Episode 5: Desire: The Root of All Suffering or Your Greatest Ally?

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 Hello, everyone. Thank you so much for joining me again today on Nectar Sex & Soul. This is Sureya Leonara and today I am really excited to dive into the topic of desire. I want to unpack some of the stigma and the misconceptions around desire. I want to talk about how we can channel it in really healthy and transformative ways and harness the life-force energy of it. And how we can magnetize what we desire in a way that's deeply fulfilling, in a way that is bringing us closer into alignment with our truest selves, rather than depleting us, or distracting us, or making us feel like we're in this rat-race chase. 

Desire gets a bad rap in a lot of spiritual traditions. The Buddha said that desire is the root of all suffering, and we'll circle back to that in a little bit. But tantra holds everything as sacred, so each piece of the puzzle is playing its own essential role in the whole of existence.

Desire is the spark of holy longing that perpetuates our species on this planet.  Without desire, there's no drive to procreate. There's no drive to make love. This is actually the force that propels life, that propels that sacred union between two people, whether they are trying to create life or not. It's that magnetism that draws people to connect on a deeper level. And it's that magnetism that draws us to connect on deeper levels with other parts of ourselves, which I'll touch on more in a little bit here . 

Desire is a part of being human. It's the umbilical cord to divinity. It's that holy, primordial longing for the merging of matter and spirit, for the embodiment of sacred union with all that is, for sacred union within and without. It's the fuel of passion that makes us come alive. It's the song in our heart that guides us towards our life's purpose and fulfillment..  

Your desire is holy, not some weed to be pulled from existence and transcended. As I talked about in earlier episodes, a spiritual path that is overly focused on transcendence is severed from the roots, from the body, from sexuality, from the earth, the feminine. Desire is that longing for these two sides of the same coin, for matter and spirit, sex and spirit, energy and consciousness, masculine and feminine to be in union. 

So it's not desire that is the root of all suffering, but the attachment to it. Desire is only problematic when we fall prey to the illusion of separateness, forgetting that we are already one with desire. It's problematic if it distracts and disconnects us from what's already here and takes us out of the present. If we feel like we can't be happy without having what we desire, if that desire is pulling us out of the present moment, then it's that attachment to getting our desires met and the illusion of separateness that causes suffering, not the desire itself. What's important is how we work with our desires and determining our why behind them. Why do we want that desire? 

If you've followed my work, you've probably heard me say this in reference to male sexuality that male sexuality is the energy of fire. And I often say that untamed fire can burn the world down, but channeled fire fuels it, warms it, illuminates it. Fire is this very powerful force and if we don't know how to work with it, it can be catastrophic. It can be really destructive. 

But if we know how to channel it, there's this immense power of using it in a constructive way. The same goes for desire. Untamed fire can burn the world down, channeled fire fuels it. Repressed desire, as we talked about in previous episodes, can mutate into these perversions, depression, illness, stagnancy. But effectively channeled desire is a potent fuel source for creation. Some desires can be rooted in unhealthy tendencies and can become obsessions, so determining the why behind our desires is really crucial here. If this desire is trying to fill a void, if it's a vice to escape from what we don't want to look at, if it's stemming from an avoidance of pain, if it's solely ego-driven and self-serving at the expense of others or in a way that leaves us constantly in a state of lack or always needing more, or if it's a surface level desire, then it can be problematic. 

An example of this is if we have a desire to be fit or lose weight because we just want to look good, we want to fit a societal standard, we might try to achieve this desire in unhealthy ways that aren't in alignment with the whole of who we are; or we might have a hard time motivating ourselves to meet that desire because the why is a bit more surface level. It's not coming from this deep soul longing, but it's coming from a bit more of an ego level: “I need to be this way to be perceived in a particular way.” There's nothing wrong with wanting to look good, not at all, that’s something that can really make us feel good. But notice what I just said, looking good is something that can make us feel good, or maybe it's something that can help us attract a partner, or it makes us feel more vital. It makes us feel more capable if we are strong, resilient, flexible, embodied, and everything in our body is working well. 

It's much more about how we feel rather than how we look if we bring our focus to, how will I feel by putting the effort into fitness? If I'm approaching fitness from a societal standard and I'm trying to achieve a certain body type in a way that's not making me feel good; if I'm not enjoying my workout, If I'm starving myself, if I'm exhausted, I'm not in alignment with what achieving that desire is going to help me feel. There's not a deeper why; I'm actually abandoning myself in order to achieve this surface level desire that I think I want. But maybe that is more of a part of my programming, or conditioning, or an avoidance of pain rather than a calling to come into my deepest vitality, health, and functionality in a way that feels right for me, rather than what is determined by society.  

