The Pleasure Portal

If a fungus slowly grows over a plant, eventually the plant retracts, constricts, shrivels up like a raisin, and goes into an unhealthy, diseased state. The same happens to you when pleasure becomes restricted. It’s a snail pace process that transpires slowly over time. It’s suddenly gone and you seem perplexed as to why.

As a deer in headlights, you stop immediately in your tracts figuring out where to go next.

To truly experience pleasure, first, acknowledge your current present state. Are you a cheetah racing towards its prey, chasing after one thing? Are you aware that your body is screaming for a break yet you keep pushing through? Breathe.

Pleasure initiates in the simplicity and stillness of presence. It’s a simple guide that shows the path that feels good now. It takes 17 seconds to build the momentum of whatever you’re feeling. It’s a choice point. Yet, most people miss this key aspect in their daily lives. If you’re building momentum in the wrong direction, presence brings you back to choose differently.

Think how a sunflower grows. Gaze upon a field of sunflowers and you can immediately tell the direction where the sun rises. The plant grows in the direction of what brings them pleasure. What direction are you growing in? Are there areas of your life growing toward the sun while others are wilting due to fungus?

If you’re holding back on what pleases you, explore what that may be. Too often, we want to escape circumstances to experience a pleasure. This is avoidance. It’s disguised as pleasure and distorts feeling good. This shows up as guilt for taking a vacation from work. This shows up as doing what you love yet not handling lingering circumstances that are easy to deal with, clutter, and emotional wounds. Or, even endless scrolling on social media to escape present circumstances.

Pleasure becomes the space that invites a world of imagination and creativity to sensually feel something new and profound. What nourishes your cup? Get back into what makes you feel alive inside.

Presence plus pleasure is the pathway into a new portal where opportunities arise spontaneously. This internal inspiration coupled with instinct guides your movement forward quickly yet gracefully. How fast can you jump on an opportunity if it lights you up inside? The faster you can make decisions, the easier your life gets.