Eckhart TolleNYT Bestselling author of the Power of Now

Nothing is missing from your life | Eckhart Tolle

26 Aug 2026 · 3 min

Watch on YouTube

3:18

In this short monologue, Eckhart Tolle responds to a question about how a 40‑year‑old woman can cope with a powerful longing to have children. He explains that the desire is largely a biological drive embedded in the female body and reinforced by cultural narratives that equate motherhood with a woman’s worth. Tolle acknowledges that many women choose not to have children, yet the underlying biological urge can persist. He argues that the key to reducing the intensity of this desire is to shift identification away from the body and the mind‑generated self‑concept, and instead root one’s sense of identity in the state of presence – the awareness that is beyond form. By becoming conscious of the body’s urges without identifying with them, a woman can experience the biological need without it dominating her emotional life, allowing her to make a free, conscious choice about parenthood.

Chapters

How do I overcome an intense desire to have children at age 40? I don't have any children now and have wanted to have a family for as long as I can remember. I did have a few heartbreaks, mainly caused by this intense desire of mine. Now I'm in a relationship, but my boyfriend is not ready. Now, the desire to have children is probably biologically built into almost every female human on the planet, almost, I say, not— there may be some other factors to do with yin and yang, but almost every human has the desire on a biological level, because it's the body's desire, to have a child. It is built into the body by nature. And in that case, and in some cultures, older cultures, and some still present cultures in other parts of the world, a woman who does not have a child is regarded as inferior to a woman that has a child. This is still the case in some cultures. That, of course, is not the truth at all, but it's something to be recognized, is within the female biology, there is a built-in need for a child, and unless the female is sufficiently conscious to rise above that, it could make a woman very unhappy not to have a child if she has not risen above the biological need which may be there and is not met. There are women nowadays who decide not to have a child. And that's fine. They may still feel in the background sometimes, their biology may want it, but there are other factors that are regarded as more important, higher than the biological factor, and the most important thing is When you derive your sense of self, your identity from presence, which is why we're here, to go there, then these other factors become less important. On a biological level, you may still feel that need, but it's not overpowering anymore because you are rooted in— you are not identified with the female body anymore.