Tag Archives: Desire Map

My Life In Love…A Core Desired Feelings Collection

A key part of The Desire Map process is about uncovering your Core Desired Feelings – the feelings that make you feel good and that you want to live in as much as possible.  When you get clear on how you want to feel and align your routines and goals to generate those feelings every day, week, month, year – well, that’s a wonderful life of feeling good!

This is all fine, but for desire to work, it needs action – real integration into daily life as well as the big goals.  Deliberately doing things in ways that will make you feel good both whilst you’re doing those things, and when you achieve what you set out to achieve.

Feel good now…and when you reach your goals.

This is the last of my series where I’d like to share with you my life with each of my Core Desired Feelings: show you what they mean to me and how I integrate them into my life.

The last Core Desired Feeling is…Love.

~*~

What does it mean to me?

To deeply connect with someone else.

It’s not so much because I’m a romantic at heart (romcoms and chick lit are torture for me!), but rather because it is one of the most transformative feelings that I have.
Love allows me to sit here and be entirely who and what I am.  It’s an expanding feeling that lets me ease into my space to begin with.  It allows me to approach people and life like a blank sheet – no prejudices, no stories, no attachments, just entirely open to what is.

It’s a kind of Freedom.

I feel deeply connected with someone else when I can understand who they are, what they’re thinking and feeling, and what their opinions and values are about the world we’re in.

Love also means for me: focus, or attention.

Whatever I focus on, grows.  That can be good and bad:

It can be good if I decide to focus on what I’m grateful for and what I love in my life, because I inevitably end up going out and doing those things that I love more often, or meeting the people I love most in my life more often, or even turning around my finances in leaner times.

When I feel good, I focus more on the good things, and that generally brings more good things into my life.

It can be bad if I end up, one way or another, focusing on all the things that are stressing me out, or worrying about difficult situations I’m in or on the cusp of being in, or just grinding my axe against something I’m in and fight-fight-fighting.

When I feel bad, I focus more on the bad stuff, and that generally brings more bad things into my life.

Now, those are not rules that are set in stone by any means – sometimes, shit happens, and the only way is through it, with all the gory glory that brings; and sometimes, miracles happen, and again, the only way is through it, with the exquisite highs and floating back down to normality (< is that a word?  No idea.  I’m using it anyway).

 

Why the word “Love” over other words?

I could’ve chosen other words: “Cherish”, “Connection”, “Intimacy”…among others.

But whilst those words are good words to describe the feeling, they don’t evoke it within me in the same simple way that the word Love does.  Even saying the word “Love” tugs a smile at my lips.

If saying the word elicits a physical reaction – either in feeling something, or it makes you smile thinking or saying the word – that’s a keeper.  If the physical reaction is bad, that’s not one to keep at all.

For example, the word “Connection” kinda scares me: it makes me feel like I absolutely must connect with people whether I want to or not, and here’s the kicker – I’m a raging introvert, in that I get my energy from being alone with my own company, not so much from being surrounded by people all the time (and yes, “people” includes my other half and even little Missy-kins!).

Of course, that’s not at all what Connection actually means or how it can be integrated.  Many other Desire Mappers have “Connection” as one of their Core Desired Feelings – in fact, it’s such a popular Core Desired Feeling that it made it into the Core Desired Feeling Tattoo collections* – but that’s how it feels to me when I say “Connection” – it’s just a no-go word for me.

Don’t worry too much about no-go words – with Core Desired Feelings, you’re after the feeling, and hopefully you can encapsulate it within a word and evoke that feeling when you say the (pass-)word.

 

How do I use “Love” to guide my goals?

Simple: when I think about my potential goal, does it feel like a whole-body YES?!

If YES! – then go for it

If it’s more of an “Erm…let me think about it” – it’s unlikely to fly, because it means I’m relying on motivation to get me there rather than inspiration.

Love – much like Freedom – is my inspiration behind the goals I choose.  It’s a gut reaction, either YES!…or maybe not.

Motivation requires persuasion to persue the goal.

“I want to learn to ride motorbikes because that feeling of FREEDOM is unlike anything else I’ve ever experienced, and it’s my reason for living – I gotta have it, I gotta go touring, I gotta adventure and stretch my life beyond what I think is possible!” > inspiration to take up motorbiking – feeling on top of the world every time I ride.

