138 ~ How To Have What You Want

You know that line we all say when we’re overwhelmed and hungry for more: “I just want everything.” We go right at it. Not to shame the desire, but to tell the truth about why wanting it all can keep you stuck, scattered, and secretly resentful. If your goals include more money, better health, deeper love, or real freedom, the missing piece is rarely another vision board. It’s commitment, responsibility, and the choices you repeat when the sparkle wears off. 

We introduce Brenda’s “Value Fountain” practice, a simple metaphor with teeth: every aligned action is a coin you deposit toward the life you say you want. One early bedtime. One workout. One boundary. One “no” to the impulse buy. These deposits rarely feel exciting in the moment, but they compound into confidence, capacity, and options. We also challenge the way “deserve” gets used as a shortcut. Deserving might be true, but earning is what makes the desire real and livable. 

Then we pull the thread on freedom. Most of us want the freedom to choose, yet we don’t always build the body, the bank account, or the nervous system that makes those choices possible. We talk about why commitment can feel like restriction at first, why the middle is uncomfortable, and why that discomfort can actually be self-love. You can have a lot and choosing what to build now is your choice. 

If this hits, subscribe so you don’t miss what we’re building here. What’s one desire you’re ready to commit to right now?

Transcript

Welcome And What Desire Means

SPEAKER_02 0:07

Welcome to Desire is Medicine. We are two very different women living a life led by desire, inviting you into our world.

SPEAKER_00 0:16

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_02 0:36

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_00 0:58

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.

The Trap Of Wanting Everything

The Value Fountain Commitment Practice

SPEAKER_02 1:12

On the Desire is 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. Hello. Family, friends, listeners, so happy to be back on this gorgeous day with the lovely Brenda. So happy to be recording today. And today we're talking about desire. As per usual. Specifically around desire, the thing I've been sitting with is when clients say to me, But Catherine, I just want everything. I want everything. And I know I've been guilty of saying that, especially earlier in my journey. I want everything. I want to have it all. And sometimes we start to tussle in that mindset of like, I want it all, why can't I have it all? Or maybe we feed that fear and say to ourselves, oh, I'm really lucky in business, but not lucky in love, or I'm really lucky in love, but I'm broke, or some version of where I'm really great in this location and not the other. When I think of those examples, I also think about, well, am I interested in having it all? But am I willing to commit to have it all? Like, what am I actually willing to commit to? Responsibility, we're constantly on this podcast talking about responsibility for desire. Like, what do you want? And how are you going to be responsible for creating that in your life? This conversation honestly can go in so many different directions, and keeping it tight is I'm at my edge here at keeping it tight and not making a really broad would love for this episode to be potent. And so in this opening, I want to, I'm gonna just set some seeds where yes, we want more health, money, love, freedom, ease, success, we want all the things. And yes, I think having all the things is great, but our life isn't built just only on what we want, it's built on like what we choose again and again. And what we consistently prioritize represents our values. And so if I want to wake up every day early and I want to be an early bird, but I don't get myself to bed on time, then that means that I value staying up late. And so I have conflicting desires that are actually not very kind and fair, and I'm sort of setting myself up to lose. I can't really be awake and ready early in the morning. If I sit up all night, I will be tired. It makes sense to be tired, unless I'm altered in some way, have an altered state. So, how do we commit to ourselves over and over again? And Brenda has this gorgeous exercise that she calls the value fountain. Like, how do we contribute? Like, what are the things that we're committing to? And how do we show up to that over and over again? Like, think of our actions like we're depositing it into a value fountain. Whether it's if you can picture a body of water in a fountain, or you can picture like a piggy bank where you're making a deposit that at some point you're looking to check out some dividends, like you're looking for it to compound, you're looking to be able to take out something, right? So if we decide to commit to going to bed early instead of scrolling for future energy for tomorrow's energy, then I am in that way contributing to my value fountain, my energetic value fountain. Do you want to say more about that, Brenda?

