A Spell to Let Yourself Want What You Want

The systems that dominate our world tell us

that our desires are Problematic, and evidence of our badness.

We're taught that desire is dangerous,

because desire is so powerful that structurally oppressive forces

would prefer that we contain, repress, suppress, ignore, and deny them.

But, my darling, I’m here to insist that your desires are key:

to your wellness, to your fulfillment, to your growth,

and also, therefore to your contribution to the collective.

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Mentioned:

Episode 72 of Mind Witchery: Conjuring Money Confidence, featuring the Fabulous Ray Dodd.

Make Magic:

I really believe that our collective liberation lies in each of us

- me and you, all of us - being more conscious and more curious about our desires.

We have to acknowledge that Desire is Power.

If we align our desires with our values,

we can begin to use desire as a way of living those values,

and making the world we want to live in.

Transcript: A Spell to Let Yourself Want What You Want

Natalie Miller: Welcome to Mind Witchery. I’m your host, Natalie Miller, and I’m so glad you’re here. 

Hello, my friend. Oh, I'm extra happy and excited that you pressed play on this particular episode, because wanting, because desire is so important, it's so powerful, and because so many of us have a really fraught relationship with desire. Yeah? So, today's spell, a spell for letting yourself want what you want.

Isn't that sort of wild that we need to do that [laugh], that we can feel so conflicted about our desires that we actually can use a little bit of help, a little bit of assistance just wanting what we want? I just—I find that amazing. But it's necessary. It's necessary because your desires—I just truly believe this—your desires are key to your wellness, to your fulfillment, to your growth, and also therefore to your contribution to the collective.

So, again, let's be clear. We are taught that our desires are anywhere from problematic to evidence of our badness. Really. We're taught that desire is dangerous, and for good reason, because desire is so powerful that, of course, oppressive forces, right, structurally oppressive forces would prefer that we contain, repress, suppress, ignore, deny our desires. 

Now, there's a whole wild thing where capitalism, of course, stokes desire and magnifies desire and even exploits desire—and that can be problematic in so very many ways when we're not conscious about the way we are living in a capitalist society. And yet, at the same time, of course, it runs on desire—everything does. Everything does. 

So, if we are to acknowledge that desire is power, and if we are to align our desires with our values, and if we are then to start to use desire as a way of living into our values, I really believe that that approach to being in this world, that approach to working, that approach to loving, that approach to eating and sleeping and all the things, I really do believe that that is where our collective liberation lies in each of us, me and you, all of us, being more conscious and more curious about our desires.

OK. So, this spell—you've actually already heard it if you listened to last week's episode because, last week, I was talking with my friend Ray Dodd. We were talking about money confidence, conjuring money confidence. If you missed that conversation, I hope you'll go grab it. But as we were talking, and we were talking about wanting to buy things, we were talking about the desire to buy things, I actually tried this spell out on her. 

It's a newer one for me. I've just started using it in Cauldron, in my witchy little small group coaching community. And I wanted to extract that spell out of the episode into this one because I want you to have this little four-question practice to help you explore your desires, and also to, I hope, accept them; go for them. 

OK. So, this spell, the spell for letting yourself want what you want, it's really great for situations where there's something you've been wanting that you keep talking yourself out of—something that you want that you keep talking yourself out of. So, for Ray in our conversation, it was a particular Lego set. [laugh] It was so adorable. 

For other people, it might be opening up their monogamous relationship. It might be taking a month or two of sabbatical. It might be early retirement. It might be a babysitter each afternoon so that you can do your errands and your cooking in peace. Right? 

I don’t know what it is, but I'd love for you to get it in your mind right now. What is something you keep talking yourself out of? And it can be a little thing like a Lego set. It can be a medium thing like a personal trainer a couple times a week. It could be a really big thing like a whole new business—whatever it is that you keep talking yourself out of. 

OK. So, we have four questions, and I'm going to demonstrate with a desire of mine that I've noticed I kind of talk myself out of. So, number one, what's something you want that you keep talking yourself out of? 

