A while ago someone asked me why I was, in their perception, ‘seemingly obsessed’ with pleasure.
Now most social media comments can be taken with a pinch of salt, I gave this some thought.
On the surface that’s what I do, I teach about pleasure. And for so many of us, when we hear that we put it in the context of sexuality. Which is a huge part of it, and there’s so much more, so, so much more!
The first is this, pleasure, and I’m going to use the phrase conscious pleasure, is a deep path of self-knowledge, self-healing, self-exploration, self-growth and more.
It’s connected to our vitality, our life-force, our creativity.
It’s an expression of our bodies, minds, hearts and spirits.
It’s a path of awareness, a path to expanded states of consciousness.
It’s a spiritual path, a path of liberation.
It’s a path that’s a life-long journey of exploration, experience and discovery.
It’s a path of intimacy and connection, of energy as much as it’s physical, of emotion as much as it’s of sensation.
And, as I often say, it’s a path of limitless possibility.
We seem to have a deep mistrust, a misunderstanding, and a deep disconnect from deep states of pleasure.
We, as individuals, as societies, have become so locked in pain, in our pain bodies, in causing pain, healing pain, overcoming pain, suffering, that our pleasure bodies, our pleasure beings are strangers to us.
We allow ourselves small amounts of pleasure. Then we go back to the pain, to the smallness, the tightness, the contraction, the disconnect.
I am not for one moment suggesting that all of life is pleasure, and can be.
There is a great deal of pain and suffering, within us, in our lives, in our world.
There is a great deal of corruption and abuse of pretty much all aspects of life.
And I am not suggesting that pleasure is the answer to everything, and a path for everyone.
It does have many gifts for us that can change so much, heal so much, open so much, and create so much.
For the energy of pleasure is the energy of creation, expressed in so many ways.
It’s the energy of generation, of regeneration.
It also brings a shift in perspective that allows the way we experience so much, see so much, to change.
We have to begin from a sexual perspective, then expand.
What we’ve done, and do more, is created a model of sexuality that is actually not really about pleasure.
It’s a porn and media-based model, with an obsession for orgasm, that is deeply in the realm of fantasy.
It’s a model that keeps many of us insecure through its judgement of performance.
It’s also become one of the deepest forms of control through the guilt, the shame, the dirty it’s been made out to be.
As we begin to free ourselves sexually, which is a path of healing, growth, awareness and expansion, we begin to see ourselves and life differently.
There’s a question on this journey that we ask that is vital, Who am I?
Who am I as a sexual being, a sensual being?
And it expands into Who am I emotionally, psychologically, spiritually?
What do I believe, what do I want?
A great deal of life, of education, of the systems of our world exist in a space of disconnect.
The mind from the body, the mind from the heart, the heart from the body.
Everything from spirit.
And the key is the body.
Sensation, feeling, awareness.
In the body.
Everything is a part of us, nothing within us is separate.
We need them all, when they all begin to come together so much within us changes, so much heals.
Sensuality is the key here, and sensuality, in all its expressions, is a vital part of the experience of pleasure.
We hear ‘Sensuality’, and for many of us that’s the foreplay to sex, it’s connected to sex in some way.
Sensuality is simply, and deeply, the expression, the presence of us, in life, in consciousness, in the world.
It’s being in our bodies, seeing, tasting, hearing, touching, feeling, sensing, tasting…
With consciousness.
As soon as we are more sensually aware, we feel the experience of our senses to a greater depth.
There’s an appreciation of what’s within me, what’s in life, what I share with, the way I connect to others.
There’s more pleasure.
There’s more conscious pleasure.
There’s more consciousness.
There’s more of me, in myself, in life.
This, sensuality, conscious sensuality, leads to intimacy, to connection.
Intimacy is a knowing.
I come to know myself, more.
I come to know you, more.
I come to know life, more.
And as I journey deeper into sensuality with awareness, what blocks me from intimacy, what separates me, what disconnects me, comes to awareness. And so it becomes a path of healing these aspects of myself.
They take me inwards.
And in the inner space, my connection with myself, with my actions, my beliefs, are known.
Sensuality is in the body, is present, is now.
It takes me from the story of the mind, from so many distractions of thought, into a deeper connection with this moment, and all it holds.
It moves me from judgement and disconnect to acceptance of how much is in this moment, to acceptance of the fullness of myself.
This is a huge topic, and that’s a lot for now.
In the coming weeks, we’ll explore more of the, the possibility of the path of pleasure.
I’d love to share more with you, and we will in the coming year, in so many ways.
