Pleasure

All right. I'm Brett Kistler. I'm here today with Joe Hudson.

Hey Brett. Good to see you.

Yeah, you too. And this is The Art of Accomplishment where we explore living the life you want with enjoyment and ease. And today we're going to talk about something that a lot of us spend a lot of our lives chasing. And also in many subtle ways throughout our lives, we, we push it away because it's really intense and, and that is pleasure.

I'm looking forward to this one. This is good.

Yeah. Yeah. What, what makes pleasure interesting to talk about?

I remember early on in my journey, I was reading Thích Nhất Hạnh and Thích Nhất Hạnh was talking about doing the dishes and how pleasurable doing the dishes was. And I hated doing the dishes. I like, it was like the, you know, everybody has that one chore you don't wanna do. I have maybe several chores I don't wanna do, but the, oh yeah. One of them, uh, one of them was doing the dishes and you described this thing as like, oh, it's warm water, it's soapy, it's like this really enjoyable experience. And so I went and did the dishes that way and I was like, oh wow, this is incredibly pleasurable if I allow it to be. And then I kind of realized what that, that's all of life is incredibly pleasurable if I allow it to be. And so I started experimenting with pleasure. A lot. And, and I have continued to learn a tremendous amount about pleasure through the years. Like, even last year, next, next year, I assume I'm going to learn a lot about it. But I remember just experimenting and saying, how much pleasure can I extract from life? And the amazing thing about it was that it wasn't what I thought it was going to be, right? I thought it was going to be like having sex all the time or something, right? Like I would be chasing pleasure like I'd be doing heroin or something like that. But if you're really chasing pleasure, it can't be something that you get when you do X, Y, and Z, cuz you can't do X, Y, and Z all the time. If you're really chasing pleasure, it has to be able to be extracted from any given moment, any moment there. It's like, oh, where's the pleasure in this moment? And so that's what ended up happening. It was just like, oh, how do I take pleasure in this breath? How do I take pleasure in doing the dishes? How do I take pleasure in this walk? And when I did this for, I did this for several weeks and when I did this, what happened was I just started feeling safer. Like that kind of constant tracking, that constant anxiety, that funny feeling in the back of my head that something's wrong just started dissipating. And you know, there's all sorts of studies that show that, you know, we learn faster if we're not anxious, that we, You know, I know for a fact that like if people are anxiously attached, that they're pushing people away. And if you're not anxious and you're just like open to it, connection, attachment, like more of it comes, a better quality of it comes. So there's all sorts of benefits that come with, with having a nervous system that feels very much in tuned and, and not anxious for the next attack. And that really comes from pleasure, cuz pleasure is really, if you're, if you're relaxed, it's an incredibly pleasurable state. We've all had that moment being on the beach, sitting back, sun's shining, and that soft wind is going through and you're like, ah, and you just feel that like gentle pleasure in life. And that's something that tells us, oh, ah, everything is good. And so if you cultivate that pleasure, life starts becoming more and more everything is good.

Yeah. Something that's really interesting to me about what you just said is this might even be sort of a definition of pleasure in some sense, which is that you went from a place of thinking that it was something you had to get to something that you would notice in any moment. So there was something less active and more receptive in it, or something less graspy or outcome-based towards feeling a certain way and more towards recognizing what's there. And I'm curious to what extent it's actually that change that creates the safety in the system and increases as a result the experience of pleasure.

Yeah, I can't tell you what, like, what's the chicken and what's the egg. It's a great question. I think that, but what I can say is the definition for pleasure that I, that I like the most was Lowen's pleasure, which I'm going to loosely say here, which was noticing the sensations in your body moving, noticing the movement of the sensations in your body. And it, and that's what it is like. It is just no, like everybody right now who's listening to this podcast, can feel the sensations in your body. Maybe it's like the way your ears are hearing this sound that's coming through the podcast, or the way your breath is moving in and out of your nose, or just, you know, the feelings in your internal world having movement inside the body, having movement. That's, that's pleasure. And, and it's like, it's no more complicated than that. It's just that. And so I don't know if it's you know, the noticing of that that creates the safety, or if it's the actual experience of pleasure that creates the safety. But all I know is that there's just a tremendous amount of safety and, and trust and faith. Like, all those things seem to come with the experience of pleasure.

