What do you do when you don’t get what you want?

 

Do you make it personal? Go into thinking you just didn’t deserve it, or things don’t ever go your way, or there’s something wrong with you and that’s why you can’t have what you want?

 

Maybe you tell yourself it was fate. It just wasn’t meant to be. Or that maybe you repelled it away à la law of attraction, and you just haven’t figured out how to make yourself magnetic enough for it to be yours.

 

No matter what you’ve told yourself when you didn’t get what you want, there is always something miraculous happening inside of you that is easy to overlook.

 

That something is the bittersweet note that poets, songwriters, and authors wax lyrical about for days and days on end.

 

Whether it gets fulfilled or not, your desire is magnificent and sacred in and of itself.

 

Even though you might not have walked into the sunset with your burning desire in hand, you are still better because the desire existed in the first place.

 

You were ignited and set aflame by that desire.

You were motivated, set alight, and inspired.

You were filled with the energy of life itself.

You were a brilliant beacon of holy creation, even if only for a moment in time.

 

When you acknowledge the sacredness of your desire, and who you became because of it, it matters less if you receive it.

 

None of us will always get what we want. But we do get to receive the gift of ignition and aliveness that is present amongst it all.

 

Desire is a hot, radiating, blistering sun of dynamic power that can transform you with its light – if you will allow it to.

 

Even if you’re sitting in the gut punch ache of not having gotten what you want, feel that. Feel the spectrum of emotion and life that is present inside of you.

 

Then when you are ready, pivot your attention to what did get to happen for you.

 

You were cracked open to a new possibility. You were radically altered, and your usual levels of passion and drive were amped up. Take a moment to relish in the fact that your desire brought you to a new level of exuberance and joy, even if it was temporary.

 

The beauty of life itself pulsed through you. It set you on fire. It reminded you of what it means to be gratefully, wholly alive.

 

It is this aliveness that we desire most.

 

Sometimes we experience it when something has come to a glorious pinnacle. But don’t forget – that same aliveness is still present when things crash and burn. It is still inside of you when what you crave remains ever out of reach.

 

So, I challenge you.

 

The next time you don’t get what you want, can you still bask in the radiance of what that desire gave to you? How it roused your turn on? How it’s holy spark animated all of you and turned everything into technicolor bliss?

 

When you are ready, see if you can let the blessing of desire itself grace you with its sacred gift. Because it is a love note from the divine.

 

And that is always worth living for.