The Sacred Power of Pleasure
A poetic exploration of nervous system safety, spirituality, sensuality, and the life force that animates you.
We often speak about healing as if it lives only in the shadows —
in the heartbreak you haven’t admitted,
the anger you learned to swallow,
the shame woven into your muscles like an old, familiar ache.
But healing is not merely the tending of wounds.
Healing is the reclamation of your aliveness.
Your joy.
Your sensuality.
Your pleasure.
Your prana — the life force that pulses through every living thing.
There is a truth your body remembers even when your mind forgets:
You were never designed to feel only the pain.
You were built to feel the whole spectrum — including the holy.
We Cannot Selectively Numb
This is the piece so many of us were never taught:
When you numb one part of your emotional landscape,
you numb the entire terrain.
You cannot numb grief without also dimming joy.
You cannot suppress anger without dulling passion.
You cannot mute sorrow without muting pleasure.
You cannot silence shame without quieting creativity.
The nervous system doesn’t differentiate between “good” and “bad” emotions —
it simply registers sensation or shuts it down.
As Marc Brackett writes in Permission to Feel, our emotional worlds are interconnected.
A nervous system that restricts one emotion restricts them all.
A heart that closes to protect itself also closes to love.
A body that braces against pain also braces against pleasure.
And so, the work of healing is not to feel less.
It is to learn how to feel more — safely, steadily, fully.
Pleasure Is a Physiological Expression of Safety
Pleasure is not a luxury.
Pleasure is not indulgent.
Pleasure is not something you earn.
Pleasure is the body’s exhale.
A nervous system whispering, “You are safe.”
Emily Nagoski teaches in Come as You Are that pleasure emerges naturally when the stress cycle completes —
when the body stops bracing for impact
and allows itself to soften.
Pleasure is what happens when breath deepens.
When muscles release.
When vigilance melts.
When your system shifts out of survival and into presence.
This is why pleasure and spirituality are intertwined —
because both require an open, receptive, regulated body.
The Spirituality of Sensuality
Your sensuality is not just erotic.
It is elemental.
It is the way your soul experiences the world through your skin.
Your sensuality is your ability to notice:
• goosebumps rising at the sound of truth
• warmth building in your belly
• the shimmer of excitement across your chest
• breath deepening without effort
• a softening that feels like coming home
This is prana — life force — moving through you.
Your sensuality is how spirit moves in the body.
It is how intuition speaks.
It is how creativity awakens.
It is how you feel connected to yourself, to others, to Source.
And this energy is not neutral.
It is powerful.
The Sacral Chakra: The Seat of Sensuality, Sexuality, and Creativity
In yogic philosophy, the sacral chakra — Svadhisthana — is the centre of:
• sensuality
• sexuality
• creativity
• emotional flow
• pleasure
• desire
• life force
It is the river that runs through your pelvis —
the seat of your fluidity, feeling, intuition, and expression.
When the sacral centre is open, you feel:
alive,
creative,
connected,
radiant,
responsive,
turned on by life.
When it is blocked, you feel:
numb,
disconnected,
ashamed,
uninspired,
fearful of your own depth,
fearful of your own desire.
Your sensual energy, your creative energy, and your sexual energy are not separate currents —
they are one river flowing through different parts of your life.
When you reclaim your pleasure,
you reclaim your creativity.
When you honour your desire,
you unlock your intuition.
When you awaken your sensuality,
you amplify your prana.
But For Centuries, Pleasure Was Shamed
And this shame was not accidental — it was strategic.
The Church taught you to fear your own fire.
Pure exposes how purity culture convinced women that their desire was sinful, their sensuality dangerous, their bodies untrustworthy.
This created generations of chronic contraction —
bodies conditioned to brace,
hearts conditioned to close,
pelvises conditioned to numb.
Patriarchy feared a woman who feels deeply.
Because a woman connected to her pleasure is connected to her power.
Her boundaries sharpen.
Her intuition strengthens.
Her sovereignty becomes unmistakable.
Emily Nagoski teaches that sexual desire is deeply tied to women’s agency —
which is why patriarchal structures worked so hard to sever that connection.
Slut-shaming is a modern tactic to suppress prana.
It teaches women to distrust their bodies,
to dim their radiance,
to silence their sensuality,
to fear their own aliveness.
Sonya Renee Taylor, in The Body Is Not an Apology, reminds us:
shame is a tool of oppression.
A disconnected woman is easier to control.
A numb woman is easier to silence.
A woman ashamed of her pleasure will never access her power.
**Reclaiming Pleasure Is a Nervous System Healing
— and a Spiritual Awakening**
When you allow pleasure to return,
you are not just “feeling good.”
You are:
• regulating your nervous system
• expanding your emotional capacity
• increasing resilience
• awakening your creativity
• strengthening your intuition
• opening your sacral centre
• amplifying your prana
• reconnecting to your spiritual self
Pleasure is restoration.
Pleasure is remembrance.
Pleasure is resistance.
Pleasure is liberation.
Pleasure is medicine.
Healing isn’t meant to narrow you.
Healing is meant to expand you —
to give you back the full spectrum of human feeling you were born with.
The depth.
The intensity.
The softness.
The lightness.
The fire.
The joy.
The pleasure.
You Are Here to Feel Fully Alive
You are not here to live a muted life.
You are here to be vibrantly, sensually, unapologetically alive.
As Nagoski teaches: pleasure is your body’s yes.
As Brackett reminds: you were meant to feel it all.
As Taylor insists: your body is not an apology — it is an altar.
And pleasure?
Pleasure is one of its most sacred prayers.