Your Desire Was Never the Problem

On desire, disappointment, and why your intuition isn't broken.

I hate to cook.

I’ve said this forever. My mom says it too. By the time I register I’m hungry, it feels urgent. And then it’s like… it’s just so much—the deciding, the gathering, the doing—by the time I’ve talked myself into starting, I’m more depleted than I was hungry (I know you get this!)

But something happened last night that’s the perfect metaphor for the stuff that really matters.

I was hungry. And before I went into what’s easy, fast, quick, or available based on what’s in the kitchen, I started with the desire.

I slowed down. And by slow, I mean I took 5 freaking seconds to ask myself, “What really sounds good?” I got quiet enough to ask what I actually wanted — and before I could talk myself out of it, my body answered.

Gnocchi.

(I mean really, who doesn’t love a soft, yummy, potato pillow smothered in butter.)

And along with the desire came a memory. The last time I had it. The texture, the warmth, the specific satisfaction of it. My body was already there, already in relationship to the thing it wanted. And then I noticed I was already moving my body toward the freezer, without consciously directing it.

Because I was pulled, effortlessly, almost unconsciously, by the desire itself, toward the direction of the fulfillment of it.

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That pull is the whole conversation.

Most of us have been taught to create from the top down. Get clear on the vision. Set the intention. Think correctly enough and the life you want starts moving toward you. It’s a cognitive exercise wearing spiritual clothes and it puts the thinking mind in charge of a process the thinking mind was never built to lead.

(Makes you wonder what else the thinking mind is in charge of when it shouldn’t be, doesn’t it? But I digress…)

What I keep finding—in my own life, in the women I work with, and apparently through carbs—is that the real signal lives lower. The body knows before the brain does. Desire is somatic before it’s intellectual. It comes from the gut, not the vision board.

And when you actually follow it? You stop grinding toward the thing you want. You just get moved toward it.

That’s a different experience entirely.

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So I made the gnocchi. I was genuinely, bodily excited—the way you are when something feels right before it’s even happened.

I sat down. I took a bite.

It was terrible.

Not fine. Not underwhelming. Objectively, aggressively bad. Way too much parmesan. Too crunchy. And I should have stuck with the Trader Joe’s brand. Noted.

I was bummed because I’m a woman who wants what she wants, and damn buttery gnocchi sounded so satisfying, but I laughed. I warmed up a chocolate croissant, opened a bag of chips and I moved on.

The bonus is the wisdom I now am sharing with you.

Because what I didn’t do is the part that matters.

I did not decide my intuition was broken.
I did not conclude that desire itself is the problem.
I did not swear off gnocchi forever or pretend the whole thing didn't matter.

I felt the disappointment— actual, real disappointment, especially after a long work day that immediately transitioned into Mom mode—and it was exactly the size it was.

I stayed in relationship to the original want. I was hungry, I wanted something satisfying and warm, while releasing the specific form that failed to deliver it. The desire was intact. The form needed updating.

Those are two completely different things. And collapsing them is one of the most costly mistakes we make in our own lives.

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Here’s what I mean.

Think about a woman, maybe you know her, maybe you are her, who has always carried a deep, non-negotiable pull toward leading. Toward using her voice, being seen, building something that actually matters. The desire is real. So she follows it into the form that’s available: the title, the climb, the org chart. She works. She earns it. She sits down at the desk and it is soul-depleting. Wrong. The achievement landed. The aliveness didn’t come with it.

Here’s the fork.

The self-abandoned response: Maybe I was wrong about what I wanted. The desire was the problem.

The self-led response: The desire was correct. What I’ve discovered is that THIS form — this company, this structure, this version of leading — is the wrong container for what I’m carrying.

She doesn’t give up on leadership. She figures out how to cook it right.

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We do this everywhere.

A relationship ends and we decide we wanted too much, too openly, too soon. A business doesn’t work and we question whether we were ever meant to build one. We wanted something, it didn’t come back the way we sent it out, and we take that as instruction to want less.

It’s a form of self-protection that learned to sound wise.

And it is exactly how women end up quieter, smaller, and more managed than they were ever meant to be.

The desire was almost never the problem.
The form needed updating.

The gnocchi being terrible didn’t mean I wasn’t hungry. It meant: not so much parm. Not that brand. Maybe the restaurant downtown where I had it last spring and it was perfect. New information. That’s all.

The disappointment is the system doing what it’s supposed to do — updating, refining, getting more specific on your behalf. Reality saying: not this one. Keep going.

Self-leadership is the capacity to hear that without collapsing.

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Proportional disappointment is one of the most underrated skills I know.

Not bypassing it. Not performing unbotheredness. Genuine proportion—letting the disappointment be the size it actually is, and not one inch larger. Feeling the thing, learning from it, and staying hungry.

The women I work with are extraordinarily capable. Their ability to achieve is not the issue. What costs them—what has always cost them—is that somewhere along the way they learned to manage their own wanting. To make it more reasonable. More achievable. Less likely to hurt (or hurt others) if it didn’t land.

That management is the cage.

Because a woman who stays in full relationship to her desire, through the pursuit, through the disappointment, through the damn backup plan of a warmed-up chocolate croissant, without once concluding that the wanting was the problem?

She is genuinely unstoppable.

Not because everything works out. But because she never loses the thread back to herself.

The drive was aligned. She just needed to learn how to cook it.

That's the work. And it's worth every terrible bite along the way.

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If this is the work you desire to do in your own life, registration for Mynd Over Matter is still open: a 6-week program to re-align, lead with intuition, and remember that you’re a woman who wants what she wants and will not stop until she has it. Come join us, the first session and “homework” is already posted live for you to watch.