Yeah, what, what I really love about that is, you know, the, the Lowen's definition of, you know, pleasure being the the noticing of the sensations moving in the body, there's not a valence or a like positive or negative associated with any of those sensations. And so there's something that like meditators might be familiar with as like awareness, actual feeling, and equanimity, but not equanimity in a doesn't matter way, but equanimity in a like, oh, this is enjoyable. The whatever is happening for right now, can feel good. And I don't need to go out there and do anything to make that happen. It just can be here with me.

Yeah, that's right. That's right. There's— there it is. Not managing the sensations of your body is pleasure. It's noticing the sensations of your body that creates pleasure. And that's— and it's, it's like this incredibly simple thing. And I remember, like, after like noticing the, for the first time, um, when Thích Nhất Hạnh had, you know, written somewhere about doing the dishes and how enjoyable doing the dishes or how much pleasure you could have in doing the dishes. And I did it. I remember thinking, whoa, whoa, wait, wait, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I, this all the time. I can have this all the time. I can have this in my breath. I can have this in the way that I move. I can have pleasure all the time. And that one blew me away, especially because shortly thereafter I forgot all about it. And it was like a month later, I'm like, wait a second, what the fuck just happened? Like, a month ago I realized that I could be in pleasure all the time, and now it's a month later and I did it like once. Like, what, what, what was that? You know? And that was an amazing thing to see, because when you really grok it, you're like, oh, this is available all the time. And so now there's no need to chase it. It's just always here. And yet somehow, you know, what happened in my journey was somehow I was like, why am I avoiding this? Because it's the only option. It's the only option. You're avoiding it. Once you realize you can have it anytime, it's an avoidance.

Yeah, so what makes people avoid it? And I'm noticing that for you, there was a time prior to this recognition that you weren't aware. That there was pleasure available. On some level, maybe you were, but you're consciously— you weren't. And I'm curious of two things. One, how does that happen to us? Is that socially conditioned? Is that family conditioned? Or is it just something we might eventually develop a deeper capacity for than we had previously? And then the second question is, once you had the recognition, what, what makes the avoidance come back? What, what would make it be avoided? What has people avoid feeling pleasure.

Yeah, I think pleasure, a lot like joy, it's if you're not feeling all this, if you have a lot of stuck emotions, then, then that's where your situation goes. Like, if, you know, your body is— mind state, personhood is trying to get back to equilibrium. And if you have a whole bunch of stuck emotions, then it's very hard for the body to do anything besides like try to process and get through those emotions. And if you're not feeling the emotions, if you're not allowing those emotions to move, then you're like kind of trapped in these cycles of constant self-abuse or shame or guilt or whatever, judgment all the time. And, and so I think that's, that's part of it. It's why we don't experience the pleasure. Right? And it's also somewhat why we fall back, because what I've noticed is the more that I have emotional fluidity, the more the pleasure just seems to be the natural state of things. There's just more enjoyment and pleasure, joy, that whole thing. And so I think that's part of it. Also, it's really intense. You know, yesterday we were doing, uh, the people in the year-long program, I did a Rapid Coaching with some folks, and there was multiple people that, you know, they're, they're like long enough in the program now where they're starting to feel like this tremendous joy. And it's scary. And there's nobody I know who started hitting that, like, joy and pleasure, peace— they are distinct— but where they don't get scared. You know, the experience of pleasure is incredibly expansive. It's like, and when it's so big that it's hard to exist inside of it. That's, I know that's such a weird way to say it, but the felt sense, that's exactly what's happening. Like if you allow pleasure in, in this very deep way, it is so expansive. It's like your perimeter, who you are, like your solid boundary starts dissolving.

Beyond the reach of the government in the mind of the self.

