The Taboo of Healing with Pleasure

In the West, we have a cultural story that healing must be hard. The largest monotheistic religions all share an origin story about the first humans being kicked out of a garden, condemned to a life of struggle and suffering.

Our culture teaches us to see pain as redemptive and even virtuous. Sayings like "No pain, no gain" place false value on suffering.  

It’s no surprise that healing work often echoes this common message. We think healing needs to hurt.

But it's not true. In fact, research is clear that it's the opposite.

Pushing ourselves into painful states, emotional or otherwise, and expecting to heal our inner wounds has the opposite effect.

If we're working with trauma, going into painful and extreme states risks retraumatizing the system and making the original wounding even worse.

We assume the intensity is helpful, as if the pain will get us there faster. But it doesn't.

And then we're left confused, wondering what's wrong with us, and why we "can't heal." But it’s our approach — not us.

This is what so much trauma healing work gets wrong. It's not about intensity — it's about rewiring the body and mind towards goodness and pleasure.

Yes, we must go into the original wounding and heal from there, but if we only look backwards, we risk getting stuck in the past. We need to also move forward.

And the number one, most overlooked, yet scientifically proven way to move forward is through pleasure.

If you just balked because that sounds ridiculous, I get it.

It's easy to dismiss the power of pleasure. Pleasure is taboo in our culture. It's considered superfluous, inefficient, and morally questionable, and it’s associated with a lack of control.

The only place our culture encourages the pursuit of pleasure is within the narrow confines of sexual intimacy — and even then, there are caveats. We often rush intimacy and don't give our bodies the time they need to relax and expand into the enjoyment of pleasure.

Culture conditions us to see the pursuit of pleasure as selfish and even a trap. Remember the Lotus Eaters and the Island of Circe in The Odyssey? Stories like that and others teach us to view pleasure with suspicion, a distraction from the serious business of logic and industriousness.

But the fact is, when it comes to healing, pleasure is a powerful and potent force.

Neurologically, the experience of pleasure coaxes new neural pathways into being that offer alternatives to our usual way of feeling. The hormones associated with pleasure naturally awaken the body to a deeper and more expansive feeling of wellbeing.

When we consciously cultivate our experience of pleasure, we start to make choices that align with a greater investment in life. We experience a deeper sense of presence because it's more enjoyable to be here. We develop a greater capacity for connection with ourselves, others, and the world, because it feels good.

But the problem remains.

Because pleasure is taboo, we are conditioned internally to resist it. We are taught that pleasure is a slippery slope, that it can't be trusted, and that it has no purpose. We dismiss it, devalue it, and ignore its latent potential to transform our experience of life.

And we certainly don't value it as a pathway to healing.

But what if we did?

In my trauma resolution work, sensory pleasure is a foundational tool of healing and empowerment. Without fail, it ushers in an experience of greater aliveness. It restores self-trust and an experience of the goodness of life.

Far from being hedonistic or self-destructive, the practice of pleasure is the most reliable way to gently restore our nervous systems’ capacity for thriving.

I don't expect you to take my word for it. Here are some simple, accessible ways you can experiment and see for yourself.

How to Start Healing with Pleasure

1. Take it slow.

Western culture loves to do things fast. We value intensity and strong sensations. But rather than overloading your system with a massive dose of immediate pleasure, I encourage you to start slow. Go outside today and notice the patterns of the leaves in the trees. Make time to take a hot bath. Prepare your favorite meal. Read a book you enjoy.

Slowing down with pleasure allows your body to feel more fully. When we rush towards intensity, it’s easy to overload the nervous system. Then our bodies respond with a subtle bracing and muscular tension that acts like armor to prevent us from fully feeling. Instead of rushing, go slow and see the difference that makes in your experience.

2. Trust your senses.

We are often taught that the body and the senses — and by extension, pleasure — are not to be trusted. Restoring trust in your body and your senses will take time. The best way to begin is to create safe and loving experiences of pleasure for yourself, again and again. Daily, or more often, if possible.

This is both easy and enjoyable — at least, it should be.

Notice how the ocean smells and sounds. Feel the grass on your bare feet and the wind on your face and in your hair. Return to the five senses, again and again, in your experience of pleasure. When you find yourself in the mind, thinking your way through the experience, return to the body again.

3. Honor your body.

We have been conditioned by western culture to put the mind over the body in a hierarchy of dominance and control. Choosing the healing power of pleasure means creating a different story and relationship with yourself. We are not separate from our bodies. We are our bodies. And they deserve respect, care, and honoring.

For many of us, our relationship with our bodies has been a tortuous road. Self-loathing and body dysmorphia are so prevalent they have become normalized. But through pleasure, we choose healing. We create a different way that honors our bodies for the gift of being alive.

4. Listen to what you like 

Pleasure is unique to each one of us. The foods, fabrics, environments, and friends we like are all personal preferences that deserve honor and respect. We can't force our bodies to like something they don't. That just doesn't work.

This goes for the kind of touch we like, the temperature of the water we drink, the kinds of foods we enjoy — everything. Listen to your body's signals and respond.

Preferences change, so be adaptable. What we like in the morning may not suit us at night. What works well in one season might not work in another. By listening, we attune to the language our bodies are speaking. When we’re listening, we know how to choose pleasure for ourselves.

5. Give yourself what you like.

Too many of us are used to a steady diet of self-denial. We wait too long to eat or drink water. We don't rest when we need to. We prioritize the external world over our inner needs. Returning to pleasure as a healing path means responding to ourselves first.

Prioritizing ourselves is often seen as selfish, but it's anything but.

Responding to our needs for pleasure and enjoyment create an experience of goodness that has a ripple effect through your life and the lives of people close to you. Try it and you'll see.

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It might seem counterintuitive to heal with pleasure. It certainly goes against all our conditioning that healing must be difficult and involve even more suffering than we've already experienced.

But the science is clear. We can't heal fully until we create goodness for ourselves, and that goodness happens through pleasure.

I invite you to do something today, just for the pleasure of it. Treat it like an experiment. Notice the impact on your body, your mind, and your emotions. Then do something just for the pleasure of it again tomorrow, and the next day.

Create a flow of pleasurable experiences over the next couple of weeks, and you'll be able to see the cumulative impact on your outlook towards life — and even your resilience to life's challenges.

This is how we heal — not with suffering, but with joy.

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