Smoother Inside: A month of Allowing Pleasure
To be honest with you this exploration of pleasure is a challenge for me. I haven’t even made up one single bottle of the Allowing Pleasure spray to use while writing about the formula. I have resistance to pleasure. It reminds me of the time my Dr asked me many years ago what I did to comfort myself and I never went back to see her. I short circuited because I didn’t have an answer and I felt ashamed. It’s similar with pleasure. For myself, I can ascertain what is pleasurable but struggle to let myself have it. First, the dishes, the practical, the to do list. But even in the case of things like playing music, getting up to dance to a song, going for a walk, napping, sex. All things I LOVE! And I resist them too! Off to make up that bottle and report back.
Okay after several days of daily use of the Allowing Pleasure formula its time to report back. What I noticed was subtle but significant: it was easier to relish the beauty in front of me, less leaping ahead in my mind and more being with the moment, no resistance to rest, craving being in nature and letting myself have it and less rigidity and more openness. I’m still using it daily and I’ll report back about more changes.
Week 1
As I begin to explore pleasure more universally I find it is so uniquely personal. I cannot find images that apply universally to pleasure. For example, I can find images of food but which foods register as pleasurable for me are not the same for you. Same goes for nature (beach or mountain or forest), rest (bed or hammock or couch), sex (eyes gazing or in the dark or multiple partners). We’re all so different. So maybe the common theme in allowing pleasure is allowing you to be you, enjoying what you enjoy, whilst setting down the constant oppression of progress and efficiency.
Week 2
Another thing that stands out for me in my explorations with the Allowing Pleasure formula is how much softer it is than I expected it to be. My relationship to pleasure has always been somewhat in contrast to stress. So pleasure was only experienced as something that happened as a break or in the total absence of stress or work. So in order to have pleasure it would have to be pretty heavy hitting like a vacation or an orgasm or double chocolate fudge cake. The way I’ve been experiencing pleasure lately is gentler and quieter and woven throughout my day. Cuddling with the cat, playing music while I load the dishwasher, the three Western Tanagers in my cherry tree. It’s not that those things weren’t a part of my life before or were not lovely, I was just not open enough and quiet enough inside of myself to take them in and FEEL the pleasure of the connection.
Week 3
In the last few weeks I have had a number of clients who are dealing with genuine life and death issues that they have no control over. When this is the case, there is often nothing to do, but to be here in the body, now. To be present. As many of you know, I am a devoted student of the root chakra and when our consciousness is deeply embedded in the root, we are here now. This is also what is required for pleasure.
Week 4
I’ve been working with and writing about the Allowing Pleasure remedy for the last four weeks and it is truly changing my experience in the world. Previously, I had used this formula on and off, but never in a sustained way and there is a marked difference. Most significantly I have slowed way down. My day-to-day experience of life is smoother inside of myself. I feel more flexible and I am not prioritizing my task list in the way I usually do. It’s actually easier to choose the things that bring me pleasure. Every time I mist myself with it I’m so glad I did, the luscious scent itself brings pleasure!
