Pleasure and Pain

Can you ever feel pleasure if you’re always avoiding pain?

What if avoiding pain also means avoiding pleasure at the same time?

How would you know what pleasure is if there’s nothing to which to compare it? The exact same nerve endings that transmit physical pain are the same nerve endings that transmit physical pleasure. The same brain that processes emotional pain is the same brain that processes elation.

You cannot know one without the other. Pain comes and goes. So does pleasure. To the extent that you have a complete experience of pain, you can also have an equally complete experience of pleasure.

Here’s another way to think about it. You simply cannot avoid pain sometimes, just as you cannot avoid feeling good sometimes. They both wax and wane in you because they are essential parts of your human experience. Feeling pleasure and pain is like breathing. You cannot inhale without exhaling. They go together.

You might compare inhaling to the pleasure side of the equation (you’re drawing in in oxygen that your body needs). However, there are hard limits to the amount of time that you can hold your breath. At a certain point, you must exhale.

You might compare exhaling to the pain side of the equation (expelling something toxic to your survival). After exhaling, there’s a point at which you must draw a breath.

One of the most interesting facts about human breathing is that exhaling—ridding your body of carbon dioxide—is what drives the process. At the same time, both parts-- inhaling and exhaling-- are required.

Be the one who watches pain and pleasure. Don’t grasp at the pleasure—and don’t grasp at the pain. Pleasure and pain are energies that move through you. They come and go. Consider that next time you attach to pain or pleasure.