Consumerism sells us the story that we must have more to experience blissful states. Once I get this promotion, once I have a healthy relationship, once I get out of debt, once I healed from this illness, then I can finally be happy, rest, and play. There is absolutely some truth that when we are not in a place of root chakra struggle, when we're not having to struggle to have our basic needs met, when we're not in a place of survival, we are absolutely in a better place to thrive, and for our nervous system to be at ease, and for us to focus on these other facets of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. 

But you can also go to some of the poorest countries in the world and find some of the happiest people in the world. And it's because they're so deeply connected to spirit and they are so able to meet the moment for what it has to offer. Whereas in Western culture, we are often sold the story that we just have to buy this thing or do this thing, and then we'll be happy. A more masculine approach to spirituality tells us that connection with the divine is a destination or a final state that we achieved that exists somewhere on a future pedestal after doing A, B and C to achieve enlightenment X, Y, and Z.  There's this linear path that we're told. Sometimes it's that we don't reach it till after we die. We live through this material world as a means to an end, to get to heaven or to go to hell. 

Or we spend our whole human experience trying to transcend it and get to this place of enlightenment, but ultimately life reveals the wisdom that these states of happiness are only fleeting, and they become less satiating in relation to our growing hunger, jadedness, emptiness, and dwindling enchantment over the course of time. With time we realize we've achieved our destination only to find the satiation of our desires still feels just out of our reach, an unobtainable carrot on a stick, perpetually robbing us of the present moment with the promise of a better future. There's always more to do before we can finally be. 

The Dalai Lama summed this up really well. He was asked what surprised him most about humanity, and he said, man, because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he's so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present, the result being that he does not live in the present or the future, he lives as if he's never going to die. And then dies having never really lived. Let that soak in for a moment. 

It's our attachment to having our desires, it's our addiction to convenience culture and instant gratification that can cause us to let our life slip away from us in the pursuit of desire, rather than having a deeply present relationship with our desire.

It's the misunderstanding of our desire, it's projection onto impermanent things in the external world, and the attachment to things going our way, the postponing of our happiness in the name of delusion; these are the things that are at the root of our suffering.  It's the lie that we're not enough, that we're always empty, that we're forever needing to chase something from the outside that has always been within, longing for us in the same way that we long for it. 

The root of all suffering is the denial that what we desire is the fabric of which we are made. It's not a destination to be achieved, but a journey of fully embracing and saying yes to each gift of the present and to ourselves as we already are. 

When we remember that everything is one, that everything is sacred, and that each moment is a doorway to the divine, we can open to the essence of our desire in each moment in a way that is beckoning us deeper into the present moment rather than distracting us from it. And I'll get more into this in a little bit. 

Your desires are a compass home to who you already are; a reverse engineered path of becoming; a homecoming to the magic seated within your soul. The journey your desires spark is an unfolding into truth; It's a blossoming into purpose; It's an evolution through the story of your soul's journey. So at the root of all desire is a longing for the divine. It's a yearning for that feeling of wholeness and fulfillment that we've been swindled into believing is circumstantial and always requires further steps to attain.

We’re running from our ability to be with what is right now by trying to do all the things we think we need to do to get there. So let's say we're chasing that promotion, but the feeling of what we will feel when we achieve that promotion is really what we're after; not the promotion itself. So what happens if we can invite that feeling that we want to feel through that promotion into this here and now, on whatever level is attainable? If there's some sense of relaxation or freedom that we're longing for, can we invite that into this now through the breath, through meditation, through cultivating the garden of our inner world? Desire is a coming home; it's a coming home that we've journeyed so far trying to find somewhere out there that we've forgotten has been in here all along. If our desire is a soul desire, rather than a purely ego desire, it's calling us home to wholeness. It's a soul-calling, rooted in inspiration, beckoning our courageous growth, the offering of our gifts, the curiosity of our humanness to explore the world, and to know ourselves through the reflection of another. It's the longing to live our lives to the fullest in these bodies and to express our love and a language words can only scratch the surface of.   

Desire expressed with integrity propels us towards our full potential, and the energy generated by desire can be channeled into so many facets of creativity, healing service, procreation transformation, and spiritual awakening. There's so much we can channel this desire towards. 