“I want to learn to ride motorbikes and scooters because it costs less in fuel, taxes and maintenance, and I can filter through traffic to get to work and back faster.  Overall, I save £xxx per year.  Weekend riding and jollies?  You’ve gotta be kidding, why would I want to ride for fun?” > motivation to take up motorbiking – saving money.  Not gonna love it.  Buh.

Love is the inspiration behind my goal-setting.

 

What do I do each day to feel that CDF?

Music – of course!

Sara Bareilles
Sarah McLachlan
Darren Hayes
Turin Brakes
Halestorm

I spend time trying to understand someone or something.

Thich Nhat Hanh once said that to love something or someone is to understand them.  I thoroughly agree – because it’s only when you understand that you can act from your best intentions and inspirations, and sometimes, that takes time and effort!  But even if it takes time and effort, it’s almost always for the better for all sides.

Spending time with me, myself and I

And by this I mean: looking after myself like how I would look after my most loved one – duvet nights to catch up on documentaries or TV series I’ve missed, a long bath, writing/journalling, cooking and eating yummy meals primarily for myself but for anyone else in the house who wants it too, stretching out, motorbiking, meditating, wild idling, give myself a facial and treating my hair once a week…

If I don’t do those things to take care of myself, within a couple of weeks I notice it: stress seeps in without reprieve, I just feel down, and after a while I can barely function.  It’s quite a quick downhill crash for me.

Some people would call this kind of thing self-love.  I prefer to call it self-care, or honouring myself instead, because “self-love” is a loaded term that can easily bring in the wolves of judgment,

Do I deserve it?

Am I worthy?

Is there a point?

Because even if my natural reaction is always “YES OF COURSE!”, when I’m down in the dumps, I only half believe it.

Because I’ve got so much I need to do, too many people are relying on me, I can’t let them down, I can’t let myself down either, and I definitely can’t let my dreams down, and if I take time out then it’ll all fall apart and I’ll be even more useless and alone wah wah yada yada tick BOOM…hello burnout.

Here’s a catch:

You have to believe it 100%, unequivocally, honestly, that you are allowed to honour yourself, and that might involve having to get over the fact that the world will go on whether you’re there to contribute to it or not.

The world will keep turning.  Tomorrow will come.

Regardless of what you do today.

Good.

Might as well take a little time out to rest up so that I can handle tomorrow well too, y’know.

Spending time with people, creatures or places that make me feel good.

It’s an easy win that’s easy to forget, but spending time with people, creatures or places that feel good is a wonderful thing too.  For me, it’s the usual things: spending time with my other half, friends and family, pestering the over-cuddly Missy-cat, spending time in woodlands, being in Austria…

These are the things that I feel Love for and receive Love from.

Love is a cycle of energy that will always loop back to you when you give it freely.

With Love and laughter,

Catherine

~*~

*This is my affiliate link to the Core Desired Feelings Tattoo collection from Danielle LaPorte, meaning that if you click on the link and buy it, I’ll get a little coffee money from it.  Now I’d never promote anything unless I wholeheartedly believe in it, but if you’d prefer to browse the Core Desired Feelings Tattoo collection without that, here’s the aff-free link:  www.daniellelaporte.com/shop/core-desired-feelings-tattoo-collection-3/

My Life In Dynamic…A Core Desired Feelings Collection

A key part of The Desire Map process is about uncovering your Core Desired Feelings – the feelings that make you feel good and that you want to live in as much as possible.  When you get clear on how you want to feel and align your routines and goals to generate those feelings every day, week, month, year – well, that’s a wonderful life of feeling good!

This is all fine, but for desire to work, it needs action – real integration into daily life as well as the big goals.  Deliberately doing things in ways that will make you feel good both whilst you’re doing those things, and when you achieve what you set out to achieve.

Feel good now…and when you reach your goals.

Over the next several blog posts, I’d like to share with you my life with each of my Core Desired Feelings to show you what they mean to me and how I integrate them into my life.

Today’s Core Desired Feeling is…Dynamic.

