The Privilege of Pleasure

When I was younger, I had no vision of helping others feel pleasure. I was so concerned with healing trauma that it didn't occur to me what might come after. I wanted the chronic pain to stop, and I wanted the daily tears that were a mainstay of my 30s to end.

Most of the time, all I could feel was numbness and pain. Pleasure was experienced in two contexts: when I ate sweet foods or when I engaged in sexual expression or intimacy. And with the latter, sensations were limited to the genital area and not my whole body.

I discovered Continuum Movement at the age of thirty-one. I dedicated myself to it, and though it was quite uncomfortable at first, I could tell something significant was happening. As more wounding left my body, my nervous system changed. Every workshop, every time I practiced, it was like taking my body to the river and letting the continuous stream clear another stain. Combining Continuum Movement with pre & perinatal somatic therapy and embryological healing via biodynamic craniosacral therapy led to lasting transformation.

I am the descendant of many who were tortured and killed in WWII. When I was in my 20s, I remember explaining to others, "It's not okay to feel pleasure. I have to honor those who suffered. I belong to the dead and those who had no safety to experience pleasure."

I was also deeply traumatized during my birth in a Soviet hospital. This anchored a terror of being alive that has taken decades to unravel.

When I spend time in sex-positive communities or attend dances filled with vibrant moving bodies, I perceive a lot of pleasure ableism. That is, bodies that have easy access to feeling aliveness and the ability to move it through their bodies.

We talk a lot about making space for those whose bodies are not "able" in some way, and I have never seen this discussed in regards to pleasure capacity.

I see our western bodies as so "unable" in this way. No judgment. It's a reflection of collective and ancestral traumas, of how we treat our bodies, especially when our bodies are small and developing. It's the level of fear the media puts out and keeps people in. It's the puritanical and old school Christian roots of the U.S. It's the perpetual lack of safety for women and their bodies. It is the oversexualization of bodies and the flow of life. It's the domestication of the inner animal and the inherited disconnection from Earth and ground.

It's also attachment wounding. I can go on and on.

Feeling amazing in your body, feeling connected to Source, and living in your sensuality is a privilege. Enjoying, playing with, and directing the flow of energy in your body, as well as experiencing easeful opening, are privileges and gifts that visit us from time to time. If we are lucky, prioritize them, and create the conditions for them, they visit us more and more.

When I hold space in my Continuum workshops (or any of them) that invites deeper embodiment or simply the act of slowing down, I know I am inviting everything. I know ancestral stories will arise, childhood memories, and sometimes none of these appear as we move towards more yum. Lots of shame, too.

What my heart wants to really be known here, is that my access to pleasure, my desire to support you to expand your capacity is hard-earned. It’s so close to my heart that I am regularly moved to tears when I see someone negotiate something in their nervous system and access something new. I am moved to tears when someone discovers a new way to open or experiences feeling held by God for the first time. This happens in every workshop and it never ceases to touch me.

I taught at Dance Camp in June, 23’ to 42 people. We had less than two hours. I could feel God in the room for the last hour. No one wanted to talk. No one wanted to leave. No one needed anything, but to sit together in silence feeling the depth of collective openness, safety, and connection. It was profound.

Every time this experience is felt, I am fed. This is what I live for. This is my medicine and my salvation. Time stops and the pregnant pause takes over.

My mission is to share this with the world, so I can keep on being fed, and keep on feeding the hunger I know Humans have for ease, God, pleasure, and connection.