What Does Desire Tell You About Your Life Path?

Before I get started on today's episode, I just want to inform you about
what is coming up on some of the podcast episodes in the future. I'm really
excited to have some panels of people friends on that can cover certain
types. So I'm going to start with a projector panel.

And I'm right now inviting those projectors in, and we're trying to figure
out a time that works for us. So I'm really excited to have a projector
panel on. I am also going to be having a manifesting generator panel and a
generator panel and a manifesto panel.

So I will let you know when those are coming up, but look for them coming
up in the next, I would say a couple of months. Sometimes it takes time to
get two to three other people together with all of our schedules. And so I
plan to have those episodes coming out over the next few months.

I love having a conversation with different views from different people
about how they've experienced their type. And I think it just helps you
heard my story. If you haven't listened to my episode on the Manifesting
generator, and if you are a manifesting generator or know manifesting
generators in your life, that might be an interesting episode for you to
listen to, to hear my perspective of being a manifesting generator.

But I am excited to have a panel with some other manifesting generators who
can talk about their life from their perspective.

So that's what's coming up. That's another idea I had for a little series I
want to do.

And of course, I love having conversations with people, so I don't mind
doing these single episodes like I'm doing today, but I love having
conversations. It just feels fun me being a Gemini, it feels really fun to
have people on my podcast.

So we'll look for those coming up and let's get started on today's episode.

Welcome to Beautifully Bloomed, the podcast where we explore how to break
you out of the box of rules and beliefs that are holding you back from the
life you are meant to live. I'm your host, Rebecca Tervo. Join me as I
share mindset tools, coaching conversations, and human design to help you
uncover your unique gifts and create the life, relationships, and business
you desire.

So today, I think might not be as long of an episode. I just had this idea
and I was thinking about this. This is something I've always felt guilty
about, I guess. I've had some guilt around really expressing what I desire
in my life, and I think this is really a big topic for a lot of women. I've
had talks about desire with clients, with friends. I remember being at...
This was even way back when I was doing talks about suicide prevention
awareness, and I was doing talks about how to be happy after suicide loss.

And there was a woman in the audience and she was 60 years old. And a lot
of times during my talks, what I like to do is give them a handout. And
then during the talk, I will have them write things down. I feel like as a
teacher and a coach, what is so helpful is to have people kind of
interacting with their own thoughts during my presentation, and that way, I
think they come away from it with something.

So I remember one of the women in the audience, she was 60 years old and I
asked this simple question. I said, "Write down what it is you want in your
life." And she raised her hand and said, "I've never even thought about
that before." And I thought that was so interesting. You've never thought
about what you wanted? And this was... I would say this was probably seven
years ago, maybe six years ago, when this particular incident happened.

And I thought, isn't it sad that somebody who's 60 years old, and now she
did have a large family, so she had kids and grandchildren, and a husband.
But what I think is sad is that some women, no, I'm not going to say all
women grew up in this environment, because I have recognized that people
didn't grow up the way I did, but a lot of people did also grow up the way
I did. And the way I grew up is the community I grew up in or the thought,
or the feeling or belief, I guess that existed was that we are here as
women to serve.

So we're here to have babies, to take care of our families, to serve our
husbands, to take care of our home. And do I like all of those things? Yes.
I like having babies, I like taking care of my home. I like cooking the
occasional meal. I have to say, it's not my favorite thing in life, right?
But I think what happens with a lot of women, if I'm looking at it from my
perspective and knowing that I have this perspective, there's a lot of
others that have this perspective. It's hard to see what we actually want
because we're so focused on what our family needs, what our kids need, what
other people need, maybe what our parents need. Maybe we're caregivers for
our parents. And as a woman, it's so easy to take on that role and to
always put the needs of others first, and not even think of what you really
want for your life.

So one of the programs I was in last year, the coach was teaching us about
desire and she said, "Desire means of spirit," and I had never heard that
before, but when I thought really... I've thought a lot about that, desire
means of spirit. I'm like okay. So the things that I desire, and I know
sometimes desire seems like an interesting word, so the things that I want,
you could call it want, the things that I have goals about or the things
that really interest me or excite me, they're coming from my soul and from
my spirit. They're for me in this lifetime.

Maybe there's a reason not all of us want the same thing. Not all of us
want to study the same thing. Not all of us are interested in the same
thing. Isn't that amazing? But I have felt so guilty so many times in my
life for wanting something different than what I have. And I think there's
a balance there between gratitude for what we have, and also wanting
something different.

