Mindful Indulgence: When Pleasure Gets a Therapist
Thursday, October 30, 2025.
We live in a culture that can’t decide whether to worship pleasure or apologize for it. We binge, repent, and then we call it balanced.
But what if there’s another way—one that treats joy as neither sin nor therapy project, but as something we can practice consciously? Mindful indulgence is the art of enjoying what you love without guilt, distraction, or excess.
It’s what happens when awareness meets appetite, when the body and mind remember how to sit down together again.
In this post, we’ll explore the psychology and cultural history behind Mindful Indulgence, how other cultures have mastered the art of savoring, and why couples who learn to share pleasure slowly tend to reconnect deeply.
In the end, it’s not about luxury—it’s about sanity.
The Croissant of Conscience
There was a time when pleasure needed no justification. You ate the croissant—warm, flaky, and faintly illicit in its perfection—and then you got on with your day.
Now we require an ethical backstory, a mindfulness app, and a self-aware caption.
This is mindful indulgence: pleasure that’s been to therapy. It’s what happens when two thousand years of moral suspicion collide with the wellness economy.
But beneath the irony lies something profoundly human. Mindful indulgence isn’t virtue in yoga pants; it’s the skill of noticing your own joy without flinching. It’s a way of reclaiming appetite from guilty pleasure.
Why Pleasure Has Always Needed a Defense
From the Stoics to Freud, pleasure has lived on probation. The Stoics warned it would corrode reason. Christianity treated it as a test of virtue. Freud saw it as a drive that must be managed or sublimated. Capitalism, of course, simply packaged it for resale.
We swing between repression and excess—binge, repent, repeat.
Mindful indulgence offers a middle way. It says: stop oscillating. Sit still. Taste what’s already here.
The Science of Conscious Enjoyment
Therapists describe mindfulness as non-judgmental present awareness—and they mean that quite literally. Research by Brown and Ryan (2003) found that mindful awareness increases satisfaction and reduces impulsivity.
Similarly, studies on mindful eating show that slowing down, noticing texture and smell, and observing fullness enhances both pleasure and control (Arch et al., 2016). Even a short mindfulness intervention can heighten taste perception and satisfaction without leading to overeating.
Attention, it turns out, doesn’t dilute pleasure—it amplifies it. Neuroscientists note that deliberate awareness engages the brain’s dopaminergic reward system differently, promoting sustained satisfaction rather than brief spikes (Kabat-Zinn, 1990).
As a therapist, I once treated pleasure like a suspicious guest—welcome, but supervised.
Then one spring afternoon, after a long week of clients, I walked up my Berkshires hillside property just to breathe.
The light shifted on the wet grass, and something in my chest unclenched. Ten minutes of awareness—no agenda, no lesson plan. That was mindful indulgence in its most basic form: presence rediscovered.
East, West, and the Politics of Desire
In Buddhist thought, craving binds us to suffering. In Western psychology, craving binds us to productivity. We don’t renounce desire; we aspire to optimize it.
And yet, when the two traditions meet, something generative happens.
Mindful indulgence borrows the Buddhist call for awareness and the Western impulse toward action. Desire becomes neither sin nor strategy—it becomes visceral information.
It’s not about denial or excess. It’s about being conscious enough to know the difference between need, want, and numbing.
How Other Cultures Savor
In Italy, dinner lasts until conversation finishes the wine. In Greece, generosity is measured in food offered, not hours saved. In Japan, a tea ceremony slows time until your breath matches the steam.
These cultures understand what Americans keep trying to rebrand: that pleasure, properly attended to, civilizes us. Slowness and savoring is not inefficiency—it’s intimacy.
Mindful indulgence is our modern attempt to remember what other cultures never forgot.
Pleasure as Attachment Repair
Many couples I see live like efficient roommates. Their calendars align, their emotions don’t. They share Wi-Fi but not pulse.
Eli and Marissa were one such couple. They arrived in therapy managing each other like small corporations—schedules, budgets, grievances. When I asked when they last felt pleasure together, they looked confused.
They agreed to one experiment: a shared meal, phones off, eaten slowly.
The next week, Marissa said, “I noticed the sound of his fork. I’d never heard that before. It felt… safe.”
Eli smiled. “I hadn’t really seen her in months. Not looked—seen.”
That is mindful indulgence: attention as affection.
Stephen Porges’ polyvagal theory describes this as neuroception of safety—our bodies sense trust before our minds can name it (Porges, 2011). When partners share awareness, their nervous systems synchronize. Pleasure becomes not a distraction from connection, but a route back to it.
5 Ways to Practice Mindful Indulgence
Choose with Intention. Ask what would genuinely nourish you—not what social media suggests.
Clear the Stage. Pleasure needs quiet space, not multitasking.
Engage All Your Senses. Let touch, sound, and scent become part of memory.
Reflect Softly. How did it feel? Not “was it productive?” but “was I present?”
End with Gratitude. Stop before the craving dulls the joy.
Everyday Indulgences Worth Savoring
Drink your morning coffee without checking the news. Take a walk without earbuds.
Eat one perfect square of chocolate and let it melt until time slows.
Draw a bath and listen to the sound of water instead of podcasts. Cook one dish beautifully, even if you’re alone. Ask someone a question you don’t already know the answer to.
Take a nap without justification. Listen to one song with your eyes closed until it breaks you open a little.
Pleasure, when done right, changes tempo—not mood.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is mindful indulgence?
It’s the art of enjoying pleasure consciously—savoring it without guilt, distraction, or excess.
Is mindful indulgence just self-care rebranded?
No. Self-care repairs depletion; mindful indulgence prevents it.
Can mindfulness make pleasure stronger?
Yes. Attention deepens sensory experience, making smaller moments feel larger.
How does it help couples?
Shared awareness strengthens emotional regulation and intimacy, improving physiological synchrony (Porges, 2011).
Isn’t indulgence selfish?
Only when it’s thoughtless. Mindful pleasure is generosity in practice—toward your own nervous system and the people you share it with.
Why It Matters
We live in a culture that often confuses stimulation with joy. We scroll, binge, and consume, mistaking novelty for depth.
Mindful indulgence is a rebellion disguised as softness. It says: Stop running. This moment, right now suffices.
It isn’t luxury. It’s literacy—the ability to read your own life again, one breath, one taste, one profound mercy at a time.
Mindful indulgence might be an emerging lifestyle trend. But it’s also what I imagine sanity sounds like when it finally exhales.
Be Well, Stay Kind, and Godspeed.
REFERENCES:
Arch, J. J., Brown, K. W., Goodman, R. J., Della Porta, M. D., Kiken, L. G., & Tillman, S. (2016). Enjoying food without caloric cost: The impact of brief mindfulness on laboratory eating outcomes. Appetite, 99, 54–59. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2016.01.009
Bays, J. C. (2017). Mindful eating: A guide to rediscovering a healthy and joyful relationship with food. Shambhala Publications.
Brown, K. W., & Ryan, R. M. (2003). The benefits of being present: Mindfulness and its role in psychological well-being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84(4), 822–848. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.84.4.822
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The psychology of optimal experience. Harper & Row.
Kabat-Zinn, J. (1990). Full catastrophe living: Using the wisdom of your body and mind to face stress, pain, and illness.Delta.
Porges, S. W. (2011). The polyvagal theory: Neurophysiological foundations of emotions, attachment, communication, and self-regulation. W. W. Norton & Company.