Hungry for the Impossible
“What if what I’m hungry for isn’t possible?”
This is a question I get asked not infrequently.
In fact, in a recent survey, over 50% of my followers reported having this question.
To start, let me say that it is possible. It truly is.
If that's all you needed to hear, off you go. If you want a few more thoughts, read on.
The people who have the greatest percentage of their hungers satiated are those who embrace, honor, and pursue being well-fed. If you believe it’s not possible to have what you want, then your actions (or rather inactions) follow this story and the result is a hungry life.
And when we have a hunger that we falsely believe isn’t possible to satiate we often numb it through food, sex, shopping, drugs, exercise, television, or some other means of distraction. The result is that not only does the true hunger not get fed, but the numbing bleeds out and blocks other wise messages that are trying to reach us.
The truth is that what we hunger for is always available, just maybe not in the form we expect.
This is why it’s important to separate primary hungers from secondary hungers.
For example, if we think we’re hungry for our mother’s love, but our mother isn’t alive anymore, instead of throwing our hands up and saying “oh well, guess I’ll never have what I'm hungry for” we can peel back the surface layer (our secondary hunger) and look at what’s below (our primary hunger). In this case, it might be a hunger for care, or a maternal figure in our life, or guidance, or to be held. When we look at the primary hungers, we can then begin to look for all the ways that are possible to satisfy them.
The things that we all truly hunger for, such as affection, creative expression, comfort, meaning, time in nature, and so forth–these things exist in abundance if we’re open to them taking a different form than we might expect.
I’ve yet to meet a hunger that wasn’t possible.
I’ve met surface hungers that were masking root hungers. I’ve met hungers that called the person out of their comfort zone. I’ve met hungers we didn’t yet know how to communicate to others or satiate ourselves. I’ve met hungers that we can’t satisfy instantaneously. I've met hungers that didn't have a safe enough environment, one without a thick layer of judgement, to make themselves known.
What I have never ever met is an impossible hunger.
If your hunger feels impossible, here are some reflections to explore:
Am I in touch with my primary hunger? Have I dug into what I'm TRULY hungry for?
Do I feel ashamed about what I'm hungry for?
Do I feel at a loss for how to feed my hunger? (quite different than a hunger being impossible to feed)
Do I simply feel impatient for my hunger to be fed?
Has anyone else ever had this hunger and satiated it? Who? What steps did they take?