On Desire Versus Intention – Ep. 164

Desire is the idea of wanting something no matter what; to desire things in life is a natural aspect of human beings, but you might be frustrated if you don’t get the thing that you desire. It almost has a ‘needy’ connotation to it. Intention, on the other hand, suggests a more confident state; you know what you want and the path to get there, but you understand that if it doesn’t happen, it wasn’t meant to be. 

In this episode of Next Level Human Podcast, Dr. Jade proposes a reflection on these two topics. If guided by desire, a person can feel harmed and bothered more often by the twists and turns of life, whereas people guided by intention see themselves as co-creators of their lives and engage with daily situations with ease. As stated in the episode: “The worst thing that ever happened to you could actually be the best thing”.

Check out the Next Level Human sponsors!

• Visit drjade.com/hormones and use code NEXTLEVEL at check out for a discount on your first patient visit with Evolve!

Related Links

The Secret by Rhonda Byrne

Connect with Dr. Jade Teta

Website: www.jadeteta.com

Instagram: @jadeteta

TRANSCRIPTION:

Podcast Intro: [00:14] welcome to the Next Level Human Podcast. As a human, you have a job to do. In fact, you have four jobs; to earn and manage money, to attain and maintain health and fitness, to build and sustain personal relationships, to find meaning and make a difference. None of these jobs are taught in school and that is what this podcast is designed to do. To educate us all on living our most fulfilled lives through the mastery of these four jobs. I'm your host, Dr. Jade Teta and I believe we are here living this life for three reasons and three reasons only; to learn, to teach and to love. In this podcast, I will be learning, teaching, and loving right along with you. I'm grateful to have your company; here is to our next level.

Episode Intro: [01:18] welcome to the show everybody. Today we're gonna be talking about a really important distinction between desire and intention. And this speaks to the aspect of what many of us are trying to do in life, which is essentially the whole purpose of this podcast, right? We want to upper level, we want to get to our next level, and perhaps more to the point we want to achieve things in our for jobs beyond what we currently have, we want to make more money, perhaps we want a better career, we want to have time freedom, we want more purpose, we want a relationship, right? We want health and fitness, we have goals as humans, and we want to manifest these goals. It's part of what we wake up and think about, when we first wake up and what we think about through the day, and what we think about when we go to bed. And even if we're not consciously thinking about it, it's always unconscious, isn't it, there's something that we want, that is different, and many of us are very goal directed and goal oriented, I certainly have been throughout my life I continue to be my friends would describe me as very ambitious, very driven, very goal oriented. And one of the things that has happened, perhaps, rightly or wrongly, so I don't know, I have had obviously some level of success in my life, I started out as a lower middle class. In a lower middle class family, I should be accurate about that middle class, but my dad, you know, my mother and father are amazing humans, and basically put all their savings and everything into sending all four of their kids to college. And so me being the youngest as I got closer and closer to college, and my mother and father sort of savings and income became more depleted because they were putting my older brothers and sisters through college, I went from basically middle class to what I would consider lower middle class. So I came up in that upbringing with a lot of beliefs around money, and a lot of lack mindset around money, that you needed to work really hard for money that money was not easy, that rich people were sometimes greedy and manipulative, and I had to change a lot of these mindsets around money. I also have developed some degree of success in my career becoming very well known in my careers of self development and physical development, especially in the fields of metabolism and human mystic psychology. Obviously, the reason that I do this podcast, I've been through several difficult things in my life, many of you know my story of divorce, and affair on my part, a, you know, sort of tricky, sort of midlife awakening, I call it, but then transcending that and being able to develop an honor code and bring a lot of what I have learned to all of you. Now, obviously, the whole point of this is to say that none of us are next level humans, I certainly don't see myself as that. I can be base level at times and cultural level at times, as I'm sure you can. But when we're in our next level, human states, we really are in this place of wanting to uplevel, especially in the four jobs, in finance, in relationship in health and fitness and in purpose and meaning. And one of the things that I wanted to discuss briefly today in what will probably be a very short podcast here is this idea that I think people get wrong, because this comes up a lot for me, when I get in discussions with individuals. And I'm at a point now in my career, where I have lots of people who want to take me out to dinner or looking for a mentor want to pick my brain about certain things. And sometimes it throws me off a little bit, because I'm not so sure I'm deserving of that. And I do realize that in our culture, we tend to elevate people who perhaps don't deserve it too. And I'm not sure that I'm deserving of it. But I do have things to say and I do study this and I think about my results and I also do work with individuals and have helped them get amazing results.