SPEAKER_00 5:09

I think you nailed it pretty well. I mean, Catherine and I were talking about coins in the fountain because this morning I committed to going to the infrared sauna for the next few months. I bought a membership and I'm really excited about it. And it feels like coins in the fountain towards my bigger desire of strength and health. I was talking with the guy as I was paying him, and I said, This is just like coins, coins in the fountain coming here. And he was like, Oh my God, I love that. Like, yeah, it really feels that way. It feels really abundant. Like I picture myself in ancient Rome or something, like literally flipping a big fat gold coin into the fountain. And we do that with our resources, with our time, with our money, with our energy. And it looks different at different times. And sometimes it looks like going to the infrared sauna or going to the gym or not taking that vacation because you want to save money for the house. It's like a little bit of a dance with our desires. But there's nothing like committing what you want. And of course, in order to commit, you have to know what you want. What do you want? And then are you backing yourself with action to move you towards that desire? Because sometimes the desires are short-term, right? Maybe you want to go to a certain restaurant and you just say it and then you go. Easy. Easy or not, right? Depending on your relationship with speaking your desires. One of my biggest desires right now is my own home. It's a longer one. I've been saving money and also working through some survival patterns and patterns that I've worked through of moving a lot. And so I'm working towards having that. It's taken a longer time. So I just continually back myself in having this desire. You do it so beautifully. Like I love how you back yourself. Thank you. Well, if we want something, we have to do it. And it doesn't always look that way. You know, sometimes we don't back ourselves. Sometimes the best way to learn about something is by having the opposite experience. So if you want to save money, but you're always at the mall shopping or ordering on Amazon, then you're going to have no money in the bank. And that's okay. Money's a renewable resource, luckily. You get to get more money and then you get to try again. So sometimes we have these experiences where we didn't commit to ourselves for what we want. And then we get to evaluate how that feels. Is it worth it to not have any money in my account towards the X amount of dollars that I'm trying to save for this other thing for all the$40,$60 Amazon purchases that I keep making? Is that worth it? Yes or no? And then you get to decide. And then you get to try it again and try it again. That's how it goes. That's how I like to look at it.

Deserve Versus Earn In Real Life

SPEAKER_02 8:09

When we're talking about the fountain, the concept in itself means that there is no immediate payoff. Like you're not feeling that payoff immediately. Because if I have a fountain and I just put a drop of water in there, well, nothing's trickling. It's a drop of water. You don't feel that payoff immediately. But you are building something that will pay you back eventually. There will be a payoff if you're feeding the fountain. Like there will be a paid-off. I have had this weird relationship with the word deserve. People use the word deserve very willy-nilly. Like, oh, you deserve it. You should give it to yourself. Oh, you deserve it. Oh, I deserve it.

SPEAKER_01 8:54

Everybody deserves it.

SPEAKER_02 8:56

And I'm like, of course we deserve it. Like we're human. We're here to have a human experience. We deserve everything. Like, why not? But deserving something doesn't mean that we get to have it. And one of the easiest ways to know if we're gonna get something is did we really earn it? Like you're talking about the house and the saving the money, right? As an example. And you could say, I deserve the house all day long. But if you commit to saving the money and then you have the money to eventually make a down payment and purchase the house, well, you don't have to say you deserve it because you earned it, because you have it and you can actually just go buy it. The word deserve isn't even in the vocabulary because it's not necessary there. And I say willy-nilly because there are people who have millions and choose not to buy anything for themselves, right? For X amount of reasons. And in that sense, they clearly earned it in some way, even if it's through the lottery, and they could have something and they're choosing not to give it to themselves. Like they have the resource to get the thing and they're not doing that. And I think deserve is a great word there. But we often, as a collective, my clients, myself included, have definitely been through moments in life where I have been like, but I just want all of it. I don't want to work for any of it. I just want it to be here. I want to wake up and I just want it to be there. And uh life experience has taught me that that's not how that works. That isn't the one plus one equals two that happens. That is not how it works. How it works is I will reap what I sell. And normally if I just do a daytime audit or weekly audit, I will know what I'm selling.

SPEAKER_01 10:56

If somebody were to look at your day, can they see what you value?

