How To Stop Avoiding Your Own Desires & Figure Out What You Really Want

Are you secretly scared of your own desires? I see this all the time in my practice – we avoid knowing what we truly want because we're terrified of disappointment. But here's the thing: your desires are there whether you acknowledge them or not, and avoiding them is just quitting in advance (there's no benefit). 

In this episode, I'm walking you through a powerful exercise that will help you uncover what you actually want (not what you think you should want). We're going to dig past those surface-level desires – like wanting the perfect body or your partner to initiate sex more – and get to the real stuff underneath.

I'll share how my own perfectionist fantasies were actually masking deeper desires for self-acceptance, and how recognizing this changed everything. You'll learn to distinguish between desires you can control versus ones that depend on other people, and why that matters so much.

This isn't about repressing your wants – it's about getting smart about them. I'm giving you the exact questions to ask yourself that will help you figure out which desires are worth pursuing and which ones are just symptoms of other issues.

Grab a pen and paper – we're doing this work together.

Get my free email newsletter with helpful tips, plus a free guide to Finding Your Deepest Turn-Ons, and learn how to work with me at https://laurajurgens.com.

Transcript

0:00  
Welcome to Sex help for smart people. I'm Dr Laura Jurgens. I'm here to help you have better sex, intimacy and relationships. So let's get at it.

0:09  
Hey everyone, welcome to episode 79 today we are going to talk about avoiding our own desires. How to Stop avoiding our own desires, and really how to understand what you want and why you want it, and sort of choose on purpose, which desires you really want to lean into and which desires might be more sort of symptoms of issues in your life that you may just not really want to to lean into too much. Maybe they are about trying to get somebody else to do something or be somebody else, and you realize that you know actually you don't have control over that, and there's an underlying desire of what you'd actually like that would be more juicy or more fulfilling. So we want to just help you get discerning about your desires, rather than repress them. And I this comes up so much for me in my coaching practice because so many of us actually don't really allow ourselves to know all of the things that we want, in part, because oftentimes we're really scared we're not going to get it, and we think that we can't tolerate the disappointment of wanting something and not getting it. And I really want to challenge that, because I actually think that's not at all the case, desire is a really interesting emotion. And we have this, you know, we have all kinds of desires. Desire for, you know, food when we're hungry, desire for rest when we're tired, right? Of course, we also have desire for human connection, that can take lots of different forms. We have desire for pleasure that can take lots of different forms. And sometimes we trick ourselves into thinking that we have a desire for one thing when we actually have a desire for another for so for example, we'll trick ourselves into thinking I have a desire for somebody else to do all of this work for me so that I don't have to when actually our deepest desire is really to rest and it's really important. And we're, like, not letting ourselves rest, and we're not really letting ourselves, like, lean into actually giving ourselves that desire. We're overworking, for example, and we want, maybe we want our coworker or somebody to take all this stuff off our plate, or our boss to stop giving us too many things for us to do in a day. And our surface desire is like, I want her to stop giving me too many things to do in a day. But actually under it, it's really a desire to rest, to have a reasonable pace, a work life balance, a connection with ourselves that we might feel like we're missing it's maybe a desire to slow down the pace of our life. Those are sort of the deeper, real desires. Sometimes, when we want other people to do something, like I want my partner to invite me to have sex more often, I want them to initiate. Right? What we really want is a certain feeling of feeling wanted, or maybe we want to be off the hook for what we think is our job to if we think it's our job to initiate, and we've been telling ourselves that we have to, then maybe we want to break from that, right? So, so really untangling the desires can help us actually get more of what we actually want, because we start discerning, okay, what's the root desire and who can actually give this to me? Can I give this to myself? A lot of times we can give it to ourselves. Now, when I was a perfectionist, thank God, I'm not anymore. I'm really proud of myself for overcoming.

