The Nervous System's Hidden Role in Pleasure

Your nervous system holds the key to unlocking deeper pleasure and intimacy than you've ever experienced. This profound conversation with energy healing specialist Nat reveals why some people struggle to fully receive pleasure while others seem naturally attuned to sensual experiences.

Safety, Nat explains, forms the foundation for all pleasure. When our nervous system detects even subtle threats—whether from past trauma, current stress, or limiting beliefs—it creates protective barriers that block our capacity for vulnerability and openness. These barriers manifest as physical tension, emotional disconnection, or even disgust reactions that we often misinterpret as simply "not being in the mood." The revolutionary insight here is learning to recognize these signals not as permanent limitations but as information your body provides about what needs healing.

The transformative mindful breathing practice Nat guides us through demonstrates how quickly we can shift from defensive thinking to embodied presence. This simple yet powerful technique interrupts reactive patterns and creates space between thoughts and awareness—precisely what's needed to move from analytical overthinking into sensual presence. Most profoundly, Nat challenges the common assumption that pleasure comes from doing rather than receiving. "Many of us want to give because that is a position of power. To receive is a position of vulnerability. Yet when you can allow yourself to receive, that's where the pleasure is." Are you ready to transform your relationship with pleasure by understanding what your nervous system has been trying to tell you all along?

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Nat and Energy Healing
• 3:00 How Nervous System Impacts Pleasure Experience
• 6:30 Signs Your Body Is Blocking Pleasure
• 10:30 Trauma, Stress and Intimacy Connection
• 15:10 Healing Through Self-Connection and Awareness
• 19:00 Mindful Moment Breathing Exercise
• 22:40 Receiving Pleasure and Integration

Transcript

Speaker 2: 0:19

Thank you so much for having me, avik. It's a pleasure to be here and you have given me the greatest gift that you could give anybody, which is your time and sharing this space with the listeners. So I look forward to this deep dive and, if you're playful, a lot of people call me Nat Nat.

Speaker 1: 0:38

Yeah, that's lovely, that's really lovely, great, and so I'll call you Nat. So Nat is okay, or not? Whatever you feel comfortable with yeah, okay, yeah. So, before we delve deep into this conversation today, I'd quickly love to introduce you to all of our listeners. Dear listeners, nat is an energy healing specialist and the founder of Lift Oneself. Since 2019, he has been transforming lives by offering tools to regulate the nervous systems relieve the emotional pain and turn anxiety into empowerment.

Speaker 1: 1:20

So her trauma-informed approach helps individuals embrace their fullest potential through the small and actionable steps towards growth and transformation. So today we are diving into the fascinating topic of pleasure and the nervous system. So we will explore how the nervous system influences our ability to receive and experience the pleasure, the connection between trauma, stress, intimacy, and tools for regulating the nervous system to create deeper and more fulfilling sensual and emotional experiences. So I'll not take much of your time, listeners. So get ready for an engaging and power-proving conversation with one and only nat.

Speaker 2: 2:13

So welcome to the show again thank you so much, and thank you for such a beautiful introduction lovely, lovely, so so nat, like I mean, your work with the nervous system is truly transformative.

Speaker 1: 2:26

I mean from there, like if you can explain, like how the nervous system influences our ability to receive and experience the pleasure essential CP.

Speaker 2: 2:46

It's what intakes all of the information, all of your experiences. Even when you're sleeping, it's on alert, trying to make sure that everything is safe. That's why you know all of a sudden there might be noise and you get startled and you wake up, or you could be in a deep sleep and you know you're getting dreams and all that. So it's controlling a lot of what you're experiencing and therefore, as it's controlling and protecting when it feels there's a threat and it's unsafe, then it has a significant impact on how your body opens up and closes up to things okay, okay.

Speaker 1: 3:24

So, like, um, I mean, if you can tell us, like, what are some of the common signs that our nervous system might be blocking us from fully experiencing the pleasure?

Speaker 2: 3:37

uh, you can feel rigidity, you can feel nervousness, you can feel almost like irritation or feeling of disgust, feeling not being attracted to somebody, feeling turned off, and if you're not curious to inquire internally what that is, then it can happen. A lot of interactions with people, because the possibility is you've never been able to advocate for yourself and let somebody know what they are doing is causing you to feel uncomfortable and unsafe. So what your default is is just to push them away and not be kind of quote, unquote, confrontation, the conflict that's going on. And so it's really understanding. Safety is always needed to have the extreme pleasure with arousal of the body. So a lot of times you know, to get to that safety you have to come out of your head. To get to that safety you have to come out of your head, and a lot of us are in our head analyzing every little thing, wanting to be perfect, wanting to do the game plan. We don't even know how to allow curiosity to unfold.

