When pain competes with pleasure... and the dance of control/surrender
Published about 12 hours ago • 1 min read
Autumn greetings Reader,
Where I am, the weather has turned crisp. Misty rains and darker mornings. I'm sinking into the exchange of heat with hunkering down, when I can slow my body down to savor this change.
Speaking of changes, I recently underwent a huge transformation in my pelvis. Drove to Vancouver BC and received 9 hours of bodywork over the course of 3 days. All because pain was competing with pleasure, and I finally found someone who could hold this complexity with me. More about what I learned below...
Smiling genderqueer human in the woods (photo by Starseed)
Control. And when we need to fucking surrender.
While receiving the best bodywork of my life, I was at the crossroads of control and surrender. At the edge of physical pain, this indigenous healer told me to breathe. I really only had two choices:
Hold on and brace against the pain, or let go and feel it all.
I wavered, released, broke apart, clenched up again. Back and forth between surrender and control. Tightrope walking between them.
Sometimes pain calls us to our knees. Illuminates a message we need to see.
Cobweb with blood on it
Martin (the healer) was unwinding embodied spider webs spun after an emergency surgery I had @ age 8. My own private mycelium trying to help hold my body closed by grasping organs, nerves, whatever it could find. Eventually it became chronic pelvic pain, competing with pleasure in my pelvis.
But this gripping pain was my body’s way of controlling a scary situation. Sound familiar?
Accessing more pleasure in my pelvis is one huge win from this healing adventure. But so is this lesson of surrender and control. Where have I spun excess webs due to fear? Webs that restrict constriction and connection?
In the same vein, I know how detrimental surrender can be with the wrong person, at the wrong time. An old survival skill of mine & so many of our matrilineal ancestors.
Giving ourselves more opportunities to practice surrender in safe environments heals more than just ourselves.
9 hours of bodywork later, I'm sitting with this question: If I can rebalance my reach for control when I'm scared, perhaps this supports my choices of when and how I surrender. Giving way to intentional pain, leading to more pleasure...
Reflection questions: Where can you practice surrender safely? When does a release of control offer you pleasure?
