Pleasure As The Real Power-Up
Most people think of pain as something to avoid. But here’s the truth I learned long ago: pain is just sensation with a story layered on top.
As an erotic masochist, I trained my body to stay open to pain. To soften into a whip strike instead of contracting. To ride the intensity until my mind rewrote the story: not danger, but aliveness. Sometimes even pleasure.
It was a survival skill. It was also a spiritual initiation.
Because every time I held more sensation without collapsing, something inside me released. Healed. Expanded.
And here’s the revelation that lit me up recently: the same is true for pleasure.
When it was pain, learning to hold intensity made me feel like a gladiator. But pleasure? That’s the real edge.
It’s easy to think of pleasure as indulgence. But the deeper I’ve gone into my body, the more I’ve discovered: pleasure has its own ceilings.
Even with pleasure, we can only allow so much before we:
tense,
check out,
or shrink away.
But if you stay, if you breathe, if you hold more—pleasure becomes the portal.
It releases. It heals. It expands into more of itself.
It is the power-up in the video game of life.
I remember when I discovered this for myself. It was a self-pleasure night and I was edging myself. Experimenting. As the intensity built, I chose to ignore the stories my mind always made up about “too much,” and leaned into the sensations rather than running from them.
The experiment went beyond what I ever expected.
That was the moment I realized: holding pleasure expands me even faster than holding pain.
(In the paid companion to this article, I’ll share the full sensory detail of what happened in that moment—and guide you through a practice to meet your own edge and break through your ceiling.)
And of course, this isn’t just about physical sensation. The same principle applies to emotions.
When you can hold yourself at an emotional edge without collapsing—whether it’s grief, rage, or joy—that is the very essence of healing. That is what makes true sovereignty possible.
I’ll be sharing more about that in an upcoming piece.
So here’s my reminder for you: your body and mind are infinitely resilient.
Shadow work might have moved the needle. But learning to hold more pleasure? That’s the real acceleration.
In the paid companion to this article, I’ll guide you into a self-pleasure practice designed to help you push right to your own edge of sensation—then burst through your ceiling into the next level.
Because you can fuck, laugh, and pleasure your way out of trauma.
Achievement: unlocked.
In sovereign pleasure,
-Sharon
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