4:03  
It was a lot of work, and I'm so happy I did it. But when I used to be a perfectionist, I would have these, like, grand fantasies related to some goals. So I would set in my mind that I had this desire to accomplish this goal. For example, you know, I wanted to be super fit. I wanted to be like, just absolutely like, in the best shape ever, right? And I had this perfectionist fantasy about it, that when I got there, I would get to feel good about myself. And the reason that I wanted it was so that I would feel good about myself, but the actual underlying desire was to feel good about myself. Now, yes, there was also an underlying desire to feel like physically capable and able to do stuff, but it didn't really, it didn't need to be like, sort of this, like perfect, you know, cover model type of body. I actually just wanted to be strong enough to do the stuff I liked to do and to feel good about myself. But I was. Disguising it, thinking that I had to have, thinking that my true desire was for this, like perfect body, and it wasn't. And when I tried to kind of force myself to do all the things in order to get that perfect body, I always fell off. I always failed to follow through. And I never reached this sort of pinnacle of, you know, okay, when my body gets to this particular look, I'm gonna now be magically allowed to accept myself. That's not what happened. What I needed to do was actually lean into the desire for deep self acceptance, and that's actually what helped me start more consistently working out and get strong enough to do a lot of stuff that I enjoy doing, and I now no longer care about having a cover model body. I could give a hoot. I like my body just as she is, and it's not super skinny, and it's not some you know, doesn't fit into like whatever latest fashion. And I could give a crap. I do not care. I have deep self acceptance, and I'm active enough and strong enough to do the things I love. So that's one of the reasons why I want to bring this forward for you. Because both in relationships with yourself, which is the most important relationship you'll ever be in, and relationships with your partner, or partners or other people in your life, really understanding what it is you desire can help us stop putting pressure on other people to deliver things that we need to be giving ourselves. It can also help us clarify how to really discern what are we going after and where do we want to put our energy. We have limited energy in this life, and I want you. I want to invite you to really put that energy towards the goals that really fundamentally matter to you, towards your deepest desires, not the surface ones that the world is telling you you, quote, unquote, should want, right? The perfect job, the perfect body, whatever, like some sort of status symbol, car, whatever it is. Those are surface level desires. There's something people want underneath that, and your life will be richer and more authentic if you can identify it. So what we're going to do today is I'm going to invite you to do a little exercise with me. And if you are somewhere where you can't do this right now, that's totally fine. You can come back to this later, and it will be here, and it will be here, and just listening to it and kind of going through it will give you the gist, and then you can come back and do it. There's not really any way around it, except to actually dive in and figure it out, right? And so that's what this exercise is meant to do, is to really help you, sort of challenge yourself to find the things that are really that you really desire. Now, one of the other pitfalls about starting to open up desires, and one of the fears that people have, is if I open up my understanding of my own desires, maybe I will start feeling just lack. Maybe I'll just start feeling bad because I don't have this stuff. And I want to encourage you for this very reason that what we're going to do is we're actually also at the same time, we're going to brainstorm, have you brainstorm things that you would desire that you don't have in your life. We're going to have you brainstorm things that you desire that you do have in your life already. And this really short circuits that whole sense of lack, because it creates this more sense of like, abundance. I have all this stuff. I have a bunch of the stuff that I want. And, oh, maybe you know that also helps our mind make a shift into realizing that you could get other things that you might want if you decide to work for them. So the exercise that I invite you to do is to take out a piece of paper and write down 30 things, like at least 30 things, minimum, 30 things. You can go up to 5030, to 50 things, beliefs, experiences, tangible things, relationships, related to anything in your life that you want. And the kicker is, for every other item, starting with number one, I want you to make it something that you already have, but that you want in your life. So for example, I have a reliable car. I really want a reliable car. I really enjoy that there's been times in my life when I didn't have a reliable car, and I love that I have a reliable car. So I might write on number one a reliable car, and it's something I have. So every other one is going to be something that you already have, and you can put a little star next to it so that you can keep track of the things that you already have. Maybe you really want a really comfortable bed and you have one. Maybe you want a pet and you have one. Maybe you want kids and you have them. Maybe you don't want kids and you don't have them, right? Those. Those are great things, like you can write, I'm child free, and I love that, right? Or I have three kids, and that's how many kids I want, right? So make sure to write every other item, something that you want, that you already have, and in between, on the even numbers between two and 30 or more, you are going to write something you desire that you don't already have, but that you truly want to the best of your understanding right now. Maybe you want more friendships. Maybe you want a closer relationship with your father. Maybe you want a higher salary. Maybe you want a better exercise habit. Maybe you know who knows whatever it is that you want. Maybe you want to feel better about your body. Maybe you want to truly love your face. Maybe you want to have more orgasms. Maybe you want to be less orgasm focused with your partner. Maybe you want to play more often. Whatever it is, write down your desires. And the reason that you need to do at least 30 is because, as so there's some of the surface ones that we kind of tell ourselves on the regular. And then as we start challenging ourselves to really populate this list, you will start pulling up more desires that maybe you don't normally encounter in yourself, maybe you don't normally acknowledge. You'll start having to kind of pull them out from deeper in you as you go farther down the list. And that's why I say minimum 3030, to 50. Really write them all down. Okay, so that's step one in the exercise we're doing for this. When you go you finish that step, what I want you to do is go back to the list, just read through it, and then notice, let's pick three things that you feel like you most want that you don't already