Not so « guilty pleasures »

For today’s blog post, I thought I’d share a more personal anecdote to illustrate how having limiting beliefs about yourself, such as manifested by feelings of guilt and shame around pleasure, can prevent you from living a happy and fulfilling life.

Are there things in your life that you are not completely allowing yourself to experience? You know, things that would bring you pleasure, yet you judge yourself for being drawn to these things or for wanting them?

Often called “guilty pleasures”, these may be tv shows, books, feel good movies and others that you don’t always want other people to know about. But I wonder, why is that? Why should you be hiding things that clearly bring you pleasure and satisfaction? What value do you put in the things that you enjoy?  

I’ve personally asked myself that question a bunch of times. And I’ve realized over the years that part of the self-imposed guilt for indulging in things I enjoy were due to the deep impact that academia has had on my life and limiting beliefs such as impostor’s syndrome.  However unfortunate that is, academics are not often (dare I say, “rarely”?!) aware of this judgement imposed on the self. 

I still read a lot of « serious » stuff on a daily basis - evidence based research articles and theories in sociology and in psychology. I enjoy it, it stimulates my brain in ways that are similar to me feeling on a high of adrenaline. My mind truly feels electric when I am excited about a concept or when I start connecting dots between ideas. 

But I also LOVE lighter fictional readings that will give my brain space to dream, imagine, and escape to mysterious worlds. I am actually an avid reader of “cozy mysteries” – a subgenre of crime writing. It just brings me back to my childhood memories when I would hide under the bed covers, and sneak in as much reading time with my favorite detectives as I could! Agatha Christie was my all-time favorite! 

For the longest time, however, I did not allow myself to connect again with that reading pleasure. When I was doing my PhD, I spent many years feeling guilty about reading anything else than research and theory. If you’ve been an academic too, you are probably very familiar with that guilt. You are pretty much conditioned early on to « power through » and live uncomfortably on a daily basis. We try to convince ourselves that we should only be doing « serious » stuff - and by « serious », I mean readings sanctioned by our peers and our supervisors. Doing anything else often leads to make us feel like we are impostors, like we don’t quite belong there. I mean if you have the time for light reading, then you have the time to read more « serious and important » stuff, and work a little harder on your thesis or your comp exam, right? 

Well, actually, WRONG. What I’ve learned - in and outside academia - is that you need that outlet, you need to do and read things that you LOVE too, things that give you pleasure. Otherwise, it’s pretty darn hard to feel happy and fulfilled while doing a PhD or any ambitious long-term project for that matter. I know that I for one wasn’t very happy and fulfilled during these PhD years. Sure, I powered through and I produced a thesis that I was passionate about and that I am proud of. But there were many times when I felt that guilt overshadow my existence. It took me a long time to allow myself to read fun fictional stories like “cozy mysteries” again. And it took me a long time to recognize that guilt for what it was: a limiting belief that was holding me back from accepting myself in all my complexity and unique quirkiness. 

Since then, I’ve let go of the guilt and I make sure that pleasure is a lot more present in my life than it used to be. I’ve decided that creating intentional space for it was my way to make sure that it was worthy to exist. 

That is why I actually don’t like the phrase « guilty pleasures ». Pleasure should never make you feel guilty. And if it does, do me a favor. Ask yourself: If I allowed myself to live with pleasure, what might become possible for me? Who might I become once I let go of the guilt? Who am I once I embrace all these parts of myself?