~*~

What does it mean to me?

Energy.  The rhythm of life.  Power.  Momentum.  Flow.  Kicking things up several gears and roaring with excitement.  The feeling that I am affecting my world.

I love it.

It’s the male side of me that loves action and results, and sometimes needs reminding to sit back once in a while and appreciate those results before heading back out for more action.

It’s the slightly masochistic side of me that loves an endurance, a test of mettle and strength, of getting down and dirty in the scrum of work.

It’s the logical side of me that strives to find efficiencies without losing quality, but will happily take the long way round if there really isn’t any other way.

The dynamo.  Dynamic.

You know that feeling of being in flow – when time flies and you don’t realise it because you’re so deliciously absorbed in your work and, on a particularly good day, you get a tonne of stuff done in only part of the time you thought it would take?

Gay Hendricks calls it “Einstein time”, because it feels like you’ve just bent time to get a load of stuff done, when in reality you’re just working with your strengths for once instead of against them.

Those things you’re good at, no matter how strange or mundane?  Those are your strengths.

Those subjects you got great grades at in school?  Those subjects are your strengths.

We’re taught from a young age to ignore our strengths and focus entirely on our weaknesses.

Those subjects where your grades weren’t as good?  We’re told to focus on them to “get grades in those subjects as high as the subjects you’re good at already”, to become more well-rounded…or the worst thing you’re told if you were in the top sets already: “You have to be amazing at everything otherwise you are a failure in LIFE.

Immediate thought on being told that?

“I’m not good at it therefore I have to work/struggle/fight with it.”

And, the likely thing is, if you have to work harder/struggle/fight with something?

You’re gonna hate it.

This is just one reason why so many kids hate school – because it’s a constant struggle.

And the struggle continues into the workplace – being forced to struggle with the things you’re not so good at, often at the cost of something else that you actually are good at.

But it gets worse: “I’m not good at X” can easily, if we’re forced to struggle constantly with it, become:

“I’m no good.”

If however we are taught to focus entirely on improving our strengths?

We’d all be geniuses.

Sure, you need to be proficient enough at certain subjects in order to live well in this world – read, write, basic maths, ideally also basic science (I’m quite concerned at the backlash against science and medicine right now in certain parts of the West).

But here’s the thing that the current schooling system and workplaces seem to forget: nobody loses if you focus on strengths, because there always will be someone else will help you cover your apparent weaknesses with their own strengths. 

Everyone wins.

 

Dynamic.  Working with my strengths and feeling damn good in the ease of it all.

 

Why the word “Dynamic” over other words?

Like Freedom, Dynamic was another of the first words that tumbled out when I first Desire Mapped with a broken arm and pumped full of painkillers (yes, really!), and it’s one of only two that has stuck with me since the first time (the other one that has stuck since the first time was Freedom).

Strangely though, it’s not really one I’ve questioned either.  No other word encapsulates power, potential, strength, and energy in one word for me.  Whereas Freedom is the meaning of my life, Dynamic is the energy and force behind it.

 

How do I use “Dynamic” to guide my goals?

Does the goal in question flood me with energy to go out there and claim it?

Can I easily see my pathway laid out before me to achieve my goal?

Even if that pathway is blocked, do I trust that I will easily find other pathways to get there?

Dynamic is the practical, forward-looking surge when it comes to goal-setting.  I use Dynamic to help me figure out how easily I’ll achieve my goals, and also to gauge how much I actually want it.  If I’m flooded with energy and get-up-and-go, I’m going for it.  If I don’t feel Dynamic when I think of a goal, I’m never gonna suddenly have the inspiration to go for it.

Dynamic is my inspiration – the momentum is my motivation.

 

What do I do each day to feel that CDF?

I write.

Desire Map Journal

One of the reasons I took up blogging was so that I could share my writing with you.  I love the flow I get into when writing because it is the easiest way for me to precisely express myself and my thoughts.

I largely write on computer or laptop because I get frustrated with how slow it is writing by hand – I can’t get it out fast enough and that slowness frustrates me and stymies my flow.

Sure, writing by hand is much more cathartic and expressive, but when I have a lot of ideas I want to say, I need a keyboard to keep up with my mind!

