Wondermine
Wondermine
Episode 2: Pleasure
Larissa and Elizabeth discuss big pleasures, small pleasures, and how pleasure is essential to liberation.
Some things we mention:
Christy Harrison, Anti-Diet
Holland Cotter, Can We Ever Look at Titian’s Paintings the Same Way Again?
TJ Klune, The Extraordinaries
Huberman Lab: Controlling Your Dopamine For Motivation, Focus & Satisfaction | Huberman Lab Podcast #39
Dorothy Roberts, Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction and the Meaning of Liberty
adrienne maree brown, Pleasure Activism
Audre Lorde, Uses of the Erotic (reprinted within Pleasure Activism)
adrienne maree brown and Emma Bracy interview: https://repeller.com/what-is-pleasure-activism/
The Nap Ministry
Strong Arm Baking Co.
Music by ZakharValaha from Pixabay
Music by ZakharValaha from Pixabay
Follow us on Instagram @wonderminepodcast
[MUSIC]
Elizabeth M. Johnson
Welcome to Wondermine. I'm Elizabeth M. Johnson. I'm a partner, parent, rape survivor and writer. I talk and write about trauma, relationships and culture. And right now I am so excited about having scheduled my child's COVID-19 vaccine.
Larissa Parson
And I'm Larissa Parson, I'm a joy coach, a movement teacher, a mom to twins, a bit of a hippie and right now I am pumped for the upcoming Animal Crossing New Horizons update. It releases Friday; I cannot wait. And we're the duo behind this limited series podcast called Wondermine.
Elizabeth M. Johnson
Wondermine is the limited series feminist podcast that looks at the "wow" and the "how" of living a life rooted in curiosity, community and liberation. If you've ever felt like something was missing, or you were missing something, this is the podcast for you.
Larissa Parson
And this is our second episode. We're going to be talking about pleasure, both big and small. And how pleasure is an important part of liberation. But first let's get ourselves grounded and settled for our conversation. So, you can stay wherever you are in space, wherever you're listening. If you're walking or driving, don't close your eyes. And just take a moment to think about a place in the world that feels deeply pleasurable to your body. Give yourself a moment to check in with all your senses about it. What does it smell like? Sound like? Feel like? Look like? Maybe even taste like? Take a moment to notice the overall feeling you get in your body when you think about this place. Give you a few more moments to just feel that place.
Feels so good to be there. Ready to get started?
Elizabeth M. Johnson
I am. I love that. Thank you.
Larissa Parson
So now that I am mentally lying on the beach in the sun again...
Elizabeth M. Johnson
Oh, lovely.
Larissa Parson
What have you been reading this week, Elizabeth?
Elizabeth M. Johnson
Wow. Okay. So in in preparation for our conversation today, I have been reading. This is a little bit of an odd transition. I've been reading _Anti-Diet_ by Christy Harrison.
Larissa Parson
That is not odd at all!
Elizabeth M. Johnson
Yes, and maybe no. For some people, they're like, "wow, okay." Because food gives me a lot of pleasure. And I think as we'll talk about, there can be some shame involved with having food be pleasure or being comfort. And so, Christy Harrison is a registered dietitian and a longtime journalist who spent the bulk of her early career writing about the wellness industry and fighting the quote unquote, "obesity epidemic," and then started to look at her own eating habits and how they were problematic, and how she was sort of part of a system that was not a good one for her, and how she disentangled herself from that. And then went on to a career and helping other people sort of disentangle how they think about their bodies from the idea of diet culture, as much as one can possibly do that. Knowing that we are, it is the water that we swim in as other subsets. So I've been thinking about that and reading that. Then I've also been reading, I also read an article, a little bit of an article this morning in the New York Times, that's from August, looking at some paintings by Titian that I'm going to see next week. So like, because there's a lot of there's themes of a lot of pleasure in there. So that's what I've been, that's what I've been delving into.
Larissa Parson
Oh my gosh, that all sounds amazing. And today, it is totally relevant. And we will get to why later today. Gosh, well, I'm jealous that you're getting to go look at art. I'm just gonna note that I'm thrilled for you, but jealous for me.
So I've been dipping into adrienne maree brown's _Pleasure Activism_ a little bit also in preparation for this podcast. And I'll talk about that and quote it extensively a little bit later. I've also been been dipping into Ross Gay's _Book of Delights_, which we'll talk about later. And for funsies I am reading The Extraordinaries by TJ Clune. It's a clear why a book about a kid with ADHD who is in love for the superhero. And he's also in love with his best friend but he doesn't know that yet. And it's kind of fun. It's really light. It's just delightful and I'm really enjoying reading it. Yeah.
