The Smell of Desperation

Let's be honest and blunt: What are you desperate for?

Desperation has a repellent smell. In a twist of painful irony, that which we are desperate for will often avoid us as energetically as we pursue it. The reason for this is simple: we may think we need this thing in order to survive - but no one wants to be used as an object for someone else's survival. After all, they have their own shit to deal with.

So our task today is to learn how to bring an end to our desperation, stop fighting for survival, and start to actually receive the things we're fighting to get.

No space to think, no room to breathe

The Fight for Survival

Where in your life are you fighting for survival? Here are some possible examples:

- You are constantly behind on your work

- Your life is constantly in chaos

- You feel like you’re wasting too much time

- You’re lonely and need friends

- You’re lonely and need romance

- You feel rejected, unloved

- You never have enough money

- You don’t feel safe in your experience

- You are constantly disrespected by your coworkers

- Your health is failing you

- Your life feels empty, hollow, meaningless

We can call these “fights for survival” because they each point to deficiencies in your life that are causing you to suffer. You are in need, you are 'not okay'. It's like there's no room to think or breathe. Time is running out.

To not be okay is to be insecure in your survival; to be fighting for survival. See?

You can’t win your fight for survival because the fight for survival is a framework, a way of seeing the world. It would be like wearing blue eyeglasses and trying to paint everything yellow to “make the blue go away”. As long as you’re in the frame of “fighting for survival”, this is all you will ever do, despite anything that you do.

Our job now is to come out of the “fight for survival” frame and to take on the frame of survival is won. We need to enter this new frame and stay in it long enough to establish it in our minds as our primary way of going about life. We will soon discuss how to do exactly this, but please keep the following warning in mind: since you are presently reading this article while inside the frame of “fight for survival” you are likely to take the following suggestions and use them from that frame instead of actually transitioning into the new one. If you do this, then you’ll be “fighting for survival” while putting on an affect of “survival is won” and trying to trick the Universe into providing you with its goodies. This won’t work.

I will explain how to switch out these mental frameworks and then I'll add some extra advice on how to know that you're doing it right and not just reinforcing the old "fight for survival" frame.

Switch your framework now

You can switch out your framework right now. Here’s how:

Step #1: Identify what you are desperate for.

Whatever you are desperate for is likely avoiding you on purpose, not because there’s anything wrong with you, not because you’re not allowed to have it, but because your energy (your ‘vibe’, if you like) is repellent to it.

It’s strange and it’s unfortunate, but it’s true: you have a harder time getting something when you’re desperate for it i.e. you need it in order to be okay.

So we start by identifying the desperation (or need) and the object that you’re desperate for.

Step #2: Identify what would make your desperation go away.

So if you’re desperate for a romantic partner, then getting an attractive, loving, partner would make the desperation go away. You would no longer be fighting for survival, survival would be assured. Survival would be complete, won.

But take it up a notch! Imagine that this partner loved you – was totally obsessed with you in ways thatyou like. Really create a situation of total safety for yourself in your mind.

Alternatively if it’s a financial thing, imagine you just secured a windfall of money, a massive one. Or an awesome, abundant, reliable source of income.

Step #3: Consider how you would conduct yourself in this scenario.

In the case of the abundant income or of your loving, committed partner... how would you conduct yourself right now? How would you operate in the world, right now, if your fight for survival were finally over?

Would you relax? Lean back? Feel some relief?

How would you spend the next hour? The next day?

Don’t move beyond this step until you have a lock on the state that we’re talking about here. Really get a sense of what it’s like to have fixed in your survival. For the desperation to be over, for the need to be gone. You have to feel it in your body, it feels like releasing tension. Your mind will be unwilling to trust it. That’s how you know.

Step #4: Live from this frame

Going forward, your task is to live from this frame of survival is fixed.

Obviously, certain practical considerations still apply. So if you’re imagining a windfall of $100,000, this doesn’t mean that you should actually quit your 9-5 job just yet. But it does mean that you should attend your 9-5 job as if you have just won $100,000. Pretend, for example, that the cheque is in the mail and that you won’t quit until you have it in your hand.

You’ll know that you’re doing this right IF:

- You feel centered in your body

- You feel relieved and loose

- It feels like you can finally get to the business of actually living your life the way you want to

You’ll know that you’re doing it wrong IF:

- The content of this article is just being added to a long list of things that you’re supposed to be doing in order to succeed

- You feel a sense of strain, irritation, impatience, and doubt as you apply these techniques

- You still feel desperate, or like you’re running out of time

You can grasp it or float on top of it

That’s all!

Again, if you’re doing it right, it will feel risky, scary to the mind and extremely pleasant in the body. The mind doesn’t like it because it doesn’t feel like it’s in control. In a state of freedom such as this, you may feel a pull to be still for a moment – or to begin a project that may not necessarily make you money right away. It’s up to you to trust your inner calling and see where it leads you.

If you’re still struggling to find the frame of survival is won, then leave a comment with a question, or get a free coaching overview session and I’ll help you out as best I can.

Question for you: How easy or difficult does this seem to you? Do you trust that these ideas would work?

Thanks for reading,

Brent

Brent Huras is a Productivity & Actualization Coach who posts original work on YouTube, Tiktok, and this blog. Check back for regular musings and theory on how to become a more fully-expressed version of yourself.

Brent Huras writes his own material and will never claim AI-generated content (text or video) as his own.