Longing to feel more pleasure in your life

Longing to feel more pleasure in your life

“I feel shut down in my body. I am not finding pleasure anywhere, not from sex or from being in a beautiful place, not even from eating!” 

A woman in our collective recently shared this, and immediately other women in the group nodded in agreement and understanding. To be fair, we are in the deep winter, a dark time of the year.  It’s natural for the body to slow down a bit, even to close down a bit.  Nonetheless, that does not mean that pleasure isn’t available, even if it can be a bit harder to access. 

What this moment points to is something much larger than the season or one’s personal circumstance. 

For generations, women’s pleasure has been overlooked, minimized, or treated as optional. 

From a young age, many of us learn to value being capable and productive over being receptive and curious. 

We learn to ignore many of the sensations that arise in our bodies, to push through rather than listen.

Over time, this creates a kind of numbness, both personally and collectively.  It’s not that there is something wrong with you, but if you practice disconnection as most of us do in this culture of fluorescent lights and fast food, you can lose touch with the subtler sensations that feel nourishing and satisfying. 

Pleasure, in this sense, is not just about sex, though that is definitely a big part of it. 

Pleasure is about the ability to notice enjoyable sensations —the warmth of a cup of tea in your hands, the taste of food, the movement of your breath, the quiet satisfaction of being present in your body. 

When you are constantly oriented toward efficiency and output, sensing can seem like a distraction rather than a source of wisdom.

Coming home to the body is returning to experience life through all of your senses.  

We all did this when we were young—through touch, taste and so many other senses (some say we have 14 senses!) we learned about life. As we grew, we shifted our focus to the rational mind and began to believe that ‘learning’ only happens through intellectual understanding. 

This work, then, is not about forcing pleasure or ‘fixing’ yourself. It’s about gently reopening a channel that was never meant to close. Returning your attention to your body by slowing down enough to notice what is already there, even if it feels faint at first. 

Pleasure returns not through effort, but through permission. Permission to feel slowly. Permission to be inefficient. Permission to trust that your body still knows the way, even if it has been a long time since you listened.

Try it. Drink a glass of water at a temperature that you like.  Take a moment to notice the feeling of the water in your mouth, your throat.  Pay attention to the feeling that arises in your body as you drink, and enjoy. It can literally be that simple.