Speaker 2: 4:56

We also have a lot of BS, and when I say BS I mean belief systems of how we should show up, especially with our sexuality. We may have been indoctrinated that it's only a certain way and anything outside of that parameter is taboo, is evil, is dirty. So then, pleasure only has a little parameter. Yet your body would like to explore other things. The belief system is telling you no, you're not allowed to because of this and that and that and this that you've been taught. So the nervous system will go with the belief system. Because you haven't challenged that belief system, you haven't learned to disintegrate that belief system and walk through that belief system so that our belief systems are what really program the nervous system. So it's being able to face ourselves and recognize. Wait, I have a belief system that is blocking me things that possibly I would like to explore exactly, that's just so.

Speaker 1: 6:00

It's really incredible, like how our nervous system impacts our daily experiences. I mean, I think, like many, uh many of us, many listeners will find it eye-opening to kind of learn and uh about this subtle but yet uh powerful influences. So thanks for sharing this. And so in your experience, like, what is the connection between trauma, stress and the body's response to the intimacy?

Speaker 2: 6:31

Well, trauma, if you've experienced traumatic events, trauma is separation from self, and so when you're separated from self, you're going on the outside of yourself to grasp for safety and security, and therefore that's why you know people become turbulent or where they hear midlife crisis or these different burnout. It's because eventually, you come to recognize you're going in the wrong direction. You've always supposed to have been gone internally, yet because of the experience of pain, not being able to feel your authentic emotions, you always go on the outside to be able to cope. You don't know how to feel within your body, you haven't learned how to create that safety within yourself and you, you know, being connected back into self could feel unsafe because when you were in self, you were harmed could be psychologically, physically, spiritually, emotionally and so to go back in there feels viscerally uncomfortable in your body because there's a signal that if I go here, pain is going to happen again, where and there's truth to it Like life there's going to be pain in life, no matter what.

Speaker 2: 7:54

Yet what happens is that when you were a child, you didn't have the power that an adult can do. You were still dependent on your caregivers. Autonomy you have the responsibility of being accountable and being able to advocate for yourself. So that's what the dynamic of you know coming back into self and re you know, configuring your perception and what that safety feels like in your body and being able to face the pain, being able to verbalize and say I feel afraid and not feel a weakness, actually empower to recognize. Oh. This is a healthy signal that's coming on because of the context of what's happened in my life. Yet I have to remind myself what happened before isn't happening now. So what is it that may be possibly signaling this that I can look at it and walk through it?

Speaker 1: 8:58

yeah, you got it. Yes, so okay, I mean, if you can share, like, how can individuals begin to heal these connections, to improve their intimate relationships?

Speaker 2: 9:15

Well, healing is always inside, you know so. Therefore, it requires you to have some discipline. To kind of quote unquote confront yourself. To quote unquote be a mad scientist about yourself. Learn about your triggers. Learn about your triggers especially. Be a mad scientist about yourself. Learn about your triggers. Learn about your triggers Especially. You know we're talking about pleasure here.

Speaker 2: 9:38

So some listeners have had sexual trauma and they've never really been able to explore what those real emotions felt like. They went into protective emotions and they've just stayed there. Emotions felt like they went into protective emotions and they've just stayed there. They weren't allowed to really feel the vulnerability, the sensitivity, the fear that went on in their body. So it's been charged and stuck inside their body.

Speaker 2: 10:05

A lot of people realize, you know, I tell my clients anger is a healthy emotion. It's befriend anger. It's a protective emotion. It's protecting your vulnerability, it's protecting your sensitivity. It's signaling that something feels unsafe, something feels not right. So if you're always defaulting to anger all the time, it's probably that you don't even know how to feel your hurt. You don't even know how to feel the helplessness. You don't even know how to feel vulnerable because it doesn't feel safe. So it's being able to explore those things and being transparent with yourself and when you can find safety with another person sometimes it can't be with your partner right away because they don't have the capacity to listen and and processing and that you can go through the whole wave and nobody changes it and you come out of it. You see that, oh, I don't have to reject myself because somebody on the outside didn't reject me or tell me I should feel or something different than what I was experiencing in the moment. And once you start doing that, at first it's very messy, it's very uncomfortable, it's very disorientating.

