Your Right to Pleasure

“You may want to love other people without holding back, to feel authentic, to breathe in the beauty around us, to dance and sing. Yet each day we listen to inner voices that keep our life small.” – Tara Brach

If you were an early 80s baby like me or perhaps you are the eldest sibling, the kid of an immigrant parent, or come from a working-class family - you may relate to the experience of being raised to be resilient, respectful, hardworking, and responsible.  All noble traits.  When you consider the root of scarcity in each of these traits, however, you may question whether these are the characteristics you would want the most beloved person in your life to nurture.  (When I say the “most beloved person in your life,” I’m talking about you by the way.)  Humor me for a minute as I lay out what I see as the shadow side of these traits.  Resilience prepares you that life is going to be hard and you must be prepared.  Respect assumes that you are not going to be in a position of power and need to know to stay in line so as not to piss off the people in power.  Hard work implies that your worth comes from your productivity.  Being responsible often demands that duty is prioritized over self-interest.  When these traits are favored over others you become oriented to stay in your lane, be grateful for the joy you receive, and to know that delight is not a free-flowing commodity. 

I call bullshit.  We live on an unbelievably abundant planet (maybe the only of its kind in the Universe) that came intact with every building block for life and has evolved in absolutely unimaginable ways.  It will (or perhaps “would” is the more appropriate word to use in light of the current climate crisis) continue to provide for us if we stopped pillaging its resources.  Why then can’t you experience joy each and every day?  I am not suggesting to throw your values, your resilience, or your hard work out the window.  But please consider, if for nothing other than the love of Earth, that you have a right to bask in the prosperity, abundance, wonder, and love that surrounds us.  Joy is available to you every day. 

What comes up for you as you read that?  Did a little snarky voice inside your head go, “yeah, right”?  Or did your inner voice jump for joy and say “hell, yeah!”  Notice which direction you lean.  It may be a helpful barometer as you work with pleasure practices.  If you are someone who balks at the idea that you have a right to pleasure, then please return to this exercise as often as you need to remind yourself of your innate worth and the beauty that surrounds you for simply existing.

You have probably experienced joy, which means you have a point of reference for how it shows up for you and what it feels like.  As you become intentional about your relationship with pleasure you will build even more muscle memory for and strengthen the neuropathways that make joy more available to you.  For now, know that the feelings you desire exist.  They are available to you.  You are not creating a new world of experiences that has never existed before.  You are simply changing your orientation and adjusting the lens through which you experience your life.  Let me give you an example of this.  I am writing this from the cedar oxygen room at my favorite Korean spa.  When I hit a wall with a project or work and notice a “drag” in my body.  I pack up my laptop and I go to a beautiful location with wifi – the Korean spa where I can take breaks to soak, the botanical garden 20 minutes from my house that has internet and benches throughout, my favorite coffee shop that has the most divine homemade rose syrup I can get added to my dairy-free latte.  Rather than push through the burnout, I seek out a pleasurable environment or treat to pair with my work.  By doing this, I reclaim my agency and I reorient towards the task thus making it less daunting. Mind you, I have white knuckled years of my life and I am here to tell you, it sucks. When I give myself permission to create “pleasure hacks,” I show up more embodied and am generally “better” at managing all of the things. Pleasure hacks are available to you if you give yourself permission to dream them up and seek them out. 

Here is my question to you…do you believe you have a right to pleasure?  Take a look at the list below.  Say it out loud if you are feeling bold.

My Rights to Pleasure

I have a right to my body and all its sensations, including pleasure and pain, comfort and discomfort.

I have a right to feel any emotion – excitement, joy, anger, sorrow, grief, love, fear – whether or not my feeling the emotion is acceptable to others.

I have a right to ask for what I want.

I have a right to experience pleasure from expected and unexpected sources every day.

I have a right to love myself just as I am.

I have a right to say yes. I have a right to say no. I have a right to feel good about saying both yes and no.

I have a right to define my worth.

Notice who shows up in your head – the snarky naysayer or the receptive permission-giver.  What you say to yourself matters.  Our thoughts and our brain control much of how we move around in the world.  Developing a neutral, or better yet a positive, internal voice that is looking out for you and is curious about the possibilities this one wild and precious life has to offer you can change not only how you perceive yourself and others, it can also change how you show up in your life.  If you are struggling to believe the list of rights you just recited, instead of shutting it down or poo-pooing it entirely, try imagining what it would feel like to believe that you have a right to everything I have listed (and more).  I may go as far as to say, write the statements down that have the most charge for you and keep them around.  Spend some time with them.  Post them on your bathroom mirror, read them before you go to bed, keep them in your journal, place them on an altar and charge them with crystals.  Seriously, go wild with these.

I am not suggesting that cross stitching affirmational sayings onto your pillows is going to change your life. Although I love that for you, if that’s your thing.  I am encouraging you to allow some space for your imagination to run wild so you can rewrite the old stories that, while they may have kept you safe when you needed them to, now need to be reworked for you to experience the bounty of joy and wonder and love that is yours for the taking.  

Your imagination allows you to fantasize, to want things beyond what is directly in front of you, to crush hard on someone and envision your life together, to dream up future goals, and even to bask in feelings of joy when your material reality is challenging.  Lean on your imagination for good for once. Imagine you have a right to all of your desires. Give yourself permission to orient yourself towards the feelings you desire to cultivate in your life. Feel these desires in your heart and throughout your body. Know they are yours for the taking.