All of these things are in service to the whole. They're not just simply selfish, egoic desires.  What makes us come alive is what allows us to give generously to the world. And when we repress desire because we think it's wrong, or we think it's selfish, or we think it's unspiritual, we're actually cutting ourselves off from this vital life-force fuel that drives us to become our best selves, to know ourselves fully, to embark upon a path of mission and purpose, to give generously to the world, to be in service. 

Desire is the fuel that moves us in life. Like I talked about in the earlier episodes, by cutting ourselves off from sexual energy, cutting ourselves off from desire, we are depriving ourselves a vitality of life force. 

Desire is also connected to creative energy. So if we are feeling the draw to express the beauty, or the pain, or the wonder that we see in the world through art, then that desire is going to drive us to hone our craft, to be able to communicate through our artistic expression that which we are feeling, to others. 

If we have a desire to be in love, we're going to be called into a deeper journey of self-love, into knowing ourselves so that we can share that with another and come to know and love ourselves more deeply through that reflection of the other person. If we have a desire to change the world, we are going to pour our energy into being able to offer that value to the world that we wish to create. I invite you to let the flame of desire illuminate that pulse of purpose that burns within your soul. Let it be the fuel for devotion to what you came here to do, to really sink your teeth into life, and live it to the fullest. 

Now, the other thing that we have to look at here is the shadow of desire. Which is our fear of having it, of having that desire met. Now that might seem really strange, but our capacity to have what we desire is directly correlated to our capacity to feel and our capacity, our willingness to lean into our fears. 

Because fear and desire are often two sides of the same coin, intimately interwoven and flirting with an edge that is both exhilarating and terrifying. It's often been said that fear is excitement without the breath, and what lies on the other side of fear is the manifestation of our wildest desires. 

So, for example, we may have a desire to be in a deeply, radically, honest, loving relationship. But we may have huge fears around what that entails, what it is to share of ourselves honestly, to receive our lover's truth, honestly. 

There can be this intense energy that arises in the body as fear. But what if you bring breath into that fear, what happens when you lean into that fear with the breath and you get curious? It morphs into excitement. You start to feel that charge because you're on the edge of a breakthrough, you're on the edge of having something that you want, but it's scary. 

It's new, it's foreign territory, and it requires you to level up to have that desire met. We can look at this from so many different angles. A lot of people desire money, but they fear what other people will think if they have that money or they fear all the responsibility that will come along with having it. They fear losing that money. They fear being used for it. It feels like too much energy to hold it, to be present with. 

We could have that desire for a promotion, but also fear the position that puts us in. Again, the responsibility, the intensity, the energy, what we have to step into, what are the pieces of ourselves that we have to let die so we can be reborn in a way that allows us to fully step up to the plate of that position?

Sometimes we fear our full uninhibited sexual expression because it's foreign territory, and we know that it's more powerful than we could ever imagine. It's scary to surrender into that. Same with our gifts. We can be terrified of stepping into our own power and offering our gifts to the world. 

And we want it more than anything,  but there's also that deep fear there. 

So you can see how the fear and the desire are so intimately interwoven. And for every conscious desire that we have, we have an equal and opposite unconscious desire which can sabotage our conscious desire for all kinds of reasons. Just like we talked about, we can have this desire for something, but the fear iss the unconscious mind's desire to keep us playing small, to keep us safe. The unconscious views our fear as safer, right? Fear is a healthy response. It lets us know when we're treading an edge that maybe we need to be careful around, but sometimes we have outdated fears or we need to expand our nervous systems capacity for having that desire. And if we don't have the nervous system capacity for it, then our nervous system can short-circuit. So instead, it holds us back from manifesting that desire because it feels safer to not achieve that desire. This is a whole huge, juicy topic on its own that we'll get into in a future episode. But you can see how by making the unconscious conscious, we can be in a deeper place of choice around our desire. 

Circling back to this illusion of separateness. Paradoxically, it's the sense of otherness that causes us to desire something because we sense that what we desire is separate from ourselves. 

And in fact, the sense of otherness  is a necessary ingredient when it comes to longing and polarity, especially in the sense of relationship. I'll touch on this in a future episode too, it's again, another huge topic. Curiosity is the foundation of desire, right? When we desire someone or when we desire something, there's a curiosity, a deep desire to know ourselves through the lens of what we desire. There is a deep desire to know that person, to know the experience of that thing that we want, that we desire that we crave. 

