Though these two emotions get a bad rap in our modern world, the healthful upside of Desire and Pride is essential to building our Well Being. Hardly anyone grows up in modern society with a clear, clean understanding of the role Desire and Pride play in building an excellent life. Let’s begin to change that now.
The purpose of Desire and Pride are respectively designed for creating the life you envision and to perform quality control within your life. This priceless generator and amazing quality gauge were given to you, but somehow you misplaced the operating manual. Now these two sit idle in your life or – even worse, get used against you instead of for you.
Reboot your relationship with Desire and Pride to get a fresh jolt of power and quality in your life. Begin with a clean definition of each. Desire is the strong feeling of wishing for a thing or wanting something to happen. Note the phrase “strong feeling”. Choosing between ice cream flavors isn’t an experience of desire. Desire embodies the quality of urgency or longing. Pride is the feeling of deep pleasure or satisfaction derived from one’s own achievements; a consciousness of one’s own dignity.
Unfortunately, a shame-based culture intent on domesticating young people and controlling the masses got their hands on these two God-given emotions and twisted the life out of them. Today you begin to resuscitate and reclaim them so the true purpose of Desire and Pride and the immense power they unleash can be harnessed for you. But we start with a warning. Like all power tools, they are best used with adult supervision. In this case, YOU need to be the adult in your own life to use these two gifts without harming others or yourself.
A person with a grasp of the 5 Steps of Emotional Literacy is the adult we’re describing, who will wield Desire and Pride without damaging things or people. The soul who embraces the Four Agreement’s admonition to “Always Do Your Best” holds Pride rightly and knows its blessing. And the one who embodies the lessons of the Character Square will safely build her life with Desire leading the way.
Whether you’ve prayed, meditated, practiced Intending or Creative Visualization, or wished on a star, you’ve attempted to tap into the power of Desire. As with any tool, we get better at using it with practice.
How to Use Desire Safely
Let it be guided by your Kind, Fair, Honest, and Brave character traits. (If you don’t have these, begin to develop them today as they are essential for a joyful, peaceful existence.)
- Demonstrate your Kindness by having an “every person matters” quality to your desires. Don’t buy into a dog-eat-dog mentality.
- To be Fair, envision what you desire with a “highest good for all concerned” clause. Stating this is also a humble acceptance that you are not the center of the universe or the Omniscient One.
- To save yourself time and energy, be Honest about your desires, at least with yourself. Don’t cloak selfishness in false pretext. Don’t limit your true desires simply to appease or appear good to others. Manifesting desires requires clarity of vision, and that starts with honesty.
- The Brave way to make your desire known includes the humility referenced above. When I am expressing my desires, I do it with two hands. On my left hand I picture writing my honest, clear list of what I desire, pre-checked for malice or greed. I hold that hand palm up and extend it to God. “This is what I honestly desire God.” Then I include the Garden of Gesthemane prayer of Christ, “Not my will, but Thy will be done” as I turn the left palm downward while turning the right palm up and picturing a higher will than my own expressing an outcome different than what I desire. I trust that it will not always be my way and that is good for all. As I explained this to a friend long ago, he pointed out the gesture I was making with my two hands was the sign for “death” in American Sign Language. How fitting! We must be prepared for ego’s near-death-experience many times along the way if we want a right relationship with the immense power of Desire.
Step 2 of the 5 Steps of Emotional Literacy also plays a role in preparing yourself to effectively use Desire. You are expected to be able to manage each of your emotions. Sometimes Desire stops being a trusted horse carrying you toward the life you envision, and instead it becomes a rampaging beast having a fit of the ‘Galloping Gimmes’.
Years ago, I met weekly with a group of Intenders, like-minded people who practiced the ideas of The Secret. To our credit, within a few weeks, as we started seeing amazing things manifested for one and another, we stopped bringing our shopping list mentality and became far more reverential to our Provider. It occurred to each of us independently that we were better off wanting whatever the Higher Power wanted for us, rather than bringing our paltry little lists like children petitioning Santa for more and more toys. Nonetheless, Desire is a tool we are given, and the desires of our heart are there for a purpose. We are designed to desire, and it follows that many of those desires are to be asked for and granted.
“Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but when the desire comes it is a tree of life.” We survive on this planet because of growing things, and those things are full of seeds so the cycle of life will continue. Our desires rightly held are good seeds and should be planted, watered, and weeded. Have a practical patience in your expectation. A radish seed germinates in days and produces a mature product in a few weeks. The oldest seed on record to finally germinate was two thousand years old. To everything there is a season. Your control begins and ends with planting the seeds of your honest desires. Be faithful to do so. Your future banquets depend upon it.
Your “Trusted Horse” of Desire wears the bit and bridle of our conditioned expectation. Make peace with the reality that no one needs every prayer or wish granted to be content and well. I regularly remind myself, “Some of what I want, and most of what I need” gives me a wonderful life. No one gets everything because having everything isn’t necessary or even beneficial.
Now onto Pride’s intended purpose and gift in your life as seen through 4 contrasting aspects of Pride:
- Your Honor to be established and maintained, not Honor to be defended.
- Well-balanced competitive striving for an ideal, not a method for proving your superiority.
- Method for achieving and maintaining Quality Control, not perfectionism.
- Evidence of self-respect, not arrogance.
These four distinctions are subtle but significant. They show how Pride’s better nature works for you.
You access it through the agreement you make with the Universe to “Always Do Your Best”. This sets you on a course of seeking quality task by task, moment by moment. Dedication to this builds the life and reputation worthy of esteem, one deed at a time. When you error, this healthy form of conditioning returns you to your best path swiftly.
Another of the Four Agreements also puts us on good footing with Pride. “Don’t Take Anything Personally” relieves you of the burden of taking offense. What a tremendous amount of human energy is wasted in being offended. Forfeit your “right to be offended” and you gird yourself with the protective qualities of Humility.
Having a super-charged relationship with Humility is evidenced in being able to:
- laugh at one’s self
- admit and acknowledge one’s mistakes
- desire to be the bigger person without having to take credit as such
- respond in a protective way to assaults without becoming offended
Life without a healthy sense of Desire and Pride is similar to poor thyroid functioning. Both too little (hypo-) or too much (hyper-) can lead to a myriad of distressing illnesses. You are looking to achieve a healthful, balanced expression of both Desire and Pride.
Where are you today in relation to these two significant emotions?
- Can you be honest with at least yourself about your deepest desires?
- Have you cultivated a practical sense of expectation for yourself?
- Are you more hypo- or hyper- in the area of Desire for yourself?
- Is it easier for you to wish good things for others or yourself?
- Are you still wrestling with character issues (honesty, kindness, fairness, bravery) when it comes to your desires?
- Do you have a sense of pride that leans toward nobility or arrogance?
- Do you allow yourself to earn your good reputation deed by deed each fresh day?
- When your reputation is damaged are you brave enough to rebuild it?
- Can you compete or contend with graciousness?
- Is there strong evidence of humility in your daily life across the board?
- Do you regularly forfeit your right to be offended?
This work of being mature and building your well-being is like farming. It is a rich, fertile life of continuous tasks. Plow, plant, water, weed, repeat. Embrace this work and be rewarded.
This material was originally offered via Zoom in a Free monthly Well Being 101 class in January of 2021. If this message offered helpful information for you, please feel free to join us for upcoming sessions.
