Rekindling Pleasure: Seven Exercises for Opening your Heart, Reaching Out and Touching Gently

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to help you open your heart, reach out, touch gently and by doing so gain more pleasure in your life. Section I, Introduction, outlines the normal biological pattern of opening your heart, reaching out and touching gently. It introduces a developmental model explaining how internal conflicts are formed that could inhibit the pattern in yourself as an adult and thus reduce your pleasure. Section II, Seven Energetic Exercises, explores internal conflicts through a sequence of exercises that aims to reduce muscular, energetic and emotional inhibitions and increase pleasurable sensations. The exercises are useful both in a therapeutic setting and as self-help. Section III, Rekindling Pleasure in an Ongoing Relationship, demonstrates the importance of seeing your partner as a source of pleasure, and adapts six exercises from Section II for self-help use to address problems that arise in your relationship.