Pursue Your Pleasure in Love

Here at Your Brilliance, my goal is to help you shine.

My goal is to get you in touch with your light and remove all barriers to it, so that you aren’t afraid anymore.

When we are not in touch with our light, we feel powerless.

It feels like other people are in charge. We have to do things their way. We have to please THEM in order to be given a chance.

So we train ourselves to give and give and GIVE, to be useful, to make others happy, to prove our worth, and what happens???

You got it. We’re not rewarded. Instead, we end up taken advantage of. All our gifts get swallowed up, and we’re given nothing in return.

So that is why I am not here to teach you how to give men what they want.

I am here to teach you to own your power and your light.

Time for a Change

The specific methodology I teach is the Pleasure Principle.

The Pleasure Principle is quite simple on the surface:

Go towards what you desire, rather than away from what you don’t want.

Those of us who are seeking a deep love—whether we’re single or in a relationship—struggle with so many things we don’t want.

We don’t want to be last place in his priority list. We don’t want to be pushed away emotionally. We don’t want to feel lonely when we’re right there beside him. We don’t want him to act the way he’s acting.

And so we think we have to figure out a way to change him.

If only he desired us, if only he put us first, if only he treated us well! Then all our issues would go away.

But if we took a step back, and looked at our situation through the lens of the Pleasure Principle, what we might see is that our actions are being driven by what we DON’T want.

We’re seeing an outcome that scares us—like him not wanting to be with us, or him dumping us, or no longer loving us—and we’re doing whatever we can to keep that from happening.

The Pleasure Principle suggests that deciding what to do based on what’s scaring you and what’s causing you pain will BACKFIRE on you.

Instead, it asks you to get in touch with the opposite:

What pleases you.

Find Your Pleasure

What makes you feel good?

What makes you feel WONDERFUL?

When are you happiest?

If you had the perfect day, what would it look like?

If your guy did everything right, what would that look like?

Fantasize until you come across a thought or an image or an idea that makes your whole body relax.

Just thinking about it puts an involuntary smile on your face, and your insides seem to go all happy and gooey.

That’s your pleasure.

That’s what we want you to experience in whatever relationship you end up with.

This kind of melting sensation inside, where you feel safe and accepted and whole and replete.

Now think about how you feel with this man who’s causing you so much confusion.

Do you feel your insides seize up? Do you feel your muscles tense? Do you feel a knot of anxiety in your gut?

Those feelings really grab your attention. You are willing to do ANYTHING to stop the discomfort.

But I am going to ask you to breathe through it and don’t let those feelings hijack you. They are not a good guide. They will lead you in the wrong direction.

Instead, I’m going to ask you to try acting out of the part of you that feels all warm and gooey and content when you think of your bliss.

What direction does your BLISS point you in? That’s the green light you’re looking for.

So that is the first step:

You need to know your pleasure.

Rediscover The Pleasure You’ve Lost

The second thing I’m going to ask you to do is to think about this man, and think about what it’s been like to be with him, and ask yourself:

When have you experienced that lovely gooey safe happy feeling with him?

Was it on some of your first dates?

Was it when you were just Netflixing and chilling?

Was it when you exchanged I love you’s?

Or have you NEVER experienced that feeling with him?

If you’re just seeing each other, you may not have felt that bone-deep sigh of pleasure yet. You may still feel too anxious around him, not sure where things are going, not sure how he feels about you.

I’ll address that in a moment, but first, if you HAVE experienced that sense of deep pleasure with him, what can you do to have that experience again?

Can you go out to the same place you went on your first date?

Can you take an evening just to chill out and remember the simple pleasure of leaning your head on his shoulder?

Worry and stress kill pleasure, so that’s why we need to work on finding those feelings again.

Remember, the pleasure I’m talking about is all YOURS. This isn’t about making sure he’s feeling good, but rather finding the pleasure of the relationship for yourself again.

A woman’s pleasure is the ultimate aphrodisiac for men.

If your relationship is cooling, if things are hard, pleasure will lead you back together again. Not his pleasure, but YOUR pleasure.

