We call it our Christmas Wish List but it is a list of desires.  We open our Christmas gifts hoping for fulfillment.

Solitude and Intimacy are poles of being. Desire and fulfillment are polar feelings – opposite and married to each other.

Without the experience of both the soul is incomplete. We have wonderful myths that speak to the horror of only knowing one pole.  Narcissus and Echo is a story of only knowing desire.  King Midas is a story of only knowing fulfillment.  (Click on the titles to read the myths.)

Another picture of the necessity of both poles is in our breathing.  We desire breath and inhale to know fulfillment.  But if we hold our breath and don’t exhale, we suffocate and die.  So we exhale to create space for desire. Breathing is a wonderful expression of the essential dance between the pole of desire and the pole of fulfillment. Desire keeps the wheel of life turning.  Fulfillment slows the wheel of life down – otherwise the turning of the wheel of life would develop such hysterical speed it would collapse.

We have the tendency to think of desire as the source of suffering and fulfillment as the source of joy.  Is that true?

Desire relates us to the future.  Fulfillment relates us to the past.  We can move toward self-mastery and self-modulation if we reverse the relationship by asking two questions:  What precedes the awakening of desire?  What new desire will this fulfillment cause in my soul and create in my life?

The question living in desire is “What?” What do you desire?  The question living in fulfillment is “How?” How is fulfillment achieved?

If you don’t know what you desire, you will not know fulfillment.  You will just suffer with an unnamed desire.  Nameless desire is a horrible thing. But maybe you are afraid to name your desire.  Maybe you have too many desires to name. 

If you do not know how to acquire fulfillment, you will suffer with the increasing burden of unmet desires.  If you are too focused on what you desire and not focused on how you will achieve fulfillment – your life will weigh in heavily on desire.  You want to keep the scale between the thought of desire and the will to fulfill balanced. Do you keep a balance?

There is a core part of our being that is pure spirit, a kernel of the Divine. In the realms of spirit, there is no experience of the polarity of desire and fulfillment. Desire and fulfillment are one in those realms. If you can experience or observe your life from this divine part of your being, you will know peace in desire and peace in fulfillment while actively desiring and actively fulfilling.

Obviously, the key work to make these thoughts personal – to wake them up in your daily life are questions about “what” and “how.”

What do you desire? Make a list and make it very specific. I often ask my clients to write a list of 100 I desire statements. It is very difficult.

How do you fulfill that desire? Make a list of all the how questions and all lthe people you might ask to help you figure it out.

Did anyone ever mentor you in recognizing your desires and going for them?