*Note: Listen to the full episode on the podcast here.
It's totally possible to create a pleasure filled life that you love... even if you are currently in so much physical, mental, emotional pain you can't even fathom how.
Perhaps you're currently struggling with being pigeonholed into a corner of burnout from your own particular set of life challenges (your health included). You may find you are so overwhelmed that all you want to do is check out or numb out in some way by the end of the day. You no longer experience pleasure for the sake of pleasure alone.
I've been there...
Maybe right now you are worrying way too much about the potential of your current health hazards and symptoms, thinking you have some kind of scary illness or disease. This level of over-worrying is making it impossible for you to experience all that life has to offer.
Whether it is stress, anxiety or a recent illness, the challenges you have been through or a currently going through have completely drained your energy. To the point where you just can't enjoy things like you once did or wish you could.
But the truth is...
Your body is designed for pleasure, you can learn through pleasure just as much as you can learn through pain. Read that again! And if that's really true... go ahead and ask yourself, why do you sometimes choose to focus on your pain over your pleasure? Do you not feel deserving of pleasure? Is it your childhood conditioning and the beliefs you have decided to hold on to?
Your mindset has a lot to do with whether you allow yourself to both pursue, enjoy and receive pleasure in your your life.
So much is at stake when you don't prioritize your pleasure.
You may find it really difficult to cope, so much so that you turn to unhealthy things as a crutch. I sure have.
BUT that just leads to self-sabotaging behaviors, choices that lead you away from creating your life of ultimate pleasure. Healthy pleasure. As well as creating a life by design. One where you allow yourself to enjoy the things your soul longs for. Not to mention the simple day to day pleasures.
This is why I share so much about self-care, so you don't get to the point of no return where you lean on drugs, alcohol, or too many medications to help you cope. To the point that you feel utterly depressed and find it harder and harder to go and do the things you love. It's hard to pull out of burnout once you are there, incredibly hard. When you find you are leaning on more and more coping mechanisms it becomes harder to actually truly better handle stress. It's a downward spiral, unless you choose to shift gears, get help and rewrite the story.
The struggle to overcome burnout if you don't safeguard your health now is a steep price to pay. It cost me years of my life, lots of heartbreak and worse... time missed helping to create my kids best childhood years.
When you focus more on your pleasure you crowd out your pain.
When you focus more on your pain, you diminish your pleasure. What you focus on grows. What you focus on you create more of.
This is not to say that your pain (such as that of total burnout; fatigue, anxiety, insomnia, indigestion, fear, worry, self-doubt and so much more) is not real or to pretend it away. Rather, part of why you are in pain may be due to an imbalance in your life. Your body can only handle so much life stress before it burns out. You can counter this mechanism by putting yourself first, and by focusing on what brings you joy and feels good.
Stress leads to mineral burnout. A loss of minerals in your body leads to a heightened stress response. This response creates a downhill snowball effect. Your physical and mental health decline dramatically, and this is hard to come back from.
This is why prioritizing pleasure, fun, joy all help your brain to get rewired. This is the first step to help STOP the stress cascade leading your body to run out of it's minerals. The next step is to test and assess so you can determine exactly where your body is at and what exact nutrition it currently needs. Then you can start to adapt your lifestyle and heal from burnout.
Pleasure, play, and social connection are all deeply nourishing and restorative on both a physical and an emotional level and can provide a powerful antidote to stress.
When you experience pleasure, your body secretes endorphins. Endorphins interact with opiate receptors in the brain to reduce your perception of pain. They act similarly to morphine and codeine, but unlike these drugs, they do not lead to dependence or addiction.
Secretion of endorphins also leads to an improved immune response, release of sex hormones, modulation of appetite, and feelings of euphoria. Most importantly, high endorphin levels may help you cope with the negative effects of stress.
When you actually focus on YOU, your body, your mind and your entire well being, it's easier to focus on your pleasure. Your efforts will be rewarded, I promise.
The first step, is to give yourself permission to create a life full of pleasure.
