Sensual Endurance: Re-Discovering Pleasure in the Body
For many of us, life feels like a strategic battle. We know there is a deeper meaning to truly being alive and get the smallest taste here and there, but as we navigate a world full of bills, work, painful experiences, judgment, and collective uncertainty, our joy, sensuality, and wonder can get lost.
How many of you crave sensual touch where your body feels safe and loved?
How many of you desire to feel what true pleasure is?
How many of you give yourself a place and time to sensualize your body and mindset?
How many of you crave for someone else to give you this experience?
I know I have wished for so long for someone who sees me, who can fulfill my deepest desires, and who craves to touch me with intimacy and love. Person after person, I was let down and disappointed to the point I turned off, froze myself off. My wishes and wants would drip out in poems, but this body was closed for business. I lived years in touch starvation, in the (im)patiently waiting phase: mantra after mantra - my time will come. Did I even think to give myself what I longed for? No.
For so long, my body has been put through trial after trial. From my previous experiences with brain and spinal cord tumors, lower-lumbar spinal cord radiation and chemotherapy, my legs have progressively grown weaker and weaker. I have advocated for years with my doctors, who have told me to simply keep doing physical therapy, despite me reminding them I do boxing, yoga, barre classes and work on my feet, despite my disability. With this progressive weakness, I have been forced to constantly think about how I move my body, how I move around a space, how I interact with other people. I have become so used to living in my head, either to navigate life or to escape it, I forgot the importance of feeling pleasure.
How do you live sensually in a body that feels far too pushed, achy, and unsteady?
How do you reframe your entire experience with pain by utilizing pleasure?
How do you reconnect with pieces of yourself that you never met before?
For the past few years, I have been diving into the world of Tantra, exploring the shadow depths of myself, and bringing magic and pleasure into my life. Along the way, I have had discoveries about myself that I never knew existed, but one of the biggest a-ha moments was over something so small, so overlooked, yet so incredibly simple. I craved someone who would touch me in reverence, who would worship this broken and beautiful body and have always assumed my intimacy timing was just fucked. That maybe this lifetime was all about deep work, shadow exploration, and divine feminine healing but I wouldn’t get to experience sacred soul connections.
However, at a previous Tantric retreat, I had my light-bulb moment - that simple revelation that is so obvious you want to smack yourself in the forehead. I never gave myself physical touch and reverent worship. Sure, I have amazing orgasms with my vibrator and use it on the regular, but did I ever just simply give myself time and space to feel pleasure in the body? No. I go, go, go, go - workout, work all day, clean your house, make dinner, complete social arrangements, go to bed, daydream. How often I wished for someone to bring those pieces of intimacy into my life, but never once did I think I am my own sacred lover. If I crave touch, how often did I set time for myself to explore my own body? When I craved intimacy, did I schedule time with myself to go deep into a pleasure practice? No, I would just get off as fast as I can, chasing after that quick and easy dopamine rush.
On my life path, one filled with setbacks and U-turns, I have had to reframe how I experience those potholes and learned to completely transform the way I think, which took so much time and a massive amount of patience with myself. On this journey, you are never going to be whole. You shed the old as you shift into the new, every day becoming a brand new version of yourself that has never existed before. How beautiful is that? Too often, we get so caught up in the past and the future that we forget we exist only in the here and now, and when the here and now is filled with chaos, how will you rediscover that pleasure factor in your body despite the aches and pains?
Pleasure + Pain
One of my favorite quotes is by Khalil Gibran where he states, “Your joy can fill you only as deeply as your sorrow has carved you.” For me, this is the perfect depiction of the push and pull between two opposite and equal forces. How can you truly experience the full breadth of joy if you have never known loss? Pleasure and pain work the same way together - one giving the other a chance to be fully experienced and felt and vice versa. When one emotion/feeling/experience shapes your existence, you are able to gain a deeper understanding of the full breadth of your existence. Too often, we skate on by, afraid of the deep and sit in stillness and comfortability rather than going all in and taking risks. One of the ways I have transformed the way I think is to find awe and gratitude in the experiences that arise in my life, pleasurable or painful. When something annoying, stressful, or downright tragic happens, I get to find gratitude that I have the opportunity to fully embody and experience this situation.
Some ways to alchemize your pain into pleasure:
Start by sinking into the full scope of your emotion and truly feeling it. If you are experiencing grief or anger, find practices such as Breathwork or Sacred Rage ceremonies to help move that energy inside your body. If you are new to doing energy work, take some time to discover practices that intrigue you and help you become more present with yourself.
Find something to be grateful for on a daily basis, even if it is the smallest of things. When you live your life in the energy of gratitude, you magnetize those things to find you more quickly.
When you are immersed in feelings that don’t feel as juicy, where can you find your sensual pleasure again? Release any and all judgments and shame around your physical body’s turn-ons and truly explore what you might be desiring. As you dive deeper into your inner work with Tantra, and/or shadow work, you might find yourself enjoying new and unusual experiences. Let yourself explore and have fun. Sometimes, our biggest villain is our own judgement of ourselves and when we can alchemize that into curiosity and playfulness, you become so fucking powerful.
Find a creative outlet for yourself, whether it is writing poetry, painting, cooking, planting, etc. Let your feelings pour out into the projects you desire to create. Create to just create and drop all ideas of perfectionism and needing the project to be productive. I know I forget that my worth is not connected to what I check off my to-do list, and oftentimes don’t want to “waste time” on something that isn’t going to net me anything. Simply be.
Discover your body’s turn-ons, whether it is imaginary or physical. Take the time to explore yourself, whether it be self-touch, self-discovery, or energy work. If something is deeply hurting in your body, imagine taking all your pleasure you can experience and sending it to that area in your body.
Sensual Endurance
As you dive deeper into your practices and rediscover the power you actually have over how you embody your experiences, you’ll find yourself building a bigger muscle around trust, pleasure, and self-love. I can’t remember when I actually started shifting my mindset and my attitude around my experiences, but I find myself light-years from where I was by taking tiny, purposeful steps in the direction I wanted to go.
In conclusion, sensual endurance is about embracing the entirety of your journey, honoring both the pleasure and the discomfort. It’s about finding moments of joy in the midst of challenges and reconnecting with your body in ways that bring profound satisfaction and growth. Take time to slow down, appreciate the smallest of things, and the beauty surrounding you. Trust yourself, take those small steps, and let the magic of pleasure transform your life.
Ask yourself what your body truly desires? Is there any way you can provide the time and space to give yourself this ritual?
Surround yourself with a community of people that want to see you happy and successful, free of judgement and shame. When you feel like you can be fully yourself, you grow that much faster.
When you are feeling pain or discomfort, distract yourself with thoughts of things that bring your comfort and pleasure, such as how beautiful food is, or how soft your favorite blanket is, or how wonderful simply listening to music and reading your sexiest book can be. Take the time to slow down, look at the smallest things, and put some rose-colored glasses on.
You deserve to experience the fullness of your existence, beautifully intertwined with every sensation and emotion that comes your way.
Embrace your sensuality, love yourself fiercely, and let your journey unfold with grace and wonder.
