Learning Joy, Learning Desire: Rewiring My Life After Survival

For as long as I can remember, my deepest desire has been safety and survival.

Those weren’t just desires—they were necessities, the foundation of my existence as someone healing from maternal narcissistic abuse because when you grow up in an environment where unpredictability, cruelty, and emotional landmines define your daily life, survival becomes the only goal.

Joy and desire? Those are luxuries for people who don’t have to walk on eggshells and people who aren’t scanning every moment for the next emotional ambush.

Even though she’s gone, this is the cost of living in survival mode for too long—a body and mind shaped by maternal narcissistic abuse and wired to expect danger.

I don’t need to be on high alert anymore, yet my mind hasn’t fully received the message:

• I still default to self-protection

• I still weigh decisions through the lens of minimizing risk

• I still feel the pull to make choices based on what is safe rather than what is joyful.

But something inside me knows this isn’t the way forward.

I have spent years doing deep, deep healing work—unraveling the damage, questioning my beliefs, peeling back the layers of conditioning that told me who I had to be.

And now, for the first time in my life, I am facing something I never expected: I don’t know how to truly feel joy or feel comfortable with desire.

Abraham’s teachings: a new way to see life

Abraham is a collective consciousness channeled by Esther Hicks, known for teachings on the Law of Attraction and the power of thought.

Their message emphasizes that our emotions are a guide, joy is our natural state, and desire is meant to expand us—not limit us. This challenged everything I’d learned from life under a mean narcissistic mother.

Joy and desire are guiding forces, always leading us toward our highest potential!

They say that our emotions are a compass, that we are meant to follow what feels good, that joy is not just allowed but necessary.

Desire is not something to suppress or distrust—it’s the very thing that pulls us toward expansion, growth, and fulfillment.

But what happens when you’ve never trusted your emotions? When the only desires you’ve ever allowed yourself were for safety and survival?

What happens when joy feels unfamiliar, almost foreign—like a language you were never taught?

I am at the point in my journey where I have to learn new feelings—to actually let myself feel them, sit with them, understand them.

I have to rewire my thought processes to recognize that I am no longer in danger, that I no longer need to make choices through the lens of survival.

Desire beyond survival

The idea of wanting more than survival is new to me.

Sometimes, it feels uncomfortable.

There is a part of me that still whispers, '‘You should be grateful just to be safe. Don’t ask for more.”

That voice is the echo of my past—the one that says joy is indulgent, desire is selfish, and asking for anything beyond the bare minimum is risky.

It’s the voice that formed while I was growing up in narcissistic abuse where joy felt unsafe and desire had no place.

But the truth is, I want more!

I want to feel the pull of excitement!

I want to wake up energized, drawn toward something that isn’t just about avoiding pain!

I want to make decisions based on what feels good rather than what feels safe!

I want to experience joy not as a fleeting moment, but as a natural state of being!

This isn’t easy work because the old programming is strong.

I still feel a twinge of discomfort when I think about embracing desire, as if I’m stepping into forbidden territory.

But the more I sit with this, the more I realize:

Desire is not the enemy. Fear is.

Learning to trust joy

For so long, I have lived in a state of emotional numbness—because feeling too much was dangerous.

Now, I am learning to open that door, to allow joy and desire in, even if they feel unfamiliar.

I am choosing to trust the idea that I was meant to feel good, that life is not just about surviving the next wave of pain.

I don’t have all the answers yet. I’m still in the process of rewiring, of unlearning, of allowing, and of accepting.

But I do know this: for the first time in my 57 years of life I am making space for joy.

This is what reclaiming joy after trauma looks like—not a perfect process, but a powerful rewiring after maternal narcissistic abuse.

And that, in itself, is something worth celebrating.

Final thought: Joy and desire were always meant to be my guides. I’m only now learning how to listen.

Reclaiming joy and desire, 

Carole