The Truth About Desire

Any beautiful thing you want to create in your life… a new romance, more spark in the old romance, a new home, travel, more money, new friendships, a new business, a more vibrant and just world, more collective thriving… begins with the Desire for it revealed to yourself and accepted.

We so often get confused that Desire is the cause of suffering. That it's better just to be grateful for what we have and not want more. But this is a misunderstanding. And mostly a confusion of living in a Masculine Era–a time period where much of the prevailing "wisdom" and guidance has been based on the masculine aspect.

For The Feminine (that's the name that we give to all of the combined expressions of the feminine aspect) all good things begin with knowing your own Desire. What you crave, what you long for, what you yearn for are all whispers to you from a future version of yourself that is more self-expressed, more content, and more aligned with the gift that you are to the world.

Your greatest life is based in your Desire. Your relationship satisfaction, your vocational satisfaction, your day-to-day feeling of delight and contentment begins here. And that wellbeing is also the font from which the collective wellbeing is served. 

There are a thousand ways to kill Desire. Ignoring it to death is just one choice. You can also transfer it, limit it, disbelieve it, or hide it in your serving of your children's needs, your spouse's needs, your community's needs, your job’s requirements, or the urgent demands of a world in crisis. You can leave it forever deferred into the future, locked in the prison of a bucket list you may get to before you die, hogtied by the belief that you have to have the money first in order to pursue it.

But what if it didn’t have to be that way?

My Personal Invitation to You… 

Usually, when I tell the story of my entrepreneurial journey, I start with Infinite Man Coaching, the moniker I used for the few years where I worked exclusively with men on finding healthy expressions of masculinity. But, really, the business that birthed me into this world of entrepreneurship was a quiet little brand called Led By Desire. I created the very simple website myself. Probably in Squarespace (back in the olden days). It was brief. It had zero social media presence. And I honestly can’t remember that it actually had more than a handful of clients...but it had business cards and a lot of heart.

What I understand from the perspective of now (flash forward a decade) is that Led By Desire was more a defining for myself of what really mattered and of the life I was committing to lead. Desire has not, since that moment, ceased to be my guiding light. 

Back in those days, I was working several part-time jobs to just keep the basic food/water/shelter going and teaching weekend workshops in Orgasmic Meditation. I could see the principle of being led by desire so clearly, but the *how* to do it felt so elusive. I didn’t (still don’t) come from money. I didn’t have a spouse that was holding it down so that I had time to explore. I had already left behind my career in academia. And I could not, for the life of me, figure out how to make money with my highly-cultivated mind outside of the universities and museums I’d been raised in. True facts: I’d never worked in food service until I became a cater waiter in this window of my life.

That time in my life seemed like a slightly surreal waking dream, so absorbed was I in the basic activities of survival. I was answering phones as an office manager and passing appetizers at schwanky weddings and well-funded funerals. I made employee of the month a couple of times doing the latter, and I also cried in my car on the regular driving to and from those gigs. I had gone from being a jettsetting aspiring art star, attending galas and hobnobbing with collectors and curators, to being a silent server in the background of those same rooms. But something deep in my heart wanted to be free in a way I hadn't been when I was on the more glamorous side of those spaces. And something even deeper in my gut told me that I had to go through to get out. As I exhausted myself trying to stay afloat, one thing became painfully clear--if I really wanted to be able to live a life that was truly and unapologetically led by desire,  I was going to have to develop a different relationship with money. 

I had no idea how to do that. But somehow I already knew that it wasn't going to be Dave Ramsey or Suze Orman-style (those were the dominant money gurus of the day). I wasn’t going to save my way to freedom one latte at a time (in part, because I didn’t drink lattes). It also wasn’t about managing my investments or creating multiple streams of income. Those things might get you money, but even then I knew that getting money was not to be confused with actual freedom. 

What I didn’t know then that I do know now is that the freedom I sought required me to actually see the difference between the ever-present energy of provision in an abundant universe and the human systems of belief about labor, value, the purpose of life and all the institutions and structures that have been created around those beliefs. This wasn’t about getting a better salary or even about becoming a 6-figure entrepreneur (though I chased after plenty of contexts that promised the latter). It was about zooming out to see that the *only* thing I was really here on earth to do was to pursue my desires, because those were the quiet whispers of my higher self reminding me of what I know on the deepest levels about who I am and the gifts I bring for humanity.

