Why do we forget about pleasure?
How is it even possible that we can forget about the joy of pleasure, the sweetness of flirtation and the fire of seduction? How can we forget something that touches us so deeply, like falling in love? Yet we all know that even the day after an experience of bliss, we are right back to doing the dishes and putting food on the table. It’s the same in all spiritual teachings. We might have been blissed out at a mindfulness retreat, and then collapse into an eating binge two days after because of a fight with our boss. Our ego structure is persistent, and so very clever.
Why do we forget about pleasure?
Anhedonia means unable to experience pleasure. It’s a condition often connected to depression, yet most of us don’t know how to experience pleasure. Sure, we can get dopamin kicks through clicks, food, sex, streaming etc, but that is not the pleasure I’m talking about; that deep, transformative pleasure that knocks us off our feet, and into a place of luscious bliss.
Esthér Perel, the couple’s therapist who has written about Erotic Intelligence, and whose parents were in the Nazi concentration camps, shares that there were two types of survivors that returned; those who remembered eros and celebrated life and those who didn’t and returned as living dead. Most of us don’t understand how important eros, pleasure and life-force is. At best, we treat it as a nice extra. We don’t understand that the best antidote to fear and to depression is a deep connection to Eros, to pleasure and life-force through the power of truth. But how do we turn to pleasure when we truly are in a fear spiral, and wonder how to pay our bills? Or any of the other worries that live in our nervous system?
Turning Towards
The only turn-around I know, individually and collectively, is turning towards. Facing the darkness, through truth. We start with where we are at, sense our bodies, take a breath, and notice what’s here. Maybe we experience a burning anger in our chests. Maybe we feel slow and numb, maybe we notice with an exhale how tense our bellies are. Maybe we feel a constant headache because we try to solve everything through our minds; trying to control things beyond our control.
As soon as we are able to see and name what is actually here, individually or collectively, something shifts. We can be more present. From there we can explore our fears or our frustration. What we are most resisting. When we can name that, we start feeling into what is NOT horrible right now. What doesn’t suck in this moment. Which shifts us a bit more. We can take deeper breaths and we experience more inner space.
Now we are ready to turn towards what we really want, what our hearts are longing for. As our energy is flowing again, we increasingly connect with the higher frequencies of pleasure and eros. We are saying yes to life again, with all its challenges and all its beauty. Our bodies respond, our hearts open and our jewels, say, bring it on, baby. I’m here and I’m not leaving.
It’s from this place we move into flow, emergence and a big helping of seduction. We become pleasure activists, without having any need to convert or save anyone. Since the juiciness is so attractive that it creates its own force-field, through our hearts and which is how we truly save the world.
What are you turning towards now?
