Module 1
Lesson #3 The Pleasure Principal
In Freudian psychoanalysis, the pleasure principle is the instinctive seeking of pleasure and avoiding of pain to satisfy a biological and or psychological need. Specifically, the pleasure principle is the driving force guiding the id; this is the source of a person’s bodily needs, wants, desires, impulses, and in particular, their sexual and aggressive drives.
This is where the libido lives and the unconscious psychic force that motivates you to seek immediate gratification for any of your impulses, including avoiding pain.
Growing up, not many people are given the opportunity to make decisions that feel good. Everyone wants to feel good, yet you were often told to be good rather than what feels good!
When you watch young children play, they naturally do things that feel good which satisfies the pleasure receptors in their brain. However, as they grow, they are pressured to conform and do what the adults in their life and society expect them to do.
This is especially seen in young girls who are taught to focus on everyone else’s needs; if they act otherwise, they are told they are acting selfish and unlady-like. As a young girl you quickly learn that what makes you happy comes second to making others happy though the opposite is true. It is not selfish to know what makes you happy and what feels good for you. Finding what feels good for you is not optional, it is essential.
If making yourself happy has become a stressor, or creates an anxiety because you feel bad for doing it, you start to produce the stress hormone cortisol. Prolonged periods of cortisol on the body is damaging and can have detrimental effect on your health and how you act; this means you need to take responsibility for making yourself happy. Giving yourself permission to do something that gives you pleasure releases feel-good chemicals in your brain that are more helpful and caring for your body. Endorphins, oxytocin, serotonin and dopamine all play a part in you feeling great.
Have you ever been around someone who is happy? Did you just want to be around them more because it feels good? Well, that’s the same with men. Men especially adore being around a happy woman who can find pleasure in what she does.
Happiness is like a magnet, if you’re drawn to happiness that’s how men are drawn to it too! Happier women are instantly more attractive and magnetic to men than their sad, angry, negative, serious counterparts.
Learning to connect with what makes you happy and what gives you pleasure will help train your brain to be happier. Just by focusing more on the positives rather than the negatives could be a great start.
Feeling good not only benefits how you feel but is also beneficial to your health, boosting your immune system; think of it like a free prescription!
Feeling good could be just about a specific physical response in your body rather than your head. You don’t want to be thinking about feeling good, you want to experience feeling good.
When we think about pleasure and what feels good for us, we often think about sex, but many women have sex to make sure their partner feels good, not the other way around. When it comes to sex, forget about him and see how you are reacting and feeling in the moment. Notice if you are reaching the heights of pleasure – don’t worry about how you look, trust me he isn’t concerned about how he looks, men have a natural tendency to go into how they feel during sex rather than worrying about how things look! While having sex, tune into how you feel, focus on what feels amazing and ask for what you want (men love this).