Fifteen rewatches into "Nobody Wants This" (yes, I'm still counting, no, I'm not seeking help), and I've stumbled onto something paradoxical:

often, in the moments we recognize a desire, we become actors playing the role of someone who doesn't want it.

Look at Kristen Bell's character Joann. She's got this whole emotionally unavailable thing down pat.

But here's the truth - she's dying to be loved. To be seen. Her fear of getting hurt just has her playing this smaller version of herself, one who's never quite interested enough in anyone.

Classic move, really - can't get rejected if you're playing a character of someone who doesn't really want you anyway.

Watch closely.

• The moment someone decides they want to write a book, they transform into a character who "just jots down ideas sometimes."
• When they dream of starting a business, they become someone who's "just exploring options on the side."
• The instant they realize they want a deeper relationship, they morph into someone who's "actually really enjoying being single."

 

It's manifestation through method acting.

We're not just playing it cool – we're fully inhabiting the role of someone whose desires are smaller, safer, more contained than our own.

Because somewhere along the way, we learned that the fastest path to what we want is pretending we don't want it at all.

Let's get uncomfortably honest: every time we say "I don't really want that," we're actually saying "I want this so much I have to become someone else to handle it."

Read that again, please.

 

The paradox isn't in the wanting. It's in how quickly we step into character the moment we recognize our desires.

Like actors preparing for the role of Someone Who Wants Less, we practice our lines in the mirror: "Oh, that old dream? I barely think about it anymore."

Maybe that's why I watch this show on endless repeat.

Because on that overcast Saturday - the 10th day of August - after driving from Ohio to Montana with my first load of belongings for storage, I drove around this soon-to-be-home city and felt... nothing. No excitement. No certainty.

Just an unsettling emptiness.

I was terrified of what this feeling meant. After two years of trying to move,

• I knew with absolute certainty that I was ready.
• I also knew I could be happy anywhere.

The intensity with which I wanted to distract myself from these feelings while driving around that day told me everything - if I wasn't projecting my happiness onto the city itself (a lesson already learned), then this emptiness was pointing to something deeper.

 

A desire so big I hadn't even let it into the story.

The unsettling feeling wasn't about the place - it was the dissonance of a narrative that was true but incomplete, missing its most vital part.

After trying my hardest to find sufficient distraction that day, I finally gave up the fight and got myself the most gorgeous Airbnb in the foothills of the Swan Mountain Range. Nature always brings me back to self. 

I settled in and set my intention to see the truth, and then spoke my go-to request:

 

"Show me what I need to see."

And in that remote nature setting while curled up inside that cabin, I had a phone call with a gorgeous human named Lucas who lives in Wisconsin.

It was in his holding space for me that I was able to admit to him and to myself what the greatest truth was:

 

love over location.

Love over freaking location. That was my truth. And just like every person on this show who finally stops acting as a character within a character and starts telling the truth about what they actually want, I had my "Nobody Wants This" moment. A plot twist, indeed.

Here's what I'm learning about desire: we can alter our beliefs about it, shove it down, try to make it smaller, but it never, ever goes away.

Because desire isn't discretionary – it's a compass pointing true north.

It's life itself saying "this way to purpose."

It's our higher self laying breadcrumbs toward becoming.

To attempt to ignore, suppress, compress, mutilate, or deny desire is like trying to hold your breath forever – it's completely futile.

Desire is the same force that beats our hearts and fills our lungs without asking permission.

It's pure, clean, unadulterated energy.

How did we get so far removed from nature, and the nature of desire, that we think we can ignore it without consequences?

That we won't end up with a whole slew of tangled stories weaving their way around the central truth we refuse to see?

We stop living in truth the moment we stop being clear about our desires.

Think about it - we don't want to acknowledge our desires because we're afraid they won't happen.

 

But when we make them small or non-existent, they get cut from the script. And before you know it, you're playing an actor that isn't really you, living a plot that wouldn't be your choosing. AND YOU END UP NOT GETTING THE VERY THING YOU WERE AFRAID YOU WOULDN'T GET.

Friends - this is madness.

What are we doing? Let's get clear about the fact that when it's spelled out like this, nobody wants this.

Nobody wants this level of honesty with themselves, either.

Until suddenly, violently, because things came crashing down or we can't get ourselves out of bed because we're so despondent, we do.

And in that moment of surrender, desire transforms from the thing we're most afraid of into the thing that sets us free.

And that, my friends, is what everybody wants.