Do less of what you don’t like to do, and more of what you love.
That’s it. Every self-help book ever written, mine included, can be summed up in that simple direction.
Less heavy, more Light. Less drama, more calm. Less “should”, more shine.
MORE PLEASURE.
When you’re in your pleasure you think more clearly, you’re more efficient, you’re most certainly more creative, and you’re more loving. Your pleasure states are good for your immune system. Mmmhmm.
It can be really difficult to make pleasure a priority when we’ve got so many ingrained habits based on distraction (numbing out) and performance (pleasing others). For a lot of us, choosing pleasure would be a major life turn around. I get it.
So for inspiration I’ll say this: A WHOLE AND JUICY LIFE (not without its pain and trials, but still, so abundant and REAL). OR… a life half-lived. In grey. Trapped in Pleasantville. This is where pleasure defines your life on the planet. Choose it. Choose it in micro-bits and sweeping moves. But first, let’s imagine it and then go from there.
In the book Ask and It Is Given, Abraham-Hicks suggests a beautiful exercise whereby you envision your ideal twelve hours. I’m adding another layer to this, so that we envision an ideal “Home Day” (a slightly more down-to-earth scenario), and an ideal “Away Day” (a more fantastical scenario). This is an exercise I do for myself about once a year (and I wrote about it in The Fire Starter Sessions).
It’s important to imagine both a doable day and a fantastical day because we want to create images for ourselves that feel resonant and reachable, AND, we want to loosen up some bigger possibility-thinking.
Naturally, the whole point of this “ideal 12 hours exercise” is to actually create those ideal twelve hours — or as close to it, even if it’s just fifteen minutes, as frequently as possible until that idealism becomes your lifestyle. Day to day makes up a lifetime.
Your pleasure is your power. @DanielleLaPorte (Click to Tweet!)
Get out your journal to do the exercises below. Or download your PRIORITIZING PLEASURE worksheet HERE.
HOME DAY IDEAL 12 HOURS
Keep your vision within the confines of space and time. Let your imagination and idealism unfurl, but… save the really impractical things like, “I wake up in Athens, lunch in Manhattan, and smoke a bedtime hookah in Rajasthan”, for your Away Day fantasy.
In everyday life, where would you be, what would you be doing, who would you be with, what would you be eating, how would you be earning, helping, creating, living, loving in a span of twelve hours? Walk through everything that would go into the waking hours of blissdom for you. Focus on ideal and don’t worry about how you’re going to make it happen.
If bliss would be “I’m working in my jammies from home,” and presently you’re commuting three hours to the office, write it down anyway.
AWAY DAY IDEAL 12 HOURS
In an extravagant or time-bending day, where would you be, what would you be doing, whom would you be with, what would you be eating, how would you be earning, helping, creating, living, loving in a span of twelve hours?
We’ll get into pain motivation vs. pleasure motivation, leaving you inspired to let your pleasure guide your choices as get you closer to…Free & Clear.
Thank you. This is the final Free & Clear module. I’ve really, really loved creating this. I didn’t see it when I started this project, but after I laid everything out it was obvious that these questions and exercises are what you should do before you jump into Desire Mapping. You clear the space and give yourself permission to move into your Core Desired Feelings. I made a prequel. Surprise.
All things Desire Map live HERE. And The Desire Map Day Planner (which I think is the best tool for staying free and clear) lives HERE.
To all that we can be, when we’re free and clear.
Blessings, blessings, love, and more blessings,
Before you go…
Tunes: Some tunes for your contemplations…
- Loving You, Paolo Nutini
- Wake Up In Paris, The Hot Sardines
- 32 Flavors, Ani Difranco
- Everything She Wants, WHAM
- I’ll Take You There, Mavis Staples
- Back To Life, Soul II Soul
- Lose Yourself to Dance, Daft Punk
- Beloved (Thievery Corporation remix), Anoushka Shankar
LISTEN ON SPOTIFY HERE: NOT SO GUILTY PLEASURES.
Danielle LaPorte is an invited member of Oprah’s SuperSoul 100, a group who, in Oprah Winfrey’s words, “is uniquely connecting the world together with a spiritual energy that matters.” She is author of White Hot Truth: Clarity for keeping it real on your spiritual path—from one seeker to another. The Fire Starter Sessions, and The Desire Map: A Guide To Creating Goals With Soul—the book that has been translated into 8 languages, evolved into a yearly day planner system, a top 10 iTunes app, and an international workshop program with licensed facilitators in 15 countries.
Named one of the “Top 100 Websites for Women” by Forbes, millions of visitors go to DanielleLaPorte.com every month for her daily #Truthbombs and what’s been called “the best place online for kickass spirituality.” A speaker, a poet, a painter, and a former business strategist and Washington-DC think tank exec, Entrepreneur Magazine calls Danielle, “equal parts poet and entrepreneurial badass…edgy, contrarian…loving and inspired.” Her charities of choice are Eve Ensler’s VDay: a global movement to end violence against women and girls, and charity: water, setting out to bring safe drinking water to everyone in the world. She lives in Vancouver, BC with her favourite philosopher, her son. You can find her @daniellelaporte and just about everywhere on social media.
