Desire As Medicine Podcast
Catherine & Brenda interview people and talk to each other about desire. They always come back to us being 100% responsible for our desires.
Contact us by email:
desireasmedicine@gmail.com
catherine@catherinenavarro.com
goddessbrenda24@gmail.com
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@CoachCatherineN
@Brenda_Fredericks
Desire As Medicine Podcast
72 ~ Desire as a Spiritual Practice with Sarah Trudeau
Uncover how desire can become a transformative spiritual practice as we welcome our guest, Sarah Trudeau, a devoted mother, accomplished writer, and seasoned teacher with a rich background in Buddhist meditation and yoga. Listen as Sarah shares her insights on the "wave of desire" and how Elizabeth Gilbert's concept of the muse has informed her understanding of desire as a powerful life force.
Desire holds the key to our spiritual growth and personal transformation, guiding us toward authentic expression and co-creation with the universe. In this episode, we continue our exploration of desire, discerning between ego-driven and soul desires, and unveil practical practices that foster alignment within ourselves.
Highlights of this Episode:
• Understanding desire as life force energy
• Distinguishing between ego desires and authentic desires
• The role of personal practices in cultivating alignment
• Sarah's journey through postpartum and the lessons learned
• The importance of co-creation with intention
• Embracing the messiness and exploration of desires
• Building trust and clarity in following our inner voice
• Inspiration from nature and movement as catalysts for alignment
• A celebration of the journey rather than a destination
To learn more about Sarah, you can follow her on: Substack, Facebook and Instagram
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If you'd like to learn more about 1:1 or group coaching with Brenda or Catherine message them and book a Sales Call to learn more.
Email:
desireasmedicine@gmail.com
goddessbrenda24@gmail.com
catherine@catherinenavarro.com
Instagram:
@desireasmedicinepodcast
@Brenda_Fredericks
@CoachCatherineN
Welcome to Desire is Medicine. We are two very different women living a life led by desire.
Speaker 2:Inviting you into our world. I'm Brenda. I'm a devoted practitioner to being my fully expressed true self in my daily life, motherhood relationships and my business Desire has taken me on quite a ride and every day I practice listening to and following the voice within. I'm a middle school teacher turned coach and guide of the feminine.
Speaker 1:And I'm Catherine, devoted to living my life as the truest and hopefully the highest version of me. I don't have children, I've never been married. I've spent equal parts of my life in corporate as in some down and low shady spaces. I was the epitome of tired and wired and my path led me to explore desire. I'm a coach, guide, energy worker and a forever student.
Speaker 2:Even after decades of inner work, we are humble beginners on the mat, still exploring, always curious. We believe that listening to and following the nudge of desire is a deep spiritual practice that helps us grow.
Speaker 1:On the Desire as Medicine podcast. We talk to each other, we interview people we know and love about the practice of desire, bringing in a very important piece that is often overlooked being responsible for our desire.
Speaker 2:Welcome listeners and friends to the Desire as Medicine podcast. I am joined today by my lovely co-host, catherine Navarro, and we have a very special guest today. Her name is Sarah Trudeau and I am so excited that she's here. I'm going to read her bio, because it's really beautiful.
Speaker 2:Sarah Trudeau is a mother, writer and teacher. Her spiritual journey began in childhood and eventually led her to the East, where she spent years studying and practicing Buddhist meditation and yoga. In 2009, sarah began teaching yoga in studios, schools and prisons. Her students represent a colorful tapestry of humanity Children, the elderly, parkinson's patients, inmates and practitioners of every major religion.
Speaker 2:Sarah majored in creative writing at the University of Washington and has pursued her joy of writing for nearly 20 years. You can find a diverse collection of her work on her Substack publication, which I highly recommend, including her essays, poetries and erotica. Sarah currently teaches online and all of her courses are in service to our collective spiritual awakening. She weaves together breathwork, movement and writing to bring her students into a space of greater alignment. I have taken Sarah's writing class recently, which is what inspired me to have Sarah on as a guest. She has a beautiful gift. Not only is she an amazing storyteller, as you will hear today, I'm sure, but she has this incredible gift of bringing people deeply into themselves, creating conditions for deep alignment with yourself, to co-create with the universe, which immediately had me feel so much more connected to my desires when I was in her field. So welcome, sarah. We're so happy that you're here.
Speaker 3:Thank you. I'm so honored that you invited me.
Speaker 2:I'm so glad that you're here. Your class just I feel like it changed so many things for me your writing class. I am a writer and I was kind of feeling stuck in my own writing and I saw your posts on social media about writing and I was just called to it. I said I need to do this, I need to be in this woman's field and not only reconnect with my writing and my love of writing. I had no idea, actually, that it would reconnect me to my desire. Oh, it was beautiful.
Speaker 3:Thank you, I think it was too.
Speaker 2:It was gorgeous, you. You talk about desire in so many beautiful ways and co-creating, and we're going to get into all the juicy bits today. Okay, you said something before we started recording that really inspired me and I would love if you would elaborate on that. You were talking about the wave of desire and how you feel it in your body. Can you talk about that a little bit to just let's just dive right in? Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:The wave of desire. Okay, so I'm gonna take a deep breath. The wave of desire, it has a very distinct feeling to me. It feels like well, it has different flavors, but often it feels like this rush of inspiration or clarity, or, yes, Like my body comes alive, it's like I up-level as this wave of inspiration or desire moves through me, it's like it electrifies me and it's something greater than me, or it's something different than me. It's something that wants to move through me. And actually, Brenda, we talked about Elizabeth Gilbert's work in the Golden Pen, the writing course that you took. Elizabeth Gilbert wrote a book called Big Magic that I think she describes it so well, and certainly her way of working with the muse has clarified how I understand desire, because I think they're very closely related.