Through the reflection of achieving that desire, through the reflection of being with that person, we desire, we get to come home to parts of ourselves that we've forgotten, that we've lost touch with. What we long for is actually who we will become in the achieving of that desire, what we will feel. What we will experience in our bodies, in our lives. Rather than the actual thing itself, it's who do we come home to in the achieving of this desire? 

This is part of the play of Shiva and Shakti, of matter and spirit, of the dream of duality. This otherness generates polarity. It generates energy, so just like the positive and negative poles of  a magnet or an electrical current, we need the positive and the negative to generate that push and pull dynamic, to generate that pulse, to generate that longing. But then paradoxically, the trick is remembering that it's all one. 

Getting clear on the why behind your desire, why do you desire it? What is the part of yourself you're longing to come home to through this holy longing? What are the feelings that arise with the vision of having this desire? How would your life change if this desire were to come true? 

 Now, what if I told you that what you most deeply desire is already here? 

Everything is one. You are a microcosm of the whole and contain the entirety of the whole within you. 

The feminine tantric way is to open to that state of connection in each moment, to receive the gifts of each moment, recognizing every circumstance as divine. The tantric path is to meet each moment with remembrance of our true nature, dropping into the imminent divine connection that permeates all of existence.    

Your magnetism is strengthened by embodying the feeling of already having what it is you desire. It's a courting of the piece of the whole that you want to connect with more deeply through slipping into its skin and becoming its essence.  If there's something that we want, but we're in this place of lack, we're in this place of scarcity of not enough, of desperation, of obsession; that's not an attractive energy. Have you ever been attracted to that energy in your life? Probably not. If you were, it was probably because it was feeding your ego in some way. 

If we want to invite something into our field, it's similar to what I talked about in the last episode about how cats need to be coaxed, flirted, allured. You can't just chase after them. They'll run away from you. There's an aligning and attuning to their frequency, and being open to receive their blessing so you're not grasping, you're not chasing; you're opening and allowing. You're attuning to the frequency of this thing that you want so that it can also be attracted to you. 

Again, finding, how can I feel this feeling of love? This feeling of peace? This feeling of freedom? Of connection? Whatever it is that you're desiring, how can you invite it into your embodied experience on some level, right here, right now, so that you are a match for that desire?

I've had clients where they want a partner who is really fit, and takes really good care of themselves, and is super attractive, and conscious, and working on themselves, and all these things, but they're not doing a lot of that themselves. They're expecting somebody like this to be attracted to them, but they're not putting that energy into their own self-care, their own self-expression. 

And it's like, well, somebody who is embodying all these things that you want is most likely going to be attracted to somebody who's also embodying these things. If they're putting the effort into taking care of themselves, and to working on themselves, they're most likely going to want that from someone else. 

So, if you want that, you have to rise to the occasion. You have to meet them in that. Desire isn't something you have to reach for, but rather open to. You are never separate from it. That delicious charge between lovers is always here, it's the nature of existence. We are the longing and union between matter and spirit, the love-making between earth and sun, the love-child of Shiva and Shakti. The essence of eros is woven into everything because we are made of sexual energy. We can open to that frequency. We can open to the frequency of desire and be in the current of magnetism, of attraction, by staying present in the richness of this moment, not projecting into the future and wishing we were somewhere else, but coming home to this moment; opening to that fuel of desire while dropping into the frequency that we’re wanting to connect with, allowing desire to be a call and an invitation back home to your best self.

Dropping into your richest, most radiant expression is the pathway to manifesting your match in physical form. Not to be complaining that you don't have it or worrying you won't ever have it because these things are sure to repel what you desire. I don't just mean this in terms of a lover. Whether you're calling in a beloved, abundance, vitality, influence, creativity, freedom, or a deeper sense of purpose and fulfillment, you must match its frequency, regardless of how much they seem to be physically present or absent in your life. 

We're feeling the pleasure that they inspire within you remembering that even though these things or people may inspire this feeling within you, it still lives within you. They simply awaken it, not create it. I spoke to this in the last episode; when we feel aroused or turned on by somebody, we didn't just intercept their sexual energy, they stirred that spark of arousal that already existed within us. 

They were just the reflection to awaken it. So can we use what we desire to awaken that spark, that connection, that aliveliness that is already within us? I invite you to dress for the occasion, to care for yourself in the way you would, if you already had these things, to bring forth the side of you that is attractive to that which you wish to draw closer. 