I play videogames

...and I go to videogames conferences like GAMESCOM

…and I go to videogames conferences like GAMESCOM

Yup, I do.  I mostly play single player games, because they’re much more about the stories and adventure than online or multiplayer games are.  The Final Fantasy series are a big part of my teenhood, as are the old Tomb Raider games before they rewrote the back story over and over and over again to suit different franchising desires (urgh!).

These days I’m playing the Dragon Age series (look, I don’t care if Mass Effect has better storylines in it, no dragons and magic = not interested!), and I love The Elder Scrolls series (yes, Fallout is excellent, but the scenery is a nuclear fallout – it’s not as pretty as Elder Scrolls!).  I am currently playing the MMO Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited right now because it’s essentially a prequel to the other Elder Scrolls stories I’ve played (Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim).

I love the adventures and stories because I am actually in the scrum of it creating the story – or so it feels.  Books and movies are great, but they’re passive: the story and adventure is fed to you.  In a videogame?  Your actions ARE the story, your heroics MAKE the story – you are in the game and you are making it happen.

It doesn’t get much more Dynamic than that!

Guess what?  More music!

These make me feel Dynamic in no time:

Skyrim: OST (N.B. I AM DOVAHKIIN!)
Muse
Alter Bridge
The Prodigy
Faithless
Tiesto
Thirty Seconds To Mars
Little Boots

Next week is the last installment of this mini-series, and I’ll show you the glue of my Core Desired Feelings: Love

Laughter,

 

Catherine

My Life In Hope…A Core Desired Feelings Collection

A key part of The Desire Map process is about uncovering your Core Desired Feelings – the feelings that make you feel good and that you want to live in as much as possible.  When you get clear on how you want to feel and align your routines and goals to generate those feelings every day, week, month, year – well, that’s a wonderful life of feeling good!

This is all fine, but for desire to work, it needs action – real integration into daily life as well as the big goals.  Deliberately doing things in ways that will make you feel good both whilst you’re doing those things, and when you achieve what you set out to achieve.

Feel good now…and when you reach your goals.

Over the next several blog posts, I’d like to share with you my life with each of my Core Desired Feelings to show you what they mean to me and how I integrate them into my life.

Today’s Core Desired Feeling is…Hope.

~*~

IMG_20150729_091155800_600

 

What does it mean to me?

Joy.  Expectancy.  Purpose.

Trust.

That everything will turn out ok.  That I can do it.  That I am good enough.

That I am enough.

Chin up, eyes forwards – we got work to do and we’ll love it.

I’ve always been full of Hope.  I remember, as a child, playing in the garden in summer and pausing to look up at the moon in the dusktime skies and feeling so overcome with Hope for my future, dusk-dreaming at how awesome my life will be when I grow up: working and serving in ways aligned with who I am, that I will have everything that I need, and there will be love.

But when there were times I lost Hope – my, that aching numbness made me question whether life was worth it. , if I’m really honest.  A life without Hope, for me, is a life of being stuck, of no direction, no movement.

It’s Hope that drives me forwards.

There’s a distinction to be drawn between blind hopefulness and Hope.  Sadly, from a young age in a lot of societies, particularly Western societies, you’re taught that Hope is not worth having because it can and will be dashed, and the pain of that is too much.  We’re taught that it’s foolish to Hope because it’s no different to wishing for the impossible to happen.

We’re taught that “you’ll grow up out of silly dreams soon enough.”

Yet, it is in Hope that dreams reside.

The question really is: you have your dreams, your wishes, your Hopes,

What are you going to do about them?

 

Are you going to make them come to life?

Sure, if you make your dreams come to life, you’ll need a new dream, a new Hope to go for afterwards when the excitement of achievement eventually wears off.

A lesson I had to learn was to actually sit with and enjoy the victory of achievement.

YES!

…and to not immediately say, “Next!”

For me, the whole process of dreaming, then finding ways to make it real, and working tomake them real: I love it all.

Take that away from me?  I feel lost – and I don’t like feeling lost: hopeless, powerless, purposeless, entropy, apathy…why carry on?

I have Hope because I am alive.  I am alive because I have Hope.

