Are you experiencing the top tier of pleasure? Does it course through your entire body at orgasm? Does your mind alter, and you can speak to the universe just from pleasure? You're probably not experiencing all that pleasure has to offer in your body! I know I'm not! It's a long process of making continual space to allow pleasure to come. How can you make more space for pleasure?
Let's start with the brain. The brain is designed for pleasure... in ideal circumstances. The primal brain developed first, and we needed to feel things first so our capacity to feel pleasure is held in this early stage of our brain. However, you can get cut off from the full experience of pleasurable sensations by early conditioning. Conditioning from your family, religion, friends, society, school. Trauma can also impact the ability to feel pleasure. These conditions will literally make you feel less sensation. The primal brain can shut down feeling sensations if it wants. The primal brain is primarily focused on safety. That makes sense since we needed to determine if we are safe from the beginning of time. Without safety the primal brain says no to pleasure.
This is the first road block to pleasure and the first place we can make space! Unlocking your own primal sexuality begins with getting curious about what your brain deems safe. For some of us, it's about food, water, shelter. But, for others it can be more about determining what your brain actually thinks is safe. If you were raised in an abusive or neglectful home your primal brain might deem those circumstances more safe to a degree. It might think arguments in a relationship are safe because that's all it was demonstrated. And just thinking that that is silly isn't enough. Logic doesn't work in the primal brain. You have to feel it.
Creating safety in your life can look like some of these examples. Grounding. Touching the ground and visualizing your roots reconnecting with the Earth. Orienting. Looking around, smelling things, touching things. Anything that reminds you that you are in the present and not the past. Body Scans. Scan your body for different sensations. Drink. Sip some tea and feel the warmth flow through your body. Dance. Move and shake and twerk until you remember that you are in your body. Safety. Find a literal place of safety in your body. A place that can't be touched by pain. Keep going back to this place when you need to.
So, when you are endeavoring towards pleasure and you feel a block come up, like something feels disgusting all of a sudden, or your brain keeps getting distracted and you can't focus, or you feel shame or guilt about getting pleasure, then go back to safety. The first part of making space for pleasure is figuring out where you need to make space! Let's say you suddenly feel disgust when someone wants to go down on you. Stop and resource in safety. Ground, orient, dance, scan your body for sensations. These will remind your primal brain that you are here now, not in the past. If it's about conditioning then this can help your primal brain feel like it's actually safe. Once your primal brain feels safe again (as in the disgust is not so heavy) then try again.
You can also pendulate back and forth between the trigger and safety. Try having them go down on you, then when disgust rears it's head again stop and go back to the resources. Keep taking one foot in and out of the trigger until you can slowly convince your primal brain that it is safe. This can take time, so give yourself lots of grace to get it.
Another way to make space for more pleasure is to allow the feelings you don't want. By pushing feelings like disgust, numbness, and shame away we aren't giving them a chance to be heard. These feelings are there for a reason. Honor that reason, even if logically it doesn't make sense anymore. Say "you're welcome here shame, and I love you". This seems counterintuitive, but by giving the feelings space to be felt they can finally move on.
It's also important to understand that when you start to heal these blocks to pleasure, it might hurt. If you realize guilt has been keeping you from experiencing pleasure then you go on a journey to dislodge the guilt, it will dislodge eventually. And when it does, you'll feel the entirety of that guilt. If you resist it will stay stuck. Surrender to the feelings. Feel them. Embrace them. Love them! And they can be on their way. That's what they wanted from the beginning. No emotion is designed to stick around. That's why they cause so much harm when they get stuck. You can't bypass this part. Even knowing it's coming might not prepare you. Trust that the feeling is moving, don't tell stories, don't get sucked in, just feel.
I haven't yet found my most profound pleasure! I'm still working on some conditioning and trauma that is blocking my full capacity to pleasure. But I'm also accepting that the path to healing is lifelong. Do you know how cool it is to explore pleasure in a new way every week? What a wonderful life to live, discovering pleasure. I hope this journey never ends!
INSPIRED ACTION: Ask yourself, am I experiencing the most ground breaking pleasure that is possible? Or is there more? Keep one or two of the safety techniques in your back pocket so you can start to use them when you find blocks to your pleasure. Start pendulating back and forth if that feels healing, and make sure to feel anything that comes up.