Greetings, pleasured sisters!

Enjoying the last blessed days of fall here in Seattle. I’m strolling in Carkeek Park every chance I get, practicing the lost art of being a flaneuse (French for a female stroller--leave it to the French and their limitless vocabulary of pleasure).
I got a lot of happy feedback from the last issue. Sounds like y’all are wanting more practical ways to pleasurefy your sweet and hectic midlives.
I hear you loud and clear!

With love and pleasure,

ONE MINUTE FOR PLEASURE

Anita, a participant in a midlife workshop I led, wailed, “I’m too tired and stressed to do stress reduction!” Sisters, I wish you could have been in that room-you know when someone says something that everyone is thinking, but no one wants to say it out loud?
You could have heard that proverbial pin drop.
“Hey,” I responded, “are you expecting me to defend stress reduction? Just thinking about working at reducing my stress makes your fearless leader very very cranky.”
I don’t know about you, but when I hear women beating themselves black and blue with stress reduction “shoulds”  it makes me want to recline on my couch with O magazine and a rather large bar of Godiva chocolate. Milk chocolate.
If thinking about your own To Do List for Stress Reduction (Gotta get to bed one hour earlier. Gotta eat three servings of green vegetables a day. Gotta...Gotta...Gotta...) makes you break out in an anxious sweat, try this instead:
One minute for pleasure.
Yup. Just one.
Hey, you might say, what difference is that going to make in my wacked-out life?
More than you can imagine.
You see, neuroscientists now say that when we pick something too overwhelming to do, our brain says uh-uh, and parks on the couch with that chocolate. (Well, they don’t say it that way, but you get the drift.)
When something makes us too anxious—like revamping our lives so we can be less stressed—we simply can’t do it. Our brain goes into “fight, flight, or freeze.” If you were back on the African savannah a geological age or two ago, this would have helped you escape the lion that just roared with hunger.
But you’re not a gazelle anymore, and your destressing program isn’t out to do you in, though it might feel that way.
So instead of making Big Plans to reduce your stress, never doing it, and beating yourself up (how’s that for mishigas, beating yourself up for being too stressed to de-stress?), try this:
One minute for pleasure.
See, I bet that seems so ridiculous that you’re wondering if I’ve lost it.
That’s the sign that it’s spot on, as my British mother-in-law might say.
One minute for pleasure flies under your brain’s radar. No challenge in it, no anxiety, so no “fight, flight, or freeze.”
Which means you just get to do it.
And afterwards, you get to feel good that you actually did what you said you were going to do for yourself. And get to feel confident that you can keep taking care of yourself this way. A deeper level of care, compassion, and kindness for your precious self.
And after a while-a day, a week, a month-you can up the amount of time you give yourself over to life-giving pleasure. Maybe by one minute a week, or something absolutely ridiculous like that. The point is to fly under the radar.  To not plan anything that tweaks your anxiety.
One teeeeeeny pleasure step at a time. No heroics allowed. Period.
Simple, eh?
So, sisters, I invite you to start pleasurefying your life a smidgen at a time. (And know, by the way, that you’re giving your body all the wonderful physiological benefits of “destressing,” with bazillion times the fun.)
You can even pleasurefy your To Do List for Stress Reduction.
Take those nasty vegetables.
David (The Husband) and I knew we needed to eat more. Yuck. So we figured out a way to add a few vegetables to our lives, but with great pleasure so we’d want to do more. David now roasts cauliflower and broccoli several times a week with olive oil and lots of garlic, and we devour them con gusto. We’re not up to three servings a day, but we’re relishing a whole lot more than we used to.
Anita, the woman who went on de-stress tilt at the retreat, emailed me recently. She told me she started with one minute of pleasure a day, as preposterous as that sounded to her. Six months later she’s on a dionysian roll for 20 minutes a day, and loving it.
Simple and easy pleasure, she writes, is like a fragrance that perfumes her whole day. She’s noticing she’s slowing down more and enjoying being in the present. It’s easier for her to be compassionate and kind toward herself, and that’s spilling over into being generous and compassionate with others. The world, she says, is a better place as a result of her 20 minutes.
And, she adds, her stress level has plummeted.
Any advice, I asked her, for other sister pleasuristas?
“Tell them, ‘Just one minute.’ And watch your life begin to open up like the flower that it really is.”

QUICK N’EASY PLEASURE MINUTES
From my forthcoming ebook, Pleasure in a New York Minute

Play with giving yourself a totally secret pleasure name. Let it be at least mildly outrageous, a secret that makes your eyes sparkle, your heart warm, your toes curl.
When you’ve got the name, be it for a moment or two. Discover how your pleasure name-self stands in line at the grocery store, reclines on the couch, answers the phone. Call yourself secretly by your pleasure name when you’re stressed and overwhelmed. She’ll know how to give yourself over to pleasure for a minute, wherever you are and whatever you’re doing.

SPRING CLEANING, ALONE.
As promised, here’s how to practice Spring Cleaning on pleasure by yourself. If you’d like to know more about how to open to a lot more pleasure in your life through Spring Cleaning, here’s the link to my last newsletter.
Give yourself at least 10 undisturbed minutes. Ask yourself the same question, over and over, in a simple and non-judgmental way: “What do you have on pleasure?” Respond honestly with whatever arises. The self-dialogue might look something like this:
Melissa asks: What do you have on pleasure?
Melissa answers: I don’t have any time for it.
Melissa asks: What do you have on pleasure?
Melissa answers: I don’t deserve it. I snapped at David yesterday and feel yucky and fat.
Melissa asks: What do you have on pleasure?
Melissa answers: Oh, it would feel so good just to give myself a little time.

Get the drift? Try it. Just articulating all the useless stuff that keeps you from leading a deeply pleasured life is a blessed relief.

 ABOUT Pleasure and Soul
ANY QUESTIONS, comments, feedback?
Contact me at Melissa@MelissaGayleWest.com

TO SUBSCRIBE (click the link!)

Please forward this newsletter to any lit-up (or longing to be lit-up) boomer women you know!

TO UNSUBSCRIBE just use the link at the bottom of this newsletter.

This newsletter and all content within it is Copyright(c) Melissa Gayle West 2007 except where otherwise noted. All rights reserved. I encourage you to share this newsletter or reprint material from it in other electronic or print publications, provided a link to http://www.MelissaGayleWest.com and copyright information are included in the credits. Please send a copy of the publication.

COACHING SESSIONS WITH MELISSA
If you would like to:

• Experience deep and authentic pleasure in your life
• Create a life that sings for you, free from struggle and efforting
• Free yourself from damaging cultural myths about growing older that limit your aliveness, creativity, and unique genius
• Making a meaningful difference in this time in your life
• Deepen your spiritual journey in a way that reflects who you are now
• Reclaim curiosity, gratitude, and wonder for your journey

Read more about how you can benefit from private coaching with Melissa: http://www.MelissaGayleWest.com
If you're interested, contact Melissa at Melissa@MelissaGayleWest.com, or 206.427.1325

Melissa Gayle West
106 NW 104th St.
Seattle, WA 98177