“What do I want?” - the most “interesting” request in psychotherapy. Of course, it is extremely rare for him to sound so straightforward. Rather, the person will say: “Help me figure out what I really want,” “Help me feel my desires,” “I don’t know what to choose, help me figure it out.” Almost every person asked himself similar questions. This happens when your need is stuck at the very beginning of the contact cycle, in the Gestalt sense. Just imagine what you want to drink. How do you understand this? My mouth became dry, I started feeling dizzy, my body felt numb and hot. And here is the answer - the body tells you what to do, and you take a glass of water and satisfy your need. Things get much more complicated when it comes to more complex constructs. Do I want to change my job, what is my calling, do I want to get married, do I want a relationship at all? How do you know when dry mouth means nothing? First you need to understand, was there any experience of contact with your desire? Have you taken a bite of the apple? Do you accurately imagine its taste, or do you make a choice based on other people's taste preferences? If you don’t have experience, you’ll have to deal with what’s preventing you from acquiring it. Most likely, fears will come out there, what if it’s bitter, what if you don’t like it, what’s even worse - allergies or poisoning! For social needs, this will be the fear of experiencing negative emotions, fear of mental pain, disappointment, fear of rejection. Stopping is provoked by self-doubt, distrust of your body, not knowing what to do if it is unpleasant, when there is no resource inside to experience pain. The only truth is that you will never feel your “I want” or “mine” without coming into contact with your desire. If you don't try to bite into an apple, no one will ever know how it tastes to you. Therefore, any meeting with someone new is a RISK. You can be completely disappointed or you can experience bliss. Here I like one of the Gestalt postulates: “Don’t fantasize. The experience is real. Try and feel." Only this way, and not otherwise. We can talk long and tediously about “how,” and never understand “how it really is” until we try. Of course, there are things in life that do not necessarily need to be questioned, for example, fire definitely burns, and a blade definitely cuts. But here we are talking about something more complicated, about the inner world of a person. The second difficulty in understanding your desires is a lack of understanding of yourself, your signals and preferences, when you have experience, but contact with your feelings is lost. Imagine that the apple is bitten off, chewed and swallowed, but the realization of whether you like it or not does not come. Happens. All people are different, some need to eat a kilogram of unripe ranetki in order to understand that somehow the body is not coping well with it. An example from life: a girl meets a guy, everything seems to be fine, and things are heading towards marriage, but somewhere inside she has mixed feelings, she cannot understand what she really feels for him, whether she wants to continue this relationship. In this case, you will have to deal with your sensitivity, restore contact with yourself, connecting all your senses. The road to yourself can be different. It can only begin in adulthood if you have always been walking in the opposite direction, away from yourself. This is a fascinating path when you learn the world again, like a child, in all its manifestations. Slowly, slowly - you try, you feel, you realize, you try, you feel, you realize, and so on in a circle. Until you understand, here it is - “MINE”, “I WANT”, “I LIKE».