Right, exactly. And so that's very scary because it's like, well, where am I going and how big is this? And yeah, somebody said yesterday while they were working through this, they were saying, it feels like I'm falling. And I said, oh, you know, it never ends. And I was like, what do you call falling that never ends? And she was like flying, being held, like she had all these different words that would, and, but, but what happens is it just feels like falling until you, you know, until you get used to it. And so that's, it's actually part of the reason why embracing intensity is so important for this work. It's not the intensity of only the intensity of, let's say, pain or anger or sadness. It's the intensity of pleasure, which I find to be far more intense. Then, then the, uh, you know, the intensity of joy, the intensity of peace can be far more intense than the intensity of rage. Or, and you lose control in it, you, you know, you, you lose yourself in it to some degree. And that's very scary for people. I mean, ask any person who's had like trouble having an orgasm, you know, at a like sexual orgasm. Like you, we've all met someone who's like I can't do it unless everything is just right, and I feel like I lose control, etc., etc. Like, this is a very similar thing that happens, except for the orgasm is just life itself.

Yeah. And something I notice here is that a common misconception, or maybe just a conception—no one's definition is wrong—is like pleasure being something distinct from sadness, anger, other emotions. And in, in this this definition we've been using, it is actually all of those emotions being noticed, experienced, and allowed to move and not managed. And so I think one, one of the things that you're pointing to here is that pleasure, when allowed, will also— if you have other stuck emotions, other stuff that you haven't been feeling, that will come up with it. Because to be in the state of non-managed pleasure is to allow all that is there to move. And, you know, this is why if we're, if we're going to talk about an orgasm, sometimes a really big orgasm will leave somebody feeling a lot of emotions. They'll be like screaming, but suddenly there may be a little anger in it, or maybe like cry after. So I, it seems like the movement or the ex— really rather the experience of pleasure involves the movement of whatever's there. And with that can come a lot of what we don't— of what we're traditionally used to managing. And so in managing that, we're managing away the pleasure that comes with it.

Yeah, agreed. I think, you know, something like love does that a little bit more. Like if we really start loving ourselves, that like that emotional fluidity comes a little bit more than pleasure, but it absolutely comes. It actually, it absolutely allows the space for that to happen. And absolutely, man, there is so much pleasure to be had in getting angry. There's so much pleasure to be had in being scared. There's so much pleasure to be had in being sad. And, and, and grieving. And, and it really changes the way that, like, all those sensations happen if you're enjoying them and, and, and taking, like, deep pleasure in anger or sadness or fear. There's just a, like, oh wow, this is amazing. And it just changes everything in it. So yeah, I totally agree. And I think it's really important to note that pleasure— there's no moment when sensations aren't moving through your body. So there's no moment you don't, you can't notice them. And therefore there's no moment where pleasure isn't available.

Yeah, that puts an interesting lens on some of the work that we do as well, where, you know, an anger release or any kind of emotional release that we do, it's— a lot of it is designed so that you can have the experience without creating shame or guilt or self-judgment, and maybe even noticing where that's happening and seeing that it's not necessary, also that you get to experience the pleasure in the emotion, the pleasure that's always been available in it. And as that, as your system learns that, then the emotions become more fluid.

Yes, that's right. That's, uh, that's exactly how it works. Yeah. Um, you know, it's funny though, because when we, when we're doing the emotional releases, we usually don't say, okay, everybody take pleasure in the anger, right? But instead, it seems like it works a little bit better. It's like, get angry, get really angry, and then eventually they notice the pleasure in it. Like right now, like, as you've seen in Masterclass, there's all these pictures of people after their anger release taking pictures of the way the world looks, right, and how they feel, and like their smiles and their contentment after moving anger. And it's like, if you see those pictures, it's like they all represent pleasure. And but, but it's, it's interesting, in the emotional releases, what I find is that it's important to just go all the way towards the emotional release without shame. And then in that, the pleasure is found, rather than to say, do the anger release with pleasure. So it's an interesting, you know, it's more of a discovery. It works better if people use it as a discovery because what I notice is people say, "I need to do anger with pleasure," their whole system gets confused and then they like find ways to bow out of the anger. Yeah.

And I think that kind of uncovers just a common limiting belief in that avoidance, which is that this can't be pleasurable or that can't be pleasurable. Right. And we're going to have that belief until we, until we collect enough evidence that that's not the case.

