On Thursday I had lunch with the rootielicious diva, the one and only Heidi Rootvik. She told me about a class she had just taken the night before where some profound lessons were learned, including the role of longing in our lives.
So many people have a negative association with the word longing, believing it to represent a lack, missing, envy, even neediness. But the message Heidi shared was paradigm shifting. What if we re-framed the term longing. What if we owned that in each physical body there is a genetically coded desire, in our body a point of departure for a trajectory directed by longing? I don’t believe in predestination. I am an ardent proponent of free will. But I do believe in design and planning, in a larger structure, in things unseen that work together for my highest good.
Recently, I have been reading Women Food and God by Geneen Roth. As Roth explores the underlying issues for women’s relationships with food, there is an uncovering, an undressing of deeply rooted longings. These are not, as it turns out, the kind of longings that immediately come to mind for many of us of thin arms, perfect skin, or different sized thighs. Instead the longing is not to be something different than what we are at all. The longing is for self-love, acceptance, trust. We long to be us – ourselves – exactly as we are meant to be.
And we hold longings for many other things as well.
Each of us is unique. Our DNA is different. Our stories are different. Our longings are different. Like the women at Roth’s retreats learn, we are not here to conform. We are not here to fit into someone else’s mold. We are here to follow our own natural, undeniable, soulful longing.
Longing is no longer to be thought of as wistful pining for something unattainable. No, that is not what drives us forward, toward our purpose, toward our fullness and our freedom. Our longing offers an interactive map for us. When we listen closely, with interest and love, we find that our longing is beautifully intertwined with our power.
Are you fighting your longing? Are you trying to wrestle it into submission and talk sense into it, telling your longing that it wants too much, a life too big, too grand, too far beyond your reach?
Your longing might be just the thing you need to fall into to fully experience your freedom.
Rumi writes about birds learning to fly: “How do they learn it? They fall, and falling, they’re given wings.” Roth actually uses this Rumi quote and goes on to say the following:
“… if you wait to respect yourself until you are at the Weight you imagine you need to be to respect yourself, you will never respect yourself, because the message you will be giving yourself as you reach your goal is that you are damaged and cannot trust your impulses, your longings, your dreams, your essence at any Weight.”
This conversation goes far beyond the issue of Weight.
In the midst of all the talk about longing, dreams, and essence, the underlying issue is whether or not you are at war with yourself. There is no freedom in the struggle. Many of us believe that the harder we fight, the more we win. The more brutal the struggle, the stronger we become. But we — especially we women — have this backwards when it comes to relating with ourselves. Stop fighting yourself. Stop fighting your longing. (If you think I’m crazy, just ask yourself how well you like your results so far.)
Go deeper. What is the longing beneath your grab for comfort or fame or beauty, the ideal job, more money, your “perfect” Weight?
In your body itself, in your cellular composition, there is longing. This is you. This is why you are here.
What is it that you really long for? What is it that lights you up when you talk about it? What idea compels you beyond your known world? The point at which you stop fighting this longing, the point at which you are willing to fall, is the point at which you will be given wings.
Follow your longing. Fall with it. And from the falling, you will fly to your freedom, your essence, your truth.
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
so fully and clearly defined, I love it, as Krail would. ………
Thank you for writing this.
loved reading this Amy – cementing what I also learned. love love love
I would just like to sign up for “Amy” lessons please. Listen, I live with three women…okay girls. But soon, all too soon, they will be women. My job in this world, in this home is not just to feed them, clothe them, bath them. It is to develop, teach, arm them with the tools they need to make their own way in the world. This is deep, profound, and yet so simple. I NEED to soak more of this in, to weave it into my own self so that it is seen by my daughters, AND heard as they grow up. Seriously. This is great stuff. Please keep writing…I will keep reading.-Vicki Zanes (Gordon)
Thanks to everyone for their feedback on this topic. It is certainly something that grabbed my attention when the lesson was brought up. I think all of us here are seeking those reminders, lessons, ideas, strategies for how to be the bigger version of ourselves, to be of service (Vicki, your comments on motherhood made me a wee bit teary-eyed), and to do it all from a place of love. Here’s to loving my longing! And yours.