Speaker 3:Desire, because I think they're very closely related and that it's a force that is different from me, separate from me, with a consciousness of its own that has chosen me as its vehicle for expression in the physical world, and that might be a piece of writing that wants to come through, or that might be a conversation that wants to be had between me and a lover or a loved one, or that might be like a special lunch that I want to make for my kids. It's unlimited in how it expresses, but it's that feel. It's like that rush or that feeling of like I'm going to do that. That needs to happen. That thing wants to come through me, the vehicle of me, to be expressed in the world. And I often do feel that it's like a wave, because I feel like, or I do, I feel like it's, I feel and this is where you start to get into, you start to sort of like break down what desire is and the different strains within it. But I feel like life force itself that exists regardless of whether I'm here or not. And I really do think of life force as just waves and waves and waves rolling through the universe and we can sort of catch them and feel them in our body. We can harmonize with these different strains of life force, these different frequencies, right, and then we can sort of ride those and experience what they have to offer and bring through their particular flavor. But all of that to me I mean sort of the bigger picture would be that's life force, energy that wants to move through me In its more personal flavors.
Speaker 3:I could call it desire. That's desire that wants to move through me In its very specific flavors. I think of that often as the muse. The muse has showed up and she's knocking on my door and she wants me to write this piece of writing door and she wants me to write this piece of writing. So it's all these different like flavors or strains or currents of the same thing which is essentially life force, energy, God, whatever you want to call it, and I do. I often experience that as waves through me. It lights me up, it's sort of it's like electrifies my body and I recognize it now and I act on it to the best of my ability.
Speaker 2:You make it sound so good. I love the metaphor of the wave and how you write it. That just sounds. You make it sound like so much fun. I personally think that desire is so much fun like that when you learn to play with it and writing it. And I love what you said, that it is greater than me, it moves through me and it chose me. It chose me, yeah, and I like how you said you can recognize it now, and I think that takes a long time to. You don't always recognize it at first or you think, oh, this desire, oh, that's not for me, I'm not going to do that. But no, if you feel that desire in your body, oh, it's for you, yeah, and that could be confronting at times.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, absolutely, because it's not always as we would say in our community, it's not always in your preferences always, as we would say, in our community.
Speaker 3:it's not always in your preferences, you know. It's not always in your preferences to bring a particular work through or a particular flavor of expression through. It can be quite confronting, it can also be quite inconvenient. It can shift the course of your life. And so I think also, you know, I was thinking about desire in the week leading up to this and I was thinking about how it's a force that I have built trust with over the years. The more I have practiced just in, like small doses and then bigger and bigger doses, feeling it, responding to it, trusting it enough to like, like, join hands with it and and move into creation with it, the more it has shown me that it's a benevolent force that I can trust.
Speaker 3:Desire has never led me astray. Desire has never it's led me into conflict at times and it's led me, it's taken me to my edges, like right right to my edges and a little bit beyond, but but that's not a bad thing. That grows you, that stretches you, um, and that refines you, you know, um. So when, when I feel that that surge of desire, now, even if my mind equates the desire with being inconvenient or scary, I have a lot more trust in it now than I ever have in my life, because even when I have said yes to delivering or co-creating, desire, desire, desires, desire to move through me into the world, it's only ever ultimately been for my, my growth, my fuller, truer expression, the emergence of me, the emergence of my authentic self.
Speaker 2:You just literally nailed what this podcast is about. We really this is what we're talking about here, and we're massaging this whole idea in all these episodes for going on two years of desire and how it chooses you and how it grows you, and you said it's not always comfortable. I think that's why often we want to turn our back on it, but if you're brave enough to open to the desire that chooses you and co-create with it, it does take you to your edges and beyond. It's uncomfortable and I think that it's supposed of like working out at the gym, I feel like you can equate spiritual growth and spiritual practice almost directly with, like, physical training.
Speaker 3:It's not particularly enjoyable, like showing up at the gym and lifting weights and doing crunches, and if you're doing it, if you're doing it right quote, unquote you will, you'll meet your edge, you'll move right up to your edge consistently. But that's how you build muscle, that's how you build strength, that's how you create more openness in your body. We're built for it, like we're built to expand and um, and it's no different to me not really that different going to the physical gym and lifting weights, as it is a spiritual practice that takes you to your edges of expression or whatever. It's not particularly comfortable, but it's the direction we're meant to be moving.
Speaker 2:We're meant to be moving in the direction of expansion always. I totally agree. Thank you for that. I have a question for you how do you discern between when a desire is that force moving through you versus an ego driven desire? Yeah, how do you discern between that? I?
