Welcome new readers. Thank you for receiving me in your in box.
It’s been two—nearly three— months since I’ve published an essay. I have been making another, slow revolution on the spiral of life, and I’m finding my footing and a new pace for publishing here. Monthly is feeling like a more pleasurable rhythm for essays and conversations about pleasure.
My family and all my siblings and their children converged at my Mom’s house in Minnesota for Mother’s Day. She still lives in the house where we grew up and the smell of the spring till in the fields and the way the light lingers long after sun set surfaced some buried memories. As we congregated in the kitchen, I could almost see my eighteen-year-old self drinking a cup of tea with my mom, feet up on the counter. And then, as if they were cross-fading into the scene, my teenage daughters and nieces and nephew would walk into the kitchen, say hello to their grandmother and make themselves a snack.
We depict time in a line but a giant spiral feels more apt. Watching my own daughters pack their bags and set out on their own, I feel closer to my own childhood than ever. Might it be possible to jump from one rung to another - or, at least peer in and whisper a little hello.
I’ve begun making a game of it, popping up in my memories to give myself advice, a hug, a little tug in one direction or another. “You’ve got this,” I whisper to my seven-year old self, daunted by a move to a new school. “You’ve got this,” I say as I run alongside myself at a high school track meet. “It’s him,” I say to the woman who has just sat down at a bar next to my future husband.
Why not? Memories are infinitely malleable, as studies of eyewitness accounts and the introduction of misinformation has shown. So, why not leverage that to favor and tweak our own memories and pepper them with a little more love and compassion?
To take it a little further, if my present self can give my past self a little assist, why not assume my future self is doing the same for me right now?
I’ve been listening for guidance from future me. I look for signs and inside jokes from me to me. It know messages wouldn’t be anything obvious like a letter or a voice of god kind of situation.
Then I realized that—of course—my future self is using my love language of pleasure to guide my present self.
As though I am a human tuning fork, I am taking extra care to notice how my body feels as I move through my day: flat, quiet, still, numb, spacious, prickly, tingly, warm, earthy, dense, effervescent. The moments I feel the most pleasure, those are the moments I am attending to. “This,” I am hearing my future self say, “Pay attention. This is for you.”
“Thank you,” I whisper back to my future self. “I got this.”
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UPCOMING EVENTS:
Want to generate some loving memories?
Join us for LOVE LAB 101 tomorrow, Thursday May 18th from 8-10 PM EST on Zoom.
Joe and I will share with you four fun and easy practices that have been really pivotal in our relationship. These practices are great for clean communication and for non-verbal connection. It is 90-minutes that will leave you feeling your heart expanded.
Join us with a partner of come self-partnered/solo and we will match you with a practice partner. Use code COSMICLOVE for a reader discount.
Afterward, we will share about Relationship Tripping, our six-week experience for couples of consequence which begins May 25th.
If you are interested in joining us for Relationship Tripping, you can find out more here. Or DM me or set up a call to explore. We have space for 2 more couples to join this next round.
FROM THE INSTITUTE OF PLEASURE STUDIES
More on Memory:
“Ultimately, we are what we can remember,” says Dr. Richard Restak, a neurologist and clinical professor at George Washington Hospital University School of Medicine and Health. He just wrote a whole book about tweaking our memories called How Memory Works. One tip—obvious but can not be repeated often enough in our digital world—pay attention in the moment. Digital distraction means our memories don’t encode the first time around.
I am finding so much pleasure in reading about female mystics past and present and lingering with their ecstatic poetry. Writer and poet and mystic herself, Mirabai Starr knows her way around ancient and contemporary cosmology and reads her book Wild Mercy so beautifully.
Cerebral spinal fluid might be the source of consciousness. There is a pool of liquid in the center of your brain and it winds its way all the way down your spinal column like the river of life. It also ebbs and flows through your brain while you sleep. Dr. Mauro Zappaterra has pioneered some compelling research and integrated it with meditation and imagination. His website is full of thought provoking research and meditations to connect to this hidden lake of magic in your brain.
Thank you for reading. Got a pleasurable tip? Insights you would like to share? Ideas for this community? Please be in touch.
your 18 year old self knew your 70 year old self well! I am going to remember that little poem! thank you for sharing.
I had a flip connection with my 18 year-old-self providing guidance to present-day 55yr-old. I’m in a transition, feeling vulnerable, sometimes stuck, trying to find “next” (specifically in relation to part-time work) and on bad days questioning my worth, missing self-confidence.
About a month ago I pulled out old journals (responding to side-request from best friend to confirm or deny who was at a New Year’s Eve party during winter break home from Freshman year of college). I couldn’t stop reading that journal - I was at my first college, miserable, and as early as Thanksgiving (3 months into the school year) I was developing my exit strategy. So many questions, and turning to familiar high school friends for support and advice. I wrote in the journal where I might apply to transfer - one “I could never get in but worth a try”. Flash forward a finished Freshman year struggled through but head down in my classes, a year off, living back home with my Mom to get my bearings and apply to 3 schools for transfer, and WOO HOO an acceptance letter from the school I’d “never get in” where I eventually came to cross paths with you, even!
My now self was so reassured by my 18-yr-old self who was in a rough place emotionally, didn’t know what was next, but planted seeds and surprise, not surprise, the NEXT unfolded. Her getting through gives me hope and space to breathe and be with the unknown transition time and feelings. Thankful to her. I think I’ll cradle my uncertain, fragile-feeling now me with hugs from past 18 yr old and future 58 yr old (or 68 or 78 and auspicious 88 - heck let’s have a party!). This is here now and won’t always be, but is a necessary loop of the spiral.
Thanks for inspiration, Jaye.