Pleasure as a practice (with Amy Briggs)
Reflections on releasing the endless pursuit of self improvement to welcome something truer.
Welcome
to Being in Motherhood.I’m Amy, 33 year old mum of 3 from Scotland. I am a teacher, mentor, writer and artist. My Substack newsletter, ‘A Healing Motherhood’, is all about slowing down and coming home to the soul in Motherhood.
We are gathered here today (yes, I feel like we now just entered a wedding ceremony) to talk about pleasure, truly the simple pleasure of reading and let ourselves do things we enjoy. Amy and I connected over a note she share and this collaboration came to life.
Emma: Anyone who has been reading here for a while, knows I am a recovering self-improvement junkie. The whole of my twenties was dedicated to fixing the problem of myself. I read self-help book after self-help book thinking the answers would be inside them. I thought if I kept striving to be the best version of myself, then I would be. I knew nothing of pleasure or softness or joy. I kept trying to make myself better, as if there was anything other than who I am at this moment.
In the Fall, I learned I was neurodivergent and my identity as a person who strives to be better fell apart. I learned there were things about myself I was never going to get away from, there were parts of me that needed my acceptance instead of me trying to make them go away. I realized this was always true, but I could not see it. I was never a problem to be solved, but a living breathing changing human who needed to be met in each moment.
Amy: I too have spent years of my life on the healing hamster wheel, believing that if I just committed to the next protocol, modality or guru’s advice then I’d cure myself of all my issues. Except at the end of every well meaning self-help book or course I undertook, I still felt a little bit ‘broken.’
Eventually, I grew tired of feeling this way, and had little energy left to pursue this path as a Mother of young children. I took a step back from my healing journey to just relax (this should have been a clue in itself - if I had to rest from healing, it probably wasn’t healthy!) and enjoy simple endeavours, like reading a novel for the sheer fun of it again. This space allowed me to uncover the subconscious belief that I too was not a “problem to be solved”, as Emma so cleverly puts it, but a soul here to have a beautiful human experience. It was time to surrender to softness and pleasure.
What have we been taught about pleasure
Emma: I am not sure I saw anyone enjoying themselves growing up, unless they were eating food. Pleasure was not really something I felt I was allowed to have. I watched the people around me work hard and never rest. I followed suit. And somehow by absorbing what I saw, I learned pleasure was wrong. I learned pleasure was something to be ashamed of. I am not even talking about sexual pleasure here, just the simple act of doing something because one enjoyed it and it brought them joy.
Which is why when I was healing my self-improvement way of being, I started to read real books. And I felt huge amounts of shame. This is how Amy and I connected. She posted a note about reading for pleasure and it made me feel less alone. Because when I first started reading fiction again, I noticed all this shame-based messaging pop up in my brain. I had no idea how to do something because I enjoyed it. I do think there are layers of neurodivergent programming in there too. I dove straight into reading fantasy because I had always wanted to but never let myself because I was afraid to be me true self.
Amy: As the eldest daughter who carried a lot growing up, pleasure wasn’t for me. I had to always be doing. Achieving. Then I’d feel useful, seen and loved. I adored reading, but even at a young age books were part of that endless pursuit to better myself. The more I read, the smarter I would be. The more I read, the better my grades would be. And if I was clever and academically brilliant then I’d feel good enough. Loved. These thoughts were always in the back of my mind somewhere, even if I wasn’t explicitly aware of them at the time.
I didn’t see women around me having fun either. They were constantly on the go, working and taking care of everyone. The message I received was that women don’t have time for pleasure. That stuck with me, especially in the early years of new Motherhood, when time is such a precious commodity.
So I too felt a lot of shame at first when I began to carve out time just for pleasure. I would tell myself excuses as to why I was reading that book. Reasons to justify time spent in play. Like I couldn’t simply do so for the enjoyment itself.
This felt like I was still running away from my authentic self. But the little girl inside me began to find safety again amongst the pages of the novels she once read. I leaned in.
