Each of your 7 Energy Centres (Chakras) has an associated Deep Desire even if you don’t know about them or you’ve never explored the concept of desire or acknowledged your desires. If we want to operate at our best, we need to understand and work with these Deep Desires.
Some traditions attempt to suppress or transcend desire while others teach that pleasure is somehow evil or bad. These belief systems seem to negate the truth of our human condition – that we all have perfectly legitimate human desires. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with desire unless your mind has been programmed to think so.
Here at HQ – HolisticIntelligence, we promote the living of a passionate life, with full awareness. We’re not interested in becoming enlightened at the cost of life, spirit, laughter, and enjoyment. We’re interested in creating a unity – an embodied consciousness – where we do not fight against our nature. There is no need to repress anything. We simply use our natural energies to grow and evolve into our totality.
These 7 Deep Desires are an integral connection with our powerful life-force. Honouring and integrating these 7 Deep Desires is an important part of our journey. They include safety, connection, creativity and freedom with each one arising at a particular stage in our childhood and linked to a particular Chakra.
1st DEEP DESIRE – SAFETY
We are born into a physical world and, of course, we are born extremely vulnerable. We don’t feel safe in the physical world unless we receive warmth, nurture, food, and water for our bodies. If any of these basics are lacking then, on a primal and physical level, we will feel unsafe and unsure of this world that we now belong to. That feeling of being unsafe is not at the psychological level – it’s experienced deep in the body. As it’s not an enjoyable feeling, the child will most likely learn to bury the feeling. As the child grows older it may develop all sorts of coping strategies, defence mechanisms, and behaviors to make sure that it doesn’t have to feel so unsafe. On a conscious level most of us can’t connect in with this type of early experience until we’re forced to or choose to.
We are also born into a tribal world where our family, relatives, friends, nationality, religion, and culture all have a tremendous impact on our early years. As part of a tribe, we are umbilically connected to its strengths, weaknesses, beliefs, superstitions, and fears. We learn to lean into the support and safety of belonging to this tribe but, as we mature, we learn how difficult it is to oppose tribal norms and how painful it is be excluded from the group and its energy. It’s safer to stay stuck in the old ways and not follow our own path or desires.
So, to honour this deep desire for SAFETY, we must learn how to feel safe “in ourselves” – not needing the approval of our tribe and being able to feel completely comfortable in our own skin. We need to claim the First Chakra Right “to be here” and stand our own ground. If we sense an underlying anxiety deep in the body, then it’s time for the healing journey to begin.
2nd DEEP DESIRE – PLEASURE
Our biological programming means that if we’ve taken care of our survival needs (food, shelter, water, warmth), we will move towards pleasure as children do from about 6 months on. The child wants to move, to reach out towards the world, to move away from pain and towards pleasure. Hence the playpens, bedrooms and cots full of brightly coloured toys that are soft to touch, make lovely sounds, and have flashing lights.
As adults, we need to develop an increased awareness of how we think about pleasure and also how we experience pleasure. This increased awareness will highlight any issues we may have. Firstly, how much we allow ourselves to move towards pleasure and, secondly, how deeply we actually feel pleasure. Many of us were heavily programmed to deny pleasure of the senses, especially in relation to our sexuality – as if that very control is a good thing in itself. It’s not.
As with all things, the trick here is balance. We don’t want to become addicted to pleasure and nor do we want to deny ourselves pleasure. Unfortunately, we often do both – usually because there’s still some negative tribal programming running through our circuits that forbids it.
Some people have been programmed to believe that it’s a weakness to desire pleasure. Others may feel that their role is to give pleasure but not to enjoy pleasure themselves. If your mind has been programmed like this, it’s quite normal to shut down and become regulated by guilt. This can cause you to become rigid in your thinking and in your body. You may also lose the capacity to filter for yourself, resulting in boundaries being unconsciously violated.
Reclaiming our sensuality and enjoying the touch of a lover, the caress of a warm wind, the beauty in a flower, the deliciousness of the taste of chocolate is yet another journey to wholeness and becoming Holistically Intelligent.
3rd DEEP DESIRE -INDIVIDUATION
This desire manifests during the period from about 18 months to 3 years old. We want to individuate, primarily from our mother, and to become independent. Of course, it’s impossible for humans to become fully independent at 3 years of age but the seeds of that desire are planted here. We’ve moved beyond reaching towards pleasure and away from pain and we want to explore further afield. Perhaps we walk out of the room for a few minutes but we soon scurry back to make sure our parent/carer is still around!
As adults, we also seek independence but many fail to fully get there. We may lean on others too much or not be able to take any support at all, being too independent to the point of isolating ourselves. We need to dare to be unique, to take risks and ask for support, to move beyond whatever beliefs don’t work for us, and to risk disapproval for the integrity of our own truth.
