Kiki’s Big Dream Experiment - Week 4 - Desire
Week 4 of Kiki’s Big Dream Experiment
Hey Dreamer,
Closing out Week 4 of Kiki’s Big Dream Experiment means coming to the end of my first month on this journey. In some ways, it feels like the month has flown by, but in others, it feels like I have just begun this experiment.
This was a tough theme to work with at the start of the week, as I tried to understand my relationship to the theme of Desire. As 6 The Lovers refers usually to romantic love, I explored what it is about romance and union that offers insight into personal desires in other areas of life. What I found is that desire draws us to emotional comforts - whether it is sleeping in, devouring your favourite comfort foods, or playing with pets.
The downside of this draw is that we can often get swept up in the comfort. We forget that discomfort is what we need to balance in order to work on our dreams.
Yes, our dreams are desires that we have. Though they are in the future somewhere, and it is getting stuck in the comfort of the present that is the trap. One trick I’ve been trying to cultivate this week is imagining I am in that future state - what would I have wanted my past self to do? This helps to balance the desire for comfort with the anxiety of discomfort.
It is important to always live in the present and appreciate each moment. There is nothing to stop you from cultivating that appreciation while working on tasks for your future. This is why people say that it is the journey, not the destination, that is the reward. If you practice balancing past, present, and future, then you will find threads weaving your journey across all three. When you are too focused on the outcome, you spend so long imagining it only for it to hit you in the present and quickly disappear into the past.
I explored this in different ways during my week - so let’s take a look at what content I worked on.
Mon · 27th Oct:
Podcast Episode on Spotify - Episode 4 - Desire - This week’s topic of Desire drew me to share my ideas for the three resources we have available to us - money, energy, and time. In this episode, I explore how we use each of them
Tue · 28th Oct:
Newsletter on LinkedIn - The Contradiction of Desire · October 28th, 2025 - This week’s exploration continues the discussion of resources, and explores the veil of perceived support in the workplace
Stream on Twitch - KBDE 💥 Borderlands 4 - Part 4 - Week 4’s Borderlands 4 stream
Video on YouTube - KBDE 💥 Borderlands 4 - Part 4 - A recording of my Twitch livestream of Borderlands 4
Wed · 29th Oct:
Board on Pinterest - KBDE - Week 4 - Desire - A collection of pins linked to my content for Week 4
Thu · 30th Oct:
Post on Substack - How Desire Gives and Takes Away - I explore self-actualisation and how desire drives that as a basic human necessity
Live on TikTok - KBDE #4 - Desire - A personal and interactive discussion of the topic of Desire
Video on YouTube - Kiki's Big Dream Experiment - TikTok Live - Episode 4 - Desire - A recording of my TikTok Live on the theme of Desire
Fri · 31st Oct:
Post on Instagram - The Cost of Desire - In a follow-up on self-actualisation, my poetry shares my thoughts and feelings on the cost of following your desires
Sun · 2nd Nov:
Blog on my Website - Kiki’s Big Dream Experiment - Week 4 - Desire - My wrap-up post for the week
I had yet another twist of fate as I reflected on my TikTok Live event for reading tarot. As I prepared to continue it this week, I felt it didn’t quite fill the gap I was looking to fill in my week. I have decided to alter it slightly, and I am looking at a new version of this exercise that will take place on Zoom instead. I won’t say too much more for now, as I don’t want to get ahead of myself.
Wish me luck, and next week I can let you know where I've got to!
Reflection on Week 4
Contradictions
I noticed while reflecting on Week 3 that contradictions tend to show up everywhere when it comes to examining progress. This week revealed that even more as I held this idea in my mind while exploring the theme of Desire. For example, we often consider that following your dreams and desires is life’s happy path, yet it comes with so much turmoil and grief because you truly have to dismantle your life to make room for your new dreams. You lose people along the way who don’t see the same vision as you, and you lose those who feel you are “different”, now that you actually speak up for what you want.
In recent months, I have been exploring Taoism. The teachings gave me a lot of comfort because they aligned so much with the natural way of living I had moved towards when focusing on myself this entire year. The more I set myself up for success, the more success seemed to appear. Rather than trying to control the way things would pan out and when they would, I had spent much of my time shifting my mentality to let go of the expectations I had on everything around me.
It was in this letting go and shift towards effortless action that Kiki Dreams Big seemed to move forward. However, the more I tried to control the outcome of something, the more flustered I became. Take Week 2 and the theme of Seeking Knowledge. I went searching for answers so vibrantly, but ended up more confused than ever by the end of the week. Yet, during Week 3 when I spent time dreaming, the answers seemed to just appear to me.
Why is it that this occurs? It seems so contradictory.
Well, I noticed on Friday while I was travelling, that in trying to control, I lost sight of what is right in front of me. I spent so much time on my phone being distracted by things that I lost part of my headphones, and I got on the wrong train twice! Paying attention to the present and avoiding distractions is what allows you to see the answers and opportunities that are ripe for harvesting.
Resources
For some time now, I have been trying to understand my own relationship with money and how I want to turn Kiki Dreams Big into a business that can sustain me. I don’t want to lose the fantastic initiatives I have built by corrupting them with money, just as so many other businesses have done. But, in order to do this as my full-time job - it’s a challenge that needs to be overcome
I decided to trial a new mechanism that seeks payment in different ways. Rather than setting a single value for my work, I want to utilise the three resources we have - money, energy, and time. I know some people are flush with cash and won’t mind paying for services - great! But I also want to continue working with people, even if money is an issue for them.
