Pain VS Pleasure - One Woman's Story of Romantic Self Sabotage

As a certified self-sabotage coach and as someone who runs an international overcoming self-sabotage coaching school, life appears very different than what most people present on the surface. We all wear masks. We wear masks in order that we avoid pain and seek out pleasure more effectively in our lives. This is the most basic design of our nervous systems. Pain hurts, so let's avoid that. Pleasure feels good, so let's get more of whatever that is. Two pretty simple rules. Oddly enough, when you study pain and pleasure for years.....you start to understand a very unique design of this real-world "school of life" that we all live inside of.  

One unique characteristic of this realm is that the more pleasure you hunt down (as we're naturally designed to do), the more pain you get. Most everything that makes you feel amazing and alive, ends with long term pain and an accelerated premature death. Take alcohol for example or junk food, narcotics, watching TV, masturbating, drinking coffee, working that safe job you don't enjoy, smoking cigarettes, not standing up for yourself, procrastinating, smoking weed, being a perpetual people pleaser, being lazy, mindless scrolling of social media, thinking that a toxic big pharma pill will make you healthy instead of changing your lifestyle or believing that an ancient crime syndicate masquerading as your government will run your life better than you can etc etc. Everything that makes you feel good today comes with a price to pay tomorrow. 

As a general rule......what feels good today, will usually make you feel like shit tomorrow. "Pay now or pay later"....as they say. Most people, who don't understand these simple life equations usually decide to pay later, because instant pleasure feels too good in the moment. I even tell people that my personal success in life is simply based on taking the painful road, as opposed to taking the pleasure road. I took the road less travelled by, and that made all the difference. 

Many people don't recognize these simple life lessons of course, which naturally gets them into nothing but greater and greater pain zones as they age. As the rock band ONE REPUBLIC sang in their hit song "Counting Stars"......."I feel so wrong doing the right thing. I feel so right doing the wrong thing. Everything that kills me makes me feel alive". This place we live on is indeed bizarre .....in the sense that everything that kills you does make you feel amazing, which will eventually destroy your life over the long haul.....if you're not careful.

It doesn't matter who you are in life.....your happiness, health, success and long-term satisfaction will hinge on managing these truths about pain, pleasure and how these "feelings" are hard-wired into your nervous system. This pain/pleasure dichotomy is hard-wired into our nervous systems in a way that's designed to challenge us to develop immense discipline as we age. If you're weak and you always seek pleasure, these hard and fast rules are designed to give you pain. If you're strong and you always consider the long-term impacts of engaging in delayed gratification, these hard and fast rules are designed to give you pleasure.

Never forget that the word "feeling", starts with the phonetic word "fee". There are indeed "fees" to be paid, in order to experience your feelings. If you don't recognize the "fee" to be paid inside a life of perpetual pleasure (and pain avoidance), the natural design of this realm will extract those "fees" from you regardless if you understand this discipline building system or not. Just look at a weak smoker, drinker, overeater or TV watcher........they are paying some heavy "fees" for their perpetual pleasure addictions and their inability to face the true pains of life without painkilling substances.

This concept of how avoiding pain only brings more pain, is well known in psychological research, as Dr. Gabor Mate describes in this short video below. 

And now I can start the short story of one female's journey of perpetual romantic disaster and self-sabotage. As a self-sabotage coach, most people's problems in life come from not understanding our natural design regarding pain avoidance and pleasure seeking. Each client's situation will appear unique on the outside but in the end, the architecture of a person's long-term disasters is always the same. 

This lady in question was like everyone else, wanting to avoid pain and wanting to collect perpetual pleasure, as much as humanly possible. That's no surprise. That's how we're designed. What was surprising was the way she arranged one particular pain avoidance cycle in her life. She decided that breaking up with romantic partners represented the ultimate pain and public shaming. Shame can be one of the most powerful motivators of adaptive behavior, as nothing weakens our internal power profile more than shame. Weakness is a major ingredient for all forms of self-sabotage. Of course, this lady was correct in many ways, with her conclusions that romantic breakups were often far from enjoyable. The end of a dating or marriage cycle can be extremely painful for most humans and yet we all get through it, in one way or another. We learn our lessons from the hard times, we mature a little bit more, we course correct and we're supposed to learn valuable life lessons along the way. 

Breaking up with romantic partners can be extremely painful. Being alone in-between romances is also painful. The lady in question also held massive shame with all her breakups. To her not being good enough to hold a man's attention long-term was a reflection of her worthiness and attractiveness. She also held her ability to attract a man as the ultimate ritual of safety in her life. Acquiring safety is also a major psychological driver of all our behaviors, habits and rituals. To this lady.....relationship failure, public judgement and "not being good enough to keep a man's attention long term" held the largest potential pain impact in her nervous system. 

