The Power of the Pleasant Moment

The Gathering Room Podcast

Martha Beck

Business, Entrepreneurship, Self-improvement, Courses, Education

5 • 656 Ratings

🗓️ 25 April 2024

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Pleasure is something that many of us may think of as an indulgence, but Martha says it’s actually the gateway to the things that really enrich our souls… And we access this pleasure by relaxing. 🍃 In this episode of The Gathering Room, Martha shares an exercise you can do to drop into relaxation mode, and it doesn’t require a trip to the spa—you can do it anywhere! Using small, pleasant feelings to anchor the whole mind can lead to revolutionary changes, Martha says, and it begins with just two simple steps: First, clench your jaw. 😬 Then, release it. 😌 Repeat this a few times, and start to notice the feeling of release when your jaw drops. See if you can find something pleasurable in that release of tension because even the smallest sense of pleasure can pull your attention toward it—and away from negative feelings. You can extend this Relaxation Pleasure exercise throughout your whole body to help relieve anxiety, anger, or heartbreak. Want to learn how? Listen to the full episode where Martha will walk you through the steps and also lead you in her guided Silence, Stillness, and Space meditation. It’s a recipe for what Martha calls “a mighty pleasant moment” so be sure to join her!

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Gathering Room podcast, the audio version of my weekly gathering room broadcast.
0:08.3	I'm Martha Beck.
0:09.6	Welcome, welcome, welcome to the gathering room.
0:12.2	I was going to call this the power of being mighty pleasant.
0:20.3	Mighty pleasant was what I was going to call this, because I have
0:25.2	been realizing more and more lately the incredible power of things that we culturally tend to
0:33.3	ignore or even denigrate. So mere pleasure is something that a lot of people think of as an
0:43.9	indulgence. But more and more, I've realized that we don't effort our way into the things
0:51.8	that really enrich our souls. we relax our way into them.
0:57.6	Roe and I have been taking sleep lessons from some sleep experts that we met when we were
1:03.9	in Costa Rica checking out our venue for our Costa Rican retreat. Some folks were there teaching others how to sleep.
1:13.6	This is what they do.
1:14.6	And they're amazing.
1:15.6	And we have little Zoom lectures from them,
1:18.6	and we put on special glasses to help our brains produce melatonin
1:23.6	and use happy lights to wake our brains up in the morning.
1:28.2	It's all been really revolutionary, but it's fascinating to learn how powerful it is to be able
1:35.6	to relax.
1:38.0	And we talk a lot about the racing thoughts that a lot of people have when they're trying
1:41.8	to sleep. I actually don't have a lot of racing thoughts when I try to sleep because I have learned
1:50.0	this meditation that uses small pleasant feelings to anchor the whole brain, the whole mind. And you'd think this would be kind of a minor thing, right?
2:04.6	But it has been so revolutionary for me.
	...

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