Yeah.

But that points to where this pattern might come from, where like, where would we develop a belief that certain emotions that we feel can't be pleasurable and that if we're feeling it, we need to feel shame or judge ourselves or you know, not be seen, protect ourselves from, from it being seen.

Yeah, I mean, that if, if we're punished as kids, you know, obviously if we're punished for an emotion or rejected for an emotion or love is removed because we're having an emotion, that's gonna to take away the pleasure of that experience. And the amazing thing, there are definitely things I like— I'm pretty confident if I was physically tortured, I wouldn't be able to take pleasure in it though. I know there's definitely people who take pleasure in BDSM or something, so I know that there's even some capacity there. But as we're talking about it, one of the things I notice is that I don't want pleasure to become a morality or a lot of people when they listen to this, they might take things into an extreme and say, "Oh, I have to feel pleasure all the time," or really, you couldn't take pleasure in XY, a nuclear bomb goes off, there's no pleasure in that. And so I would just say to anybody listening, let go of the extremes and just see how deep the rabbit hole goes. You know what I mean? Just take some moments here and there and see, oh, can I find pleasure in this? Can I find pleasure in this? By noticing the sensations moving. I think I just note that because I think it's really important that it doesn't become like I am supposed to feel pleasure because by the way, that'll chase all the pleasure right out of the out of the situation that you're in. And as far as your question goes, absolutely. If we are told that we are bad for something, and as kids, we think we're bad because love is removed, we think we're bad because we don't get attention, we think we're bad because we get punished, we get shamed. There's lots of things that make us think that we're bad. Those are the places where pleasure is going to be hard to find in those areas in particular, and enough of that pleasure is just going to be hard to find generally even though it's happening always.

Yeah, one thing that I noticed there is that it can be, but it doesn't have to be that the pleasure itself is the thing that's not allowed. If anger is not allowed, then pleasure is diminished. Then you still develop that the limiting belief, well, if anger is going to get me attacked, if my anger is not okay, then I can't feel that. So there's some sensation that could be moving in my body that I could enjoy, but I now decide I can't. And so pleasure is limited by other emotions being limited. So, so a parent out here could be like, well, nobody would ever shame their kids for having pleasure, though that does sometimes happen. But that doesn't even have to be the thing that's happening for pleasure to be diminished. Correct. That's— yeah, that's a beautiful pointer.

And yes, I mean, obviously there are some parents who'd like any kind of sexual pleasure, they're gonna, they're gonna chastise or guilt the kid, you know, masturbation or whatever, that's all gonna happen. But if you just think about like you're having dinner with a 7-year-old and the 7-year-old just starts finding like a tremendous amount of pleasure in eating the food. Oh my God, Mom, this is so good. Oh, oh my God, these french fries are so— oh, oh, oh, the salt on these french fries. Like, you can just— I, I don't know too many parents who wouldn't start getting annoyed, you know? Like, we're at the Denny's, relax, kid.

Um, I mean, this reminds me of just any, you know, some meals with Tara.

Exactly. Yeah, I was about to say it. So perfect example. So we're out, we're out with Tara, uh, So my daughter and her boyfriend are going to meet us for dinner. It's like the first time. And I order these bacon-wrapped goat cheese dates or something. I don't like goat cheese. The kids did not like these things. And so they were sitting on the table and Tara arrived and she started eating them and she started doing that, which is how Tara eats. She's like, oh, the— oh, these are— and we're in like a kind of fancy restaurant, you know, first meeting. And like, she's like making like all this noise and The new boyfriend leans over to Esme and goes, "Now I know why I can't embarrass you," right? Which is natural for us to go, "Oh, that level of pleasure in public is embarrassing." And so it is not something that is societally acceptable. Oddly, we might even be more comfortable if we were walking down the side of the road and there's a homeless person who's yelling, "God damn it, the government's in my head," as compared to like a homeless person like laying down writhing in pleasure. Like, like which one's going to make us more uncomfortable or maybe even equally uncomfortable? So it is an interesting thing, just how, how much pleasure can be. And I see it all the time, like we do, you know, we'll do anger releases and when we do some of our live work, it'll be like, okay, here's the anger release. And then we'll often do pleasure right after that. And you'll see people do anger for 45, 50 minutes, like, da da da da da da. And then we're like, okay, pleasure. And like, well, they'll get into it in 5 minutes later, everybody has to be reminded like, hey, wait, we're still doing pleasure. Playin' rope, more pleasure. Like, it's like, it's actually harder for people to maintain they exist, like feeling pleasure in their system.

