Awakened Desires

Hi, guys. My name is Donny Rouse, and you're listening to the podcast One Life Awakened Desires. What is it that you want in life? Do you even remember what it is that you want? You know, when we're kids, we have like this laundry list of things. Like, it could be the new pool, the new toy, whatever it may be, but we would rattle these things off in an instant because we believe that anything and everything was possible. What happens as we start to get older? We start to push. We start to kind of disbelieve that a lot of these things are possible. And as a result, we narrow our dreams or we don't allow ourselves to dream bigger and to engage the thoughts into those things that we wanted. Just think about when you were a child. What did you want? Like, you could rattle off a list of a hundred things in probably one minute, and then fast forward to now. Like, if I asked you, what do you want in this moment, could you tell me? You probably rattle off something like, oh, I want a bigger house, I want to put my kids in the school, I want to the new car. But that's not what I'm referring to. I want to know what is it that you want that's going to make you feel alive? Because that's where the juice of life is. It's not the things that we think that we should want or giving up on those desires, because the desires are what make you feel alive. And desire could be something as simple as learning piano or learning how to public speak, or having your first experience of pasta in Italy, whatever it may be. Those are the things that I'm talking about. Those are the experiences that I want you to think about in this podcast. I was doing this exercise and it's always been a very powerful one because there was a quote that I'd heard a while ago, I can't remember who quoted it, but it went something like this. It says every day you have to fight for what you want, because if not, you're going to fall something along the lines of you're going to fall into the, like, the normal life or whatever it is. And the point of this quote was saying that if you simply stay stagnant, if you don't move towards your goals, if you don't keep those goals, those desires in the forefront of your mind, then they're going to fall away, they're going to get lost. You're going to start to literally settle into society and all the cultural beliefs and wants that you know that society is dictating. But if you want to have a happy life. If you want to live a life of passion, you've got to be the one at the helm. You've got to be the one steering the ship saying, these are the things I want, not all this other stuff that everyone's saying that I should want. These are the things that I want. And also give yourself the permission to go after them for no other reason that they're going to make you feel good. Right. You don't need a reason other than that. So I was doing this exercise and again in the. I get in the habit of, you know, just kind of going, just solo, putting all my focus into my coffee business and as a result of putting all the focus there. And this is, this is true of anything in life. When we put our solely, put our focus into one area, we leave other areas out. Not because we want to leave them out. It's just that it's the nature when you have a limited bandwidth. So when you're putting all your focus in one area and it's usually at the expense of others. So it's not to say that focus is what you need to push forward in whatever area that you're trying to make massive gains in, but you want to be aware of what you're neglecting, what you're pushing aside. Because if you move forward in your career at the expense of your family life now your family life sucks, or if you move, you know, forward with your family life, neglecting your friendships, that, you know that's not good, or if you move, put so much focus on work and your family, then you neglect your health, that's a problem as well. So without going, we're. But what we're concerned with here, we're concerned with the things that are going to make you feel alive, right? The point of life, I believe the point of life is to experience passion, is to feel alive, is to have those, those high vibrational emotions. I think most people like, they kind of stay in that stagnant place and they just kind of. Well, you know what? Yeah, how's your week? You know, another week, you know, what do you. That is not where you want to live. And I'm not saying that every day is going to be like this, this high level, but we, it would be cool, wouldn't it be awesome if we can make that the norm. So I was doing this exercise and I was kind of writing down. At first it was just like basic stuff that had to do with my business. And then what I noticed was as I started writing down the things that I desired, the things that I had forgotten, the things that I told myself that I couldn't have. As I started to put them on paper, all of a sudden I started to feel really good, and more stuff started to flow. What happened? Like, why was it so in the beginning of doing this exercise, which I'm gonna give you, why was it difficult to start to, like, kind of put the things that I wanted? And all of a sudden it started to get easier and it started to change my mood. It's because of momentum, right? Because what do