Inner Revolution: The Pleasure Principle
by Dr. Lara Honos-Webb
It is your natural birthright to experience pleasure and to learn your life lessons through pleasure. Too many people have come to believe that you must suffer to learn life lessons and to grow. You might think that by suffering you are earning a badge of honor, building character, or paying your dues.
Give yourself permission to believe that you can learn important life lessons, pay your dues, build character, and give yourself a badge of honor through pleasure.
In my book, Listening to Depression: How Understanding Your Pain Can Heal Your Life, I describe depression as a wake up call to an inner revolution. You can overthrow the harsh, demanding and unrealistic demands on yourself and begin to let your life be guided by pleasure. This doesn’t mean you throw away your day job, but that slowly you begin to live your life by following what pleases you.
Right now you can connect to your bodily sense of pleasure. Have you ever been in an interview or formal situation and even though you were in an uncomfortable physical position you held yourself in that position? You may have held an uncomfortable physical position so as not to appear too fidgety or to avoid calling attention to yourself.
This can be a microcosm of how some people live their whole lives: restraining their natural impulses toward pleasure so as not to disturb others. This is the opposite of the pleasure principle.
Your physical body has a sense of what is comfortable and pleasurable. The pleasure principle generally drives your body to move, to be active, to rest and to be still at times. While you are listening to this, let yourself get in sync with your body’s pleasure principle.
Take a few deep breaths and focus on your body. Use your attention to do a full body scan and bring your attention back to the sensations in your body if you find your mind wandering. Your goal is to find your body’s impulse. What does your body want to do? How does it want to move? Move your body in whatever way feels good. Maybe you want to stretch. Maybe you’re tired and want to lay down. Maybe you are hyper and want to jump around. Let your body lead and do whatever it feels like doing. Take this time to follow the impulses of your body. Do not hold back if your body changes its tempo. Maybe at one minute your movements are flowing and soft and the next minute your movements are harsh and abrupt. This will give you practice in increasing your awareness of what feels pleasurable and in following that pleasure.
In your day to day life, it can be as simple as what you listen to in the car on the way to work. Do you listen to educational tapes because you want to put the time to good use when you would rather listen to pop music? Do you listen to your children’s music when you would rather listen to talk radio?
Start to make small changes. Maybe you decide to light candles and use your expensive china for eating breakfast. Maybe you will choose to listen to pop songs on the radio rather than the French language tapes. Make a small change and notice how that feels.
Cravings
One thing to be aware of is the difference between being guided by your pleasure and giving into a compulsive craving. For example, a recovering alcoholic should not mistake wanting a drink with being guided by their pleasure.
If you have a compulsive craving, you can still let it guide you in the following way. Ask yourself: “what is the state or feeling that my compulsive craving gives me?” Whatever that feeling is, that is what you need more of in your life. If you respond, “A glass of wine would give me a feeling of being silly and seeing the humor in my life” than give yourself permission to be silly and laugh.
Because of the cultural demands for performance and productivity it can be hard to just let yourself do nothing, or to do something fully that has no obvious reward. The Pleasure principle is that part of yourself that wants to just be, to enjoy life. The Pleasure principle is that part of yourself that understands that who you are is not dependent on what you do, what you have or how impressive your accomplishments are.
When each of my children was born, I would say to each “You don’t have to be anything or do anything. We just brought you here to show you how much we love you.”
Just Be It
Give yourself permission to mother and nurture yourself. Give yourself a break from unrelenting demands to prove yourself. If you can diminish the dominance of this need to prove yourself, you can gain access to the part of yourself that says the same thing to you I say to my children. You can shower yourself with love for just being. Give yourself permission to be an authority in your life. Instead of the Nike slogan, just do it, give yourself permission to just be it.