Yeah, something that's interesting about the, the example you just gave of, you know, the, the person on the streets like in anger, or the one writhing in pleasure, or Tara, your wife, or the kid at the table, somebody who's just like in deep grief. The, the thought that might occur to somebody who's uncomfortable with that scenario is, wow, this person's out of control.

Yeah, that's, that's what's actually happening. You're actually allowing the food to fully hit you instead of controlling the hit. You're letting life— like, that's an interesting way to think about pleasure, is like, pleasure is like letting life fully hit you. It's a very alive feeling. It's, you know, it's like, and, and when you let it fully hit you, like, it, it kind of— there's a sensation of it taking over. But the interesting thing is it's such a powerful tool. If you like, it changes, you know, we have a lot of people do gratitude practices and like you, you're there now. There's like people on Twitter and all talking about how these gratitude practices are changing their lives and, and how the way we do it is slightly differently than a lot of gratitude practices, that it's not just a head thing, it's a full body sport. It's a, it's a somatic experience. It's. And part of the reason that it's so powerful is because of the pleasure that happens in those moments. And it, and it's also, if you just do a pleasure exercise for 10 minutes a day, it also really, it can really change your experience really quickly, which is the amazing thing. The, the important part, if you're doing that exercise, however, is that like pleasure can't become a goal or something you're supposed to do or have to do. It's, it's like, it's more of a like a noticing or receiving or getting to do, because it's just a lot less pleasurable, if pleasurable at all, if it becomes a have to or a should or a trying or anything like that.

Yeah, and that, that's something you see also. And there's, there's a lot of practices, you know, there's like Tantra, for example. There's a way that Tantra can be something people experience as like, I'm allowing the pleasure. And there's also some people, some ways that people can get on that path and they're like, Oh, pleasure is the goal. This is the thing. This is what I will now conspicuously demonstrate to show my progress. And so not to call out any tantra people here, because that's just an example that it can happen in our work too. And does happen in our work. Yeah. Yeah. And even with any emotion, you can have like a conspicuous, oh, you know what, my anger is okay. I'm gonna let my anger be okay. But like, kind of actually doing that to avoid really feeling something. And so I'm curious about the pitfalls here. If someone were to take this message and be like, "Oh yeah, you know what? My pleasure is lovely, my pleasure is wonderful." What are some of the ways that that might end up getting steered in a direction of avoidance subtly?

Yeah, yeah. If it becomes something that you start reaching for, that's pretty much the easiest way. If it's something that you're like, oh yeah, I get to feel pleasure now, great, as compared to, okay, I'm reaching for, I'm defining myself by, I'm like, if there's any kind of hunger in getting the pleasure, then that usually is a clear sign that it's become either avoidant or, or you're pushing the pleasure away, which is kind of avoidance also kind of pushes the pleasure away. Like you might get like the bodily sensation of pleasure a little bit, but you're not getting the, that felt sense of safety that comes with pleasure because it has to be chased, right? So that it's not safe if you have to go find it, right? Safety is like, oh, it's— that's— this is the way it is. That, that's what creates the safety, not like, oh, if I— once I do this, then I'll get— you know, that, that is, that is the anxiety. And so I think that's the biggest, that's the biggest tell is that is just if you're chasing it. Um, and the other place that I would just be a little bit— I'd be real a little bit careful is if it's— if like there's a way that you can do pleasure where it's, it's like it detracts from the other emotional experiences instead of amplifies the other emotional experiences. And that's another way that you can see that there's some avoidance going on, or that pleasure is not being used as a way to feel more alive. It's being used as a way to avoid the full aliveness of your full emotional experience. As an example, it's like if someone's like getting angry at their mom, and they're like, okay, I'm going to go to pleasure to like not have the anger. And rather than, oh, I'm feeling anger at my mom. Oh, this is a pleasurable experience. This is— oh, cool. Like, yeah, look at that. Like, yeah, I have a boundary. Yeah. Oh, I'm gonna draw this boundary and it's gonna like send these like shockwaves of fear that my mom might abandon me. Let's see how that feels. That could be really pleasurable. Like, then that's a different deal.