And I've been trying to practice that over the past, especially this past
decade, I've been trying to practice more gratitude and bringing more
happiness into my life by being grateful for the amazing abundance and
blessings that I have in my life, rather than looking or focusing at all
the sadness and the tears, and the grief, and unhappiness that has also
been part of my life.

So when we think of desire being of spirit, what is it that you desire,
that you are not allowing yourself to even think about or to have, or to
explore? I can tell you, for me... And this is the silliest example, and I
feel funny even when I want to talk about it, I want to talk about dancing.

I have always had the desire to dance, always, even as a kid, I just used
to want to go to those dances at school, but we weren't allowed. Okay. So
because of the church community I was in, we weren't allowed to go to the
dance, and I wasn't one to... In that specific case, I did not say, "Oh,
I'm going anyways." I never did. But you can believe that I look back on
that and think, "I wish I just would've gone. I just want to experience
it."

I love moving my body to music. It just feels freeing to me. In some ways,
it even feels spiritual. I watch babies, you put some music on and they
start dancing. It's almost even natural. And so it's weird that I've had
to, over most of my life, I just kind of ignored that desire. I put it in a
box, I'm like, "I'm not allowed to do that." I don't know why. I don't know
why. I don't feel like I was ever given a great reason why, just not
allowed. It's just not good. I'm not allowed to do that.

So why would I have this desire to do something, and I don't think it's
sinful? That's the thing, right? So there's sometimes we grow up in these
religious communities and we're told that it's sinful. "That thing is
sinful." I'm like, "Okay." Here's one thing I want to say, there are people
who absolutely find so much beauty and joy, and fulfillment, and spiritual
connection by being a part of a religious community, and by believing in
some of those things or all of the things. I don't know, there could, there
can be such connection. And I say spiritual connection and a really feeling
of peace.

And in my experience, if there isn't a feeling of peace, if there isn't a
feeling of this beautiful connectedness, because you feel like you're
trying to follow a list of rules, you're trying to live in certain ways
that some of them don't really resonate with you. You are trying to believe
something that someone said, or someone says are the things, "You should
believe, or you have to believe in order to get to heaven," and you're
trying to believe those things.

And there's a disconnect in your body. There's a disconnect between what
you feel like is right and what they're telling you is right. There's a
disconnect. It doesn't feel the same. That is my experience, and I think
that is why I have learned, or I learned over the course of my life to tell
myself that I was wrong for desiring certain things, to tell myself I'm not
allowed to have those. I'm not allowed to desire that. That is not part of
my life. That can't be a part of my life path.

But when you learn to trust your own desires, I think you can trust that
they are a sign of what your life path is for. In fact, some of them...
Okay. So here's what happened when I learned about human design. What was
so fascinating about it is that I am definitely here to be a learner. I am
here to be a researcher. I am here to build a solid foundation of
information, and I'm here to pass that knowledge that I researched and
studied onto others.

And so, I always had all this interest in studying the weirdest things. For
instance, I am so interested in studying religion. Where did it come from?
Why do we believe this? Why do they believe that? Where are the roots of
Christianity? Where are the roots of Mormonism? Where are the roots of all
these other things? And mostly, I've studied all the different Christianity
and Mormonism. I've really studied a lot on that. I'm just really curious
as to why people believe the way they do, or why this group has been
formed. Let's say that. Why is the religion formed? Why did the Catholics
believe what they believe? Where did this come from?

And so, it's been really interesting and fascinating to go back and look at
where the roots of it... Where does the Bible come from? What are the roots
of that? How did it get translated into English? Why are there these
different versions?

Now, some people may never have those questions, right? They never have
them, and that's great. I found out that the questions that I have and the
curiosity I have is part of my purpose for being here. Let's just say, I
felt that I, "Shouldn't," study those things because you should just have
faith in what the preacher is saying. You should just have faith, right?
You shouldn't go study and figure anything out for yourself. You shouldn't
go see what you actually believe. And that to me feels really wrong now in
all kinds of ways, but because of the studying I've done, because of the
research, because of what I have really been able to feel into for myself,
I feel so much more connected to God spiritually.

No, this wasn't meant to be an episode about God, but I just feel like I
have this amazing life purpose, and we all do. And I've also been able to
see how we all have an amazing life purpose. We all have an amazing path to
follow, and many people are ignoring their desires and ignoring their path,
and trying to follow and live inside a box of rules that somebody else has
set up for them. They are abdicating their responsibility for their own
beliefs and their own decisions.

It's not easy to talk about. I spent years after my son died of suicide,
questioning why I brought my children up in the church that I brought them
up in? Because I seriously believe that Trevor had questions. He had
issues. He had beliefs that didn't fit in with the church's beliefs, and he
felt like he couldn't express himself, and I feel very sad about that.

