What do you want?
 

When you think deeply and honestly about life, beyond the failures and the complaints and the desperation and the anxiety and the angst....

When you ask yourself - that child within, with the fresh and hopeful eyes - 'what do you see on the horizon of your life'....

When you set aside the thousand reasons you 'can't'...

When you backburner the rationale and the complaints and the pain and the sadness, the regrets and the screwups...

When you give a fully honest answer to "If I had a totally blank slate for my life I would ________ "

What does that look like?

When was the last time you really sat down and envisioned it?

When was the last time you wrote it down, hung it on your wall, recited it into your own eyes in the mirror or - better yet - the reflection of yourself in a clear stream on a sunny day?

We humans are powerful Creators. We are Spirit. We are Life. What we focus on, we build and make our reality.

When we use that magic with intention, we bring our own vision to life.

But when we fail to intentionally direct that magic - then we create what we fear. We manifest what we are stuck on. We repeat the cycles of desperate yearning. We get consumed with the noise of our random thoughts and anxieties. We drink and we drug because we just want it all to change or to stop or to be nothingness......

What do you WANT???

What will your vision be for your life?

Instead of saying "I HAVE TO STOP"

Instead of convincing yourself "I will NEVER change"

Instead of fearing relapse, fearing alcohol, fearing failure, fearing death.....

Bravely step forward into a space of clarifying YOUR life's direction, goals, values, desires.

Then use that to drive your day..... today..... every day.

This isn't about drinking - but it is vitally important about SOBRIETY.

:grouphug:

This is a brilliant post, FreeOwl. Thank you. Exactly how I have liked to view life since I was very young. Alcoholism stalled it and put a twist into it for a while but the drive returned in a fresh form in sobriety.

"Instead of saying "I HAVE TO STOP"... let's START today :)

Very nice, something we all need to be more conscious of. Well said

Thanks FreeOwl - great post :)

D

It's a powerful idea, thinking about exactly what it is you want and what you're going to do today to get it. I had a boss of mine ask me this thread title word-for-word once when I was 19. I was 1 week into the job and hadn't proven I could sell yet. Really got me thinking, and then acting.

Honestly- what do I want, or rather need?

From the past, in the present and into the future- I want peace.

Expand on it....

That's a great start.

:)

hugz

I might still be stuck on what I DON'T want. I don't want drama, irresponsibility, self-destruction. I don't want empty relationships or co-dependence. I don't want fear.

Time for me to start turning that thinking around, now that most of what I DON'T want has been banished from my life. Thanks, for this, Free Owl. Time for me to start looking forward.

WHat we don't want can be a normal and natural lens through which to look at what we do want.

It's a subtle but important difference between getting 'stuck' on the "I don't want" and moving past that into "I clearly know I don't want __X___, which helps me see that what I DO want is __Y____".

:)

I've been struggling with this for a long time. I watch motivational videos of "what's your 'why'?" etc., and i still don't know.

I have "Time for a Change" written on a whiteboard in my office, and "goals" written below it. I have yet to write a single goal for 3 months because I have no idea.

I'll keep digging I guess.

In the blank about the 'blank slate' question, I would write "More excitement, spontaneous fun, and mandatory physical danger". I am wired to be that way.

I can't figure out if I want things because I'm 32 and I'm supposed to because other people do... or if I actually do want them..

I find myself struggling sometimes even with the concept of "wanting" things vs. needing them. In western culture, we define "needs" much differently than a lot of other places do. I struggle with that at times as well and wonder if many of our problems are actually rooted in this - since most of us don't have to really struggle to have the basics ( a place to live, clean water to drink, food to eat, relative security ) - I think we take it for granted sometimes and get confused about what we really need. I do understand that there are people who struggle for the basics even in modern/western cultures, but for the most part things are far different than they were in the previous generations, and MUCH different than in developing countries.

I thought about the line "When you ask yourself - that child within, with the fresh and hopeful eyes - 'what do you see on the horizon of your life'...."

I wanted to be a dancer and a writer (I didn't want to be a nurse like my mother), I wanted adventures and friends and pretty long hair lol That was probably the extent of my wants as a child.

I have an old photo tacked to a bulletin board in my room along with postcards from trips I took as an adult.. In the picture I'm standing at the top of a slide at the park and I look beyond ecstatic at that moment! Maybe it was the first time I climbed up the ladder by myself, I'm probably four.
I want to be that excited about everything I do as an adult!

Bravely step forward into a space of clarifying YOUR life's direction, goals, values, desires.

This is what is so vitally important, yet a hurdle that many people are afraid to tackle.

I find wants naturally evolve through the years, as likely do others. At 35 I worked towards material thing for myself and my family. Getting the things I wanted actually fueled the flames of my drinking at times. It was almost a license to drink!

Today there is little of the physical world I crave anymore. My wants reside towards the spiritual realm. The program refers to it as the 4th dimension. In hindsight my life would have been more fulfilling had I understood this years ago, I believe.

I don't want that to sound high and mighty as I don't mean it that way. The pall of what was important really isn't. For example, I have grand kids living across the country. Recently I set up a youtube channel and continually load story books that I read. They really like this and ask for more.

That simple sharing of time is now among my greatest wants. I was distant yet there in my cups. Ironically now I may not be there, but am no longer distant. Engaging and listening with all my heart today is what I want.