Elizabeth M. Johnson
love that. I like the fun element. And then the little bit of the researchy prep elements that you've got going on here. Nice, very nice.
So Larissa and I knew that almost immediately from our early conversations that pleasure had to be one of our topics. Because you know, from a trauma informed perspective and a trauma survivor perspective, pleasure can feel sometimes inaccessible or scary. So that's kind of, you know, my lens. But Larissa is work really focuses on this pleasure as an aspect of embodiment. So it felt really important to both of us to kind of look at like the juncture of where these things can possibly come together. And so, it is. So the idea of pleasure feels more accessible for all of us, no matter kind of what our background may be. So that is what we are dipping into today.
Larissa Parson
Yeah. So maybe the best place to start off is where we started, when we first started talking about it--this is so meta, we first started talking about the idea of talking about pleasure. We started by distinguishing between like capital P pleasure, big pleasure, and little P pleasure. What I call Joy drops most of the time, or joy seeds, sometimes I call them those two. And so I am, so capital P, big P pleasure. I'm not going to get super scientific here, because that's honestly, like as much research as I may do, that's not really my strongest suit. But I'm going to paraphrase Andrew Huberman whose podcast talks about this kind of stuff all the time. And it's a fabulous place to learn about, like, the way that your body does these things. And what he talks about is that sometimes really big pleasure is that kind of thing that floods your body with dopamine, that kind of feeling of the rush, the thrill, feeling really good, like a kid at a birthday party, whose birthday it is, maybe not the kid who's coming as a guest. Depends depends on the kids. And that can feel really, really good until the dopamine wears off. And then your body's trying to return to its kind of states homeostasis, its normal state. And you might feel depleted in comparison to the dopamine rush. So then you feel this, this kind of like letdown, like the kid after the day after the birthday party is often kind of just like, I'm bored. At least that's my kid. And so. So that's big P, capital P pleasure. It can also be something like, I don't know, taking a beach vacation with one of your right people.
Elizabeth M. Johnson
Yes. Yes, it can.
Larissa Parson
And then you come home, and then there's real life, and it's kind of a letdown.
Elizabeth M. Johnson
(Debbie Downer sound here.)
Larissa Parson
So you don't want to actually experience big P pleasure all the time. Because it's exhausting to swing back and forth between normal and big pleasure. Like we want the big pleasure in our life. But we also need to know that we are going to have an adjustment period afterwards. Yeah, so it's, it's exhausting to swing from except ecstatic to normal. And maybe a little below normal.
Elizabeth M. Johnson
Yeah, yeah. This makes me think of when we think about big P, big P pleasure. It makes me think of like, "we've saved all of our money for three years to go on this big trip. And then we come back, and we're like, oh now, our money's all gone". We have you know, we spent a ton of money on this, and all of those things are gone. And it's that big letdown. It's a letdown, because it's that sort of return to normal living, which can be really hard. So I want to hear about little pleasure, because that feels like that might be more when you think of drops and sees that might be more into everyday. And I also just want to make a note that we'll put the link to the Andrew Huberman podcast in our show notes so people can access that.
Larissa Parson
Yeah, for sure. It's like two hours long. So it goes in the show notes.
Elizabeth M. Johnson
Go in knowing that, friends!
Larissa Parson
He puts lots of really nice timestamps on them. So it's really useful. Okay, so useful. Yeah. And so little pleasure is what we're talking about joy drops or pleasure seeds or joy seeds, like little tiny things that we can cultivate in our day. So when I think about living a life that is kind of centered around joy and justice, especially around joy, we're talking about feeling all of the things so that's pleasure, pain, sorrow, grief, and everything in between, and everything all around it. When we allow ourselves to be present to our feelings, we're able to find more purpose and meaning in what might otherwise feel like being kind of buffeted by fate, if that makes sense. You know, like, pulled from one thing to the next and it like, we don't necessarily have to make everything be meaningful. But it is kind of nice to go like, I am drinking this coffee because it tastes good. Instead of just randomly because it's what I always do in the morning. So little pee pleasure is what Ross Gay calls delights. I would say, it's the little things that make our days better. So your cup of coffee being the right temperature, the taste of extraordinary blueberries, apparently, the blueberries that we are importing are really good right now. I had some good ones. Someone else had some good ones. They're really good.
Elizabeth M. Johnson
Wow!
Larissa Parson
I don't know. I posted it. I posted them in my Instagram stories. And I got like multiple comments from people who said, "I had really good blueberries too!"
Elizabeth M. Johnson
Yes, And I think I was one of them.
Larissa Parson
You were one of them. Yeah, that's it.
Anyway, those are little pleasures. I mean, they can feel like a big pleasure, if you haven't, say, had blueberries in two months, like me.
