Release With Me
On Pleasure and Shame
What if i told you pleasure doesn't always feel good? Especially if you're used to forfeiting your own for others.
When you're committing to honoring your own pleasure and authenticity after shrinking and assimilating pleasure at first can feel like pain. It can feel unsafe and confusing. It can feel unnatural and disaffirming.
Pleasure after people pleasing ultimately though feels this way because of shame. Shame is the ground from which people pleasing, hiding, denying, and devaluing yourself grows from.
And it can be passed down through bloodlines.
Just like any other infection of the mind, body, or spirit. You can pick it up like a penny off the floor- on heads so seemingly more lucky, but in reality no true representation of your worth or your luck. Or like rubbing against a paint stain, in passing, not even noticing until it's way too late, until it's stuck to you, a new ficture on your favorite jacket.
And releasing it can be like waxing your whole body for some really odd reason that I can't even pretend to think of. Supposedly unecessary pain for some desired outcome that only you understand. That makes sense to every fiber in your body because it's on fire. You're burning with anxiety and depression and isolation and fear and doubt. All because of shame.
The consciousness of wrong or foolish behavior. But what is wrong in a world of hate, isolation, oppression, and degradation? What really is a fool? Someone who doesn't care about the consequences. Someone silly.
Let me tell you how silly has saved my life.
Silly has rescued me from the depths of hell in the midst of a snow storm. Returned me home from Oz when I clearly thought I had lost my mind.
So I'll be a fool. Especially when everyone thinks they know who I'm supposed to be. What I'm supposed to do.
When everyone thinks they've got life figured out. They've got a plan. And if I don't do it like they do it I'm foolish? I'm wrong? When people will admit to faking on a daily basis? When we learn to lie at 3 and don't stop doing it after we're 30? When people have no life outside of work, no resources if they get hurt, and no seeds to plant in the dirt- if they even have a yard?
And I'm supposed to feel shame because I can't conform? I can't adapt to this reality? I have trouble finding peace in the midst of death and disorder?
I do not feel wrong at all. I do not feel foolish one bit. I feel sick. I feel sick to my stomach that this could be acceptable to anyone. That we have normalized screams and cries, empty bellies and empty houses, unfaithful dishonest disloyal spouses.
So instead, on this day, this Full Moon in Leo, I ask you: Who should be ashamed?
Who should be walking around trying to please people? Not the workers. Not the parents. And damn sure not the babies. Let's release the shame. Let's give it back to who it came from. Let's rebuke the devil of it all anytime it tries to creep up on our shoulder and whisper in our ear.
We have nothing to be ashamed of. We are all humans for the very first time (as far as some of us know) learning, growing, and becoming. We can only use what we've got. We can only go as far as we believe we can see. We can only trust what we've experienced.
It takes practice. Long, hard, tough, continuous practice to push forward in the midst of despair. Create something out of nothing and new things out of old things. See beyond the physical and through the minds eye. Trust deeply and widely especially as you navigate new terrains.
It's worth it for self worth. It's worth it for community. It's worth it for unconditional love. It's worth it for mutual pleasure.
Release the shame.
Release the shame.
Release the shame.
Release the shame.
Release the shame.
Release the shame.
With me. Please. I believe it's the only way we'll survive without crumbling.
A song for you.
