One of the issues your story and your current path raise for me again is the relationship I have with pleasure. I think it’s a pretty strained relationship. And because of that, I feel a little bit afraid of people – like yourself – who seem to embrace pleasure as a spiritual practice or a highest good. Despite what I currently *think*, deep in my bones is the belief that bodily pleasure, while a wonderful thing, is a detour (or at the least a rest stop) from the straightest, surest path of connection with Source. I chuckle as I write that, given that our bodies – however clunky of machines they often are – are our PRIMARY vehicle for connection with Source. They’re what we’ve got.

So what to do with this feeling of being threatened, somehow, by people fully embracing bodily pleasure? I think my body wounds make me feel afraid of being judged or laughed at for how sheltered and un-free I feel in relation to body things, and afraid, too, of being challenged to grow in ways that are way outside my comfort zone.

Do you think this might be how LOTS of religious folks feel? I’m not religious anymore, but these feelings go far back for me.

I love that you are out there, doing your thing so beautifully, challenging many of us by your very existence to awake to our bodies and take a closer look at our hang-ups around pleasure. You feel to me like the roses outside my window – blooming their hearts out, opening and re-opening and unfurling toward Sun.

I love your story because it’s extreme & heartbreaking, yet you have risen above it in a way that is truly inspiring.

Thank you for sharing this with the world.

<3.