The Power of Pleasure

I am dancing around my room, laughing, with tears encased in joy traversing down my eyes. My feet, my hands, my heart strings are tingling with aliveness.  I am enlivened by my own existence, by the world of sensation living beneath my skin.   

Twenty minutes earlier, I was crying over the exhaustion and the pain. And now, here I AM. The pain is not gone but there is something else here…pleasure. 

For those of us living with chronic symptoms, our bodies can become like a house of pain.  Every room, every corner and crevice infused with an ache. 

However, our bodies are not all pain.  There is a whole spectrum of sensation living and breathing inside the body from pain to pleasure and everything in between.  

One of the most inspiring practices for me has been to tap into pleasure throughout my day. The type of pleasure that comes from within the body.  The type of pleasure that is innate to every living being. 

What this looks like for me is closing my eyes and beginning to move, breathe, sound, and become intimate with the spaces within me that do not feel in pain.  From there, I then begin to feel some more aliveness, some subtle pleasure, and emerging joy. As I continue to shine my awareness deeper into these spaces within the body, I keep spiraling deeper and deeper into pleasure.    

In this practice, I am not pushing away the pain. In fact, many times the pain is still present as I welcome and move with the pleasure.  Rather, I am shining the light of my awareness on what feels good while still allowing the full spectrum of sensation to speak within my body.  

For my brain, which has become so wired to fire and focus on pain, this practice is deeply important.  I’ve come to learn that pleasure, joy, and play are so deeply healing. So I invite you to laugh, play, and embody your pleasure today.