Greetings, sisters,

I don’t know where all of y’all live, but my wish for you is that the weather is just as gorgeous in your home town as it is here in Seattle right now.

This past week spring sprang. Seattleites crawled out of their winter caves with babies, puppies, and smiles. It’s amazing how a glorious dose of sunshine, warmth, and crocuses can light everyone up!

With so much focus this month on love, this month’s issue of The Simple Living Journal (www.SimpleLiving.com) has an article on love and loss featuring an interview with Yours Truly here. Until I have it up on my website for free download, feel free to email me at Melissa@MelissaGayleWest.com for a copy.

With love and pleasure,

FEATURE ARTICLE: Half-Fast Pleasure

I just read about Mardi Gras this year in New Orleans, my beloved home town. The article described Pete Fountain’s Half-Fast Marching Club: “Pete, looking frail but happy, led his musical merrymakers through the streets, dancing with anyone who kicked up to their jazz.”

I remember kicking up with them. I sure don’t remember them being “Half-Fast”.

No ma’am, those guys were into it: feathered and sequined, wailing jazz, dancing their way through Mardi Gras crowds, kissing any female who cared to get close. You never knew where or when they were going to show up, when they did everything got even more fun.

I can’t tell you how orgasmic it is to be with a million or so other folks who are also decidedly not “half-fast,” giving themselves over to the color, the music, the love in the streets.
 
So there I am the day after Mardi Gras, reading about Pete Fountain and thinking about “Half-fastness”, and about an upcoming spiritual vow I’m preparing for, and how hard it is for me to totally give myself to commitments.

And in one of those blinding moments of sheer grace, I understood: Half-fast don’t get me nowhere, honey.

Half-fast won’t get me where I so long to go spiritually. Half-fast won’t deepen love and intimacy in my marriage. And half-fast pleasure...well...half-fast pleasure just ain’t pleasure in this gal’s book.

A gal (particularly a midlife gal, starved for pleasure and comfort and ease) can’t go for long on half-fast pleasure. You know the kind of half-fastness I’m talking about: eating chocolate while you’re thinking about how the grass needs mowing. Lovemaking when you’re worried if he’s thinking about your droopy breasts. Taking a scented bath because it’s what you’re “supposed” to do to de-stress, when all you really want to do is turn in and sleep.

It’s kind of like trying to live on Twinkies: if I’m starving to death, and it’s a famine,  I’ll take Twinkies over the alternative. However, most of us aren’t in famine circumstances.

There’s almost always more pleasure we can give ourselves over to. And whatever pleasure is available, we can give ourselves over to it in more than a half-fast way.

And yet, that’s the way I sleepwalk through much of life, barely noticing, or participating, in all the love and pleasure around me. Being an Important and Harried Gal, instead of simply being with pleasure as it arises in the moment.

Ladies, I have a quote by my desk that reads, “Whatever we are looking for, it is always right here. We are usually elsewhere.”

Avery, a client of mine, came in last week and told me about a time she simply decided to give herself over to pleasure while washing the dishes (something she generally resented doing).

“You know,” she said, “I’ve washed dishes thousands of times. Most of those times I’ve been distracted, or tensing up over the kids fighting, or worrying about how we’re going to pay for our next vacation.”

I asked her what made this time different.

“Thinking about pleasure, working with you. I got curious how I could open to more pleasure in the moment. I decided to just give myself over to washing the dishes the way I give myself over to making love with my partner...the result wasn’t the big O, but it sure came close in a lot of ways.”

How so, I asked her?

“The sensuality of the water on my hands. Listening to birds rather than the list maker in my head. Seeing the light on the wet, clean dishes in the dish rack. Feeling my body relax into this, rather than tensing up to get on with the next thing. And, afterwards, the hand massage with rose-scented hand cream, smelling the roses and feeling the warmth of my hands. The experience stayed with me the whole day.”

The deep pleasures of the sunlight, the birdsong, the slide of the water, were right there waiting for my client. She ditched the half-fast attitude and sashayed right into pleasure.

So, sisters, what pleasures are right here,  patiently waiting for you to return from half-fastdom?

This week, try really giving yourself over to something you routinely do. Imagine that pleasure is languorously hanging around just for you, right there in dishwashing, committee meetings, and the morning commute. What do you need in order to move past half-fast pleasure to the full-bellied Real Thing?

And what are you waiting for?

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

 ABOUT Pleasure and Soul
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Contact me at Melissa@MelissaGayleWest.com

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