Yeah, just, just following along with that emotional journey you just carved out, or you just laid out. I, my system went from the like angry at my mom and not like something's bad about it, and I'm like leaving myself and in her, which leads like more likely to be an attack, to, oh yeah, my— I get to have a boundary. And then like, I, I experienced that as coming back into my body, and from that place, it's less about the other person and more about what I need, which is far less likely to result in me taking a defensive action that's received as attack.

Yeah, I've never thought about it that way. That's it. Yeah, it's— that's exactly right. Yeah, when we talk about like asking for your wants, you can do it in a way that's going to be more likely to be attacked. And if, you know, drawing a boundary, there's a way of doing it that's more likely to be attacked. And there's even getting scared, there's a way that you're more likely going to get attacked. And it's an interesting thing, right? If you're actually having pleasure in it, then you're in your body, and then you're not trying to manage the result of it and therefore less likely to be attacked.

Yeah, I think there's a distinction there between the pleasure and like some kind of ego gratification, because, you know, somebody could be like sadistically enjoying being angry, and that's different from the definition of the noticing of sensations moving in the body.

I have a relative who every time they shop and buy something expensive, they get this kind of like Teehee, teehee, look at what I bought. And it looks like pleasure, but it's really shame. Hmm. Like you, like you, if you feel their system, they've cut off the way their gut feels. And so it's like, it is like the pleasure of like eating something that you're not supposed to eat that tastes really good, but you know, it's going to make you feel like shit in a, like in 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 minutes. It's, it's like, it's like what I think what would be called like a guilty pleasure, right? It's like, that's not the pleasure I'm talking about. Like the, and that's the interesting thing. If you really fill your life with the pleasure of just breathing and the pleasure of just being in your body, the pleasure of just, you know, doing the dishes, then the guilty pleasures become Eh, eh, okay. Yeah, great. I bought this thing, but I could do the dishes. Yeah. You know, I can have the Lamborghini or I could just like breathe deeply and feel better than most people who have a Lamborghini. So that's an interesting— so actually what happens if you're feeling the real pleasure of just aliveness, then these guilty pleasures become. And the guilty pleasure is like, it's like having the pleasure of something, but it's also like putting shame next to the pleasure. And I think that generally that happens naturally. And I don't, as we, I would like to actually unpack this and think about this for a minute because, you know, there's a tremendous amount of people who get taught that pleasure is shameful. So you— there's shame put on sex, there's shame put on like shop buying something good for yourself. There's like all these ways in which like we get shamed for having pleasure. And I— and my experience of this, and I haven't thought this through entirely, um, but my experience of this is that that pleasure is feeling— you feel like this very deep aliveness. It's very expansive. It's very— you lose yourself and that scares people. And so they need to like put shame in with it. And so it's not unlike we have this story that I've told many times about if there's a kid crying on a plane, I can stand up, look at everybody on the plane. I can tell you who wasn't allowed to cry as a kid, right? Because crying overwhelmed their parents. And so they were shamed in the crying. Well, pleasure is, you know, far more a loss of self than crying. And so I think a lot of people go, oop, and then they throw the shame in. And interestingly, yesterday I was working with somebody on exactly this issue. It was, they were using shame as a way to not see that their life was great. And the story is wonderful. It's a wonderful story. So This person was telling me how ashamed they were of the fact that they had this golden opportunity job, this wonderful job, a head of product for this company, and they got involved in a woman and they kind of let the job slide and they got fired. And they're like, this is, you know, just like, they were just so ashamed and like beating themselves up for this thing. And I was talking to them, I was like, okay, so let me just understand. So after you got fired, you started your own app that's now making $150,000 a week. Why are you not fucking stoked that you got fired? How is that not the best choice that you ever made? Like, how is it that you're beating yourself up for the thing that allows you to be independent and financially— like, what the fuck, right? And like, and, and in that noticing, and he— oh, so that all the shame was doing was preventing him from feeling how good life was. Because as soon as he saw that, he started laughing and smiling. And it just shows that the shame was all designed to stop that emotional experience from happening of feeling alive and the pleasure of what had happened. And that, just by the way, that is with everybody. Somebody be like, there's no way that I would ever feel bullshit. Everybody does. Everybody beats themselves up for something that if they like draw the line out of into the future, has made something great in their life happen today. Every single person is like, "Ah, I shouldn't have done this thing 3 years ago. I feel shame for the thing 3 years ago." But if they look at their life right now, they can say, "Oh, that shit wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for that." But they still feel ashamed of the thing from 3 years ago. It's an amazing thing.