Speaker 3:feel like I am constantly working with that, like figuring out what is what, and I was thinking this morning on, I was actually thinking of this this morning. Um, I think ego is part of spirit. Like I don't put ego like in the corner, like a bad girl or boy, or like make it sit outside in the cold, like ego. We came into these bodies with an ego because it's meant to be there. It's like every other part of us that that we came in with ego as part of it. And so I feel like the name of the game is integration. It's like harmonizing the desire or the will or the habits of your ego with, like that greater flow or that greater wave of desire, and bringing them together so that the ego or the mind because the ego tends to live in the mind, the mind, the ego is in service to the greater flow of energy. So when my ego has a desire like, oh, my ego wants like a dirty chai, like yesterday, oh, my god, my taste buds want a dirty chai. That sounds so fucking good, but I know that it's. It destroys my stomach and it's probably going to ruin my appetite. It's not the best. It's not the best thing to put in my body right now. It's not source. Source is not guiding me to the dirty chai. My taste buds or my preferences are, and so I just get to make a choice in that moment, like, okay, I understand the consequences of both choosing to drink the dirty chai or not and then you know, I make a choice and I chose to drink the dirty chai yesterday. So then I just continue streaming source through my body and I enjoy the dirty chai as fully as I can as I'm drinking it. So I don't neglect the desires of my ego. I don't always act on them either, and I think that it's important to recognize that every choice we make, particularly when we make them repeatedly, they start to create grooves, like neural grooves in the mind, habitual energetic grooves in the body. And so we do need to be conscious of what we're giving into, like what egoic desires we tend to give into, what egoic ruts we tend to fall into, because they're just going to get deeper and deeper. So, like anything in life, I think it's a balance where it's like let yourself have your humanity, let your ego have what it wants, sometimes just like, merge them, but also be conscious of the habits you're creating and the grooves that you're creating, but also be conscious of the habits you're creating and the grooves that you're creating. And and so I think then, to get back to your original question, how do you discern between the, the desires of the ego, and the desires of, of desire of source or God?
Speaker 3:I think sometimes it just takes time to be able to recognize which which it is. I'll give you an example. Um, when I first had my daughter Karuna, eight and a half years ago, I I went into postpartum depression quickly. It was like a really slippery slope for me. It was, you know, sleep deprivation and bleeding nipples and, uh, being in a postpartum body, it's exhaustion. It was so many factors coming at me all at once that I went into postpartum depression quickly and I stayed there for a couple of months. And, um, at the peak of that, or maybe the low of that, I had this flash, this flash where I this desire, I felt this desire for and what I've realized now it's just kind of like, clarified to the point where I can speak to it today with this level of clarity.
Speaker 3:At the time, eight years ago, at the depths of postpartum depression, my mind identified the desire as I want my parents to move in right down the road, or I want to move in like I want our families to merge me, my husband and our new baby with my family of origin. I want to move in with them so they can support me, because they were really good supporters, but they were across town and it wasn't that convenient. And so I had this flash, like this full body desire to move in with my parents. It was a full body thing, full body, and it was interesting because most of me got on board with that idea and was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I want to move in with my family, but later, not very much later and then, as the years continued to go on, I would think back on that moment and I'd be like that's not really what I wanted. I do not want to live with my parents God bless them. I do not want to merge homes with my family. What was I thinking? So what was that? There was this whoosh of energy that was like a full body, yes. And my mind translated it instantly as move in with my family, because that feels like what I need.
Speaker 3:And then it literally took me years, until very recently, just with this question mark in my mind all the time like, why? Why did I feel that way? Because that's not actually what I wanted. It just became clear to me recently. I was like, oh, I just wanted support, I wanted support, oh, I just wanted support, I wanted support. And my mind translated that as the closest translation my mind could find was move in with my parents. It was the closest, it was like the closest neighborhood we could get in. You know what I mean. Really, I didn't want to move in with my parents, I just wanted to sleep through the night and I wanted someone there to hold the baby when I took a shower and I wanted to feel supported and I didn't feel supported.
Speaker 3:And so what I just unwound recently was like, oh, that desire I think that desire that I felt in my body was from source. It was a clean, pure, powerful desire to feel supported. But my mind grabbed it and was like, oh, it means this, and maybe that was the egoic desire. That was the mental translation. It was the closest my mind could get, and it took me years to tease those apart and recognize that, even though it felt like a full body yes, it was a full body, yes, it was powerful that wasn't precisely what I wanted.
Speaker 3:What I wanted was was to live with my husband and our beautiful house on the beach with our new baby and just have the support I needed. So, um, I think it can be hard to tease them apart, like what is the ego and what is the spirit? Like who's pulling for what here? Uh, sometimes it can be hard to tease them apart, like what is the ego and what is the spirit? Like who's pulling for what here? Sometimes it can take years to figure out which is which, like it has for me in that situation. But I think we just do our best and we get as close as we can, we translate as accurately as possible and then we continue learning what is what? Thank you for that beautiful story.
Speaker 2:What an incredible moment that this desire came in for you that you want to live with your parents. It was almost like it came in as so big and so clear because you needed so much help. Yes, yeah. And what did you end up doing? By the way, Did they move in with you?
Speaker 3:end up doing, by the way, did they move in with you? No, they didn't, thank goodness. Not because I don't love them. I love them dearly, but I just that wouldn't have been the right thing. That was like trying to pile too many things. I was like excess over accessorizing the basic need, which was just support. And so, no, we did not move in together.
Speaker 3:My mother was incredible. She came out, for she came out for like the first three or four weeks and helped with the baby and then went home for a couple of weeks and then came back for a few more weeks. My mom was very involved. My dad supported my mom so that she could support me.
