The Desire Map

Super sexy badass Canadian, Danielle LaPorte has been on the periphery of my radar for a while.  With all the email, self-discovery, gotta get better, gotta have new ideas melee that happens in my world, I’ve resisted signing up for any of her stuff and trusted that my intimates that are signed up will send me what calls to them.

Un. til. now.

I downloaded a freebie excerpt from her book The Desire Map earlier this year – I thought the concept was groundbreaking.  LaPorte’s Desire Map is a whole new (to me anyway) concept in “goal setting.”  I heard her say something this morning (:50 mark) – “the journey has to feel the way you want the destination to feel.”   Well, of course!

The plot of Desire Mapping is to set goals based on how you want to feel, more than on how much you want to have/be/do.  Then make decisions, every day, moment to moment, that align you with what LaPorte calls your “Core Desired Feelings.”

This makes SO much sense to me (even though I haven’t read the book).  She claims what we are really chasing is the feelings we want, not the stuff we want.  While I haven’t been practicing this consciously, I think it’s a concisely mapped description of how I’d prefer to be living my life.  For example:  I hurt my foot at Wai‘anapanapa State Park last week and it is still very tender.  Last night I was interested in a holiday party a friend throws every year.  About an hour before the party, I realized that I really wanted to continue to help my foot feel better and sent my regrets.   While this seems like a physical feeling (which i normally label sensation), I also felt calmer and proud of myself for having my own back on my personal self care.  I trusted my gut, I chose healing as a priority and my foot feels even better this morning.

For the first time in years I’m actually quite excited to play with wants/resolutions/goals/intention.  LaPorte calls them Goals with Soul – maybe my word for 2014 will be “feel.”

I’d love to read about your experience with how you get what you want from your life. 🙂  Please share in the comments or feel free to email mail me directly.

big hugs and heart felt love,
j

6 thoughts on “The Desire Map

  1. Hey! This notion of focusing on the feeling somehow percolated into my being — since that’s what I taught in my classes last week and talked about in an interview before Christmas — but I didn’t realize that the Amazing Ms. LaPorte was writing about that, too. Love it. Love you. Heal on, baby.

Leave a Reply to Susan McCulley Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *