Desire Does not Equate to Being Valued – by Amrit Sagoo

What I never learned from my mother was that just because someone desires you does not mean they value you.

Desire is the kind of thing that eats you and leaves you starving.

“Just because someone desires you, does not mean that they value you”.

Read it over.

Again.

“Just because someone desires you, does not mean that they value you”.

Let these words seep deep through you, through your veins, your bones and settle, albeit uncomfortably, in your mind.

These are the colors of your self-esteem.

I urge you to do so because these are profound and meaningful words from a wonderful poet/artist, Nayyirah Waheed and with anything profound, you need to read it more than once for once is never enough.  Read it a hundred times if you can and, if you do, leave some space between each reading, as each time a different word or phrase will embed itself within your soul.

Now when I say soul I don’t mean soul in the overused new-age sort of way.  No.

When I say SOUL, I mean SOUL.

When I say soul I am talking about who YOU are at the very CORE of your being. 

The centre of your SELF. The ESSENCE of you.

The part of you that lies right in the centre of your chest, or in the depth of your belly, that when you press hard it hurts.  It is the ‘I’ within and you may have just started to explore its existence. The ‘I’ in you that you may probably spend your entire lifetime trying to figure out.  And you never will.  So give up and just be. I have.

Anyway…

Nayyirah Waheed is phenomenal. She is phenomenal because she has the capacity to talk to me, even though we’ve never, met in a language that surpasses mere words. She reminds me that I’m alive and I’m grateful to anyone who can do that.

Her words remove all the debris that has formed and gathered itself on the psyche, like rust on steel; cutting through the crap, stripping it away and leaving your heart bare and raw. She then leaves you to do the polishing work yourself. She starts the process but you do the work.

I’ve posted some of her pieces on my blog before from her anthology of poems called ‘salt’.  Perhaps her words may resonate with you too? 

Let me know, if you want.

Be kind.

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Author Bio: I’m just me; a woman living in London, trying to make sense of life as I continue living. I plan on using this blog to capture what I see, what I have seen, what I long to see. It will be a place where my thoughts can rest; a place where things that I am touched by deeply will find a soft place to land. I will use life, what I come across such as events, snippets of a conversation, a quote, and words heard or over-heard that mean something to me. I’ll talk about the things I enjoy and give voice to those that need to be talked about. At some point, I hope to include interviews and transcripts from people and organisations that resonate with the outreach work I do. There will be the serious and important stuff that I am very interested in namely mental health, homelessness, prison, therapy and well-being. Mostly, however, the blog will be about compassion, connection with others, true kindness, seeing others, learning to listen/observe and ultimately allowing myself to feel deeply about things that matter and doing something about it, if I can.

something to tell (someone to listen…)

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