It’s Safe to Want More: How We Unlearn Settling and Reclaim Our Capacity to Dream

I had a coaching session last week about dreams and desires, and it brought something important to the surface.

Over the past few years, I’ve noticed how often I question my own wants:

Do I really need another purse?

Do we really need a bigger home?

Shouldn’t I just be grateful for what I already have?

But the truth is: there’s a difference between need and want.

And both are valid.

For a long time I didn’t realize how deeply I had internalized the belief that “wanting more” was somehow wrong, selfish, greedy, or ungrateful. I had learned to equate safety with simplicity, with not asking for too much.

But what I was really doing was living in survival mode.

(Spoiler! Watch who you share your life with, their energy can inspire you to grow or make you settle for less)

Now, I’m learning that it’s safe to want more.

Not from lack, but from expansion.

From the part of me that’s ready for more beauty, joy, and comfort in life. ✨

Why We Learn to Settle for Less

Psychologically, many of us unconsciously train ourselves to settle for less. What starts as “being practical” or “staying grateful” can slowly turn into a pattern of self-limitation that affects not just our dreams, but also our self-worth.

Here are some of the deeper reasons behind that pattern:

1. The Scarcity Mindset

When we live in survival mode for too long, the brain adapts to focus on what’s missing. This “scarcity lens” narrows our thinking, making dreaming feel unsafe or even wasteful.

We begin to believe that resources (love, money, opportunities) are limited, and that wanting more could mean losing something we already have.

2. Early (and sometimes not) Conditioning Around Worthiness

Many of us grew up hearing messages like:

“Don’t be too much.”

“Be grateful for what you have.”

“Other people have it worse.”

These beliefs teach the nervous system that wanting more equals danger or shame. Over time, we internalize the idea that we must earn joy or abundance, that we have to deserve them first.

3. Habituation: When Settling Becomes Comfortable

The psyche adapts quickly. When we suppress our desires long enough, it stops sending us those signals. Dreaming and desiring become unfamiliar, even uncomfortable. We tell ourselves, “I’m fine,” when really we’ve just adjusted to less.

4. Fear of Change

Having more (whether it’s love, rest, visibility, or success) means stepping into the unknown. The familiar, even when it’s limited, feels safe. The unknown feels risky. And so we cling to what we know, calling it contentment, when it’s really fear.

My Own Pattern: Pressure Instead of Pleasure

My Soul Formula: Venus in the centre, on the bottom of red rectangle, is affected by a chain of retrograde planets.

In my own Soul Formula, Venus, the planet of joy, love, and abundance, sits right at the center.

Wanting more is literally written into my design.

But Venus in my chart is also challenged by a few strong retrograde planets.

And that creates a specific pattern: when life invites me to relax, receive, or enjoy, I slip into pressureinstead of pleasure.

It shows up as pushing instead of allowing, striving instead of savoring.

It’s not that I don’t want more, but the part of me believes I have to earn it through effort, productivity, or control. And, of course, life arranges “perfect” experiences for me to prove the point.

Understanding this through Astrotherapy helped me name what I had been feeling for years. It gave language to that quiet tension between desire and guilt, expansion and safety.

Once I could see the pattern, I could start softening it, learning to let Venus lead again.

The Inner Work of Expansion

When we start bringing awareness to our inner patterns (through astrology, therapy, or reflection) something shifts.

We begin to remember that wanting more isn’t a flaw. It’s a form of aliveness.

Wanting more doesn’t mean you’re ungrateful.

It means your soul is ready for its next chapter.

It’s a move from scarcity to sufficiency, from pressure to pleasure, from survival to expansion.

Your desires aren’t demands, they’re invitations.

They call you toward the version of yourself that can hold more beauty, joy, and ease.

So if you’ve been questioning your wants lately…

If you’ve been afraid to dream bigger, to buy something beautiful, to rest without guilt,

take a breath.

It’s safe to want more.

It’s safe to relax and receive.

And it’s safe to trust that your desires are guiding you home.