Pleasure: An Emotion of Notice

Let’s talk about pleasure.

Pleasure and its discussion are a risk I’ve learned to take more and more the older I get, the more therapy I practice, and the more of life’s troubles I encounter. Would you be willing to chat this through with me? If you read to the end of this article, I think we might be able to come to a place where pleasure is less hedonistic and more versatile, less about promiscuity and more about purpose.

In a recent visit with my own therapist, I had the realization that for 42.5 years I’ve carried around the heaviness of the world. For well-intentioned reasons, it seems a very young version of me thought if I stored all the burdens and struggles and general crappiness carried by and because of humanity in the T3 joint of my upper spine, maybe, just maybe the world would be a better place. It seems 18-month-old Heidi was desperate to save the world and she didn’t know it wasn’t her job.

Loss, burden, darkness, hurt … these things are the sticky things of life it would seem. Perhaps I am overzealous in my awareness of trauma’s stickiness in my profession, or because of those painful losses tiny humans should not have to bear and store up in their T3 joints. As a big believer in dialectics, or the benefit of awareness of things that coexist inexplicably, shockingly, often unreasonably — freedom and boundaries, challenge and acceptance, love and justice — I teach daily the cooperative union of that which is ugly and beautiful, of pain and pleasure. It seems, I have forgotten many a day to apply it to myself.

What if we watched more intentionally, more aggressively for beauty and pleasure?

I began to ask myself: What if spirituality was just as concerned with lightness as with burden? What if God invited my awareness of enjoyment alongside sacrifice? What if meaning was made in the coexistence of the inexplicable, rather than the weight of a thousand problems?

These are all things I believe in and have believed in for some time, yet I simply forgot to practice. Let us notice moments of pleasure together, like bread broken around a table, good bread, not the white sliced preservative business. Let’s notice the bread so good that it will go stale if we don’t eat it immediately. The pain of life will not, fall away — this is not the design, again for reasons unknown. But we can state what we need each day for our daily bread. We need the gifts of love and mercy. We need the noticing of a God far bigger than the morsels we daily behold. We also need other resource gifts that nourish — color, music, light, curiosity, creativity, and yes, pleasure.

I began making a list of images that came to mind when I considered pleasure. This is my new mental health routine. I am an adamant pursuer of love and of kindness, of justice, and now, of pleasure. I invite you to create your own list.

Heidi’s list of pleasure:

Running my hands along the spines of library bound books, the scent of the public library oppressive and delightful, the burden of knowledge and knowing hanging heavy, alongside its joy

My dad laughing with friends around our too fancy dining room table, fresh fish and pheasant from the fryer on a paper plate challenged by the weight of the bounty, a Bud Light in one hand and a Marlboro Light in the other

Drinking wine after midnight in Florence with my mom, feet dangling from a bridge, the summer heat wave of late 90s climate change leaving sweat dripping down the length of our spines

The universal human pleasure of laying naked after sex instead of jumping back into life

Sharing stories and dreams while sitting on kitchen tiles and the carpet of living room floors, soaking in the clarity of a life altering decision, palatable because of the safe cocoon of friendship

A small gift, a text, shared time, a campfire, a hug, a hammock, and the squishy forest floor, bouncy with moss and decomposition

What is pleasure?

Pleasure is an emotion connected with delight, enjoyment, and satisfaction. There is a fullness to pleasure that helps that empty cup feeling of all the negative aspects of life. In this way pleasure helps us widen our perspective, which is always of value to our mental health.

We can easily chase pleasure to a place where it does not serve us well. We often use pleasure as an avoidance of pain, rather than aiming for the broader vantage point — pain and pleasure, repugnant and beautiful, heavy and light. This avoidance is often the seat of addiction and also just bad habits. My inner preschooler demands only pleasure and seeks it with no boundaries, which does not lead to health but hurt.

Pleasure, when demanded to dull not heighten awareness, becomes the enemy of actual enjoyment and satisfaction. There is a balance needed, as in all things.

Pleasure is wider than sexuality while indeed present in sexuality. Pleasure is connected to creativity and clearly supports a sense of connectedness within ourselves because it is closely related to our sensory systems, as well as connectedness with others, Creation, and God. Pleasure is deeper than “oh, that’s nice,” or “neat-o.” Because pleasure is related to “goodness” it begs spiritual questions in the same way pain and purpose do.

It is easy for the “morality gospel” to sneak in and excise our desire and discussion of the emotion of pleasure. Let's not avoid pain with false pleasure. Let us not avoid pleasure in the name of false morality. God is the God of both pain and pleasure. God promises the commonness of human encounters with both in the stories of kings and Christ, churches and cultures written into the Scriptures.

What is on your list? What images of pleasure and experiences of pleasure rise up from your past as you contemplate the word? Pleasure. Pleasure. Pleasure.

Let us demand pleasure and beauty in quantities coexistent with the pain of life. May God expand our purpose on this planet to hold the weighty burdens of life with pleasure, so that fullness is our gain, and wholeness that which brings our healing.