Reawakening Desire After Years of Being Shut Down

Connecting to the sensual pleasures of life after divorce

Photo by Jimmy Woo on Unsplash

The Real Secret About Paris

There is something about Paris… many people feel it. The deep desire to go there, to be there…

What is it about Paris that gives it such a magnetic ability to draw people in…? Is it looking at the Eiffel Tower?

Cruising on the Seine?

Drinking tiny coffees in sidewalk cafes?

Or is it hearing the beautiful language spoken in whispers, seeing the magnificent displays of seafood outside the restaurants, smelling the baguettes baking all day long, savoring the flaky croissants?

There is a mystery about Paris that is hard to explain, that all sorts of people find enticing… even irresistible.

But the truth is: Paris isn’t magical.

People are simply awake there -– experiencing their lives. They take the time to be present.

When we go there, we hope for a similar connection to Paris's energy.

But we experience only the surface layer as tourists on double-decker buses, with a drive-by of major tourist destinations.

The real joy is found on the ground, in the mundane details of life:

Listening to the crisp crust of the baguette crack as you split the loaf…seeing the glistening salt buried in the butter as you spread it on…feeling the dry crust on your tongue as you take your first bite.

No one is thinking about the calories… the impact on their hips, how many reps they will have to do to work off this delight. No. They are enjoying the sensual pleasure of the experience.

Do Americans get the same sensual pleasure listening to the bowl of Rice Krispies snap, crackle, and pop?

When We Disconnect

For years, I was living a sensory-deprived life. I didn’t lose my sense of taste or smell as a side effect of COVID. I lost it because my desires had been shoved into a dark corner of my body, shut away from feeling.

When the body shuts down to survive emotional pain, it shuts down everything – taste, touch, desire, joy… life moves from living color to black and white. When you live in survival mode long enough, the body numbs itself. Not just to pain, but to pleasure.

Sensory pleasures are what add dimensionality to life. Walking along Crissy Field and witnessing the Golden Gate Bridge against the clear blue sky… stepping into the San Francisco Bay and feeling the water as pin pricks on my skin waking up my senses… the first sips of coffee in the morning NOT out of a Starbucks cup, but out of a cup and saucer with freshly brewed coffee.

Life is here for the living if only we take the time to open our eyes and hearts and souls to experience it… to witness it. Life blossoms in front of us.

Life is not hiding from us.

We are the ones looking away.

For years, I thought my desire had disappeared.

What disappeared was the safety to feel it. With my divorce came a new sense of freedom. Slowly, everything shifted, and my body began to respond on a new level. But actually, it was the old me coming out again, feeling safe, responding to the new level of freedom and security I felt.

Life offers us many opportunities to grow and expand. The problem is that our brains prefer familiarity and comfort over growth. Even painful familiarity.

Breaking out of old patterns is hard, hard, hard. Even the very first step is challenging: recognizing the pattern. Awareness is difficult with those blinders on.

In Search Of The Big O

Step on the Dance Floor

Life is calling to you. This is not the time to be sitting in the stands. This is the time to be in the arena participating. Get off the tour bus and walk the streets. Experience life in the doing, not the observing. Be in the mix.

Sometimes at salsa class, I stand by the sidelines and watch the expert dancers move on the floor. I try to embody their movements in my mind. But it is only when I am dancing that I can try to make those moves, to feel those moves in my body. No amount of watching can make up for the experience of being on the floor, even if I do make many mistakes. The mistakes come from trying new steps and pushing outside my comfort zone. The mistakes come with the learning. If you never make mistakes, you never grow.

Watching the dancers never made me better.
Only stepping onto the floor did.

Life works the same way.

Tarot Pull

Six of Pentacles

Sic of Pentacles from the Rider-Waite Deck

The Tarot card I pulled to go with this article is the six of Pentacles. It goes surprisingly well. This card is about restoring balance and allowing energy to flow again after the deprivation of the five of Pentacles.

For years, my senses had been shut down in survival mode. Reawakening meant learning to give and receive life again — through taste, touch, movement, and joy. Life is about fully giving and receiving which this card reflects.