Maya Frost | Lucid Longing, Imagination & Possible Futures
For the last six years, I have been exploring what longing reveals in individual lives.
Hundreds of clients, all over the world, all facing difficult challenges.
And I'm fascinated by what happens when we look deeply into and beyond our own longings.
The longings we inherit.
The longings we pass on.
The futures we imagine for others.
And the things human beings seem to long for together.
Lucid Longing invites us to explore longing across time: what we inherit from parents, grandparents, families, and cultures; what we have carried, rejected, or pursued ourselves; what we long for now; and what we hope or imagine for future generations.
WHAT IS LUCID LONGING?
Lucid Longing is a seven-day inquiry into what you long for, where those longings come from, what they reveal about what matters to you, and what possibilities you might cultivate from them.
Our longings offer information that can help us clarify and cultivate the futures that feel most relevant, meaningful, and alive.
So often, we're told to simply imagine a better future. But that isn't quite enough.
We need to ground our imagination in wisdom about what we truly long for, and why.
I developed Lucid Longing as a way to understand what our longings reveal about what matters to us. Through attention, curiosity, and imagination, we make previously unclear possibilities reveal their truths, and we watch some light up as intriguing and inviting options.
We feel more awake and experimental.
And things start to shift as we respond in new ways to what was already there.
WHO IS LUCID LONGING FOR?
Lucid Longing is for people facing significant transitions who know something needs to change but are uncertain about what comes next.
It is designed for those who long(!) to:
- cultivate attention instead of reacting or disengaging
- create the habits and habitats that align with their values
- connect more fully in their local community
- craft adaptive capacity that is robust and improvisational
WHAT DOES THIS PROCESS LOOK AND FEELS LIKE?
The Lucid Longing process combines conversation, daily prompts, reflection, imagination, and "tiny experiments" to help participants investigate their longings and explore possible ways forward.
One client, Lena, described it as "like having a major epiphany every day while going on a great walk with a friend...for a whole week."
Others talk about how the process revealed new opportunities they had not seen before.
WHAT MAKES LUCID LONGING DIFFERENT?
Lucid Longing is designed to help you find clarity, restore your sense of agency, and begin tiny experiments that start to shift things in your life...in days, not months.
Instead of weekly or bi-weekly sessions over the course of months (or even years), it makes your next steps clear and builds immediate and natural momentum through consistent daily reflection.
You give yourself permission to start small right away rather than wait for an external sign or an internal shift in order to begin.
There is a new sense of lightness despite the dark.
This frees you to get creative and playful. Fun enters. Joy returns. And your creative energy comes rushing back in delightful ways.
WHY DOES LUCID LONGING WORK?
Sometimes simplicity emerges in complexity.
Lucid Longing emerged from a six-year practice of working directly with those who were feeling overwhelmed by the reality of our systems failures and seeking a way forward that feels aligned with their understanding of how the world is changing in the metacrisis.
Through research based on qualitative data from clients, longing loomed as a potentially powerful source of both information and inspiration.
This process was derived from the most transformative part of the 30-day process I offered to hundreds of clients in 20 countries.
In the last year, it has crystallized into a tested, unique, and surprisingly rapid practice for turning awareness into agency and action in the most deeply resonant and joyful ways.
Lucid Longing lives in the spaces between:
♦ collapse awareness.......................and action
♦ ecological grief.................................and awe
♦ environmental psychology......and attention
♦ contemplative practices............and art
♦ behavioral science..........................and agency
♦ systems thinking.............................and adaptation
♦ imaginative futures.......................and audacity
By lacing together the related learnings, we can understand what best supports our ability to adapt and flourish.
Learn more about my research and what's inspiring me.
WRITING AND SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS
In addition to my research and work with clients, I share my insights via print interviews, podcasts, and speaking engagements.
FROM MINDFULNESS TO ATTENTION: THE EVOLUTION OF MY WORK
Meditating in a Buddhist monastery in Sri Lanka, 1982.
For five decades, mindfulness has taught me how to pay attention to what is here now.
My work is increasingly exploring what happens when we become curious about what else deserves our attention:
♦ what matters now
♦ what we long for
♦ what we might imagine
♦ what becomes possible when we follow those threads
I have started a new version of my Substack newsletter called Lucid Longing.
It´s about exploring the transformative power of the wisdom of our longing to help us clarify and cultivate our best future now.
Part field notes and part storytelling, this is where I share the questions and findings in my research and stories from clients about how they are choosing to engage more fully and joyfully in their lives right now, despite the challenges.
Weekly articles that are always free.
I invite you to join me!