A Coaching Power Tool Created by Ian Kain
(Executive Coach, CANADA)
I want such a job, where I won’t need to work for anything a single day for the rest of my life!
Introduction to the Power Tool
The power tool Gratification vs. Pleasure was inspired after writing a research paper[1] on consciousness, heart and the brain. It became apparent that Consciousness does not really need brain to exist and it can sometime run the body vehicle on its own, bypassing the brain. Conversely, since we have the brain and the heart, it is of great importance to keep them healthy and use them in our benefit in order to direct our lives where we want to in alignment with all of the aspects that we are as a human being. We can be way more happy and gratified people in this world than we are today. Humans deserve to be this way, happy, creative, curious and above all gratified. When we are well balance between the left and the right side of the brain, with the lightness or serenity at our heart, this can bring us to a desired place of happiness, fulfillment and lastly the most relevant, to gratification. Every human should be aware of a natural and inherit birth right to be able to Live a Purposeful Authentic Life – PAL. This can happen only when all the polarities within our thoughts, believes, feelings, emotions, words, behaviors and actions are aligned with our consciousness and PAL – Purposeful Authentic Life. The reality is unfortunately different. Observing only our approach to work or to our job gives us an interesting insight of reality that is out there. Majority of people will work or do a job until they get fired, retired or dead. This is not a fault in itself when gratification is taking great part of it. Most people just accept having a job is something you simply do in life. If they are happy or not, no questions asked. However it soon come to this, you’re born, you grow up, you work or do a job, maybe you are unemployed for some time, you retire and maybe you stay healthy enough to enjoy yourself for a few years and then you die.
What if we would allow our self for the possibility to change all that? How about accepting that life is a journey where pleasures are to be taken only as a medicine and gratification as food to life? What is that we would need to change to change all that? What would it take to challenge one person’s values and associated (limited) beliefs and their generated behaviors? What would it take to wake someone up to realize, recognize and acknowledge the state of the play of life and to inspire one’s natural PAL – Purposeful Authentic Life desire to want to create a shift? Humans are made to be inspired. Children are a great example of that.
What if such a job, where you won’t need to work for anything a single day for the rest of your life exists?[2] What if…? Knowing all this, what are you willing to do in order to get it? Have you ever thought that your dreams doesn’t work unless you do?
Description of the Power Tool
Pleasure / Security
The Secret of failure is in trying to please everybody Steve Boyley.
Security is today a well-priced and paid-for commodity and surely perceived very positively, and it there is nothing wrong with this. It is in fact one of the basic and fundamental needs people have. However this efforts, or necessity for security or pleasures often goes beyond reasonable limits. We know it snowballed, when we are so comfortable in our world, even though our world is falling apart, filled with mental disorders, alcohol, obesity, drugs, poverty, violence and misery, however nothing of it is bad enough we could not handle it, and some time we even tend to build our identity around it. Some people like to build their identity around their illness, profession, career, their family member’s success, etc.
We tend to believe we have it all under control. And do we? Can we ever truly control anything? Another example would be where we are so comfortable in our state that we are not able to allow any change to happen and if the change is forced from the outside, we suffer discomfort in many ways. Similar to emotional addiction. Another example is when living in material abundance and yet not truly enjoying our life. We might feel overburdened with work load or the content of our work we don’t like or we are just not really happy to do it, because it is boring, hazardous or meaningless and health issues might arising because of it more and more. We also might live in abundance that have been created for us by others and we are just not able to enjoying it, we are not able to find our own purpose, or we lost it somewhere on the way through life. We might never been able to develop appropriate life affirming values or beliefs.
There could be a number of reasons why it is so, and if it’s not clinical that would require medical or professional attention, then it must be something we learned, been conditioned by social environment and thus it is re-learnable. Anything we learn along our life can be unlearned and re-learned, as long as we became aware of it and want it to re-learn. We have to be aware where we are at right now and where is that we want to be and wanting to address the gap. The studies of Brain Neuroplasticity largely supports this approach and there are numbers of proofs supporting re-learning is possible. I have mentioned few in my Research paper[3].
There are also many cases of young people in their 30’s and 40’s pushing themselves to the limits of a heart attack. Some other people have nervous break downs, burnt out or having other medical issues. Unless genetic or medical reason, at the heart of the problem is usually the absence of PAL awareness and absence of adequate action to address the gap.
It is common, people usually do not like their work or life and yet won’t do anything to change it or change their attitude toward it. And sometime is just the attitude we have or our perception that needs to be addressed and everything changes. Little shifts in our own perspectives can be the doorway spark to PAL.