 

Why the word “Hope” over other words?

It took me a while to realise that Hope was a Core Desired Feeling, to be honest!  It was only after going through the Desire Map process for the third time whilst training to become a Desire Map Facilitator that it occurred to me: my life was woven in threads of Hope, and it was one of the ways I really wanted to feel as much as possible.

Sometimes your Core Desired Feelings are so second nature that you don’t recognise them initially, until you deliberately go looking for them – in your patterns and behaviours, in times when you feel like you’ve lost them.  Sometimes you can barely put a word on it, let alone an image, or a sound – you just feel it.  That’s ok too – giving Core Desired Feelings words helps you invoke them when you need them, but you don’t always need words to describe it: anything quick, easy and almost immediate is what’s really needed to invoke them, so if it’s something you need to do rather than say, then do that thing, and have it easily ready for you to use.

The other reason that I chose “Hope” was because, after learning about the psychology of Hope, there was no better word to describe this feeling evoked within me.

Hope.

 

How do I use “Hope” to guide my goals?

When I think about my goals, can I feel into the beautiful future where those goals have been accomplished?  How will daily life be with that goal completed in my life?  And what about everyone and everything else in this future?

If I get good feelings when thinking about this future, then I seriously consider going for it.  If I get bad feelings, I don’t choose it.

Trusting my gut reaction – another lesson Hope teaches me.

“Your body is the best tool for discernment.”
­- Danielle LaPorte – 2013 Emerging Women conference

It’s true, y’know.

 

What do I do each day to feel that CDF?

I make time to daydream about the future I want to bring about.

All the goals that feel the best both when going for them and when actually hitting them are the ones that begin with a dream.

For something wonderful.

For something better.

For miracles.

For purpose.

The other aspect of daydreaming is that it allows me to play with purpose and dedication – what will I next dedicate myself to?

Day-dreaming is how you also begin to bond with the possible goals you want to make.  The more you bond with goals, the more willingness you have to persevere when you reach obstacles.  This is just one aspect of agency – the willingness to achieve a goal and the strength of self-belief that you will achieve it.  Bonding with goals helps increase your agency, and the more agency you have?  The more likely you’ll achieve your goals.

 

I spend time in forests and look into the sky.

woodlands_600

I love forests above any other landscape: the hustling leaves, the shy lives of other creatures within, the gentle low hum of the tree boughs and trunks, and sturdy ground beneath my feet.  I sometimes wish I could become the breeze that whistles through leaves, or become the roots that anchor themselves deep into the ground for a tree to keep it upright.  The forest does not care who I am, what I am, or what I look like; it does not make any demands of me, except to respect its cycles – it allows me to be there with it as I am.

I can be.  Nothing else matters.

Sometimes it is good to come back to where you are to take stock and reflect on where to go or what to do next.  Being amongst the trees helps me come back to me, and quieten down everything else enough to allow desires to emerge.

And when those desires emerge, I look into the sky for what the future will be like with them in my life.  I daydream about the possible journeys to get there – the skills I’ll need or want, the things I’ll do, te people I could meet, find my allies, recognise possible issues along the way and convince myself I’ll figure it out if it comes to that.

The earth holds my present, the starting point; the skies hold my future, the distant shores where it will all end.

I need both.

 

More music!

Amelie OST
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Goo Goo Dolls
Lady Gaga
Haven
Chicago
Final Fantasy VII OST
Angela Aki (+ Keep On Dreaming All Your Life)
Sara Bareilles
Darren Hayes

~*~

Next week, I’ll show you the feeling that has been with me all my life and which continues to pull me into the future: Dynamic

 

Love,

Catherine

My Life In Freedom…A Core Desired Feelings Collection

A key part of The Desire Map process is about uncovering your Core Desired Feelings – the feelings that make you feel good and that you want to live in as much as possible.  When you get clear on how you want to feel and align your routines and goals to generate those feelings every day, week, month, year – well, that’s a wonderful life of feeling good!

This is all fine, but for desire to work, it needs action – real integration into daily life as well as the big goals.  Deliberately doing things in ways that will make you feel good both whilst you’re doing those things, and when you achieve what you set out to achieve.

Feel good now…and when you reach your goals.

