Pleasure.

I've been reflecting on this word during the month of January. I have been working with a coach ( yes coaches do coaching sessions for their own stuff as well ;-) on my relationships. LOVE it's the word is chose for 2017 as intention for this new year. I decided , after focusing most of 2016 on creating my new "career" and lifestyle, that 2017 was the year dedicated to my romantic relationships and growing through ALL kinds of relationships in my life, and there is a lot to learn there!

And that's how this word came up.

I had a so called "aha" moment as it often happens thanks to the coaching process, and my realization was that I wasn't living in a pleasurable way my everyday life, even when I was doing things I truly loved, like doing yoga, writing or dedicating some time to self-care!

Very often I was in the motion of doing something I liked, but I was putting pressure on myself, or simply focusing on the end result or what I was giving to others, and forgetting about actually having fun doing it!

Since I was a little girl I have always been pretty responsible and focused on things that were useful or were giving me some kind of RESULTS. The rest was pretty much time wasted. So even when it was time to play and have fun, I always tried to get something useful out of it. And even more when other people were involved ( hello people pleasing).

When I was with other people the time dedicated to fun and pleasure was "justified", but not when it was just for my own interest.

And I kept this habitude growing up, and it all became clear when I had my moment of realization this month !!

That's why I was finding it so hard to dedicate my time to be silly and enjoy myself when no end result was involved, some examples :

Watching a movie by myself . I honestly struggled with sitting down for 2 hours for a movie at home because I felt it was nice but also a waste of my precious time in which I could have done other 10 things.
Cooking for me. I live by myself and cooking for one was difficult, so I often ended up doing something very quick and simple because it didn't feel like time well spent.
Beauty and self-care . Yes I was doing it and knew the importance, but it was also rushed and as simple as possible.
Dressing up in the morning. Hello to wearing the same boring clothes during the week and not paying much attention to how I felt in them.

And the list goes on to a lot of other "little" daily activities. When it was time to give me some attention, I was finding it so hard, and

I ended up transforming soft and feminine activities with a masculine energy that were making them feel like a JOB!

Until it all clicked and I could see back to my pattern.

But I didn't know what pleasure meant exactly and how to really introduce this practice into my life.

So I looked at the definition on the dictionary and wrote it in my journal :

"Pleasure = a feeling of happy satisfaction and enjoyment . Enjoyment and entertainment as opposed to necessity. "

It sounds cool, doesn't it? Enjoyment opposed to necessity.

Yes because when we make an activity useful , we bring in a form of stress, an interest to get at the end of it and to do it well.

As opposed to " pleasure for pleasure's sake" which makes the experience automatically stress-free, messy, feminine and also slower because we have nowhere to go, no final destination to get to, and we can be connected to all our senses during the experience.

Imagine the difference between :

- You cooking a meal because you're so hungry, you have 20 minutes to do it all, and a fridge half-empty and still have to wash yesterday's dishes

Compared to :

- You enter into your kitchen , it's clean and there are flowers on the table and you took some time out of your day to cook slowly, to put some music on, to make the dish delicious and pretty !

Better right? And sometimes the only difference is the mindset you have, you don't actually need more time or a new kitchen to do it!

So that's my current practice, and a tool I'm using to change this old pattern is using reminders to go back into the feminine and the pleasure .

I'm writing this post from a cute café, with a hot chocolate in front of me. and I have a post-it on my laptop with the sentence :

"How can I make this moment more fun and pleasurable?"

And it really helps me look at the situation in front of me and think of creative ways to make it better, just for the sake of it.

Sometimes it's just relaxing my shoulders and sitting tall, other times it's realizing I'm cold or thirsty and do something about it, it's to put some makeup on just to play or to stop and connect to my senses to feel the sun on my face or the smell of a boulangerie .

To wrap up, my ways to live with more pleasure in your daily life :

- Check in with yourself regularly and ask one of this questions :

What can I do for you today ( and stick it on your bathroom mirror!)
How can I make this moment more fun and pleasurable?
Am I feeling supported?
Can I negotiate for my needs?

- Slow down.

Because when we slow down we get in our feminine, and we have time to connect to our 5 senses. And that's what builds up our memories from that situation, what we will remember in the future!

- Focus on you first.

Self-care is not selfish, it's a way to replenish and be the best version of yourself. So before serving other people, think of you as your most important client!

- Act on it, according to your own definition of pleasure.

- Focus on the "internal results", how you are feeling before looking at the "external results"

At the end of the day , why just survive when you can thrive!

And now the word to you, are you living with pleasure? How do you introduce more fun in your everyday? Please share your experiences in the comments below, I love hearing other ideas and inspiration !

Want more pleasure and fun? Forget the end results