Life case – Sally
Sally was a bit overweight and never really accepted her body. She would equally not allow other to accept her the way she was. She was craving for a relationship and none of them worked since she pushed away who ever approached her. One day she saw naked photos and interviews with some of obsessed women in an online magazine. At first she did not want to read it. She was repelled by the photos of fat women. She came back to it at a later stage. The interviews were about the beauty of ordinary women and the love toward one self regardless how we look like. Some of the stories touched her heart and opened a doorway to accept herself and her body. It was only a split of a second lasting spark that started a process that led her into a life that she would not allow herself to desire.
How far have to go our discomfort, escaping to pleasures and enjoying false security to recognize it? In our example Sally was eating to comfort her emotions not accepting her body and trapped herself in a loop. How difficult it has to become in order to allow our self to think we need a change or ask for assistance? How hard it has to become before we actually realize where we are at and decide to make a move away from discomfort and instead a move toward something we really want and like? How far does your life need to snowball before you step out of the snowball path? What is the one little doorway spark that will create the necessary shift of awareness and open the doorway into your PAL?
Life case – Tim
Tim was an intelligent, handsome, loving and affectionate man. He realized he was gay when he was 10. He never came out with his sexuality. Growing up was not easy for him. He lived in a very small town and a religious community where being a gay was a sin. In his life he rarely left the town. Because of his secret he did not like to hang out with anybody. At some point his only male friend got a girlfriend and was teasing him a lot to get one himself. He was in early twenties and started to feel depressed to the point he needed a therapist. However he would never reveal his secret not even to the therapist. He started having hard times facing his parents and brothers, mostly he would be avoiding them. He would even take on another job to keep him away from people. In the news he would often read about the LGBT and yet never make a step. He was deteriorating inside to the point he got seriously ill. He believed, he’d rather die than live with his secret or to tell it to anyone. He was transferred to another hospital in a bigger city. It happened to be, there was older man in the same room. He was making jokes of anyone and everything all the time. He said he is ready to die if this is what is meant to be. He told Tim, he has a great and fulfilled life. He had a great job, friends and family and he had a perfect wife. One day the older man was keep teasing Tim realizing Tim’s embarrassment to the point Tim started crying, but he would not reveal his secret. The man was released from the hospital and Tim’s health state got worst. The doctor said to him one day, Tim if you want to get better you have to want it. What is that you truly want inside? Do you want to die? And Tim silently nod his head. The doctor took his hand and sat down on Tim’s bed. Tim was very embarrassed, the doctor was a handsome younger man and no man ever took his hand this way and showed so much compassion. Doctor said to him, whatever is there you tend to believe life is not worth living, it must be very significant to you and to your environment. I respect that. However sometimes we choose to carry the burdens of our society on our shoulders. We can also choose this is not our job anymore and never was. You deserve to be heathy, happy equally as anybody else and if God would not want us the way we are, we would not exist. For Tim, this was exactly what he needed to hear, a doorway spark, to create a shift to accept for who he is and to make steps in life toward his happiness.
Is it worth to scarify our entire lives, health, relationships for a false sense of security, getting some sort of relief through shortcuts or little pleasures such as staring at TV for hours every day, video gaming, over eating, over socializing, over drinking, abuse, shopping, sex, adrenalin, etc. There is no security in life, it is all changing constantly. Change is the only constant. And the beauty of it is that changes can happen effortlessly and naturally. Something like growing up from a little boy into a man or from a girl to a woman. All we need is to accept the changes and make the best out of them. Escaping to little pleasures are never enough, they are just a drop of water on a forest fire of fear. Pleasures that usually requires no skills and effort are a temporary treat of a denial. We know we are in a denial when we started giving in to pleasures and not taking actions, having seat backs etc. Belief in security and that pleasures are the ecstasy in life, in the long run, creates more expense than its worth. Surrendering the pleasures is a shortsighted match. Our life and our health is priceless. And is it? How much do you value yourself? What is the one thing you value the most? What needs to happen to make you realize you actually want a change? What is the one thing that prevents you realizing and then making the change you want to bring you into your PAL alignment?
Security and safety are one of human elementary needs, however they can easily turn against us as a comfort zone we cocoon into and sink deeper and deeper in our misery. Interestingly enough, if elements of security start fading away, like for instance, having lower and lower income, it will result in giving up health benefits, social life, education or healthier diet. At least we have enough for food, rent & pleasures the voice of security tells us. With elements of security fading out, the comfort zone start gradually shrinking. Sense of security still exist and hoping that something will change for the better. This is where the Hopeiumizm[4] start playing on a loop. When security levels drops, lots of people tend to surrender to cheap pleasures such as food, alcohol, drugs, watching sports, etc. and tend to believe, they are the way out to happiness.
John Assaraf used to ask his clients, do they want to be achievers or to continue to live the rest of their life on Hopeium?