Many people do not awaken this 3rd Chakra Desire for “Individuation” at all, preferring to spend their whole lives following the path of least resistance. We saw this a lot during the Covid pandemic years. Many people simply submitted to the will of whatever the authority figures were saying. Others rebelled against it. How we behaved when presented with this new authority is most probably linked to how we responded to orders and punishment as children. If we had strong authority figures then we most likely complied or withdrew and allowed our own power to be subjugated. Whereas if we rebelled at the authority (or manipulated it) then we learned to use our power “against”.
In both cases the deeper question is whether your personal power originates within your own body as a conscious “knowing” as to what is right for you? Do you simply take a position and stick to it, gathering support from anyone who agrees with you? Or can you see that perhaps your obedience (or lack of it) is simply a deep tribal response to be either FOR or AGAINST.
Very few people are truly free to be themselves, able to change as circumstances change, and trusting their own inner authority. Those who have fully individuated can simply send themselves to bed when they are tired, get up when they need to, stop eating or drinking when they want to, express their opinions without needing to control others or have them agree. They’re comfortable just being themselves.
4th DEEP DESIRE – CONNECTION
If we feel safe and supported at the survival level (1st Chakra) and are familiar with our emotions, needs, and desires ( 2nd Chakra), and we’ve also individuated and have a healthy ego identity (3rd Chakra), then we can give and receive love without enmeshment or poor boundary setting. We have an inbuilt desire to connect with others but many of us have closed our hearts (at least to some extent) because, deep down, we don’t trust love and we don’t believe we deserve love. All the love we’ve received, if we look at it closely, was to some extent conditional. That’s not a criticism of anyone’s parents– it’s just a simple truth that’s important to acknowledge. Very few of us were born to fully enlightened parents! However, if we don’t know what a healthy love looks like and feels like, we will find it hard to create the same kind of love and connection in our own lives.
When we do begin to love more deeply, we meet our own lack of self-love. It’s an integral part of the journey into Holistic Intelligence. But, if we can lean into this new awareness, we will gradually become more in tune with what we need, what we really hope for, and what we fear. Being able to communicate openly and honestly is the first step towards fulfilling this deep desire for connection. Once we can honour our own fragmented self, we can honour the self that lives in the other.
It’s easy to see that our relationships with others reflect our relationship with ourselves because we all end up with who we believe we deserve (unconsciously). If we moan and groan about our partners, we are probably doing the very same thing they’re doing! Others will treat us the way we expect to be treated, responding to the programming we still carry inside our hearts. Once we move beyond and heal this programming (i.e. the expectation of betrayal), we cannot and will not stay with people who don’t align with our new values in terms of how we expect to be treated. Our connections begin to mirror our own internal state and we build new relationships based on respect, honesty, clear boundaries, authenticity and healthy compromise.
5th DEEP DESIRE – TO CREATE
We are creators. We dream. We think. We create cars, smartphones, rockets that take us beyond the confines of earth. We create fashion. We create religions and rebellions. We create with every thought – anxiety, excitement, fear, joy. We create our own future or to be more accurate, we co-create our future with everyone else.
What an amazing gift – to create! But how many of us create consciously?
According to The Law of Attraction, ‘like attracts like’. If your thoughts and actions are positive and in alignment then you will attract positive, life-affirming, and wonderful people and experiences into your life. If your thoughts and actions are negative and do not serve your higher purpose, then you will attract difficult, challenging people and situations into your life. Many Law of Attraction teachers glibly state – “The choice is yours” – but of course it’s not that simple. If it were simple then no one would ever think an anxious thought or worry about lack of money or be fearful about losing their job.
The truth is that most of our thoughts are involuntary and reactive until we decide to start our journey into making what’s unconscious within us conscious. Yes, we attract whatever we give out attention, energy, and focus to, whether positive or negative and that’s how we create our lives.
One of the first steps to working with this Deep Desire to create is to simply get clear on what it is you want to create. You could think a thought “Won’t it be wonderful when ….. “ and fill in the blanks. Write it down, put it on your fridge, set it as a daily reminder. This will help you to focus on what it is you want to create.
As you begin to see your future more clearly, there are two important things to remember. First, get happy about it. Milk it. Get excited. Feel the joy! Secondly, notice what gets in the way – especially your own internal beliefs. These beliefs have momentum in your life so there’s work to be done to make more room for the new, more conscious thoughts and beliefs that you’re committed to working with. There’s lots more on this subject in our courses.
But please, please, never forget that you’re always creating, so take the time to embed some practices in your life that will support a more conscious and creative life.
