“The fish does not see the hook in the bait, and after the first bite it’s too late. Then, its life is lost.”
We experience pleasure through our sense organs and by satisfying physical survival needs, e.g. food, sex, and so on and so forth, like all other living creatures.
In human beings, however, the psychological function, whether conscious or unconscious, many times connects us to our senses in a decisive way for our further development and our psychological freedom.
Psychological pleasure can become a serious obstacle when it comes into conflict with the demands of responsible adult behavior towards ourselves and humanity.
We do not clearly understand that our mental development and the change of the level of consciousness mainly goes through farewell, leaving behind a lot of things over time.
What counts is not what we do, but what we stop doing.
It is not the action with effort that liberates us, most of the time this action strengthens our egoism and narcissism.
On the contrary, action free from effort in peace, dissolves the separation of inner-outer world and the misconception of individuality.True peace only comes when our energy is at a high frequency, that is, when we stimulate energy in our system (ourselves).
When we are found in an existential awakening, we fully understand what is happening consciously and then our unconscious is accessible, after that, there is no separation of internal and external world.
Having understood the above, we observe that we usually experience the present as follows: Reflecting on our ancestral past, we automatically reproduce the same in the future. It is the psychological knowledge and understanding of our past as a well-structured narrative that gives us the ability to plan a different future.
At this point in the farewell of the past, comes the involvement of psychological pleasure as an obstacle. It has great pleasure, mainly masochistic or sadistic, when we bring in the present child roles that helped us in our survival during our childhood. In adulthood, however, they can only limit us to simple survival with all that entails.
A relevant example that came from a session I had with a client is the following:
This woman lived with an alcoholic father, who had grown up in an orphanage. When she was young, her family system gave her the role of support and so she undertook to become her father's mother. In this way she had the benefit that the father stayed at home and she herself expressed her childhood love and self-sacrifice. She therefore, maintained the collectivity of the family system.In her adult married life, by playing this role, she was unable to get angry with her husband and demanded to get what she and her family needed. The masochistic pleasure of victimization made her react as she had learned in her childhood. This tendency prevented her from realizing that as an adult woman it is normal to be afraid and at the same time to be able to contain the anger of others. She needed to learn in therapy that it is beneficial to consciously see this childish pleasure, to allow it and to postpone it. Thus, she had the opportunity to let go of the old pattern of identification and develop greater empathy for others, with the ability to get what she wanted and be happy. That unlike before, where she was subconsciously afraid that she would not get what she needed and she persevered, resorting to simple pathological unconscious pleasure, to sabotage herself by sacrificing him in her relationships.
Many times, when our sadness is associated with guilt and overwhelms us, what we need to do is to increase the stimulation of energy within us.
A great mental endurance in time as continuity and duration is a combination of clear perception and ability to postpone the satisfaction of psychological pleasure. This allows us not to be complacent with any random form of relationship that is readily available, to someone else or to ourselves.We can choose at will and discover the relationship that has the greatest value and importance in terms of our development and joy, despite the immediate pleasure.
If we are going to counterattack, we need to plan for the future strategically, to challenge others and ourselves until we have faith in the necessity of some action or relationship.
Counterattack means a high level of communication, empathy in interaction and a high capacity of reflexes. In other words, we need a conscious function of thought, only then can we think about what is really good for ourselves and we will be able to ask for it. Then we will realize that what is real is the only good.
Those who seek simple happiness may end up in majestic indifference, while love never rests.