[04:25] And so I have some things to say here and one of the things that has come up recently in a conversation with a very good friend of mine who's going through some difficult times and wanting to get to the next level is this idea of how did I do this? What are some of the mindsets around this and it comes out of reading lots and lots of books, like the secret books, like you know any of these books, self help self development books in that genre that give advice on how to get to the next level. Of course there's no shortage of life coaches, and coaches helping trying to help people get to more money or a better relationship and all of that since the internet age, right, a lot of this has come to the fore. And I love it, right? I love that all of us get to share our experiences and help people. But one of the mistakes that I think people make when they're trying to change is this idea that I think is best in capital, encapsulated by ideas, such as the secret that if you just think a particular way you will, you will eventually get that thing that the life, world and universe conspire to help you achieve what you want to achieve. And then if you desire strong enough, and you want strongly enough, and you think hard enough, and you and you work hard enough and hard enough, like in alignment with this think feeling and action, you will eventually get the thing. And what I have found is that that is not just misleading, but very misleading, from my point of view. And when I discuss this, I think you'll get it sort of right away. One of the things that I think we don't understand oftentimes when we're trying to achieve things is that we are co creators have best in other words, we can do everything right, and the world can still do what it does, putting up obstacles in our way. And perhaps keeping us from our goals is this not true? I mean, how many people have worked very hard in a relationship only you see that relationship and even if, even if it's just because they lose their significant other through death, or because that other person falls out of love with them, or whatever, how many people have reached some level of success in finance, and only to see that it all goes away in one big fail swoop by something that is not there necessarily their fault. In other words, life presents us with obstacles that are of its own making. And in some ways, we are only co creators at best. And we have to deal with the randomness of life. And this is why I have oftentimes, in my life, when I look at getting to a place, I used to be very directed right in my intentions. Directive, meaning I'm going to do this and that and this and this and this, and it's going to come up this way and, and spent many times visualizing and manifesting. In fact, I've had this experience in my life where before I did my first book back in 2010, I would sit and dream about visualized, do these visualizations that could sometimes last 30 minutes to an hour where I would see myself in Manhattan going to these publishing houses and having a I had this very vivid manifestation of walking into a room with this big round table. And all these people around the table bidding on the book and talking about the book and trying to convince me to sell them my book idea. And that thing happened almost exactly as I imagined it, the table was not round. It was a big long table with at least 12 people sitting around it at HarperCollins in New York, and then Rodale in New York and some of these places that actually multiple people wanting to buy my book from me. And I had this come to fruition now I also have detailed manifestations and visualizations about that book hitting the New York Times bestseller list, and, you know, just going to, you know, sell millions and millions of copy, which never happened and was a very difficult thing for me to accept, after having a very real world tangible example of visualization happening exactly as I had imagined it. And then visualization happening, almost the exact opposite of what I imagined it. But in that obstacle in this idea of the book not doing as well as I thought it caused me to do things like launch an online program, bring my stuff online come out of the clinic online, which ended up making me a lot more money than that book ever could have. In other words, what ended up happening was better than what I had imagined, based on what that book would have done and eventually got me to where what I was after anyway, because the real visualization that I was putting out there was time freedom, and financial security, not needing to worry about finances, I used to put myself in this manifestation place this visualization of feeling what it would feel like to have no money worries and to not be working for anybody or beyond anyone else's time. And that is the reality of my life right now. I don't have to do this podcast at a particular time. I don't have to wake up at a particular time. I get to come and go as I please and make money the way that I like. I basically run my own life. Now, if I had kept being directed and directive in my intentions, perhaps I would have sabotaged myself and I had to learn that through several times being too focused, too directed that it's got to show up this way. And then it all falling apart for me to start to just take a step back and say, You know what, I need to trust that, you know, this is happening as it should, and not in a way that everything happens for a reason but more in a way of that this has now happened in a different way that I had intended. And I will go with it to see where it leads me. And so this is this idea between directive intention versus collaborative intention. And this is the way I describe this directive intention would be like I intend to get this thing. And I'm going to do it exactly in this way. And it's going to happen exactly in this way, versus collaborative intention, meaning, I'm eventually going to get this thing, but I don't know how it's going to happen. And I feel like whatever happens I will work with what happens almost like universal jujitsu work with the momentum of what the universe is sending me to get to where I eventually want to go. But I have no idea how it's going to turn out, I just know that I'm gonna eventually get to this place, this feeling of financial security and being able to write books and people pay attention to my work and be able to help people help myself and live the life I want. This is, I think, what we need to start focusing on when we are trying to achieve something because I do think it is the better way that it works, the more accurate way that it works, I can't tell you how many times I've worked with people, and I've seen with myself and my brothers and my sisters, and my friends and my family, and the 1000s and 1000s and 1000s of people I've worked with over the years in physical development, and health and fitness, and personal development. This is the way it always works, things happen in life that we have no control over. And then we have a choice about how we will use that. And so instead of having this very directive intention, because if we have directive intention, we cannot predict what the world will bring us.