Elizabeth M. Johnson
There we go.
Larissa Parson
But anyway, so these little little p's, these delights, these joy drops, we have to notice them. If we don't take the time to be mindful about them, then they're probably not really delighting us. And the other side of that is that if we're practicing mindfulness, and noticing how we feel about things, then we also might notice how we feel about things that don't make us feel good, too.
Elizabeth M. Johnson
Yeah, and so I love the idea of little p pleasures, because I love their accessibility. And so like when the first time I heard you say, joy drops, I really felt like, "okay, that's something that I can possibly find and sort of hold on to." And I also want to say, you know, that kind of "yes/and" piece, that, you know, for some trauma survivors, the idea of being present with all of our feelings, and allowing all of that to kind of come in, you know, because if we're noticing the joy, then we were noticing all of the other things, right being present for all of our feelings, as you're saying, then it could feel really overwhelming and scary. Sometimes trauma survivors don't really want to feel all of those feelings, because what can it mean if I do? Maybe I'm going to lose control, maybe I'm gonna feel overwhelmed and not be able to get out of that. So help me understand, Larissa, a little bit about why this is actually a good thing. Like I hear you saying the piece about, like, you know, noticing that delights, and what that means. But help me get there a little bit?
Larissa Parson
Sure. Well, you know, for me, I feel like bringing our attention to delights, to joy drops, is one way to ease into sitting with our feelings. So we don't have one of the things that I know is really important that I know that you know, is really important about working with trauma is that titration is really, really key. So, if we can start a practice of just noticing when your morning beverage is just right, and that that feels good to you. Or a practice of just noticing when you find yourself in a position maybe like on your yoga mat. And that feels good to your body, and it feels nice. Then you get to kind of pay attention to what feels good. And that might be one way to practice sitting with our feelings. That doesn't feel overwhelming and huge. Yeah. Does that seem right to you?
Elizabeth M. Johnson
That does. I like the idea of easing into our feelings. All of our feelings. Because like we've talked about that idea of the dark emotions and how some of those fear shame, guilt. Anger can be scary for us to feel. And so this this idea of noticing these small pleasures can feel like a way to maybe access all of our feelings. And it's gentler to start with something that's delightful to us and accessible.
Larissa Parson
Yeah.
Elizabeth M. Johnson
I feel what I'm hearing out here also is accessibility. That it can be the coffee at the right temperature like when did our grounding exercise. It was me in a hot shower last night just feeling really good with the water beating down on me. And that was just really like I was noticing it in more of an intentional way than I than I have in the past and noticing my coffee this morning. This is all of my lovely work with you, Larissa, thank you for that. And so then that is that's just this easing into it. So thank you. I think that that's a really helpful reframe.
Larissa Parson
Yeah. And, you know, I think actually, this is a good place to transition to talking about pleasure as a form of activism. And, and actually, the idea of titration and easing into it, is when you're doing justice work, and particularly if we're doing justice work, like, let's say, "we're doing justice work with a bunch of white people who feel really offended by hearing about their unconscious bias. " A little dose at a time is a really good way to go with that with that feeling. And with that sense of, of like feeling that unpleasantness in our bodies. And then I gonna say, I would say that like, the other side of that is that activism can be full of pleasure. And this is what adrienne maree brown argues.
I think that before we dive much deeper here, I want to point out that almost everyone I am mentioning today is black. And that's on purpose. Because the--let's call it the lineage of the thought lines about pleasure as a path to liberation. That lineage derives primarily from black authors and thinkers. Because pleasure is in fact, revolutionary for Black folks, and brown folks, and other folks of color, Indigenous folks in America. Our ancestors were not brought here for their own pleasure. When I'm talking about Black folks, myself, we were used as the means to other people's pleasure. And yet, there is a long and rich history of holding on to joy throughout those oppressive experiences, because joy is one of those things that sustains hope for human beings. So when I think about that, I think about song and music like spirituals, which also include, you know, messages of freedom and liberation, and code. I think about the foodways that my ancestors created from scraps from the table; the foodways that they brought from home and remembered; the food ways of the indigenous peoples that they encountered here, and how that has all kind of come together into a rich culture of food that most Americans enjoy.
Larissa, your words make me think of Dorothy Roberts' book, Killing The Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty_. It's an older book, late 90s. But she talks about why liberty related to reproductive justice matters. Because it's important for self definition, and as an insulator against those systems of oppression that you're talking about. And this is so applicable here with the idea of pleasure as revolutionary, Larissa because pleasure can often feel out of reach or scary for sexual trauma survivors specifically. And we know that Black and indigenous women and non gender conforming folk are more likely to be sexual trauma survivors, but pleasure as something that can exist outside of that trauma as something for oneself as a part of liberation, I love that.
