The Eight Desires Workshop – Veronica Lynn Clark (Workshop Outline)

A rare non-technical, ninety-minute interactive personal-development workshop at a tech conference, led by Veronica Lynn Clark at Craft 2026. Rather than a lecture, it runs as a guided, journaling-based experience with music, breathwork, and body movement — moving the room from curiosity (“why did you say yes to this?”) through eight life domains, a self-scoring exercise, a dreaming phase, an honest look at current reality, and finally a “rewrite your code” phase, closing with small-group shares. Clark repeatedly maps the inner work onto software metaphors (evaluating your own code, extracting viruses, rewriting the program) so the developer audience can relate.

1. Framing — Why Did You Say Yes?

1.1 Opening the room

• Clark calls it “a brave workshop to attend at a tech conference” and asks attendees why they came.
• Answers volunteered from the room:
  • ”Because it’s not about AI.” (biggest laugh; Clark thanks the honesty)
  • “It’s live — not something I can watch via recording.”
  • “I checked your website — great promo.”
  • Curiosity — “a really powerful and necessary ingredient for us to experience more breakthroughs in our life.”
  • “Maybe know myself better.”

1.2 Why knowing yourself matters

• Knowing yourself lets you “live your own life” versus the life you think you’re supposed to live.
• The stated ultimate goal from the room: happiness — which Clark interchanges with joy; contentment felt now, while alive, not “later down the road after everything gets done.”
• Clark references her own turbulent road (and a talk she gave “yesterday”): she wanted to be “happy, not pretend happy” — to actually enjoy life even when it’s challenging, “because this is the only life we get.”

1.3 The concept of “gifts”

• Everyone has some impact on others — as parents, leaders, managers, mentors.
• To use our gifts, we must know ourselves. Gifts = “innate, God-given talents you’re just really good at — miraculously good.”
• Because gifts come so easily, we often don’t recognize them as gifts (“doesn’t everybody have this?”), and so we never turn the lens inward to see our own “goodness, beauty, soul, that vibration.”
• U.S. reference: “gifted and talented” education.

1.4 Ground rules for the experience

• It will be an interactive, human conversation; participate to the degree you feel comfortable.
• The human condition brings fragility and emotions; many people (Clark included) don’t like feeling emotions.
• The emotional arc will go down then up — Clark’s intention is that everyone leaves “up.”
• Metaphors: ”When you dig for gold, it’s not on top”; and gardening — “if you want to plant something new, you’ve got to break through the ground.”
• Instruction: bring pen and paper (or laptop); this is a writing experience.
• Warm-up: turn to your neighbor and say “Let’s do it” — “nothing to lose.”

2. The Wheel — Eight Life Domains

2.1 Origin of the wheel

• Clark created the wheel after an actual nervous breakdown in 2009, when “nobody was talking about breakthroughs/breakdowns” and having a therapist “wasn’t cool then.”
• Rebuilding her life, she reverse-engineered the “pieces” she had to look at — which emerged as these eight domains.
• Tagline (read aloud by an attendee): “A meaningful life is created intentionally.” — It won’t happen automatically or overnight; it requires intention, not “throwing something against the wall and hoping.”

2.2 How to read the wheel

• Outer wheel = the eight domains (not in a particular order).
• Inner wheel = four adjectives per domain, describing it more fully.
• A 1–5 numeric score will be assigned per domain.
• Instruction while listening: “notice how you feel in your body while I describe each.”

2.3 Domain — Sexuality

• Not the act of sex (that can be included) but your life force, aliveness — what makes you feel “turned on, passionate, activated, inspired, colorful.”

2.4 Domain — Recreation

• Playfulness and creativity; the word literally means “to re-create.”
• Adults deprioritize it, or binge it after over-working. Hard to recreate ourselves/relationships without playfulness.

2.5 Domain — Friends, Family, and Community

• Inner-wheel adjectives include trust, connection, support, belonging — Clark later clarifies these are not a hierarchy; they interweave (“layer cakes”): hard to have connection without trust, hard to have trust without feeling you belong.

2.6 Domain — Physical & Mental Health

• Vibrancy and resilience that isn’t costing you something else; a sense of balance and movement.
• Aside: “the purpose of life is to be expressed / to be alive” — alive is not “stiff, stuck, or only in the head.” Without movement it’s hard to feel alive.

2.7 Domain — Money & Wealth

• Not the raw amount (each person has a different standard) but the level of generosity and whether you feel scarcity vs. abundance — abundance of life force and connection, not just money.

2.8 Domain — Spirituality & Personal Growth

• Self-awareness. Clark recalls a period of “no self-awareness at all,” just doing what she thought she “should,” believing it’s “better to give than receive” and that being self-centered = selfish = bad; she wanted to be “the good girl,” accepted and included.

2.9 Domain — Romantic Relationships

• Deliberately separate from sexuality. Some attendees are in one, some want to be and aren’t.
• More sexuality (life force) makes you more inwardly attractive — a “magnetism from the inside.” “Our eyes mislead us”; the real activation is an inner sense, which clarifies as self-awareness grows.

