BellaOnline Forums Beauty and Self Self Development Going away from pain or pleasure?

Holly has talked about robbins saying that we get motivated by either-
Going away from pain or pleasure?

I get motivated by going away from pain. Pleasure is OK for me but running away from pain makes me do many things. How about others?

That is a hard one for me to answer. Physical pain cripples me and keeps me down, both physically and emotionally.

Emotional and mental pain does motivate me in the sense that it pushes me to overcome it.

Pleasure is something I try to hold on to - but it is impermanent.

I have always experienced more pain than pleasure in my life, so I guess I'd have to say that pain has been the major 'moving' force in my life. The constant desire to escape from the pain; to overcome it and to 'get out of the torture chamber' so to speak.

The continual 'getting up again' and striving on.

Also, I wonder if we can appreciate pleasure if we don't know pain?

Kerryanne.

Pleasure is impermantent in the sense it is not static... it is moving and must be renewed.

Pain sometimes seems permanent... but i wonder if it is not impermanent as well... i'm not speaking of physical pain but mental and emotional. I wonder if we might be renewing it. It is sort of a radical idea, but not without some reasoning. Dr. Burns, the author of Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy is a cognitive psychologist. He has done much research on the subject of depression along with other psychologists, psychiatrists and doctors. He hypothesized (sorry... i've noticed my spelling lately has deteriorated... not sure why)... he hypothesized that the habit of certain thoughts which he calls "cognitive distortions" will lead to and maintain depression. He defined ten distortions... including things like "all or nothing thinking" and "fortune telling" and "mind reading" and "catastrophizing." He and others of his research team set up clinical studies where they trained a group to practice changing these habitual thoughts away from distortions. The results were quite dramatic and outperformed drugs for depression. I highly recommend his books... you will learn a lot, as i did. I know that psychologists often recommend Feeling Good to their patients, too (as happened to a friend of mine), so it is a book well respected by professionals. There are many copies in print, so you will probably find it at your library, but try to seek a recent edition, because as research has continued they have updated the book.

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To some degree i get motivated by both, however i am much better motivated by experiencing pleasure. I will move towards pleasure like a plant will bend towards light. If i have pleasure, i will want more. But if i am not currently experiencing it... sometimes it seems remote and i might doubt i can attain it.

Most people will move away from pain, but i will not always move away from a painful state... sometimes i will just shut down and get stuck in it, so for me, pain is like glue or molassas. It can hinder me, rather than motivate me.

I get motivated by people who believe in me, and tell me that I have all that it takes to be successful in life. So I guess I'm motivated by pleasure, and by being encouraged.

Pain only depresses me I'm afraid.

AF.

I think we are confusing now.

You said that you are a carrot donkey. So now rather than going back to that , let us find out how this helps you. Have you begun visualizing in terms of pleasure?

If you are looking for earning money, what would motivate you?
The pleasure that comes with more money or the pain you will face with less money?

I have, and will continue. But it is not quite simple, for visualizing positively and feeling hope these days can often trigger in me a lot of insecurity and the return of memories of loss and pain. I hope this kind of reaction will wear off the more i practice visualization and hope, but at present i am proceding carefully. A couple of weeks ago i hit a rough spot, and it was because of reacting to having more hope. When i hope i fear i might encounter the same kind of loss i had the last time i had much to hope for. This is what i was trying to explain.

i will continue with visualization... but hoping for a carrot does not mean i will have a carrot. Tasting a little carrot, works even better.

So how this knowledge helps me... I am working on improving my enjoyment of the activities that will help me to be more successful. This isn't so much visualization as a matter of shifting my focus and attitudes and enjoying what i need to do, and doing more of what i enjoy. The stick... in being healthy, for instance... might be looking in a mirror and feeling unattractive and criticizing myself. This doesn't work well to motivate me, it just dispirits me. The carrot... would be trying to improve my enjoyment of the actual exercise... perhaps by adding music or just thinking how it makes my body feel good and stronger... and perhaps buying a new outfit when i have reached a goal of say, exercising for a month.

I have also learned to be more careful to limit my exposure to people who use sticks more often than carrots. This has helped.

What about you, Pratibha? AF? Everyone? How can you work more carrots into your life and fewer sticks?

I would be in trouble without motivation to earn!

I'm fortunate in that I don't have a problem in that area. I have a well paid job, though I wouldn't mind a change!

I need more motivation on a personal level.

AF.