The Agony and the Ecstasy

I haven’t written much lately.  I’ve been sad. My nine-year relationship (seven years married) abruptly ended this summer, gradually morphing into a friendship/business relationship. Although my mind knows that it is for the best, my emotional body has had other ideas. So I let myself grieve and cry.  Seriously, would I want to be a person who walked away from someone they once loved with all their heart with NO feelings? Lots of people around me are in transition right now, particularly around their relationships. The question I’ve been pondering is, what is the role of pleasure when your overriding feeling is grief?  Or anger, or hopelessness?  The answer I’ve come up with is that when you get into agreement with the feelings themselves, there is pleasure, even in what we usually call “negative” feelings.  I used to numb out, with food, drugs, alcohol, shopping.  Today I can celebrate my ability to feel all my feelings.  As low as you can go into the more painful feelings is how great your capacity to experience the more joyful ones.  I can sob in brokenness, and I can exult in ecstasy.  Would you trade the extremes for feeling middle of the road all the time?  I doubt it.

Yesterday, I turned a corner.  I decided I’d paid my penance, felt badly enough for long enough, and committed to getting back on the up ride.  Starting yesterday, I refocused, from the things that hadn’t gone well, or weren’t the way I wanted them now, to the things I want to create in my future. I got into action, taking the baby steps necessary to have my life be pleasurable right now. (I moved my desk, cleaned my kitchen, and made a medical appointment that had been lingering.) I have started writing about my ideal life, including a romantic partner who is a Tantric GOD among other things. And this is the role of pleasure when we are experiencing our darker feelings.  It is the lifeline that leads us to NEXT!  Every ending has in it the seeds of the new beginning.  When we are willing to look to what would please us, to dig deep for the whispers of desire within us, we can see that whatever we are going through now, is just clearing the way for the next phase of our lives, for something even more fulfilling to come our way.

Dive into Desire with me. Come to Pleasure Evolution, my free talk tonight in Asheville. If you really want to find your What’s Next, what do I really want? Join us Nov. 8th thru 10th for The Desire Course.