It has been thought for centuries that pain was the opposite of pleasure. That when pain was present pleasure was absent. This idea has been widely accepted for generations. The pleasure-pain principle was originated by Sigmund Freud in modern psychoanalysis, although Aristotle noted their significance in his ‘Rhetoric’, more than 300 years BC.
‘We may lay it down that Pleasure is a movement, a movement by which the soul as a whole is consciously brought into its normal state of being; and that Pain is the opposite.‘
This idea is that as human beings, we inherently move towards pleasure and avoid pain. This one concept has built an idea that the two are opposites and mutually exclusive. There are many examples cited about this idea of seeking pleasure and avoiding pain. Such a child who gets burned by fire and avoids the fire. This we can witness as a child is learning about its environment. This seems like absolute truth at first glance.
However, a new idea is being born, one that allows for the possibility of pain and pleasure existing simultaneously thus becoming neither of those. When a person allows themselves to be outside the realm of opposites, one can experience both joy and sadness, pain and pleasure, laughter and crying at the same time. The interesting part of this idea is that most of us have experienced moments of simultaneous pain and pleasure. Even if it was just for a second, the experience is often dismissed and deemed an abnormal experience or perhaps the person claiming to experience it was delusional or crazy. It is in this moment of simultaneously experiencing pain and pleasure, that we realize how subjective the idea of pain/pleasure has become. In the simultaneous experience of opposites, bliss arises that surpasses both pain and pleasure. It is in feeling this blissful, whether both are experienced simultaneously or you might say that neither were experienced at all, there is an experience beyond words, ideas and concepts. An experience that defies logic, science and rational thinking.
Perhaps it’s time to conceive of the idea of as an idea whose time has come. In doing so, we open the door to the impossible idea of experiencing pleasure in birth. I know it’s possible, because I personally experienced it and the only reason I personally experienced it was because I knew it was possible. Welcome to the new paradigm of birth.
“It is not necessary for you to be pain-free in order to be free of suffering. It is not necessary for there to be a lack of disruption in your life for there to be peace.” ~Neale Donald Walsch
“What seems nasty, painful, evil can become a source of beauty, joy, and strength, if faced with an open mind.” ~ Henry Miller
“Many of us spend our whole lives running from feeling with the mistaken belief that you cannot bear the pain. But you have already borne the pain. What you have not done is feel all you are beyond the pain.” ~Saint Bartholomew quotes (One of the Twelve Apostles, 1st century AD)
