Women have a complicated relationship with the word and feeling of “want.” For so many women, it’s hard to allow “wanting” a seat at our inner table. We replace “want” with “should”—do what we think we should do, become who we think we should be. And we’re very good at doing what we “should” do, but over time, we lose touch with the feeling of wanting altogether. So many women haven’t asked themselves what they “want” for so long that the question itself feels strange, blank, and unanswerable.

At the same time, we’re conditioned to believe that allowing ourselves to “want” is selfish and indulgent. Who are you to get to do what you want? is a common sentiment, as if wanting itself is an act of entitlement. Because you “want” something is not a good enough reason to act on it; we need some extra validation or legitimization to get to consider our own wants, if they still exist at all.

“Wanting” in our culture has also been linked with sloth, immaturity, and even danger. The message we receive from a very early age is that if we allow ourselves to “want,” we will end up on the couch, naked and eating bonbons for the rest of time. “Wanting” is presented to us as a process dictated by our fundamentally sinful nature. “Wanting” is linked with the body and its dangerous desires, while “shoulding” is tied to the mind, productivity, and the rational. The “should police” make sure we stay in line and offer all sorts of narratives for what will happen to us and who we could become if we were to trust our “want.” Essentially, we would be playing with fire and tempting fate. On the other hand, when we act from a sense of duty—doing what we “should” do, what’s “right” and “expected” (not just what we “want”), we’re being virtuous and mature, taking the higher road, and doing good. In a nutshell, “want,” as it’s presented in our cultural narrative, is bad, while “should” is good—and makes us a good person.

“Want” is a feeling that comes with a lot of baggage in our culture. But there’s another aspect of our strange and strained relationship with “wanting” that further complicates our ability to connect to what is, in fact, our most primal, authentic, and life-directing sentiment—our deepest wisdom.

The challenge is that we think of “wanting” in terms of what we want. We go looking in our mind for a possible object of our “wanting”—a car, a house, a particular job, a certain amount of money, or some other such external thing or accomplishment. The focus is often on the thing itself that we think will make us happy. And yet, if we want to genuinely restore our connection and open the doorway to our own “wanting,” if we want to tether ourselves back to our authentic self and remember what makes us who we are at center, if we want to consult the wise guide within us, we need to ask ourselves different questions when it comes to our relationship with “want.”

Instead of asking yourself What do I want? try asking yourself What delights me? Or, What wags my tail? Perhaps the question is What would make today a good day? What makes a day feel nourishing and joyful—for me? What kind of day inspires gratitude? And, at the core, What do I like without having to try to like it?

These sorts of questions take the focus off the external object of “wanting” and place it on your individual and unique experience. They shift you from a future orientation, something you’re going to get that’s not here now, to a right-now-centered experience inside you. They turn your focus from outside to inside—move you from an idea of what you want that lives in your head to the direct experience of delight that lives in your body. Quite literally, the feeling of a dog who’s wagging its tail.

If you ask a kindergartner whether she likes a particular person, the answer is straightforward and obvious: She likes him or she doesn’t; she wants him at her birthday party or she doesn’t. Liking is not complicated, nor is the feeling it inspires inside us. In fact, it’s one of the best feelings we get to have as humans. Such simple inquiries and yet so powerful: what do I like to do, who do I like to be with, how do I like to spend a day?

When you start asking yourself these, to some degree, simpler questions, you move out of your head and into your heart and body. If what you want feels mysterious or unreachable, try using different language. Rather than focusing on what you want, instead of combing through possibilities of things and experiences that you could want in your mind, try dropping into your body and marinating in what delights you or what makes your tail wag. Be a kindergartner.

Give it a whirl. If the “wanting” in you remains elusive, don’t despair; walk with and live in these simpler questions. Notice when you feel delight or liking or just plain good. You are probably meeting a voice inside you that hasn’t been consulted or invited into the conversation for a long time. And if nothing changes and you still don’t sense who you want at your birthday party, rest assured, the “should police” will welcome you back with open arms. But my (confident) hunch assures me that that won’t happen.

