Welcome to my little Substack playground. This is a fun little corner for us to talk about our “want life".
Last year, I shared my first Barbara Monologue, a little series of talks with a highly sensitive gays concert mixed in. The Monologues were on this topic of want and as a result a fascination (as well as this Substack) was born.
This Substack in a little snack-size bite:
Our life’s thesis statement is hiding in plain sight. It is looking us in the face. It’s staring back at us, speaking in a voice only we can hear using the language of want to communicate. That’s why, want is saying something unique to each of us. It is our personal map to the buried treasure inside the self.
But for so many reasons, I developed an internal distance from my want - flexing skills to suppress, deny or compromise my wants. I placed my needs above my wants. I placed the wants of others above my own. And, at the same time, I didn’t know how to handle the mix of grief and disappointment over my unrealized wants. Closing that gap inside myself between me and my want became my greatest act of self love.
So today, in our little Substack neighborhood, I want to pull up a bar stool next to you and shoot the sh*t with you about contentment vs want.
Is contentment at odds with want?
If I achieve contentment with my life, will I unsubscribe from the cycle of wanting, chasing, getting, wanting again, chasing again, getting again - and so on… Is the goal ultimately to graduate from wanting to a state of non-stop chillin?
Our relationship with want starts with our first breath. Want IS our human experience. We’ve been wanting as long as we can remember and we’ll be wanting as long as we are alive. We’ve been in relationship with it but so rarely give it anything conscious consideration. No matter what, you’ll keep wanting. No matter how much you get - no matter what you achieve - no matter how content you are - want remains. The richest human beings have little to no barrier to the “getting” side of the equation yet they want. The monk sitting on the hill in meditation has few material possessions and fewer desires on the material spectrum yet they also want. Wanting stays regardless of getting.
Since no degree of contentment with things or circumstances will reduce the presence of want, my monumental shift is moving from thinking about WHAT I want to HOW I want. When I made this shift, I start to understand the connection between contentment and want.
Picture a meditation practice that allows the thoughts to pass like clouds in the sky. In this practice, the meditator notes the thoughts and acknowledges them without attaching to them. Space is created between the meditator and the thoughts. This is the way I want to observe how I want. What does it feel like to watch those wants come up? What does it feel like when they go away? What does it feel like when the want faces resistance? Sitting on the hillside looking up at the sky is the seat of contentment - all my needs are met. From this hillside, looking at the clouds of want and asking where they lead, what are the themes, how can they be honored?
From this seat on the hill, I focus on feeling the feelings of wanting. I feel a lot of anger over the years where I was divorced from my want. A system removed me from my want and stripped me of it. I feel a flash of mad when I’m told no. I realized how much unprocessed frustration has built up in me after years of want suppression.
Inside I find that there are all these layers of grief over unmet wants. All these feelings left unprocessed, all these demands for action ignored, all these inner voices silenced. I’m a witness to this space inside and being present allows its healing.
When I clean out and really start to go through the gateway of feeling, my body starts to do the work of processing these stuck emotions held hostage inside of me. In this space, I’m able to want differently. The wants flow. They do their job. They point me in the direction of my joy, my purpose and my life’s thesis statement. I let them rise. I let them go. Like the clouds in the sky, I don’t attach to them. It’s in this space that I contently want.
Being content is not the absence of want - it’s just the opposite. It’s the clear ability to fully feel our wants. Let our wants connect us to our body drawing us even deeper to our felt experience. Feel the grief of unmet want. Feel the rebellion of caged want. Feel the joy of your highest level of want.
Make a practice of focusing on how you want.
In celebration of Pride, TruHomo is on YouTube, IG and TikTok. Get your prescriptions refilled at TruHomo.com.
The new store, BARBARAboy, is now open.
Therapy (DJ Back It Up), the new Tech House single featuring Budha and the Plant Heads, is out on YouTube and SoundCloud and will be releasing everywhere on July 11.
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