How Leaning Into Desire Will Unlock Your Life for Alienated Parents
Why Alienated Parents Stop Wanting Things (And How to Get It Back)
If you're an alienated parent, there's a good chance you've quietly stopped letting yourself want things.
Not the basics — you still want your child back. You still want the court case to go your way. But the other stuff? The class you'd love to take, the trip you keep pushing to "someday," the work you'd actually love to be doing instead of what you feel stuck with?
Every time you reach for something like that, a voice cuts in almost immediately.
"Come on. That's not necessary. Who are you to want that while your child is still gone?"
That voice feels like wisdom. Like appropriate restraint. Like you're keeping yourself in check.
But it's not wisdom. It's parental alienation — still running the show, even when you're not in the courtroom.
How Alienation Rewires You to Stop Wanting
Parental alienation doesn't just break your heart. It rewires your nervous system to live in survival mode.
And survival mode has one job: keep your world small enough so nothing else can catastrophically go wrong.
That means minimizing your needs. Avoiding risk. Not spending money unless it's absolutely necessary. Not doing anything that could be misinterpreted or used against you. Your brain is constantly scanning — legal threats, emotional threats, financial threats, reputational threats. Head on a swivel, all the time.
In that state, your nervous system quietly rewrites your job description. Your job is no longer to build a life, grow, or dream. Your job becomes: keep the ship from sinking.
And if you live like that long enough, just surviving stops being a temporary strategy. It starts to feel like your personality.
You start saying things like:
- "I'm just not that ambitious anymore."
- "I don't really need much."
- "I'm just grateful for the basics."
Here's the truth: when "I don't need much" is code for "I don't trust myself to want anything" — that's not humility. That's self-erasure.
Survival Mode Is a Phase — Not a Life Sentence
Survival mode is protective. It makes sense that your system moved there. Think of it as the bare bones bomb shelter — lanterns, canned food, a piece of slate to mark your days.
But the bomb shelter is not your home. It was never meant to be permanent.
Just surviving is not the same thing as living. And it's definitely not the same as building the kind of life and identity your child might one day come home to find.
Your Wants Are Not Selfish. They're Data.
We're taught to treat need and want as a moral hierarchy. Need is respected. Want is suspect.
So in survival mode, that hierarchy becomes rigid: if you can't justify something as a need, you don't even let yourself consider it.
But here's what that costs you: when you live only in the category of need, your life becomes strictly about maintenance. And maintenance keeps your life from falling apart — but it doesn't move the needle. It doesn't get you closer to the kind of life you'd shout about from the mountaintops.
Your wants are not random impulses. Wants are data about the current version of you. They show you what lights you up right now, where your curiosity is nudging you, what kind of work or creativity might give you a sense of aliveness again.
The question isn't "Do I need this?" It's: "Is there even a sliver of a chance this could expand me, grow me, or affirm my ability to have my own back?"
If yes — that desire is not frivolous. That's your internal compass trying to rotate you out of the survival hallway and toward an actual landscape.
True Desire vs. False Desire: What's the Difference?
Not all desire is created equal, and this distinction matters.
False desire comes from lack. It sounds like: "I feel empty, lonely, ashamed, bored — and I need something right now to make it stop." So you reach for whatever's closest: the scroll, the drink, the drama, the overworking, the relentless pursuit of fixing the legal situation so you don't have to sit with the grief underneath.
False desire is your nervous system yelling "Get me out of here." It's not evil — but it's shortsighted. It helps you tolerate a life you secretly don't want, instead of actually changing it.
True desire comes from curiosity and your highest self. It's less urgent. It sounds like:
- "I want to be the kind of person who..."
- "I want my life to feel..."
- "I want to create X while I'm here."
True desire wants you to become more of who you already are over time. It asks a lot of you — discomfort, effort, delayed gratification — but the discomfort is buying you something. It's not keeping you in a holding pattern. It's building the life you actually want.
How to Tell the Difference in the Moment
A simple check: play the whole scene out.
Ask yourself: "If I answer this desire, will it make me more of who I want to be — or less? Will it move me closer to the long-term life I see for myself, or keep me looping the same life?"
If it shrinks you, fogs you, keeps you in the same pattern — that's desire from lack.
If it stretches you, and underneath the fear there's still a solid yes — that's the desire you're here to follow.
3 Practical Exercises to Uncover What You Actually Want
If you've been in survival mode so long that you genuinely don't know what you want anymore, here's where to start.
Exercise 1: The Daily List
Write down everything you'd like to have or experience in a normal day that would leave you feeling accomplished, supported, and full at bedtime. It can include:
- "I want 20 minutes of movement."
- "I want to laugh with someone."
- "I want a few minutes alone with my coffee in the morning."
- "I want relationships where I feel seen."