Speaker 3:It just took like I'm sure you know, brenda, it uh, the first year of being a mother is it can. It's hard. The first year of being a mother is it can, it's hard and it can be an ass kicker, and it was just a huge initiation. We ended up, drew and I, my husband, we ended up staying in our house on the beach with our baby. I started to get the hang of it. I have continued to get the hang of it for eight years and and I'm so glad that that initial impulse that my mind translated was not one that I took and ran with in terms of action steps Instead, and I didn't even do this consciously, but instead I just let it marinate inside of me as I slowly smoothed out and found balance again, and then went on this journey of reaching clarity about what that desire actually was just recently.
Speaker 2:That's such an interesting turn of events, how it happened, how it unfolded for you, and so beautiful. You had this giant desire and you actually got it in the way that you needed is what it sounds like over here. Yeah, Thank you, yeah, which really goes back here.
Speaker 3:Exactly, yeah, yeah, thank you yeah.
Speaker 2:Which really goes back to you trusting yourself. Yeah, Trusting yourself and trusting the wave of desire that comes through you and you. It sounds like you were in such a difficult situation that it had to come in as this giant desire.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it did. Yeah, it did.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Catherine. What is coming?
Speaker 1:up for you here so much. Thank you so much for being here, sarah yeah and for sharing so generously.
Speaker 3:I'm thinking.
Speaker 1:Brenda, about especially this particular desire that you spoke of when we were talking, when you were talking about whether something as a source desire or an eager desire, an ego desire, sarah, and the power, that of that desire when it came through, like I just want to live with my parents, right, and it reminds me of how the ego wants the thing yesterday. You know, when we get a desire and it's an ego desire, it's like I want it in this shape, this size. I would like for it to be delivered yesterday and I would like it to be convenient and easy and I want it to take all the pain away right now, in one brushstroke. And versus sometimes or most of the time, a big desire comes in and we have no idea how the hell it's even going to happen. It's more of like holy crap, I want this thing, I don't even know where to begin. Holy crap, I want this thing, I don't even know where to begin.
Speaker 1:And so I love how you gave yourself the time and space and breath. What a gorgeous gift to even have that. I can't imagine the level of tapped in you must have been to be going through postpartum while also being intact with your desire tapped in to force and sleep deprived and saying, okay, I don't want instant gratification right now. I'm actually going to slow down and listen until it's smoothed out and I have a little more clarity. That is such a gorgeous example of that, right, brenda.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, absolutely beautiful. And I love, catherine, how you brought in the piece of really slowing down and taking your time. It's such an important piece and following desire and these big desires take a long time to unfold, those really big, deep ones. And I also want to say they change. They can change Like you hear it was. You thought it was this one thing and turned out it was something completely different. But the beauty is that in the process you got what you needed and it feels like everybody won in that situation. Needed and it feels like everybody won in that situation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yes, absolutely, absolutely. Yeah. It really has me thinking, Brenda and Sarah, about I think in my, in my mind, my limited mind, up until this moment I used to feel, or I had felt, such a strong delineation between the differences of soul desire versus ego desire. I often talk to my clients about needs, right, sometimes, or often, when I want something and it's an ego desire, it's usually to fulfill a need, a need, but I had. I don't think I'd ever really contemplated what it looks like when I have a desire. There's a desire to be had and wanted, and I have an inkling that maybe this is, this would qualify as egoic because I want it in the exact shape and size. And yesterday and then automatically I know there's a need behind it, because my ego wants to be feel safe and loved and like it belongs I thought about how I could slow it down so that there's actually more breath and growth available or the opportunity becomes available. I don't know. I feel like that whole conversation just has me pondering now.
Speaker 3:Yeah and um, you know, one thing I have found with desire is that, um, and Brenda, you wrote a post about this yesterday. I think you said something that rang so familiar and true for me, which it was something like I think it was that real, I think it was the real. You made, maybe, or maybe it was a post, but you said something about when you have a desire that is so big you don't see how it could manifest in this lifetime. See how it could manifest in this lifetime. And that just struck me on such a base level, because I have had those desires where your mind again cannot conceive of how you could have it in this lifetime. It seems impossible and like goddamn when your desire, like the wave or the current or the river of your desire, like beats against your belief systems that tell you you can't have it. It's really fucking, it's painful and it's hard. And one thing that I have learned about that is that in those moments, in those situations where your mind can't conceive how you can have this thing, but the thing wants to be had through you, there's not really any external moves you can make that are going to be effective towards opening you up to that energy stream or creating, manifesting that thing outside of you. There's really not much you can do externally to create what you think you want.
Speaker 3:But what I have found that you can do and this is so obvious, this is like spirituality 101, but you have to go through it again and again and again is that you can open your own self, your own system, your own heart, your own mind, your own body. You can get in alignment. You can get in alignment with the energy, the wave of source or desire, and you can just practice incrementally opening to that, like literally letting it get into the crevices of your body, like literally deepening and widening your breath so that it expands in your body, literally doing writing practices like we did in the golden pen, that help you expand your mental capacity to hold the possibility of this desire or something like it. You can do the inner work to align with the wave of desire, even if your mind cannot conceive of how this is possible in this lifetime. You can practice opening your system even just to the energy of desire itself.