Why You Cannot Choose Every Option

Freedom Is Built Through Discipline

SPEAKER_02 11:07

So if for the whole week you're getting to your first appointment late, then we know you value getting up late. If you are every day of the week early to your first appointment, then we know you value you value being early and on time. We like to pretend like we don't know, but we know. We play that pretend game really well. We pretend like we don't know, but we so know. We understand that you can't have everything. I was thinking about two, and I just got a different visual. The first visual, we were opening this episode today. I thought of a little kid who is at Christmas and has all the toys, and they just want to open all the boxes, and that is the joy. The joy comes from I just want more gifts and more gifts and more gifts because I want to open boxes. That is the goal. The more boxes, the more fun. But there's really no time for that child to individual gift pause and enjoy because the toys are coming at them like fire hoses. Then as I was setting up that story, I had a different visual. Like when you go to the movies and you're going for a seven o'clock showing, you can really only watch one show at a time. Like you can't watch more than one show. You have to choose the show because it's gonna happen at seven o'clock. You can't watch a show that's not being shown there at that time if you're there at seven. Like other choices, you can change your circumstances, but it will require a change. The fact is that you can only do that one thing at that time. But we scatter our actions. We'll be like, oh, I don't know. I just I'm doing everything. I hear this too. I've said it for sure. I'm just doing everything for what I want and nothing is happening. It's like, no, you're not doing everything, you're just doing things that haven't worked, yeah. Not everything. Just the things that we know aren't necessarily getting us to where we want to go, which is where the complaint comes from. And little by little, sometimes we start to then forget that what we consistently choose shows us our values. We forget. We forget that we have to recommit every day for the big things that we want because it's easy to forget. It's easy to numb out, it's easy to put everything down and just say, Oh, God's hands. I've handed it over to God. It's like, no. You are human and you have the ability to manifest and create in this life. So we try to keep all of our options open and then we have no movement. We're just stuck in indecision and self-abandonment. But the then we choose and we're closer to getting what we want. And like real desire has a cost. The biggest cost to a desire is if you're choosing one thing, you know you cannot choose other things. Like when you choose that seven o'clock movie, the movie that you chose, you can't watch another. You have to say no to the others. It's just part of the equation. The biggest thing I think that we all want as a society, as a culture is freedom. And Brenda and I were talking about this earlier as we prepped for this episode. A lot of us want just the freedom to choose. But we haven't worked on being able to have the choice. So, for example, maybe in our later years, we want to choose whether or not we run the marathon or choose whether or not we go to the yoga class or stay home. But if we don't have the healthy body to go run the marathon or go to the yoga class, well, we can't really choose. Because the choice was made already a long time ago. And we're just living out the consequence of that choice. Do you want to say more about that specific?

SPEAKER_00 15:18

Like that we all want the freedom to choose. I think as Americans, it's like kind of what our country is built on freedom, right? Like it's like maybe just built into the soil of where we are that we want freedom. We value that here. And hopefully people can have it. I think that we just want the freedom to choose. What you're saying is true. Sometimes it's kind of whimsical. You know, we have this like fantasy idea of what we want. Well, I want to be able to choose. Oh, I want to choose if I go to work today. Well, you need money. So, you know, you haven't set up your life where you can, you could just fly to Bali today if you want to. You don't have that choice, right? People want that choice. And some of these things are inside of our control and some of them aren't. So maybe there are things that you do have more freedom about. And I would say that we hold ourselves back from that as well. We hold our own selves back from our own freedom by putting a lot of rules and constraints on our lives or control of how we need to live our lives, that it needs to look a certain way. It's a good practice to ask yourself, is that true? Like, is this true what I'm thinking? Is this true how it is? And sometimes, oftentimes, I find it's no, it's not true that I put a block on myself to my own freedom, which is kind of hysterical, actually.

SPEAKER_02 16:53

Can you give me an example of that? I'm only asking because I I thought we were going to go to a different direction of freedom. And you're you're going to the, oh, actually, I can see how I stunt my own freedom.

SPEAKER_00 17:09

Yeah, I don't know if I have a specific example right now, but I guess I'm thinking about even obligation. Okay. Like living, I don't know, living in an obligation, or you think, oh, you're supposed to, um, you're supposed to see your family every Sunday. This is what you do. You get together, you play cards, somebody makes an amazing meal, and that's the way it is. And then you could get invited to something else on a Sunday, and you're like, well, I can't go. Well, is that true or is it not? It depends what you value. Maybe you do value that, but you do have the freedom to choose. You do. It's not that you can't go. It's not right. And maybe that's not even a great example. Maybe that's not a great example of obligation. That's more tradition. It's kind of nuanced. It's like a tradition, something that you're doing all the time and you might love it, but traditions can kind of blend in. It can get muddy with obligation if we don't pause to ask ourselves, do I want to keep doing this?

SPEAKER_02 18:07

I hear it's coming back to that spot, which is like, are we committed still? Like, is this still a top priority? Do I still want to spend my Sundays with my family? If the answer is yes, then we're technically choosing to not go to the other thing that we were invited to, because this is the choice that we have. Often we'll say, Well, I want to be able to do both, or I just want to do all of it. I want to be able to be with my family and I want to go to this amazing event that I was invited to. I want to honor both. It's like if they're both happening at the same time, you can't honor both. You can have, you can create something different.

SPEAKER_00 18:41

Yes, you can.

unknown 18:42

Right?

SPEAKER_00 18:43

That's the magic spot. That's the gray area that oftentimes people don't work with. They see it as very black and white.

