Inner180

Okay, I looked over yesterday’s list, and to be perfectly honest, I want a gorgeous red leather purse.  It’s awesome, and I so rarely see things that I like this much, but is it going to add meaning to my life?   It’s a purse, no more, no less, at least as I see it today.  I’m going to put that desire on hold for now and look at the others.

My fascination with the current elections (and my desire to stop spending time reading about it) gets closer to real, honest, meaningful desire, felt in my heart.  Taking a closer look, my interest is really a reflection of wanting a better world, of caring for the future, of concern for children, including my own.  My desire is to stop reading and start doing.

Hmmm–is this what Martha Beck calls a “beauty-queen desire?”  Something politically correct and safe?  Interesting that this one caught my attention so quickly.

Well, I’ve always worked in a service-oriented capacity, and even as a lawyer I did a lot of work for causes I believed in, issues I thought would change the world for the better.  But maybe that begs the question, because I also have a long history of repressing my heart’s desires.  This idea of changing the world is something I’ll have to feel around inside to get at–where is that wanting and caring coming from?  Is it my head, which surely wants me to be a “good” person, or my heart, which may simply yearn for a really cool red bag?

What do I want right now?  What does my heart desire?

I want to take a trip to someplace exotic, all by myself.  And to feel comfortable and enjoy myself, even though I am alone.
I want to do creative art projects, like watercolors and photography, regularly.
I want to read all of the fabulous books piled on the floor by my bed.  Well, what I really want is all of the knowledge and inspiration in those books, instantly.  Like wisdom in a pill.
I want to give up the time I spend reading the political news every day.
But not until after the elections.
I want to take a hot bath.
I want to create a brilliant, inspiring telecourse to address the fears people are feeling about the economy and money.
I want the amazing red leather purse I saw in a shop last week.
I want to remain calm and be a good role model when my daughter speaks with upset in her voice.
I want to find a hairstyle that always looks good without spending any time styling it.
I want to never eat past satiety again, no matter how delicious the food is.
I want to go to New York in November for my son’s birthday.
I want to swim in warm, crystal clear water and snorkel with tiny iridescent blue fish and eat fresh lobster from the sea.
I want life to feel easy all the time, like I’m floating on a bamboo raft down a stream in Jamaica, eating a ripe mango in the warm sun.

What do you want?

Next week, I’m going to Miami to be on the staff of the Byron Katie School for the Work. This profound and life-altering experience lasts nine days and includes round-the-clock residence in a hotel for several hundred participants and about sixty staff members. The staff makes The School run like a fine Swiss clock.

When I attended the School as a participant last October, I was so curious about the staff. Who were these amazing, dedicated people and how did they get to do this? I felt like a first grader on the first day of school, watching the confident, sophisticated sixth graders.

Working quietly behind the scenes and in the classroom with Katie, there were coordinators and runners and techies and guides and leaders and hander-outers and facilitators. You name it, and there was a gentle, smiling staff member all over it. I shyly asked a few of them questions, and learned that by having attended The School, I, too, could apply to be on the staff.

I immediately knew what I’d want to do if I ever was on the staff: [Read more →]