Hello and welcome to the next installment of the companion newsletter for The Deeper Call podcast. I am grateful for all who have been tuning in. Our last episode with NYT bestselling author and Jungalow founder, Justina Blakeney was a huge it! I am thrilled that it was so well received and shared.
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Now, let’s get to the nourishing conversation I had with author, bodyworker, doula, and Somatic Experiencing© practitioner, Kimberly Ann Johnson.
In this episode we explore the deep wisdom of the body, the power of orienting our attention, and the importance of healing ourselves and supporting each other.
I wanted to have Kimberly on the podcast to share about what it means to be rooted in pleasure and how we can begin to be able to stay there even while feeling pain. In her book, Call of the Wild, she suggests that more ease and pleasure might get us where we want to go rather than be a reward at the destination at the end of a challenge. This perspective is a powerful antidote to our culture that insists we postpone our joy to some future date when we have earned it through hard work.Â
One of the invitations that is woven throughout her work that I have been sitting with is this—
What could you do right now to feel more comfortable?
As I ask that question I feel my shoulder start to drop, my belly release, and my body exhale. There are many ways that I oscillate between contracting and pushing throughout my day, and this invitation to offer myself what is more comfortable in a moment feels like liberation. Orienting myself towards comfort despite all of the programming that tells me I need to stay fixated on what is difficult, challenging, or painful is a gift.Â
How can we create a foundation of feeling good? How can we treat pleasure as something that is part of us, something innate rather than something we have to earn or something that is separate from us?
While I have made it through most big things in my life through discomfort, I am curious about the potential for that to shift.
Maybe pain doesn’t always have to be the price of admission into a new life. Maybe, just maybe, there is more than one pathway to growth.Â
With gratitude,
AshleyÂ
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More from Kimberly—
Thank you so much Ashley for this heartfelt invitation towards ease and pleasure and for illuminating us with the idea that it is innately part of who we are and does not need to be earned...powerful words of wisdom that are so very uplifting in this season of my life, I am truly grateful for the light you share.