SPEAKER_02 18:50

I think it's because it's not the same, right? You recreate it instead of that Sunday. Maybe you're meeting on Thursday, and maybe not all the same family people can go. And then there's FOMO because clearly your family is going to get together on that Sunday. You just won't be there because you're choosing something else, like being okay with and backing yourself with the choices that you've made. And I really don't want to step away from your gorgeous concept of the value fountain concept, because it's like we have to continue to think about what am I committing to? And what you brought in right now is to re-evaluate what we're saying yes to, re-evaluate what we value, reevaluate what we're committed to all the time. Like it's constantly, we're in relationship with the life that we're creating, right? We're constantly building something and we're gonna reap rewards. Do we really want that reward? Let's stay clear with ourselves. Like, am I really feeding the thing that I think is gonna give me the thing that I want? Um, and continue to think of our actions when we think of that fountain, like we're depositing into a value fountain. Like every aligned action is a deposit and it's going to compound over time. And I want to go back to something that you said when you spoke about our country and how much we value freedom. I think at this stage of the game, at this stage of life, we have a lot of choice, especially in this country. And I think that we have this false sense of we're just free. And we're not. In many places. And as we re-evaluate that, we get to be with, okay, how can I be more free here? What is actually in my power? Where do I have to bring in more commitment? Where do I have to be more disciplined so that I can have more freedom? I'll go back to the Bali example. If you're someone who contributed to your retirement and you're able to retire early, and now you don't have to work at 40. Well, now you can be someone that decides that they wake up at X amount of time, at X hour, and they can get on a trip to Bali with their partner, maybe. If that partner's also retired, you get to have, you get to experience that. Most of us think that we can experience that through the lottery, or oh, it's because you're rich and you have the funds and the resources. And that's fairly limited because if you weren't raised into wealth and money, well, you don't have it. Like you literally didn't enter the world that way. Maybe you can build that for yourself, or you can build a version of that. Like, what is the version of that that you can build? And it's one baby step at a time. And as we get closer and more powerful, or we become better architects as we build, things become clearer and we're able to make different decisions faster, better, with more accuracy through the trial and error process, right?

Delayed Gratification And Daily Tradeoffs

SPEAKER_00 21:43

100%. This is brilliant. And it is in the baby steps. It's in the difficult, sometimes difficult moments of your day of choosing to stay aligned to what you're. Want and committed. You know, there's so many things coming at us. One of the things I'm working on right now is saving money. And, you know, I got invited to this retreat. And do I want to go to this and I want to buy that? And it's like, oh, I have a little extra money. Well, can I buy with it? Right. And it's like working with that pattern of actually holding my money so I can be the person who can save it. So we need to make these hard decisions sometimes. Like, yeah, I would love to go to that retreat. And I said I want to save money. So it's like, what fountain am I putting my coins in? Because yes, the when we put coins in the fountain towards what we want, towards what we're committed to, that matters. But we we put coins in the other fountain, or maybe they're not coins. I don't know. What are they? Bullets or pieces of turd rocks. I don't know. In the other fountain, the things that we don't want, that adds up too. And then, you know, we can get into a hole in that fountain. I don't know, making up this metaphor as I go. Maybe you have something better.

SPEAKER_02 23:07

No, I think we're still reaping a reward. I think the reward, if the the goal is to save and we choose to spend somewhere, the reward is immediate reward versus like the delayed gratification of what we're trying to fill the fountain with. And so the reward is immediate, right? We're avoiding discomfort. I think it's really easy to look at commitment like restriction. I'm committed to saving, I'm therefore restricted to spend versus like I'm committed to saving. Yes, restriction to spending is part of it because the goal is to save faster.

SPEAKER_00 23:47

And that can feel really good. It can. I want to say that when you're committed to something and you say no to something that would potentially feel good, it actually feels good to say no to it. So when I'm working on my gut health and I'm saying no to the chocolate cake, that's hard because I want that cake. But it feels good to say no because I'm working on something bigger. So every time I say no, it's coins in the fountain. It like gives me my sea legs towards what I want. So I like to look at it that way. Like I get to say no so I can have this other thing that I want. It's like a little mind trick that I do with myself.

SPEAKER_02 24:38

You're you can be a victim. You oh, go ahead. I'll take it. I'm definitely an advanced practitioner. Like, you're like, it can feel good. Um like, um, I'm pretty sure for me for a long time things felt bad first.

