We live inside stories.

Not only the ones we tell about our own lives, but the ones we absorb every day through films, television, video games, and media. Stories don’t just entertain us. They quietly train us. They teach our bodies what to expect from life, from power, from pleasure, even from safety.

Most modern stories share a single underlying orientation: survive first, feel later.

A partner and I were recently talking about that delicate threshold between love and being in love.

At some point in our dating history, I “caught feelings.” I told him, because I needed the freedom to be in my full expression rather than choking the feelings down.

An older version of me would’ve attached all kinds of meaning to that moment — expectations, stories, next chapters for our relationship that didn’t even exist yet. Being “in love” used to come with a whole rulebook of what it meant and what it required.

I’m watching a Korean cooking competition.

I notice my body responding before my mind really weighs in. Salivation. Focus. That familiar pull that usually comes when I’m about to eat something good.

Except I’m not eating.

The judges are blind tasting. Literally blindfolded. No visual cues. No plating to seduce them.

I recently met someone who landed in my field with that unmistakable feeling of recognition.

The kind that feels ancient, immediate, a little destabilizing for both people.

There was chemistry. Presence. A charge that didn’t need to be manufactured. We spent an evening cuddling together that confirmed what we both already felt. I’ve written about that part elsewhere.

What surprised me more was what came after.

People talk about desire and mindset because they’re trying to understand why their lives feel stuck.

They talk about healing, shadow work, regulation, and devotion as if those are the sanctioned doorways—the respectable tools for transformation. Everyone is reaching for something that will finally open their life.

But almost no one talks about pleasure as the current that actually changes the field—the frequency that rewires reality itself.

There are weeks that feel ordinary. And then there are weeks like this one — where the universe seems to lean in and say, “Now do you see what you’ve become?”

I’ve been sitting with how to write about it, because the last thing I want is to posture. But my life is the embodiment of the work I teach.

If I don’t name the magic when it arrives, I’m doing the work — and you — a disservice.

We were sitting around the table — just me and my two adult children — celebrating a second, small, private Thanksgiving together. Just us and a meal we curated intentionally: a collection of our most beloved dishes from our history as a family.

At some point in the conversation, we started laughing about how we each approach food completely differently.

One son is obsessed with texture — how something crunches, melts, snaps, or dissolves on the tongue.

I want to speak plainly today.
Not as a teacher or guide, but as a woman who has walked through an initiatory fire and is finally ready to tell the truth of it.

In the spring of 2024, my life cracked apart.

My home dissolved.
My central relationship ended.
My health was upside down.
My business pivoted.
My identity unraveled.

And beneath that, I was straddling two worlds that no longer — or perhaps never — could fully hold me:

I have a crush on someone.
The kind of soft, innocent crush that surprises you, not because it’s dramatic or overwhelming, but because it feels like warm light gathering in the chest.

I even approached them about having a cuddle date.
They gently declined.

What’s interesting is not the “no.”
What’s interesting is what didn’t happen inside me.

Most people think they understand pleasure.
They know what it feels like to enjoy a good meal, a warm embrace, a night of lovemaking, a moment of beauty.

But very few people are pleasure literate.

Pleasure is a language.

Your body is constantly speaking in the language of sensation—whispering, humming, pulsing messages about what brings you alive and what shuts you down.

A few weeks ago, I was at one of my favorite local Mexican restaurants—the kind where the bartender knows your name and the air smells like roasted peppers and slow-stewed magic.

I ordered a simple dish, something I hadn’t had before—a bean and cheese dip served in a cast iron skillet. When it arrived, I took a bite and noticed something… unusual. A faint bitterness. A trace of something burnt.

It wasn’t bad, exactly. Just unexpected.
The flavor carried an edge—acidic, smoky, strong.

Let’s be honest—most people are tired of shadow work.
We’ve sat in therapy, journaled our wounds, and faced our inner child again and again.

And yet, somehow, so many still feel stuck in the same loops of not-enoughness, shame, or self-doubt.

It’s as if shadow work has become another identity—one that promises freedom but often delivers perpetual excavation.

At a certain point, healing stops being liberation and starts being maintenance.