[11:43] However, if we have collaborative intention, right, working with what the world brings us, and trusting that we can use anything the world gives us any pain, any suffering, any obstacle, any challenge to get where we want to go. It's a very different mindset. And to me, this really is the way that you want to begin thinking about things the way I think about this, as I think about this idea of the universal river. And essentially, this river is flowing, and it's pushing me in a direction. And it is futile for me to try to row upstream against this direction that the universe is essentially sending me now by the way, I don't know what your beliefs are. But when I talk about this, and it doesn't really matter what your beliefs are, because whatever belief works for you, as long as it doesn't hurt other people I'm fine with right and so but my belief is not necessarily that the universe is necessarily aware of jade cares about Jade, or even has a directive action in this way. I just look at it, like the universe has a particular direction and flow that it is going and I am just one single speck of dust in a sea of dirt, right? And so for me, if I want to get where I want to go, I'm gonna follow the flow. Right. And this is a very Darwinist principle. Taoism basically talks about staying in the flow, they talk about wu wei, or the way which basically just means no action, I'm going to basically go with the flow. And if you can imagine, with this collaborative intention, directive intention would be me trying to row upstream or me fighting against the current or me doing everything I can to force my will against this flowing river. And eventually, you're not going to be able to row upstream indefinitely, are you eventually that river is going to take you over eventually, you are going to lose that battle. However, if instead you lay back in the canoe, let the flow take you drape your arms over the canoe, let your arms drape into the river, using them almost like rudders to steer you away from or into certain places. So perhaps I see a rock or a boulder and I gently steer myself away from that perhaps I see a little jetty a little place where I can get out of the canoe and take a nap and enjoy the scenery and lay out in the sun. So I see it coming and I gently direct my way to that path but rather than me say I'm going to end up at this place, I look out there in the world and go where is the world seeming to take me based on what I want? And how can I use that to get where I want. And this really is another distinction. Another way to think about this is desire first and versus intention. Desire is this aspect that I want this thing so bad, and I want to cling to it and it's very needy energy. And in my mind, needy energy is repulsive. It's something that says, you need this thing and therefore you won't be happy unless you get it exactly the way it shows up. Versus intention, which is more collaborative, what I might call confident detachment. I'm confident that I am going to get there, but I am detached at the way I'm going to get there. And that this is the way I began to think about this. And so if this resonates with you, this idea of directive versus collaborative intention, avoiding desire in neediness and instead being confidently detached thinking about collaborative intention versus trying to direct my intention, realizing that I am a co creator, at best, I am not in full control, then you can begin to practice this. And then actually, not only is it a Darwinistic Taoism type of philosophy, it also is very stoic in nature, because the stoics talked about this idea of the obstacle is the way so if you are confronted with an obstacle, and you're very desirous or directive in your intention, you will beat your head against that wall, you will beat your head against that obstacle, that obstacle will oftentimes overtake you. However, if you're collaborative, you will meet that obstacle and say, Hmm, interesting. Why are you here? How can I use you, maybe I'll learn something really interesting by trying to go around you or trying to figure out how to go over you or not seeing you as an obstacle at all, but seeing you as a stepping stone to getting something useful that I could not have gotten without this obstacle in my path. I know, we can all relate to the idea that many of the things that we have gone through in life that we have might have at first seen as the worst things that possibly could have happened to us, turned out to be one of the greatest things that could have happened to us why? Because sometimes this collaborative intention brings you things that you could not have predicted otherwise, and takes you to places that you could not have imagined otherwise that have greatly enhanced and made your life beautiful in the process, is it not.

