Harnessing Your Pleasure Cycle

Happy Tuesday!

I hope you all had a lovely Labor Day weekend, and didn’t engage in too much labor.

In my blog today, I will share:
1. My 38:00 vblog presentation on how to harness your pleasure cycle.
2. My visit with Mike Salemi, my Russian Kettlebell Masters competitor.
3. Show-N-Tell: Recent art by Angie and I.

Harnessing Your Pleasure Cycle

We are all naturally seeking pleasure in our lives. In fact, if you study biology, you will find that all cells inherently move toward pleasure and away from pain.

One of the key points of my presentation today is becoming aware of when you chosen “pleasure” is potentially creating more “pain than pleasure.”

In my video, I share the four components or attributes related to the process of creating pleasure for ourselves, which are:
1. Desire
2. Anticipation
3. Sensation
4. Satisfaction

I explain the basics of each of the components and add to the existing academic model (reference given in video), showing you what additional factors are involved in the pleasure cycle.

The correlations I share are:
1. Desire – Belief
2. Anticipation – Judgment
3. Sensation – Experience, and
4. Satisfaction – Awareness

I explain that what we desire is either an expression of, or a symptom of our underlying belief or beliefs.

Anticipation is directly related to the judgments we have made about, or in relation to, choices and means of pleasuring ourselves.

What do I expect? Should I, or shouldn’t I be pleasuring myself this way….

The sensation of pleasuring ourselves in a given way is what provides the experience we are having.

How satisfied, or unsatisfied we are and what we do about continuing our engagement with what pleasures us, or not continuing requires awareness.

I share how my 4 Doctor model works in relationship to the pleasure cycle, and how having a dream and supportive 4-Doctor core values is critical to both our awareness, and making dream-affirmative decisions.

The culmination or “climax” of my presentation relates to the double spiral you see at the bottom of my black board drawing.

When we choose to pleasure ourselves in any way, we are always being given feedback by our body, emotions, mind, soul, and those we share relationships with.

I explain that whenever we are in a relationship with persons, places, or things, there are always four options we can use to manage the relationship:
1. Work on yourself
2. Work on the relationship
3. Do nothing – and know that the past = the future with this choice.
4. Get out of the relationship.

Through awareness of what our dream (goal or objective) is, we can evaluate what our authentic needs are based on the status of our six foundation principles and our 4 Doctors.

If we are aware that we are getting what we desire in a dream-affirmative way, then continuing to pleasure ourselves in this way can be very productive.

If we are not getting what we desire relative to the needs we have for fulfilling our dream weaving process (goals or objectives at that time), and we are unconscious of that fact, chances are good we will only enhance our unconsciousness through continued engagement with that form of pleasure.

If we are aware and choose to meat our authentic needs such that we are living and acting in a dream-affirmative manner, we are typically growing spiritually – becoming more conscious of our capacity to create.

If we choose to meet our immediate wants at the expense of our authentic needs, then we progressively degenerate our capacity for conscious awareness over time; we become more materialized, more fixed and less conscious with our thoughts, words and deeds. In fact, we may very well be trapped in an addictive cycle.

I hope you enjoy my video blog today!

Resources:
1. How To Eat Move and Be Healthy! – Book

2. The Last 4 Doctors You’ll Ever Need – Mutlimedia e-book

3. The 1234 For Overcoming Addiction, Obesity and Disease – MP3 Audio and Workbook

4. PPS Lessons 1-3 – online Learning

The Pursuit Of Mastery Can Be Rigorous!

Last time I shared highlights of Mike’s monthly coaching visit with me here at the Heaven House, he was just about to compete in San Francisco in attempt to gain his Russian Masters in the grueling 40 kg class.

I shared that if Mike was successful, he would become the first North American to do so.

Mike had a great competition, but we fell short of our Masters requirement.

We are both very aware of the grueling nature of both the competition; as you can see in the photo from “Rise Above Newsletter”, he is getting a lot of attention and awareness for his highly commendable efforts toward this aim.

Mike is used to competing on stage with at least three other competitors in the typical Russian KB competitions, but this time, he was the only one in his class, and on stage.

Not having anyone to stimulate him, help push him was something new, and was understandably uncomfortable for Mike.

The room was also very hot and muggy, with all eyes on Mike, making the experience quite a departure from our trial runs in training.

Mike and I learned a lot from this experience, and we are now making efforts to overcome these obstacles by scheduling some “training competitions” specifically designed to condition Mike to this kind of competitive environment.

Mike is very disciplined about managing his 4 Doctors, and his essential self-maintenance, which includes a comprehensive pre-workout plan specifically tailored to Mike’s unique individual needs.

Since I often lift with him or workout before I coach him, I joined him with my own preparation routine this Sunday.

Here you can see Mike and I working on a hybrid technique that combines the best of the Russian style, and the best of traditional Olympic lifting style together for a more efficient, less painful approach.

Those are the 40 kg bells he’s lifting, and that’s not easy!

I have to work hard to just clean-n-jerk one of those things; they weight 88.2 pounds each, or 176.4 pounds combined, which is almost exactly what Mike weighs!

Imagine trying to do 27 reps of the clean-n-jerk with your body weight and not being allowed to let the weight touch the ground in 5:00! Now you know why no North American has accomplished this feat yet…yet!

Mike and I are in the process of training for two upcoming competitions, so we’ll let you know how he’s doing. He’s well on his way to putting his name in the record books, and I’m always excited to help him achieve this dream.

Mike and I are making fantastic progress on our new kettlebell certification/training program, so we’ll let you know where to find out more once we are complete with our preparations in a few months.

Keep up the great work Mike! You constantly inspire me, and many others I’m sure!

Show-N-Tell With Paul

This Saturday, Angie and I came up to the Heaven House with her lovely pug, Maggie to have a relaxing day of painting.

Angie started this lovey painting of a dream catcher. I really love what she’s creating and can’t wait to see what it looks like when she’s finished.

I always love her art. She’s definitely a multi-talented woman.

I was in the mood to paint something mindless – which for me, means not having to think about getting this or that “correct”, such as painting someone’s face.

I’ve been working quite hard lately on a number of projects, and this weekend, my mind was tired.

I let my soul guide me every step, and just let go of feeling like I had to control the outcome.

This is what came out of me. I called the painting “The Elements” because it feels like life manifesting in a field of energy; life is expressed within the elements of earth, water, fire, air, and space.

I had a fantastic time painting it. I felt wonderful, relaxed, open and joyous. It was just the medicine I needed with all the work I’ve been doing.

I hope you all take the time for some unbound, artistic creativity. It is very healing.

The colors can really be quite vivifying and it’s always fun to see what comes from the depths of us as we let go and just follow the inner-impulse of the soul.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my blog today.

Have a fantastic week!

Love and chi,
Paul Chek