Why is pleasure important – and what can stop us from fully embodying it?
Pleasure.
It’s something we know we want, but we can’t always say how it actually feels or identify how it shows up in our lives.
When we think of pleasure, we tend to think of sex or sensuality – and whilst being in touch with our pleasure can enhance sexual experiences – it is so much bigger than that.
Pleasure is a healing balm. It reminds us what is important. It supports us as we mend from trauma. And allows us to connect with ourselves and each other.
It helps us to feel joyfully alive.
But though our bodies are hardwired to notice and experience pleasure (just as they are with pain), it is not always easy to connect with it in an embodied way.
This month, we’re exploring why pleasure is so important in our lives – and some of the barriers to connecting with it.
What is an embodied experience of pleasure?
In my experience, most people are not looking for more pleasure. They are looking for less pain or hardship.
Well, part of living with less pain is our capacity to notice the opposite.
How often do you go about your day noticing – really noticing – what feels good?
What happens in your mind and body when you have that first sip of tea? Or catch a rainbow on your drive to work? Or hear a song you adore?
What changes under your skin? How do you know you like it? Can you tell what ‘good’ feels like?
Sometimes, we can tell that we are having a positive response in our brain, but we can’t necessarily feel it with our body.
Or, it’s a struggle to detect what feels good in both our minds and our bodies.
Or maybe, it takes extreme circumstances – like being high, celebrating a win or getting a rush of adrenaline – for us to feel it.
This is a disconnection from our embodied experience of pleasure. Of joy. Of our sense of feeling alive.
And living in this state can rob us of some of the best human experiences.
What happens when we are disconnected from our pleasure?
We miss out.
The bulk of our lives is made up of thousands of tiny moments – and many of these are an opportunity for joy and pleasure.
When we can’t connect with them in an embodied way, we lose those opportunities.
Without them, we can find ourselves chasing after those ‘big’ moments – the ecstatic, fleeting and relatively rare experiences – so that we can feel more.
And in this pursuit of the ‘big’, we miss the extraordinary, ordinary moments that happen every day – and the full spectrum of human experience they bring.
It’s not just about our own minds and bodies either – experience pleasure is shared. So when we can’t feel our own joy in those little moments, we can miss out on chances to connect with the people we love and care about.
We get stuck in our heads.
Embodying pleasure takes us out of our brains and anchors us within our bodies.
Without it, it’s very easy to get stuck living in our heads.
This might mean we spend too much time focusing on problems or stressful day-to-day concerns – and not enough time focusing on the good stuff.
Our lives are not problems to be solved. They are wondrous opportunities for meaning, connection and joy – but we have to be open to it.
We miss the subtleties of sensuality or sexuality
As I mentioned, while pleasure is more than sex, connecting to our pleasure can enhance sexual experiences.
It raises our awareness of the subtleties of these experiences – helping us climax more easily or increasing our desire/libido.
We lose a tool for healing.
Pleasure is not just about the good times – it can be a powerful tool for supporting us through pain and trauma too.
In fact, many trauma modalities work on developing capacity to experience joy, aliveness and pleasure in the current moment before working on the painful experiences we all can carry.
That’s because pleasure helps us turn towards joy, despite all the pain in the world.
It supports us to step back into our bodies, reminds us of what is important and helps us connect with ourselves and each other.
And when we are experiencing pain, grief or trauma, connecting to the things that help us feel pleasure can bring us into balance.
What can stop us from embodying pleasure?
There are lots of things that can stop us from connecting with pleasure in our bodies. This list is not exhaustive and these things are not mutually exclusive. We might experience more than one and they can impact us in different ways.
Cognitive barriers to embodying pleasure
Our beliefs about ourselves or our lives.
The way we navigate the world is informed by our culture, families and past experiences.
We might feel that we don’t deserve pleasure or that pleasure always turns to pain eventually. We might believe that our own experiences of pleasure deny someone else’s pain. Or that we need to forfeit pleasure in this life to be rewarded in the next one. Or, simply, that we don’t have time for it and we need to ‘get on with things’.Override culture.
