I noticed something this week that I want to share with you: Monday I led the Calm Crew meditation as well as another one shortly after for a different group.  I was told by someone how powerful it was.  Last week someone from my most recent cleanse reached out and I offered some advice/solutions for where she was.  This person expressed her gratitude and said something that affirmed what I am trying to do in our small spiritual community - “my words had feeling behind them”.  So here is what I noticed: Monday morning I woke up in a terrible place in my head and I was filled with discomfort - my meditation that morning was simply me expressing what I needed for myself at that moment.  And the person from the cleanse who praised my response of help - well the reason she picked up on “feelings” behind my words is because again, I simply share passionately all that helps me navigate this uncomfortable, scary yet joyous and expansive life!!!  I will continue to study, learn, teach, lead and navigate my life with all of you!!  And a secret, the more passionate I seem is probably an indication of my level of discomfort haha!

 

This week we continue our conversation about the 2nd chakra - the fluid, watery element located in the hips and pelvis.  The energy of this chakra is about letting go as well as creativity, pleasure and our ability to nurture ourselves.  This week I am going to talk more about the energy of pleasure.

 

Have you heard of Freud’s “Pleasure Principle”?  Simply stated it refers to our instinct to move away from pain and toward pleasure and it is said to be just as strong as our survival instinct.

This has brought me to think about pleasure:  do we run towards it to the extreme or do we have an aversion to pleasure? Does guilt or shame come up for you when you are experiencing pleasure?

 

What is your relationship with pleasure - do you over indulge in it? do you lean into it or do you feel guilt or shame when you experience it? 

 

If I were to be honest (and you know I always am here!) - in my younger years I over indulged in pleasure and would seek pleasure at all costs.  In my mid 20s I made a decision to follow a different path than the one I was on and I started making different choices and being more responsible.  I have since shown up for life 100%, maybe even more if that is possible, I still seek pleasure but do I have a healthy relationship with it?  Do I lean into it? Do I embrace it or do I feel guilty as I indulge in the “fruits of my labor” in life?  This is interesting to me because in doing this work for all of you I have uncovered another layer of my onion and realized I still don’t have a healthy relationship with pleasure.  While I have grown up from the days of over indulgence, I hold back many times from leaning fully into my pleasures as I feel a certain amount of guilt.  My intentions and work with all of you is always spot on with timing in my life!!  Right now my husband and I are building the house of our dreams at the beach and I am holding back from leaning into the pleasure of this process.  I realized some of the time I am letting guilt stand in the way of me embracing this fully!  This is another form of Brene Brown’s “foreboding joy” which is another topic for another time!  I can feel myself having moments of “expansion” and joy of what we are creating and then waves of fear, dread and contraction which I now understand are coming from this unhealthy relationship to pleasure that I often have.  As always, I am sooooo grateful for the awareness this practice offers me, because from this awareness I am able to expand and lean into the joy more fully!!!!

 

Can you do an honest assessment of yourself and pleasure? And from there can you use your 1st and 2nd chakra intentions to lean into the pleasures in your life right now (even if they are hard to find and small during this pandemic).  When we lean into the pleasures in our lives we feel expansion, possibility.  When we are in pain we feel contraction, tightness.  All of this flows onto our mat as well - when we are leaning into the pleasures of the poses****our own version of the pose**** - we feel the benefits of each pose fully and the expansion and stretching of our physical bodies.  When we resist the pose, judge it, become afraid of the pose - we get tight, rigid and we restrict ourselves.

Now one more time, take this idea off the mat and into our lives:  If we are not leaning into pleasure we may feel contracted in what feels safe stuck, stiff, and rigid.  If we are leaning into our joys we feel expansion and lightness.  Now for the extra credit lol….Here is a big leap of faith - can you find safety and comfort in pleasure and can you relax in the safety of pleasure?  So not only lean into it but have the trust and faith in your journey to feel the safety and security that your grounded 1st chakra offers you?

In order to do this you need to first access your relationship to pleasure (awareness), then accept yourself and your innate patterns, then move into action - take the leap, lean into the expansion of whatever is bringing you joy in your life right now and don’t be afraid leaning in, find safety and security (1st chakra) from the certainty of leaning into your joy and pleasure.