[16:26] And so from my perspective, this is the way that we want to think about this. So as you move forward with your visualizations with your intentions, the idea would be to not construct an exact way that it shows up. But instead, leave open to chance the way it will exactly show up and think about where you will eventually be for example, right now I'm doing this podcast in my brand new house in Asheville, North Carolina, I could not be happier having been here in Asheville. However, if I was directed in my attention, I would have been in a place in Los Angeles right now, perhaps not being nearly as happy not being as content, but because of life gave me these twists and turns and I went with it. I ended up buying my house here in Asheville and could not be happier with that. And this is oftentimes the thing that I think is really important. Many people who are directive in their nature oftentimes make the goal the point of the point, right, I want to get this thing and once I have this thing, I will be happy. But the fact of the matter is, we don't necessarily know that do we have many people who are directed and desirous, get addicted to this directive intention in this desirous nature. And so once they have a thing, they don't know what to do with once they get it, because the game ends. But when you are doing collaborative intention, the game never ends, because you always know life's gonna bring new things for you. And so you arrive when arrival is no longer the goal, you start to just enjoy the ride down the universal river, you essentially just began to say, I wonder where this is going to take me and how I can guide it and how I can work together with this flow and these obstacles to get me to a place that would be amazing and that I couldn't have predicted otherwise. And this is a very interesting way of looking at the world from my point of view and the plan the way that it actually works. Now I've done a whole episode in this podcast on confidence, detachment as it refers to romance. And this really is this idea of collaborative intention really is confident detachment as it relates to the things we're trying to achieve in our lives. So what I would suggest to you is that you focus on making sure that the things that you want to achieve, you understand what it's going to feel like you do everything you can to get there, but you realize getting there can look many, many different ways in which you're going to be okay, which whatever with whatever way it works. This to me is a more universal, a more, it's more in alignment with the way the universe works. And again, I don't mean the universe in that it cares about Jade Teta or you or has any kind of directive, I'm not speaking of it, as something that knows me cares about me or anything like that I'm speaking a bit more about something that does what it does, life happens, we all know that we don't get to control everything. We get to control ourselves and our reactions to what happens. And if we can essentially say wherever you take me I'm good with because I will make something good from it. I will choose to use it in a way that gets me where I want to go and I will eventually get where I want to go. Then you are in alignment with how the universe actually works. [19:48] And in this way, I think it's more true than to say that the universe is conspiring in your favor except the universe is doing nothing because it's detached. Also, you're conspiring in your favor by living in alignment with the way things work and the way things work is that you are always an only just a part of the creative process. You are co creator at best. And by understanding that and working with that, you can begin to master some of this visualization and manifestation. So desire no intention, yes, but not directive intention, collaborative intention or confident detachment you will get there as a co creator using all the obstacles, all the suffering and all the pain to get you where you want to be to always use it. And doesn't this put you in a very different, beautiful place as a human as you approach life. This is what I want to leave you with on this particular podcast episode. Hit me up on the DMs guys on Instagram, Facebook, shoot me emails to support at jadeteta.com. Let me know how you like this. Give me any other ideas for podcasts that you want to see. And I will talk to you at the next episode. Thanks so much everybody.