It's all about Pleasure

“You do not have to be good/ You do not have to walkover on your knees /For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting/ You only have to let the soft animal of your body / love what it loves…”

— “Wild Geese” by Mary Oliver

Recently I’ve been talking to my patients about pleasure. The word pleasure triggers a delightful smile…but unfortunately one that fades into embarrassment and discomfort. Pleasure is a complicated topic. It evokes feelings of guilt and resistance and fear of gluttony and hedonism. My patients react with surprise when I suggest that pleasure is a kind of wisdom. The wisdom of the body. If pain is our body’s way of telling us to pay more attention, then pleasure is also an important communication. Pain urges us to interrupt business as usual, slow down, care for and be mindful of our bodies. Pleasure invites us to continue to engage and connect with the wonders of our bodies, to lovingly give our body what it is asking for.  

Pleasure is the enjoyment of the senses: sight, hearing, taste, touch, smell. In Chinese Medicine, our senses are all related to our internal organs and our health. Frequently, when a Chinese herbal formula tastes good to you, it is because it is the medicine (which includes the flavors) that your body needs to regain health. We continue as a species because procreation is pleasurable and having a good sex drive is an indication of robust health. Pleasurable scents, color, and beautiful music are all known to affect our chemistry, stimulating healing.

Sadly, our innate ability to feel pleasure and to trust it as a guiding force is diminishing. As we modernize, we retreat more and more into our minds and inhabit less of our bodies and senses. Much of our day is experienced through a screen where the wisdom of our senses becomes irrelevant. The result is that we become increasingly disconnected from the innate wisdom and the sensual language of our bodies. If we consider ourselves healthy, we use our intellect to prescribe what we think are health promoting diet, exercise and regimens that we superimpose onto our daily living. Pleasure has nothing to do with these prescriptions.If we do not consider ourselves healthy, we feel unable to control our habits, we feel disorderly, undisciplined, out of control and in this scenario if there is any pleasure felt, it is accompanied by guilt. We may even think that our indulgence with pleasure is the problem. In either case, the central and indispensable role of pleasure in guiding us towards a healthier and fuller experience of life is considered off topic or even dangerous.

To experience pleasure fully, we must be willing to be present. We must be willing to embody the wild, irrational landscape of sensations and emotions. We must trust ourselves and find that we are worthy of enjoyment. Pleasure is good. It is aliveness. It is healthy. It is life affirming and self affirming. It is a spontaneous unspoken expression of appreciation, a taking in of our human experience. Pleasure in eating encourages food absorption, pleasure in movement activates endorphins, pleasure in touch releases oxytocin, pleasure in music and beauty soothes our nervous system and stimulates our creative impulses. Pleasure tells a story of who we are and where we come from. Particular tastes in food, beauty, partners, style, music, fragrances celebrates our individualism. When we allow for the full experience of pleasure we are practicing self-love. And health naturally flowers from that.
 
With Pleasure, 

Thuy

What Makes You Come Alive?

We’re so excited to share this community art mural with you all! Come visit the clinic to participate.

“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

— Dr. Howard Thurman

Getting a good night’s sleep makes me come alive. Eating something delicious makes me come alive. Intimacy makes me come alive. My 10 year old’s jokes, the impossible wisdom of my 13 year old and the kisses and cuddles of my 7 year old makes me come alive. Helping someone makes me come alive Humor makes me come alive. Letting myself cry when I am feeling frustrated, angry, sad makes me come alive. Nature makes me come alive. Creating and playing makes me come alive.

Coming alive is connecting and engaging in ways that wake us up to the beauty, fullness and joy of life. It only requires a willingness to make space, to be present and to connect. It centers around one’s most basic feelings and expressions of a human being. Still,many of us cannot make space for these simple life affirming things. We cannot give ourselves the permission to come alive.

Dr. Howard Thurman was an author, educator, mystic, and civil rights leader. He was an inspiration and mentor to Dr. Martin Luther King. His words are not feel good new age words. They are words meant to incite the greatest revolution of all times, the liberation of each of our hearts and minds.