Yeah. And I think it's really important. I love how you brought in that we're also talking about a lot of other systems of oppression at the same time. So thank you. Yes. And I think that's really speaking to the point that adrienne maree brown makes. I really love this excerpt from an interview about pleasure activism that she did with journalist Emma Bracy. And this interview, she gives us a really nice concise definition of pleasure activism. It's the process of--and here's the quote--"making justice and liberation, the most pleasurable experiences we can have. Learning that pleasure gets lost under the weight of oppression, and that it is liberatory work to reclaim it."
Elizabeth M. Johnson
Yeah, I think that's, there's there's a lot right there. And then I would just like to...
Larissa Parson
Do you want to unpack it a little bit?
Elizabeth M. Johnson
Or even just some clarification for some folks who don't know yet who adrienne maree brown is.
Larissa Parson
adrienne maree brown is famous for being a pleasure activist. And is the author of Emergent Strategy, Pleasure Activism, a couple other books that are more recent, and is just like, really, the person who I turn to when I'm like, why is this so important? Oh, okay. When I need a reminder of what is so important, why do we want to bring pleasure into this work? Why does social justice work not always have to feel like work work? And how can it feel less like a grind? Because we can access that, like, fight the system energy really, really easily.
Elizabeth M. Johnson
Yeah.
Larissa Parson
But that can be really exhausting. So we can also say I'm gonna take a nap, to fight the system. So to paraphrase the Nap Ministry, like that is a whole different way of thinking about what the system even looks like, and what it demands of us.
Elizabeth M. Johnson
Yeah, absolutely. I think there's..... one of our like, final episodes is going to be this like "both/and" sort of thing. But I think there is that conversation, but I love this way of reframing how we're thinking about things. And I think we're going there. But this idea of pleasure, we often go to as being strictly a sexual pleasure. And that seems to be the one that is the most privileged in conversations. It's the one that's out there in dialogue. It's the one that it feels like accessible in ways that are almost sort of culturally, you know, constructed for us. And I feel like we're kind of getting into a different realm here, which I think is really helpful.
Larissa Parson
Yeah. So I think that adrienne maree brown will be the first to tell you that she really loves talking about sexuality and sex as part of pleasure practice. However, part of what she's riffing on is how Audre Lorde talks about pleasure in "Uses of the Erotic." And Lorde says that we relegate thinking about the erotic--that is to say thinking about pleasure--to the sexual realm... So Audre Lorde is saying that the erotic is beyond it, is encompassing the sexual realm and moreso, pleasure erotic, very similar definitions here. But we relegate thinking about the erotic to the sexual realm, because it is honestly kind of terrifying to let ourselves dwell on the erotic. And here's a quote from "Uses of the Erotic.": "Once we begin to feel deeply all the aspects of our lives, we begin to demand from ourselves and from our life pursuits, that they feel in accordance with that joy, which we know ourselves to be capable of. Our erotic knowledge empowers us, becomes a lens through which we scrutinize all aspects of our existence, forcing us to evaluate those aspects, honestly, in terms of their relative meaning within our lives."
So if you start digging into the erotic, if you start noticing what feels good, what feels pleasurable, what feels delightful to you, you stop being okay with everything that doesn't support that as an ongoing state of being. Which isn't to say that you should never have a bad day or feel bad, right? Like, you should have your righteous anger with the world. That is fine. But what she's saying is, if we really take seriously the idea that we are capable of deep, deep joy and pleasure, every day, then we can't tolerate any sort of oppression that is touching on our lives and others' lives. Because it's taking away the joy. Oppression sucks out the joy.
Elizabeth M. Johnson
Yeah, yeah. And I, I think something that I want to sort of say out loud here is that no matter what our background or experience or the trauma that we have suffered, we are all worthy of joy. And pleasure, even though we haven't got that message, perhaps before now.
Larissa Parson
Right.
Elizabeth M. Johnson
Because we don't get that message very often. And for some folks who are trauma survivors, this idea is going to feel --and it has for me for a long time --and I ease more into it with to use your language, the more time I expose myself to it and to you and to your work, Larissa. But this is a very, this is a very--- this is why Larissa is facilitating this episode and not me.
Larissa Parson
Laughter.
Elizabeth M. Johnson
Because this is so far from my realm of not comfort but certainly experience. But this is a really hard concept for me. And in part because I know I am very similar to other trauma survivors who have had pleasure linked with violence, or who have had pleasure denied them as a form of control. And so it feels really important to say that if this feels abstract, or hard, or just bonkers of a concept, you are not alone. And that is very common. And there are still ways for us to ease into this way of thinking and we will get to those.
