Expand Your Pleasure!

So often when we think of pleasure and sensuality it calls up sexual ideas. This is only one way, an avenue to pleasure. By using this as our reference, we miss out on many experiences of pleasure that are around us at a moments notice.  There is a vast world of pleasure at our finger tips!

Why pleasure is so important?  There is the old saying "All work makes Jack a dull boy". We relax when we do pleasure, leisure activities just for the joy of it. It rejuvenates us for all our activities so we can work smarter and with greater clarity and brilliance. When we experience pleasure, we fill our body with feel good, healthy neurological and chemical processes. We step into the parasympathetic nervous system where renewal, healing and restoration occurs. If we are not in this system at all, we burn out our organs, our energy, our life force that needs daily rejuvenation to stay balanced and create health. We reset our mind, body, emotions and spirit as the sun goes down each day for rest and renewal. As physical beings, it is the way of the cycle.

The greatest reason is that it feels good! To be happy, have joy and be vital is a process of positive emotions. This causes positive chemical processes, activates healing and balances life stress. The science of pleasure is amazing! The magic power of our body, our innnate health system can do wonders when balance of all emotions and states occur. 

So how do we find more pleasure? Expand our experience? Pleasure is an experience of the body. The mind doesn't do pleasure, it is more of a computer or calculator. The body, the sensations, the senses provide us with pleasure.  To be in our body is paramount, That is why so much is written and many speak of presence and being in the now. Your can only do that when you are in your body and noticing not what the mind says but what the other senses are telling us. What do we see? How do we feel? What do we hear? What smells are about? What texture is it? These are all gateways to pleasure.

Senses, sensing,  is what sensuality is all about. Tantra teaches this connection with our senses, the many receptors on our skin. How we can feel things with our hands, hear with our hears, smell with our olfactory sense, see with our eyes and taste with our mouths. These can be refined way beyond how most use them. Many times closing your eyes and  inwardly feeling  all the senses is supportive so we don't just look and label, we  experience the sensation. All things become more exciting and enjoyable when we allow our senses to play in our body. Our world of thinking cuts us off from all these others ways the world communicates to us and we connect to it.

Seeing it from this angle, pleasure is everywhere. Nature brings in natural presence so we can let go of the mind and experience being in a place with all the beauty the senses bring to us. Eating should be pleasure where not only do we see our delectable food, but we taste every bite, we smell and feel its texture and notes of flavor. We are nourishing our bodies to build them and we can experience how different foods, herbs and tastes effect us.

Engaging with others can be amped up. Noticing what they are wearing, how they smell, the sound and of their voice which tell their emotion. The twinkle in their eye, the or the volume of their laugh. Digging into common experiences deeper and with greater perception rather than thinking of what to say next opens to more creative and pleasurable connections. As we touch others, really feeling our hands connect or the energy of touch.   Sensing from the inside how that heat and sensation of touch opens and affects our bodies. Our skin is filled with so many sensors that we rarely activate. Touch can go so deep and feel so vital.

Walking from place to place, slowing down to notice your surroundings rather than speaking to yourself always. Hearing the birds, noticing the trees and shrubs or scents in the air. Present awareness in all things. Movement brings in pleasure, not just for exercise or strengthening. Why not make your health regemine be a pleasurable way to connect with your senses and body? Instead of denial and hard, make it strengthening, a path to feeling good as you move, enjoying the body deva. Noticing when it is hard and  get back to the joy of feeling your body positively. Pushing ourselves a bit but when pain or exhaustion happen, stepping it back so pleasure and enjoyment can be felt in connect with our movement, our body presence. Stress, strife, low emotions are transmuted through moving for it burns excess energy. It doesn't need to be hard or taxing to do this. It just has to get the energy moving through release,  leave our body and inspiring good emotions, endorphins,  relaxation thus pleasure! All movement can be made pleasurable!

We can put on music, close our eyes and find pleasure in sound. Drum circles create healing through sound and playing as do singing bowls, gongs and digerdoos.  We  drive around  listening to our radio engaging in pleasure seeing how it causes us to speed up or move our body, activate our singing voice, create an attitude. Happy songs lift us, sad songs bring in lower emotions, all bringing pleasure to our body and what is happening in it. A great song can change our whole day and bring in healing. We can perceive the nature sounds outside deeper, the peace of a snowstorm or the calm of a loud ocean to being in gentle settling pleasure through hearing.

As you see, our lives could be filled with pleasures. We can use almost anything to create this healing, peaceful and vitalizing state. They say to relax through life is enlightenment. If you study any spiritual path it is about just that. Relaxing, seeing the greatness of the moment and feeling the pleasure to be alive. Play with your senses. A magic world of pleasure opens up. I am certain no one will overindulge with the beliefs and mindsets handed down through the generations. Remember, all work and no play is a recipe for a hard, boring life with no fun in between!