From Yearning to Fulfillment: Unlocking the Antidote
Tara Brach's 3-step process for learning to respond, not react
Have you ever paused to ponder the concept of longing? Why we lust, desire, and dream, and why satisfaction can feel so elusive and fleeting sometimes?
We long for love, for fresh air, for new shoes. For acceptance, for recognition. For validation.
I’m an expert at longing.
Ever since I can remember, I’ve yearned for things. Things bigger than myself, my surroundings. Different conditions, different personal qualities. A closet full of fun fashion and a freedom to explore the world.
For the people I like to like me back. I think many of us long for reciprocation.
But like so many things in life, lately I’ve found that longing is more about mindset than it is about having or not having.
A 1:1 marble replica of Michaelangelo’s David at the Soumaya Museum, Mexico City
The infinity loop of heartache
The trick of the longing mind is to make us believe we are without, that we are lacking. And that given a different state of being, we’d magically be more satisfied.
Problem is, the desire is constantly evolving—the goal post is always shifting. At least that’s the feedback I get when I reflect on past desires and past achievements. Often when we finally get what we want, new desires pop up in places of the old ones.
I wonder sometimes if perhaps I’m just addicted to the pang of desire. On purpose or not, I feel as if I crave the longing and crave the chase. Perhaps that is human nature.
But what a way to live, always looking ahead and never savoring the present.
Humans are all wired a little differently, and yet we are also highly predictable, and herd-like in many ways. I assume there is a bell curve distribution of those who spend life longing, those who simply accept and enjoy, and a lot of in between.
What do we fear?
What I feel in my heart is that longing is in fact a product of fear.
Fear of complacency, of worthiness. Fear of what is, a fear of acceptance of the status quo. It’s a deep insecurity in the gifts each of us have, given by God or nature or whatever life force you believe in.
It’s a rejection of what genetic cards we’ve been dealt, and a deep discomfort with who we each are at our core.
And to tell you the truth, it hurts.
Longing hurts, and it robs us of one of the greatest gifts we have, as advanced organisms: the power to relish the moment. To savor the beauty and gravity in every single second of animated life.
To experience awe.
The cobalt blue exterior of Frida Kahlo’s historic home in Mexico City’s Del Carmen district
I’ve struggled with what I view as an Eeyore disposition for much of my life, without a clear sense of why or how it might be remedied.
When I’m with friends or family, occupied with conversation, intellectual stimulation, and other people—in other words, while I’m distracted—I feel fine. I can be cheerful, engaged, caring, and feel “whole,” feel satisfied.
When I’m left to myself, without company or social plans, I have a hard time not falling into some sense of longing or of lacking.
I ruminate and rack my brain for answers to questions like what’s wrong with me? Where is my romantic love? Where is my companionship, my joy and my light?
Ice cream fixes everything
In fits of longing, I open the one hookup app I have on my phone currently—used to have more but realized they all felt like a huge waste of time and emotional energy—and decide I’d rather be alone than seek the temporary company and intimacy of a stranger, from a place of lacking or longing.
Yesterday and the night before were both fun outings and celebrations of my friend Trey’s birthday. We saw a funny movie, shared cake, and had brunch in Malibu.
But last night I hit an open patch of nothingness. No plans and no invitations. Emptiness, longing, lacking for some pleasure or stimulation or distraction.
In times of listlessness, one truth that’s nearly always reaffirmed for me is that my subconscious will nudge me in the right direction if I let it.
After scrolling YouTube—the most-watched app on my TV—I stumbled across a talk from Tara Bruch, a modern mindfulness guru I only discovered recently. Learning to Respond, Not React, it was titled.
I listened to it while I walked to get some ice cream. Ice cream fixes everything.
So does pastry—the inside view at Panaderia Rosetta in Roma Norte
Tara to the rescue
In this hour-long talk, she recounts a handful of personal anecdotes, but poses a 3-part strategy to counteract painful, repetitive thought patterns.
Don’t believe your thoughts. They’re just thoughts, not truths and not reality.
Return to the present. Ground yourself with breath and stillness.
Remember love. Give yourself some love.
This approach struck me, perhaps because I’m already primed to accept and validate such advice. I’ve been absorbing lots of similar ideas lately, from Esther Hicks to Marcus Aurelius. Or maybe its simplicity appealed to me.
Tara also possesses an incredible voice that, while I was feeling emotionally triggered, was calming and soothing.
Given my history with longing and what I can only assume are self-defeating beliefs about myself and the world, a simple approach that comes from within, rather than from an external source, was the message I needed that night.
I needed to feel the warmth of love and acceptance. I needed someone—anyone—to tell me it’d be OK. Tara’s point is: that person can be me. And for anyone, it can be themselves.
Tara isn’t just an orator or YouTube quack…like so many before her, she’s an accomplished author and studied Buddhist.
Her most well-known title is Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life With the Heart of a Buddha, which I haven’t read but plan to.
Pro-tip: most libraries now offer digital book-borrowing that allows listening to books on your phone.
The incredible foliage inside the greenhouse at the Jardín Botánico del Bosque de Chapultepec in central Mexico City
Acceptance > longing
It occurred to me that longing is in many ways the opposite of acceptance. It’s the opposite of being present, and it can often correlate with a lack of self-love or a tendency to believe ugly and unkind thoughts we tell ourselves, sometimes habitually.
Though I’ve known this deep down for years, my inner chatter (another book topic I’m dying to explore) is often unkind, judgemental, pessimistic, prickly, and morose. And while that might save me from gullibility or naïvete or rejection, it’s mostly just an emotional dead end. A hindrance to inner peace.
Tara’s advice may be simple, but it’s effective.
If I’ve learned anything about self-regulation, it’s that simple course-corrections that are easy to remember, made bit by bit in a million instances over a lifetime, can make huge differences in our mental state and quality of life, in the present.
And isn’t all we have right here and right now? Our presence?
I don’t want to be a sad boy. I don’t want to long and feel as if I will always lack.
Making expressions of gratitude a part of my daily practice has helped me see all my blessings and appreciate what is.
Pausing to reset my thoughts and remember that I love myself (and I am loved) helps complete the presence, and mostly dispel of longing and of lacking.
It will always be important to set goals and intentions for the future—this is an inevitable and natural part of having hindsight and foresight as advanced beings.
But bringing self-love and self-awareness into the present helps us enjoy every moment, no matter where we are or what we have.