is.
But at the end of the day, what we're really all after is that sense of peace and ease and fulfillment that comes with true connection, to spirit, to ourselves, and to community.
How that desire expresses itself, though, is as different as every individual having it, and that's what makes life so fun. And our desires will keep evolving as we grow. Once we get what we want, we want the next thing, and then the next. Not because we're infinitely greedy, but because as we continue to grow and evolve, and desire moves with us.
So how do we learn to discern what is our true heart's desire versus us acting out some trauma, some toxic need, some unhealthy pattern?
Practice.
I know, very anticlimactic. Not sexy. No silver bullet here. But the only way to tell the difference between what our conscious self wants, what the ego is seeking, what the divine plan holds, and what the inner child is screaming for right now, is the actual practice of inhabiting all of those levels of consciousness. Learning to discern between them, and understanding the patterns of overlap.
The same way we get to know ourselves in our bodies, our minds, our souls, our spirits, all connected, all part of the same whole, and yet each one distinct, each one playing a different function. Whether we feel a certain way because we're thinking a thought, or whether we're thinking a thought because we're feeling a certain way, that will only become clear through practice, because it changes every single time.
So: allow yourself to want what you want. Allow yourself to feel that desire wherever it's expressing itself in your body. Feel the emotion that's wrapped around it. Sense the energy that emerges within you and from you. Let yourself think the thoughts that come with it. And then do the deeper work (meditation, trance, art, scrying, whatever gets you into that subconscious space) to connect to the divine and understand what the spirit plan is for you.
Over time, you will understand exactly what combination of things is expressing a particular want in any given moment.
This is partly why I call the Liberation Magic method a diagnostic tool: it lets you understand where something is coming from, or where it's being blocked. But what's extra special about it is that it's also prescriptive. Once you know the source, you know what to do. You know how to make the wish come true, and you know what to release that's getting in the way.
Like most things in life there just isn't a quick, witty answer (I'm sorry). The answer is practice. It's living life and learning as you go.
Courage, truth, and infinite love,
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I don’t believe in magic, but I know that it works!
Magic is not a belief system, it’s a practice that works. Don’t believe me? Come try it out. If it doesn’t work, you lose nothing. But if it does… your dream life is about to begin!
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