This is your starting point — especially if a big life overhaul feels overwhelming right now.
Exercise 2: The Wish List
Write down everything you wish you already had or already created. Include your bucket list, unfinished certifications, moves you've been putting off, friendships you wish existed. Anything you want more of in your life.
Exercise 3: The Flip List
If you truly don't know what you want, start with what you don't want:
- "I don't want to feel this anxious all the time."
- "I don't want to stay in this job forever."
- "I don't want to keep walking on eggshells."
Then flip each one to its opposite:
- → "I want a life where my body feels rested and resourced."
- → "I want work that energizes me."
- → "I want relationships where I can be honest and still feel safe."
Voilà — you just created a powerful starting map of your desires without needing some perfect grand vision.
When You Still Feel Blocked: The Legacy Question
If the lists don't crack it open, zoom all the way out.
Ask yourself: "If the world ended tomorrow, what do I want to have actually lived — from the inside? What do I want to have created? What emotions do I want to have felt most often in my day-to-day life?"
Do you want to have felt grounded? Brave? Creative? Connected? Powerful? Peaceful?
Strip away the circumstances for a moment and look at feeling states. Because the circumstances are never the whole point. The point is: who do you get to be inside your own life?
The Real Invitation
You have suffered big. Maybe you're still suffering big.
That means you are allowed to live big.
Not in the sense of a flashy, Instagram-worthy life — unless that's what you want, and that's completely fine. But in the sense of a life that is deeply yours. A life where your desires are not an afterthought, but a compass you actually follow.
Your kids do not need a parent who has turned into a ghost in their own life. They need you in color, in motion, in truth — even if they're not fully seeing that yet.
Honoring your desires is not selfish. It's not extra.
Not honoring them — holding yourself back from the world — that's the real loss. For you, and for everyone waiting to be touched by who you actually are.
Episode Transcript
How Leaning Into Desire Will Unlock Your Life for Alienated Parents
If the story of alienation has tried to convince you that your only job now is to wait, to vigilantly suffer, and to keep your world as small and as safe as possible,
i'm offering you a different job description right now,
Introduction: Why Alienated Parents Stop Wanting Things
You are listening to the Beyond the High Road podcast with Shelby Milford, episode number 193. I haven't done that in a while. I forgot what episode it was. Um, stay tuned.
Welcome to Beyond the High Road, a podcast dedicated to healing your heart and life following the grief of alienation. I'm your host, Shelby Milford, a twice certified life coach specializing in post-traumatic growth. If you're experiencing the effects of alienation and you're ready to heal, then this show is my love letter to you.
Stay tuned
You know that thing that you keep telling yourself that you don't really need? The class you'd love to take, the trip you keep pushing to someday,
the new couch, the nicer coffee, like I was talking about last week. The, the work that you actually wanna be doing instead of the work that you feel stuck with. On paper, you're managing, right? Bills mostly get paid. You show up for work. You handle the basics.
You're getting by
Parental Alienation Guilt: "Who Am I to Want More While My Child Is Gone?"
But every time that you reach for something beyond that, something you genuinely want, you know, your brain goes, "Come on, that's not necessary. You don't need that." Who are you to even think about that while your child is still gone? Last week, we talked about selfishness, right? And how alienation conditions you to believe that any movement toward a fuller life means that you're abandoning your kid. This week, I wanna zoom in on a related sneaky version of that same thing. the way that you shut down your own desires before they even have a chance to form. Because alienation doesn't just break your heart, as you know, it rewires your nervous system to live in survival mode.
And survival mode has one job
It's to minimize your needs, avoid any risk, Keep your world small enough so that nothing else can catastrophically go wrong
That sounds protective, and in some ways, it actually is But just surviving is not the same thing as living. And it's definitely not the same as building the kind of life and the kind of identity your child might one day come home to find might need to find. So in today's episode, we're gonna talk about the difference between what you need and what you want
And why your wants are not indulgent extras they are signals. They're direction
They're one of the main ways that your future life taps you on the shoulder and says, "Hey, I'm over here."
Because if you never let yourself want more, you will keep living under the same ceiling that alienation built.
A Note: If You're Just Trying to Survive Alienation Right Now
And that is why we're, I wanted to do this today, because I was thinking about this last week after recording and publishing.
And actually after, um, talking with a, a client the following day, and I thought, "You know, I really haven't-- I really want to discuss following desires and how following your desires will - Be another tool to unlock your future life, And then I thought, "Mm, by, like, talking about this, am I going to sound obnoxious?"
