The desire I was ashamed to admit

A lot of what I thought I wanted is starting to unravel.

Old ideas about love.

About partnership.

About what it means to be “happy.”

And in the middle of that uncertainty, something unexpectedly simple emerged:

I want attention.

When that clarity first landed, I almost dismissed it.

That’s it?

That’s what all this is about?

It felt… small.

Almost embarrassing to name.

Because for most of my life, wanting attention carried shame.

It was coded as:

needy

too much

not evolved enough

not meaningful enough

So I learned to override it.

To reach for something “bigger.”

To disconnect from the simplicity of what my body was actually asking for.

But when I really let myself feel into it, I realized I wasn’t talking about just any kind of attention.

I’m talking about the kind that says:

I’m thinking about you.

You matter to me.

You exist in my world even when you’re not in front of me.

And something very real happens in my body when I receive that.

My nervous system settles.

My body softens.

There’s a sense that… everything is okay.

And I started to see something I now recognize in so many of my clients:

Wanting attention isn’t the problem.

The shame around wanting it is.

Because when that desire is shamed, it doesn’t disappear.

It just goes underground.

It comes out as:

overthinking

pulling away

needing reassurance but not asking for it

or expressing it in ways that don’t actually get us what we want

So part of the work I do with clients is helping them reclaim this.

Not by “fixing” the desire, but by bringing it into the light and learning how to be with it.

We slow things down.

We separate the raw desire from the layers of shame around it.

We notice what happens in the body when the desire is there -

the tightening, the urgency, the fear of being too much.

And instead of overriding it, we stay.

Long enough for something cleaner to emerge.

Because underneath the urgency, there is often something very simple:

“I want your attention.”

“I want to feel that I matter to you.”

From there, we practice expressing that desire in a way that can actually be received.

Not as a demand.

Not as a collapse.

Not hidden behind strategy or protection.

But clearly.

Directly.

From a place of self-connection.

But there’s another piece here that feels just as important.

It’s not just about learning how to ask.

It’s about having the experience of someone actually meeting that desire with warmth…

with openness…

with a kind of genuine pleasure.

Of someone hearing you say, “I want your attention” and responding with:

Of course you do.

I love that you want that.

I want to give that to you.

That kind of response is deeply corrective.

Because it directly contradicts the shame so many of us carry -

the belief that wanting attention is needy or burdensome or something we should hide.

When instead, in the right dynamic, it can be something that brings people closer.

Something that feels good to give.

Something that creates aliveness between two people.

And when we start to have that experience,

not just asking, but being received with warmth and even delight

our system begins to learn:

There’s nothing wrong with me for wanting this.

And in some ways, that’s the deepest part of the work, not just being able to ask…

but being able to receive the joy on the other side of it.

The right partner doesn’t feel burdened by that desire.

They feel invited by it.

And just as importantly, your nervous system learns the difference between someone who can meet you…

and someone who only has the capacity to offer crumbs.

This is the reclamation.

Not becoming someone who “doesn’t need attention.”

But becoming someone who can want it without shame, without apology,

and without abandoning themselves in the process.