Wise people have clocked our social era in late stage capitalism amid thickets of fascism and as a millennial, the unprecedented times haven't stopped since we were kids. From a distance, its all overwhelming news articles, lego war videos and budget considerations. But in real life, there are people, struggling to hold it all together, if there's even a chance at doing so. Even if they maintain employment, even if they are weathering the volatility of egg and gas prices, even if they can manage to only ingest as much news as their nervous systems can tolerate, living through the uncertainty, witnessing the systems fail people for no reason, all feeling helpless to sustain anything of meaning. We are barely holding it together.
One thing that I have gotten from therapy and assimilated sorta well into my life is being much more honest about how I am doing. I am refusing to stifle the feelings and instead am expressing them out loud more often. In some way this scares me (essay loading: I learned to fear my rage) but one way it shows up is having clarity about the moment. Therefore, I have been saying quite often lately:
life is heavy rn, and choices feel heavy with few options.
Thats how I feel. Walking a razor’s edge trying to find beams of hope in a toxic wasteland of rotten social ideas. Its been hard to stay positive, almost every activity that one could participate in has been reduced from potential for fun to potential for funds or self-protection. The best we can hope for is a few ways to cope with our days that allows us enough brain and body power to make it to another draining day. We’re trapped between the idealism of what we would hope to be, post-trauma pain-free adequately compensated and free to express our whole selves, and the reality that almost none of that is allowed space. So I, and you if you take the time to ask yourself, am forced to wonder:
who would I be, if I was allowed to be who I am.
The day-to-day grind and emotional death via social identity ushi-zaki tears away at our ability to feel human. **Insert pleasure.
Pleasure is a tool for liberation. It is fuel for resistance. It is remembrance of your own humanity.
I had taken a sensual shower before I had even done a sensual shampoo over the kitchen sink before, but those were often much more eRoTiC. My sensual showers would feature the flicker of a softly scented candle and something like Kali Uchis playing. They were an expression of erotic, even if not sexual, energy myself exploring and honoring my body. THIS wasn’t that. This was a completely different type of sensual shower, and I knew from the moment that the idea popped into my head that it would be different.
I had no reason to invalidate the idea though I tried indeed I did, but I had tools it could be reasonably accomplished, and it sounded like it could be transformative. I knew intuitively that transformative was exactly what I needed, so I embarked on a sensual shower with... a scrub brush.
I took brush, one of which I have posted at every sink in my house to keep my long ass nails clean, and to encourage others to do the same. I took the one from beside my personal sink into the shower with hue of the shower light darkened blue as low as felt right, hit play on Bitches Brew and commenced my transformation. I started at my feet with a foot scrub product and continued up my legs like I only feel done at the good pedicure places. I lathered rich bubbles off bar soap for the other parts of my body. I took a break every time I felt slightest bit of fatigue and allowed the water to massage my body. That reprieve wasn’t so much about feeling better. It was about effort. I realized the best part of spa treatments was the process and products of course, but that was paired with the complete lack of effort to get them done. This wasn't the spa, but I wasn't here to punish my self or gruel through the steps, so I took innumerable breaks.
I lounged on my shower chair and scrubbed until every square centimeter of my skin felt exactly like I wanted, exactly like post pedicure legs. I rocked when I felt like rocking, I stretched. I moaned. I thought, I didn’t think. I did exactly whatever at the moment came to mind to do. I just allowed it to flow through me.
Pleasure and softness is not about doing a certain thing. It’s about listening to your own self. A person you cannot prescribe pleasure, or softness. I can’t tell you how to achieve softness for yourself. I can’t tell you which brush to buy or which scrub to use or how long to scrub or which bench to be on or which album to listen to, or if even that is ritual for you because pleasure and softness is about whatever your body says. Its about changing when the fatigue hits and changing again when the desire returns. I sat, debating whether or not to cut off the shower because obviously as a neurodivergent, my lotion process happens in the shower so that I never risk feeling greasy. Before I made a firm choice, the water was off. I had already decided. Shower done.
In Uses of the Erotic, Erotic as Power Audre Lorde Says:
For as we begin to recognize our deepest feelings, we begin to give up, of necessity, being satisfied with suffering and self-negation, and with the numbness which so often seems like their only alternative in our society. Our acts against oppression become integral with self, motivated and empowered from within. In touch with the erotic, I become less willing to accept powerlessness, or those other supplied states of being which are not native to me, such as resignation, despair, self-effacement, depression, self-denial.
We are not, at our core the people that we are required to perform every day. We are not in our natural conditions. If you grew up like I did, butterflied ekrich sausages on wheat bread, then you know what I know about the crabs in the bucket. We heard it and were conditioned against becoming it. But crabs don't thrive in buckets, we don't thrive in chaos. We don't belong in unprecedented times. If you could peel away some of the armor that you are required to equip, you will hear the tiny voice inside reminding you what good feels like.
One thing that has always called to me was to do the 75 hard challenge. In parts it sounds like this force or endurance type thing which I’m not into now that I've deconstructed diet AND hustle culture, but I like to try and build consistency of habits so I thought 75 soft would offer that. But no. It’s just 75 light. Softness isn't the baby steps to the hard. Where if you can successfully workout for 30 minutes this time, next time you could be ready for 45 minutes. Thats a training regimen.
softness is not just absence of force is making space and allowing for flow
So I’m thinking of a challenge.... A way of leaning in to softness with consistency that feels like it welcomes and embraces me. I’m gonna try it and I think I’m gonna document it.
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