We might be so scared of feeling anything negative that we shut down our capacity to feel anything at all – pleasure or pain.Feeling like we need to earn pleasure.
We might feel like we need to do certain things to deserve or earn pleasure. For example, “when I’m promoted I can slow down” or “if I stop eating carbs I can enoy that expensive chocolate”.
Emotional barriers to embodying pleasure
Difficult emotions.
Often difficult emotions, like feeling scared, sad or angry, can feel more obvious than pleasure – and when we’re feeling these things, it can be harder to fully feel pleasure.Fear of embodying ALL your feelings/experiences.
Sometimes, when we open ourselves up to pleasure, we open ourselves up to difficult emotions as well. While these draw us closer to the whole spectrum of human experience (the good and the bad), this can be scary.Not feeling ‘safe’ enough for pleasure.
If you’re not feeling safe in your body, with certain people, or in your environment, it is much more difficult to feel pleasure.Feeling ashamed of feeling good.
When we’ve experienced significant hardships or are aware of the hardships of others, we can feel guilty or ashamed for feeling good – and this can be a barrier to our pleasure.Having an either/or approach to pleasure.
We feel that we either feel good or we feel bad – and we haven’t worked out how to cultivate an expression of both at the same time. For example, “I’m having a flare up of my chronic illness so I can’t enjoy anything right now.”
Behavioural barriers to embodying pleasure
Not having time to practise pleasure.
As with anything, embodying pleasure takes practice. If we don’t have time to cultivate this skill, it can be difficult to achieve.Our patterns and safety strategies.
Much of our lives are spent learning how what sort of behaviour or responses can keep us safe in challenging situations. These strategies can become blocks towards pleasure – taking time and practice to unravel them.
Body sensations that are barriers to embodying pleasure
Uncomfortable sensations can get in the way of pleasure. If we haven’t practiced being “in” pleasure, it can be difficult not to focus entirely on these sensations when we tune into our bodies. For example, if we are:
In physical pain.
Unfamiliar with th sensations we are experiencing.
Tired or exhausted.
Nervous.
Trauma as a barrier to embodying pleasure
It would take more than this email to explore the ways trauma can impact our lives – but it can be a major block to pleasure. Resolving this requires significant settling and feelings of safety.
So how can we boost our capacity to really ‘feel’ pleasure?
Embodying pleasure is a new way of experiencing life. A way to unwind and learn old patterns into a new orientation.
And as with all major health and wellbeing journeys, there is no magic pill, quick fix or one-size-fits-all solution.
The barriers, blocks, and eventual solutions are uniquely ‘you’.
You cannot control your way towards it, but you can cultivate the conditions, the circumstances and the skills to bring focus to your pleasure. To nurture, foster and support it.
When it comes down to it, this is not all that difficult. After all, our bodies are hardwired to experience pleasure and pain – with whole brain centers dedicated to noticing, and being with both pleasure and pain.
So how do we do it?
Firstly, we need to identify the individual barriers.
What cultural beliefs have you adopted? What’s your current relationship to pleasure? What thoughts get in the way?
Then we need to identify the patterns.
How do you relate to pleasure or pain? What’s your ‘go to?’ How do you want this to be different?
Then we look at what is there.
When we sense into our bodies, our sensations, our emotions… what happens when we try to find or access pleasure? What do we experience? How long can we be with it?
Then we set out a plan.
How can we make steps towards noticing this more in our day? How will it flow through your life in a way that is more helpful?
Your path forward won’t be like anyone else’s. It will be about finding and building your skills for connecting with pleasure, joy and excitement in your own way.
That’s important, because it will feel safe. And this safety makes it sustainable and scalable.
So you can experience it in an embodied way for your whole life.
Pleasure is a vital part of life. It can nourish us, balance us, ground us, and help us heal.
If you’d like to explore your own expression of pleasure (and what might be stopping you from reaching it) in a safe environment, I’d love to support you on your journey.
I invite you to explore my offerings here.