Try to enjoy a sunset. Try to enjoy a breath. The trying kills it. Pleasure is defined as observing the movement of sensations in your body — it is a listening, a receiving. If you’re trying to get there, it doesn’t work.
Joe points out that this is viscerally obvious in sexual experience — many people find that the more they try to have an orgasm, the further it goes away. Even those who can force one find it tight and shortened compared to the extended, pleasurable experiences that come through not actively trying. But the principle extends to every form of enjoyment.
“Pleasure is observing the movement of your sensations in your body. If you’re trying to get there, it just doesn’t work.”
Crucially, allowing sensations has no valence — it’s not about allowing the positive and suppressing the negative. It’s allowing sensation, period. The awareness of the movement of energy in the body is what constitutes pleasure, regardless of whether we’d label the sensation “good” or “bad.” Enjoyment is an undoing, not a doing.
Related Concepts
- Presence is pleasure
- Pleasure as emotional fluidity practice
- Body awareness is just attention
- Pleasure is simply noticing sensations moving in your body
- Pleasure is the awareness of sensation moving through the body
- Pleasure is available in every emotion when fully felt
- Pleasure signals safety to the nervous system