making pleasure your power

Pleasure as a social, biological and psychological process is good for your overall health and wellbeing. However, for many cultural and social reasons we are often made to feel bad about feeling good. The phenomenal changes that have occurred due to the pandemic and other societal shifts means that many people feel like they have lost connection with who they are and they things that give them pleasure. Pursuing pleasure can often seem trivial when stacked against the hectic pressures of every day life. However, just like we need healthy food, exercise and adequate sleep, we need pleasure. In fact, increasing your ability to experience and savour pleasure has a carry-on affect to your ability to have pleasurable and satisfying sexual experiences.

So how do you exercise pleasure? You start by embracing it as a source of strength and power.

When you are in your power you are able to tap into the parts that are you at your essence. You integrate pleasure into your whole self through all the ways that you connect with the world. To help my clients think about the ways that they connect I ask them to think about the physical, intellectual, emotional, social, sexual, spiritual, and practical areas of their lives. Positive, pleasure energy in these areas is part of what artists use to drive their creative expressions. It is the spark from a spontaneous social interaction that lights up everything inside of you like a lightbulb. The good news is that once you open yourself up to pleasure, it generates more pleasure and from there you realise that you don’t want to keep it to yourself, you want to give it to other people as well. 

Pleasure is soulful. It is sensual and primal, but it is also an adaptive inner technology that helps you take care of yourself. It is in the big, landmark life moments, but it is also in the quiet moments when you are able to savour of the tiny details of a moment. The things that you find pleasure in are uniquely you. It is not always an easy process to develop and enhance the practice of pleasure, but it’s definitely worthwhile. So what are you waiting for? Embrace your power.

If you would like to chat about ways to enhance the pleasure in your life and/or relationship, please feel free to contact me.

Further exploration

Slow Pleasure: Explore your pleasure spectrum by Euphemia Russell - A book to help you ease into an appreciation of pleasure.

The Pleasure Project offers fun tips and resources to incorporate pleasure into safer sex.

Audre Lorde’s paper Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power beautifully frames pleasure and sexuality as power.