Real Pleasure vs. Mindless Indulgences
Hi friend, welcome back! I owe you a huge apology to kick things off. I missed publishing an episode last week, thinking it might go unnoticed, but boy, was I wrong! Thanks to your texts and messages, it’s clear you missed the podcast. So, you didn’t miss out on anything last week, and I'm here to ensure it doesn’t happen again. New episodes are coming your way every Wednesday from here on out!
Diving Into Pleasure
This episode is all about one of my favorite topics—pleasure. We’re exploring the difference between real and fake pleasure, understanding these differences, and why they are absolutely crucial.
Why Understanding Pleasure Matters
Pleasure is essential—it forces us to be present, to fully inhabit our bodies and embrace life as it happens. In our hyper-stimulated, overly busy world, many of us forget to truly engage with being alive. We’re often multitasking our enjoyment away—I’m totally guilty of this, like when I distract myself with podcasts instead of enjoying my walks in nature.
The Problem with Fake Pleasure
We are constantly bombarded with messages about what will bring us happiness and pleasure, usually tied to buying more stuff. But real happiness isn’t about possessions—it’s about experiencing life. One of my first teachers in energy work, Alexander Lowen, taught me that real pleasure comes from being in harmony with our true selves and allowing life’s energy to flow through us freely. Blocking this flow can lead to stress, anxiety, and depression, so it's pivotal to let pleasure move through us.
Real vs. Fake Pleasure: Examples from My Life
Let’s look at some real-life examples to illustrate real versus fake pleasure. When we visit our friends who are wine connoisseurs, they share special vintage wines with us. This whole experience—showing the bottle, uncorking it, the first smell, the taste—it’s a rich, sensory experience, filled with pleasure.
Contrast that with the nights when I’m wiped out from work and open a cheap bottle of wine to unwind. It might seem similar, but the experience leaves me feeling drained and blah. The same goes for eating: a quiet, savored meal can be amazing, whereas eating hurriedly while distracted is far from pleasurable.
How to Foster More Real Pleasure
Identifying what genuinely brings us pleasure is personal and vital. For instance, some of my clients find joy in long runs—it energizes them, while the thought alone exhausts me! It’s about recognizing what makes you feel alive and vibrant.
Creating Your Pleasure List
I encourage everyone to create two lists: what truly nourishes you and what depletes you. This simple exercise can guide you to make more room in your life for real, enriching experiences. Once we KNOW the things that feed us, we can incorporate more of them into our lives.
Closing Thoughts
We have only one life, and there’s no room for wasting it on things that leave us feeling empty and unfulfilled. This week, I urge you to seek out experiences that make you feel fully alive and connected.
See You Next Time
Transcript
Welcome to the Magnetic Creator podcast. I'm your host, Melanie Mishler, and each week we have intimate conversations about the things that matter most in life. My superpower is helping you remember who you truly are. A powerful, magical creator. I give you proven tools to help you get unstuck and manifest a life that sets your heart on fucking fire. Are you ready? Let's go. Hello, friend, and welcome back.
Okay, first off, before we start today's episode, I owe you a huge apology because last week for the first time I did not publish an episode and I very mistakenly thought, well, no one's even going to notice, but I was so wrong. I got a bunch of messages and emails asking, you know, did I miss the episode? Where is it? And so...
I'm sorry. I promise from now on that won't happen again. And you can look forward to new episodes every Wednesday from here on out. Guaranteed. I just kind of had to get my bearings a little bit. Cause for those of you who know me, you know, in addition to this podcast and my coaching business, my husband and I also run two other businesses together. We are wedding photographers and run a wedding venue here in Northern California and friend.
Spring wedding season hit us like a tornado this year. It is just so busy. But I think I have my traction now, so we are good to go. Okay, enough about that. Today I wanna talk about one of my favorite topics, which is pleasure. And we're gonna chat about the difference between real and fake pleasure and how to know the difference between them and why you should even care. I -
I personally think pleasure is one of the most important experiences that we can have as humans because in order to experience pleasure, we have to actually be in our bodies, right? It's a complete personalized sensory experience. And in today's world, we're just so overstimulated and over busy. And one of the biggest problems I see with my clients is that they're so busy, they're just not taking time to really
Melanie:experience life. They're not actually in their bodies or able to feel what's going on around them. They're not feeling the experience of being fully alive. And that is what pleasure really is. Because here's the thing. It's so common that even when we're doing things that can evoke a sense of pleasure, like for instance, going on a walk in nature or basking in the sun.
there's often some sort of like electronic media providing input that's distracting us and keeping us from tuning into our bodies. And I know I am super guilty of this because I love going on walks in the sun, but you probably know I also have a really bad habit of sticking in my AirPods and distracting myself with true crime podcasts. They are my absolute favorite thing to listen to and it's a little demented.
but I love them. And so instead of going on a walk and experiencing nature and my body and the spring air against my nose and the feeling of sunlight, instead I'm drawn into the story about murder and drama and really distracted from what's going on around me. And today we're constantly bombarded with images and advertisements and ideas of what will bring us pleasure or happiness.