Larissa Parson
Yeah I think I might just want to jump right to those because I feel like I could keep going with quoting Lorde over and over. But basically, the erotic is a form of power. Pleasure is a form of reclaiming our power. That is the gist of what she's saying. So when we have access to our sense of pleasure, when we have access to sensual, sensory, embodied pleasures that we are all worthy of, and that we can experience within and without the sexual realm, then we get to access our own sense of power and agency. But that is tricky and hard. So we start small.
Elizabeth M. Johnson
Yes, yes. So I just want to say restate it one more time. Because I think I have been that person who's like, "I don't.... why is this important?" Right? Like, why is this important? Also, it's just counter to you know, and we look at adrienne maree brown's definition here about oppression, you know, makes us believe that pleasure is not something that we deserve or all have equal access to. It's just like, why does this matter? Capitalism is telling me I have to produce stuff. If I produce stuff--if I need to keep producing-- I don't have time for a nap. But I love I love love, love this reframe again of this, you know, pleasure as a source of power and information for us, which is what Lorde is saying, and which is what you're kind of giving to us in such a beautiful package here.
Larissa Parson
It's a source of power and information. Because once we tap into that sense of what Lorde calls an internal sense of satisfaction, once we can tap into that, we know what we're actually moving toward, as opposed to being told what we're supposed to love. And what we're supposed to think is fun.
Elizabeth M. Johnson
Wow. Yeah.
Larissa Parson
Okay. I would say that, you know, tapping into that internal sense of satisfaction is really crucial to understanding how to make something like a joy drop happen, or a delight happen. Like, I would, and I want to say about the word erotic, because I really, I really just, like hung up on it for a second here. I would say that when I had blueberries for the first time, the two months, that was a decidedly erotic, not sexual, but erotic experience. It was like, all kinds of things happening in my mouth. Yeah. And, and, and so I really love turning my attention to that, that the erotic can be many different things. It doesn't have to just be about sex. And it can be about sex.
Elizabeth M. Johnson
Yeah, yeah. Great. Definitely that I love this blueberry example. And maybe because I also love blueberries. Can you give me example of how this kind of thing works on like more of an everyday level?
Larissa Parson
Sure, sure. So the blueberries for sure are one example. Another example is so I recently, as many of you know, had to have intestinal surgery, which requires being on a really specific diet for weeks leading up to the surgery. And several weeks after the surgery. Basically, all I could eat was white, mushy foods for months. And I could drink things that tasted good, but I couldn't have seeds or any kind of skin, nothing like that. And after the surgery, I started, when I finally got clear to eat real food, I had such a good time eating all kinds of things. But one of the experiences that really stands out for me, is this gyro that I got with a friend of mine. So part of the reason it was so pleasurable was that I hadn't had anything with such complex texture and flavor in a couple of months, because you've got kind of like the the wrap, the softness of the pita, and then the crunchiness of the vegetables, like the lettuce and the cucumbers in there. And the tomato, I didn't have tomatoes, I don't like tomato, but lettuce. And then the chewiness of the meat, and the creaminess of the sauce. And it's kind of all in one little package so that every bite is a little flavor and texture explosion. And so it was super pleasurable, because I hadn't had anything really that complex in quite some time. But also, I was with one of my really good friends who had said, Hey, I would really love to hang out with you. Which by itself was just like this deep moment of pleasure for me to receive a message that said, I want to hang out with you. And so having this food and having this company, and being able to put them all together was jus--it was almost big pleasure. I got to say, "wow, it was that good." But also your right people are also pleasure inducing. Your right people, being with your right people, helps your body receive those pleasures that you're noticing, with a little bit more. It's like having an amplifier or a microphone.
Elizabeth M. Johnson
Uh huh. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. And I love this. And this is not my first time hearing this gyro story. But as a huge food lover. I love hearing people's descriptions of food. And often I'm reading things about food. And so I wonder if it's now a good time -it's always a good time right to talk about how shame influences pleasure-- now might be the time.
Larissa Parson
Always a good time.
Elizabeth M. Johnson
Bring us there, Larissa!
Larissa Parson
I feel like you might actually be able to bring us there a little more, because you've been reading _Anti-Diet_ lately. And so that's kind of where I think this comes in is that I'm able to fully enjoy this food because I am not thinking about how many calories are in it, or what it's going to do to my body other than be delicious. And particularly after a couple months of really just not being able to eat what brings me joy, most of the time. (I mean, I did find, like, key lime pie to be delicious and smooth.) But you know, particularly in contrast with the having had to adhere to a strict diet for a couple of months really highlights how much for many people, the shame and the weight of thinking that all the time in our lives, we need to be adhering to something like that can get in the way of our joy and pleasure. Does that make sense?
