Begin to claim your desires
Why owning what you really want is part of the surrender process
Welcome! This is the Sunday Soother, a weekly newsletter about compassionate personal growth and authentic living, written by me, Catherine Andrews, a life coach, teacher, and writer. Did somebody forward this to you? You can subscribe to the Sunday Soother here.
Happy Sunday, Soothers. Welcome back to Part II of my new series, How to live a surrendered, Intuitive life. Last week we kicked off the series by understanding the first step in living intuitively and in a surrendered manner: simply learning to step into the belief that there is a force that wants to be expressed through you, and instead of trying to dominate or control that force to make ourselves do what we think we "should" do, we partner with the force and begin to go with its flow. You can read part one here if you like.
Today, we'll move into the second part of living more intuitively and surrendering to this flow: trusting that your desires are authentic to you, that they're on your heart for a reason, and that it is safe to follow those desires. In fact, that 1. intuitively tuning into those desires 2. then surrendering to them is the path.
An Aristotle quote — at least, attributed to him — that you may have heard of is this:
"Each human being is bred with a unique set of potentials that yearn to be fulfilled as surely as the acorn yearns to become the oak within it."
It's obvious to each of us when we look at something like an acorn or an egg. The potential to become an oak tree is inherent within the acorn itself, lying dormant and waiting to come alive and come to fruition in its own due time. Same with an egg. It could become nothing other than a chicken.
Of course, not always do the acorn or the egg always get to become their final form; conditions need to be right and a mash up of luck and other circumstances need to unfold as well. But there's no arguing: the soul of an acorn is only meant to become an oak tree, in its final form. The egg is destined and meant to become a chicken, in its final form.
And so I see this with humans and our desires as well.
In my belief system, each of us is born with an inherent set of dreams, desires and talents on our hearts. And these are unique to each of us.
These desires and dreams are no mistake. They can be trusted. They are our own potential, and their invitations and unfolding and conditions are meant to be followed.
Unfortunately, of course, we live in a hyper-rational, capitalistic society that too often squashes these dreams and desires as "unrealistic." We're too often raised in environments that don't nurture the inherent potential and dreams within us, that too often redirects them (the artist child who is told she must become a lawyer; the musical child who is told it's impossible to make a living from being a musician).
But why do we have these dreams, desires, talents latent in us at all, if they are not meant to ultimately be expressed and fulfilled upon?
The acorn is meant to become a tree; why are we not meant to become the seed of desire that is upon our heart?
I believe this to be true in part because not one of us has the exact same dream as another human. Sure, we may want similar flavors — to be a writer, to travel to a particular country, to live in a certain kind of house — but not one dream or desire will be or look exactly, 100% the same.
And to me, acknowledging our inherent dreams and desires that are unique to each of us as valid, as possible, and to be trusted and followed, is a critical part of living a surrendered, intuitive life.
It says, "I trust what is within me. I trust this life force within me that is asking to be expressed through me."
Remember the river metaphor from part one? When we KNOW in our hearts we want to be a writer, as an example, but we fight against it with all of our might because we think we "should" be a lawyer, or a corporate VP of some sort, or whatever, that's when we're in the canoe, frantically paddling upstream. We're denying what we know to be true to our soul, usually out of fear, scarcity, wanting to fit in with our family unit or our friend group, or out of ego.
And it is really hard to trust these desires. We have so much societal and familial conditioning against them, and so much fear. Most of the time we can barely admit these dreams and desires to ourselves, let alone talk about them to other people, let alone begin to take small steps towards fulfilling them. It's scary to say them out loud. We know we'll have people tell us we're selfish, or silly, or foolish, or incapable, or unrealistic (ugh, the "unrealistic" one — my biggest personal pet peeve, we literally are flying around space on a piece of rock amongst a sea of stars and we have no idea where we came from or why we're here, so what does unrealistic even mean???) once we start to acknowledge our desires as our truth.
But as Danielle LaPorte says, “What if desire wasn’t an urge to be tamed, but a beacon of truth to be followed?”
This took me a long time, to believe my desires as beacons of truth that were safe to follow and safe to trust. I knew as long as I can remember, absolutely since childhood, that I wanted to be a writer and a creative, but I never allowed myself to think I could make a career of it. So I lived on the edges of writing; I had blogs I wrote in the margins of my life, and careers in corporate content fields, after getting degrees in English Literature and then journalism. But it wasn't until my mid/late 30s that I started the Sunday Soother and begin, before I even knew what was happening, this career that so heavily involves writing and being creative.
I also knew that career-wise, I wanted to be a mix of some sort of helpful life purpose influencer, for lack of a better word, plus a teacher, and also, I remember this desire so clearly, that I wanted to be sort of a "den mother" for younger women who were feeling lost and alone and needed guidance.
Once I started to move towards that dream, those desires in my late 30s, they rapidly began to unfold for me.
I currently have a funny, sweet little dream I'll share as an example that we can use throughout the rest of this series together:
I want to be invited to teach a workshop in Italy on intentional and intuitive living and/or manifestation/goal-setting.
I don't know WHY I have this desire. It doesn't feel particularly "realistic." (It doesn't feel particularly unrealistic, either, given my career, though!) I have no leads on it. I have no real reason I want to do it other than I think it would be incredibly fun and rewarding. I love Italy, I lived there for a year after college, minored in Italian, have traveled there several times but haven't returned in about a decade. I love teaching. I love talking about intentional and intuition and goal-setting and designing your life. Certainly, probably I could in the next year or two set up to host my own retreat in Italy and do this myself, and maybe I will, but there's something right now in my desire that is yearning to be invited by somebody else to do this in this moment.
Me of a few years ago would have dismissed this desire as indulgent, as unrealistic, as impossible, as frivolous, as selfish.