Over the next several blog posts, I’d like to share with you my life with each of my Core Desired Feelings to show you what they mean to me and how I integrate them into my life.

Today’s Core Desired Feeling is…Freedom.

~*~

What does it mean to me?

EVERYTHING.

It is my reason for living, literally.

FREEDOM!

…to seek out choices and make them

…to affect things or not to

…to be who I am

…preferably without fears or obligations, but with Freedom comes some responsibilities, the chief one being ensuring that my own Freedom doesn’t come at the cost of someone elses’ where possible.

It makes me feel open and expanding.  It makes me feel present, here, ready.

It’s a strong and euphoric feeling: at its strongest, it’s that feeling you get during a really awesome rock concert and you’re becoming hysterical; at its gentlest, it’s those quiet moments in the morning when you are having tea and toast with strawberry jam and the sun filters through the window, and you suddenly realise: joy – you’re feeling joy surging underneath.

Freedom is my reason for living.

 

Why the word “Freedom” over other words?

Because it was the first word that bubbled up when I was Desire Mapping for the first time.  It just fit.

Sure, there were other synonyms I played around with for a couple of hours – Liberty, Liberation, Free, Euphoric, Joy, Nature…

But none of them immediately evoked the feeling I wanted to describe better than Freedom.

Sometimes the very first word that comes up is The One, simply because it’s your soul cry.

Freedom.

 

How do I use “Freedom” to guide my goals?

It’s really simple: if the goal doesn’t make me feel Freedom in some form when I think about it, it’s not a goal for me to chase.

Particularly the big life goals – being with my man, bringing my own business to life, and into the future…

If it doesn’t make me feel Freedom in some form or other when I think about it, it’s not a goal to aim for.

I have 5 Core Desired Feelings that guide me, but this is the one that is at the core of the Cores – it has to be there underneath everything else.

 

What do I do each day to feel that CDF?

I ride motorbikes.

motorbiking

My non-biological bestie; passing my motorbike exams; and adventuring into the depths of Austria to visit the KTM factory in Mattighofen…and a little village about 15-20 km away called Fucking (pronounced “Fooking”…what else?!)

It’s not for everybody.  It is dangerous, intense, and it requires instinct, alert intelligence – much more than for driving a metal safety cage car – and the willingness to be extremely present with yourself.  You also need to readily accept that you might not come back in one piece every time you head out (although the same can be said for every time you drive your car, or get out the front door, or wake up each morning…).

I fully accept.

Because the reward for accepting these things?

Unbridled adventures with yourself in Freedom…without needing to backpack half way around the world to be bitten by mosquitoes in sticky nights (unless that’s really your thing).

Backpacking and motorbike touring do have one crucial thing in common though: the fact you can’t take much luggage with you.  For backpacking, you’re restricted to your backpack; for motorbiking, you are restricted to whatever the safe weight limits are on your backpack, top box, tankbag and panniers, provided  your bike can actually accomodate these types of luggage – a number of bikes cannot support one of other of these luggage options (my Aveline doesn’t have panniers, only a top box and tank space), meaning that the only guarenteed luggage is your rucksack; however, being pinned onto the bike with the deadweight on your back for hours and hours as you motorway-pound your way to Freedom?  Deliciously painful.  (Only masochists and endurance-fanatics need apply).

The biggest lesson you learn from backpacking or motorbike touring is this:

You don’t need much stuff in life to be truly happy.

When you cut out the stuff and junk, you realise that you don’t need much in life to

a) survive

b) happily

In fact, the liberation you get from not having your Stuff around is immediate – you’re not carrying the weight around, holding you back, and you feel like you can breathe more freely.

Provence

It was this trip that started everything – Provence in south France, just me, my dad, his motorbike, 3kg luggage, a small cabin with no electricity…open skies, fragrant forests, fresh food to cook, sunshine, quiet. When reduced to the absolute basics, you learn individually what makes you happy. Then you need to bring that you into your life as much as possible.

Sure, we all need creature comforts – just don’t let the creature comforts lock you in place.

 

Again, music!