And all those things, they say, you know, if you buy this or you do that, you'll be happy. But friend, happiness is not about stuff. It's a feeling of being alive and being in tune with the world around us. It's a feeling. It's a sensory feeling of pleasure. And one of my first teachers when I was studying energy work about 30 years ago was Alexander Lowen. And he taught that pleasure is an experience that arises.
from being in harmony with our true self and then allowing life force or energy to move through our bodies. And he also taught that most of our psychological issues like stress, anxiety, depression, you know, the things that are so prevalent today come from us like restricting or not allowing that life force and pleasure to move freely through our bodies. So basically, in order to be fully alive, we need to experience pleasure.
Melanie:and we need to experience it often. Okay, so let's get into some real life examples of real versus fake pleasure. So you can understand how to spot the difference. And of course, like always, I'll use myself as an example because well, why not? Okay, example one, we have some really good friends who are huge wine connoisseurs. He collects vintage wines from all over the world.
And every time we go to their home, he will pull out a really special bottle of wine for us all to share. And every time, it's such a pleasurable, it's a full body sensory experience. From the time he shows us the bottle, to uncorking, to the first smell, and the way it swirls around my tongue, it is pure bliss. Now, on the other hand, we can take that same action, drinking wine.
And let me tell you, there are many nights when I've come home exhausted from work, wanting to just relax and unwind and I'll crack a cheap bottle of $10 wine from Costco. And before I know it, I've polished off the entire bottle and I just feel blah, depleted. So even though the action is the same experience, drinking wine, the results are completely different.
The first one fills me with pleasure and it leaves me feeling inspired and relaxed and alive. And the other just leaves me feeling completely drained, more depleted and crappy and guilty. The same thing can happen with food. Like we can have the experience of sitting down and tasting the most delicious food and savoring every bite and letting it really nurture and fill us up. Or we can have an experience of, you know,
Quickly eating food while we're in a hurry, driving down the road in our car and listening to the radio completely distracted. Again, the stimulus is the same, but one experience fills us with sensory pleasure and the other is just a complete disconnect. And we can really overlay this onto just about any experience. The key is in order to experience pleasure, we have to be present. We have to be inside our bodies.
Melanie:And the more we do this, the more we have these truly pleasurable sensory experiences, the more alive we feel, the more we can experience this vitality, this life force moving through our bodies. And on the other hand, the more fake pleasure we indulge in, the more we're left feeling just drained and depleted and empty. So I know this is the most basic concept.
but I can't tell you how many people are depleted or deprived of pleasure in their lives. And how do you experience more pleasure? I think it starts by just becoming aware of what really lights us up. And it is really a personal experience because what brings one person pleasure might sound like hell to somebody else. I know I have a client who loves going on these long 10 mile runs and it just feeds her soul, it fills her up, she loves it.
but that sounds horrible to me. The only way you're ever gonna get me to run is if someone is chasing me and that's still pushing it. And it's not because one thing is truly pleasurable, it's because it's a personal experience. So it's important to hone in on our specific pleasure sources. And when I work with clients, we do an exercise where we create a list of what feeds us and what depletes us. For instance, on my list, the things that feed me are,
roller skating and feeling the wind through my hair, soaking in a hot bath by candlelight, swimming, petting my dog, doing yoga, walking in nature without my AirPods. On the other hand, some of the things that deplete me are staying up late and streaming mindless TV shows, getting sucked into a murder case, scrolling on social media, mindless eating and drinking. And one of the biggest ones is
buying shit I don't need on Amazon. All of those things just end up leaving me feeling guilty and depleted and not so great. So once we have clarity on what truly makes us feel alive and brings us this full body pleasure, then we can start to incorporate more of those events and activities into our life and really start to embody this experience of pleasure and being fully, fully alive.
Melanie:And friend, you've heard me say it before. We only have one life to live. We don't have time to waste on bullshit that keeps us feeling drained and depleted. All right, I know today was short, but I hope it was powerful for you. And I really hope that you have some fun this week. I hope you experience some pleasure and really feel, feel what it's like to be fully alive. All right, friend, till next week, be well.