6th DEEP DESIRE -TO TRUST OUR INNER GUIDANCE
We have an internal guidance system which is always operating though it may be in the background or you may be unconscious of it. It’s as if we sometimes just know things without knowing how we know. Sometimes we see through the layers of image and personality to the core of a person. We may pass by someone in the street and feel a huge sadness yet know that it’s not ours.
Usually there comes a time in our lives when we begin to trust this deeper knowing and this way of seeing things clearly. We may, for instance, look at our religion of origin – and rather than accept or reject it, we see it clearly for what it is – one version of an ancient wisdom. While it may be founded on deep spiritual truths, we see clearly how ego has, over the centuries, interfered with it’s essential purity.
We long to trust ourselves and honour this Deep Desire because, if we do, we know that we are in safe hands – our own. Yet many of us have not developed this capacity to trust our deep selves so we allow ourselves to be heavily influenced by what others expect of us or what the world expects.
It’s important to remember that you have your own unique insight and wisdom which can lead you to a very different life than that which may have been mapped out “in your head.” If you really want to honor this side of yourself, this deeper knowing, you need to seek only the Truth. This means that you need to learn how to detach from the illusions and drama of the mind and discard anything which doesn’t “feel right”.
We can only achieve true wisdom through constantly checking in with our intuition – “is this true and right for me or not?” If you’re at this stage of discernment, remember that the ego-self may sabotage your intuition in clever ways, usually through activating fear of change. While you may know that one of the deep truths is that “change is constant”, you may find it difficult to stay with this truth. We often wants things to remain the same, especially in relation to our health, our age, our image, our love life yet we can spend years denying what we know to be true. This is because, at the ground level of the Root Chakra, we desire stability, which the ego may see as the absence of change. However, as we transcend the fears of the ego, we see that embracing and allowing all change is simply another way of describing how to live fully in the present moment, trusting our Inner Guidance completely.
7th DEEP DESIRE – COMPLETE FREEDOM
At the highest level, which we could call a soul level, we desire complete freedom. Freedom from the constraints of the body, from the limitations of gravity, old age, and even the state of being human – because consciousness is, by its nature, absolutely free. At this level the possibilities are infinite – similar to the concepts of vast mind, sky mind. In some traditions this is described as seeking union with the Divine. If we are sincere in this seeking then our ego-self will be shaken to the core time and time again – because anything that gets in the way of complete freedom has to be dissolved. In essence this means transcending our ego separation and becoming what is commonly called “Mystics without Monasteries”.
Honouring this desire usually begins with an awareness of an absence of meaning and purpose in our life. It’s as if we connect in with a much deeper longing which is way beyond the ordinary human delights of a promotion, a new career, a new relationship, or a new house. The ordinary seems to hold no attraction at all. If we can embrace this spiritual crisis, we may be able to see that “something” is trying to wake us up. Sometimes we need a crisis to begin this awakening, often triggered by illness, loss of a loved one, loss of one’s job, loss of a significant relationship.
As we move deeper, we may experience a sense of losing touch with our self or our identity. We are no longer sure of who we are or what we want. Strange as it may seem, this is good news. It means that we are entering the Dark Night of the Soul. If we pass through this stage we will discover a need to devote ourselves – to something beyond ourselves. It can be devotion to a cause, to a religion or yoga or a guru, or even to a political party or corporation. Eventually, though, we will tire of these devotions when we realise that our true devotion is to whatever is calling us to honour that Deep Desire for Freedom.
It is variously called God, Elohim, Abba, Ek Onkar Vishnu, Brahma, Yehovah, Shekini, Shiva, Allah, YHWH, Waheguru : a name cannot define the indefinable. As the Tao Te Ching says: “The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao; The name that can be named is not the eternal name. The Nameless is the origin of Heaven and Earth”.
All we can say is that something is calling us to evolve beyond what we thought we were, and find our way home to taste Oneness with everything, and live in alignment with this 7th Chakra Deep Desire – COMPLETE FREEDOM.
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So what was it like for you? The pandemic and the whole Covid experience of lockdowns, restrictions, and mask wearing? The sense of being restricted? Not being able to go where you wanted, when you wanted?
As you work through the Gateways, you may find that different ones appeal to you at different stages and they provide you with lots of option to focus on as you move through life.
Here at HQ, we’re more focused on your inner life, ensuring that you experience life in richer and deeper dimensions, irrespective of your circumstances. A rich inner life includes Deep Peace, Zero Drama, Joy, Creativity, Authenticity, and Clear Boundaries.
So we’re passionate about creating a map for you to experience these changes – and many more – as you journey with us. We love creating new and different ways of interacting, facilitating and teaching so that you get the absolute best from the material we offer.
OUR MISSION IS TO HELP YOU TO FULFIL YOUR PURPOSE HERE ON EARTH, WHICH WE BELIEVE IS SIMPLY THIS – TO EVOLVE !