I am still learning and living this imperfectly day-by-day, but I know for sure that this understanding has been essential to the life I’ve created for myself and to the near-decade I’ve now spent refining my ability to hear and respond to the still-small voice of my own Desire.

I am deeply indebted to the women who have pursued and articulated the possibility of relating directly to a field of provision that is always available  - Tosha Silver, Florence Scovel Shinn, Sarah McCrum, and the beautiful dialogic relationship between Suh Yoon Lee and Jooyun Hong. These women have accompanied me on walks and drives and cooking hours across the world and supported me in some of my darkest hours. I am also infinitely grateful also to all the women who model these principles in their own lives, Auntie Oprah not the least of them. This offering is an extension of what I’ve learned from them and what has come to me directly through the experience of these principles in my own life.

In the spirit of each one, teach one, I offer my take on these timeless lessons. While we’ve done this each spring for the past 6 years inside of Love + Freedom’s yearlong programs, this is our first time opening this journey to any women reading who feel called. This is for anyone who feels like you can’t lean into your desire because you don’t have the money, the means, the resources, the faith, the family, the right network, the right passport, the right skin color to live freely in this way. This is available to all of us. And I want to share with you what I know about how to access it.

Even in a moment so full, as it is, of uncertainty on both personal and global scales, where it seems like austerity and perseverance are the only logical options, Desire must live so that we can find the way forward.

I do not promise that the path forward will be seamless, but I promise that it is possible and that it will change the course of your life and, I truly believe, of our collective future if you allow it.

Yours Truly, 

Kianga

La Cortinada, Andorra, The Pyrenees Mountains

April 30th, 2025

Have you ever… 

...had no answer when someone asks you what you want?

...deferred to what other people in your group want to do, to eat, or to see?

...turned away from a dream because you couldn't see how to realize it?

...told yourself that once you get to the next major promotion, certification, independence milestone with your child, that then... maybe then... you could have time to relax, time to go to a dance class, time to work on yourself?

...felt guilty for something you know that you want?

...thought–I don't have time for that…I have a business to run? or I have a job to do? or I have a family to take care of?

These are the everyday ways that we block desire.

And we tell ourselves that we are making the sacrifices that *must* be made so that everyone's needs can be met. But this is actually the great lie.

Reasons you might say no...

You’ve probably got a lot going on. You’re making big things happen, and, everywhere you look, you’re in charge of something: a household, a partnership, kids, employees, the success of a company, maybe a company of your own, making your mark in the world as best you can.

You’re trying to keep all the balls in the air amidst making big moves. Secretly you know you’re feeling exhausted and this path is unsustainable.

You probably made an investment (or a few) in coaching programs or business support that didn’t bring everything you’d hoped it would. 

It's likely that at least once while reading this you thought… well that sounds interesting, but I really don't have the time.

We just want to remind you that the time you make for you to hear the still-soft whispers of your own Desire is the most important time you'll ever make.

This primer is designed to work with your schedule. You'll want to be engaged and involved to get the most out of it, but you don't have to be able to make it live. Each day’s session will be recorded, and the recordings will be available for the duration of the primer and for a few days after.

What if this could be the first step toward both the more nourished, more resourced life you've been hoping for and the more just, more benevolent world you want to see?

Fast forward to today, I’ve built/am building both a business and a life without force or efforting, without exhausting myself with the endless to-do’s and shoulds of my previous lives. I move from what turns me on. I grow my offerings organically, largely from the seat of my intuition.

It’s a sustainable life that I LOVE and that is deeply sourced from a place of feminine power.

I have an MA/PhD (abd) in cultural theory and an MFA in fine art. I’m also a certified life coach, an ordained intuitive, and an Orgasmic Meditation trainer. But what really qualifies me to do this work is that I’ve walked the walk in the real world. 

I bring my decades of work as an artist and educator with a refined expertise in experience and curriculum design into lovingly-crafted, intimate contexts that help you get more connected with your own innate wisdom.  It's not about being a purveyor of information.  It’s the absolute magic of creating a context for you to have your own personal and direct experience with the Principles of Creation. My invitation is always to become more of who You are.  That's what I'll be up to. I look forward to meeting you soon!