The Path from Desire to Fulfillment

Desire and fulfillment flow into each other in a generative, virtuous cycle. If you feel unfulfilled in an area of your life—not just occasionally, like the random flat tire, but as a pattern—it can be useful to identify where in the cycle you tend to get hung up the most.

Take a look at these steps to see if one or two of them immediately stand out. Then read the longer descriptions for further clarification.

1. You don’t think you have desire
2. You think you have desire but have trouble feeling it or knowing what it is
3. You can feel your desire but have trouble expressing it
4. You can express your desire but have trouble receiving
5. After receiving you struggle to feel grateful or gratified from it
6. You have trouble sensing when you are satiated or full
7. No amount of fulfillment has you feel gracious or generous

For a deeper dive, here are some common signs and symptoms you can look for.

1. You don’t think you have desire

• You feel “content with how things are.”
• You tend to let others decide or lead the way
• You appear to be helpful or accommodating, but there’s no real joy in it
• It’s deeply ingrained in you that desire is bad (for example sexual appetite or material wants), or that it’s noble to be selfless
• You feel resigned or acquiescent
• You tend to hitch a ride on other people’s desires, motivations, and passions

Let’s call this selflessness. The self seems to be missing or invisible.

2. You have trouble feeling your desire

• You feel apathetic
• Your desire is intellectual, hypothetical—you can think of things but feel no motivation to pursue them
• Desire feels somewhere off in the distance, out of reach
• You “want to want” — you wish you had desire
• Your want list is really a list of “should’s”
• You don’t know what you want—something, probably, but you can’t identify it

Let’s call this apathy.

3. You have trouble expressing or pursuing your desire

• You won’t ask for it, or take clear action to bring it about
• You have harsh self-judgment, or you fear others’ judgment, about what you desire
• You overwhelm yourself with imagined arguments against—it’s too hard, it’s unlikely, bad things will happen
• Wishing—you want it, but refuse to be the one to make it happen
• You double down on the power of affirmations while avoiding concrete action
• You “hint,” rather than making a clear, clean request that feels good to the listener
• Your self-actualization process never comes to fruition — you keep yourself sidelined with healing or self-development modalities you never graduate from
• You’ve given those who would fulfill your desire reasons not to do so, and you maintain those rather than resolve them
• “It‘s not the same if I have to ask for it, it has to be spontaneous from the other person, otherwise it’s not authentic” — requiring you to hide your unmet desire from the person who could fulfill it
• You have trouble distinguishing between making a request, expressing a desire, complaining, criticizing, and issuing a demand.

Let’s call this powerlessness.

4. You have trouble receiving what you want with open arms

• You push away or sabotage
• You feel like you haven’t earned it, or don’t deserve it
• You set yourself and others up to fail—self-defeating patterns
• When confronted with the prospect of actual fulfillment you feel uneasy, rather than excited or eager
• You’ve grown accustomed to chronic, unfulfilled pursuit, it’s become your comfort zone
• You deflect compliments or turn away gifts

Let’s call this unworthiness.

5. You have trouble feeling gratitude

• When one thing is fulfilled, resolved, or improved, your attention turns to something else to complain about
• You feel dissatisfied—consistently, not just occasionally
• Nothing’s ever right, nothing’s ever good enough
• Your desire seems ungratifiable, even in the face of other people’s attempts to meet it
• You feel unappreciative, resentful, or disappointed
• The generous people in your life eventually stop trying, and you think, “See, I knew they‘d let me down.”

Let’s call this resentfulness.

6. You have trouble recognizing that you’re satiated

• You continue to want beyond what you can actually enjoy or appreciate
• You have habituated feelings of scarcity that don’t match the current circumstances
• You fail to notice when you’re “full” or saturated — your desire has been met and fulfilled
• You cling to the ghost of hunger
• You’re unable to savor or appreciate the fullness of what you have
• You have a constant sense of not getting as much as you’re entitled to
• You seek out examples of others who have received more than you to maintain the belief that you’re still being shortchanged

Let’s call this unconsciousness. You consume mindlessly.

7. You have trouble being generous or gracious

• Expressing gratitude is uncomfortable
• You feel a sense of obligation
• You feel stingy, and it’s incongruous
• You’re mean to the people who love you
• You have a vague fear of loss with no concrete evidence or reason
• You’ve forgotten the joyful, gratifying experience of giving for its own pleasure
• You’re unwilling to reciprocate or outpour
• You feel a growing discomfort with abundance and don’t know why, and you tend to invent problems
• You cling to an earlier decision to stop being giving even though the circumstances have changed

Let’s call this fear.

Positive signs of the full cycle of desire and fulfillment:

• You feel like you got yours and you’re all about others getting theirs
• You take pleasure in others’ happiness and fulfillment
• You feel a joyous outpouring of love
• You respond to “Thank you” with “Thank you!”
• Your giving is generative — rather than costing you, it creates more abundance
• You feel power, confidence, and ease
• You emanate the natural magnetic attractiveness of a warm personality
• Your own healthy desire and appetite are fully restored; you’re ready to pursue, receive, and enjoy the next thing
• People love giving to you; it feels good to them to receive your requests and fulfill them

Let’s call this fulfillment. In this state you are well poised for the cycle to continue again.

If you are not completing the cycle, which step or steps do you tend to get derailed on the most?

At this point, you have a few options. One possibility is to begin at the end. Embody the you you would be after the full cycle of fulfillment. This option is always available; you’re not obligated to wait. It’s the ultimate act of liberation from the stuckness you identified.

Obviously, a second option is to do nothing different—to continue the way you have been, without resolution.

If the first option feels out of range for you, and you’re a hell-no to the second option, a third option is to build the specific emotional muscle you need to become more adept at the step you’re struggling with the most:

1. The antidote is selfishness. (Yes, selfishness.)
2. The antidote is passion.
3. The antidote is power.
4. The antidote is self-esteem.
5. The antidote is forgiveness.
6. The antidote is presence.
7. The antidote is love.

© 2012–2018 by Ken Blackman. All rights reserved.

About the author:

Ken’s passion topic these days is how women’s empowerment intersects with intimate coupledom. A former Apple software engineer turned international sex and intimacy educator turned relationship coach, Ken is in his 20th year helping couples co-create, bond, have great sex, thrive, and live happily ever after. His work has garnered mentions in Business Insider, Playboy, Cosmo, Tim Ferriss’s 4-Hour series and elsewhere. Find out more at kenblackman.com.

Photo by Charles Deluvio 🇵🇭🇨🇦 on Unsplash