Have you ever wondered about a difference between longing and wanting? We can think of longing as coming from the heart and expressing our healthy desire for our intrinsic wholeness. Longing opens the space for us to feel connected with other people and our natural world. It is the kind of desire that brings light and love, instead of confusion and fear. Our wanting, however, pushes us to control people and situations we can’t control. Some people spend their life trying to fill their never-ending hunger for material things. Wanting comes from the part of us that keeps us dissatisfied, feeling incomplete and falsely believing in our separateness from other people and the natural world. Our heart’s longing is a deeply personal invitation to find out what’s true and loving. Trying to control what we can’t control, or being attached to material possessions, we are confused. Responding to the heart’s invitation to explore our confusion, we eventually transform our lives. As we softly tune into our heart, we can learn to discern what’s true and what’s not. The heart knows the difference. And by listening with awareness to what the heart has to tell us, we are present with All That Is.
