The Intersection of Pleasure and Self-Care
The Intersection of Pleasure and Self-Care
Since I began exploring the pleasure theme, people have often commented on how self-care and pleasure co-relate. On this topic a few media offerings caught my attention over the last month.
I’ve been appreciating a new book out on self-care that addresses the sham that “self-care” has become in our western culture. It’s by author/physician Pooja Lakshmin - Real Self-Care: A Transformative Program for Redefining Wellness.
In the Ezara Klein podcast titled Self-care Boundaries and Burnout and the Goopification of Self-Care. Lakshmin offers what she believes are the radical choices people need to make that foster wellness.
Think about it: A 10 billion dollar industry mainly geared to profiting on women’s sense of overwhelm and burnout. And yet is anything getting better?
Self-care like pleasure asks for a some fundamental life changes. I talk about living a pleasure-centric life. What about a life that’s not overwhelming and episodically bordering on burn out? Early on I borrowed the phrase “slow is fast and less is more”, as a basic guide to reclaiming pleasure.
Four Guiding Principles of Self-Care
Lakshmin offers four more principles to self-care and wellness:
Living in alignment with your values
Setting Boundaries
Radical Self-Compassion
And exercising the power you do have – including actions related to the three above.
These are not band-aides solutions like so much of self-care on offer, but they ask people to think and act more consciously about the choices they are making with their lives, that support wellness.
Living Long, Living Well
Another media offering fueled this theme for me - The Blue Zones – a Netflix series on places in the world that have the longest living people.
I’m not a fan of just living longer, and not surprisingly there’s a connection between living longer and living well. Dan Buettner is a researched on longevity, working with the U.S. National Institute on Aging. He set out to discover what was different about these hot spots for living beyond 100, now called the Blue Zones.
A Pleasure-Centric Life
Turns out longevity isn’t contingent on affluence, having all the modern conveniences, and not even having access to state of the art medicine, but other key factors that contribute to a life style that is imbued with vitality, and supports aliveness. To note a few of the inputs – strong social networks, community, multi-generational living, meaningful traditions and ritual, quality intimate partnership, good food, and having a life with meaning and purpose.
We have much to learn from these cultures, for not just living longer, but also what does it mean to live well. And some places in the world are experimenting, to some success, with taking the principles to create new blue zones. As I watched the four part series I saw how these communities, notwithstanding real challenges, were also living pleasure centric lives.
Next entry: What does it Mean to Love Your Life?
Previous entry: Bringing the Sacred Home
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