You’re right, maybe I just assumed you know what you like.
Especially during the individual sessions, I realize that the answer to the questions “What do you like? What makes you feel good?” is not that immediate.
Knowing yourself means understanding how we work, and at the basis of our functioning there is the PLEASURE/ PAIN principle.
In front of a choice:
- I choose the thing that I like the most, that makes me feel better;
- I choose the thing that makes me feel less worse, the less evil.
Have you ever noticed that? Have you ever noticed if it’s more the things you know that make you feel good, so you go looking for them, or if you simply avoid complicating your life?
Those are two distinct movements:
- I’m going towards PLEASURE;
- I’m going away from PAIN.
There is no right or wrong, and each of us has a main movement that goes automatically until we realize it.
As a good SEVEN Conservative, enjoyable character, I move towards PLEASURE.
A lot of people tell me: “it seems easy for you to know what you want!”
Yes, it’s true, I naturally go towards PLEASURE, and PLEASURE, in the right measure, makes me feel good and work. I underline “in the right measure”.
“PLEASURE” is a beautiful book written by Alexander Lowen, father of Bioenergetics.
I read this book for the first time eight years ago: I chose it simply because I was curious about the title, I took it with me to an island in Croatia. I read it every day, with the joy of reading that someone years earlier had been able to write so many true and simple things; concepts to assimilate well, to integrate, as long as one wants a living life with free access to joy and PLEASURE. A creative life!
Precisely because I was egosintonic, I was afraid to express myself too banally on the theme of PLEASURE. A subject too much in line with my character structure, in perennial search for pleasure. On each page I took courage to express a consciously subjective opinion, so I read it a second time during my three-year training in Counseling. The third reading came at a great moment of impasse, of change, a year in which I experienced moments of PAIN, regression, frustration accompanied by the discovery of love, of very simple, innocent feelings, from joy to curiosity to fantasy. The PAIN I had been trying to avoid for all that time was there, in front of me, and this time I chose not to avoid it.
I had already heard that until you are willing to suffer you cannot feel higher feelings, but I always defended myself well from the word “PAIN”, justifying and rationalizing everything.
In practice, I felt nothing, I did not feel tensions, let alone emotions, and I did not listen to myself. Very resistant to tiredness, I carried on with my work having fun, non-stop.
In order to have fun, I always needed to exaggerate, a little bit certainly related to the age of 25-30 years, a little bit for the fear of feeling the emptiness.
The thing that wasn’t clear to me then was the PLEASURE-PAIN principle.
So much “up” is so much “down”. So the “down’s” frightened me, it wasn’t me who controlled them as I knew how to control the increasing in the state of excitement.
The discharge became a clumsy movement, or uncontrollable anger.
I had fun in the short term but there was no rhythm, grace, naturalness.
Only with the discovery of the heart and with a slow reboot to the sensory system I can say to myself today that I’m satisfied to feel also PAIN, and I allow myself a SEVEN statement:“what a PLEASURE it gives me!!!”. I now feel the two integrated polarities.
When I’m in touch with my essence, with joy, I feel good. It’s the little things that make me feel good, like beer in the evening when it’s hot, a dip in fresh, clean water, a bike ride with air in my face, playing with dogs, laughing, colouring, walking in the mountains, reading, eating a good ice cream, seeing my house clean, drinking mocha coffee.
My list could go on for many pages, but what interests me now is to help you find what you like. You alone. The things you like that don’t depend on anyone else, that don’t take anything away from others, but that give you PLEASURE. Let’s start with something simple, something small. “Going on holiday to a desert island for a month” doesn’t count, just as it doesn’t count “seeing my children happy” or generally enjoying the happiness of others.
Take a minute every day, and write at least 3 things you like.
Sharing the little things that make us feel good could start a great supportive movement towards a natural and healthy life in contact with PLEASURE!
If you prefer to share it in private, I’m here.