I am exploring how to get “paid” in energy and time. My starting points are to explore collaborative experiments where my payment can come in the form of bartering - I’ll continue to coach, if you commit to participating in my projects.
This participation includes testing structures and strategies I’ve built, and providing feedback to me - this would give me energy to funnel back into my work and improve the processes.
It may also include engaging with my content directly to share your insights, feedback, and promote pieces you feel aligned with. Growing my audience authentically in this manner feels like a better use of time than trying to compete with the insanely huge advertising budgets of major companies.
Self-Actualisation
I believe that every person has an inner desire to find purpose in life, and living that purpose is self-actualisation. It is a difficult place to get to because we have such little time to truly work on our dreams. So much of our time and energy goes to survival.
Those working full-time are following the rules set out by someone else so they can earn a wage to pay for shelter and basic necessities. Those working part-time tend to have other commitments filling the gaps. Those who don’t “work” are unable to, unwilling, or desperately trying to create something of value in the creative field. Creative fields are notoriously unstable in our current society because your art’s worth is tied to the value that other people set for it.
As part of Kiki Dreams Big, I am trying to find ways that everybody can get a taste of self-actualisation, even if it’s just a small part of their day. The smallest spark of self-actualisation can truly drive you to greater things.
Imagine you spend your whole life eating plain bread, then one day you’re introduced to garlic bread and your entire world changes. You never knew such a delicacy was so easily available! Now you make sure to have your taste of garlic bread every now and then, which makes you appreciate both kinds even more.
That is what small doses of self-actualisation can do for your passions, your interests, and desires for a better future.
Takeaways from Week 4
My takeaways for Week 4 are as follows:
Desire is a double-edged sword: Desire drives you forward to what you want, but can also keep you stuck in comforts. Use it as a guiding force. Combine it with intuition and discernment to get the most out of it. Intuition will help you determine what’s right for your present, and discernment will help you decide what’s right for your future.
Lessons and skills are transferable: What you learn in one area of life can be applied to other areas. It takes some practice to recognise this in the moment, but it’s a very powerful tool. Learning to change perspective and view things in a different way is a fascinating problem-solving technique and can help you be creative in more ways than you can imagine.
We have three resources available to use - money, energy, and time: Money is functionally infinite in this world, but it has become synonymous with survival. We can always make more money, and so the risk is desiring ever more than you need. Energy fluctuates, and we can’t store productive energy up. When we have productive energy to use, use it on your creative projects. Time is finite for each of us, and our priorities change as we grow older. Be intentional about how you use your time.
Acting the way you expect from others does you both a favour: I had some interesting and tense discussions this week, which led me to realise that I was expecting others to see my view, yet I was dismissing their views. Instead, refocusing the goal of the conversation to be a common goal of understanding is far more impactful. It made me pause when my natural reaction was to defend, and that pause allowed curiosity to take over. It saved me from becoming defensive and getting caught in a cycle of rejection.
My weekly themes are compounding: Each week brings new lessons, and the further I progress into Kiki’s Big Dream Experiment, the more I start to see how the themes can bolster each other. This week’s theme of Desire showed me that holding too tightly causes disappointment, but not holding tightly enough causes misalignment. There is a delicate balance to find, and it takes time to cultivate.
Introducing Week 5 of Kiki’s Big Dream Experiment
Dream for Week 5:
My dream for Week 5 is to manage my fear and anxiety, and move forward with action and intention.
There have been certain tasks on my To-Do list that have felt far out of reach, and I’ve been trying to interrogate why. Each step I take going forward, I find myself stumbling to find firm ground before taking the next - second-guessing myself. As I enter Week 5, I want to curb that fear because I know I have the courage and capability to cross this threshold. It is about doing the difficult thing, finally. I dream of looking back over my week and saying, “You did it!”.
Theme for Week 5:
While focusing on the takeaways from Week 4, and my dream for Week 5, I shuffled my tarot deck. Once I felt ready, I stopped and drew…
16 The Tower
Unexpected Upheaval
When the Tower card appears, it’s time to brace yourself for a change.
The well-rooted tree that’s been growing strong for decades is crashing down around you.
Your world may feel as though it’s literally falling apart—and you didn’t see it coming.
Even though this phase is painful and confusing, it will be over soon.
You’ll look back and feel grateful things changed course.
You might even see it as a personal “breakthrough” in the end.
Wow! You know - as I stopped shuffling, I paused with the deck before drawing. I felt a pull to do one more shuffle. What would I have drawn had I not? I will never know. But what I do know is that 16 The Tower is a significant card to pull for this week. The feeling of stuckness is something I want to overcome this week, and as I have been writing about - you can’t build a new life without tearing the old one to shreds.
What is particularly interesting about this card is that I drew it in a personal reading in advance of starting Kiki’s Big Dream Experiment as part of a Celtic Cross Spread. It was in the Hopes and Fears position - which very much aligns to this hope for a new life but fear of losing the good in a current life. That is the discomfort that feels scary to move into. This definitely feels like a sign to do the difficult thing.
The theme for Week 5 is Unexpected Upheaval. I’m excited for where this week takes me - but I am very conscious of needing to give myself space for comfort to heal from the discomfort that forward momentum brings with it.
Keep dreaming,
Kiki <3