So it took me several years of grieving after his suicide, before I was
ready to open myself up to finding answers for myself, not just about him
and his journey, but about my own journey. And what is it? I wanted to look
back on my life and figure out why I had gotten to a place where my son
died by suicide? Why in our culture, in our church community, in our family
had I gotten to a place where I lost my son to suicide?

It was a very difficult journey and right now, I can say that I totally
feel peace about where I've come to on this journey. And I've learned that
there are all these shoulds that I used to follow. "You should do this. You
can't do that. You have to do it this way. You should raise your kids this
way." There's these rules, right? There's these rules we had to do in order
to feel like we're acceptable to God or something.

And it's very strange that even as I was following those rules or trying my
best, let me say, I'm not perfect, right? Trying our best to follow these,
"Rules," or these traditions or these ways we should be. Sometimes I felt
really shut down creatively as a human being, as a mom. I felt like my love
and my nurturing even was put in a box of rules. It's like, well, this is
the way we're allowed to be. This is the way you can be a mom. This is the
way that you can be a wife. This is the way you're here to be. And it was
told to me through the traditions of the church, how I was to be.

And now, I am so much freer to talk with my children about all different
aspects of life, about all the different things. I feel open to it. I feel
it's my responsibility to be open to their life, to whatever it is they're
experiencing, whatever they desire, whatever they're putting together in
their life. I am not closed to it. I am not judging it. I feel like I came
up in a community of judgment, that our job was to discern right from
wrong.

So it's like, I felt it's just such a hard habit to get out of when you
feel like you're constantly noticing, "Well, they're not living by these
rules and traditions. So wait a minute, I'm confused. These are the
traditions and the rules, and they're not doing that. So what is that
about?" It was a constant noticing of what was not fitting in. And I, for
that felt so guilty, that somehow, maybe I didn't fit in either, right?

And so, now I can accept my children without judgment. I can accept that
they all have their own unique gifts. They're on their own path. I can even
accept that Trevor was on his own path and there probably wasn't a lot I
could do about it at the end there. Maybe, I don't know, I often think what
if we hadn't brought him up in that church? What if we had been more open
to what... I don't even know what to say.

I have these thoughts about what it could have been, what life could have
been about? It could have been about something different and you can't go
back and change it. So I have learned that I'm going to take that and go
forward, but I want to make sure that I have the lessons of it. The lessons
to me, were that I did not know my son was suffering. That was hard as a
mom to think of how much pain your son must have been in, in order to take
his life.

And he had told different people at different times, things about religion
that I didn't even know, that he was telling them or talking about. So I
take all of that as learning for me, of how to move forward with grace,
with forgiveness, with peace, with love, with openness, with acceptance.

I do not believe that God makes mistakes. This was something my other son
told us over and over. He said it several times after Trevor died, "God
does not make mistakes." I believe all of us are created how we are for a
reason. God does not make mistakes. So for us to judge what someone else's
desires are, what their truth is, what their beliefs are, that is not
correct. In my opinion, that is not correct. For me, that's not correct
anymore.

It's not my job to worry and try to get my children on the right path. I do
not think there's a, "Right path." I think there's their path. They're each
on their path. It's my job as their mom to support them, to love them, to
be open to them, to accept them for who they are, to support anything that
they need, to just be supportive. And even if I can't provide everything,
because I know I can't, I know I cannot provide everything they need, I
just want to be here so that they're willing to come and talk about it.
That is a major shift in my parenting since my son died by suicide.

So one thing, and the reason I do the business I do now, is I want women to
trust their own voice. I want them to trust their inner knowing, and that
is something that I think gets conditioned out of us, especially in
religion, any religion, I don't know. I'm not sure what religion would be
out there that's not trying to tell you what this is the way to believe.
This is what you need to do. This is the way to get to heaven. I don't
know. I haven't gone to other churches to experience them, but I have read
about a lot of different kinds of religions.

And I don't know that... Especially in my case, I wasn't taught that you
should trust your inner voice, you should trust yourself. You should trust
your feelings. For me, especially being an emotional authority in human
design, my emotions have a lot to tell me. I should not disregard them and
ignore them, or make it wrong or bad. I should listen to them. I should
listen to what feels good for me.

Does it feel good for me to abdicate my responsibility for what I believe,
and just listen to what someone else says I should believe? No, that
doesn't feel good to me. It didn't feel good for years, and years and
years, and I refused to acknowledge it, but I acknowledge it now. It feels
good to me that I believe what I believe. I'm not going to abdicate my
responsibility for my own happiness any longer, by thinking that someone
else knows the answers for my life, someone else knows the way to
happiness.

