Obey Your Thirst
by Gregg Levoy

Thomas Moore, author of Care of the Soul, wrote that "repression of the life-force" is the most common reason he sees people in therapy. By ignoring our passions, we dam up our energies and cut ourselves off form a vigorous source of calls, and rather than demonstrating our passions in the world, we put them in the position of having to demon-strate themselves to us. Passions become needs, and if those needs are not met, they become symptoms of one sort or another. "Summoned or not, the god will come," reads the inscription carved over the stone door of psychologist Carl Jung's house.

Sometimes, of course, it's painful to admit a passion because we may feel we can't do anything about it. We can't afford to go sailing, don't have the freedom to travel, not time to read books. Our lack of choices is too depressing to think about, so we don't, and the water piles up behind the dam. Maybe we're playing all-or-nothing, afraid that if we get an inch, we'll demand a mile--rather than allowing some of it in our lives, just a little, right now.

Copyright 1997 Gregg Levoy, Callings, Finding and Following an Authentic Life, p. 71, Harmony Books

It should be something that calls to you

as something you want to do,

and it should be something that gives voice to

who you are and what you want to say to the world.

It is, above all else, something that lets you love.

Kent Nerburn, Letters to My Son