you ask yourself on a daily basis? It's usually not like, well, what are the things that are desire? What are the things that are gonna make you feel alive? What are the things that are gonna make you feel good? That's not the question on most people's minds. Most people's minds are like, what do I have to do? How do I avoid pain? That's where the thought process is. So it's no wonder why so many people feel like, bleh. So as I was doing this list, I noticed that my mood started to change. And all of a sudden, now those desires that were once this big all started to expand again. And then once the focus is there, once they start to expand, all of a sudden the idea of taking action becomes more real. It becomes more tangible, becomes more of a desire. Like, now you're more willing to do it because all you had to do was just put a little bit of focus there. Do you hear what I'm saying? Do you understand? Because where does your focus go on a daily basis? So the exercise is this. And I'm going to tell you what the exercise is. And what I want you to do is I want you to press pause on this. Whether you're watching the live stream, the video, or you're listening to the podcast, press pause and just complete the exercise. Five minutes. That's all I'm asking you for. Five minutes. Do not let your pen leave the paper. And then I want you to just be conscious of how you feel. And I'm gonna. I'm gonna give you kind of like a guiding thought on this. I want you to pretend like there is no limit, that society, whatever society's norms are, saying whatever you think you have to do doesn't apply here. I want you to just free flip. So the exercise is this. What is it that you want? It could be fun to look at. When you were a kid, what is it that you wanted? When you were a teenager, what was it that you wanted? As an adult, what is it that you wanted? What are those dreams? What is it that you wanted? What is it that you wanted to experience? Did you want to travel to Europe? Did you want to hit every single continent in the world? Did you want to take a cruise ship to Antarctica? That was one of mine. What did you want to learn? Right? If there's no limits, what would you want to learn? Would you want to learn how to act? Would you want to learn how to play guitar? I don't know. Would you want to learn how to play? Make paper cranes at origami? I mean, playing cranes, that's what it is. What would you want to learn? Who would you spend more time with? Because people, a relationship are one of the most important areas. Because that's where a lot of the happiness brings. Because everything you have, when you share it with other people, that is what brings you joy. Take five minutes, press pause here and just fill that out and let your mind again, take the filter off. It doesn't matter what people say you should or shouldn't have what your parents told you, that was not a logic, was an illogical dream, and that it was stupid. Just write it down, press pause and do it now. Okay, so I hope you did that. And how do you feel after, as a result of doing it? What was your experience when you first started writing your list? And what was experienced after you got going? Like, maybe if you did it for the five minutes and. And what was the experience like three minutes in, or if you did it for even longer, which I hope maybe that would have been the case, how did you feel after doing it for maybe 10 minutes? I am not willing to bet, but I know for certain if you played all out and if you allowed yourself to literally take that filter off and uncap your mind, that you started to feel really, really good. You started maybe with these small things, and all of a sudden, just by writing more and more things out, more items, you started to feel good. Now all of a sudden, these things became. They're at the forefront of your mind, and now by looking at them, you feel good. And now you're more willing to take action just because you put the focus there. Life is about feeling, life is about emotion. And so a good life is a life lived with positive emotions. Right? And one of the things that I think we all forget at times, I mean, this is one of the things that I'm consciously always putting effort for, like forward with, is that we get to choose the emotions that we live each and every day. I'LL say that again. We get to choose the emotions we live each and every day. And how do we do that? We do that with our focus. We do that with the being aware of the questions that we're asking ourselves over and over, over again in our mind because they are what is controlling our focus. What is guiding our focus. I hope you enjoyed this episode, guys. I want you guys to live your fullest, most passionate lives. And I want you to live life that you were meant to live. And not by anyone else's standard, but by your own. So if you enjoyed this podcast and if you enjoyed the exercise, I invite you just to share it with friends. Like, share it with them, because you know it'll make them feel good and maybe it'll reawaken some desires that they had forgotten in their own life. Again, if you want to leave a review, you can do so on Spotify or on Apple Podcasts. It would be much, much appreciated. And that is all I got for you guys today. God bless and I will see you again soon.