Orchid Painting featured in Su-sing Chow's book Fundamentals of Chinese Floral Painting Vol. 2: Book of the Orchid.
Why is the Why Important?
When it comes to our desires, it is always revealing and helpful to examine why it is we want what we want.
First it is important to realize when examining the why is not helpful. It is less than ideal if we are examining the reasons behind our desires as a form of justification. When I catch myself doing this, I have created a habit of stopping and realizing that I do not need to justify my desires to anyone. The Universe is not my mother or father asking me to write an essay on why I deserve a raise in my allowance. The Universe wants you to have everything that you want and the only requirement is that you focus on what you want in a pure way. Feeling that you must justify why you deserve what you want is a mild form of resistance and is usually a stumbling block to you actually fulfilling your desires.
Examining the why behind our desires free of the need to justify can be more helpful because often the reason we want something is to feel a certain way. We want to be a good Chinese Brush Painting to feel the beauty and freedom of the art form and to connect to an ancient source of beauty and harmony. Examining the why of our desire in this way almost always feels good and the good feelings tell us that we are focusing in a way that is attracting our desire rather than forcing it away. Focusing on the why in this way can clarify our desire down to its essence and form a powerful point of attraction that brings to us the circumstances, resources, and connections necessary to experience the fulfillment of our desire.
The Difference Between Want and Need
Another trapping when it comes to desire is to focus on the idea of needing rather than just wanting. This often is developed from having to convince someone else to fulfill your desire. If they are initially unwilling, you begin to create stories that create urgency to coerce them into compliance.
"But Mom, I need a raise in my allowance so I can buy the cool new shoes that everyone else has. If I don't get them, people won't like me."
The problem with this is creating an idea of yourself as being incomplete and needing a certain thing is never beneficial. And even if you get what you want, it rarely fulfills this need. When you get what you want you realize that you are still in need until you refocus your vision of yourself as being whole and complete. It is best to work on seeing yourself as a complete being whose is free to create desires and fulfill them without need or justification.
Ideas in a Nutshell
- If focusing on your desire does not feel the best, try focusing on why you want what you want. Instead of focusing on having more money, focus on the feeling of freedom that having the money will create
- Allow yourself to pursue easy desires as a way to free yourself to pursue desires are more important. If you like Chinese Brush Painting, then by all means paint
- Recognize the difference between wanting and needing. Ideally formulate a vision of yourself as a person whose is without need. Just like the air is always there to breath, so can anything else that we require be provided
- Be careful of painting yourself as someone in need as a way of coercing someone to fulfill a desire. A desire can come to you in thousands of ways. If someone is unwilling to cooperate, just keep focusing on your desire and wait for the right person to come along
- Recognize that when people around you are not supportive of your desires, it is often an indication that you yourself are not 100% supportive of your own desire. Resolve the inner conflict and the outer conflict usually goes away
- You are beloved, complete being, who is free to make desires and see them fulfilled as part of the joyous process of creation powered and sanctioned by the Universe