SPEAKER_00 24:51

Like well, that does. Oh, it totally feels bad first. It feels like restriction at first. It's hard to go to the gym and like start lifting weights. That does not feel good. It just doesn't. It's hard. Who has the clothes? You don't like the way you look, it's time consuming. But we have to be willing to get through that period of discomfort and not order the crap on Amazon so that I could save the money for the thing that I really want. There is discomfort there, but it's to a greater good. And that's where the self-holding comes in.

Self Love As Hard Choices

SPEAKER_02 25:35

I think we're also talking about the. So there's space between the, I hate this, I feel restricted, and oh, this is great. I'm getting closer to what I want. And the center, I think, is full of discomfort. It's full of restriction, it's full of delayed gratification, it's full of shit we don't really enjoy. Uh, but then we start to actually see the reward in some way, shape, or form. So maybe that means that you're stronger at the gym and you can lift more, or maybe that means that you can walk further longer or faster with less discomfort. Maybe that means that you look better in the outfit. Maybe that means that you have more money saved to the towards that house. And then, yes, then you've built enough of a fountain, right? A reward fountain, value fountain concept here. You've built enough of that fountain that you're reaping the benefit of, oh, I've been stocking this. And going back to the word that I used before, we're not like, oh, I deserved it. I deserve this good body and these gym clothes. It's like I earned it. I was committed and I earned it. Like I am reaping the benefits of the reward that I have earned. And like, let's just applaud that for a second. Like the truth is our nervous system, our ego wants everything to stay the same. It's hard work to get closer and closer to the things that you want. We're always constantly wanting more, and that's requiring us to say no to things that we also want. But we have to pick the one that matters the most and choose it accordingly. And it's so hard to celebrate when you're not at the reward stage yet, when you can't see that piece yet where it feels like I want it, but I can't have it. I deserve it, but I don't have it.

SPEAKER_00 27:29

This is why people need to listen to our podcast. Because we reframe these things for you. We really do. We turn the old regular ways of thinking on their head and we say, oh, this discomfort that you're feeling is a celebration. I'd like to say it's loving. That is freaking what self-love is. It's loving to take the hard action towards the deeper thing that you want instead of the candy of the immediate gratification. And I'm not saying that that can't be ever-loving, you know, but in this conversation, it is loving to align your life so that your actions reflect the truth of your heart, reflect your values. That is a self-loving act. And I think that we did a whole self-love series. And what does that actually look like? Well, here it is, people. It's not manicures and lollipops and buying yourself flowers. Those things are very nice. Thank you very much. But it is not buying the thing on Amazon if you want to save money. It's not having the chocolate cake if you're trying to have better health. It's not reacting and yelling at your kids if you want to have more presence. It's choosing different actions. You can have the thing that you want. That's what we are talking about. And it does take commitment and it's worth it. And it's something to celebrate. That you're even doing it.

SPEAKER_02 29:20

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 29:20

I mean, we don't even, I don't think that we look at that in that way, that it's a celebration, but it is. It's something to celebrate. I love that she celebrates so well.

SPEAKER_02 29:30

Um, a work in progress over here, I have to be honest. Uh, I wonder where that phrase has come. I've said that a few times today. I have to be honest. I must be lying to you guys every all the other times.

SPEAKER_00 29:43

That's so funny. I have to be honest.

Final Takeaways And Next Steps

SPEAKER_02 29:46

I must have picked that up somewhere. So, what are we leaving here with today? You can have everything.

SPEAKER_00 29:54

Or can you? Just not at the same time. That's the thing. You can have everything, just maybe not all at the same time.

SPEAKER_02 30:03

I want to propose that there's a version where you can have everything. You can't have everything, probably to the degree that we all want it. Like we want to be at a hundred and everything, or a scale of one to ten, be at a ten and everything. And there's a few theories, like there's the four-burner theory, Brenda and I talk about that sometimes, or the wheel of life that we've discussed in the past. Like, how satisfied are you in the different areas of your life? And if you want to be even more satisfied in those areas, great. Put your attention on that. Decide what you're gonna be actually building. What are you committed to building? Not what are you interested in? Not okay, I want everything. I'm gonna commit to everything because we know that it's not really a thing. We can't, it sort of dilutes our power. So, what is the thing that is the most pressing? What is one small step that you can take to make a commitment to get closer to that thing that's the most pressing for yourself so that you can start building your own value fountain so that it can pay off for you. That's what we want. We want you to be the woman that gets to have her desires. And if you want support in that, you know where to find us. Thank you so much for listening. Until next time.

SPEAKER_00 31:33

Thank you for joining us on the Desire is Medicine podcast.

SPEAKER_02 31:37

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.