Desire After Survival
For a long time, desire didn’t feel like a guide.
It felt like a threat.
Survival teaches you how to want less. It teaches you how to quiet your longing so you can make it through what’s in front of you. Over time, you stop asking for beauty, for pleasure, for expansion. Not because you don’t want them, but because wanting begins to feel like it could cost you something you can’t afford to lose.
I learned how to survive well. I learned how to be practical. I learned how to prioritize stability and responsibility. But I didn’t realize, until much later, that I was also learning how to minimize my desire.
The body, though, never stopped knowing.
When my body clearly said yes, even while my mind hesitated, it was unmistakable. Traveling to Puerto Rico was one of those moments. Logically, there were a hundred reasons not to go. Bills. Responsibilities. Timing. But what wasn’t responsible was continuing to work at the edge of burnout. What wasn’t sustainable was ignoring how close I was to collapse.
The body doesn’t negotiate the way the mind does.
It doesn’t overexplain.
It simply knows.
I’ve learned that when something is misaligned, I overthink it endlessly. I replay conversations. I strategize. I try to fix or manage outcomes. My attention gets stuck, looping the same questions over and over.
Alignment feels different. It can even feel sudden or a little scary. But it’s quiet. There’s nothing to negotiate. It’s just there.
After loss, trusting that clarity again takes time. Anger often comes first. Rage can be a form of protection. It shows up when boundaries have been crossed and when the body is trying to prevent further harm. For a while, trusting anything at all can feel impossible.
Understanding that anger has helped me see something important. It was never trying to stop me from living. It was trying to protect me long enough for discernment to return.
Intimacy has changed since the relationship ended. I move more slowly now. I’m more deliberate. I see people as they are, not through the lens of hope or fantasy. There is less urgency and more clarity. Less hunger to merge and more interest in generosity, stability, and presence.
Desire now feels less like an explosion and more like a horizon.
And this is where I want to be honest.
This kind of moment is difficult to navigate alone.
When desire begins to return after survival, it’s tender. Easy to misread. Easy to rush. Easy to shut back down the moment fear shows up again. Without structure or support, many of us end up cycling through the same realizations without actually integrating them into how we live.
That’s why I created The Power of a Seductive Pause.
It’s a six-week embodied container designed to help you slow down intentionally, listen to your body with guidance, and practice staying with desire as it unfolds rather than abandoning it or pushing it too fast.
This work isn’t about fixing yourself.
It’s about rhythm.
Practice.
Support.
You don’t have to decide everything today.
To begin, you place a $100 deposit and step into the container.
When I imagine choosing desire again without it costing me my life, my peace, or my stability, what I feel is joy. It’s ethereal because I haven’t lived it yet, but I can sense the healing in that possibility.
Desire is not about being chosen or performing confidence. It is energy. It is a compass. It is how we envision futures that do not yet exist. To desire is to be alive, to be oriented toward something beyond the devastation of the past.
For bodies trained to prioritize safety above all else, desire will always feel risky. It involves exploration. It involves rejection. It involves the possibility of no.
But it is also the growth edge of the psyche and the spirit.
Desire is not what destroys us.
Losing access to it does.
If your body is asking for space, support, and a slower way forward, you can learn more about The Power of a Seductive Pause and place your deposit here.
See you on the dance floor,
Temptress