Speaker 3:And it's kind of wild how, when you do that, your inner resistance, it's like that river of desire, like water. It melts your inner resistance over time, and then you may or may not end up with the external form of the desire that you thought you wanted, but you will open yourself to the river of desire, which contains the nutrients of life itself. And so you find that either this is what I found either you get the thing that you thought you wanted because you came into alignment and you released resistance, and so you get it that much faster, or you don't get the thing that your mind thought you wanted, but you come into this state of fullness and vitality anyway, and then it doesn't matter that you don't have the thing, because that's what you wanted. That's what you wanted in the first place. You just didn't realize it. You know what I mean. Do the end of other one, that's all you can do.
Speaker 2:Oh, I know what you mean. I love that you brought this in and this is such a big reason why I wanted to have this talk with you today, because you're so good at alignment and co-creating with the universe and you brought in such a big point that my ego doesn't really enjoy. My ego doesn't really enjoy that. It's not about the manifestation. It's almost like the desire comes in and we want this thing and we move towards our desire and simultaneously, while we're moving towards our desire, it's also not about the manifestation. We can't get attached to it.
Speaker 2:So it's really becomes a dance between holding the bigger desire and also taking your attention off of it and just living your life following the breadcrumbs. Like, how do you do both? You know it's and it gets. It gets kind of complex and I like to say it gets kind of fun because you get to really play a really big long game and I think those big desires are really a long game in life. Yeah, can you talk more about getting into alignment with the, with yourself and with the universe to co-create, because I you're just so great at this.
Speaker 3:Yeah, thank you, getting into alignment with yourself and then the universe, and I do think that's the order it goes in. I think that if you want to co-create with the wave of life or the current of desire or source or whatever, first of all you have to arrive in your body, you have to show up, you have to drop in, you have to work with what's there right. You can't bypass it. It's not going to be fulfilling, it's not going to have depth or roots if you try to bypass the reality of your existence and your experience. So that's why I practiced and taught yoga and will love yoga for the rest of my life, taught for 15 years because that's a practice that directly brings you into your body, connects you to your breath, it roots you in your physicality, which is where you meet yourself. So I think that you have to start, you have to meet yourself as you are, and so, whether that means meeting yourself in the depths of depression, or that means meeting yourself in sickness, or that means meeting yourself in the depths of depression, or that means meeting yourself in sickness, or that means meeting yourself in the middle of a divorce or postpartum depression, or if you're already kind of riding high on the wave. Maybe it's meeting yourself there in exhilaration or a flow of creativity, or whatever. You first have to meet yourself where you are first. Have to meet yourself where you are.
Speaker 3:And then there's that great quote by Rumi. You guys, I often use it because it's so good, god, brenda, maybe we even used it in the Golden Pen. What's that quote? It's like your job is not to seek for love, but to seek and find all of the barriers inside of yourself that you've created that prevent you from having it, or whatever. And to me, that's really what it's about is you have to drop into your body, you have to meet yourself as you are. And then you have to recognize where you have internal resistance. It's blocking the flow of life, and sometimes that's going to be of a strictly physical nature illness, tumors, cancer, whatever and sometimes it's work that be of a strictly physical nature illness, tumors, cancer, whatever and sometimes it's work that you can do with your belief systems to clear resistance. But basically, we all carry different amounts of resistance in our minds and bodies and the resistance that we carry is what the flow of desire is trying to move through or around. So you have to meet yourself. First you have to start to recognize where you have resistance that is blocking the flow of life, and then you get to do the work of cleaning that up to the degree that you're able to right Through belief work, writing practices, movement practices, whatever it may be, starting to see a doctor again after not having support for 30 years, whatever it may be, you need to start showing up for yourself, tending to your physical body, working with your mind and increasing life force in the body.
Speaker 3:So life force in the body to me is desire, it is God, it is source, and so the more that we take personal responsibility for our own vessel, doing the work, showing up, clearing out the blockages, really showing up for ourselves to meet life the more available we are to co-create with that current of desire. So, yeah, I think that's the order of it you drop into yourself, you show up for yourself, you do the work that you're able to do right. Your job is not to seek for love. Your job is to clear the barriers that you have created inside that prevent you from feeling it.
Speaker 3:The more you clean yourself up on the inside energetically, the more that wave of desire is able to move through you and the more you're able to hear its call and discern its call and recognize its flavor. And then it's like you get a surfboard and you start to practice on the little waves and then the slightly bigger waves, and that's when you start to build trust with it right, and it's just like again training in the gym. Then you add five pounds and then you add five more pounds and pretty soon you're able to catch a pretty decent wave. So you're beginning to learn the basics of co-creation with the universe. You're beginning to learn how to co-create with desire, and I think that just your ability to ability to do so, your capacity to do so just grows and grows and grows as you continue showing up for yourself, you continue showing up for the energy, for desire, and you just get better and better at it is my experience.
Speaker 2:Thank you. That was an absolutely gorgeous description of how to get into alignment and I'm just in love with this and it's so great how you really distilled it down, because I know our listeners are going to love that. So you're saying arriving in your body and being with what is true in the moment, which is a really hard thing for people to do, because so often we're not in agreement with where we are. We're like I don't want to have postpartum depression, I don't want to have an illness, I don't want to be too tired, I don't want to whatever, fill in the blank, but we've got to start right there, where we are. That is a really big message. Yeah, and and I love, when you start bringing in Rumi, my creative juices start going. Mine too, mine too. That's what I know. It's getting good when sarah's bringing in me and I love what you said that desire comes in and it's it's. I almost picture it, because you use water metaphors a lot- I notice which I love and that it's moving around your internal resistance.
