Episode 245 Transcript: When Wanting More Feels Unsafe
00:00:03:00 – 00:00:36:11
Nancy Levin
Let me ask you something. When was the last time you let yourself want something without immediately justifying it, minimizing it, or talking yourself out of it? When was the last time you really allowed desire to exist fully, unapologetically, without needing to explain why you deserve it? For most of us, it’s not a simple question to answer because somewhere along the line, wanting became complicated.
00:00:36:13 – 00:01:09:11
We learned to edit our desires before we even fully felt them. We shrunk them down to something more manageable, more reasonable, more acceptable to make sure they didn’t ask too much of us, that we didn’t need too much, so that we wouldn’t expose too much. And over time, we stopped recognizing this as any kind of editing. We started calling it maturity or responsibility or being realistic.
00:01:09:18 – 00:01:36:21
But here’s what I want you to consider. What if that’s not wisdom at all? What if it’s just fear dressed up in sensible clothing? Because when we talk about desire, we’re not talking about something superficial. We’re talking about something deeply revealing. Because here’s the deal. Desire is not frivolous. Desire is diagnostic.
00:01:36:22 – 00:02:05:20
What you want and what you believe you are allowed to want tells the truth about how worthy you believe yourself to be. And this is where so many people get stuck. Not because they don’t have desires, but because they’ve learned to edit them, to minimize them, to disown them before they can feel disappointed. And at some point, wanting became unsafe. Maybe you wanted something and were told it’s unrealistic.
00:02:05:27 – 00:02:33:05
Maybe you wanted something and you were shamed for it. Maybe you wanted something and learned that wanting too much led to loss. And so you adapted. You learned to want less. You learned to soften your appetite. You learned to say I’m fine when you were anything but. And over time, that shrinking gets mistaken for maturity or humility or spiritual detachment.
00:02:33:08 – 00:03:05:28
But what often lives underneath is a belief that says, if I really let myself want what I want, I will expose how unworthy of it I feel. Because desire does not just reveal longing. Desire reveals self-trust. Do I trust myself to want without collapsing into shame? Do I trust myself to want without permission? Do I trust myself to want even if nothing changes right away?
00:03:06:00 – 00:03:36:03
This is the intersection of desire and self-worth. When self-worth is compromised, desire becomes conditional. I can want this, but only if I work hard enough. I can want this, but only if no one else is inconvenienced. I can want this, but only if I earn it, justify it, or prove I deserve it. That’s not desire. That’s a negotiation with unworthiness.
00:03:36:06 – 00:04:14:06
True desire does not bargain. True desire reveals. And that’s why uncovering desire can feel confronting. Because desire forces us to look at the places where we have settled. Not because settling makes us happy, but because settling feels safer than wanting more and risking disappointment, judgment, and grief. Think about that for a moment. How many times have you talked yourself out of wanting something? Not because you didn’t actually want it, but because wanting felt too vulnerable, too exposing to risk?
00:04:14:09 – 00:04:43:22
We learn to protect ourselves from our own desires, and in doing so, we disconnect from the very thing that could guide us toward what is true. So here’s the thing. Many people actually confuse desire with greed, or with selfishness, or with ingratitude. But desire is not a character flaw. Desire is information. It shows you where life wants to move through you.
00:04:43:22 – 00:05:11:03
And when desire is suppressed, life energy gets suppressed right along with it. And that’s why people who feel stuck or numb or bored or quietly dissatisfied are often disconnected from desires. Not because they don’t have them, but because they’ve stopped listening. I often hear people say, “I don’t know what I want,” and most of the time it’s not actually true.
00:05:11:10 – 00:05:48:27
It’s not that you don’t know, it’s that you do not yet feel safe knowing. Because knowing what you want creates responsibility. Not obligation, but responsibility. Responsibility to stop pretending. Responsibility to stop outsourcing fulfillment. Responsibility to stop blaming circumstances for choices rooted in worthiness wounds. And that can feel terrifying if you have spent years abandoning yourself. If you have spent years making yourself smaller to fit into spaces that were never meant for you.
