Longing without Chasing

"Blessed be the longing that…quickens your soul with wonder"

Nov 03, 2023

It’s 9pm and the lighting in my studio is romantic, sandalwood incense lingers in the air. “Gosh, I really want someone to spoon me right now,” I think.

My brain flips through its Rolodex: actual humans first, then the fantasies of those humans next. “Should I get on *insert dating app here*?” “I could just hit up *ahem* again. He’d be down…or would he?”

For a few minutes, I imagine *ahem* coming over: tea, chocolate, the familiar choreography of closeness. In my mind, the fantasy itself becomes a chase; imagining, grasping, scripting what could to delude myself out of an ache.

The ache is a backdrop of longing. This longing moves me to chase, fantasize, control…all in an attempt to alleviate the ache.

The Chase

The dance of longing and chasing-to-make-the-longing-go-away are so utterly and ordinarily human, so I’m going to use we instead of I in this essay.

The content of our longings often shows up as striving: chasing the dates that distract us, the job that proves our worth, the partner who mirrors our desirability, the approval that quiets the shame, the teacher who finally sees us, the high that numbs the ache.

Sometimes we chase subtler forms of control—needing to be right or exceptionally useful. Sometimes the chase doesn’t even leave the mind. Fantasizing can feel safer than action, yet it’s still a reach outward, an attempt to escape the immediacy of longing. Sometimes we chase extremes: from seeking validation online en masse to waging wars for power over the masses. The impacts differ, but the pattern is the same: an ache trying to outrun itself.

I know that spin too well: the restless scroll, the refresh of a message thread, the over-extending to please, the anxious pursuit of the avoidant distancer (damn, do I know this one 😪). Each catch feels like a sweet treat. But soon enough, the hunger returns.

In Buddhist and Chinese traditions, the Hungry Ghost is a creature with a tiny mouth and a distended belly, forever consuming but never satisfied.

When I’m caught in anxious grasping, I become a little ghost myself.
My belly tightens, my breath grows shallow, my chest caves in.
I mistake urgency for aliveness.

Avoidance is another ghost form; when I close the door to my ache or go numb.
Both are strategies to manage the tenderness of wanting.

When I focus only on the object of longing, I lose the gold inside the longing itself.
Longing doesn’t ask to be managed; it asks to be felt.

The Alchemy

At 10 p.m., I turn toward the ache instead of away.
I notice the pit in my stomach, an uncomfortable void.
It pulses, expanding like a dry sponge becoming wet.

I burp. I yawn. The energy moves.
I sink deeper into the couch.
I breathe, my belly expands with air this time.
Another yawn. The longing hums quietly now.

I heat water for tea.
Contentment feels most present now.
I write this essay.

When I stay with the somatic texture of longing—the flutter in my chest, the warmth in my palms, the once-hollow space in my belly—it begins to transform. The ache becomes presence. The wanting becomes peace. What felt empty becomes creative current.

This is the erotic nature of longing—not just sexual, but the raw life-force that moves through us when we stop chasing and start listening.

As John O’Donohue writes:

“When you befriend this longing,
it will keep you awake and alert
to why you are here on earth.
It will intensify your journey but also
liberate you from the need to go
on many seductive but futile quests.”

There’s a moment, after the chase softens, when the body emits a quiet pulse.
In that stillness, longing isn’t a problem to solve, it’s a compass pointing me home to myself.

When I let longing move through me rather than reaching outward to fix it, I participate in its alchemy. When I let it, longing quickens my wonder, clears my armor, and reminds me: there’s something holy in the ache itself.

Chetna Unfolding

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