Invitation for Pleasure Adjectives
How we describe sensations in our body - Adjectives Invitation
This is an exercise I frequently do in the office and I am going to encourage you to try it at home. No cheating and looking too far ahead. It works best if you take each step separately, meaning read and complete Step 1 before reading about Step 2, etc.
Step One
On a blank piece of paper draw a line down the center to create a left and right column. Set a timer for one minute, hit start, write “Pain” at the top of the left hand column, and then write as many pain adjectives as you can think of until the minute elapses. Once complete return for Step Two.
Step Two
Reset the timer for a minute, hit start, write “Pleasure” at the top of the right hand column, and then write as many pleasure/enjoyment adjectives as you can think of until the minute elapses. Once complete return for some explanation.
Explanation
For most people, the pleasure column tends to hold at least 50% fewer adjectives than the pain column. Why is that? There are numerous reasons, many of which are cultural and inherited intrinsic belief patterns, but that is not to be debated here. For this exercise, I will stick to the brain science. Our brains are naturally wired to detect threat, our brainstems instinctually seek survival, therefore it is pertinent for our brains to receive and interpret stimuli that could be threatening, damaging, or in any other way harmful. We therefore have brains at the ready to detect noxious stimuli (which gets interpreted as pain), or other less than ideal sensations for which our brain creates easy and ready to use adjectives.
Due to some of those cultural beliefs, etc., and because pleasure/enjoyment does not produce threat, our brains have not adapted to be as well versed in sensations of pleasure. If we don’t readily practice experiencing the sensations of pleasure so that our brains know how to interpret those sensations, we won’t have ready adjectives either. Now often in chronic pain, our bodies will misinterpret a sensation as pain because it doesn’t have sufficient pleasure data to offset the stimuli being received and it simply gets placed into the pain column for lack of further information. Fear of dogs is a great illustration of this concept. If I was bitten by a dog, my body senses a threat and I will produce a fear associated with dogs. If I don’t work to have pleasurable interactions with dogs, which often takes an incredible amount of effort, then my body is likely to see any dog, associate the fear and painful bite, and deem that situation unsafe. My body might even produce similar pain to that of the initial bite just to make sure that I am paying attention to my safety. The dog I was seeing in real time didn’t actually threaten me, get near me, or harm me in any way, but my body-brain remembers the original threat and therefore has the ability to create warning signs, aka, pain.
The Invitation
Beyond the exercise, the invitation presented here is to allow space for our bodies to experience more pleasure on a regular basis. By doing so, over time, we will also reduce our pain because the brain will have more information for interpretation of any given stimulus. This is one way to re-wire the brain, it is to give more pleasurable/enjoyable sensory stimulus in safe, consensual ways, so that the body has multiple adjectives to describe the sensation, some that could be painful and some pleasurable, all dependent on context. Using the dog example, if I come to have multiple and various wonderful interactions with dogs, my body might end up interpreting all dog situations as pleasurable, or it might simply always take time to register the full context of the situation before deeming threat or fun. Yet in either of these two scenarios, I have changed my overall experience with any future dog encounters. So go find some fun, some pleasure, some enjoyment, it’s not indulgent, it’s helping your nervous system be the most balanced and healthy!