Living From Your Heart's Desire

What does it mean, and what does it look like to live from our hearts desire? This has been a life question I have been carrying with me a long time, however it’s been intentionally and consciously top of mind lately.

I think I have been asking it as though it is hiding under a rock somewhere waiting for me to discover it.

Is it the extraordinary trying to break through the ordinary? I think every soul has an extraordinary in them, it just doesn’t mean that they don’t do ordinary things. Ordinary things are just not centre stage.

I have often asked is living from one’s heart’s desire setting things down? Is it the ability to live without pressure, and having more space, more quiet to just be?

But if I set things down the first thing that comes up is, what doesn’t get done? When it doesn’t get done, am I behind? But maybe setting things down doesn’t mean setting things down forever, maybe it’s simply loosening the grip of when or how.

Maybe living from our heart’s desire starts with asking the question of what stirs within without force? Maybe it’s a longing for fewer inputs. I have also thought maybe living from my heart’s desire doesn’t have to be some profound moment or like being struck by lightening.

My happy place is the lake. Here it is like there is built in permission to set things down and to live and be without pressure and expectations. I have been asking myself for years how I bring this way of being back into everyday life as it seems to abruptly end as soon as I go back to the “real world”. The old operating system kicks in full blast. 

It leads me to another question, “How do I live where I don’t need to leave my own inner heart to function?” It becomes a life design question. When I compare it to the lake, maybe it’s not the place but the qualities. Space. Permission. Inspiration.

I often think that fundamentally thoughts need to change about what life is. The willingness to re-define it from societal norms of going to school, university, getting a job, getting married, buying a house, getting a dog, having kids, having the house, the vacations etc. while working your ass off to sustain it. To me, it seems like pressure and I have always said I want freedom from it. Because of it I have probably lived a life different from the average however I still don’t feel I have truly broken off from it.

I have defined freedom as one of my own core values, yet I am starting to think it is something deeper. Freedom is what allows aliveness to emerge. And maybe aliveness comes from simply living your joy. For me I notice my aliveness, my joy comes from expression. Expression as a creator, a teacher. I come alive when I am teaching, creating, inspiring, envisioning and speaking truth in the way I understand it.

What if we gave ourselves the permission to orient our life around what truly makes us come alive and trust that is enough? The shift to acting on inspiration and trusting its enough?

I often talk about pressure, living without pressure. Maybe I have made pressure and flow opposites. Where pressure is equal to discipline, responsibility and structure and flow is equal to inspiration, creativity and freedom. What if it’s a false dichotomy?

What if our highest expression isn’t flow or pressure but of devotion? Devotion says I am devoted to living a creative, truthful inspired life.

For me, my devotion might look like writing a chapter for my book, sending an invoice because it allows me to continue writing the chapter or the course burning inside me. Maybe it’s sitting by the river or on the lake on my paddle board or leading a women’s healing circle on Saturday morning. Or even making bread or homemade sauerkraut.

And maybe what I refer to as discipline to follow through is simply inspiration that follows consistency, consistency in listening….to inspiration. And maybe the key to create an amazing life you can’t get enough of is by asking yourself everyday, “What is alive in me today?” Listening to it and not negotiating with the answer.

My epiphany, maybe the secret lies in synthesizing all spiritual teachings and all I know down to this…”Play”. Live life as a child playing.

To me it is the most simplistic truth of every spiritual teaching and universal law I know. Play is not frivolous. Play is the creative force of the universe.

Look at nature. Does a river flow because it is productive? Does a bird sing because it’s building income? Does a child build a sand castle because she has a five year strategic plan? Creation itself is playful. Things that are alive vibrate, move and dance. They play. Dead things don’t resonate. Play is “aliveness in motion”.

So coming full circle, what is my heart’s desire? To play with life. To play with life, writing a book, being present with women, creating courses, sitting at the river, surfing at the lake, learning quantum physics, creating a new framework, having a conversation with my son, baking bread and even writing this article.

Play doesn’t carry the world on its shoulders. Play is living the most magical, expansive, joyful version of yourself you can imagine!