The bigger the pain we believe is coming our way, the more we're designed to avoid it. Again, that design has a "fee" to be paid, which is a cycle most people don't understand whatsoever. In the realm of "pay now or pay later", this lady was all in for paying later and bypassing the maturation potential of dealing head on with life's painful experiences. When you decide to pay later, your life usually gets worse with every passing year. When you decide to pay now, your life usually gets better with every passing year. When you do the right thing, this pain/pleasure system is designed to reward you. When you do the wrong thing, the same system is designed to punish you. 

In order to avoid this one particular painful impact, this lady decided to always have a secondary boyfriend behind the scenes at all times.......which of course eventually caused the premature breakdown of the original romantic relationship. As the first man was walking out the front door upset, because he suspected or had confirmed that she wasn't a loyal partner, she would quickly usher the next man in the backdoor......in order to keep the pleasure river flowing and the pain river corked. She would think, "perfect, I avoided pain again, perfect, I knew he would leave me anyway." In the end, like all forms of self-sabotage, she was creating the exact situation she wanted to avoid.

Once the old mate was ushered out the front door and the next mate ushered in the back door, the pattern would repeat itself over and over again. Each new man entering from behind the scenes believed he was this lady's one true love, only for him to find out in short order that another man had taken his initial position as the secondary back door lover. Self-sabotage has nothing to do with logic, rational thought or long-term happiness, it has to do with how the subconscious is hard wired for safety. Safety and happiness are often at opposite sides of the spectrum. Case in point, this lady was "safe" and also "unhappy". 

Obviously, this pattern of self-sabotage and perpetual pain avoidance caused some BIG PROBLEMS in her life, to put it mildly. The long-term results were patterns of despair, hopelessness and chaos. Like all forms of self-sabotage, she hated the results of her behavior, but also felt helpless to stop it. Self-sabotage is very confusing because we keep manifesting what we don't want in our lives and it does appear impossible to course correct.

With any of our programmed behavior, changing it is never about will power, determination or marking a firm line in the sand. The truth is that our programming always wins out, unless we learn to recognize it and reprogram for something better. Most people can't recognize their own self-sabotaging patterns. In order to reprogram, you actually need a good overcoming self-sabotage coach to help guide the journey. That's not a sales pitch either. Self-sabotage coaches are simply master educators as to what drives these illogical, irrational and disastrous habits in our own lives. Once you know how these cycles work, it's very easy to see them and interfere with them as well.

The worst thing about pain avoidance in psychology is that it's proven that you need pain, failure and discomfort to mature and individuate. Individuation simply means the ability to stand against the group/crowd, if what the group is doing doesn't jive with our long-term goals. Without pain, we stay children in the mind.....even if our bodies mature into adulthood long ahead of us. By avoiding pain, we not only get more pain, we also avoid the mental maturation cycle required to navigate an adult life successfully. Pain avoiders (perpetual pleasure seekers) often lack adult based maturation characteristics because their pleasure-seeking behaviors never allow them to mature properly from child to adult. This is also why people with painful pasts, which they never avoided dealing with head on, are usually well grounded and effective leaders. Real adults, who don't act, think or talk like children....have natural leadership abilities. To be a good leader in your own life and in your own community, you have to face your pain without running away from it.

Unless this lady deals with her pain avoidance cycles, she will always generate greater and greater pain in her life....along with greater and greater disasters. She's headed into a future where one day there will be no males left who are willing to engage in her inverted psychology. This means a life of isolation and loneliness is what's waiting for her, unless she learns the two R's. Recognize the issue and reprogram accordingly. With unresolved self-sabotage, what we fear the most usually manifests long-term. In order to heal from any self-sabotaging behaviors, we first need to recognize them and understand why they're occurring. In order to heal, we must be brave enough to feel our pain and refuse the quick hits of pleasure that can sedate, numb and tranquilize us away from living out the lessons we need to experience in life. Face your pain. It's not that bad and it's certainly better than what happens when you constantly avoid your pain.

In April I once again will be opening up my Overcoming Self Sabotage Coaching Program, as well as my POWER IN YOU PROGRAM. If you're interested in understanding your own behavior and making a better life for yourself, I suggest you jump in quickly. Please email my assistant Andrea at [email protected].....to place your name on our waiting list for these two programs. My POWER IN YOU PROGRAM is for individuals who want to overcome their personal self-sabotaging behaviors. My Overcoming Self Sabotage Coaching School is for individuals who want to overcome their own personal self-sabotaging behaviors plus develop a business, coaching others how to do the same.