Creating a shift
Emma: The more I read, the more I healed. The more I learned it is okay to feel good. This is a note I wrote to myself during that time….”What if it is okay to feel fucking good and have fun instead of every minute being an opportunity to worry or over think or fix myself?”
Making reading a practice created a huge sense of freedom in my life. Because at the same time I was unlearning seeing myself as a problem, reading became an act of rebellion. I claimed a part of me I left behind long ago. I learned my value was not in who I was trying to be, my value is in being here. I do not have to earn my keep, I do not have to strive, I do not need to arm myself with a false sense of control. I can relax into what is.
Sure, I still worry and overthink. But I do not try to fix myself. I let go of seeing myself as a problem to be solved and the most strange thing happened - I started to enjoy my life again. I felt honest joy.
Amy: Creating practices to bring pleasure back into my life was so freeing for me too. I followed the calls to do things that lit me up from within, even if my conditioning whispered to me that pleasure is wrong, somehow. And slowly but surely that voice began to quieten. I could sit down with a book every day and read, without feeling guilty or analysing the lessons I could take from it to become my best self. It was just fun. No strings attached. And it had been a long time since I felt that.
Pleasure as healing
Emma: Because as mothers, we get specific messaging around pleasure. We are not allowed it, we serve, we tend, we show up. But enjoying ourselves is not part of the formula. Except that this messaging is wrong. I think a lot about what I want my son to see growing up, I think about what he is understanding about a woman’s place in the world from how I show up. Enjoying myself, accepting myself, I want him to see those things.
And when I am living life from that space, my heart is more open. I can be more present. I can get down on his level and see the joy in painting, running in the grass, or screaming at the top of my lungs. I can be a kid again, because I was never meant to spend my life fixing myself. Our capitalistic society is doing everything in our power to convince us otherwise, but we are not here to be machines. We are here to live and enjoy life. When our minds are not on being better, we can be here and we can be with our children. We can play and we can love without restraint.
Amy: Seeing the world through my children’s eyes has been the greatest lesson. It’s taught me more than all the self-help books ever could. They understand how the world works and determine their place in it from observing us. I don’t want my babies growing up believing women don’t have fun. I couldn't bear it if they witnessed my never ending journey to ‘fix’ myself and perceived that to be their own goal in life.
Accepting all parts of myself in Motherhood has not been easy, but I am relieved I have finally put to bed this notion of somehow being broken. Reclaiming pleasure as a part of this journey has been so expansive and has allowed me to explore other aspects of play. I have always loved drawing and painting too… but only if I am doing it for myself. I’ve done many commissions over the years and they just felt like pressure, very little joy. One of my favourite things to do is spend an afternoon drawing or painting with my eldest daughter. It’s like I remember who I am again - an Artist, a Writer, a creative and deep-feeling soul.
I long for my children to grow up not only accepting who they are but celebrating their unique soul self. To enjoy all the pleasure this life has to offer. They can only do that if I first show them how. And, in doing so, I get to soften and discover the true beauty and joy that Motherhood has to offer.
To wrap this all together, I am going to reshare Amy’s words from above…
“I couldn't bear it if they witnessed my never ending journey to ‘fix’ myself and perceived that to be their own goal in life.”
I want my son to see me enjoying life, I want him to enjoy his life and follow the things that bring him joy. I hope he can carry a bit of the freedom and expansiveness of childhood into the rest of his life. I hope I can serve as an example to explore wonder, creativity, and joy.
Thank you Amy for sharing your perspective with us, I enjoyed writing alongside you and reclaiming a little more pleasure in the process.
Write soon,
Emma
A reminder: I am collecting responses for my Motherhood Musings series around pregnancy loss. My intention is to share our experiences and help us feel less alone. The form below will be open until June 15th.
Welcome to Being in Motherhood, I’m a writer, artist, and mother constantly redefining myself. I write about being human while navigating motherhood, neurodivergence and living a full creative life. I believe reflection and compassion can change the world, the way we see things, and how we be here.
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so amazing and a worthy topic to talk about!
just reading through was so validating for me to see the hard work I've already done to reintroduce joy and play into my life. I am patting myself on the back now!