00:05:49:02 – 00:06:17:24
If you’ve spent years prioritizing everyone else’s comfort over your own because once you know what you want, you can’t unknow it. And once you admit your desire to yourself, you have to reckon with the gap between where you are and where you want to be. And that gap can feel unbearable. So it becomes easier to say, “I don’t know what I want or I have no needs.”
00:06:17:26 – 00:06:49:23
It feels easier to stay confused than to face the courage it takes to honor what is true. Because here’s what I know for sure. Desire invites you to really, truly listen. Desire is not only about outcomes or money, career, life style, relationship. Desire is about how you want to feel. Because feeling is the bridge between worth and wanting.
00:06:49:28 – 00:07:27:27
You might say you want more money, but what you really might want is to feel ease or safety or spaciousness. You might say you want a different relationship, but what you really might want is the feeling of reciprocity or presence or being chosen without effort. You might say you want a different relationship, but what you really want is a feeling of reciprocity or presence, a feeling of mutual choosing.
00:07:27:29 – 00:07:59:02
You might say you want clarity, but what you really want is to feel the permission to stop forcing. When we skip that feeling layer, we chase outcomes that never fully satisfy us because the outcome was never the point. The point was how you want to experience yourself. And this is where self-worth becomes essential. If you do not believe you are worthy of ease, you will choose struggle.
00:07:59:09 – 00:08:24:21
Even when ease is available, if you do not believe you are worthy of rest, you will stay busy even when nothing is required. If you do not believe you are worthy of desire yourself, you will numb rather than feel the ache of wanting your worthiness or lack thereof. It dictates not only what you pursue, but whether you let yourself have it.
00:08:24:26 – 00:08:52:25
Even when it shows up, you might get the thing you wanted and still not let yourself enjoy it. Still find a reason it’s not quite right. Still feel like you don’t deserve it. And this is not a desire problem. This is a worthiness problem. Many people believe that wanting more is a betrayal of gratitude. But gratitude and desire are not opposites.
00:08:52:27 – 00:09:23:03
You can appreciate what is and still want something else. Self-worth allows for both. Unworthiness demands that you choose. Either be grateful or want more. Either be good or be honest. Worthiness says I can honor what is and still listen to what wants to become. And this is not entitlement. This is alignment. Desire aligned with self-worth is not frantic.
00:09:23:09 – 00:09:54:29
It’s not desperate. It’s not grasping. It’s grounded. It says this matters to me, not, I need this to be okay. When your desire comes from a place of I need this to be okay, when it’s driven by fear or lack or the belief that you’re not enough without it, it becomes compulsive. It becomes something you chase, something you white knuckle toward, something that leaves you feeling empty even when you get it.
00:09:55:01 – 00:10:22:11
But when your desire comes from a place of, “This matters to me,” when it’s rooted in genuine wanting, in self-knowledge, in alignment with who you are, it becomes clarifying. It becomes something you move toward with intention, with presence, with trust. You stop chasing and you start choosing. So before we go any further here, I want to take a moment to share something with you.
00:10:22:14 – 00:10:50:02
If what we’re talking about today is resonating, and if you feel that quiet ache of wanting more clarity, wanting more aliveness, more connection with yourself, I invite you to join me for Reignite Your Spark. It’s a five day free experience designed to help you come back to you, to reconnect with the part of you that knows what you want, what matters, and what no longer fits.
00:10:50:04 – 00:11:14:26
Because this is not about fixing yourself. It’s about remembering yourself. So in this free five day experience, you’ll receive a daily email for me, a short video each day, a workbook, and daily practices that will take 15 minutes or less to reconnect you with your desires, your truth, and your worthiness. You can learn all about it at nancylevin.com/spark.
