The lies we’ve been taught about pleasure and pain

We’ve been lied to about pleasure and pain. We’ve been programmed to think that pleasure is good and pain is bad.

Both are uncomfortable if we don’t know how to navigate and hold them. And they can also be some of our greatest teachers.

Lies we’ve been taught about pleasure and pain:

• Pain is bad and pleasure is good.

• The absence of pain will produce pleasure.

• Numb the pain and it will go away over time.

• Pleasure, fun, and excitement are the same thing.

truths I’ve learned about pleasure and pain:

• Pain is hard to navigate if we don’t practice holding it. Pleasure is also hard to navigate if we don’t practice.

• Pleasure and pain are part of a spectrum. They are always present in our lives and bodies. We cannot have one without the other.

• Time means nothing and presence means everything. Pain will not magically go away over time but when we are present with it we can increase our capacity to hold it.

• Pleasure and pain are not good or bad. But when either exceeds our capacity, it can become overwhelming and even lead to suffering.

• Many of us have spent so much energy avoiding pain that we don’t even know what real pleasure is to us.

• An increased capacity to hold pain will result in an increased capacity to hold pleasure.

• An ability to hold pleasure and pain will make it easier to find fulfillment, peace, and joy.

Working through pleasure

My sacred intimacy work is about navigating pleasure and pain. We go into deep practice to ask for, create, and receive it.

We learn to be in consent with ourselves, our pleasure, and our pain.

And in that practice, we inevitably encounter challenge and resistance.

Most of us have never been taught how to actually be with pain or pleasure. (And if you’re someone who has had enough power to avoid discomfort and pain, it becomes even more challenging.)

Avoiding, numbing, or escaping from pain will not produce a more pleasurable life. We must learn to be with it, hold it, and love it.

This is where consent becomes so powerful and radically life-altering.

We get to be in consent with our pain (and pleasure)

Consent is not just about touching bodies and sex. Consent is a practice for how we navigate relationships with ourselves and others.

And we get to be in (or outside of) consent as we navigate the pain of grief, shame, fear, guilt, lies, and delusion. And we get to be in consent with our pleasure.

It is all a practice. And it will change your life.