We are divided between fervent desires and the limits of reality, life presents us with continuous challenges and we decide which ones to ignore and which we want to accept, but in rare cases we go through extreme situations that test us and sometimes. many cases, allow us to understand that we are much stronger than we thought.
In other cases, our desires never come true and we don’t know why, in this article we will try to understand some of these camouflaged reasons, if you want to join us, let’s try to figure out where these inexplicable limitations that prevent us from achieving what we want come from.
“Our desires despise and abandon what we must pursue after what we do not have” – Michel de Montaigne-
First, let us think that desires arise from an interest in achieving something that we do not have, or at least in form and when we would like to have it, in some way we miss you and consider it necessary.
To fill this gap we have to put in place a procedure, methodology or strategy, if we do everything is fine. The problem arises when we notice that we have achieved something else, what we really wanted was not what we wanted.
This result is as frustrating as when we have worked very hard to achieve a goal and failed. In fact, it also happens that sometimes we do not find satisfaction in the desires for which we strive the most. As much as we implement all the resources that we have at hand, we do not see any progress and the goal always seems to be at a greater distance than we can reach if we get closer.
It is as if reality wants to take our intuition to the other side of our reason, which, despite its efforts, finds no reason not to achieve this goal, but what is really going on in the background?Where is this insurmountable obstacle?
A lot of times we don’t know what we really want. In addition to being influenced by the collective desires expressed in advertising, for example, we are also influenced by the comments of friends and family. may not meet our real needs.
The family alone is a real waiting room, since our birth we have been engaged in a kind of ‘ideal’, if we are the elders of the house the pretext is that we are the elderly, if we are the youngest, the reason is the same. And so on with different categories, such as gender or appearance. Another thing that has a lot of influence is the time the family lives when we come into the world.
In principle, we are the result of the desires of others, it is a desire that made our lives possible, to some extent, we were loved, otherwise we would probably not have been born, and if there had not been a sustained desire, it would not have survived our first years of life either.
However, this desire that has awakened us is not always clear or healthy, however, early in life, we have no choice but to bend to the desires of others, part of the maturation process is precisely to get rid of this game. the desire that made our lives possible and define the extent to which these expectations coincide with our personal project.
We are in a world where it seems that everyone is able to express a professional opinion about our desires, of course, it also depends a lot on our place in the world and the environment in which we grew up. the bad, the desirable and the reprehensible, are categories demarcated, at least in part, before we exist.
During childhood, we have contact with a number of mandates, some of them explicit. Tell yourself how you should be, they give you gifts when you adapt to the norm and they punish you when you don’t, so you learn behaviors that, with the strength of reinforcements and repetition, end up becoming habits. In addition to a good directory of direct commands, there is also a complete set of hidden commands that are much more difficult to define.
Imagine a mother caressing her child in deep sadness, you see her and without her saying anything you feel indebted, maybe she hopes you are a consolation, that you free her from her frustration, loneliness or pain, maybe even you I tell it, and thus, without realizing it, you can assume your expectation as an unconscious command.
Following this example, it is likely that anyone with such a mother will also have difficulty defining and satisfying their own desires. You can assume that seeking independence is attacking the mother, or you may believe that being happy is a way to betray yourself. since all this is unconscious, the situation will not be seen so clearly; will result in self-botage, delays or lack of objectives.
If you feel that you cannot define your desires, it is very likely that you will operate as part of an unconscious mandate, the same is true of cases where we seem to have a well-defined desire, no matter how hard we try, we cannot satisfy it.
The keys to understanding what’s happening may be in your childhood, in the desires of those around you. You can even identify expectations that have been forged for you and can consciously reject them and try to get away from them.
To win the battle between conscious desires and unconscious limitations, you must first identify what these hidden or hidden forces operate in your life, for this it is essential to perform an exercise of introspection, so that therapeutic help becomes a valuable ally. in these cases, it often allows you to locate limitations, raise awareness, and stop them.
Images courtesy of Ammy Judd and F. Infante