For when I can’t get on my motorbike and I just need that feeling:

Alter Bridge

Slash, Myles Kennedy and The Conspiritors

Halestorm

Muse

Def Leppard…for the vintage motorbike festivals I go to!

Faithless

 

Wild Idling

Freedom is also a state of mind.  If you find that your head gets full of noise regularly (like mine!) and you don’t think you have much time or inclination to meditate, this short exercise, taught to me by Lianne Raymond, has been a real mind-saver:

1 – set a timer for 10 minutes

2 – sit or lie down somewhere

3 – DO NOTHING.

Do not read.  Do not listen to music.  Do not meditate.  Just do absolutely nothing for 10 minutes.

What does this do?

When you force yourself to just STOP – you stop Doing and give yourself space to Be.

And if you’re purpose-driven, goal-setting, goal-achieving, over-achieving, duty-driven, and fear the nothingness of stopping: yes, you will feel uncomfortable, for at least half of the time you’re doing it, and it might feel like it’s lasting forever.

But it’s only 10 minutes.  And the feeling afterwards?

Aaaahhhhhh.  Freedom – the gentler side of it, the effortless side of it.

The realisation that you are already free and don’t need to do anything to prove it or earn it.

 

We.  Are.  Freedom.

 

~*~

Next week, I’ll show you the feeling that has been with me all my life and which continues to pull me into the future: Hope

 

Love,

Catherine

My Life In Female…A Core Desired Feelings Collection

A key part of The Desire Map process is about uncovering your Core Desired Feelings – the feelings that make you feel good and that you want to live in as much as possible.  When you get clear on how you want to feel and align your routines and goals to generate those feelings every day, week, month, year – well, that’s a wonderful life of feeling good!

This is all fine, but for desire to work, it needs action – real integration into daily life as well as the big goals.  Deliberately doing things in ways that will make you feel good both whilst you’re doing those things, and when you achieve what you set out to achieve.

Feel good now…and when you reach your goals.

Over the next several blog posts, I’d like to share with you my life with each of my Core Desired Feelings to show you what they mean to me and how I integrate them into my life.

Today’s Core Desired Feeling is…Female.

~*~

What does it mean to me?

Primarily, it evokes {Unity} in me:

Of body and soul – those moments when I feel my soul is firmly-gently tethered to my body are the moments I feel whole; feeling whole, or otherwise easing into myself, makes me feel very Female.
Of vulnerability and strength – we unfortunately still live in a world where a woman’s appearance is valued more than her actual skills and strengths, and where a woman is considered to be a valuable commodity instead of another human being.

It matters to me because I didn’t used to feel this way.  You know when you live so far in your mind that you use your body to achieve the things that your mind wants?  Whilst that is satisfying…it also never ends.  That empty feeling of going through the motions but not actually feeling anything, probably not enjoying yourself as you’re going for your goals?
That never-enoughness that doesn’t go away, even if you feed it with goals and achieving what you set out to achieve.

Female brings all of me back together and helps me find meaning in the things I want and do.

Female is a moderately quiet aspect of me – it’s always there in the background, but it’s not as loud and feisty a feeling as Freedom and Dynamic for me.  I love it all the same – the softening, the gentle acceptance of myself and the way the world feels.

 

Why the word “Female” over other words?

When I did The Desire Map the first time, I actually came out with “Feminine” to evoke this within me, however I was never entirely happy with the word.  The word just didn’t fit me – saying it out aloud felt a bit too “girly” for me.

Yet, “Divine Feminine” also wasn’t right either – it felt too majestic for me, and as if I wouldn’t be able to turn off the spotlight when I wanted to.

The other thing that didn’t sit right with me is this: I also have very male or masculine qualities – the logical, pragmatic, practical, Dynamic, forward-looking, videogaming, motorbiking side of me – and adopting “feminine” felt like it would completely exclude this part of me.  And I love men, maleness, have real affection for masculinity – not Magic Mike style rippling muscles (*really* not my thing), but that driving energy that’s bristling under the surface that men tend to have, and their particular brand of comraderie. “Feminine”, to me, denies me access to that.

So I wanted to keep the “male” with me.  “Male”, yet not quite male.  Unity of male and un-maleness.

Fe-male.

Female.

