We all bring wishes into this life.

Relationships, sexuality, money and other forms of power — these are important wishes. If we achieve all of these, is it enough?

I’m pretty sure the answer is no. These are our Earth-bound wishes. We have them because we are in a body. Between physical lives we have a completely different experience. Wishes from there are also part of who we truly are. We need to meet those wishes to be whole.

But, this post is not about abandoning our earth-bound wishes. We need to fulfill those wishes to have a good life on earth. And having a good life here is one of our deep wishes.

The demands of our bodies can be overwhelming. Our wish to find positive connection with others when we have separate bodies is a nearly impossible puzzle. We need to work on those. I’m writing today to remind you that there are even deeper wishes.

We’ll never be satisfied if we don’t work on our deepest wishes, too.

Let me offer three pieces of evidence to show that we usually forget everything else when we create bodies. Then we can talk about how to find our deepest wishes.

We Forget Wishes

1. Rionagh na Ard talks about being part of a Sidhe research team who wanted to understand more about humans. As the soul of a dying soldier was shedding its body, Rionagh took over control. She was so lost in the complications of the body that she completely forgot she was once a Sidhe. About 1000 years later, after many incarnations as a human and with the help of her Sidhe family, she is now remembering who she once was.

2. In 2011 the Guardian published an article called “The Body Beautiful: Is it Possible to Remember Being Born?” One of the striking quotes was from a fellow named Mark, who wrote, “I remember being born. I tried for a moment to tell the people who were around me that WE FORGET! This is because the moment I was born, I watched the memory of where I had been before birth leave me.”

3. A few young children have memories of previous lifetimes. Ian Stevenson spent half his life researching this. One example from Children Who Remember Previous Lives: A Question of Reincarnation talks about a four-year-old boy who tried to kill the person who (he said) killed him in the life before. Other cases include people who came back because they loved the family they left behind. Even though there were memories early in the person’s life, they were mostly gone by the time the child was six or seven.

When we have bodies, we forget who we once were and what we once wished, but it may be possible to find the wishes again.

Finding Deep Wishes

One way to find your deep wishes is Expressive Writing. You can also use Expressive Writing to find the voice of your soul and deal with personal problems. I wrote about those techniques here.

The basic process is simple.

You write on the topic “I want to know my wishes from the shallowest to the deepest.” That’s your first sentence. Somewhere near the beginning you might start sentences with, “Right now my biggest wish is …” and “My body wishes for…”.

Write continuously for 20 minutes. Keep the pen moving even is you are only adding something like “still writing, still writing, still writing…” to the paper. You can do this on a computer, too.

Write on the topic for four days, 20 minutes each day. It may take longer. Getting down to the Wish region and opening up your deep wishes is difficult.

Twenty minutes can seem like an eternity — or the blink of an eye. Keeping the pen moving with “still writing, still writing…” is vital because it lets different regions come through. When Mind and Voice have had their say, Heart, Will, and finally Wish can come through. Mind and Voice are still there to let you write about your deepest wishes. Wish needs to unfold to let the deepest wishes out.

You may want to do more than four sessions if you sense something deeper. What I am finding is that there are many, many wishes related to the body and all the different regions of the soul.

Acting on Wishes

I’m not offering advice on what you do with your list of wishes, except for this.

When the writing is done, go through it and make a list of wishes. Sort the list however it makes sense to you. Don’t throw away your writing or your list. You will forget what you wrote. Store it someplace safe and look at it occasionally. If it feels out of date, do the writing exercise again.

Your body’s wishes, which will be part of your list, are important. Part of keeping your sovereignty is keeping your body as safe and healthy as you can. Relationships, sexuality, money and other forms of power — these are important wishes. Just remember that you need to satisfy your deep wishes, too.