Remembering What You Actually Want
There is a reason desire feels dangerous. If you've been disappointed enough times, deeply enough, your nervous system can begin to believe that wanting itself is a liability. This is the moment desire returns to your body — not rushed, not forced, not demanded. Invited.
"Bleeding women don't fantasize. They stabilize."
— Kenya Michelle YoungDesire doesn't die. It retreats. It goes underground when hope becomes expensive, hiding beneath responsibility, motherhood, ministry, entrepreneurship, caregiving, productivity and strength. It goes numb when your life has trained you that every time you reach, something breaks.
So you adapt. You stop dreaming out loud. You stop visualizing the outcome. You stop letting yourself long for more. Not because you're ungrateful. Because you're still bleeding. And bleeding women don't fantasize — they stabilize.
But the fact that you're reading this means something sacred: your desire is not gone. It's been waiting for permission.
Jesus understood this when He asked a blind man, "What do you want me to do for you?" (Mark 10:51). He did not assume. He did not rush to fix. He invited the man to name his desire out loud. "Rabbi, I want to see." Specific. Direct. Honest. Jesus honored the specificity. He did not shame him for wanting.
God is not afraid of your desires. He planted them. "Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart" (Psalm 37:4) — not "ignore what you want and He'll replace it," but as you lean into God, He refines your desires, anchors them and meets you in them.
Not: What should I want? Not: What do they expect me to want? Not: What is safe to want?
Ask yourself this instead: What do I want — privately, quietly, honestly — when no one else is watching?
Not what you would post. Not what sounds humble. Not what keeps everyone else comfortable. What do you want that you barely let yourself think about anymore?
For some women, the honest answer comes quickly. For others, there is only static — numbness, "I don't know." If that's you, nothing is wrong with you. It simply means desire has had to go quiet for a long time in order to keep you safe. We are not forcing a five-year plan here. We are making room for a flicker to surface, even if it's faint, small or inconvenient.
Jesus said, "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you" (Matthew 7:7). Action words. They require you to want something specific enough to pursue it. Hope Anxiety teaches you to want vaguely, pray generally and hope halfheartedly, because then if it doesn't happen you can tell yourself, "I wasn't that attached anyway." But that's not faith. That's self-protection.
Before you go any further, stop reading and do something. Not think about doing it. Not plan to do it later. Do it now.
This is a somatic practice — it works through your body, not around it. Placing a hand over your heart activates the vagus nerve, signals safety to your nervous system and creates the physiological conditions for emotional access. In plain terms, it tells your body it is okay to feel again.
Don't force an answer. Don't reason your way through silence. Just wait. If your mind goes blank, that's information — it means desire has been underground long enough that it needs coaxing, not commanding. Stay anyway. Breathe anyway.
If something surfaces — even something small, even something that feels silly or impossible — let it exist in the room with you for thirty seconds without being judged. That is the practice. That's where resurrection begins.
Hannah shows us what it looks like to want in front of God. She prayed, "O Lord of hosts ... but will give your maidservant a male child" (1 Samuel 1:11, NKJV). Specific, vulnerable, unedited. God honored it — not because she performed perfect faith, but because she brought her whole heart, including her desire, before Him.
In the middle of chaos, in what I was sure was ruin, something subtle shifted. I stopped fighting for what I thought was supposed to happen. I stopped rehearsing the version of my life that had already fallen apart. And for the first time, I let myself imagine a different outcome. A happy one.
It felt almost rebellious. I ordered a pair of cute shoes. Then a few outfits. Not because I had somewhere glamorous to go. But because I was choosing to walk into a new direction, on purpose.
That might sound small. But for someone whose nervous system had learned that hope leads to harm, buying shoes for a future I hadn't yet seen felt radical. I remember exactly where I was — upstairs at the little table in the Publix café, honey maple turkey sub in front of me, laptop open, about an hour before I needed to get in the carpool line to pick up my middle daughter.
The world hadn't changed. My circumstances hadn't magically resolved. But something inside me had softened. I wasn't bracing in that moment. I was imagining. And my body didn't immediately shut it down. That was the first time I realized desire wasn't dead. It had just been waiting for safety.