For me, it is a monthly creative retreat. So, I've talked about this in previous episodes that my partner helped me discover that when I have a small couple of days' retreat, I go away, and I'm able to fully immerse myself in some kind of creative project. When I do that, I feel better, I'm more fun to be around and, maybe most importantly, I get my capital W work done. Like, the stuff I'm meant to do here, the things [laugh] that I want to contribute to the collective, those happen when I have those retreats.

And what I noticed is I am going away monthly but many of my little trips have actually kind of become other things. So, for example, this month, I took my girls to the beach for a few days. It was really fun. It was lovely. It was not a creative retreat though. But in my mind, I kind of checked off the box of, OK, monthly getaway, check, even though it wasn't the kind of monthly getaway that, really, I deeply desire in this moment.

So, I'm going to count this. I'm going to say something I keep talking myself out of or kind of wiggling or excusing myself out of, something I want that I'm not doing is taking this monthly creative sabbatical. So, it would look like, yeah, I did, I took my kids to the beach, and I still need my little couple of days' getaway. All right.

So, the second question is, why? Why do you want that? Now, I'm talking about my monthly sabbatical. You might be talking about a beautiful handbag, OK? It doesn't matter what the desire is. This totally works. So, why do you want it? Just really sitting for a moment with the desire, why? Why do you want it?

And this opens up a curious space, and an affirmative space, right? So, it gives a little more airtime to the reasons why we want the things. It kind of takes the desire, you know. Imagine it like a fire that's struggling. It kind of takes the desire, and we stoke it, and we rearrange it, and sort of see what's in there.

So, why do I want a creative retreat? I want a creative retreat because I want to bring my ideas to life. I want a creative retreat because remembering how big the world is, is deeply nourishing to my well-being. Like, traveling, being in other places with other perspectives and stimuli is super, super enlivening and nourishing to me. 

Why do I want a creative retreat? Because when I am well, and when my ideas come to life, I help people—including me and my family. My business thrives when I do that. So, that is why. 

Now, as you explore your "why," I hope you'll be really open to all the reasons, even if some of them you don't agree with, and even if they contradict one another. So, I'm going to use the handbag example, both because I talked myself out of a handbag for a long, long time [laugh]—I still do but I did for a long time, and then, finally, actually, I bought one—and also because I think this is a fairly common one. I think a lot of us, there's something about a handbag, a really nice handbag that is alluring. 

So, when I was really wanting a fancy handbag, why was I wanting a nice handbag? And the first reason was I love beautiful things. I love beautiful things. 

The second was I imagined I would feel more confident with a beautiful handbag. I mean, I don’t know, I'm just going to honor that. I'm going to honor that, yes, what we put on our bodies and what we carry with us matters. 

And, of course, when my accoutrement, when my items suit me, and I love them, I'm going to feel good and sparkly. I'm going to feel like my outsides are matching my insides. Like, what I have is what I want, and what I want is what I have. And I don't think that's to be underestimated. Yeah?

Now, there might be some other reason in there that I'm, like, not as happy with, right? So, if it's maybe like, well, I want the fancy handbag to impress people, and I might raise an eyebrow at that and say, "What? To impress people? Is that really important to me?" 

So, I might dig just a little bit deeper with another "why" there. Why do I want to impress people? And then it might be like, well, oh, it's not really so much that I want to impress people. It's more that, like, I'm feeling a little insecure, and I want to make sure that I fit in. I want to give myself an extra little boost toward fitting in.

So, if one of your reasons kind of like, ah, raises an eyebrow for you, just look into it a little bit more, and that'll help you see both, like, what's underneath that desire, and it'll also help you explore the desire for the thing itself anyway, right? 

Maybe through the "why" you discover, you know what, I actually don't really want this thing, or my reasons for wanting this thing, when I really look at them, are not as sound—and that's fine, right? Then maybe, just even through that inquiry, that desire will not be as lurky for you. 

OK. So, after I ask why, now I'm going to do question three and four, which provide some fascinating contrast, I think. So, question three asks, what kind of person wants the thing, right? So, what kind of person wants a monthly creative sabbatical, no matter what? And immediately to my mind comes a selfish person; comes a diva of some sort. Immediately, to mind what kind of person wants a monthly creative sabbatical, no matter what? I mean, some lady who's a spoiled brat. Yeah?