have, and circle them or write them down. And for each one, I want to invite you to answer these questions. Why do I really want it? What do I think I will get to feel if I get it? This is a really important one. What do you think you'll get to feel if you get it? Okay? That's the reason you want it is because you expect that you're going to get that feeling. Now we should make sure that you think that it's really going to give you that feeling. Because the crazy thing about life is that actual things, or even accomplishments or beliefs don't usually give us beliefs do, but accomplishments things don't usually give us the feeling that we want, unless we really have a new belief. So it's just sort of be be cautious, right? That idea that I had that like, if I get to if I like, work out so hard and diet and all this stuff, and get this, like, perfect body, I'll somehow get to accept myself. That was actually not true. I wasn't going to accept myself because I was going to be in this habit of raking myself over the coals about my body until I, you know, and then I wasn't going to magically arrive at a number on the scale, and I was going to magically accept myself. I actually had to do the work for self acceptance separately. So accepting myself is actually its own goal, and that was a better goal by far than trying to get somebody else's idea of a perfect body. Okay, so that's the first question. Why do I really want it? What will I get to feel if I get it and those go together, go together, because why? The why you want it is basically because of how you expect you're going to feel all right. Next question, do I like my reasons for wanting this? Why or why not? This is a really important one for reflection. Do I like it? Sometimes we recognize that actually we're doing it. We want that thing to impress somebody, or we want that thing to compensate for something, or we want that thing because there's really something underlying it that we want that we're not acknowledging. And I want to invite you to know this about you, know this about yourself, know this about your own desires, and really call yourself out on it. Do I like my reason for wanting this thing, why or why not? Okay, then I want you to ask yourself, Do I believe I can have it? So this is the third question. Do I believe I can have it? Why or why not? And do I like any limitations? I'm putting myself, putting on myself about it. So if you don't believe you can have it, why don't you believe you can have it? And do you like those limitations that you're putting on yourself? If you do believe you can have it, why do you believe you can have it? That's really good to know. That's really good to write it out and actually see it in front of you. I believe I can have this. Say one of the things I want is a published book. I believe I could. Do that. I haven't done it yet, but I still believe I could do it. Why? Because I actually enjoy writing, and I think it would be really great to put a book out in the world, and I totally believe I'm capable of doing that. Writing that out is powerful. That is one that is a wonderful step in getting yourself towards any of your goals. Is actually writing out that you believe you can have it and why you believe it, and if you notice that you don't believe you can have it, and why not check and see, is it in my power, or am I giving? Is my? Is it my? Is this a desire that actually relates to something in somebody else's power? Right? Sometimes it's both like, I want a promotion. Well, I certainly believe I can ask for a promotion. Do I think I could get a promotion? Maybe? What do I need to do to get there? Maybe I would make a list of things that I think I need to do in order to be a shoe in for promotion. Great. Could somebody still say no to me? Absolutely, but I've really given myself the best possible chance, and at least you know, 85% of that I'm just ballparking here is in my power, right? Unless I'm in a place where they just never promote people in my position like nobody's ever gotten it. It's never gonna happen, and I do everything in my power and I still won't get promoted, then it's not in my it's not really like in my best interest to put any more effort into that, what I might do is look for a job where I could get promoted. Right? So clarifying these things can really be super helpful for not only figuring out what's in your control, what's not in your control. If your desire is for your partner to want to have sex with you more often, there are things that are in your control. There's a bunch of stuff you come work with me. There's a lot of stuff that's in your control. There's like, you talk to your partner about what would help them want to have more sexy time, try a bunch of stuff from the podcast, right? Like, there's all kinds of things you can do, but at the end of the day, does it also require another person Absolutely? So it's not 100% in your control. So just kind of clarifying these things, why do you really want it? Do you like your reasons? Do you believe you can have it? These are really important questions for you to understand. What is going on with your desires. Which ones do you want to lean into? Which ones do you want to maybe change or modify or reframe for yourself so that they're more in your control, so that you can have more belief. Or maybe you just need to work on your belief. If you want to be a published author and you just do not, in any shape or form, believe you could do it, then you gotta work on that belief. If you decide that you want to pursue it, right, if you want to be scuba certified, and you don't think you can do that, like, work on your belief, right? What can you do? You can you know? Maybe you need to learn how to swim first. Maybe you need to learn how to, like, be comfortable holding your breath underwater for a few minutes before you practice breathing underwater for a few minutes. There's all kinds of things, right? You can take steps to get there, but starting to actually know what your desires are including your sexual and erotic desires, your desires for romantic connection, your desires for relationships, and being able to really own them is going to help you and own your reasons, right, and then help you Believe in it and pursue it. And I want that for everybody, because I think so many of us avoid our own desires because we're so scared that we might be disappointed. But look, life has tons of disappointment in it, and you'll be disappointed if you don't even try. It's just called quitting in advance. Your desire is still there, whether you acknowledge it or don't acknowledge it, and maybe one day, it'll catch up to you and you'll be regretful that you never even gave yourself a chance to try.

18:40  
So I want to invite you to really do this exercise. Open up. What are all those desires that are in there, in you, and how could you better support them? Okay, I hope this has been helpful. Please feel free to reach out and let me know how it goes, and I'll see you here next week. 

Want to come to Hawaii with me. If you are a woman, or you know any? Send them right to my homepage, www.Laurajurgens.com -- the Maui retreat info is there and it is open for Early Bird registration. Don't miss it, and I get to see you in Hawaii.