When we started working together, Olivia couldn't answer the question. "What do you want — privately, quietly, honestly — when no one else is watching?" She stared for a long time. "I don't know," she finally said. "I really don't know. I used to know. Now I just feel tired."
Her life had unraveled a few years earlier — marriage ended, her mother's health declined, money evaporated. Every time she reached for something she wanted, something crashed. So she did what high-functioning women do — she tightened up, served harder and told herself this wasn't the season for dream stuff.
If you had asked her what she wanted, she would have said, "I just want my family to be okay." True. But not the whole truth. Underneath lived something quieter: "I don't trust myself to want anything anymore. It's safer not to want at all."
Instead of forcing an answer, we backed up. "Before everything got heavy," I asked, "what did you enjoy that wasn't about being useful to someone else?" She laughed, almost embarrassed. "Dance," she said. "I used to dance all the time. Not professionally. Just in my room, in the kitchen, at parties. I haven't danced in years." She wasn't ready for a business plan or a career pivot. But she could admit this: "I miss feeling like myself in my own body."
That was desire. Quiet, small, real. Her only assignment was simple: find one song that used to make her feel alive, play it alone, let her body move however it wanted. No performance. No pressure.
When she came back, she was crying. "It was five minutes," she said. "I almost turned it off because it felt stupid. But then I started moving. And for a moment, I remembered what it felt like to be more than a crisis manager. I felt like me." Nothing in her external life had changed. But something inside her had. Desire wasn't dead. It was buried. And buried things can be unearthed.
"Desire wasn't dead. It was buried."
— Kenya Michelle YoungHope Anxiety taught your nervous system that wanting equals danger. Hope Alignment teaches your nervous system that wanting equals life. You cannot heal Hope Anxiety without reawakening desire, because desire is the engine of hope. It's the spark faith holds onto. It's the compass for calling.
Desire is not selfish. Desire is direction.
Jesus said, "I came that they may have life and have it abundantly" (John 10:10). Abundant life is not just the absence of pain. It is fullness. But you cannot live in fullness if you have trained yourself to stop wanting.
"You can't receive what you refuse to admit you desire."
— Kenya Michelle Young
Hope Anxiety doesn't just fear disappointment. It fears exposure. Because once you name your desire, you can no longer pretend you don't care.
When desire resurfaces, fear often rises with it. Hope Anxiety will whisper, "This is too risky." "What if it doesn't work?" "You can't go through that again." That is normal. Your nervous system is trying to protect you from the pain of disappointed hope.
But now you have language. Now you can say: "That's Hope Anxiety. My body thinks wanting is dangerous. But I am safe to want. I can want this and survive."
David said, "When I am afraid, I put my trust in you" (Psalm 56:3). When. Not if. He didn't wait for fear to leave. He trusted while afraid. That is what this chapter is rebuilding — wanting while your hands shake, asking while your voice trembles, hoping without hiding. Not perfect. Honest.
As desire returns, your prayers will change. You will stop praying in safe generalities and start praying like someone who is willing to be known.
Not: "God, bless my finances." But: "God, I want stability. I want to breathe. I want to stop living in constant pressure. I want to build without panic." This is not demanding. This is partnering.
Jesus taught, "Whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it" (Mark 11:24). That verse stretches trust. It calls you out of vague hoping and into bold, specific asking — not because you control God, but because you are finally telling the truth.
God, I confess: I stopped letting myself want because wanting hurt too much. I buried my desires to protect my heart. I prayed vaguely to avoid disappointment. I shrunk my dreams to stay safe. But I don't want to live like that anymore. Teach me how to want again without shame. Teach me how to ask again without fear. Teach me how to name my desire and still trust You with the outcome. I don't know what will happen next. But I am willing to feel alive again. Amen.
You just did something powerful. You didn't pressure yourself to dream. You allowed yourself to feel desire again. That is resurrection.
You don't have to answer fully yet. Just notice.
Flickers become flames. Flames become futures. Futures begin with a single yes.