00:11:15:03 – 00:11:51:00
That’s nancylevin.com/spark. Sign up for free and I’ll meet you in your inbox. So when desire is used to fill our worth whole, it becomes compulsive. When desire flows from worthiness, it becomes clarifying. You stop chasing. You start choosing. You stop measuring yourself by whether your desires are fulfilled. And instead you measure yourself by whether you are honoring what’s true.
00:11:51:02 – 00:12:16:06
And this is a radical shift because it means your worth is no longer contingent upon outcomes. You are worthy, even if a desire takes time. You are worthy, even if a desire changes. You are worthy, even if a desire never fulfilled you in the way you imagined. But you are not free if you never let yourself want. Freedom doesn’t come from getting everything you want.
00:12:16:13 – 00:12:45:27
Freedom comes from allowing yourself to want without shame. From trusting that your desires are valid, even if they don’t make sense to anyone else. From believing that wanting itself is not the problem. Disconnecting from wanting is because when you disconnect from your desire, you disconnect from your own aliveness. You become a spectator in your own life instead of a participant.
00:12:45:29 – 00:13:11:14
You go through the motions, you check the boxes, you meet the expectations, all while something inside of you quietly withers. And then one day you wake up and you realize you’ve been living a life you never actually chose. You’ve been following a script written by someone else’s values. Someone else’s dreams, someone else’s expectations, someone else’s definition of success.
00:13:11:16 – 00:13:42:12
And the way back to you is through desire. Through actually asking yourself what you want. Through honoring that answer, even when it’s inconvenient or uncomfortable or completely different than what you thought you should want. So here is a gentle inquiry. Not as homework. Not to get anything right. Simply an invitation to begin asking yourself what do I want that I’ve been pretending not to want?
00:13:42:17 – 00:14:16:17
Not what makes sense. Not what feels responsible. Not what would keep everyone else comfortable. But what do you want that you’ve been minimizing because it feels like too much? And then just notice what comes next. Perhaps fear. Shame. Grief. Guilt. Perhaps excitement. Perhaps aliveness. And there may even be resistance. None of this is wrong.
00:14:16:19 – 00:14:40:08
It’s all data, and it shows you exactly where your worthiness still needs tending to. Because desire will always bring you to the edge of your own concept of yourself. It’ll ask you to outgrow the version of you who learned that wanting is dangerous. You do not have to do this all at once. You do not need to act on every desire.
00:14:40:10 – 00:15:14:24
You don’t need to do it alone. You get to stop saying I don’t care. When you do, you get to stop pretending you’re fine when you’re not. You get to stop performing gratitude while suppressing longing. Desire does not need action to be valid. It only requires acknowledgment, and acknowledgment is an act of self-worth. Simply naming what you want, even if you do nothing about it, is an act of self-worth.
00:15:14:27 – 00:15:45:14
Because it says, my desires matter. My inner world matters. What I want is worth acknowledging, and that might be the most radical thing you do today. Not necessarily changing your circumstances. Not taking massive action. Just telling yourself the truth about what you want because your desires are not asking you to prove anything. They’re asking you to pay attention.
00:15:45:17 – 00:16:17:29
They’re not asking you to become someone else. They’re asking you to remember the truth of who you are. And when you allow desire to exist without judgment, without urgency, without justification, something softens within you and you begin to stop arguing with yourself. You stop bargaining with life. You start standing with yourself, and from that place, desire becomes less about getting and more about being honest.
00:16:18:01 – 00:16:43:16
And honesty is always a practice of self worth. Because every time you tell yourself the truth about what you want, you strengthen the relationship you have with yourself. You prove to yourself that you can be trusted, that your inner knowing matters, that you don’t have to abandon yourself along the way. And that is the foundation of self-worth.
00:16:43:18 – 00:17:06:08
Not achievement, not proving, not earning, but trusting yourself enough to honor what’s true. So as we close, I invite you to spend some time with us. Join me for Reignite Your Spark: nancylevin.com/spark. And let’s get to the heart of your desires.