To know thyself, know thy pleasure

Often, when people find out that I am a coach who supports people in connecting to their authenticity through pleasure, I’m met with blank stares and blushing cheeks. Many assume, I assume, that I’m talking about erotic pleasure. Sexual pleasure. Romantic pleasure. And often I perceive a sense of relief flash through their eyes when I clarify that I’m talking about the pleasure of life. Of being. Because, oh what terrors might be wrought from valuing our sexual pleasure!

It’s troubling, if you think about it for very long, that our collective reaction to the idea of prioritizing pleasure is shame. Even if it was sexual, nothing about delighting in our bodies should be shamed. Liberation is the world where our feelings about pleasure and sexual delight are … chill, easy, anything but transgressive. 

The point is, disconnecting and shaming us for our pleasure has been a fantastic tool in patriarchy’s quest for dominion. If we are perpetually dissatisfied, we are far more likely to be sick - and buy pharmaceuticals to assuage our symptoms. We are far more likely to see ourselves as insufficient - and buy stuff to make ourselves ‘better’, or just make ourselves feel better. “Optimization” can easily become just another form of body-denial, of idealism. We are far more likely to tolerate predatory and unjust behavior – from influencers, industrial medicine, and from men — because we aren’t convinced of our own worth. And, perhaps most alarming of all, when we are utterly disconnected from our pleasure, we are disconnected from who we really are. We are moldable. We are manipulable. We are controllable. We will more likely accept white and smooth: in our cars, in our kitchens, in our workspaces, in our lives… because we’ve forgotten how much we love yellow and fuzzy. Or red and spikey. Or purple and bubbly. 

If we don’t know who we are, who we are can be dictated to us.

There is a scene in one of Julia Roberts’ most famous movies, Runaway Bride, in which Ike (Richard Gere) asks Maggie (Roberts) how she likes her eggs. She, of course, doesn’t actually know because she’s always eaten her eggs the way whichever boyfriend she was with at the time ate his eggs.

When money-and-power-grabbing entities disconnect us from our pleasure and, therefore, our identity, they also seed confusion in us. We are conditioned to ignore the physiological “no” and go along with whatever is being fed to us, sold to us, or pushed on us. We are conditioned to forget that aligned choices feel good. They feel right, no matter the outcome, because they were the right choices (and lessons) for us.

That incredible sense of openness and buoyancy that floods over you when you make a decision and you just know it was the absolute best decision you could have made in support of who you really are and want to be… that’s alignment. The feeling that your whole body is relaxing, that your heart is expanding… that’s alignment. That experience of peace, the sense that you have more space for care, and empathy, and generosity, and compassion (because you trusted your decision and took care of yourself)… that’s alignment. 

It’s also oxytocin. 

Long touted as the “love” hormone, oxytocin is so much more than the hormone that stimulates bonding and connection. It’s also the most restorative, regenerative, and immune-boosting hormone; it is linked to lower blood pressure and pain reduction; it’s even been shown to affect positive changes in women’s reproductive health and bodies. 

What’s more, oxytocin  also functions as a neurotransmitter and helps to regulate various other hormones in the body - meaning that it can help to create hormonal balance in our bodies, naturally. One of those other hormones it helps to regulate: cortisol. In fact, according to Dr. Anna Cabeca in her blog, The Girlfriend Doctor, oxytocin and cortisol work like a lever: increased oxytocin suppresses cortisol and increased cortisol suppresses oxytocin. 

When you support your body in producing oxytocin, you support your body in experiencing more ease, more trust, less pain, and a million other wonderful benefits, and that supports you in re-connecting to your pleasure - sexually and otherwise. Which, in turn, supports you in understanding and connecting with who you really are. That fundamental self-awareness (and hopefully, self-love) can help guide our choices. It can help us quickly and easily discern: “Does this choice align with who I am and want to be?”

Profoundly knowing ourselves protects us from the aforementioned threats leveled at us by societal pressures, but it also empowers us to become the creators of our lives. The architects. The Goddesses and Gods. On a metaphorical level, liberation feels aligned: open, energetic, bright, joyful, exciting, certain, and easy. Faking - or numbing out - feels tight, tense, shadowed. 

Obviously, then, understanding who we are is essential to our collective liberation from the capitalist machine. And, in order to profoundly know who we are, we have to re-connect to our pleasure. We have to know without a doubt how we like our eggs and then get them that way

Not incidentally, I will be offering a workshop on connecting to embodiment (and identity) through pleasure in the Medusa Rising Discord server, should you be interested in honing in on your self love with oxytocin boosting techniques and other tools. Members may register here:

Jaclyn Lanae is an embodiment coach, author, and freelance writer who came to this work the long way—through experience, loss, and repair. She writes for people in moments of transition, helping them move forward without self-abandonment in love, conflict, & change. Follow her on Substack at  https://jaclynlanae.substack.com/ or connect at AuthorJaclynLanae.com.

Songs for Breaking Up with Male Supremacy

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