 

The beauty of The Desire Map is that we might all be feeling the same feelings, but they are evoked in us in different ways depending on our histories and tastes.  For someone else, “Feminine”, “Divine Feminine”, “Priestess” or “Earth Mother” might evoke the same feeling that I desire, but it’s evoked in me when I say “I am Female.”

 

How do I use “Female” to guide my goals?

Whereas Freedom and Dynamic eagerly race ahead, make plans, engage 6th gear and pull the throttle back – Female is the part of me that will whisper in my ear:

“How will that make you feel?  How do you want to feel?

How will we all get there together?”

Female brings much loved unity to my decision-making – because it’s all very well steam-rolling ahead with objectives, tasks and to-do lists, but if they don’t feel good whilst I’m going for it or achieving them?

It’s just not worth it.

Female is the subtle side that shows what’s worth going for and what’s worth burning.

 

What do I do each day to feel that CDF?

I have a thing for perfumes and wear one every day.

I’m a bit of an ophresiophiliac and love tuberose-based perfumes.  Probably my favourite fiction book and movie of all time is “Perfume” by Patrick Suskind because of the way they made your mind imply scents by overpowering your imagination and other senses (not so much for the wanton murder Grenouille does…).

Currently I’m wearing The Fragrance Lab’s #148.  The Fragrance Lab was an immersive perfumery experience at Selfridges in London in 2014 that profiled your personality and gave you the perfume that matches your personality type.  You went on a journey through Perfumeseveral rooms with audio, and you made choices based on the situations you were put into – choosing scents, choosing objects and so on – and at the end, an engineer would ask some final questions before presenting you with the perfume that matches your personality.  My one has rose, tuberose, jasmine, vanilla, tonka bean and neroli – a bit nostalgic-romantic.

I also really love Shantoung by Galimard.  My first motorbiking road trip abroad was to Castellan in Provence, France, and since we were near Perfume Mecca (a.k.a. Grasse, where 80% of the world’s perfumes are produced), I begged my dad to take me to one of the perfume factories for a tour.  I really recommend it because they give you a tour showing the history of how perfumes were made in the past and how the processes have modernised, plus their prices are really reasonable when compared to the mass-produced, massively-marked-up “designer” ilk.

Music also evokes Female in me each day.

Music

 

 

I listen to music a lot, partially because I have a 4 hour round-trip daily commute to my day job, but also because it expresses some of the unexpressable within me.
I’ve had my MP4 player for some 10 years now, and it’s still working surprisingly well!
Artists that bring out different aspects of Female in me:

 

Halestorm

Evanescence

Tarja Turunen

Angela Aki

Goo Goo Dolls

Marc Anthony

Josh Groban

Il Divo

Beyonce

Jennifer Lopez

Ellie Goulding

Sara Bareilles

 

I wear great lingerie every day

 

oooh la la lingerie

Yes, I went there.

– bras that support beautifully, soft and comforting fabrics against softer parts of my body.

That’s such a cliche, I know – “wear good underwear to feel a million dollars”.  Except that it’s true for me.  I first read about the importance of wearing the right fit from Camilla Morton, and how great underwear makes great outerwear – your makeup and outerwear is only ever as good as your foundations.  I worked briefly as a lingerie girl at M&S, and it just reinforced the importance of well-fitting underwear.

But it also goes a bit deeper than that – it wasn’t until relatively recently that I was comfortable with my breasts.  Don’t get me wrong – I was always grateful for them and for their good health…yet, they were always “something attached to my chest” rather than being part of my body.

What changed that?  For me, it was when I just decided to stop settling with a “good fit” and finding bras that also felt great to wear and made me feel beautiful underneath my clothes.
And suddenly…I felt myself softening into my clothes, into myself, into my breasts.  I was eased from my head back into my body.  The rest of the day went by quite easily and gently.

It’s only when you create routines that support your Core Desired Feelings that you can feel the way you want to feel every day, not just when you’re goal-chasing.

 

Next week, I’ll show you the heart of my Core Desired Feelings: Freedom

Laughter,

 

Catherine

 

P.S.  Did you miss the chat about Desire I had with Tamara Romaniuk earlier this week?

Don’t worry – hear it here:

 

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