Amy Jo Goddard, Sex & Relationship Coach

This week I invited people on my mailing list to send me their questions about sexuality and desire, and I really enjoyed getting the chance to read them and offer my analysis. Here’s some of what I heard:

What’s with the ‘coming in waves’ thing? I just work up the “Yeah, this is really what I want and I’m going to work for it” and then the next day I’m like “Oh, well, yeah – it can happen or not – whatever.”

How do I get control over it and not let it or someone else control me with their desire? 

How can I make it more consistent?

I’m having a hard time keeping up with having passionate sex with my boyfriend–it’s like I don’t have the desire but he always does. 

1. You would not get out of bed each day without a desire to live and thrive and do the things you do in life. And if you’re not really happy with all you are doing, then you’ve got to course-correct! Desire is your compass.  You will never head true north without your desire, because it guides you to do exactly what you are meant to do. When you are doing what you are meant to do, you enjoy life, you actually live!

 
In case you missed my article a couple weeks ago about this, I want to be clear that when I talk about desire, I’m talking about healthy desire, not dysfunctional desire. I’m not talking about desire that harms others. I’m not talking about desire that harms you. I’m talking about the desire for more in your life, in your relationships, in your work, around money, and in the things you love to do. I’m talking about you being who you really really want to be. So please do not let your naysayer sabotage this discussion by telling you how bad it is to want to kill, maim or harm. That’s not desire that comes from a healthy place. Most people understand the difference. If you keep up with my writing, I’m guessing you are one of those people who can discern that difference.

2. The second reason desire is necessary is that it creates passion in you-and when you are full with passion, you will take bolder action in your life to really live your desires. Passion is a potent fuel—and the more passion you develop, the more it multiplies which makes your desire bigger. Energy always multiplies itself. Whatever you give energy to grows (like the adage “energy flows where attention goes”.) So if you give energy to your desires, you develop more passion for them, and more drive to have the things you really want.

How can you give energy to your desires? As a ritualist I believe in creating daily practices that honor your desires and keep them at the forefront of your life. I also believe in taking bold action in pursuit of your goals. We have many opportunities to say YES to our desires–everything from making a daily practice or meditation around that goal, making a phone call, writing an e-mail, putting yourself out there in a new way, attending an event or just following your real inner ‘yes’ on what will bring you closer to that goal.

If you are a person who feels no real passion for anything, then this is a critical thing to look at and understand about yourself. Where did your ability to feel passion get snuffed out? Because we come into the world as passionate beings who are here to create something. If you don’t have that passion, you lost it somewhere, and healing it is a key to you loving life again.

3. 3. The third reason desire is absolutely imperative is that it continually reminds you that you are actually in control of your life. Not your parents, or the authorities, not your partner or spouse, not god/goddess, spirit, or the universe, not fate, not the stars, not the oracle, but YOU. When you energize your desire, and take action, you fulfill it. Every time you fulfill a desire, it reminds you that you have that power. Dream it, you can create it. Dream it, then it already exists. Desire is the locus of your dreams. It always guides you home and its fulfillment is evidence of your agency over your own beautiful life.

So if you are thinking:

“Well damn, I don’t really have a lot of ambition or desire to do anything in my life,” or

“I’m just not that passionate about things” or

“I’ll just wait for a sign for what to do” or

“I’ll never really have what I want so why bother?”

Then you must look critically at these thoughts! If you have lost the connection to your desire, or it has become a foreign land to you, you must address why. I’ve watched people kill their desire to live at all through this lack of real desire in anything and they just go through the motions: go to work every day, waiting to retire, bored to tears, unsatisfied till they die. You can keep going the way you are going and be that person. But everyone needs a passion—whatever it is. That’s what makes life fun, fulfilling and beautiful. And the more passion in you, the more that stokes the fire of your sexual desire.

I live my passion every single day and I can’t imagine it any other way. If you are not doing that in some major part of your life, you have got to make a change, and you’ve got to do it now… life really is too short to stay disconnected from true desire, fun and joy. It’s the antithesis of life to stay in a place of ho-hum living.