Pressure to Pleasure

{Originally published 1.2.22 in the newsletter formerly known as Let’s Make A Flow Chart.}

Happy New Year, friend–We freaking made it!

Oh the bittersweet January portal of possibilities and endings. 

The  transition into this new year has personally felt real tenuous–stretching me like old gum across the threshold, one part of me not ready to leave behind the year without wringing out its juicy juice lessons and pearls, the other part of me so bruised to the bone by what’s been weathered, that I’m reluctant as hell to relive it. 

This moment has me thinking a lot about how vulnerable we are to the big PRESSURE cooker energy of the year's end and new year’s waxing. 

Like champagne bubs building up behind the cork, the pressure to review, catalog, set intentions, and thrust future perfect visions of our lives towards the new year is at an all time high. The pressure to be ‘different than now’ trodding all over our internal timelines of personal development abounds!

Which has launched me down the wild and wooly rabbit hole of 

contemplating pressure itself.  And getting more curious about it’s function in my world.

Like how to discern between good-for-me pressure (hello inspired action!) and bad pressure (shame spiral with the whip in hand!)

And what are my fail-proof release valves when I feel like my brain is about to explode into a trillion shreds of leftover New Year’s confetti?

And HARK, just like that, this saucy little instruction came to me in meditation a few weeks back, to tend to this very quandary. 

Learn to shift pressure into pleasure

Learn to shift pressure into pleasure

Learn to shift pressure into pleasure

Why YES, it does sound a bit like a mid-2000’s self help book on the discount table of Books a Million, but it’s hitting so I’m running with it.

It seems to ask, what if all pressure is not a harm? What if it could be recast as a fun force to play with rather than an oppressive bully?

I've been finding it hella helpful to reframe pressure as a physical sensation, rather than a mental one steamrolling our big beautiful brains. 

Then we can imagine pulling it down out of the head and into the body. Which is where things get really interesting. Hello erotic intelligence. Hello co-creating the experience we want to have with the thing that feels like it’s crushing us. 

When we visualize pressure as a PHYSICAL sensation, and imagine it moving through our body, then our agency and power is restored. We can do something about it.

We can move with it like a dance partner, like a lover. 

And this is how we can shift pressure into pleasure, baby.

We co-conspire and galvanize it’s force, and not just feel like we are unconsciously bottoming for reality wondering how the hell did I get here and what can I reach for to numb the pain?

There’s a zine by Clementine Morrigan called Love Without Emergency. I haven’t read it, but I think about the title a lot, like a song lyric stuck in my head. 

What about Pressure Without Emergency.  What about generative pressure that makes love to you and there is no emergency, just emergent sensation unfolding between you and the weight of your desires and the world pressing upon you, to do what you will with them. Could there be such a thing??

If this all feels way too out there in weirdy land, my other go-to hot tip for releasing eye-ball popping pressure is to move that body-ody-ody.

Maybe you knew I was gonna say that because you already know that's the SAUCE.

Here’s what works for me:

I set a timer to create the container–say 11 minutes! 34 minutes! Make it fun!

Then I bounce. Shake, jostle, agitate, shim shimmy that shit til the timer goes off. 

Listening to music I love, following what feels good. 

You don't need me to tell you that moving your hot bod will flip your nervous system out of the famous I'd rather lay down and die state. But I will tell you that setting the timer offers a kind of permission to not think about what you should be doing with your body.

I move with the express intention of untangling myself from the vice grip of pressure all up on my brain waves. Pleasure is the compass. Pleasure is the north star, for at least {this} moment, knowing you are held by the structure of the timer.  Works like a dang charm.

Consider this playlist to inspire a shake session. Or not. No pressure! ;)

Enjoy yourself, and may you bounce thy donk into the new year with pleasure, ease and reverence for every single ounce of who you already are. Sans goals. Sans resolutions. Sans pressure.

<3 melissa

Ok buddy angel, that's what I have for you.  And really for me. 

This newsletter keeps turning out to be the medicine I need to hear rn, and for the love of all that's good and still intact in this world, maybe one person resonates also. 

IF that is YOU, consider sharing a screenshot to your social or

sending this along to someone you know that may be about these words too. 

I'd love to meet them.

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Write me and let a gal know what helps you resolve the pressure chamber when you find yourself in the struggle slog. Would love to hear from you!

Image IDs: 

+ Now, Now, Now is magical piece of poetry by Sean Nguyen-Hilton. I fished it out of a trash can after an improv dance class of his. He would tape these creative prompts on the wall and say little to nothing about them, but let them be silent witnesses to the people dancing in a room together.

+ Cover of Forest Swords' Compassion Album