Speaker 2:So the more you can get your internal resistance massaged, I don't want to say out of the way, but work with it like clay, yeah, yeah, um, there's more space, there's actually more space in your vessel to have that life force, energy, moving through you literally yeah, exactly, and like you said, you said I don't, I don't want to say get it out of the way, and I agree, and I and you said you can massage it.
Speaker 3:I think I think that's another piece that I found is that that internal resistance. There's no way to get it out of the way. It's part of you. So you alchemize it or you upgrade it or you integrate. You integrate it right, you include it, you invite it in, and that's actually one thing that I used to always teach my yoga students when I was still teaching yoga to people on the mat was like there's no part of you.
Speaker 3:This is not a practice of exclusion. We're not leaving parts out that are inconvenient. You don't have to leave your grief at the door when you show up on your mat. This is that's not what this is. This is a practice of inclusion. This is actually a practice of turning toward the parts of you that you'd rather not feel, you'd rather not face, and you just do it slowly. You integrate as you're able to over time, but it all ties together because the more that you're able to massage those parts, include those parts, breathe. Massage those parts, include those parts, breathe into those parts, integrate those parts, it's almost like you integrate them into the walls of the vessel. They become a stronger container to hold the universal flow of energy that wants to move through you Right.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, Thank you so much for that, catherine, anything that you want to add to this. This is perfection. I would just reiterate. I think something you just said is worthy of being restated Our life is all about inclusion, upgrading.
Speaker 1:I think about how often we just want to forget that thing that we were guilty or ashamed of, or wow, that was so embarrassing. I just wish I never did that. Or, oh, that was such a stupid move. I can't believe I did that. Or, oh, my goodness, that was just so codependent of me. Or that was such a rescuer of me.
Speaker 1:Or oh, my goodness, I was just such a I'm trying to think of all the words yeah, I was such a villain. I treated that person so badly. Oh, I said that so imperfectly. Oh, I was so mean. That was that's one of mine. Oh, my god, that was so mean. Or that was so straightforward. Oh, my goodness, there wasn't enough love there.
Speaker 1:And I just want to invite us all to just take a breather.
Speaker 1:Like the truth is that, in order for me, one of my hangups, right, in order for me to become even more loving, is for me to even notice when I'm being too direct or too mean, or where I can invite more love in in order for us to see the parts that are potentially in the way of life force moving through us, is for us to notice where we are getting stuck, and how would we see it if we have vanished it from the room. Like it needs to be in the room for us to see it. Like we need to be willing to meet ourselves with all of it, not just the parts that we approve of, because that's the part of becoming whole. Like we can clean up anything and everything other than death. Like we can't get this life wrong, guys, but we can opt to not play, and I really want to invite everybody to play versus get it right yeah, well said, yeah, I mean that's, and that takes us off in this direction a little bit.
Speaker 3:But you're absolutely right, because that that unwillingness to get it wrong, which is maybe synonymous with perfectionism, um, it does it. It like it vanquishes all life force from from the person that's spinning in that mentality and kind of just leaves you on the floor. You're not playing, you're not going to play if you're afraid of getting it wrong. And you know what? I'll share this too, because that's a perfect segue, catherine, thank you. When I was first starting to develop a relationship with desire and source and the universe, that's one thing that I would do a lot in the beginning and that I still do actually is like when I would get a hit that felt like an intuitive hit from the universe, but I didn't actually know if it was. I would just give myself permission to follow it and see where it led, like with that attitude of you can't really get it wrong. Like let's just play with this, let's just explore what happens if I follow this impulse. Was that my intuition? Was that source? Was that my ego? Was that a pattern? I don't fucking know. But why don't we follow it a little ways and see where it takes us and it was interesting. It still is interesting because you learn after every encounter.
Speaker 3:In a moment like that, you learn if you follow it and you see where it takes you. You start to learn more about what's driving you. Oh, that actually was my ego, so maybe I won't follow that next time. Or I think that actually was like source pouring through me. Damn, that was awesome. And so I think there's a learning curve. But I also think that it's like giving yourself permission to just practice following these different threads, these different feelings, these different instincts and seeing where they take. You Start small, like I always started small nothing, life or death. I would just start with little things and see where they would take me. And then you learn, you start to build that muscle of trust with yourself, with the universe. You start to realize, you become more clear on what parts of you are driving and what they feel like and what they sound like. And yeah, it's just that permission to explore and play Like get up and fucking play. You really can't get it wrong. We're all going to die anyway.
Speaker 2:So true, yeah, that's really beautiful.
Speaker 2:What you're saying reminds me of something of one of my teachers once said that I'm here on this earth to know myself, to know how this being ticks. And what you're saying is so much permission for the journey and the more we can know ourself, which only can come through following our desire in some form. Falling and failing is part of the journey and that's how we learn about ourselves. You have to be willing to mess it up and get messy. That's been a really big lesson for me on my spiritual journey and the more I've been able to fall and fail and get back up again.
Speaker 2:That is how you build trust with yourself, because there really is no way to get it perfect. It's just not going to happen. And in the meantime is no way to get it perfect. It's just not going to happen. And in the meantime you're learning about yourself. And the more you can learn about yourself, then it's just another way to be in alignment with yourself by being with what is true, where, what are my strengths, what am I not so great at, what do I want to learn. And then you're in reality and then you can really start to co-create with wherever you are and build from there.