Make your desire want you as much as you want it. Joy, and gratitude, and pleasure, and orgasmic energy; these are contagious and alluring. They're attractive. Everyone's attracted to these things, so flirt with every moment of existence, and life will wink back with beautiful synchronicities and blessings, some of which will be beyond your wildest dreams, and some of which will be laced into the mundane, and will only reveal themselves to you if you can shift your perspective and open to receive them. 

Otherwise, you might be blowing right past them and missing them entirely. 

So can you simultaneously be with the gratitude for what you have now, and the longing for what you crave knowing that on some level they are one in the same? They are made of the same fabric. Everything is one. This thing is not separate from you. 

It's not an either or. it's not, I have to be grateful for what I have now and let go of all my desires or I have to be present with my desires and miss out on this present moment. 

The frequency of gratitude is actually one of the most magnetic frequencies. It signals to the universe, to life, that you're grateful for what you've received, and you're open to receiving more, but you're not in a place of lack, or scarcity, or forgetting what you already have. This holy ache that you feel for what you want can be transmuted into fuel for actualizing your full potential, for cultivating your gifts and offering them to the world, being in service, for leaning into your fears and saying yes to that which makes you come most alive.  And that is the most potent gift that you can offer to this world. 

Work with your desires as a compass, as something that is drawing you home to the deepest parts of yourself that are with you, that are embedded, coded into you on a soul level, that your human is on a journey to return home to. What you desire is already yours. Don't reach for it. Open to it. 

Let's all take a couple of deep breaths into that essence of whatever it is that you desire, letting yourself feel the longing of the desire simultaneously with the gratitude of what you already have right here, right now. See if you can hold them both and just breathe deeply into them, letting this breath be full body and sensual. 

Ah, 

So loves, if this episode turned you on, if this lit something up within you and you want to go deeper into not only magnetizing that which you desire, but really taking in the gifts of each moment, recalibrating your frequency to one of gratitude, and receptivity, and fulfillment in each and every moment, I'm going to be offering two live, deep-dive portals. One for the new moon and one for the full moon. The new moon one will take place on Friday, April 1st, and we're going to dive into embodiment practices, connected to everything we just talked about today. 

So cultivating a healthy relationship with our desires so they can fuel our purpose and deepest fulfillment, rather than distracting us from it. We're going to be seeding our desires and the fertility of the dark moon, and nurturing them in a container of powerful co-creators. We're going to work with the shadow side of desire to reveal and clear those unconscious blockages that are standing in the way of living the life we crave, and we're going to steep ourselves in the magnetic field that not only allows us to attract our desires, but also to fully receive and be nourished by the gift of each moment. 

And then the full moon container, which is going to be on Friday, April 15th. It's called “Opening to Eros”. This is where we are learning to open to the nourishment of source energy, of eros, of the vitality that exists within each and every moment so that we can live a deeply turned on life, regardless of our relationship status. 

Live from an overflowing cup that can spill generously into the lives of others around you, clear the blocks that hold us back from receiving from, and giving fully to life. Overcome the need to outsource our turn-on by finding it within, and steeping ourselves in the gratitude, in the abundance, the riches of each and every moment. 

In both of these play shops, we're going to be diving into pleasure, passion, purpose, and presence, cultivating a more turned on life. So we're going to be working with practical embodiment practices that you can use in your everyday life. These will be live, but they will be recorded in case you can't make them live and you can learn more about them on my website. I am going to be donating 10% of all proceeds to CARE, which is a nonprofit organization that is providing people in Ukraine with immediate emergency assistance such as food, water, hygiene kits, psychological support, and cash assistance to aid families in Ukraine who are fleeing violence. They already have an amazing track record in stepping forth to offer immediate relief during this crisis so 10% of all proceeds will be donated to them. 

There are also discounts. If you bring a friend along to the playshop, or if you join both playshops together at once. There are multiple opportunities for discounts, as well as 10% of your purchase will go towards supporting those in need in Ukraine.  You can find out more about that on my website, sureyaleonara.com. 

That'll be in the show notes, and I look forward to getting to dive deeper and play with you all and really integrate everything that we talked about into practical, embodied action. 

Thank you all so much for joining me for this episode, it's been a pleasure to have you. I look forward to seeing you on the next episode of Nectar Sex and Soul have a gorgeous day. Ciao