Is what I'm saying going to sound tone-deaf to those of you who are smack in the middle of it and feeling like your world is crumbling apart, And right now all you can do is survive. And I'm gonna talk about that in a minute, but, um, I wanted to just say it more candidly than reading it from my outline, that I understand where you're coming from because I also-- I can remember back in the day hearing someone like me, you know, obviously not, uh, related to alienation, but
talk about desire and talk about building this beautiful life, and I thought, "Ugh." It just sounded... It was irritating. More than irritating. It was infuriating, actually. But please stay with me, because my thought last week when I decided for sure I was gonna do this was, like, if I do not share this, what cost does that come at for you guys?
Because I want you to know and to remember, even in the, the depths of despair that you might be in right now, that there's possibility. And focusing on the possibility area, and your desires is what is going to take you from the suffering, from the depths, from the trenches into building this beautiful life.
It's really important stuff, and I thought that if I didn't raise this conversation with you, then that would be the real shame and the real disservice to you in the long run. So please stick with me during this if, like I said, you are smack in the middle of that suffering, because for you to consider what life could be like, what life will be like, how you wanna direct your sails now, even while you're dealing with the day-to-day, just trying to get through each moment, it will change your experience. So okay. So we're gonna keep this grounded and practical, just so you know, um, especially if you're listening and thinking, i'm just trying to make it through the day. Don't talk to me about desire right now.
This is not about forcing yourself or me trying to force you into some big shiny life overhaul overnight, okay? It's about raising your internal ceiling
one genuine want at a time, which in the end will build the system, build the machine that ultimately becomes your big, beautiful life, even inside of alienation.
How Parental Alienation Puts You in Survival Mode
Okay?
after alienation, your system does something very predictable. It shrinks into survival, And survival in this context looks like, "Just get through the day.
Don't rock the boat with anyone," Don't spend money unless it's absolutely necessary. Don't do anything that could be misinterpreted or used against me later." Your brain is constantly scanning for threat: legal, emotional, financial, reputational, all of it.
Head on a swivel, inside and outside, Your body is carrying that chronic wired, tired sort of feeling. Like you're exhausted, but you can't really rest because some part of you is always on watch. In that state, your nervous system quietly rewrites your job description. Your job is no longer to build a life or to grow or to dream. Your job becomes keep the ship from sinking
So even when there's maybe just a little spark in you that says, "I'd love to," another voice might cut in almost instantly to say, "Not now. Be realistic. You're in crisis. Maybe later. Maybe when the case is over. Maybe when they're 18. Maybe when you're sure everything is resolved," And if you live like that long enough, just surviving stops being a temporary strategy and starts to feel like your personality, like your identity
You start to say things like, " I'm just not that ambitious anymore," or, "I just really don't need much. I don't require much." I'm just grateful to have the basics And listen, gratitude, y'all, is beautiful. It's a fantastic thing, and I always offer or encourage that, right?
But when I don't need much is actually code for I don't trust myself to want anything. I don't trust the world to hold my desires, That's not humility. It's self-erasure So I want you to hear this clearly. Survival is a phase that your system moves into for protection. It's a phase. It's the bare bones bomb shelter where all or most of your systems are shut down, You're working from lanterns, cans of baked beans, and a piece of slate to mark your days. Maybe a, a volleyball named Wilson. This does not have to be your life sentence
What Is True Desire? (And Why Alienated Parents Suppress It)
okay? So before we go any further, y'all, I wanna pause and define what I mean by desire, okay? Because this word often gets a bad rap. At its core, the desire I'm speaking of today is an emotion. It's a longing, right?
A deep felt sense of, "I would love for this to exist in my life," or, "I love that it does exist in my life." It can also be used though for more surface things, a formal request, an urge, or an appetite for instant gratification.
For a lot of us, that second part is what we've been taught to picture when we hear that word desire, right? Something hedonistic, something selfish, shallow. And yes, it can be. And though we're gonna visit that in a second, we are gonna talk about that in a second, this is not what I'm offering here for this whole episode.
I'm talking about developing and even intentionally manufacturing the first part of that definition, your truest desires, the longings that come from who you really are and who you are here to become, when you start opening up to desire as a verb, actually allowing yourself to desire and leaning into those desires, the nouns, the specific things and experiences that call to you, You begin to step into your highest self.
which will also cause you to lead your life at its highest level
No matter which God, source, universe you believe in, I do not believe that any of us were put here to be punished. None of the scriptures that I've read or heard of support that. You were made the way that you are in all of your uniqueness, everything that is you, for a reason. When we follow our hearts, we bloom.
Not just in some Hallmark card sort of way, right? But in a very real my my life actually looks and feels big and amazing and all mine sort of way. So in my definition, the way that I look at desire, your deepest, truest desires, and the way that we're supposed to live our lives according to our desires, it causes us to...
And if we're living with integrity genuinely, then it causes us to make contributions. Little baby, little drops of contributions every day throughout our days, but also in the big picture, the way that we live our lives true to our own selves, not to our parents, not to our children, not to the alienating parent, not to anybody, our partners, the society.
