The Art of Receiving Pleasure.
“There is a secret about human love that is commonly overlooked: Receiving it is much more scary and threatening than giving it. How many times in your life have you been unable to let in someone’s love or even pushed it away? Much as we proclaim the wish to be truly loved, we are often afraid of that, and so find it difficult to open to love or let it all the way in.”
~ John Welwood
Most of us are not talented receivers when it comes to love. Whether or not we are able to give love has surprisingly little to do with its polar opposite of being able to open to the love coming towards us. We refuse the love we say we want when we complain about the packaging it arrives in. We refuse the lover we say we want when we blame them for what they are not. We refuse the love and the lover we say we want when we justify our refusal in the storylines of anger, guilt and inadequacy. In fact, most people when pushed to the edge of their refusal to receive love will admit to what may be the most painful universal wound of all – the belief that underneath it all we don’t deserve the love we say we want.
Learning how to let in the love that is constantly around us, coming towards us, yielding to our asking hearts is perhaps the only lesson worth mastering. It begins with establishing your own worth as the center of your existence. Imagining yourself as a worthy container of love and patching the cracks that leak out the essence of our lovability is an inside job. The repairs are worth the effort, as our willingness to witness and experience the painful recognition of our own beliefs fall away. We are in fact innately capable of receiving and transmuting the love that comes towards us.
In intimate relationships this inability to receive love is most acutely witnessed in the significant incidence of sexual dysfunction and its collateral damage to the experience of orgasm. Millions of people, both men and women, suffer from conditions that impact their ability to receive and experience pleasure. There is a lot of forgiving that needs to happen around most people’s sexuality. Whether from unhelpful messaging about what our sexuality means about us or the bad choices most of us make on the way to figuring our sexuality out, we live within a wounded culture of sex that publicly swings widely between the prudish “just say no” and the endless hookup. Forgiving ourselves and loving the wounded places in us is perhaps the most essential leap we can commit to in opening up a path to permitting ourselves sexual pleasure.
Exploring our sexuality from this perspective offers one of the most tender and gratifying practices available to us. This idea occurred to me not long ago when I was in the midst of experiencing my own passion. I understood in a visceral way just how deeply our capacity for arousal is actually the most profoundly embodied experience of receiving love available to us. What keeps most of us from sliding down this fast moving chute into a pleasure delirium is our inability to receive and feel worthy of the pleasure that lives within us.
So, take a risk with your heart and begin in the bedroom. Abandon your need to control the outcome, allow yourself moments of naked vulnerability and experience how unpredictable and healing human touch can be. Receiving physical love from your partner is a true investment, which not only changes the cycle of giving and receiving in your relationship but allows pleasure to move through us and transform us.
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This article came at the perfect time ~ I can definitely relate!
it is a good reminder that we are wothy of being loved, that we can deal with the "cracks" if we only took a bit of time for that, that criticising the "package" it's a cheap trick in fact to hide from love. thank you
Wendy, thought I might share this one with you:
http://www.elephantjournal.com/2011/06/who-are-yo…
Bless!
this came right when i needed it; reminding me on a mundane interpersonal level that if i'm full of bullsh!t I need to stop and receive love just for myself so that i am even capable of giving something that's really worth giving.
wisdom graciously received
Guy in the pic is wearing undies – ironic choice considering the topic is about receiving pleasure.
he's waiting for her to take them off….its about receiving remember.
@Kath: It's a stock photo. And – pleasure delayed is pleasure intensified
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It's definitely possible to give or receive the most incredibly, intense pleasure and still keep your pants on
Your article just gave me and my friend a glorious catalyst for enriching our conversation and our process of getting to know each other. Love serendipity.
I agree with what Bob said. If the most profound love can be found with someone we have sex with, then that doesn’t give us opportunity for receiving deep, profound love with those we don’t have sex with. Why is the most profound way to receive love attatched to orgasm or sex? If that’s the case, then maybe we need to learn better ways of receiving love in a non-sexual way. I think most of us are going to love more people than we have sex with, so being able to truly receive love in a multitude of ways will help transform us even more.
This. I have loved thousands of people, many very deeply, and the number I have had sex with can be counted on one hand. And I put "intercourse" within "sex" but not as the sole signifier of "sex." I am one of those still coping with the damage that has made "intercourse" extremely painful, requiring that "sex" be reinvented in imagination and act. Receiving love and pleasure, compliments and recognition, is an ever-evolving experience.
Yes, been there done that.
Its bullshit through and through.
Now, bring it on! I desrve and so do you:)
Very good article — I find it much harder to receive, often giving just to try to make someone "go" away.
Thank you for your viewpoint. I have never had any problem giving to the bottom of my well. It's been a recent turning point for me to simply receive. In accepting myself as capable and deserving of receiving pleasure, love, happiness beyond compare, I am even more giving!
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This is an amazing article, loved it, and read it once, anyway i am re-reading again so it can really permeate my mnd, but it is so good, i liked it a lot. Thanks for sharing!!
Well, I believe that clears up a couple of issues for me personally. How about anybody else?