Stop with the Guilty Pleasure

Tara Wilken
2 min readAug 28, 2021

And do this instead…

Photo by Yuliya Pankevich on Unsplash

My guilty pleasure is …..

How often do you say that or something similar.

Maybe you are talking about a TV show, or eating chocolate or even walking barefoot in the grass.

Stop for a moment and think about that phrase “guilty pleasure”

Women especially tend to justify our pleasure by feeling guilty about taking time to watch, eat or do something we enjoy.

By choosing to “re-enforce” our guilt by naming it a “guilty pleasure” we teach ourselves and and our children, especially our daughters its not okay to have pleasure in our lives. Unless we feel guilty.

And if you are feeling guilty, you don’t allow yourself to fully enjoy the moment.

I will admit I struggle with this too.

It can be hard to take pleasure in something.

Even writing it or saying it out loud can feel uncomfortable.

Just by acknowledging you’re deserving and worthy of receiving pleasure can start to shift your mindset.

You may not feel like you deserve pleasure, and that’s okay. You are building your muscle to receive pleasure guilt-free.

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Tara Wilken

Well-Being Curator. Empowering high achievers with easy, practical self-care resources. So you can spend time with people who matter. https://www.tarawilken.com