The idea that we create and secretly 'get off on' our own suffering because we gain something from it, and that humans want the dark and the grungy as much as the light. Nev says that once you find your existential kink, it stops being dark and becomes a playground.
Where it appears 1
portal to the unknownCarolyn Elliott's book on unmasking the unconscious pleasure we take in our own suffering. Nev cites it as the source of the existential-kink framework she uses with clients.
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- Tamir's Nosferatu night and dark tastes
Tamir recalls seeing Nosferatu in a theater and finding its possession and madness strangely appealing. He jokes that he is a masochist because he loves the discomfort of endurance sports…
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- Ask what you gain from your suffering
Take a recurring suffering you call unwanted and ask 'the questions nobody wants to ask': what do I stand to receive from this, and why might I be creating it? Finding the answer shows you…
When you find out your existential kink and everyone's existential kink, it's no longer dark. It becomes fun. You can play with it because now you see yourself and you're not owned by that shadow any longer.
- Find the payoff in your suffering
Suffering we insist is 'outside of me' is often suffering we create because we get something from it. Naming that payoff, your existential kink, takes away its darkness and turns it into…
We are actually oftentimes, and I would say all of the time, the root cause of our own suffering. And I would take it a step even further to say that we actually get off on our own suffering.