No, actually, I know the way for myself, but I need to surrender to it and
I need to trust it. And I don't often trust myself and I don't surrender to
my own self because the conditioning is so deep that, that's not what we're
supposed to do. The conditioning for me is so deep. The teaching that, that
is not what I'm supposed to do. I am not supposed to look within for the
answers. I'm supposed to listen to what the church says, about what the
Bible says, which by the way, in my opinion, it's what that specific church
is giving their own perspective about what the Bible means. So that's
interesting to me.

Also, another thing I find fascinating, and it's something I've thought
about off and on over the years, at one point in Trevor's life, now, Trevor
was my son that died by suicide and he did a lot of studying and
researching, and reading, and he was just curious on so many things. And at
that point, I wasn't reading and researching as much as he was because I
was busy taking care of four kids, and having a job, and a husband, and a
home, and all the things that you do when you have four kids at home.

One thing he told our daughter one time was, "The Bible is just a book of
stories that have been written by human beings about a time in history. So
basically, the question is why? What is it about? What is it about a
specific religion that gives you rules or things to follow because the
Bible says it?" I've thought about that a lot. I really always believe that
Trevor had wisdom beyond his years. He was an old soul from the beginning
of his life.

I always felt that in my body. I felt that he was such an old soul and it
was such an interesting thought that I had that he was such an old soul,
and how interested he was in weird things that kids his age weren't
interested in, and I always thought about that. And then when he died so
young, I thought that was so interesting how he had to. It was almost like
this pressure he had, this hurry he had, this impatience to study it and to
figure it out. And I often thought, did he understand that his time on
earth was short?

So I didn't even think I was going to bring Trevor into this conversation
today, but I do have to say that everything since he died, because of his
death, let's put it that way, it has brought me on a whole new path in
life. It has deepened my connection to God. It has deepened my connection
to myself. It has allowed me to study myself and to think about life in a
whole new way, and to really trust that whatever I want to study is what
I'm here for.

And maybe it's even what work I'm supposed to bring into the world, which
is why I wanted to tell you this story today about desire and about
trusting your desire. And I don't mean to talk about this and I don't want
to talk about it in a way that tells anybody else they're wrong. And if you
took anything that I said as meaning that you're wrong, or you should be
doing it differently, that's not what I'm saying.

What I want to say is let's trust our own way and let's not abdicate our
responsibility. Let's really follow our heart. I know that's a phrase, but
I do understand the phrase way more now after my son died, than I ever did
before. How can I follow my heart? How can I trust my intuition? How can I
trust my inner voice? How can I trust that the path that I really feel
pulled to go on is the path for me? Instead of listening to outside
influences that want to tell me, "Well, that's not right. Don't go there.
That's wrong and that's evil, and that's sinful."

So food for thought for today. I hope that this opens up some thinking for
you. The only reason I record these podcasts is to open up possibility for
others. And it's in my purpose, in my chart. I'm here to open up
possibility through telling stories and my own experience. And I don't want
to share things until I've had enough time to really experience them for
myself.

And I feel like this is a topic I've had a lot of time of thinking about
and experiencing for myself. And so, I hope that it was enlightening. If
nothing else, I would hope it maybe brought a different perspective for
you. I have been open to many different perspectives now, and it's just
allowed me to see where I have been blind, or where I have not allowed
myself to see the other side. And that has been life limiting, and I don't
want to be life limiting anymore.

I want to make sure that I'm here to experience the joy and the fullness of
life, knowing that life can be so short, knowing that my son, who was 17,
died at 17, that none of us, we don't know when our last day is, right? So
knowing that we have this fullness of life to live out, we have these
experiences, if we could just open ourselves to allow ourselves to feel
into what's right for us, no matter what else somebody else says.

So it feels like a heavy topic, but I just had to tell that, I just had to
get that today. So thank you so much for listening. I enjoy feedback on my
podcast. So if you have anything that you would like to tell me, I know
sometimes people message me on Facebook Messenger. I do always respond to
those messages. So if you have anything you would like to respond to this
episode or any other episode, please just send me a Facebook message. Just
look me up on Facebook. Rebecca L. Tervo, I think is my... Yeah, I believe
it's @ Rebecca L. Tervo. That's my Facebook profile.

So please reach out to me there. I would love to hear what your thoughts
are. If you are somebody who's experienced something similar to me, I am
really curious. And thank you for listening again, and we'll see you next
week.

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to share this with you, and can't wait to talk to next time. Bye.