But when we truly follow our own compass that may have been covered up by lots of things, um, and I'm gonna talk about that here in a few minutes, then we can make the biggest contribution possible to the world around us. Okay? And doing that, is going to trickle out, ripple out to everybody else, and this is the way that we change the world.
Okay? Truly, like one person at a time. By following your own heart, your own dreams, and becoming what it is that you admire, I'm gonna keep it there because I know I'm gonna be talking about this in a minute.
Needs vs. Wants After Alienation: Why Your Wants Matter
So let's talk about the simple question that can quietly change everything first. Okay?
Do I need this, or do I want this? We're taught to treat need and want as if it's some moral hierarchy, right? Need is respected. Want is a little sus, Need sounds like rent, groceries, gas, medication, showing up at work, taking care of children, going-- filing the motions, doing all that stuff.
Need, right? Want sounds like the art class, the haircut, the upgraded mattress, () callback from last week) the solo weekend, the business you'd love to start, the coaching, the training, the new environment that you want to build, In survival mode, that moral hierarchy gets extremely rigid. It becomes extremely rigid, right?
If I can't justify it as a need, I don't even let myself consider it, is the way that that sounds. I'm living bare bones. So and that's the only way I can justify things. Other-- Everything else gets shoved to the side. Either I forget about it because I don't wanna disappoint myself, I don't wanna disappoint other people
so we shove our uniqueness, our true selves to the side. Self-erasing, But here's the problem with that. When you live only in the category of need, your life becomes strictly about maintenance. Maintenance can keep your life from falling apart. Can. Sure. But it doesn't move the needle, and it certainly doesn't get you closer to leading the kind of life that you'd shout about from the mountaintops. Your wants are not just random impulses, y'all. Wants are data about the current version of you. And also not even just the current version of you, but maybe even the future you. They show you what lights you up now, today, not ten years ago,
where your curiosity might be nudging you. What kind of work or creativity that might give you a sense of aliveness again. Following your desires will lead you to living a purposed and meaningful life. So when you ask, "Do I need this or do I want this?" I don't want you to use that question to shut the door on yourself, I want you to use it instead to open a second door
So it could sound something like, yeah, maybe I don't need this to survive, But is there even a sliver of a chance that this could expand me, right? Grow me, strengthen me, or even just affirm my ability to have my own back
And if your answer is yes there, then that desire is not frivolous
That's your internal compass, your spirit, trying to rotate out of the survival hallway and toward an actual landscape .
False Desire vs. True Desire: What Alienated Parents Reach for to Cope
speaking of frivolous, I do wanna say though that not all desire is created equal. We as humans, we're hardwired to, if you've been listening for a while, you've probably heard this a million times, to seek pleasure, avoid pain, and to be efficient.
Those three things make up the motivational triad. We have neurochemicals that release for the sole purpose of keeping us comfortable. And that was great for a long period of time, but in today's world, we have lots of things that keep us comfortable, too many things that keep us comfortable.
And now it's what we must overcome in order to lead our own selves to where we wanna be, right? We have to overcome the reward system and the desire for more.
A lot of the time when we say, or if you are saying to yourself, "I don't know what I want," it's not because there's nothing there, okay? It's because you or we have been leaning so hard into false desires for so long that y- you may have drowned out the real ones. so there's a desire that comes from not enough-edness, lack, right?
And then there's this desire that comes from curiosity, your spirit, your highest self. I mean, there's more than that, but those are the ones that we're gonna talk about today. Either lack, desire coming from lack and not enough-ness, or desire that's coming from your future highest self or A genuine place of curiosity, Desire from lack sounds like, "I feel empty, I feel lonely, I feel ashamed, bored, furious, scared, and I need something right now to make it stop." So we reach for whatever's closest, the food, the drink, the cart, the scroll, the drama, the fantasy, the overwork- working, the over-pursuing, whatever it is.
Something right now to fill the void. That's not usually how we say it. It can come out that way, but you get my picture. That flavor of desire is basically because... it's basically your nervous system yelling, "Get me out of here," like stat. It's urgent and grabby, right? It's not evil, clearly. but it's shortsighted
And shortsightedness is not going to provide you a desirable result, It just helps you tolerate a life that you secretly don't want. I've also done a lot of episodes on that, tolerating the current state of your life. Um, I can maybe link a few of them down below in the show notes, when we don't have skills for feeling and processing what hurts, these false desires become our go-to sort of pacifier, binky
i'm not trying to infantilize anybody here, it's just the easiest way to explain it. They help us tolerate the undesirable state a little longer instead of wanting to change it or actually changing it. Here's the key. When you start removing those desires, the false ones, right? The automatic numbing, the instant fixes, the grabby behavior, needing s- a result, something different now, or coming from a place of unworthiness like I need to...
