Desiring "More"

Hello. This is a request. A time for reflection, a self-call-to-arms and a time that I'm calling out YOU.  Yes, you, my beautiful friend. This is about desire. But not the type that you think... it's something more deeply ingrained in our hearts. 
 
The last few months of my life have easily been the hardest I have ever faced (and weathered!) Lando moved, and suddenly I found myself engaged but totally "single." There have been more life trails than I care to share about, and through all of this I've been left with a need for "more." I put "more" in quotes because some days I know what that looks like and then my plans change, and other days I don't know what it is at all. I'm scattered and unfocused and want to get my life/life goals on track but have no hard examples of what that looks like. Sure it's easy to sit in my therapists office saying "I need an accountability partner,"  when I really wanted to say scream "I need someone to SHOW me how to do this!"

Then a few days ago, I remembered about The Desire Map. I'm not sure how to describe it, so I'll take an excerpt from the site:

"You want it and you want it bad. Aspiring. Hoping. Plotting. Recurring. Reaching. Bubbling beneath your surface. You crave it — and it craves you. 

So you make a plan to get it. A to-do list. The bucket list. Quarterly objectives. Strategy. Accountability. The goal. Except . . .

You’re not chasing the goal itself, you’re actually chasing a feeling.
We have the procedures of achievement upside down. We go after the stuff we want to have, get, accomplish, and experience outside of ourselves. And we hope, yearn, pray that we’ll be fulfilled when we get there. It’s backwards. It’s outside in. And it’s running us in circles.

What if, first, we got clear on how we actually wanted to feel in our life, and then we laid out our intentions? What if your most desired feelings consciously informed how you plan your day, your year, your career, your holidays — your life?

You know what will happen with that kind of inner clarity and outer action? You’ll feel the way you want to feel more often than not. Decisions will be easier to make: You’ll know what to say no, thank you to and what to say hell yes! to. I bet you’ll complain less. You’ll be more optimistic, more open-hearted. It will be easier for you to return to your center in the midst of a challenge — I promise.

You will do much less proving, and way more living.

And you will have more to give to the world.

For starters."

 The author is Danielle LaPorte, and from what I've gathered, she holds nothing back, and isn't afraid to be blunt. (I guess those are kind of the same thing?)  All across social media, she delivers daily #TruthBombs including this gem: "Turn you longing into a calling." And about a million more that I can't choose from/directly share.

I digress...I'm hoping to start going through the book, "The Desire Map." There's an app that Danielle LaPorte has released called Conversation Starters, and it's for a group to be able to go through the book with a good basis of structure. I love the idea of small groups, but for whatever reason, I can't seem to get stuck to one. I don't know if I'm lazy, scared of vulnerability, or find ways to convince myself that I have very little in common with the other members. (I think with the two small groups I've been a part of recently, all three of those are true, ESPECIALLY the last one.)

 I love the idea of going through "The Desire Map" with women who are close to my age/life situation and are willing to be vulnerable and honest. I think many times, as Christian women specifically, we are too scared to let our souls show. Among my 20-something friends, I am seeing more heartfelt yearnings...the yearn to travel; love bigger than ever; be more compassionate; learn more about ourselves and how God created us to help others. "The Desire Map" shows us just how to do all of those things, and stay focused and sane throughout the journey.

So, who wants in?

The website suggests book clubs as a way to get started. Using the Conversation Starters app, the workbook, Danielle's free audio files and/or just the book.  Meetings at a home, via Google Hangout (Or Skype, whatever), Barnes & Noble, anywhere! The book is $22.00, the workbook comes in packs of

3 @ $30.00 (or $12.00/book), and the journal is $12.50. I'm not sure about group discounts, but I'm hoping to get more information about that!

I feel pretty strongly that "The Desire Map" is what will help us all get what we want. 

Oh, and, if you're into Celebrity Testimonials, Shailene Woodley says: "She reps the sisterhood thing and women’s empowerment… The Desire Map [is] basically charting the things that you want in life, and not just sitting back and saying, “I’m going to manifest this…here’s how,” but actively doing something to manifest your dream."  So yeah. there's that.

Ps: Remember Lauren Dubinsky? Founder of The Good Women Project? Yeah, she's how I first found out about "The Desire Map." So really, that recommendation is worth the perusal.

Join me?

(From daniellelaporte.com)

Words of Wisdom Wednesday.

Happy Wednesday! Today, I have a guest post! The rebel who wrote this is still in search of a life. I encourage you to think about your own life while reading this. Who have you become? Where do you place your value and self-worth? -s. 

…we are pathetic.

2013’s 7th graders have wedding Pinterest boards. Depression and self-diagnosis has become mainstream. We have the ability to access any piece of information with a swipe of our finger across an oily LCD phone screen but we can’t retain any of that information. We rely on the advancement of technology instead of trying to remember anything. We buy things we don’t need. We criticise others for not wearing famous brands. We have become the number of Twitter followers we have. We are our Tumblrs. We are our biased, uninformed sociopolitical opinions that we are fed from one biased, nonfactual source. We ‘care’ about causes the minute we hear from them. We know the food we eat is genetically modified and terrible for our system. We know the soda we drink is packed with so much sugar yet we rely on it for ‘nutrition’. We care too little about the things we should care too much about and we care too much about the things that shouldn't matter. We become enraged at the simplest things like our “pick” not winning an Oscar or an Emmy. We keep unheard artists to ourselves so we can have the satisfaction of ‘knowing’ we were first to hear it. We can’t agree on the most absurdly simplest things. Some of us justify the abuse and hatred of others. We have become our filtered pictures of food because, somehow, we miss the “old days” of terrible, relentless photography. We have become our hatred of all that is mainstream. We have become the blame we toss around. The things we own have ended up owning us. 

You are not your tumblr. You are not your cup of Starbucks. You are not your North Face and UGGS. You are not your religion. You are not your wallet. You are not your taste in music. You are not cable package. You are not 140 characters. You are not your political party. You are not your haircut. You are not your sexual orientation. You are not your iPhone.

We used to be people. We used to speak, not type.

We used to live. 

                                             - No one. 

Original Post: We Are Pathetic