Elizabeth M. Johnson
Yeah, I think so. So all the time, adhering to a specific way of thinking around food in terms of restricting food? And yes, yeah. Because the shame factor. I feel like it's really big. And, you know, I think you'd say that diet culture perpetuates that shame.
Larissa Parson
For sure. Yeah. I mean, so diet culture, taken as a whole, and I would like to loop in maybe fitness culture here too because it also restricts us from feeling pleasure in moving our bodies, however we want to or moving our bodies in specific ways even. They take away--diet culture takes away the idea that food can be fun, or that movement can be fun, or can just be because it feels good. And that doesn't mean that like, your whole pursuit of like, your, your, what feels good, may not feel amazing in the moment. Always. It may be like, I know that if I eat 25 Carrots, I'm not going to feel good tomorrow. So that doesn't feel good. Right? You know, like, Yeah, but there's a real difference between taking a sense of shame that says, "well, I should only eat salads, because my body needs to be smaller." And saying, "oh, it's July, and I only want to eat salads because they're cold." Those are two really different ways of thinking about consuming food and being in our bodies and eating. And like one of them has shame attached to it. And one of them does not.
Elizabeth M. Johnson
Right. Right. And I think that as they think about this from like, a trauma survivor perspective, right. So there's, there is pleasure that's on someone else's terms. Yes, that might feel shame filled. Yeah. But there's pleasure on your terms, or I guess, like I would say, yeah, that's I'm still gonna continue to say that, and pleasure on your terms, which then is not necessarily going to be shameful, because you are the one in control. Because for trauma survivors, it's really important to have a lot of sense of autonomy and on how these things go, because they have had control taken away from them before. So this, this influencer of shame can be a factor in no matter what kind of pleasure we're talking about.
Larissa Parson
Absolutely. Yeah. So what I find to be the case is that getting free of that kind of shame is not something that we can do by ourselves, we need to do it in community. And so that may look like going to a support group.
Elizabeth M. Johnson
Yay. For survivors, right? Love.
Larissa Parson
Spending time learning, together with other people who are looking to get free of diet culture, there are going to be lots of different ways that we do this, maybe it's just talking to that one friend, who seems to really be devoted to the idea that we can do fill in the blank without shame, whatever that is. And in addition to needing to do that in community, sometimes, because we can't break free of like the really big stuff, the structural stuff on our own, then we can start looking in other ways that are a little more subtle for us. That's like going back to the coffee.
Elizabeth M. Johnson
Yeah.
Larissa Parson
Did you have anything to add?
Elizabeth M. Johnson
Again, it's like two ways that we can kind of --that I'm hearing from you in terms of what it means to sort of separate ourselves out from the shame that might be associated with pleasure--one is working with our right people in community around this in some capacity. And going back to again--because I feel like this is a really important piece, this titration idea--this easing into it. And this, this is a thing that I feel like comes up over and over again, that I've talked about on Instagram related to Dr Bruce Perry. It's like we spend a couple of minutes talking about the really hard thing, and then we get the hell out and retreat because really, we can't stand much more than that before we start to have reactions in a way that don't feel good to us. So yeah, I love both of those things.
Larissa Parson
Yeah, it's the "do the hard thing then go lie on your couch and watch Netflix" strategy.
Elizabeth M. Johnson
Yeah. Great.
Larissa Parson
Go, push a little bit to the boundary and then go back to your favorite default mode of coping, as long as it's relatively harm free. Let's pick something that's not going to be harmful to you. But yeah, lying on the couch watching Netflix is not harmful. Yes, yeah. So I feel like when we're talking about these small pleasures, and thinking about how to titrate them and thinking about how they stack up in our lives, I'm going to come back to Ross Gay again. Because one of the things I think is really important is this: I can talk all day about having your warm coffee but if that doesn't resonate with you, that's not going to feel good. So, Ross Gay says that the pleasant, the delightful, are not universal things.
Elizabeth M. Johnson
Hmm.
Larissa Parson
So you know how, like, you'll see that ad for, I don't know, bath salts. And you'll go, I don't want to do that. Like, that's not, that's not the kind of self care I need. Just the other day, I was delighting about the idea of getting some new flannel sheets, because it's flannel sheet season at my house. And I was in a group, in community. And one of the participants said, "Oh, no, there is no way I can imagine that being pleasant, " because she's a hot sleeper. That's not pleasure.
Elizabeth M. Johnson
Yeah, that's not pleasure.