Speaker 2: 11:39

The thing about emotions is you're not supposed to make meaning of it, and the mind always wants to make meaning of things. Emotions are just simply to be expressed. When I say to be expressed, it does not mean taking action, it does not mean active with it. It means witnessing and feeling it in your body. If you need to release the energy of it, then I suggest to my clients to yell in a pillow, go to a smash room, break some things in a safe container, do some dancing in high intensity, find ways to release that energetic charge.

Speaker 2: 12:20

A lot of people think that, oh well, I'm feeling this. So the thought is, oh, this person didn't harm, so I'm going to go harm them. And it's like, no, that is not what release is. That is the action and that's projecting and offloading, because you don't have the capacity to feel the intensity in your body and we're all going to make mistakes.

Speaker 2: 12:43

You know, this isn't about school and getting a perfect mark. This is about, you know, having compassion, radical honesty with yourself, radical kindness, radical compassion, so that you are engaged with. When I do see myself a mistake, I don't disconnect from myself. I hold the space of accountability. I look at context, not just the action, what I did. I look at the context of what fueled it. Yes, other people don't want to listen to it anymore because they've heard it many a times. Yet it's for you to engage of. Why am I still defaulting to this pattern and this habit? What have I not really felt yet for myself in those authentic emotions?

Speaker 2: 13:31

And once you can do that, you have a better relationship of communicating with your partner. What pleasure needs is communication, and many of us want mind reading. Just figure me out. You should know better. You should know what my sensory touches are. You should know what turns on. You should know and it's like well, you're the one living in your body.

Speaker 2: 13:53

You have to be a guide and direct somebody of what feels good to you, what is sensual to you, what are your pleasure points, and also articulate when you aren't in the mood and you don't want to be aroused, and you don't want to be aroused because that could be a very big turnoff for somebody. And then they'll be passive, aggressive with you and they don't even know that you didn't want that because you didn't articulate it properly. So it's not just a one size fits all. It takes dedication to want to be transparent and honest with yourself. It takes to want to be able to communicate and reveal your vulnerability, reveal your sensitivity, reveal what opens you up, and a lot of people are afraid of that. They, you know intimacy is not just sexual. Intimacy is much more profound. It's being intimate with yourself and being raw and open with yourself so that when you open yourself up to somebody else, the harm that you perceive that they can do is that, even whatever they do, you won't separate from yourself, exactly connected with yourself exactly, very truly said so.

Speaker 1: 15:10

Um, what are some of the effective tools for regulating the nervous system to create a kind of deep and more fulfilling sensual and emotional experiences?

Speaker 2: 15:23

Would you be willing to do a mindful moment with me? It'll be like a minute and a half two minutes so I can share what this can do for the listeners and for yourself, possibly, and what I do times a day. Yeah, okay, for the listeners, I'm going to ask Avik and myself to close our eyes at a certain point Yet if you're driving, please don't. Yet the other prompts you're able to do so, as it helps you to get comfortable in your seating and you're going to begin breathing in and out through your nose and if it's safe, so I'm going to ask you to close your eyes and you're going to bring your awareness to watching your breath go in and out through your nose. You're not going to try and control your breath, you're just going to be aware of the rhythm, allowing it to guide you into your body. There may be some feelings and sensations coming up, and that's okay. Let them come up. You're safe to control. Release the need to resist and just be, be with your breath, drop deeper into your body.

Speaker 2: 16:44

Now, by now, you may have noticed that you've gone into thoughts or experience popped up, and that's okay. Gently bring your awareness back to your breath, beginning again, creating space between the awareness and the thoughts and dropping deeper into the body while staying with the breath. You may have noticed now that the rhythm has changed a bit. The sensations have moved around in your body Again. Thoughts may have popped up, and that's okay. Gently, bring your awareness back to your breath, creating even more space between the thoughts and your awareness and dropping deeper into your body and your awareness. And dropping deeper into your body, staying with your breath and allowing yourself to just be. Continue, just being with the breath, not controlling anything, not rejecting anything, allowing there just to be a space of being now, at your own time and at your own pace. You're going to gently open your eyes while staying with your breath.

