That Would Be So Nice
Why you can let yourself want something but not let yourself have it
Friday’s support call opens with a group release. This week it was about wanting. I want more, and I shouldn’t. Two pieces, held next to each other.
She raised her hand and said the topic was where she was right now. “I have these wants, desires, and they are not here yet.” The lack, she called it. Then restlessness. A contraction in the diaphragm, about a five.
I asked whether she wanted the sensation to change. “The sensation, no.” Then: “But the things I want, I want them now.”
Then: “I guess I’ve been fighting it. I shouldn’t feel like that.”
So I asked what she wanted. “Supportive relationships and better finances.” And whether wanting it made her a bad person.
“Not bad, but unhealthy. I learned that desperation is unhealthy.”
The rule is the second layer, and it’s usually the one doing the damage. The wanting is simple. The rule about the wanting is not.
A feeling you’ve ruled against doesn’t leave the room. It goes quiet for a while and comes back louder, because now two things are running: the feeling, and the case against it.
So we played with it. Push the desperation as far away as you can. Now welcome it back, lightly. Push it away again. Welcome it again.
“It’s almost like a child-like energy.”
“That’s better if I welcome it.”
Then I asked whether she could find the one who was desperate. “It still feels personal. I want to say, yes, I am desperate.” I asked whether that could be allowed to be like that. And then: is that you, or are you simply aware of it?
“I’m simply aware. That got much lighter.”
I asked whether there could be permission to want. Yes, she said. That came easily.
Then I asked whether it could be okay to have.
“That would be so nice.”
Not yes. Not no. A wish, phrased as though the permission belonged to somebody else. She could grant herself the wanting. Having was still being handed out at somebody else’s discretion.
So I asked again. Could that be allowed, just for now. Could she say yes to having.
“Yes.”
“It shifted. It’s okay to want. It’s okay to have.”
She said she felt calmer. More accepting. Nothing outside her had moved. The relationships weren’t there. The finances weren’t there. What had gone was the rule that made the wanting a problem.