Oh, I'm gonna g- I'm gonna maybe upset some people or confuse some people right now, but just know that every situation's different, but the first example that's coming to my mind is those, uh, parents that are on this constant pursuit to win or, and this could go on either side, or fix the situation.
Because in the pursuit of fixing the situation, they don't have to sit with-- I did this. They don't have to sit with the deeper pain of grief, all the, uh, emotions that are under the umbrella of grief, That deeper, slower pain. it's much easier to go and try to fix, fix, fix, fix, fix.
And this may have started for you, if this is ringing a bell for you at all, it may have started way before alienation began. You may have done this just with your kiddo, um, or with, uh, in other areas of your life, wanting to be the fixer of all the things. Because doing that feels better, more certain, although there's not a certainness in it, it- it's- it's kind of a mind game that you don't know you're playing, than sitting still with discomfort,
so anyway, here's the key. When you start removing those false desires, right? The automatic numbing, the instant fixes, you drop back down into the baseline that you were before you started filling the hole, And at first, that can feel like dog shit, so I'm gonna be honest.
It's loud. You're feeling the emptiness, you're feeling the boredom, the grief, the restlessness. They're all painfully there. You're painfully aware of them, right? Without the buffer. But listen, if you can hang on and not answer your urges, and I, again, I've done many episodes on, um, habits,
I did three, uh, straight in a row. Those are probably the best ones to, refer you to. Habits episodes very, very early on. They're, audio e-episodes. But anyway, if you cannot, like, allow the urge to be there, feel the sensation of wanting to go fix, wanting to go overconsume something, whatever it is for you, overeat, overshop, over-, um, drink, whatever.
Just allow the urge without white-knuckling it and knowing that the urge will pass on its own even without you answering it. Don't believe the story that your brain is telling you that you're gonna die, 'cause you won't, I promise. and you do that enough times, something really fucking amazing begins to happen for you.
The fog starts to lift, and once the noise of those quick-hit urges quiets down, what you start to feel underneath is this aching desire, this true desire, right, to expand And that's where the magic happens. It's, it's-- so if you don't know what you want, and you really can't hear, you feel completely blocked, like, "I don't even know where to begin," which I'm gonna get into that in a minute anyway, about what you can do, like the practical steps.
But one of the things that might be blocking you is these surface desires, because they're so, um... They're, they're numbing you, you know? So What's underneath is those aching desires to expand, right? To grow, to live a life that actually matches who you really truly are in the inside. This is what life is about. Opening up to that kind of desire, the real true desire that's in each and every one of you. True desire can absolutely, I will say this, can be born in pain, right?
Because of pain, as a result of pain. Our kind of pain, But it's not the same as trying to escape your life, It's coming from a place of worthiness, knowing that where you are is not actually bad. Like, that getting somewhere different isn't going to make anything better. It's not going to fix you because you're-- there's nothing to fix with you.
You're not broken, It's just that you want to elevate it all, True desire wants you to become more of who you already are over time. It doesn't have to happen now, now, now. It's less urgent. It sounds more like, " I wanna be the kind of person who blank. I want my life to feel blank. Like, my top three emotions that I feel on a daily basis are A, B, C." Right? Maybe it sounds like, "I wanna create X, Y, Z while I'm here on this planet."
I wanna be known for..." Not because you're doing it for other people, but, like, how do you want to present for you, for your own sake? You know?
Why Desire Feels Dangerous After Parental Alienation (And Why It's Worth It)
Here's the thing. True desire is almost never convenient. True desire will ask a lot of you, re- will require a lot of effort on your part for most of the big desires, okay?
It w- it's gonna require discomfort, a lot of it probably. , It's gonna ask you to feel what you've been numbing, To make decisions that might disappoint other people
And it's gonna ask you to do things that don't usually pay off immediately. There's not an instant gratification for this. So the question is not, is this comfortable? Will this be more comfortable for me? The real question is, and I know that if you've been listening for a while, you've heard some version of this many times from me.
Do I wanna trade comfort now short term, for long-term discomfort, Or am I willing to feel some discomfort now so I can live the life that I actually want, feel proud of later So it's not about getting the goal, it's not about achieving, it's not about winning or getting it perfectly right. It's not about that. It's about who you become while you're going after it, whatever it is that your true desire is. Because either way, you're gonna experience discomfort. You can choose the discomfort of stretching into who you're meant to be, right? Or the cr- quiet, chronic discomfort of endlessly tolerating what you really don't want.
Suffering,
The Quick Check: Is This a True Desire or a Coping Mechanism?
One way to check in the moment what-- whether it's a true desire or a, a false desire, right, a surface desire, is to play the whole scene out. We've talked about this before. I learned this from Mark Manson years and years ago. Um, basically, um, now I'm really paraphrasing it, but it's another version of this, is if I answer this desire, this urge, whatever's going on for me, will it make me into more of who I wanna be or less?
