Healing with sensuality and pleasure

 Heal your brain (and beyond) with bliss

This post is updated from its original.

Before Lyme disease, I closed down emotionally and energetically for all kinds of reasons, but I could still function. I could get my kids to school, work a full day, get the dishes done even if my body was tight and I was stressing. I could just keep on going whether I was enjoying the moment or not.

Then I got Lyme. Lyme has made it crystal clear to me that I need to practice letting go and releasing in order to heal. Bliss and pleasure heal the brain, and flow from there to the immune system and more. It is now (ideally) my daily, spiritual path to cultivate sensuality in my body. This leads to healing that builds on healing. It’s the Warrior path.    

Closing down (in a nutshell) and how it messes with health

Closing down is escaping the present moment into worry, and tightening up. 

I still find myself closing down when someone criticizes me, when I come home and my house is a mess, and especially if I feel any symptoms of Lyme disease. My muscles and my gut tighten, and I start obsessing about what needs to change and how I’m going to fix it.

This is the human mind! Unfortunately, this tightening can cause harm. Over time, the tighter and more stressy we are, the less our natural, healing energy can flow. On a purely physical level, a tight body restricts the movement of cellular fluid, blood, and lymph, making detoxification more difficult. And stress hormones restrict healing in many ways. The body can't stay in "fight or flight" and heal at the same time. 

Softening as a spiritual practice

Those of us healing serious illnesses can choose to be spiritual warriors as part of our healing practice. To encourage vitality, we can practice softening – right in the face of our symptoms and our fear. Symptoms of Lyme disease and other illnesses can be so disturbing, it’s only natural for them to cause us immense worry and physical tension. We can choose to soften anyway. Start gently, with immense compassion for the brave Warrior that you are.

Sensual pleasure heals

Sensual, physical pleasure is deeply healing for the brain, the immune system, and probably every other system as well. Those pleasure hormones: serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin – they’re healing chemicals, the chemicals that open and soften us.

Candace Pert, in her book Molecules of Emotion, explains how all of the receptors found in the brain are also found in the immune system. The two systems heal together. Annie Hopper's Dynamic Neural Retraining System is all about actively cultivating those hormones with joyful memories and imaginings. What is good for the brain is good for the body. What feels good, heals.

The practice of consciously cultivating pleasure

As you step onto this Warrior path, accept your feelings as they are right now. This is so simple, and yet so profound. When we accept how we feel right now, we can begin to soften. If you feel tired, if you’re sad, if your brain is foggy – let go of struggling to feel differently, and open your heart to these feelings. (Not the thoughts that come with them, but the physical sensations themselves.) Feel the energy of your feelings moving in your body. Trust your journey, at least for this moment.

Is there a way to invite some sensuality and pleasure into your body? Curling up in bed with a bunch of pillows, and maybe a person or animal you love. Paying attention to slowing and deepening your breath. Settling into an epsom salt bath with essential oils, paying close attention to the smells. Listening to a favorite piece of music, your mind open to every note. 

Find whatever works for you, taking it moment by moment, day by day, without expecting too much. Let go of the thoughts, and feel your real feelings as they change and change again. Weave sensual pleasure into your days. You are wiring new pathways into your brain – this takes gentle persistence. Your brain chemistry will likely change over time for the better, and that deeply supports health and vitality.

Paying attention to pleasure builds more feelings of pleasure

Buddhist teachers emphasize this amazing quality of the human brain: if we pay attention to feelings of pleasure, they tend to build. Slowly, in waves and spirals, the pleasurable feelings increase with our attention, and the practice of pleasure gets easier with time.

When you lose it and start stressing out, just notice what happened, and come back to your sensual experience. Give yourself a lot of space to experiment, observe, fall apart, find your way back. We healing Warriors are all in this together.

Guided meditation - a trail of breadcrumbs back to bliss

I wrote the meditations on this site as a way to find my way back to my body when it was just too hard to do it alone. A guiding voice for me is like Hansel and Gretel's trail of breadcrumbs – when I find myself alone in the dark woods, I can turn on a meditation and find a trail leading me home. 

If you need a helping hand, try my Anxiety Relief meditation. It speaks directly to your vagus nerve, which is responsible for choosing between fear and relaxation. As you move toward relaxation, you move away from fear, and into healing, open space. 

Thank you so much for reading! Wishing you openness, bliss, and peace - your birthright, your healing gift. 

Shona