Welcome to Frontiers of Pleasure

Right now, if you’re willing, look up from your device and just gaze around where you are. If you’re in a quiet place, let your gaze go wide and soft to take in the stillness of the objects in space around you. If you’re in a busy place, with sound and motion around you, let yourself take in the volume of space in the room or area around you. Notice the things that are still, and the space that is quiet, through which sound is moving... Take some time to let your gaze wander. Allow it to land where there is something appealing to explore… Then come back to this page.

What did you notice? What did your gaze take in that had some appeal?

Small is big. If you can appreciate subtle motions of your attention responding to tiny spontaneous attractions, then more significant attractions and pleasures are easier to access, and savor. When your attention is open to your environment and primed for simple pleasures, you feel good and have a sense of wellbeing.

I’ve been specializing in psychotherapy for trauma for three decades, and I’m working on a book called The Frontiers of Pleasure. Now, here on Substack, I want to play around with ideas about pleasure. I’ve had plenty of fun with my clients, and enjoyed the hell out of ‘trauma’ work, which is the phenomenal pleasure of watching human beings morph through their challenges by developing their own versions of creative expansion into love and joy.

Pleasure is your birthright and fundamental to being alive. Pleasure is simply, profoundly, a guide to what you love and value: moment by moment, every day, across your whole span of a lifetime. Right now, can you think of a simple example of something you have loved for your whole life? Immediately, the example that comes to mind for me is watching the sky, always there, always different, always a pleasure, great or small.

Right now, our culture is enjoying the freedom and opportunity to play fast and loose with the value of pleasure through marketing and entertainment, grabbing us where we live in all kinds of ways. We can be lured into enchantments and addictions, yearnings and dependencies, all of which involve rising intensities of sensation and meaning, often crowding out whole ranges of simple pleasures that are part of daily life and good relationships with family and friends.

Previous generations were more intent on maintaining the basic necessities of life. Various beliefs and principles were instilled in children and young people to curb and shape their appetites and behaviors so as to engage them in the serious business of getting educated, working hard and earning a living. Many of those are still floating around, limiting your relationship with pleasure in ways that may serve you, or not. You may benefit from exploring and illuminating your individual belief system around this original capacity for experiencing pleasure.

We start small:

Once again, look up from the device and look around. Take it slow and let your attention get soft, making light contact with each object you see. Take it easy and go gently. You’re just making nonverbal contact, and noticing how it feels. When there is appeal, take your time to sense and savor it, and then let go easily, letting your soft attention move on. Gradually let your gaze go wide and take in the space around you, and the space between you and these objects you’ve contacted. Take your time. Notice how your wider, softer view feels now.

Here you are. On a fresh frontier of pleasure, available easily, often, anytime. Your softer, more open attention can become a baseline of ease and feeling okay. More prompts, belief system tinkerings, and good habits to explore coming up…

Welcome. It’s a pleasure to meet you. What are your particular concerns and appreciations for pleasure in your daily life? Please subscribe and comment…