Will it move me closer to the long-term life I see for myself, or will it keep me in a holding pattern of tolerating?
If it shrinks you, if it fogs you, keeps you looping the same life, that's desire coming from lack, okay? If it stretches you, and under the fear there's a solid yes though still, that's the desire you're here to follow. These are the ones that are gonna pay off tenfold, a hundredfold probably over the, over the rest of your life, course of your life. You guys, I have so much content, I'm actually having to skip through because I know it's gonna be long if not. I, I could-- I have enough content here to make two or three episodes about desire. Um, so maybe I will actually m- make, um, a sequel to this. I don't know.
How to Find What You Want When You've Been in Survival Mode
So we're gonna skip now to how do you access that kind of desire, your true desires, when you've been in survival mode and have been maybe answering your surface urges for a really long time? There are, mm, two, I'm gonna say two main doors right now, but there's also a third door that we're gonna talk about towards the end. But so door one here are your dormant desires, These are the real desires that have been there the whole time but buried under the false ones like I was just kinda talking about, you can make a list, and actually I've got three ways to make lists here. Any combination of these three lists will work, okay? It just depends. Make it for you. Like, n- uh, tailor it to your needs,
your first list is going to be, your daily list. this is a really great way if you're still in survival mode, like I've been talking about, especially in the beginning. If you're like, "This sounds crazy. I'm not just gonna go start a business and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, when I'm just trying to feed myself and feed my kid or do whatever right now."
Okay? We can start with the basics first. So you wanna grab a piece of paper and write down everything you like to have or experience in a normal day that would leave you feeling accomplished, leave you feeling supported, and even f- like full, heart full, belly full even, at bedtime, at the end of the day.
Okay? So you can write down things like, I'm just gonna give you some ideas. "I wanna finish my work without rushing. I just wanna get 20 minutes of continuous movement for me," exercise, right? "I wanna laugh with someone. I wanna have a few minutes alone with my coffee in the morning. I wanna exercise my mind creatively for 30 minutes."
Whatever that is, what's really important to you, write that down. Okay? Maybe that also includes the kinds of relationships that you want or you want in a relationship. What you want-- you're willing to allow into your life, what you wanna welcome into your life, what you wanna create in your life on the day-to-day.
All of those things can go down on that list, and that's a good starting point. The second list is going to be about things that you wish that you already had or already created. Okay? So it might sound like, "I wish I'd already moved," right? "I wish my finances were on track. I wish I had finished that certification or that, class that I was taking. I wish I had a circle of friends that...
who get it," right? "In-person friends who I feel understood by," you could actually include your bucket list in here. You can include really anything that you want, that you wish that either you already had, or that you already created, or that you want more of in your life. The third list is what you do when you really truly don't know what you want, but you know what you don't want, right? And so obviously, this one is to make a list of everything that you don't want. Everything that you don't want. The other two, make sure that you're staying with the things that you do want.
Okay? Maybe it sounds like, "I don't wanna feel this anxious all the time. I don't wanna stay in this job forever. I don't wanna keep walking on eggshells around uhh, X, Y, Z," whoever it is, right? Um, "I don't wanna be this exhausted forever. I don't wanna look back on my life and see that I've wasted my time, my, my life," you get me here. Now take each of those don't wants and flip it to its clear opposite. Okay? "I don't wanna be th- this exhausted" would turn into, "i want a life where my body feels rested and resourced, I don't wanna keep walking on eggshells turns into I want relationships where I can be honest and still feel safe within them, right? Voila. You've just created a powerful starting map of your desires without needing some perfect grand vision. You don't have to have it all in place, y'all.
You could just dec- decide desire by desire, piece by piece what it is you want, and then own those desires, okay? You didn't have to know your purpose before you started. You just told the truth about what you want more of and what you want less of. That's all
So I'm gonna talk more about what I just said right there, about owning your desires in a little bit, um, at one of the last sections. But I wanna now talk about the other way that you can create desire.
Alienated Parent: How to Manufacture Desire When You Feel Completely Blocked
The second door is intentional. It's much more intentional. You manufacture desire, um, you create desire on purpose from the version of you who already lives the way you want to live.
You use this when you're tempted to answer a surface desire, okay? Like, when you're needing to develop discipline to act intentionally. Like, I'm gonna use one that a client just gave me the other day. "I want to become a therapist or counselor," right? But the process of becoming a therapist or counselor seems way overwhelming, and there's so many steps involved, and it feels very far off. It feels very vague and very far off. And so yeah, the desire is there, but your motivation hasn't caught up with it, and your discipline hasn't caught up with it yet.
