Field Notes on Pleasure
A behind-the-scenes account of how a personal practice became part of a collective movement.
I’ve always had a flare for the dramatic, for the arts, and for singing silly songs that annoyed my big brothers. But it is only recently, in my 40’s that I began to feel very curious about pleasure.
I certainly didn’t set out to run a summit on pleasure. It began with something much smaller: trying to rekindle moments of fun with my kids, drawing in the sunshine, noticing how different I felt after even a few minutes of creating. That simple practice changed my state, and it made me wonder…what was happening to shift me from ‘slug on floor’ mode to ‘alert and alive’ mode?!
Then I encountered the idea of pleasure not as indulgence, but as a resource for the nervous system — an opposite place we can use in titration to bring more fluidity back into our systems.
THAT was the point where I knew I had to go deeper, to explore what was happening in our physiology and our psyche, especially for women.
My summit (Pleasure As A Revolutionary Act) grew out of that exploration — an invitation to rethink pleasure as something essential, generative, and profoundly human. Pleasure had captured both my attention and my intention.
What I’m sharing below is some prep I did for a recent interview with a dear friend of mine. The interview took it’s own path - no spoiler alert required. And because I find it so much easier to respond, I wanted to share a little more on why I just can’t stop talking and teaching and making sure we all get more PLEASURE in our lives!
What does it mean to see pleasure not as indulgence, but as something that builds capacity?
Suddenly, it’s not a “nice to have.”
When pleasure stops being framed as indulgence, the self-judgement around wanting it drops. For many women, that’s the first step. We’re socially wired to be accepted, to bond. If something we’re doing feels like it might threaten that bond, we’re going to make sure we don’t do it.
It was powerful for me to realise this isn’t just personal - it’s collective. This fear of jeopardising relationships shapes us into people-pleasers. That fawning response.
But what happens if we stop seeing pleasure as self-indulgent, or as a reward after the hard work? What if we thought of pleasure as essential as breathing. Pleasure is part of the body’s natural cycle. We need it to get up and do things, but we also need it to move into rest and digest.
Pleasure helps the body stay in a flexible state of homeostasis, so it can respond rather than react. When we understand it that way, we see: pleasure isn’t extra. It’s an important part of the mix.
How has listening to others in your summit expanded or shifted your own understanding of pleasure?
I’d already been considering that pleasure was a spectrum of felt experience or emotion. What I’m coming to understand is that pleasure connects everything. It is connection itself — to self, to others, to the more-than-human world. In that connection we feel life-force energy, the energy that makes us hug, have sex, make art, speak up. It animates us. It’s all the emotions, including grief, because even in grief we’re acutely aware of being alive. I heard this type of grief described in my BodyDreaming training recently as - grounded sadness.
I’ve been reminded that pleasure is tied to our capacity to be in the present moment, to open to the immediacy of life. And that doesn’t mean “just go with the flow” or have your guard down. Pleasure can feel inaccessible when you’re under threat. To some extent, being safe helps us open to it.
Chameli Gad speaks of pleasure “being in the field” — always present. Michael Meade spoke of what we love, who we love, why we love, and how moving towards those things is generative.
That’s been my experience too. Pleasure isn’t passive. It has reciprocal energy: creating, connecting, being in relationship with art, nature, kids, conversation, making things. The energy swells in you and in the thing or person you’re relating with. It’s a renewable resource, as long as you have ways to drop into it — which is perhaps the biggest challenge.
Sil Read talked about licking the icing off her cake with her grandson — these moments of delight that arise spontaneously. When we’re encumbered with doing the “right” thing, we’re less able to accept these invitations to experience pleasure.
In your courses, you talk about Everyday Rebellion and Gift Habits. How do these practices help people experience pleasure in small, sustainable ways?
We focus on the body and the nervous system first. We can have all the behavioural know-how, but if our nervous system has a pattern holding us in place (for a good reason), big change is hard. We set out to create massive change and the body says “nah” while the mind says “yeah”… and then we’re on the couch with a bag of chips or cleaning instead of painting, confused and frustrated.
What I had to learn was to understand what my body was signalling and work with that first, otherwise I’d just be playing the overlord or tyrant to myself. Many women are discovering this: the cultural voice we’ve been raised in is mechanistic, tyrannical, and cut off from the body. The mind is “god” and the body “untrustworthy.” Actually, it’s the other way around.
We need the body and mind on the same page, working in coherence. That’s when trust and capacity grow. We start with body awareness, then explore how we’re longing to feel — not some aspirational goal five years out, but immediate, grounded guardrails.
Indigenous wisdom traditions show this too: planning and imagining just a month or two ahead, guided by seasons, cycles, and signs. This makes deep sense for women, who experience cycles in their own bodies and lives — maiden, mother, virgin, crone — as well as school terms, family roles, seasonal shifts.
When we know and articulate how we’re longing to feel, and design behaviour change in relationship to our bodies and environments, we stop forcing ourselves into “shoulds.” We don’t opt out of challenge, but we grow our capacity to do hard things and deal with life’s curveballs. Knowing how to drop into pleasure in ways that are uniquely yours actually builds that capacity.
Why do you think so many of us struggle to allow ourselves pleasure — and what shifts when we do?
I’m starting to think we’ve been intentionally cut off from pleasure. Carol Gilligan’s book on pleasure — which I’ve yet to read — apparently says this right up front.
Pleasure has been painted as dangerous. A woman with an appetite is portrayed as seductress, bitch, glutton. Pleasure arises in the body, so the message is: override the body; it can’t be trusted. A lid gets clamped down on it. If someone peels off the lid, chaos erupts, hedonism enters stage left, and we say, “See? We can’t trust pleasure.” Lid back on.
We stay subservient and disconnected from this incredible life-force energy. We don’t know what pleasure feels like, or how to work with it when it swells. We think it’s always erotic. I haven’t studied Tantra but I suspect that’s what I’d find there — learning to be in relationship with pleasure, to be with the experience rather than control or restrict it.
When we start experiencing pleasure more frequently, our capacity changes. We move out of chronic stress. Fluidity returns. We feel sturdy, playful. We can belly laugh. Our systems return to homeostasis so we can both get into “go mode” and also rest.
Can you share a personal moment when pleasure surprised you with its generative power?
Painting. One of my first Gift Habits was drawing or painting every evening after the kids went to bed. I’d promise myself just 10 minutes, even if it was scribbles. Often I’d be lying on the floor putting the kids to bed, absolutely exhausted and feeling like I should just crawl into bed myself. But I’d paint for a bit and then look up an hour later — energised, alert, awake.
That made me curious: what is actually happening here? Kimberly Ann Johnson talks about lethargy vs. exhaustion, and I think that’s when I realised: ah, this is what pleasure does. It creates generative energy in the body and in the field.
Getting to the heart of it.
This is the heart behind Pleasure as a Revolutionary Act — a free, five-day online summit bringing together 16 global voices to explore how pleasure can be a resource, a practice, and a form of resilience. Over five days, you’ll receive 3–4 pre-recorded conversations each day, free to watch for 48 hours, featuring artists, psychologists, storytellers, and practitioners who are reshaping our understanding of pleasure.
The speaker line up is boggling - Michael Meade, Chameli Gad, Tayria Ward, Sil Read and Jocelyn Star Feather (to name a few) plus so many more. I am in awe of the conversations I was lucky enough to have. You can check them all out via the link below.
It’s FREE to register and watch! But if you do want to have the conversations on hand to watch at your leisure you can upgrade to Lifetime Access. Win/Win.
If this conversation sparks something in you, I’d love you to join us. Register for free at www.pleasureasarevolutionaryact.com
Big love,
Vive
