Bloom: Issue #101

Welcome to our first edition of Bloom Newsletter. A newsletter to remind you of the importance of finding and feeling more pleasure throughout your day/week/month/life and how important it is for your health and well-being. With the July 4th Holiday upon us, think of this as your personal call to “Independence” from lifelong conditioning that unconsciously taught you that you need to produce in order to have value and that to explore pleasure (which is non-productive) is sinful.

These unconscious conditionings didn’t begin with you or your parents. Puritans played an important role in American history and they lived by a rigid moral code. Beginning in 1630 as many as 20,000 Puritans immigrated to America from England. Puritan ethics included honesty, responsibility, hard work and self control. One of the basic tenets of puritanism is that humans are innately sinful and that good can only be accomplished through hard work and self-discipline. They also believed that God would punish sinful behavior.

This means that the United States was seeded by individuals who believed that creating time for rest, play, and pleasure meant that you were sinning. This conditioning runs deep. So, if you find it difficult or feel uneasy about the idea of adding in more pleasure, you are NOT alone. This bias against pleasure has been deeply soft wired into your being (and this has been passed on for 400 years or more through our ancestors).

And this is why the Bloom Newsletter was created to remind you of the importance of play and pleasure for your well-being and to create a community of women who want to recognize this unconscious conditioning that leads us to burn out, depression, and disease. Each weekly newsletter will offer you ideas or books to read or relevent research on the importance of pleasure and play with an invitation to add in this pleasure/play today.

Because you are busy, each edition will be brief. In fact, this newsletter will most likely morph as the readership grows and we hear from you on topics you would like to be included.  A great book to read about the importance of pleasure from neuroscientist, Nancy Wise, PhD is called “Why Good Sex Matters: Understanding the Neuroscience of pleasure for a smarter, happier, and more purpose-filled life”.

I interviewed Nan on my Permission to Be Enchanting Podcast and we will record a number of episodes. The first episode with Nancy will be released July 28th and will be available wherever you listen to your favorite podcast. It can also be listened to on my website on the podcast page:

What reaction do you have when you think about adding in more pleasure and/or play into your day? Does it create some anxiety or fear? Close your eyes and imagine yourself taking an afternoon or morning off from your usual routine and doing something pleasurable.

Need ideas for this visualization? How about receiving a 2 hour swedish massage? Going to the beach with an umbrella, a blanket, a good book and no cell phone? Watching a matinee and eating a large popcorn? Having your lover feed you chocolate or fruit as you take turns reading erotic poetry to one another? Going with a bestie for a mani/pedi and a latte? As you imagine your pleasurable scenario does your body feel a “tightness” or a happy feeling? Maybe you feel guilty (and now you know why).

Whatever you do feel, I really want to know.  Just hit reply and give me a quick sentence or two on what is your idea of a pleasurable scenario and how did your body react (feeling nothing counts as a feeling). That would make my day!

Until the next newsletter...