Yeah. Something that's been kind of bubbling up for me now has been how It seems that the pleasures that we won't allow ourselves become the things that we actually become fixated on. Correct. And for example, you were talking about the Lamborghini earlier. And you might talk about seeing a beautiful member of the opposite sex or same sex, whatever you're attracted to, who is not your partner and you have a commitment and agreements and you're like, I'm not allowed to be attracted to that person. Or you can be like, oh yeah, I can absolutely just let myself speed around that entire path of what would it be like if I followed that pleasure? What'd it be like if I got the Lamborghini? And I'm like, okay, cool, I got the Lamborghini. I could have actually gotten this pleasure from the dishes. And if the pleasure is available either way, then it distills down to what do I actually want? And the long-termism in that can be present with me. Like, what do I really deeply want? Not just what's going to gratify a thing that I haven't been allowing myself to even feel in a simulated way, or that I wouldn't allow myself. And so some part of me is always fixated on going there. I think a lot of times people take pleasure, or kind of what we've been talking about, like, "Ooh," kind of pleasure in any kind of boundary-breaking experience for themselves. Anywhere they wouldn't let themselves go, they're kind of fixated on. And that's an interesting phenomenon for us to have, to be drawn towards what we won't allow ourselves, almost as though there's just this intelligence in us that wants us to expand until we would allow ourselves whatever is best for us. And then, only then, could we know that we're on a path that is actually right for us and stay connected with ourselves in it.

Yeah, so I think this is the thing that scares people about pleasure. I've had this with, um, a couple clients where what happens is they're like, I'm scared to allow myself to feel pleasure because then I am going to like cheat on my husband, then I am going to like buy the car that I want, I've always wanted, but that it would be financially irresponsible for me to buy. Then I'm going to, then I'm going to, like, I'm going to be this evil thing if I actually allow myself to feel pleasure, because then I'm going to, you know, go after all these pleasurable things. And hey, that's not how it works. It's exactly, we do those things because we disallow them, because we're like, because they become kinky, because they become shameful, because, and we're addicted to that cycle. But also, it doesn't actually require you to do the things, meaning Just, it's just like, so you feel sexually aroused towards somebody who's not your partner and they're walking down the street, you feel sexually aroused for them. Most of us will just stop that sexual arousal. Oh no, I'm not allowed to feel that. And they'll stop it. You can just feel it. Yeah, look at that, I'm totally feeling it. And, and you'll just notice, like, everybody can try this. Fully feel it. Don't— it's not a fantasize, so it's not you're fantasizing over what's going to happen next and I'm going to— that's a different thing. But you're just going to fully feel that sexual arousal in the moment. And then, like, you'll notice you're not fixated on it anymore. It just, like, comes and it goes. It's, it's literally when we feel that arousal and we cut it that the fixation starts happening, like, oh no, I'm not allowed to. And then that's where we actually— that's where that behavior drives towards the thing that is destructive for us.

Yeah, we push the we push that desire or that, that impulse down and then of course it's going to rebel. Yeah. It's going to try to squeak out another way.

Exactly. That's okay.