2.10 Domain — Career & Business

• Questions: Are you making the impact you want? Is your working level sustainable — “how long can you keep going like this?”
• Are you using your gifts? “Your gifts are directly connected to your magic and to your money.”

3. The Process — Phase by Phase

3.1 Scoring the domains

• Score each domain 1–5: 5 = “if this area were a plant, it would be thriving“; 1 = “significantly neglected.”
• Only works if you’re honest with yourself; transformation requires movement (“trans” = move from one state to another), which requires honesty and discomfort — “where people avoid.”
• Timed ~4 minutes, with music; instructions to keep breathing, notice resistance, and treat domains “like opening doors in the house we haven’t wanted to look in.”
• The exercise has “a start time and an end time,” so “just go all in.”

3.2 Debrief on scoring

• A key clarification (prompted by an attendee): score by how it feels to you, not by comparison to others.
  • Example: from the outside a life can look like a “five” (“I want your life”) while feeling like “a one or two” inside.
• Attendee shares during the debrief are enumerated below in section 5.

3.3 Picking a domain to work on

• Choose a domain scored 1 or 2 to work with for the rest of the workshop.
• If a “1” is too painful/triggering (makes you want to cry just thinking of it), work a “2” instead.

3.4 Dreaming phase

• Go into the dreaming / imagination, “not the adult who has it all figured out.”
• Prompt: if this area were completely transformed, what would be different? How would you feel? Write fast with a ”magical pen” on “magical paper”; don’t worry how it happens — only what you want.
• Timed ~5 minutes with music; recurring cues: “stay alive… get out of your head and into your body,” “stretch yourself more,” “we’re lucky if we get about [some] years of life.”

3.5 Debrief on dreaming

• Words volunteered from the room: empowering, fulfillment, healed, and one person noted guilt (“I could be there”).
• Clark’s reframe: ”There’s no good or bad — we’ll use all emotions as information”; introduces a “get-to” attitude (“what do I do now? Who do I want to be now?”).
• Body cue: shake to discharge energy, like animals that freeze then shake after escaping a predator.

3.6 Current reality phase

• Now look honestly (and compassionately) at the same domain. Write:
  • 3.6.1 What is the problem? — from your perspective; why is this area the way it is? “What’s the current code/programming running in your mind?”
  • 3.6.2 What stories are you telling? — about yourself, about other people (“it’s their fault”), and about the overall situation (“it’s hopeless, nobody gets it”). Write them “word for word, verbatim, so you can rewrite the code.”
  • 3.6.3 What is the cost? — what has keeping this a 1 or 2 cost you (friendship, connection, a promotion…)? Would it be okay at 80 years old to have carried this belief the whole way? “Did you leave something on the table?”
• Timed ~4.5 minutes with music/singing; cues to notice “the part of you that checks out — that’s also where you check out in your life.”

3.7 Debrief on current reality

• Attendee shares (see section 5). Clark’s key teaching here:
  • The coder analogy (elaborated): journaling is like AI reading your code to verify it and find the errors — you’re “evaluating your own code inside yourself”; if you don’t write it out, “the thoughts just loop around your head” and it never completes.
  • Model of mind: unconscious (no awareness), subconscious (a little awareness), conscious/known. Most hardwired beliefs live in the unconscious/subconscious; journaling without editing is how you reach them, “because the mind edits.”
  • Much of our “operating system” was written by our 5-year-old self, who made survival decisions without conscious thought.
  • The repeating-pattern insight: the part that “keeps finding the same kind of partner” wants a “corrective experience” / a do-over (“if this person chooses me, maybe I’m lovable”). ”You are the one who has the power to write the code now.”

3.8 Create a new reality phase

• Prompt: What do I want to believe now? Stories = beliefs (the reason Clark had you write your stories).
• Make the new belief realistic for today (“I believe I can change / can make more connection / can start my business”), plus a bigger belief for eventually — “you can’t trick yourself” with something you don’t yet believe.
  • Worked example: wanting marriage while not dating for 3 years → believe instead “I can start getting out there more… believe there’s something attractive about me and that somebody would love me as I am.”
• Also write one action to take within the next 24 hours, and whose help you might need (many people, Clark included, don’t ask for help).
• Timed ~3 minutes with music; “plant new seeds with intentionality.”

3.9 Debrief on new reality

• Attendee shares (section 5). Clark’s teaching:
  • Confidence = “confide” (Latin, “with fidelity / with trust”) → trusting yourself → loving yourself → showing up more → becoming more magnetic/attractive because you stop hiding.
  • Nature analogy: flowers and trees “just want to grow and be exactly what they’re designed to be — we’re the only ones who edit our own growth.”
  • Distinguishes this from manifestation: “you have the power to rewrite your narrative / code / belief system”; feeling more alive and vibrant is where “more things open up.”
  • On long-term constraints (an attendee’s 4-year university commitment): some choices are irreversible, but “open up the aperture” and ask ”what else is possible that I haven’t yet considered?” Don’t reason only from the head — “open up your body to open up other possibilities” (“we had dinosaurs on this planet — anything is possible”).