The post What Wags Your Tail? appeared first on Nancy Colier.

When I was originally offered the position I said “yes” immediately. It was, a “no-brainer” with all the accoutrements of success we’ve been taught to value and desire. “Wow” was the only response I received when mentioning it to others.

Six months later, having just returned from a long schedule of traveling and teaching, I was exhausted, physically, emotionally, and mentally. As I started to prepare for the new job, I felt a heavy sensation in my chest and a hollowness in my gut; I was weepy for seemingly no reason. An all-too-familiar split had returned, between what my mind told me I should want and what my body actually wanted. It felt as if I had to do this job regardless of if I wanted to or not; the same words looped inside my head, “You should do this; you should want this; it’s the perfect job.” My body had been bullied out of the conversation, as it had so many times in my life; my inner-should-gestapo was back in charge.

And so, trying to respect my own exhaustion (and practice what I teach), I reached out to the program director and explained my situation. I was bone tired from running around the country speaking, teaching, meeting people, and creating material, and I didn’t think more travel and work sounded wise or like what I needed. As lovely as the setting, accommodations, food, compensation, students and staff were, and indeed they were, I was “not sure” I could take care of myself and also accept this opportunity. I needed rest and replenishment, to step off the treadmill of doing, offering, and being the teacher; I needed to rest and have an opportunity to just be.

That said, she did what all good program directors do and explained all the reasons I should do the job even though I didn’t feel like I wanted it or maybe even physically could do the job. She laid out all the incredible perks, how easy the schedule and travel would be, and why so many teachers would covet this spot. She also made the case for why this experience would provide exactly the nourishment, rest, and replenishment I needed, wisely turning my wanting on its head. While this job didn’t seem like what I wanted or needed, and in fact seemed like the antithesis of it, the end result would be exactly what I wanted and needed. Ultimately, I would be so glad I took the opportunity and so glad I didn’t listen to myself.

For a few days I felt stymied. I’d taken in her words and was back in a should mode, telling myself it was a great opportunity that I’d be crazy to pass up. The tapes had started playing again in my head: “I should, I should, I should…” I knew I was caught but didn’t know how to get un-caught.

But then I remembered to shift the question. Rather than ask myself if this was a job everyone would want, I asked if this was a job I wanted. Rather than reminding myself that this was a great opportunity for everyone, I asked if this was a great opportunity for me. Just that simple shift in curiosity opened the door to freedom. In getting curious about and acknowledging my own experience, not just everyone else’s experience, and not just what I’d been taught I should be experiencing, I was able to get clear, reenter my life, and realign with my true self.

The truth—for me, which I later reiterated to the program director, this time with clarity and strength—was that I wished that I wanted and needed this opportunity; if that were true, it would make life a whole lot easier in many ways. And yet, it was not my experience, not what in reality I wanted or needed at this moment in my life. I acknowledged that she was right, most people would want this job; it was a great opportunity; it was an easy gig, but I also created a space between that inarguable truth and the truth of whether I, this human being at this moment in time wanted this job, if it was a great opportunity and easy—for me. And so we left it with there. Both and… both those truths were true and both deserved respect.

There are so many things we’re taught to want, things that we should value, respect, and need, that are supposed to make us happy and satisfy us. And yet, so often, what we should want (in theory) is not what we do want. Making that distinction and respecting it is critical to living an authentic life.

There are many reasons we’re conditioned to want what we want, but that’s a topic for another day. What you should want, the external guidelines for what should make you happy, are not the same (and often very different) from what you do want and what does make you happy. Discovering what you want and need is an internal process, one that only you have access to. Trusting your own wanting is the path home to yourself, to your power and wisdom—to the best of you, a life that’s in alignment and will satisfy you. Living by what you want is, ultimately, what you want.

The post Learning to Live By What You Want Not What You Should Want appeared first on Nancy Colier.