Loving Yourself By Following Your Heart's Desires

Have you ever considered that your desires come from two different places?

Desires of Your Heart and Soul

Our heart and soul know that we are on the planet to learn, love, grow, create and express our gifts, talents, passion and purpose in a way that brings us fulfillment and helps our planet. These are our true desires.

When we are connected with our soul essence and our higher self, nothing gives us more joy than learning about loving ourselves and sharing our love with others, and growing in our ability to express our love, gifts, talents, creativity, passion and purpose. Our inner child, our soul essence, will let you in on these deeper heart desires when you are open to learning about what fulfills you and brings you joy.

For us to feel full, peaceful and joyful, we need to be pursuing the deeper internal desires of our heart and soul in our work, our relationships and our free time. This is much of what loving yourself is about.

Desires of Your Ego Wounded Self

The desires of the wounded self are totally different. These are the superficial external desires of things, control and addictions. The desires of the wounded self are for the right house, the right car and money. The wounded self desires food, alcohol, drugs, shopping, TV, porn. The wounded self wants to judge rather than love, and control rather than learn.

The problem with the desires of the ego wounded self is that they are satisfying only for the moment, which is how they get to be addictions. Food fills you for the moment and then you need more and more. Sex, coming from neediness, may satisfy for the moment – but not for long.

Meeting the desires of the ego wounded self will never bring us inner peace, joy and fulfillment. Yet this is what so many people strive for. More money, more shoes and clothes, more sex, more alcohol and so on. Always more, bigger, better in the hopes of finally feeling full, peaceful and worthy. Which, of course, will never happen by meeting the superficial desires of the ego wounded self.

Discovering the Desires of Your Heart and Soul

Your essence – your inner child – contains the blueprint of your passion and purpose. The more you practice Inner Bonding and learn to be a loving adult, the safer your inner child feels and will eventually let you in on your true calling.

However, most of us have been programmed with many false beliefs about what fulfills and brings us joy. For example, I’ve known my passion and purpose since I was a child, but I was programmed to believe that, as much as I love my work, retirement is what would be fulfilling to me. My father retired at 56 and did manage to fulfill himself with his organic garden. I assumed that I would retire at around 65, and so did my family. When I didn’t, they often asked me, “When are you going to retire? When are you going to stop working so hard?” Even my kids still ask me this because they are likely also programmed to think retirement is always a good thing.

In my programmed mind, I thought I should retire. But somehow, I never got around to it. Then one day, when I was reading a book about passion and purpose, it occurred to me that, while I love what I do in my down time – my painting and ceramics, spending time with my children and grandchildren, grooming and riding my horse, tending to my organic garden, reading and kayaking – none of this is my passion and purpose. The thought of doing these fun things fulltime left me feeling less than enthusiastic. Since my work has always been my passion and purpose and I love what I do, why would I ever want to retire?

Then it hit me. The reason I haven’t retired is because I don’t want to! I want to do the work I’m doing my whole life! In that moment I gave up the old programming about retiring and a feeling of bliss and joy filled my being! Retiring isn’t loving to myself!

My work – helping people to heal - is the deepest desire of my heart and soul. Fully accepting this has brought me the deepest joy I’ve ever known, because this is what is loving to myself.

Join Dr. Margaret Paul for her 30-Day at-home Course: "Love Yourself: An Inner Bonding Experience to Heal Anxiety, Depression, Shame, Addictions and Relationships."

Photo by Lukaza Lada