The Healing Power of Pleasure

Reviews

“The Healing Power of Pleasure gives you the inside story of how to transform your moment-to-moment experience. To make your body hum, your mind unwind, and your soul smile, read this book!” “Julia Hollenbery guides us to connect more deeply with our natural selves and recognize the abundant joy that always resides there.” “Hollenbery’s recipes for pleasure introduce readers to the Universe of Deliciousness that awaits them just around the corner, within their own bodies. Read and enjoy.” “Julia Hollenbery has taken the journey and now shares it in her own inimitable style. I had a teacher once who told me that learning through pleasure was the highest form of learning. As Julia shares in her own poetic and soul-deep style, she didn’t begin there. She arrived there after a long journey. In The Healing Power of Pleasure, she shares the fruit of her work. As anyone who has taken the journey knows, fruit is the result of years of digging and composting. The more real the journey, the sweeter the medicine. Go on, take a sweet apple from this Tree of Knowledge.” “In this thoughtful exploration of our emotional, logical, creative, and sensual selves, Julia Paulette Hollenbery’s innate gentle wisdom, knowledge, and understanding shines through on every page. A book to keep on your shelf and return to whenever you need more insight and guidance into greater awareness and understanding of the unique delights of the lived experience that are on offer to you.” “The Healing Power of Pleasure is a book of immense scope, a comprehensive and masterful reminder that no matter the complexities of modern life and no matter what life throws at us, the capacity for great joy resides at the centre of our being and can be accessed by all. This is an important book, a celebration of the simple life, as we learn to listen to and honour the deepest wisdom of our souls, rediscover the joys of living sensually, and become one with the magic of the natural world around us. Julia Hollenbery takes us on an important journey that is both personal and universal and deserves to be richly savoured and absorbed.” “What a pleasure to journey through Julia’s profound and healing book. She offers a rich and enjoyable feast of wisdom and practical suggestions. The depth and authenticity of her sharing is both moving and inspiring, and her suggested practices are life changing. To the very end I felt captivated, challenged, and liberated. This is without doubt a must-read book that could change your life and powerfully enhance your capacity to experience pleasure and embodiment in the world.” “I found Julia’s exploration of pleasure and deliciousness so powerful. She looks at our society’s present and past tendency to overlook the realities of life, to get lost in ego and need. As Julia writes, ‘The modern perspective on life is often divisive, emphasizing analysis, cause or effect, compare and contrast.’ She orients the reader to the ‘messiness’ of our life and explores how we can shift our orientation from conditioning and fear to spontaneity and pleasure, to appreciate the ‘mess’ we are in and live life to the fullest. I so appreciated her writing and can highly recommend it!” “This book is a doorway to an inner world, allowing us to enter a new adventure while still very much being fully in the body and in the creative magical mystery of life.” “A helpful handbook toward a new birthing in our hearts, encouraging us to savour the delights to be found within a lifetime in the material world. It also serves as an introduction to discovering the deeper and less visible dimensions of life within the rapidly changing context for our lives today. This is a journey of our time.” “Julia has created a meaningful and moving exploration of joy and pleasure at a time when the world needs the uplift of this wisdom. A courageous and stimulating book.” “Julia’s call to inhabit our bodies fully, to become aware of and attend to the delight inherent in every moment, speaks to the deepest sense of ourselves. She shows us a way of being in the world that is nothing short of revolutionary.” “Very personal, individual, and readable in its fluency, this book is filled with information and ideas gathered from readings, observations, thoughts, experiences, and imagination, richly and wisely put together.” "A text that aims to break deep cultural barriers that hinder authentic passionate and pleasurable living. It focuses on the God within that is interconnected with our human relationship and our relationship with animate and inanimate objects. It is a scream to put an end to demonizing physical and emotional pleasure. The text celebrates the masculine and feminine principles of life as well as the intersection of the sacred and the profane while tapping into some of life’s scientific and intuitive principles for good health." "After diagnosing various features of what the author calls messy modernity and our resulting quality-of-life, she asserts that magic is still possible and that we can rediscover the innate joy of being. The major part of the book is devoted to what she calls seven medicines for modern times: slowing down, embodying, deepening, relating, sensing, empowering, and aliveness - each with corresponding practices. In this way the reader takes a journey into more intentional, aware, mindful and joyful living while listening to and reconnecting with the body. Relationships play a very important role, while pleasure is reframed in a positive fashion that goes beyond our conditioning. The book is a real treasure trove of reflections and practices that can enrich our lives and those close to us in the dance of life." Expand reviews