Larissa Parson
So to bring it back to what Ross Gay says. So he wrote those words about how the pleasant and the delightful are not universal in the context of an essay about the pleasure of casual physical interactions, like a handshake or a hug. But he's also in that in that passage in that essay, writing about how he's aware that he's in a cis male, Black, biracial body, that doesn't always get delightful casual interactions with the world, doesn't always get to receive them. So those interactions are extra pleasure filled, extra delightful for him, when they come along. Those hugs, handshakes, those really pleasant, everyday interactions. And then reading that I was struck with this moment of sadness, because of how the pandemic has affected, that kind of casual physicality, that physical touch that many of us really enjoy. But not everyone, and here's our "both/and," at the same time, I am grateful for having more opportunities to seek consent around touch to say no, or yes. But I'm still sad about not being around my right people more often, right?
Elizabeth M. Johnson
Yeah. Yeah, I love this, this is a really feels like a really important distinction again, for especially for the trauma survivors. I remember when I led a support group really early on, I was like, so let's talk about how we care for ourselves. And, and I said, "you know, some people like hot baths," and someone was like, "that is a nightmare for me, because that is not a safe place. And I don't feel good there." And I was like, good to know, right? It's sometimes important for us to say these things aloud in community with our right people. So then we can recognize we're not the only one. And "we're not the only one," leads us to sort of this place of "other people get me, other people are similarly affected." And so this idea of pleasure not being universal, gets me back to, as Ross Gay says, notice the piece that's giving us pleasure, like taking that moment to notice that the handshake or the thing that does so then we can access that.
Larissa Parson
Yeah. And I feel like this leads us toward a definition of, I'm going to call it justice. I call it joy and justice.
Elizabeth M. Johnson
Okay.
Larissa Parson
I think that a just world is one where we get access to the things that delight us. All bodies get access to the things that delight them, where nobody feels shame about things that are pleasurable, and where nobody gets harmed by other people's reactions to being shamed, really, I would say for the most part...I think I think that a just world makes space for all bodies. Yeah, period. And part of being in a body that is so important is being able to experience the little things and the big thing that bring us joy. Yep. So I'm just going to rehash some adrienne maree brown, if that's okay, to close us out here. On the very first page of Pleasure Activism, she sets out a goal, a list of goals for her readers. And I'm not going to read all of them because there are like 12. But here are a few of them. "Recognize that pleasure is a measure of freedom." So oh, that's like freedom from shame, freedom from oppression, freedom from so many things. "Learn ways you can increase the amount of feeling good time in your life, to have abundant pleasure". So it doesn't, she doesn't say, only have feeling good time in your life, we're just increasing the amounts of it. We're titrating that. We're easing into it. "Decrease any internal or projected shame or scarcity thinking around the pursuit of pleasure." So there we have the capitalistic work ethic, right? We should feel shame about enjoying things, or even pursuing the idea of doing things. And then finally, "begin to understand the liberation that is possible when we collectively orient around pleasure and longing. If our longing is to be free, collectively, that we can get so much farther toward liberation, when we understand that pleasure and freedom go hand in hand". So I don't know, if I were to offer any takeaways from this, it would be how we don't have to earn pleasure, how every body is worthy of pleasure and delight. And that's where really --to steal from Sonya Renee Taylor - that's where radical self love comes in. Radical self love is the practice of pleasure in many ways. Because once we're able to see how much power we get from little drops of joy, little delights, then we're also able to value everyone else's delights and rights to pleasure, and joy. And justice.
Elizabeth M. Johnson
Yeah, I love that. There's so much here. And obviously this conversation could go on a lot longer. And I would say that if I was to offer some takeaways on what I've learned from you, it's the idea that pleasure is something that is attainable for all of us. It may be something that we need to take in small doses and expose ourselves to bit by bit "this titration and easing into" an idea. And it matters --because for those of us who are trauma survivors, we're like, "why is this such a big deal?"-- it matters because it is a source of our power, and it will give us information. And a lot of us trauma survivors like to know how we can reclaim some of our power in more of our every day, because we have had control and power taken away from us and have been hurt by that. So what I hear you saying is this idea of accessing joy drops ,these little p pleasures is something that we can do to feel more powerful within ourselves and get us to that point where we do feel more liberated within ourselves and all of the things that accompany that perspective. Does that feel...
Larissa Parson
Yeah, that feels right. To me, I feel like one thing that we're maybe missing, and I don't think we have time to really dig into it now. But that I want to put out there and acknowledge is that the access that we have to pleasure --like we have access to little p pleasure in many, many, many different parts of our lives in many different under many different circumstances-- as a practice assumes a certain base amount of security, in terms of housing, and the ability to choose your coffee and the ability to buy your blueberries. So the goal here is to really make a world where nobody has to choose between a little p pleasure and their home.
Elizabeth M. Johnson
Right.
