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Find Long Lasting Joy.
59 Plays9 years ago
I love pleasurable things: ice cream, new clothes, an amazing dinner. But I also get that these things by nature are fleeting. Get that and you can find the deeper emotion of joy - that long lasting sense of peace and contentment many of us crave.
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Transcript
Exploring Eastern Philosophy: Attachment, Joy, and Abundance
00:00:17
Speaker
We are going to tackle attachment, joy, and abundance.
00:00:23
Speaker
And the reason for that is, you know, I place these in different spots on the scale to mix it up, but these all come from Eastern philosophy. And specifically, I was very, very, very influenced by the yoga sutras. And that's where I got introduced to these three concepts. And when I did the analysis of all of the people who jumped on the emotional scale, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people, even in the first couple months,
00:00:49
Speaker
Oddly, these couple ideas with scarcity that's over in the junk food area, which is also part of the Eastern traditions, showed up in the same analysis that these things ended up coming together for people, people who felt a lot of joy in their life,
00:01:06
Speaker
felt their life was abundant and they allowed painful moments to pass and vice versa. If you weren't experiencing a ton of joy, you were holding on to these painful moments and you did not feel your life was very abundant. So I thought it was awesome kind of scientific method meets spiritual beliefs from thousands of years ago.
00:01:29
Speaker
So I thought only right to put them back together in this emotional workout because they really were written together 2,000 years ago in the Yoga Sutras and I think they're still true today.
The Pursuit of Pleasure and Avoidance of Pain in Human Behavior
00:01:40
Speaker
So here's the deal and how to think about them in our modern day life. All day long, we are pain pleasure machines, right? Who doesn't want to move towards pleasure? Have it last as long as possible and keep all painful moments away.
00:01:58
Speaker
That's just not possible to say, you know what, I just don't want any more pleasure, I'm sick of it and I'm really in the mood for some pain. So what was brought up thousands of years ago is that identifying with pleasurable experiences and being adverse to painful ones, which is what the yoga sutra says, is what leads us to suffering in our life.
00:02:21
Speaker
that all of our suffering goes away and joy comes when we can allow painful moments to pass without getting overwhelmed and pleasurable moments to pass without attempting to hold on to them.
The Science of Happiness: Biochemical Limitations
00:02:32
Speaker
So what does that mean, right? We all talk about happiness. It's like unbelievable how much our culture has revolved around happiness and we don't mean happiness.
00:02:42
Speaker
in the way that we talk about it. We mean some sustained ability to feel in a peak emotional state as if I'm eating a chocolate bar or a puppy just licked my face all day long. It's not
00:02:59
Speaker
I mean, biochemically, just think about it. You can't release that amount of endorphins into your brain at a sustained level from the moment you wake up until you go to bed. We just aren't designed that way. We have a surge of chemicals released that allow us to feel happy.
00:03:19
Speaker
when we're happy and it goes away. And the other part of it is that there is pain in life and to pretend there isn't is only setting you up for more pain.
Suffering and the Role of Attachment and Aversion
00:03:30
Speaker
So, aversion to painful experiences and attachment to pleasurable experience is what leads to suffering. So, think about it if like a puppy walks up and it's super cute on the street and you're like, oh my God, this thing is so cute and I want to take it home.
00:03:44
Speaker
Let it be cute for the moment. Let that moment exist in its fullest and recognize there will be more pleasurable moments to come. This is why this has so much to do with abundance. If you think about it, if you believe that there will be another moment
00:04:03
Speaker
Like the puppy like the chocolate bar and you don't have to hold on to this particular moment because you know your day is gonna have at least a handful more of them or if they're not today they're gonna be tomorrow because you know you can just run over to Starbucks at any time and have a pleasurable moment and have a great cup of tea or coffee it's always possible in our world to have a pleasure point.
The Concept of Abundance: Future Pleasures and Present Joy
00:04:26
Speaker
So next time you're having a moment of pleasure, if you allow it to happen, experience in its fullest, but no, I don't need to hold on to this because there will be more pleasure later in my day.
00:04:41
Speaker
And conversely, a painful moment comes. You wake up in the morning, you're expecting to have an incredible day, right? You jump out of bed, you're full of joy and you get a terrible phone call. You get to the office and your boss is just like absolutely in the worst mood possible, right? You're at your business, you're running your business and the employee that you counted on the most just didn't show to work today.
00:05:06
Speaker
Allow that painful moment to happen and recognize that it's not going to be happening in a month from now, six months from now, a year from now, right? Unless we have a health condition or something that's going to go on for a period of time, in which case even that will also end at some point.
00:05:25
Speaker
But trying to get rid of it, pushing it away, only makes it more painful because it's not in our control to get rid of every painful moment. Nor can we hold that puppy. We eventually have to walk down the street and let the owner of that dog have his puppy back and move on with our day.
True Abundance: Beyond Constant Pleasure
00:05:45
Speaker
OK, so this all goes into this idea of abundance, which I really struggled with thinking about because I was like, what are you talking about right there?
00:05:54
Speaker
This whole country is based on fighting, scraping, getting, climbing to the top, right? Taking. And if I say everything's abundant that I'm saying, oh, I don't really need to work. I don't really need to try. And that's not what they're talking about. They're saying that.
00:06:11
Speaker
Pleasure the things that you need the pleasurable experiences that you feel Make you have a good day or a positive experience Those will keep coming right that your physical and emotional needs are met at that base level Did you have I mean look if you're somebody out there that can't afford to get dinner. I understand
00:06:34
Speaker
But if you've eaten your meals today, if you have somewhere to sleep tonight, your life is so abundant. It's crazy, right? It's just it doesn't mean abundance like I can have pleasure all day long as if you're in the Garden of Eden and you're just going to sit around and do nothing but gorge and have pleasure, pleasure, pleasure all day long. That's not how it works. Pleasure comes, it goes, pain comes, and it goes.
Finding Fulfillment in the Present Moment
00:06:57
Speaker
And this is what leads to joy because if you stop thinking about your life as something that needs to be happy all the time as if you're petting a puppy and you start to recognize that you're fulfilled at every moment because you know that there'll be more pleasure points later in your day. Nothing is lacking right now.
00:07:19
Speaker
That's when you experience joy because you're not searching right like think about the hamster wheel you're always looking for another hit of pleasure and you're always trying to avoid that painful moment how can you have a sense of contentment in your life right your hamster on a wheel.
Daily Pleasures and the Path to Joy and Contentment
00:07:38
Speaker
So my advice to dealing with this incredibly brilliant wisdom from the ages is to notice your days day in day out you wake up in the morning your pleasure points of coffee and juice and the breakfast that you have you have more than enough if you have loved ones in your life who say good morning to you and even if it's not
00:08:02
Speaker
the greatest hug you've ever experienced, right? You have people in your life who care about you. You have a job that pays your bills. You have direction. You have a business that you own. You have family and friends, right? Don't start your day searching and searching and searching for the next pleasure point, right? We do it through shopping. We do it through drugs, alcohol, spending, eating. There's so many ways that we push and push and push and push to get that next pleasure hit.
00:08:30
Speaker
And so don't get off the hamster wheel, recognize all the pleasure points you have in a day, recognize you're not lacking, you'll have more. You don't need to try to hold on to the dinner that you're having and the bottle of wine. You can have it again tomorrow night. So you don't have to overindulge because you recognize that nothing is lacking, there's always more. And that will lead to this overwhelming sense of joy.
00:09:00
Speaker
And there's really nothing better than a sustained pillar of contentment through your life instead of just waiting for that next big hit of pleasure. Give it a try. This is a big one and I'm happy to try to help out.