We live in a society that has made coming alive subordinate to our daily ambition. And that ambition has crushed the life out of us without our noticing. It’s the anecdote of how to boil a frog: if you put a frog in hot water, it will jump out but if you put it in cold water and slowly turn up the heat, it will not notice that it is being cooked.This is what ambition is doing to us, slowly draining the life out of us without our noticing.

Daily ambitions are not simply grand plans and schemes. Daily ambitions are the belief that our present state must be sacrificed for something bigger and better in the future. This belief drives us to work long hours, neglect our loved ones, neglect our bodies and disconnect from the present moment. And yet it is commonly reported that at the end of our days, our ambitions remain an elusive mirage only to be replaced by regret. Regret that we did not spend our precious time doing the things that make us come alive.

Coming alive is an act of liberation and an act of courage. It can be as small as choosing to put bubbles in your bath, as serious as speaking a long held truth, as fulfilling as writing your novel, as silly as having a water balloon fight with your kids, as passionate as declaring your love to someone for the first time, as moving as pouring your heart out in prayer, or as defiant as using your body to protect and defend the water. Whatever it is, it is an act of self love and a connection with life.

Coming alive is jumping out of the pot before it’s too late. It’s risking scrutiny and judgement, challenging the voices that question our worth, our value, our right to come alive now, in the present moment. Too often, people’s response to my urging has been, but how can I come alive when all around me are endless struggles, suffering and injustices? And to that I say, it is precisely because of this that you must come alive.

Come alive to bring more light into the world. Come alive so there this more beauty, more joy, more connection in the world. Come alive in response to the gift of life your ancestors passed on to you. Come alive so that the children can know what aliveness is as they grow up. Come alive so that our Nation, our world knows that true liberty belongs to us all.

In community,

Thuy

Harmony is the Rule of Nature: The Year of the Fire Rooster!

The Lunar New Year recently began and I feel the first stirrings of Spring underway. Fresh blossoms are beginning to bloom, the sky lightens earlier, and I leave the house with one less layer on. I feel an energy slowly emerging that desires greater expression and connection with the external world. After a dark cold winter of the Fire Monkey when the world seemed topsy turvy, I am eagerly aligning with the Fire Rooster for a fresh new start.

Like Chinese Medicine, the Chinese Zodiac is based upon keen observations of the patterns and laws that govern the Natural World. Existing in harmonious relationship with the laws of the Natural World is the aim of the traditional Chinese way of life.What is considered the Natural World is not only what we commonly think of as Mother Nature, but includes us as human beings and the worlds that we create. The question of how to be in harmonious relationship with ourselves, Nature, the current state of the Nation and our fellow human beings is something that many of us have been struggling with as of late.

Harmony is a skillful ordering of separate elements to create an accord of greater value than what might emerge through accident, thoughtlessness or willful discord.To create harmony during troubling times, great skill is required and the wisdom of the Fire Rooster reminds us to call upon clarity, precision and intelligence for a successful resolution. Ignoring this careful work is a cockiness--the rooster’s imbalance-- that we cannot afford, especially during these trying times.

Where do we begin? We begin by putting our heads back on. Last thing we want to do in Year of the Rooster is to run around like chickens without heads. This may be hard as our fears are being triggered and setting off alarm bells inside our guts. Try not to panic and locate your head. In so doing, we may begin to see that there are logical systems and steps to caring for ourselves and our community that can establish peace and harmony.

Rooster is about structure - early to rise, early to bed. This year, it is critical to establish healthful regimens that ensure adequate rest, movement and nourishment. Prioritize eight hours of sleep, regular exercise and eating well. Additionally, organize your work and living space to increase order, cleanliness and efficiency. Care for yourself with thoughtful and established routines and your fear will eventually transform into empowerment.

Then turn your attention outwards and extend that empowerment to your communities. Connect with others to brainstorm systematic ways to realign our Nation with the Natural Order. Make alliances with those who are doing similar work. Harmony is the rule of Nature. In order to reestablish the Natural Order, we ourselves--through our living, through our being, through our conscious connection--must align with harmony. In the Year of the Fire Rooster, it is through careful, thoughtful and systematic action on both an individual and collective level that harmony and peace will prevail. Join me in this work. Cock-a-doodle-doo!!!!!!!

-Thuy

How will the fire rooster show up for you in your life this year?

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