That's when you manufacture desire, by generating your emotion based on the thought that you-- thoughts that you decide to think, right? Which once you de- generate the emotion of desire, then that will cause you to act in specific ways that will cause your end result of being done with all of the vagueness that you d- right now are feeling overwhelmed by, and already then having the certification, having the, licensure to be a therapist. All of the actions will pile up once you keep generating the emotion of desire by the thoughts that you choose to think. I hope that makes sense. Okay? you wanna picture future you, like the one who has walked the road, right, already, and built the life that you're craving.
How do they carry themselves? W- how do they treat their body, their money, their time? How do they see themselves with those things, right? How do they behave around money? How do they behave with their time, their relationships? What does a normal Tuesday feel like in their world? Who do they hang out with?
All those kinds of things. Then you wanna ask, " What does that version of me care about that I do right now?" Right? What is the end result that I wanna live that life? How do I get there? Okay, it's by becoming that identity now ahead of time, right? So what are they grateful, future you, the one that's already accomplished and has the license, that I chose today?
Future me, what are they grateful I chose today? How would they lead me? What wisdom do they have to offer me, What did they have to desire and move towards in order to move the needle, move them from here to there, right?
Even when it was wildly inconvenient to become who they are, where they are, right? That's you, it's just the other version of you. You're just not there yet. How did they... What discomfort were they willing to feel, and how can I step into that, right? When you let yourself feel their desire in your body right now, you stop waiting for circumstances to give you permission, okay?
You let your future self lead your present self. You develop a relationship with that version of you, and I know that sounds a little woo to some of you, but really truly it does work. I'm living proof of that too, okay? So that's desire coming from fullness instead of lack And yes, it still asks you to do hard things, very difficult, uncomfortable things sometimes.
But now your effort and your discomfort that you're already feeling, just a different flavor of them, right? This kind of effort and discomfort are buying you something or affording you something that you deeply, genuinely want. It's not keeping you in a holding pattern instead of burying you under a year of just getting by, you know?
Now you're... It's all for something. So in the end, is the surface desire gonna pay off, going and over-drinking or over whatever just to blow off steam, or this is all I can handle right now, I need to numb myself? You don't. I promise you, you don't. You can handle whatever you choose to handle. Capacity.
Okay? Or, like, is this-- is that gonna move the needle for me? Is that gonna get me where I wanna go ultimately? Or can I just experience this discomfort that's gonna last a few minutes maybe, depending on how I'm thinking about it? Or do I wanna experience this discomfort that's actually gonna pay off? You know?
Okay. So
"I Still Don't Know What I Want": A Legacy Exercise for Estranged Parents
You might still be thinking, "Okay, but honestly, I still don't even know what I want."
You've maybe even done the list and you're back for a second listen. And still there feels like a wall between you and any clear desire. If that's where you are, I want you to zoom all the way out for a minute, okay?
If the world blew up tomorrow, what do you want to have lived? Okay? Not just what you want people to say about you in some polished eulogy, but what do you want to have actually experienced from the inside? What do you want to have created? What kind of impact do you want to have had on the people that you love and in the spaces that you're in? And maybe most importantly, what emotions do you wanna have felt most often in your day-to-day life? Okay? Do you wanna have a life that feels grounded? Do you wanna feel brave, creative, connected, playful, powerful, peaceful, in charge, brilliant, energized
Full of fury, like the good kind of fury, right? Um, do you wanna emulate love? What? What is that? If you strip away all the circumstances for just a second, right, and look at feeling states, what would you choose? Because here's the thing, as you probably have heard me talk about before, the circumstances are never the whole point.
The circumstances are, can be all just be made neutral, truly. The point is, who do you get to be inside of your own life?
When you can regularly feel the emotions that you wanna feel and live as an expression of those emotions, letting them spill out of you and shape how you speak, how you work, how you show up, your external proof
Starts to match your inner world. That is alignment. When you want to fee- feel loved, you love. You love big, and you think love, you feel love, you act love, you produce love, right? And then feeling loved from the outside in is never even a requirement.
It's a, it's not even a thought for you. It, it, it goes way down on the totem pole because of the way that you produce love, manifest love, by the way that you are thinking, acting, feeling. from that place, you can cultivate just about anything you want
How to Truly Want What You Have After Alienation
So yes, ask the big legacy questions for sure. If everything ended tomorrow, what would I wish that I allowed myself to do, to feel, to become while I was here? Yeah. And then instead of immediately jumping into what you don't have yet, I want you to look straight at your current life and ask, "What do I already have that I genuinely, deeply want?"
Okay? You can practice owning those wants. That is another great way to step into the place of desire, to start practicing, um, the emotion of desire now if you feel blocked. So maybe it's a relationship where you truly feel seen that you are in right now. Why do you stay in that relationship?
And you can practice owning that want, right, by saying to yourself, reciting it out loud, "I stay in this relationship because I choose to. I want this relationship." And see how that feels inside of you. I want that. Like practice that emotion for everything that you want.