Recently, I watched a powerful YouTube video by Audre Lorde. She talks about the erotic (pleasure) as a source of your power. The erotic as a resource, as a holistic part of your being. Your true pleasure is intended to be expressed and enjoyed. I highly recommend taking the time to listen to this short video, it could possibly be the best thing you've heard in awhile.
Start creating a life full of your ultimate pleasure today: My story
I am someone who values the quality of my time and the kind of work I am doing. As an INFP personality type, to me, time for creative expression and nourishing my soul is imperative.
Back in the summer of 2014 when I discovered I had adrenal burnout, I had not been experiencing a whole lot of pleasure in my life. In fact, quite the opposite.
For so many years I had been in a hyper-vigilant state, focused on trying to be a good wife, good homemaker, good mom as well as good friend and active in my community. I also home-schooled my oldest through 4th grade, so my whole entire life was focused on everyone else other than myself. Not to mention, the challenges I faced being in a verbally, emotionally abusive marriage.
The accumulation of mental, physical and emotional stress wore me down. I became so burned out that it became harder and harder to focus on my big dreams, let alone the little daily joys in life. I also often felt some level of guilt for attempting to put myself first. Either that or a battle to create time and space just for me and my own pleasure.
For one thing, I was too hyper-focused on what I needed to do to 'fix my health'. So, hyper-vigilant about getting my health back on track that it led to more fear and worry. I didn't know any other way so I resisted focusing on pleasure thinking it wouldn't help. Even when I did have moments of pleasure, I couldn’t enjoy it fully. I resisted letting go of control of trying to fix myself and create the urgent outcome of ‘healed’ that I believed I needed.
When I finally started to let go of such tight control and allow more pleasure to come into my life, my body felt freer and my moods shifted. I became calmer more zen, better able to handle stress. Stress used to keep me up at night, it used to crash my health, cause anxiety and panic. Now I sleep through the night like a baby even when big life stress is currently going on. I no longer over-react to stress like I once did, instead I pull away from the stress and go find some pleasure in my day. Then I come back to face the stress head on with much greater ease.
I am so grateful to have begun to create a life of ultimate pleasure.
What I feel I have embodied is a beautiful work flow and simple life. I structure my day in a way that works best for me, for my family. I flow with the seasons, with my energy, with my cycle. I take time out during the day to pause when I need to if things are too much. I create time and space to enjoy countless hours deeply immersed in nature. I allow myself to write for pleasure, but if I’m honest that includes sharing it because it helps others. I have created an incredibly passionate relationship, one where we prioritize our pleasure together.
I may not have created the ultimate financial freedom, be able to travel the world or live in my dream home (yet), but how I live my day to day feels amazing. It allows me to actually enjoy all of those little daily joys, like watching the birds in my backyard feeder, grabbing lunch in town with my oldest son on the spur of the moment. I can get up early and write or if I’m feeling a need for more rest, I can sleep in. I can leisurely create a beautiful healthy breakfast, snap some photos and then eat it with gratitude. Instead of rushing out the door each and every day, I can savor my mornings in a way that allows me to work with my creative energy.
Thankfully, I started to pursue my passion in health and create my own line of work that I truly enjoy. This allows me to actually enjoy time with my kids and time doing things that feed my soul. Such as inspire other women to create their best health and life as well.
Women who want to create a life full of pleasure, but also women wanting to recover from burnout and even divorce. It's incredibly rewarding to know that sharing my joy, my creativity my pleasure can set others free to do the same.
You see, when you allow yourself to pursue your pleasure you are doing some powerful deeply transformative healing work. Not only will this benefit you in creating a life you love, it will make an impact on those you love and beyond.
Now I would love to hear from you... What are your challenges with creating a life of pleasure? Have you ever struggled with your health holding you back from doing what you love and creating more freedom & pleasure? Let me know in the comments below...
If you are ready to overcome burnout and emotional overwhelm so you can get back to fully enjoying your life and pursuing your pleasure, I invite you to book a breakthrough session with me today. We'll get on the phone and discuss your happiest outcome for your health and dreams right now, and if I believe I can support you in that, I'll share how.
P.S. If you feel inclined to give for what you receive here on my site as you read, you can donate to support my work here: https://paypal.me/lydiashatney
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