Speaker 3:It's a long game the doing shows the way, Meaning rather than always being afraid to like dip your foot in the pool or step into the game of life, the doing shows the way. So you just practice making little moves, like practice doing the doing could be following an impulse and you don't actually know if that impulse came from source or ego, but like, just follow it, just like do it, do it. The doing will show the way. So, as you're willing to take little steps and fall and be messy and make mistakes, that practice of just taking those little steps following the breadcrumbs, even if you're not sure exactly who's dropping them, the doing will show the way. And the more you build the muscle of showing up for life and being a little bit messy and taking chances, like you're saying Brenda, the better you get to know yourself, the better you start to be able to discern the flavor of source and desire and how it wants to move through you.
Speaker 3:You just have to show up and practice. You have to show up and practice. You have to practice life right. Life is practice, Practice is life. It's all the same thing. Life is practice.
Speaker 2:Practice is life. It's all the same thing, amen. Speaking of practice and life, you talked a lot about practices to get yourself into alignment, and you talk about yoga and writing and belief work. What is one or more of your go-to practices or rituals in your daily life that keeps you in alignment with yourself, to keep you co-creating your desire?
Speaker 3:Yeah, in some ways it's super fucking basic. It's like getting enough sleep. Nature, mother nature, is like the most underrated cure-all I think there is. Like all I have to do is go outside in a park or you know, take a walk through a, on a forested path or just getting outside almost always resets me like to 100%. And if it doesn't reset me to a hundred percent, it resets me significantly enough.
Speaker 3:Um, movement is has always been a good one for me Just um, just getting on the yoga mat. I don't even have to stand up, I can just, you know, like roll my back out and do a happy baby pose or whatever. But, like, movement tends to to just help me align, it helps me get present. Sometimes movement can backfire quote unquote in the sense that if I'm really sore or I haven't moved in a while, it shows me where I'm tight and where I'm ouchy and where I'm hurting. So that can. Sometimes that's actually taken me out of alignment a little bit more because I don't like how it feels. But generally speaking, movement is medicine for me.
Speaker 3:Meditation, always, if I can practice, if I can develop enough I'll just call it discipline to show up and even just practice five or 10 minutes, 20 minutes of just seated breath awareness meditation. My lineage is in Vipassana so I don't practice strict Vipassana meditation really these days I don't have time for it but just sitting for 5, 10, 15 minutes with my eyes closed, feeling my breath, that, if nothing else that allows me to drop into my body and feel where I'm holding tension, that kind of has me out of alignment and in feeling it then I can consciously relax around it and release some of that resistance. And so in the releasing of resistance you increase life flow, you increase desire. So just sitting and meditating helps me with that. It's a little thing. These are all like little bites that I take. I have little kids so I don't have a lot of time for like deep, long spiritual practices these days, so I keep it pretty simple. And then beyond that, brenda you know we did a lot of writing practices in the golden pen. That's what it was all about.
Speaker 3:So I one of the simplest ways that I get closer to alignment using writing practices is I literally sit down at my laptop in the morning or whenever I can get a minute and I practice just brain drain or free writing. I just take the top layer, the top two or three layers of mental static off by just typing, typing. Typing, just write it out, get it out on paper and then when I get a layer or two or three down, I can actually see more clearly what I need to do, like what steps I need to take and in what order I need to take them to create more of a free flow, a smooth quality to my day. So I do that and to me that's coming into alignment. It's like opening the vessel, inviting more life force through.
Speaker 3:So I do that quite simply by sitting at my computer and draining the excess, the static layer of thought, and just getting clear on like what are my next steps, even in the next five or 10 minutes, and just having that clarity and like those simple steps to follow it brings me into alignment. Sometimes it's just like a little whisper of energy that it will allow me to open to, and sometimes it's like a gush of energy I'm like, okay, I cleared that resistance and now there's a lot of life force available here. So let's go, let's take the proper actions, let's take the right actions and keep moving through the day. So it's pretty simple Movement, writing, breath, meditation, nature. I find enough, sleep, nourishing food that seems to be enough for me generally.
Speaker 2:Those are gorgeous and they're simple, but they're not always easy. And if you're listening and you're like, oh, I can't do all of that in one day, just maybe choose one and just start with it. I mean, I'm assuming that you built these up over time.
Speaker 3:Oh, I don't do all of these in one day either, usually like I'm lucky. I'm lucky if I get one or two of these practices in, honestly, but, um, but the combination of them kind of on a rotating basis. It's a feeling practice, right. I just kind of feel it out and I do what's available, what is available to me to do. I take the steps I can take and I guess I have, you know, enough practice under my belt now that I can sort of feel my way into alignment and I can feel my way toward the choices that will increase alignment and I just flow with that.
Speaker 2:Thank you for that, catherine. Anything you want to say, I have another question after you.
Speaker 1:You can take it away.
Speaker 2:Okay, great, I have a question for you. One of my favorite questions when we have guests on is what is a desire that you have, Sarah, for yourself?
Speaker 3:Oh, that's a good one. Yeah, yeah, that's a good one. Um, the first one that comes to mind, I have like one, and then the one that came in right behind it. So the the first one is I have so many. Um, so I'm a teacher, right?