What kind of person wants a fancy handbag? Maybe the kneejerk is a vain person, a shallow person, a materialistic person. So, as you ask yourself about the object—what kind of person wants the desire?—you may very well find that a lot of judgments, a lot of criticism, a lot of conditioned thinking, frankly, like socially conditioned thinking comes up, and we want it to come up. We want it to come up and out because we want to look at it, right?

This thing you've been talking yourself out of, these reasons have been there, but they've kind of been like floating around under the surface, yeah? And we're bringing them up and into the light. OK.

So, the fourth question is another "what kind of person" question, but this one uses your answers from the "why." So, what kind of person wants to remember how big the world is? What kind of person wants to bring her ideas to life? What kind of person wants to do her work in the world for supporting her own wellness, for supporting her family, for making a contribution to the world, right?

When I ask, "What kind of person wants to do that?" I have a very different evaluation. Oh, that person sounds like she's got so much integrity. Oh, that person sounds like she's being realistic about her own wellness and perspective needing to be fed in order for her to be able to do her work in the world, right? I might even say that person sounds like me.

We can do it for the handbag too. What kind of person loves beauty? For what kind of person is beauty and craftsmanship really important? What kind of person wants to feel more confident? What kind of person wants her outsides, her accessories to match her insides? What kind of person wants to be surrounded by beautiful things? 

And, sure, what kind of person wants to boost her image? What kind of person wants to fit in? I mean, truly, that sounds like a human. [laugh] That sounds like a person who's growing and up-leveling and figuring out who she is—and I love her. I love that person. And asking that—what kind of person wants all the "why"?—might just might give you a deeper, more compassionate understanding of why this thing might be important. 

So, I'll tell you, in my own handbag adventure [laugh], I realized that beauty and quality and craftsmanship, all of that, was really, really important. I also realized that, partly, I had been looking at luxury brand handbags. And when I really asked myself, "Why a luxury brand handbag?" I actually didn't find, personally for me, a lot of reasons that really aligned with my own sort of sense of myself, and with my own values, and with my own integrity, right?

I was like, "Hmm, I don't think it really is about a luxury brand. I think I just want something beautiful and well-made." And, so, now, I'm so happy with these two bags that I have, and neither are made by a brand that you would see at Neiman Marcus, and neither are inexpensive. 

They're both very high quality, and both are exactly what I want. Both fulfill my desire for outsides that match my insides, for being surrounded with beautiful things, and for that boost of confidence and power and energy that that gives me, right? So, inquiring into the desire helped me to refine it, and then, best of all, helped me to fulfill it. 

And I don't know about you but I sure can spend a lot of precious time and brain power talking myself out of something. I mean, really, I can spend hours doing online shopping, doing Airbnb and hotel browsing. When I am talking myself out of my desires, phew, so much power just leaks out of me; seeps out of me. I know that experience resonates for so many of my clients, and perhaps it resonates for you too. 

So, this is the spell for that, the spell for letting yourself want what you want. Number one, what's something you want that you keep talking yourself out of, a persistent desire that you will not fulfill? Number two, why do you want that? Number three, what kind of person wants the thing you've been talking yourself out of, like, kind of the object? And then number four, what kind of person wants all that "why"?

My love, I think this one is so potent, and I hope you use it, and I hope it helps you both to have more awareness and compassion and understanding about your desires and also, super much, I hope it helps you go for them. Thank you so much for listening. Bye for now.

Thank you for listening to this episode of Mind Witchery. To catch all the magic I’m offering, please subscribe to the show, or if you want a little bit of weekly witchiness in your inbox, sign up for my Sunday Letter at mindwitchery.com. If today’s episode made you think of a friend or loved one, your sister, your neighbor, please tell them about it. We need more magic-makers in this troubled world. 

Like all good things, this podcast is co-created by stellar people. Our music is by fabulous DJ, artist, and producer, Shammy Dee. Our gorgeous art is by the sorcerers at New Moon Creative. Mind Witchery is produced in conjunction with Particulate Media, K.O. Myers, executive producer. And I am Natalie Miller. Till next time. 

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