But I know now from enough lived experience in surrender and intuition that this desire arose on my heart for a reason, and I can trust it, and begin to take steps toward it.
And that is my invitation to you today, in living your surrendered and intuitive life:
Trusting that the desire you have right now is meant for you, and that the desire is that life force I talked about in part one, that is crying to be expressed through you.
This is difficult, not only because of the fear or shame or ego we carry around our desires, but because some of us truly do not know what our own authentic desires are. We may have been performing for others for so long that we genuinely do not know the seed of desire on our heart. Or we may not trust the desire, wondering if it was a seed planted by somebody else.
If that's the case, I highly recommend doing Morning Pages journaling, as taken from The Artist's Way. Simply three pages of stream of consciousness journaling, written every morning upon waking. This is the best and fastest path I know to discovering your own self. It's through my journaling practice that I was able to tune into my Italy workshop desire. It's how I uncovered that I wanted to live closer to nature in a cottage. It's how I uncovered my desire to become a life coach and online teacher. (Basically, if you see any part of my life that I'm living now, it started out as a Morning Pages journal entry.)
For those of you who do know your desire, but haven't yet admitted it yet, that is your assignment for this week:
Share a current desire that's on your heart in the comments.
It could be as big as, "I want to live abroad for a year - or permanently!" to "I want to quit my job to become a painter" to as small as "I want to take a solo trip to the beach for one day" or "I want to plant a small raised bed garden in my backyard."
My encouragement to you, though, is this: Share the big one. The one you maybe haven't told anybody else. The one you feel a little silly or embarrassed about. The one you're not sure how you'll achieve, or if it's really even meant for or possible for you.
Because when we're beginning to live a more surrendered and intuitive life, a huge part of that is in the claiming.
The flow of life, the river, very much wants us to step in. But it will never force us. The choice to step into the flow will always ultimately be ours.
But we must take the first step. And once we do, you'll truly begin to see that support will start rushing in, synchronicities will take place, and the flow will begin.
We'll talk more about signs and synchronicities that are letting you know you're on the right path in next week's essay of the Sunday Soother.
But for now, claim your desire in the comments. Also, simply feel free to ask a question, or share any insights or other thoughts in the comments, too. I will do my best to respond to each. And remember, everybody who leaves a comment on each post throughout this series will be entered into a raffle to win a free coaching call with me.
And I'll be there in the comments, ready to cheer your desire on.
Reads & Recs
Where I share articles, books, recipes, podcasts, beauty products and more that I'm enjoying! (A few links may be affiliate links off of which I'll make a small commission; I only endorse stuff I've tried and loved).
📮 Thanks to my friend Jake who sent this incredibly helpful post along: I get no mail and it's glorious. Full of tips and tricks to reduce junk and other paper mailing.
🌟 Gala Darling has been on the internet for like 25 years and really models for me how to live an authentic, joyful life and business, even when you have a ton of haters. She writes about How To (Actually) Enjoy Social Media & Create A Blissful Feed in a recent post that I thought was useful.
🫶 Beauty Culture is Hustle Culture "Elise Hu on K-Beauty and aesthetic self-optimization" [Culture Study]
💯 40 things I wish I'd known at 40 [Instagram] Hard agree with the very first one.
📗 The First 10 Words of the African American English Dictionary Are In "An exclusive look at a dictionary consisting entirely of words created or reinvented by Black people." [NYT gift link]
👂 When Will You Be Good Enough? - The Price Women Pay To Be Good Absolutely must-listen on the To Be Expanded podcast with Elise Loehnen.
💛 Also really enjoyed this We Can Do Hard Things podcast episode on being controlling and over-functioning and how to begin to let go a bit and relax.
🗓️ 4 stress-reducing Google Calendar settings you didn't know you needed
🖊️ From Sunday Soother Slacker Charlotte, a great rec: "A follow up to Catherine's great podcast on journal trauma, if anyone else struggles with the privacy aspect but doesn't want to totally destroy them, the Rocketbook notebooks are another option. I can write by hand, upload to a secure spot in the cloud if I want to keep it (the app can also search keywords in your handwriting), and then erase them. The cons are that the Frixion pens you have to use aren't that great and that you can't page through like you can a physical notebook."
🛏️ I really really loved this bedroom refresh that was done on a budget and with most of what the owners already had. I love design that feels like, oh, I could actually do that! [Emily Henderson]
💡 "You're judgmental because it allows you to feel like you have a sense of control or agency." The EQ School on Instagram. Yup. I have a lot on my heart to say about judgment of others and why it's a true waste of your soul's time, maybe I'll do a series on that when this series on surrender and intuitive living is over.
✨ And a quote that I think captures a bit of what I'm trying to teach you all in this series: “There is a door between the logical and intuitive worlds, and we must put a smooth hinge on it, and let it swing…” – Lorna Crozier
That's it for this week, all my love for the week ahead.
Catherine
PS: Join energy healer Missy Toy Ozeas and me on June 21st, the solstice, for a summer evening to unblock limiting beliefs & clear old energy. Missy will first guide you through a group energy clearing, then I will do a group Tarot reading and draw individual cards to help further understanding and release of any blocks you may be experiencing. This will be an intimate evening, with just six participants. Only two tickets left!
Pie in the sky dream: I’d love to be a writer & meditation/breathwork teacher & have a home in both Japan & Switzerland. Even though I have no idea how this will happen, it feels super fun to say out loud!
I loved this! (I seem to love every single one of your newsletters! So rich with helpful content.) It’s like you are speaking to me directly. I, too, lived/lived on the writing/creative fringes. The inner turmoil! I grew up in a household of mathematicians. Taking you up on the challenge within: I want to write a children’s book— more than one. And I want to fall in love.