A Case For Pleasure: How Avoiding it is Affecting Your Health, Intimacy and Happiness

As I’ve been reflecting on the past year and wrapping up with many of my 1:1 coaching clients and graduates of The Feminine Mentorship, we’ve been talking about what brought these women to work with me in the first place. 

These reflective conversations are what lead me to write this blog article and record this podcast episode – because there’s so much to be said about pleasure and how concerns like feminine burnout, unhappiness, decreased physical health, inability to feel joy and so much more can be rectified through pleasure.

And it’s something that’s not spoken about enough when it comes to women’s health care.

Lack Of Pleasure Is A Health Problem

Anhedonia is the medical term referring to the inability to feel pleasure, and is becoming more and more common amongst women with them feeling more exhausted, burnt out, depressed and joyless than ever.

When women first contact me to work together I’m hearing a lot of the same things. They’re saying things like:

I feel numb

I’m not as happy as I used to be

I’m burnt out and overwhelmed 

I have difficulty making decisions 

I feel a heaviness or a weight I can’t take off

And when it comes to intimate relationship dynamics I’m seeing two problems.

1. Women are experiencing sexual dysfunction at an alarming rate. In fact, 1 in 2 women will experience sexual disfunction in their lifetime which means that 1 in 2 women will experience desire and arousal issues, lack of satisfaction, painful sex and beyond. 
   
   
2. Men are increasingly experiencing issues with erectile dysfunction or premature ejaculation.

And at the end of the day all of these problems are resulting in unsatisfying relationships. Intimate partners are feeling like a “great team” but not lovers, they’re missing the spark they used to have, they don’t feel seen or heard by their partner, etc. If they’re truly being honest with themselves, they’re lonely.

Whether you’re in a relationship or single, the loneliness felt by over-functioning Superwomen doesn’t discriminate. The desire to feel seen and supported is the same. And in these situations we distract ourselves with things like work, kids, plastic surgery or cosmetic procedures, shopping, etc. And while there’s nothing inherently wrong with those things, they still don’t fill the void of pleasure that’s missing in your life.

What all of these problems have in common are that they can be rectified through pleasure. But as an over-functioning Superwoman, you’re avoiding it.

How And Why You’re Avoiding Pleasure In Your Life

I know you, Superwoman. I know you because I’ve been you and that’s how I know you’re avoiding pleasure and I want to shed some light on why.

1. Societal, cultural, “good girl” conditioning

We’ve been taught since we were little girls to focus on others. We were taught to care more about everyone else’s feelings, making those around us happy and being a “good” wife, mother, boss, etc. We’ve been taught since childhood that our pleasure comes second — second to a man’s pleasure in sex and second to everyone else in life. While women are getting better at asking for what they want and getting a seat at the table, when it comes to the intimate relationships of Superwomen, we still shrink our needs. And after so much over-functioning and doing it all ourselves, we’re left to feel lonely, exhausted and resentful.

2. We are tolerators

As women we have a high tolerance for feeling uncomfortable and a low tolerance for feeling good. At work we’ll take risks and try new things, we’ll tolerate the employee not pulling their weight and work harder ourselves. But we struggle in intimate relationships because deep down we all have a deep wounding that we are not deserving of love unless we earn it. We believe that we’re not deserving of pleasure or feeling good unless the to-do list is done and things are perfect. It has never occurred to us that we deserve to feel good just because.

3. We are numb

As women we’re taught that feeling our feelings in a big way is bad or weak. Society has given us a very limited window of the emotions we’re allowed to express and as a result, we’re numb. Emotions and our inner knowing are our superpower but in order to continue being a “good girl” we numb and distract ourselves by being busy, helping others, living vicariously through other people like our kids, buying things, reading books and wishing we were the characters, etc. We’ve turned down the dial on pain and negative emotions but the problem is that when you turn that dial down, you also turn down the dial on joy and pleasure.

We need to retrain our brain and nervous system to have a higher tolerance for pleasure and turn up the dial on both.

Pleasure Tip: Do something that feels good to you once per day. It can be anything, as long as it makes you feel good! Do it for at least 4 minutes per day and see how it feels after a week, month, year.

Why Lack Of Pleasure Is An Urgent Problem

Lack of pleasure is affecting your physical and emotional health, your relationships and your career.

Lack Of Pleasure Is Affecting Your Health

Lack of pleasure can show up in physical ways like thyroid problems, hormone imbalance, mood swings, poor sleep, hair loss, difficulty losing weight, adrenal fatigue, digestive issues and more. It’s also causing you to experience overwhelm, burnout, unhappiness and loneliness which can be as impactful to your health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day.

Lack Of Pleasure Is Affecting Your Relationships

If you’re reading this, you likely already know you’re unfulfilled in your intimate relationships. But lack of pleasure is also impacting relationship dynamics and connection with your family and friendships.

Lack Of Pleasure Is Affecting Your Career

When you are feeling heavy, tired, disconnected, confused, lacking clarity, burnt out, lonely, resentful and frustrated, it’s costing you money. Whether you own a business, you’re leading a team or dominating in the boardroom, the return on sex and overall pleasure can be felt everywhere.

Your Pleasure Homework: Reflection Questions

I want you to take some time and reflect on these questions to help you start retraining your brain and nervous system to have a higher tolerance for pleasure.

What if we were taught how to have deepening intimacy in a long term relationship?

What if we were taught how to create greater intimacy with ourselves to increase capacity to do it with another?

What if we were taught to tend to the parts of ourselves that get triggered when we are disappointed, scared, have big feelings or can't control our way out of a situation? 

What if we were taught that an orgasm wasn’t the goal in sex but instead, taught how to surrender and feel safe in intimacy?

Taking The Next Steps For Better Health, More Intimacy and More Happiness

I am here to make sure you stop muting the channel on your pleasure so you can improve your intimate relationships, health, happiness, wealth and so much more. The Feminine Mentorship is 70% sold out for 2023 and is a highly curated group of women, which means I’m only accepting women who are a perfect fit for the final 3 spaces. 

If my work speaks to you and you’re ready to leave loneliness and lack of pleasure behind in 2022, apply as soon as possible. If we chat and feel that it isn’t a good fit for what you’re looking for, we can explore alternative ways to help address the problems you’re having.

The Feminine Mentorship is for you if you look like you have it all together from the outside - the job, the marriage, the kids, the money - but you know something is missing. You are longing for more. You already know how to work hard and you're not willing to sacrifice the success you have created, but you still crave ease, slowing down, and flow. You just never knew there was a way you could prioritize both. Join this amazing community in 2023 where we’ll work on undoing the conditioning that’s keeping us from the sex, love, intimacy and health we desire.