What do I WANT?
Some conversations and spaces I’m in lately seem rooted in “no” and “don’t.” I notice that each new thing we say we don’t want closes us in a little bit. I see that if there is no wanting mixed in, if there is not also some “yes” and “let’s try” and “i would like…” and “please do…,” then we make ourselves smaller and smaller, sometimes more focused and powerful, but often sadly, painfully, maddeningly compressed and contracted, trying to not do things and not have the things we do not want.
This reminds me anew of the importance of wanting, of yessing, of moving out in the directions of those things that make us bigger, more whole, more alive. Flourishing. I notice that it feels dangerous, exposed, to say what is most wanted… Surely it’s impossible to have what we want. To ask seems to expose a weakness. But somehow, “I want…” seems lately to be opening and easing these conversations I’m in. Seems cleaner. Seems the greater danger, really, is that if I ask I may indeed receive — and that would change everything.
Am thinking just now that “I want…” must be about the most honest thing we can ever say, most powerful, most inviting, even if most precarious. Ah, yes, and then there is the joy of pulsation, yes and no. Oh my.
See Marshall Rosenberg’s Non-Violent Communication for more on noticing and naming wants and needs.