Well, if I, if I couldn't have my pleasure there, then I'm going to later at night when I'm like going to bed or something and I'm tired and my dopamine is a little low, then I'll be attracted to porn or something. Right. Exactly. That's just another way of not getting what I want, not feeling the pleasure.

Right. I think that it's a good thing just to say that, that how many people are really scared of pleasure for that reason. It's like, I'm not allowed to, you know, the interesting thing is all you have to do as a kid is feel good and be punished for pleasure to start being really scary. Something about the human system, what I've noticed is getting punished when you don't feel good is just easier on the system than getting punished when you feel really good. Like having something really good taken from us is harder than, right? So if a kid feels bad about what they've done and you're like, yeah, that was bad, it's useless. Granted, it's like it doesn't help because then you're like, they're already listening to how bad they feel. But somehow or another they're like, ah, yeah. But we can all think back to our childhood, at least most of us can think back to our childhood. I was like, but I was good, I was doing the right thing and I got punished. And it's like there's a, there's like a, there's a sting to that that's different. There's like a, oh, what the fuck? And, and, and I, and I think that that's probably also part of the reason that we're so scared of pleasure, because the taking away of it is, is so hard on our system. It somehow stings more than, than, than getting punished for other stuff.

Neuroscientifically, we we experience the loss of something twice as much as we experience a gain. I'm not sure if that's quite the relevant piece here, but just the fact that we experience a loss so deeply, that loss of pleasure can be a really big hit. Yeah.

And especially because pleasure is so high and a loss is so the other side of it, that contrast sticks in our minds. Yeah. But then this interesting thing happens as you start doing a pleasure practice, you're like, "Oh, it's available all the time." You can take it away from me for a couple minutes if you want. Like, you know what I mean? Like, it can be taken away for a couple minutes, but there it is again. I can have it. And then— and so there's something, you know, not logical about it, but there is something very human about it. And I think that's also probably part of the reason that you asked earlier what makes it that we stop doing pleasure. It's because it hurts so much when we lost it.

And then I'm reminded of your story with, with your daughter Esme, where, you know, she was she and her boyfriend at the end of high school were breaking up and they knew they were going to go in different locations and different colleges or whatever. And she's just in this heartbreak. And she's like, wow, I just never knew it could feel so good. So there is, you know, coming back to that, that definition without positive or negative valence of just the awareness and the noticing of the sensation moving in the body that even those experiences we have when pleasure is taken away, can themselves be deeply pleasurable in a different way when we relax our constraints or beliefs on what pleasure is supposed to be.

Yeah, you can't do it as a kid, but you can definitely see that as an adult. Yeah, as a kid it's just devastation, but yeah, exactly.

So I want to, I want to leave listeners with any, any kind of tips or tools or an experiment that they could run in their lives.

We have a guided audio for how to just like experience pleasure just sitting around. And, and so you can get that at view.life/experiments. And so that's, that's the easiest way to do it. And that'll kind of, you can walk, walk through it 3 or 4 times. And then after that, you can use it anywhere, anytime without the, without actually having to listen to it because you get it, you get this, the system really quickly of how to take pleasure in just the most simple things. But it's good to have that audio guidance the first couple times because what usually happens is people go, oh, that feels really good. Okay, now I'm off to—

so it's good just to have like, okay, we're gonna— some other pleasure that I'm actually pushing away. Yeah, exactly.

Now I'm off to produce some pleasure that I'm actually pushing away. That's what— lovely. Yeah. So it's just good to have somebody, you know, have the audio to hold you in it for a while. Yeah, it was somebody in MasterClass asked for it, so we produced it for them and just something we can make available to everybody. Thank you, Joe.

You're welcome. Thank you, Brett. And thank you everybody for listening to The Art of Accomplishment. If you want to hear more about how to welcome more pleasure into your life, you can go check out that That experiment, view.life/experiments, and you can also join our newsletter, or you can check out our courses at artofaccomplishment.com. If you enjoyed what you heard today, please share it with a friend and remember to follow us and rate us in your podcast app. The Art of Accomplishment was produced and hosted by myself, Brett Kistler, and Joe Hudson. Monyi Kelly is our production coordinator, and this episode was edited by On Replay.