Speaker 2: 18:22

So this is what I call a mindful moment, uh, where, you know, for many, if they do Vipassana meditation, they'll understand when your breath it also because of the tone of my voice. It helps to regulate the nervous system so that when the intensity in the mind the mind doesn't like staying focused with the breath and in the presence it wants to analyze and make meaning of things Yet the more and more that you can take these little moments. I call them, you know, as I said, mindful moments. Yet if you could do this every hour or whenever you feel an activation coming on, that you can do a check-in internally of what really is being felt and what's going on, so that you can take charge and reshift it, because once we're activated, it hijacks our behavior and we go patterns and habit without even recognizing it. We're very unconscious of this. Yet by grounding ourself in the breath, which is always in the present moment, that allows us to interrupt some of the patterns and be curious of what is going on internally.

Speaker 2: 19:36

What are these emotions that are trying to surface that I haven't allowed myself to feel, because most of us think our feelings. We don't actually feel our feelings or we have secondary emotions. We don't even know what our authentic emotions feel like. And emotions are energy, they're information, they're data. Therefore, if you're not able to feel it, you're not able to hear the information that's trying to come up, and a lot of times, when you start doing your deep, raw healing, you'll come to those wounds. They'll present themselves so that you can see a definition and narration that you've created about yourself. What was experienced that you weren't able to have verbiage for at the moment it kind of feels like a gnawing itch that you can't get to. Yet once you start feeling those emotions, they come up and they let you see exactly what you have been feeling, or what narration and belief systems that have been created because of these experiences, and then there becomes a lightness in your body, there comes an opening that it's like I can allow myself to receive.

Speaker 2: 20:49

A lot of people don't realize with pleasure it's to receive. Many of us want to give because that is a position of power. To receive is a position of vulnerability. Yet when you can allow yourself to receive, that's where the pleasure is also, and it's a given with couples, it's giving and receiving. Yet I bet you a lot of couples will say, well, I have to be the dominant one, I always have to be the one giving the pleasure. Yet I would ask well, why is that? Why can you not receive pleasure? Why can you not be supportive if there's safety in that relationship?

Speaker 1: 21:33

Exactly. Wow, it's really really amazing how something as simple as breathing can have such a profound impact on our ability to experience the pleasure and connection. That's really awesome. Yeah and uh. Like, the nervous system is often seen as the complex and somewhat mysterious part of our body. Do you think that there are any misconceptions about it that we should address?

Speaker 2: 22:05

I think the misconception is that people think there's something wrong with them and that they're not enough and that they have to get rid of something about themselves. In actuality, it's to integrate and be whole Certain parts of your personality that might cause harm or making mistakes or going into certain experiences that cause pain. It's to allow curiosity to ask well, why am I feeling this and why am I going into these kind of patterns? It's about integration. There's, you know, like, say, if, for instance, you've harmed somebody in your life and you just want to forget that part of yourself and you just want to get rid of it, why One?

Speaker 2: 23:01

There's judgment in society. Society is not forgivable, Even though everybody talks about forgiveness. There's so much judgment that once you make a mistake, that's stuck on you for life. The thing is that it's a part of you and if you don't integrate it in, you will possibly recreate that same mistake again. When you integrate, you learn the lesson and you feel the accountability of this is not the way that I want to show up, Because it feels so uncomfortable to feel that judgment, to feel what I have caused another human being, what that look like now. Yet if you, you won't know what that feeling is and your self-awareness won't expand outside of yourself to see another individual. So it's about integration and maturing that part exactly very, very true.

Speaker 1: 24:00

Yeah, I mean, clearing up misconception is very, very important. So I mean it actually helps us approach to our health and well-being with more clarity and confidence. So thank you so much for sharing this and so not like. Thank you, ian, for sharing your profound insights and experiences with us today, and definitely your work with the nervous system and its impact on pleasure is truly inspiring, and I'm sure that our listeners have gained valuable knowledge on like how to better understand and harness the power of their nervous system. So, for everyone who is listening, remember that transformation is possible and it actually starts with becoming aware of patterns that drives us. So take that first step towards regulating your nervous system and enhancing your ability to experience the pleasure. And if you have enjoyed today's episode, do not forget to subscribe, leave a review and share it with your friends and family. And, with this, stay tuned for more episodes of Pleasure Principles, where we continue to explore the fascinating aspects of human behavior and psychology. So, with this, until next time, keep seeking the pleasure and embracing growth. So thank you so much.