Dare to Desire Everything: Denis Marquet and CBT on embracing desire

Step 1 — The Person. First article in a 4-step series with Denis Marquet, following a progression: Person → Psyche → Spirituality. Let's begin with the foundation: who am I really, and what do I truly desire? Denis Marquet, French philosopher and science PhD, published in 2008 a manifesto that transformed thousands of readers' relationship to their aspirations: Dare to Desire Everything (Oser désirer tout). His thesis is radical: our deep desires aren't ego whims but signals of a life that wants to unfold. Refusing to listen to essential desires is self-betrayal. This philosophical insight surprisingly overlaps with what contemporary CBT — particularly ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) — formalizes under another name: values.

Surface desire vs deep desire

Marquet distinguishes two levels:

• Surface wants: consume, possess, please, avoid suffering. Born from anxiety and ego.


• Deep desires: create, love truly, serve, transcend, transmit. Emerging from the heart, from the life flowing through us.

Confusing the two causes contemporary malaise: we think we desire a promotion, a new purchase, social validation — when we actually desire to be seen for who we are, to do meaningful work, to love and be loved.

The ACT parallel

Steven Hayes, ACT founder, distinguishes almost identically between goals (finite, doing-related) and values (directions, being-related). When Marquet says "dare to desire everything," ACT answers "clarify your values and align your actions."

ACT tool: the 80-year-old exercise Imagine your 80th birthday. Who is there? What do they say about you? What do they celebrate? The answers point to your real values — which often coincide with what Marquet calls deep desires.

Why we stifle our desires

CBT identifies several mechanisms that Marquet evokes:

Early schemas (Young): the child repeatedly told they were "too much" (too sensitive, too ambitious, too alive) learns to self-censor. As adult, they confuse this censorship with their own voice. Automatic thoughts (Beck): "it's unreasonable," "others will judge," "I don't deserve it." These repetitive voices extinguish desire before it even expresses itself. Experiential avoidance (ACT): desiring is scary — it exposes you to failure, disappointment, judgment. Many prefer desiring nothing to taking that risk.

The CBT protocol of desire

Step 1: identify suppressed desires

Exercise: say aloud 10 times "If I weren't afraid of anything, I would...". The first 5 answers are often banal; the next 5 reveal what's really there.

Step 2: unmask limiting beliefs

For each emerging desire, ask: "what stops me from going in this direction?". Answers are beliefs to restructure ("it's unrealistic," "it's selfish," "it's too late").

Step 3: committed actions (ACT)

Marquet says clearly: unenacted desire becomes poison. Choose one concrete action this week honoring a deep desire, even microscopic. Write 10 minutes, contact that person, sign up for that course.

Step 4: welcome accompanying discomfort

Daring a deep desire always awakens fear, guilt, doubt. 3rd-wave CBT teaches welcoming these emotions without submitting to them. They accompany movement, they don't prevent it.

The "desire everything" trap

Careful with misinterpretation: Marquet doesn't advocate egotic desire in all directions. He calls for desiring what is truly you, not what society suggests you want. Between a deep desire misaligned with values and a "reasonable" choice poorly calibrated, there's a third path: clarified values, then committed actions.

What Marquet adds beyond ACT

Marquet's philosophy adds a dimension scientific CBT leaves peripheral: the spiritual dimension of desire. For him, deep desire isn't individual construction — it's a call, a vocation, sometimes transcendence. This reading doesn't oppose CBT, it completes it for those sensitive to it.

When to consult?

• Feeling of living a life "not yours"
• Chronic frustration with no identifiable cause
• Existential emptiness despite apparent success
• Paralyzing fear of desiring, asking, choosing
• Important decision attempt (career, couple, location)

Takeaway

Denis Marquet reminds us of something CBT sometimes tends to forget: stifling deep desires makes us sick, honoring them makes us alive. The CBT/ACT approach provides tools to distinguish surface and deep desires, restructure stifling beliefs, and act toward what truly matters.

If you feel you're "surviving" more than living, values-oriented CBT work can highlight essential desires still there, buried under years of conformism.

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Series continues: after daring to listen to desires, how does this "I" meet others? That's the next article about Our Children Are Wonders — step 2: the Relational Psyche.