Whole Life Magazine

February / March 2019

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12 wholelifetimes.com "What we learn with pleasure we never forget.ˮ – Alfred Mercier Learning to feel pleasure begins with cultivating our capacity to feel sensation. Sensuality is really nothing more than connecting to your senses deeply. And it is in the smallest of sensations that this practice comes alive. But often in our day to day we lose touch with the physical sensations of life especially in the midst of intense emotions. And yet, these are precisely the times when stopping and feeling what is happening in our body is most instructive. Learn to pay attention to how feelings register as visceral experiences: the weight of sadness in the heart, the churning of anxiety in the gut, the taste of anger in our mouth, and the ringing in our ears when we feel betrayed. Identifying and trusting our physical senses as a barometer and key to our emotional life is the very mechanism that trains us to know when pleasure is real in our sexual lives too. The foundational teaching that true pleasure is never harmful helps us distinguish it from the addictions and compulsions that we pursue in the misguided desire for pleasure, but which readily devolve and come to rule our life. The truth is that when we are most enjoying our lives, we are also growing and evolving into better versions of ourselves. Through this lens, it is easy to see that most addictions are not really compatible with the evolving drive for pleasure. Rather, they are supported by our weakness and compulsion to escape feeling our life. True pleasure resets the chemical balances in the brain and body toward centeredness. As we learn to pay more attention to our sensory experience, we simultaneously create some of the most memorable and deeply healing moments in our lives. Unlike addictions which separate us from the present moment and from ourselves, leaning toward real pleasure heals us on a biochemical level by balancing the powerful neurochemicals that predict our moods and act as natural stress relievers. Many studies document the natural increases in serotonin, oxytocin, dopamine, and endorphins which are generated by a wide range of pleasurable experiences. But nowhere does pleasure translate so immediately into healing our lives as it does in our bedroom. Sexual pleasure- seeking creates positive emotional and mental states as well as the physical release of stress, tension, and even previous trauma stored in us on a cellular level. Orgasmic pleasure is perhaps the most transformational of all. Enjoying this ultimate release requires that we release the shame and fear that prevent us from experiencing our bodies in this deeply vibrational capacity. As we surrender our control to the body in sensation, the human orgasm provides a gateway to pure energy awakening to itself and a brief glimpse of enlightenment. Time and space converge in these deepest of intimate meetings, completely vulnerable inside of someone else's experience. It all begins by coming to your senses and choosing true healing pleasure, rather than fleeting moments of gratification. Wendy Strgar, writer, teacher, and loveologist, is the founder and CEO of Good Clean Love, makers of Almost Naked 95%-organic lubricant. By Wendy Strgar The Sensations of Pleasure CHOOSE TRUE HEALING healthy living SEX TALK

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