You are allowed to want more.
Fulfilling your desires is easier than you think. DesireWork is a comprehensive approach that systematically transforms shame into fulfillment. Four inventories, four cycles, and a dashboard you can fill in an afternoon.
DesireWork's Assumptions
Core Tenets
- Shame is terribly inefficient.
- Shame is a mechanism that puts you into an exiled state, in which you do not allow yourself to think about, admit to, act on, or express your desires.
- All desires fall into one or more of the following categories: safety, risk, familiarity, novelty, destruction/transformation, creation, intimacy, and isolation.
- Desires will always manifest in your thoughts, words, and/or actions, regardless of your awareness or acceptance of them.
- Exiled desires manifest as relatively socially acceptable perseveration, compulsion, obsession, or addiction in comparison to the exiled desire.
- Socially acceptable desires are determined by your perception of normal behavior in your environment.
- The intensity of your exiled desire is correlated with the average intensity of exiled desire in the communities you interact with on a regular basis and/or in your childhood communities.
- The higher the intensity of your exiled desire, the more likely you are to engage in the abuse or misuse of power to compensate for the unmet desire.
- All uses of power, healthy or not, fall into one or more of the following categories: inspiration, knowledge, authority, and connection.
- Desire moves from exiled to integrated when shame is removed from the desire, a healthy outlet for the desire is identified, and you assume full responsibility for the fulfillment of your desire.
- The higher the level of integrated desire, the more fulfillment, purpose, and contribution you experience in your day-to-day life.
- If your desires are fully integrated, you are operating at your full creative and contributory potential, moving forward in life with ideal alignment and maximum positive impact.
Why DesireWork?
Most methods ignore shame.
Shame is inefficient. It holds you back and keeps you down.
It is a hidden force that clouds your path. When shame is present, but unknown, you may feel like you are lost, spinning, stuck, or just unsure.
But shame is something you can understand and build a relationship with.
It is neither good nor bad, but simply useful or not useful in pursuit of your values, desires, and true self.
The only way forward is to lift the fog and create a map.
The structure
A bird’s eye view of your life and a map to your true desires.
The inventories create a dashboard of your life, including your skills, community, and levels of shame. The cycles create a path forward, including vision, goals, steps, barriers, and methods to find your path again when things get hard.
The Inventories · Where you are now
Desire InventoryMonthly · 8 min
Measure how much shame and what subtypes are present in your life right now.
Domain InventoryQuarterly · 8 min
Evaluate fulfillment and confidence across every area of your life.
Ecological InventoryBiannual · 10 min
Understand your core skills, and how your community influences your development.
Power InventoryYearly · 12 min
Learn your style of influence, and how to channel your power.
The Cycles · Your next steps
Desire CycleMonthly · 20 min
Discover the 5 desires that will make the biggest impact on your life.
Intention CycleQuarterly · 15 min
Turn your desires into actions you’ll actually take. You may even enjoy yourself.
Community CycleBiannual · 20 min
Map out your community to see how they hold you up or hold you back.
Vision CycleYearly · 15 min
Uncover your core values, mission, and ideals. Create your north star.
Your first year · What to expect
Week 1
Take all 8 inventories and cycles in 1-2 hours. Complete your dashboard to get an aerial view.
Month 3
Follow the DesireWork cadence to understand your patterns. Build momentum from your first steps.
Month 11
Revisit Power, Vision, and Community to see how far you have come. Look to the path ahead. Celebrate.
Disclosures
What this isn’t.
This is not a replacement for therapy. If you are deep in trauma or healing work, do that first, with a trained and trusted mental health professional to make sure you have adequate support.
This will not “fix” you, as there is nothing to fix. This is not a list of must-do’s to achieve a goal someone else set for you. It teaches you to build your own compass.
Mini-quiz
Try it out first.
Dip your toe into the river. Based on the Desire Inventory, the snapshot asks five questions and takes two minutes.
Who this is for
Is DesireWork right for you?
DesireWork is for you if...
- You are a driven, systematic thinker who loves process
- You consistently seek to grow and explore who you are
- You have done some form of healing work for many years
- You are ready for change
DesireWork is probably NOT for you if...
- You are new to healing work or self-exploration
- You feel chaotic or unstable and lack community or professional support
- You learn and grow more easily through less structured methods
- You want to feel comfortable and just stay where you are