Pleasure as a resource.
And I'm not just talking about sex.
Last month, I wrote about the importance of pleasure in tending to ourselves when the world feels like it’s on fire. It can feel pointless — even indulgent — to engage in any sort of pleasure, yet it can reenergize and empower us to show up more fully in our lives.
I’ve kept thinking about the role pleasure plays in my life, and in my clients’ lives, during this particular moment in history. If I’m honest, it’s even made me question my work at times: Why am I doing this — sex therapy — right now, when there are so many pressing things happening? Maybe last month’s post was as much for me as anyone else — an attempt to reassure myself that taking time to tend to my own needs isn’t selfish. Or maybe it is selfish, and that’s okay. Who decided selfishness is a problem, anyway?
Some of my clients come in with concerns around dissociation, sexual aversion or avoidance, or significant trauma that has made it hard to feel at home in their bodies. In these cases, one of the first things I do is help them notice where pleasure already exists in their lives — not in sexual contexts, but in ordinary ones. I might ask: What do you notice in your body when you’re lifting weights? Riding your bike? Mopping the floor? Maybe it’s a foot tapping to a favorite song, or the feeling of wind through their hair, or the steadiness of a grip around a mop handle. Whatever it is, present-moment awareness is the starting point. I genuinely believe that practicing this kind of attentiveness in everyday, non-sexual moments primes us to access it in sexual ones when the latter seem inaccessible.
What also strikes me is how much pleasure is already here, available to us right now. As I write this, I’m listening to Taylor Swift’s folklore — because that album is just so good — with plants on either side of my desk, leaves catching the light. My stomach is full from a spicy basil rice bowl I bought for lunch. It’s an ordinary afternoon, yet there is goodness all around me.
What about you? What simple pleasures are you sensing right now, as you read this? I invite you to pause for just a moment, naming three things you can see, hear, feel, smell, or taste. Notice them. Let yourself express gratitude for them, however that feels right to you.
These things may seem small, even trivial. But I’d bet they matter more than you think. When stress, anxiety, or the weight of the world takes up space in your body and mind, these practices — noticing, returning, receiving — are a way back to yourself. Dare to enjoy what’s good around you. Let pleasure be a resource. Let it be the container that holds and sustains you for everything else you’re carrying: a home to tend, a job to show up for, and people to love.