It is simply a part of life that you cannot always get what you want. No matter how hard we try, sometimes even our deepest desires can constantly evade us. Sometimes, this means that there is something even better that is meant for us; but other times, it’s not that simple.

For years, we might work and pray and wonder “Why?” Why can’t we have this one thing??

I have personally experienced this; and as a shaman/medicine woman, it has brought me a plethora of wisdom that I am truly grateful for. However, it has taken me years to finally experience a breakthrough into letting go of a want that I had been chasing.

I have taken pilgrimage after pilgrimage with Spirit, searching for the answers on how to really let go of this incessant need to finally have my desire come to fruition. I wanted to be free and at peace from this obsession. However, I found that just “letting go” of that desire was not enough. I simply was unable to find the answer.

Until today

Finally, I understood. Maybe it was the power of the super moon that helped, maybe it was the help of my well ancestors, maybe it was the help of all of my helping spirits and allies. I don’t know. However, I do know that I finally got it.

Once I did, I was able to pinpoint exactly what it was I needed to let go of to be free of this obsession and find inner peace, balance and harmony…

What I needed to let go of was Pride.

Pride, while it has the potential to be good and useful in terms of being proud of our accomplishments, can be sneaky and wreak havoc in ourselves:

Pride can bind us to our ego’s need for validation and severely limit our ability to see and know our true selves clearly.

Pride leads to the obsessive “hamster wheel run” of always improving ourselves and searching for ways to become worthy and deserving of the very thing/person we are desiring to have.

Pride prevents us from REALLY connecting with the truth that we are already worthy and deserving—and in connecting with our authenticity.

From a shamanic perspective, we understand that powerful etheric cords bind us to our desires. These cords keep us stuck in a state of low self-esteem and unworthiness despite all our efforts to improve and grow. If we do not recognize when the source of these cords are a mix of fear and pride, we cannot effectively remove them.

Additionally, we can backtrack these cords and see that while this obsessive behavior has played out in our lives, maybe it didn’t really start with us. Perhaps it all started with an unresolved karmic pattern that lies in our lineage.

Wherever and however these cords begin, we have the power to clean them up and be free if we offer up our Pride that binds us to the validation we are seeking. Only then can we begin to uncover our beautiful, strong, abundant, and authentic selves. Miracles and magic happen from that place; and who knows, maybe then we can finally attain what it is we desire, as long as we remain open to “this or something better.”