Dear Ones,
Pleasure and Pain. Pain and Pleasure.
These are the two main motivators. People are motivated to move toward Pleasure and to avoid Pain.
Think about this in your relationships, in business and in life. Are you offering the other person pleasure in their interaction with you? Are you offering them respite from their pain? Or are you bringing something else to the relationship? Are you increasing their pain or diminishing or blocking their pleasure? Likewise, what are they bringing to you in the relationship?
Lab animals are studied in psychology laboratories because it is so easy to introduce pleasure and/or pain into their environments. But human beings are not lab animals. There are huge differences, the main one being that humans have more control over their environments than lab animals have.
So humans can choose to avoid pain or to seek pleasure. And these choices can be made consciously or unconsciously. One doesn’t have to think too hard or too long before removing one’s hand from a hot stove. But in other situations there can be nuances and rationalizations and multiple sources of conflicting information that make choosing a direction or a next step more difficult.
In some abusive relationships a person may not be willing to assess the situation in the present and may be influenced by past energies, experiences or even past lives. In some cases, especially in business relationships, abuse can take a very subtle form of discounting, ignoring, dismissing.
Every individual deserves to be treated as a valuable person with ideas to contribute, thoughts that are worth considering, feelings that are to be included, whether the relationship is business or personal. Every person deserves to be in relationships that do not bring pain to them.
We acknowledge that sometimes there is disappointment or discomfort in a relationship that is growing/evolving, but that relationship should not be the direct source of pain, such as mental, emotional or physical abuse.
And so individuals who would live a Conscious Life must be looking at what is motivating them to take the next step or to avoid taking a step. Is that step being taken to avoid some pain? Or is it being taken to move toward some pleasure? And if the answer is to avoid pain, then there must be some positive motivating force, some pleasure, to move toward after one has accomplished the avoidance of the pain.
Ask yourself which is your biggest motivator and then use that information to set up ‘motivating milestones’ for yourself. Have you gotten stuck somewhere in your life? Are you wishing you could move forward but, for some reason, are not able to? Are you confused about which direction to take and the confusion is paralyzing you?
Your usual motivators may not be strong enough to get you moving from where you currently are. Get help identifying what energy is holding you back. Clear up the blocks. Gain clarity about the direction you really wish to pursue.
And THEN get motivated and get going!
And so it is.
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Mystic Messages 
MUSE-INGS: “Make sure you are moving TOWARD something!”
April 12, 2011 — RosemaryWe are always avoiding pain but does that give us enough impetus to keep going after the danger or pain is over? I think of the wealthy people who are motivated by avoiding poverty. The farther from poverty they get the less motivated they can become to make money and they lose it/go bankrupt. But then they become motivated to make money again to avoid poverty so they make lots more money. This is a cycle with people who are motivated to move away from the pain of poverty.
When we follow a pattern of avoiding pain we must be careful to shift our gears to moving toward something instead of always moving away from pain. Notice that the ‘moving away from’ energy diminishes the farther one gets from pain. But what takes over? Where is the motivation after the pain is no longer a problem?
The person who would live a Conscious Life knows what they are moving toward. There is a desire to expand awareness, to grow in Consciousness, that keeps one motivated to learn more, to experience more, to continue to grow. There has to be an attachment to that movement forward to carry the person into further growth. It cannot be only about avoiding pain.
Too many people have been struggling in their lives to ‘keep up with the Joneses’ and so they have struggled to maintain a lifestyle that is not in alignment with their income or life purpose. These people have been trying to avoid a negative comparison with someone else. Or they have believed that they are entitled to have whatever their neighbor has and they want to avoid embarrassment. But living in a way that is based on avoiding the pain of embarrassment does not move one into higher consciousness. This choice does not expand consciousness or awareness. It is actually a limiting energy because it is based on a comparison with someone else and a desire to avoid coming up short.
What is your motivation in your daily life? Are you constantly taking action to avoid pain or do you move toward pleasure? Might there be a balance that is needed in your life?
Looking at what motivates you can give you some real insights into your own value structure. If you are constantly avoiding pain without deciding what you are moving toward then examine your value structures to determine what really matters to you and what it is that you desire to bring into your life.
You will not be living your life to the fullest if all you do is make choices to avoid the next pain!
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