Um, Maybe it's work that stretches you in a way that you actually enjoy, right? I want this work. I love this work because it makes me work harder, and I feel that yearning to do this work, right? Maybe it's a pet that you have, your home, a morning routine, some view that you have outside of your window, or a practice that nourishes you.
Why do you want those things? Okay. Tell yourself like why do you want them, what you appreciate about them, and just practice
Having your own back on the things that you currently choose to have in your life. I choose these clearly because I value them. I want them, right? Why do you have the friendships or the whatever that you have? Because I want them. I really desire those relationships. And the ones that you are not so sure about and you're not sure why they're in your life, this is also gonna be pretty telling for you, too.
You know? So I mean, it can be good all the way around. So maybe it's a part of, also a part of a d- your personality, That you're really proud of for you. Your humor, your honesty, maybe your persistence. Whatever it is. The fact that you have dance parties, that's me, in your house, like, all the time just impromptu whenever you feel like it.
Why do you want that about you? Truly want to keep that part of you. Own it, hone it, really feel that desire for whatever it is that you have in your life at current, and that will help you to move forward to your other newer desires or newly discovered desires that might have been hiding for a while.
The ones that you have currently are living, breathing expressions of desire that you've already brought into form.
So how can you use these things, current desires that you already have in your life, to step into your own vortex, into the frequency that you want on an everyday basis? I'm borrowing here from Abraham Hicks when I'm talking about this.
When you can get into the place of genuine desire and appreciation for what you already have, right, you are able to then train your mind to find more of what you want because you're on that frequency of desire, of want, and of appreciation for what is. And from that frequency, receiving becomes so much easier.
It becomes true and staying,
you stop relating to your life as a list of shortages when you do it this way, right? And start relating to it as proof that you are somebody who can want, who can create, and who can receive This is not frivolous, you guys. This is one of the highest expressions of your true self. Allowing your, your desires, your true desires, feeling them fully and letting your life, your whole life become a reflection of them.
Not just for you, but for everyone who's being touched by you, including your kids. So here's the real invitation, you guys.
You Suffered Big as an Alienated Parent — You're Allowed to Live Big
You have suffered big. Maybe you're still suffering big. You're also, that means that you're allowed to live big.
Not in the sense of performing some huge, flashy, Instagram-worthy life, unless of course you want that, and that's fine too. but in the sense of a life that is deeply yours, right? A life where your desires are not an afterthought, but a compass that you actually follow, so that you are not betraying your true spirit, instead, you are listening, deeply listening to what the, your highest self wants for you. But it can start in your daily things, like I was saying. If the story of alienation has tried to convince you that your only job now is to wait, to vigilantly suffer, and to keep your world as small and as safe as possible,
i'm offering you a different job description right now, okay? Be relentlessly honest with yourself about what you want, about the legacy that you wanna leave, and about how you wanna feel in your own body and in your own mind, and about the kind of human that you are meant to be, that you're here on this earth to be, to become.
And then start noticing where that is already true in your life today. Let those existing wants that you have already be your portal into that vortex again and again and again. Stand inside them. Feel them. Let your nervous system register, "This is what want feels like. This is who I am." Okay? From there, your next moves won't be tiny, apologetic little crumbs. They'll be natural next steps of someone who knows that they're here to contribute by the way that they live, by the way that you live, not just by what you endure. Your kids do not need a parent who has turned into a ghost in their own life, They need you in color, in motion, in truth, even if they're not fully seeing that yet.
That's what they need, I promise you that. Honoring your desires is not selfish. It's not extra, It's you finally saying yes to the life you were always meant to be living,
even in the middle of this story, not at the end when it's all tied up with a bow. If you ask me, honoring your desires, recognizing and honoring your desires is not a selfish act, but instead, not honoring your desires is the selfish act, because then you're holding you back from the world, your world, and those that are waiting on you to make an impression on them, in the small way or in the big way, it does not matter.
Do-- You don't need to affect thousands of people worldwide unless you want to, and if you want that, then please, I encourage you to do that. But it doesn't-- don't live by what other people... I'm offering that you don't continue to live by what other people want for you or your idea of what you think other people want from- for you, you know?
Because that is going to block those people that are really supposed to be with you and around you, influenced by you and you influenced by them, um, from your life. Okay? So the real act of selflessness is you leaning into your desires, is what I'm saying. Okay, guys. That's all I have for you this week. I need to go edit this and get this out to you.
I love you all, and I will see you next week. Okay.
Thanks so much for listening today. If you like what you're hearing and you'd like to hear more, please make sure to click subscribe wherever you're listening or watching. Also, for bite-sized clips and tips, be sure to find me on TikTok or Instagram. See you next week.
