Our pleasure reveals where we are in harmony. That which is right for us is revealed to us by a natural built-in system. However, not all of the experiences we might classify as enjoyable are equally enjoyable.
Learning to distinguish between various forms of pleasure is beneficial. For instance, while eating a piece of chocolate cake might feel good in the moment, it may not actually be in line with your values. You must consider the entire experience to decide whether it is or is not. After eating the chocolate cake, how do you feel? Is it still enjoyable?
It is also beneficial to consider the nature of the pleasure. Is it dependable across all experience layers? Using the same chocolate cake as an example, it might taste good in your mouth but not in your body. Another reason it may have a negative effect on our emotions is that we may feel a little uneasy about eating it because it was more food than we actually needed.
The way we feel in our relationships and at work are both affected by this method of thinking. Our capacity to navigate through life is strengthened as we learn to really listen to our pleasure and pay more attention to it.
A negative relationship with pleasure, which can make you feel bad about something that is actually beneficial to you, is another obstacle to using pleasure as our guide. Because of preconceived notions about what you should or shouldn’t enjoy, your conditioning distorts the reality of what you are going through. The inverse is also possible: We may develop a preference for things that are bad for us because they make us feel good.
The fundamental experience is distorted by misunderstandings and incorrect interpretations of what should be a straightforward mechanism for determining what is right for us. It would be wonderful if it were as simple as having a pleasant experience that would naturally be in line with your needs, allowing you to accept it and welcome more of it into your life. You could change course and go in a different direction if it weren’t a pleasant experience. This is true once we overcome all of the conditioning, but doing so takes time.
Given all of this conditioning, it might seem as though you can never really believe what you feel. However, the secret is not to ignore pleasure and begin attempting to determine what is best through your mind, but rather to delve deeper and train paying more attention.
By using pleasure as a guide—which is a very helpful tool—you can begin to pay attention to how you might be filtering or misinterpreting the information that is coming in about what is pleasurable and subsequently discover what works or does not work for you in any given situation. Your understanding of what is pleasurable will become more refined as you pay attention to every aspect of your experience surrounding an event that you find enjoyable. That straightforward relationship with pleasure—if it makes me feel good, it’s good for me—becomes simpler as we become more refined. The ability to cultivate the people, places, situations, and activities you want in your life will then come naturally to you as you experience pleasure.
As a result of creating a life that is in alignment with you, you will feel progressively better in all facets of your life as you proceed. And as you cultivate this, your general energy will increase. Your energy will begin to function at a higher level, which keeps your pleasure from becoming too coarse and enables you to really focus on what is best for you through what feels good and what is working for you. Then, your pleasure will develop into this incredibly useful tool for building a life that truly feels good and is consistent with who you are.