Dr. Lara Honos-Webb is a clinical psychologist in California and author of Listening to Depression: How Understanding Your Pain Can Heal Your Life, which was selected by Health as one of the best books of 2006, The Gift of ADHD, and The Gift of ADHD Activity Book. Her website is VisionarySoul.com.
by Dr. Lara Honos-Webb
It is your natural birthright to experience pleasure and to learn your life lessons through pleasure. Too many people have come to believe that you must suffer to learn life lessons and to grow. You might think that by suffering you are earning a badge of honor, building character, or paying your dues.
Give yourself permission to believe that you can learn important life lessons, pay your dues, build character, and give yourself a badge of honor through pleasure.
In my book, Listening to Depression: How Understanding Your Pain Can Heal Your Life, I describe depression as a wake up call to an inner revolution. You can overthrow the harsh, demanding and unrealistic demands on yourself and begin to let your life be guided by pleasure. This doesn’t mean you throw away your day job, but that slowly you begin to live your life by following what pleases you.
Right now you can connect to your bodily sense of pleasure. Have you ever been in an interview or formal situation and even though you were in an uncomfortable physical position you held yourself in that position? You may have held an uncomfortable physical position so as not to appear too fidgety or to avoid calling attention to yourself.
This can be a microcosm of how some people live their whole lives: restraining their natural impulses toward pleasure so as not to disturb others. This is the opposite of the pleasure principle.
Your physical body has a sense of what is comfortable and pleasurable. The pleasure principle generally drives your body to move, to be active, to rest and to be still at times. While you are listening to this, let yourself get in sync with your body’s pleasure principle.
Take a few deep breaths and focus on your body. Use your attention to do a full body scan and bring your attention back to the sensations in your body if you find your mind wandering. Your goal is to find your body’s impulse. What does your body want to do? How does it want to move? Move your body in whatever way feels good. Maybe you want to stretch. Maybe you’re tired and want to lay down. Maybe you are hyper and want to jump around. Let your body lead and do whatever it feels like doing. Take this time to follow the impulses of your body. Do not hold back if your body changes its tempo. Maybe at one minute your movements are flowing and soft and the next minute your movements are harsh and abrupt. This will give you practice in increasing your awareness of what feels pleasurable and in following that pleasure.
In your day to day life, it can be as simple as what you listen to in the car on the way to work. Do you listen to educational tapes because you want to put the time to good use when you would rather listen to pop music? Do you listen to your children’s music when you would rather listen to talk radio?
Start to make small changes. Maybe you decide to light candles and use your expensive china for eating breakfast. Maybe you will choose to listen to pop songs on the radio rather than the French language tapes. Make a small change and notice how that feels.
Cravings
One thing to be aware of is the difference between being guided by your pleasure and giving into a compulsive craving. For example, a recovering alcoholic should not mistake wanting a drink with being guided by their pleasure.
If you have a compulsive craving, you can still let it guide you in the following way. Ask yourself: “what is the state or feeling that my compulsive craving gives me?” Whatever that feeling is, that is what you need more of in your life. If you respond, “A glass of wine would give me a feeling of being silly and seeing the humor in my life” than give yourself permission to be silly and laugh.
Because of the cultural demands for performance and productivity it can be hard to just let yourself do nothing, or to do something fully that has no obvious reward. The Pleasure principle is that part of yourself that wants to just be, to enjoy life. The Pleasure principle is that part of yourself that understands that who you are is not dependent on what you do, what you have or how impressive your accomplishments are.
When each of my children was born, I would say to each “You don’t have to be anything or do anything. We just brought you here to show you how much we love you.”
Just Be It
Give yourself permission to mother and nurture yourself. Give yourself a break from unrelenting demands to prove yourself. If you can diminish the dominance of this need to prove yourself, you can gain access to the part of yourself that says the same thing to you I say to my children. You can shower yourself with love for just being. Give yourself permission to be an authority in your life. Instead of the Nike slogan, just do it, give yourself permission to just be it.
Dr. Lara Honos-Webb is a clinical psychologist in California and author of Listening to Depression: How Understanding Your Pain Can Heal Your Life, which was selected by Health as one of the best books of 2006, The Gift of ADHD, and The Gift of ADHD Activity Book. Her website is VisionarySoul.com.