Larissa Parson
So I feel like that was really important to call out and I should have done it earlier. So I am glad we got that in here.
Elizabeth M. Johnson
Yeah, I think that's that's a really, really important reminder because I feel like we've talked around that a little bit but we have not said that and I appreciate you adding that piece right here.
Larissa Parson
Yeah, I mean, we need we just need to go into it with an awareness that -where we are in our lives, what is happening, the circumstances of our lives -will affect how deeply we can get into this kind of practice. And that it's also okay to enjoy the little things when they are available to you to enjoy. But it doesn't always have to be a grind.
Elizabeth M. Johnson
Right. And even if things are really hard, it doesn't always have to be a grind. I feel like we can choose -- you and I have talked about a friend of mine who has suffered from chronic pain and a bunch of other other physical health challenges that she will have for life--and there can still be joy drops that she finds. Even if we have varying levels of privilege. Where I might be, you know, going and purchasing these things, and that may be harder for someone with accessibility issues or other things. So I think that that's a really good, good piece to note.
Larissa Parson
Yeah, yeah, it's important. Yeah. Feels kind of awkward to switch gears to closing. But I think we kind of have to, because we could literally go on all day about this. And I could tell you all about the sunlight through the tree next to me, and you know, all of this, but I think we probably need to wrap it up.
Elizabeth M. Johnson
Let's wrap it up. So let's close with what we are going to be eating this week, as we always do, or close with what we are currently eating, although that feels like an odd way to phrase it because neither you or I are eating in this moment. So we are both drinking tea. But let's let's talk about the eating piece. And if this is not the section for you, we hope you join us next week. Larissa, do you want to go first and or you want me to go?
Larissa Parson
Want you to go!
Elizabeth M. Johnson
You want me to go? Okay, so I am a sucker for neighbor a couple of houses down, texting me and saying, "Hey, do you want to order from Strong Arm this week"? So she did this two nights ago, and I literally stopped my down dog. And I was like, what? And I paused my dog. "Oh, Sally wants to know if I want to order from Strong Arm?"? Yes, yes, I do. It has been a while since we've ordered and they delivered to Durham on Saturday mornings. And so I quickly looked at the menu. And so on Saturday, I'm going to be eating things like clam chowder, which is really one of my favorite things. I love clam chowder. And I don't who knows if it will be with bacon, I'm kind of hoping it won't. That's not the real New England style, which is where I'm from. So I'm hoping it will not but I'm going to sort of see how that goes. Clam chowder and a really yummy roasted carrot salad. So a couple of things that I'm really excited, excited to be eating and that is being delivered to me, which is also just really lovely. She's coordinated the whole thing. I just Venmo her money for the family order, which I just decided on my own was the family order didn't ask for any input and just went with it. So that is something I will be eating and I'm very gleeful in anticipation of that.
Larissa Parson
That's lovely. So it's just I love Strong Arm. I can't remember what I ordered from Strong Arm this week.
Elizabeth M. Johnson
Oh that's funny. You have something coming also?
Larissa Parson
Yeah. On Thursday afternoons, we pick up food from a CSA (Fieldstone Garden), and they collect things from a bunch of different vendors. It's like having the farmers market that I can just order from online. And so one of the people they get stuff from is Strong Arm. And I usually put in my order on Sunday night. And then by Thursday afternoon, when I go to pick it up, I've completely forgotten. So what I'm eating this week is a mystery delight to be discovered.
Elizabeth M. Johnson
I think that's fascinating that as much as you love food, you put the order in and you've kind of forgot about it. And I am like, I almost can remember like what the description was of the roasted carrot salad on their website. I mean, granted was just a couple of days ago, we ordered like barely under the deadline she texted at like 850. I don't even know how my phone even allowed it to go through. But I love that. I love is this is just a lovely piece of the difference between us. We both love food so much and I'm like, "got the description!". You're like "it's gone. I'm so excited for the surprise!"
Larissa Parson
It's in the moment. I'm living in the moment here.
Elizabeth M. Johnson
lovely.
Larissa Parson
Yeah, I mean, I might have like I have some Brie in my fridge last week. I got some really good cheese from one of the wonderful cheese makers around here and it's soft and melty and I haven't opened it yet. And so maybe that's my lunch just like a nice melty cheese sandwich. So that'll be delicious.
Elizabeth M. Johnson
That will be delicious. That's a good, that's a good fall lunch, I think. I love that. Okay, so thank you everyone for tuning into us. Share Wondermine with your friends. Write us a review; that will help people find us. Follow us at Wondermine podcast on Instagram. And I hope you, We hope you join in again next week. Thanks so much for being here. We appreciate it.
Larissa Parson
Thanks everyone.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
