Microdosing Pleasure

Sometimes people reach out to me for sex therapy, but within our first 20-minute consultation it becomes clear that their global capacity to feel pleasure, joy, or excitement needs attention. Sex is a microcosm. If you shut down pleasurable sensations outside of bed, you likely do the same in bed. So it is useful to start with the day-to-day moments in life rather than sex itself. 

You may want increased intimacy with your partner. But even starting with self-pleasure practices, aka masturbating, may be too much to begin with. Slow your roll. An adult part of you is focused on sex, but ask yourself, “At what age did I learn bad things will follow if I fully enjoy a pleasurable sensation?” Get curious about when that belief was formed. 

What is a belief? 

Beliefs are formed by what is modeled directly and indirectly in your culture, religion and family. There are also beliefs formed through singular positive and negative experiences. When you have an overwhelming experience that your system feels under-resourced to manage on its own, and there is no support to deal with the feelings, this can then live in the body as (little or big T) trauma.

In these moments, contracts, such as “If I experience pleasure bad things will happen”,  may get written out of self-protection. A silent vow is often a rigid belief. Beliefs live in the bodily tissue (connective tissue or fascia), and they are often provoked or brought to the surface to rule your actions even by minor challenges.

Often we do not even know or see what our beliefs are because we experience them as true and do not question them? It’s the air we breathe or water we swim in. How can we get a belief to reveal itself?

I use physical practices that originate out of aikido that create just enough stress to reveal habitual responses. Your automatic, embodied response is the result of an unconscious belief. First seeing what the response is helps develop awareness. Then repeatedly doing the exercise (practicing something new) gives you the opportunity to create a new neural pathway which overrides the old trauma neural pathway and rewires your brain through your body. Initially, it is awkward and scary, but it gets easier to access with repetition.

Again, ask yourself when did that habit of tempering all pleasure or joy start? What did that young part of you need? What was it feeling? Was there any support to be with those feelings and thoughts?

One reason you might quickly shut down positive sensations is if your caregivers couldn’t tolerate your vibrancy. Given your survival was dependent on being acceptable and loved inside your family it was reasonable to curtail your expressiveness.

While some kids are pervasively told they don’t deserve to have their emotional or physical needs met, your belief could be based on a single incident. You might have had an experience as a kid where you were so excited to receive something; when you didn’t get it, the feelings of disappointment were intolerable and you learned to turn off wanting, craving, and desiring.

Maybe an experience that filled you with joy, was followed by a perceived punishment. You were 10 and your heart was broken when a best friend broke up with you. Or you were 7 and you had your heart set on getting a bike and you were disappointed when you didn’t get it. Or you were sexually abused and had an orgasm. Discordant responsiveness is when your body responds to physical stimulation, even if you were not consenting and you were scared. You may feel your body betrayed you. Shame and anxiety can then get conflated with pleasure. 

No matter what your backstory is, the effect can be the same. It can train you to brace for something bad to happen in response to an increase of internal sensation, emotions or even seemingly positive news.  Avoiding pleasure to prevent disappointment offers a false sense of control.

How much permission do you grant yourself to feel good? Do you deserve to feel it? What did you learn from your parents about pleasure? What do you think will happen if you feel it?

Try this: Micro Pleasure practice. 

Write out a list or make an audio recording of yourself sharing all the small things you enjoy or find pleasure in. either reread or listen to the list. An audio recording captures your tone and your voice gets brighter and reveals what excites you. How does your body feel as you imagine doing all of these things?

Choose the one you enjoy the most to focus on. Use all of your senses to flesh it out. Remember our brain doesn’t know the difference between imagining a situation and actually being in it. So you can memorize this bodily state and recall it any time you want to.

It is useful to set a timer for one minute initially. This allows you to microdose pleasure rather than overwhelm yourself and trigger that old belief. You can always extend it to 1 or 2 more. But be sure to track if your body is getting saturated by too much good and then stop and be with yourself. Don’t push it right away.

You are slowly building your capacity and stretching your ability to be with increased or prolonged positive sensation. Keep adding a minute more until managing your dose is unnecessary and being in the present moment in enjoyment is possible. With practice, intrusive thoughts or the habit to shut off pleasure because a fear of bad things happening will fade.