If you haven’t felt that gooey, melting feeling with him yet, though, I need to ask you this. It’s the #1 most important question to ask in any new relationship:

Does he feel like he could be your safe haven?

Be a Safe Haven for Each Other

The concept of a “safe haven” comes from attachment theory.

When babies and toddlers leave their mother’s lap to explore the world, and they encounter something that scares them, they rush back to their mother to be comforted.

An attuned mother will help them feel safe again, giving them the courage to venture forth again and explore the scary world beyond her lap.

In secure relationships, our partners are safe havens.

We know that they will be there for us if something happens. We can trust them to respond in emotionally appropriate ways.

When we are with them, we feel fundamentally safe. They are not going to hurt us, at least not deliberately. They are not going to shame us. They are not going to abandon us when we need them.

You cannot have lifelong lasting love without being a safe haven for one another. It’s a basic requirement.

(You may be able to STAY together for years, but you won’t feel loved if he is not a safe haven for you.)

Not All Men Can Be Safe Havens

A lot of men don’t know how to be a safe haven and couldn’t care less about it.

They lack the emotional intelligence to become attuned to their partners. They’re not interested in being an emotional support person. They want things to be fun and easy. They mischaracterize our natural need to be emotionally connected as neediness.

You can get into a relationship with a guy like that, but it will be what I call a “hamburger relationship.”

It will feel like fast food. Satisfying in the moment, but ultimately leaving you hungrier than before.

You cannot turn a hamburger relationship into a lasting love relationship. So you have to decide what you’ll settle for.

Is a hamburger good enough?

Or do you want the kind of full-course meal that’s good for you, even though it takes much longer and requires much more skill to prepare?

Exercise Your Superpower

The final step—and it’s a step I’m almost afraid to share with you, because it’s so powerful and so easily misunderstood—is to practice your superpower.

Hardly any dating coaches talk about this superpower, because it’s like telling you that you are packing a weapon that could blast a town to smithereens. 😉

There’s no way ANYONE will be able to convince you to play petty games to make men like you once you know you have this power!

This superpower has many names, but what I’m going to call it here is limits.

It’s your ability to NOT give a man what he wants.

If you master this, you will see men completely turn around the way they treat you.

The reason I hesitate to tell you about this superpower is that if you practice it WITHOUT the Pleasure Principle, you can come across like that popular book Men Love Bitches.

This is not about being a queen, or playing hard to get, or saying no just because he didn’t ask you out soon enough.

This is about knowing what you want in your life and turning down anything that isn’t that.

Men are not used to being around women with limits.

They are used to women bending their limits because these women are so desperate to avoid putting him off.

Dating culture has managed to convince women that their job is give a man what he wants. How often have you been told that you need to find out what men want, so you can be his secret desire?

In fact, the minute you start playing the game of, “I need to be what men want,” you LOSE your personal power. You make everything about him.

And you end up with men who take you for granted, who don’t treat you with respect, and who put you second in their priorities.

Your job is to remember what gives you pleasure…

What makes you happy…

What gives you that feel of sheer bliss and comfort and safety.

And then, when you are with a man who doesn’t seem to care about your bliss or what makes you happy or what you need, you simply say, “No.”

A man says, “I enjoy being with you, but I don’t want a relationship right now, I’ve got other priorities,” and you say:

That’s great, thanks for being so clear and up front. I accept that that’s where you’re at in your life, but I’m in a different place in my life. Good luck to you!”

And you walk away.

Men are not used to women walking away.

Men are not used to women not giving them what they want.

Men are not used to women who won’t bend over backwards for them.

And so, yes, you will put off certain men when you start practicing your superpower.

You’ll put off men who want to be in charge, men who don’t want to put in any effort, men who never wanted an equal relationship in the first place.

But the GOOD men, the men who have what it takes to create a lifetime of love, will think, “Finally! A woman who is in touch with what makes her happy and lets me know.”

When you practice the Pleasure Principle in love, you refuse to be with any man doesn’t take great delight in putting a smile on your face.

Because you know how much pleasure it gives you to please the one you love.

If a man thinks it’s “work” to please you, then he doesn’t have the capacity to love you. He’s not meant for you.

Say yes to yourself and no to him.