Speaker 3:I taught asana yoga asana for 15 years, and, um, now I'm a teacher, right, I taught asana yoga asana for 15 years, and now I'm starting to practice teaching online teaching in a different format, and as I've started to build the infrastructure to be able to do that, I've also simultaneously been opening the channel to source or to desire to move through me, to inform or inspire what it is I'm going to teach Really. I've gotten to this point in my life now where my personal will is not completely out of the way. My ego is still very healthy and operating, but I have built enough trust with the universe that I'm able to largely step aside now and trust the impulses that are coming through, the way that desire wants to move through me and create through me. And so, as I've started showing up and beginning to teach online, the channel is wide open and the field of inspiration and desire is so abundant that the muse I kind of think of her as the muse too. When she comes in this flavor, the muse is just like downloading, downloading, downloading, downloading so many juicy ideas that I want to teach and share that. I'm like, okay, hold on. Like this morning in the shower, literally to the muse, I was like hang on a minute. Like you have given me so much good shit. Now I need like some time to like bring this stuff through. Please don't give me one more thing yet, because there's already a backup and it's just the perfect amount of backup. I don't think I can take any more.
Speaker 3:So my desire, my desire the first one that came through is like I just want to deliver these beautiful ideas that the muse is bringing to me and I want to share them with other people. I want to teach them. There's these different. Most of them are going to work primarily with writing, because that's such a powerful modality that I use that most of these courses that are lining up to come through are writing based. In fact, one of them I think it's going to be like the next or maybe the one after that how freaking timely is this is a course called the Wisdom of Desire, but there's a number of these courses, lining up, it's like, a little, they're lining up in the fairy line or whatever, and they're like up in the ferry line or whatever, and they're like beep, beep, ready to go.
Speaker 3:And so my desire is to bring them through as fully and precisely and as powerfully as I can feel them in the field right now. But my desire is to bring them into creation, like, bring them to life and do them justice, like do them justice because the way that they are being downloaded to me is so vital and so dynamic and so exhilarating that my desire is to be, like, the best translator of that energy as I possibly can, so that I can bring it through to other people. So that's that's like the desire that's right out front now is to serve this energy as fully as I can.
Speaker 2:Well, so shall it be, and maybe even better and sweeter than you can even possibly imagine. Thank you, you're so welcome and, having been in your first writing class online, anyway, I will say that I highly recommend Sarah's work. I highly recommend her writing courses. She is incredible. I was so touched and moved by everything you brought through like you over deliver in the most beautiful of ways. I felt so nourished and juiced up from being in your field, thank you. Thank you, you're so welcome.
Speaker 3:Well, and Brenda, one thing I want to say in response to that that I think ties into this conversation is that that course that you were in, that we were I feel like we were all in together was a co-creation, right. Like if one person had not been in that course and a different person would have been in there instead, it would have had a different flavor. But the way that all of those women we came together and you shared your stories and your perspectives and your writing, oh, like that thing was bigger than any one of us, including me. I showed up as the teacher and I created the container. The women who showed up to participate showed up and brought their full heart and soul forth and it was such a beautiful weaving together.
Speaker 3:That's co-creation. That's a beautiful example of co-creation and saying yes to your desires. And it's amazing because a few of the women in that course have emailed me since to share, like a juicy nugget that has manifested since the course. They said yes to this particular desire and practiced massaging it through writing practices and then within a few days, a couple of weeks, like they have a manifestation that they're excited about. So that was a really cool co-creation that we all brought to life.
Speaker 2:That is so gorgeous, thank you. We're going to drop ways to get in touch with you in the show notes and, like I said again, I highly recommend reaching out to Sarah, getting in touch with her, following her on social media. You always have something really beautiful to bring forward and your substack, your writing, is so inspiring and so beautiful. You have some pieces that have moved me deeply, and so I highly recommend people reading your work. Thank you, you're so welcome. Is there anything that you would like to say that you didn't get to say? That is coming through you right now, before we close out Nothing.
Speaker 3:I just feel really relaxed and open. I feel like this sort of twinkly energy in my body. Where I'm in Seattle and we have this beautiful winter day, full sunshine, crisp, clear day, and I feel complete. I feel fantastic. Thank you.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Well, this has been a gorgeous co-creation, this conversation with the three of us, and you've been such a generous, beautiful, inspiring guest, and I thank you for joining us today. On Desire is Medicine.
Speaker 3:Thank you, ladies. I've been following both of your work for years, and when you invited me onto this podcast, brenda, I told Drew, I was like I feel like I'm fangirling really hard, I feel like I've you know, you have those moments in life where you're like I've arrived, like I've had, like I have those moments, you know, from time to time, and I was like Brenda and Catherine invited me onto their podcast. I feel like I'm having one of those I've arrived moments. So thank you, because you both have been an inspiration to me. Ever since I first encountered you. I've been watching you two, probably long before you had any idea who I was, cause you're, you're kind of. You know I came into this world after you had already been in it, both of you, and so following your work has been really inspiring to me as well, and so to be included in this conversation, it really is an honor for me.
Speaker 2:Thank you, thank you so much receiving that beautiful, generous gift of yours, and I kind of feel like our podcast made it when you said yes to coming on. So, now that we have sufficiently fangirled, thank you for joining us and until next time.
Speaker 1:Thank you for joining us on the Desire is Medicine podcast Desire invites us to be honest, loving and deeply intimate with ourselves and others. You can find our handles in the show notes. We'd love to hear from you.