3.10 Small-group “waterfall” share

• “The edgy thing”: form pods of three or four, face each other, physically move seats.
• Each person shares in turn (~1.5 min each): the domain they’re transforming; who they imagine they’ll be and how life will be once transformed; the action they’ll take within 24 hours; and what help they need.
• Listen in full presence; don’t plan what you’ll say.

4. Closing

4.1 Debrief on the group share

• Words from the room: vulnerable, very natural, connection, intimate/intimacy.
• Connection came from “being honest and listening carefully and attentively” — “the key to creating connection.”
• Clark reframes intimacy as ”into-me-see” — allowing yourself to be seen, which requires vulnerability, so you can “be met in a different way.”

4.2 Final takeaways and logistics

• Attendees have a QR code to download the eight domains with more info on each.
• Next step: work one domain at a time, “let that plant grow,” then move to the next; keep asking “what is my desire?”
• Closing charge: “You get to rewrite the code, rewrite the program — it’s up to you, every single day… connect to your desire, your passion, your liveliness, and go live the best life you can, because you get to — you’re not stuck with the stories you told yourself when you were 5 years old.”
• The MC thanks ”Veronica,” notes he “almost felt like I could cry,” and announces a book signing at 3:45 (in ~25 minutes) in the sponsor arena next to the Craft Hub booth in the main building.

5. Notable Attendee Shares (across the debriefs)

5.1 On scoring vs. comparison

• One attendee rated Recreation a 4, then thought “compared to others it’s probably a 5” — prompting Clark’s “score by feeling, not comparison” clarification.
• Another compared today’s scores to what they’d have given a year or two ago — to see their growth.

5.2 On the wheel feeling personal

• An attendee felt it was “very personal” and became “a little protective” — “you’ve described a person layer by layer.”
• The same person over-analyzed Friends/Family/Community by ranking trust/connection/support/belonging individually (family 5, friends 3, community 3); Clark clarifies one score per domain.

5.3 On current reality

• “Good to imagine a possible future.”
• “I started with one area, but it applies to all the categories — my excuses, my trauma, being stuck affects all aspects.” → Clark’s ”tentacles/roots” interconnection point.
• “I feel safe in a dissatisfying situation just because it’s known/familiar; the difference is unknown, and I’m afraid.” → “we imagine it’s safe, but what does it cost to tolerate it?”
• “A reality check — we’re in our comfort zone, lazy to take a call; things are interconnected and trigger other things; I have to pull myself up.”
• One attendee already does stream-of-consciousness journaling and finds it “amazing… the thoughts get connected as I’m writing,” and rereading notes days later is “pretty cool.”

5.4 The “we’re not lazy” pushback

• An attendee disagreed with others calling themselves “lazy”: “we’re all doing the best we can with the resources we have… it takes courage and inner strength to look at what’s hurting — we’re not born ready for that.”
• Clark agrees, adding that sometimes we avoid the work because “it’s not comfortable and we don’t know if it’ll work.”

5.5 On the new-reality phase

• “Simple” — and gave clarity; a daily meditator related to it.
• The cricket coach story: an attendee plays cricket in Norway (“I’m not only a coder, but more than that”); before every match the team writes in a diary “I am making more runs / taking more wickets / winning this match” — a “manifestation practice” led online by a coach in India. Clark maps this to “the same principles applied to creating a new reality for yourself.”
• “I collected actionable items — I see the next step, not the mountain.” (Clark loves this phrase.)
• “Difficult, scary, even painful — I’m good at criticizing and seeing what looks/sounds good, including toward myself, but I’m lazy to change.” Clark offers a private follow-up “process.”

5.6 On the group share

• “For some reason I imagine other people are very judgmental, but I never am — I imagine people are the opposite of me. But people are okay, actually.” → Clark celebrates identifying a belief and getting to disconfirm it in the pod.
• “When you voice problems out loud you realize they’re not that big a deal, others help find solutions, and it becomes smaller and less scary.”
• Yurek (an Indian attendee): “We software engineers are more than geeks and nerds… everyone is going through some phase… become water and keep flowing”; meeting two friends felt “extremely safe” — and that safety-to-share is a big part of teamwork in coding/programming. “You are much more than that — larger than life.”

People & References Cited

• Veronica Lynn Clark — workshop facilitator; author (book signing announced); creator of the Eight Desires wheel (2009).
• The MC / host — brought the mics, announced the book signing, thanked “Veronica.”
• Attendees quoted — including ”Miklos” (identified stories as beliefs) and ”Yurek” (the “become water” / teamwork share), plus the cricket-in-Norway coder.
• Concepts / frames: the eight life domains (Sexuality, Recreation, Friends/Family/Community, Physical & Mental Health, Money & Wealth, Spirituality & Personal Growth, Romantic Relationships, Career & Business); the 1–5 plant-scoring; unconscious/subconscious/conscious mind model; “corrective experience”; “confidence = confide”; “intimacy = into-me-see”; the “get-to” attitude; “see the next step, not the mountain.”
• Events/places: Craft Hub booth, sponsor arena, main building (book signing venue).

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8WIWMlbwPA — Transcript via yt-transcript.sh; outline generated from the transcript.