Pleasure an Antidote ...

Pleasure

Before we left Christchurch I went with Tom Matthews to a lecture given by Dr Rob Gordon on the emotional and psychological recovery for people living in Christchurch post EQ ... particularly on the East Side. Dr Gordon is an expert in recovery from trauma re natural disasters and has done a lot of research on how people recover and what to expect in their recovery process. He has been very helpful with his expertise and information ... making sense of what has been a really hard, distressing, painful and stressful situation for most people living in a post EQ city. One of his suggestions is to increase  pleasure ... he said pleasure stores energy ... which many people have very little of in Christchurch and is an antidote to stress and the increase of cortisol levels in the brain.

As I sat listening to him I could not remember the last time I had experienced pleasure ... there have been times when I have hurt physically living in Christchurch. Riding through the streets and seeing buildings coming down ... going through the centre of town ... the centre that is no longer there and seeing the amount of destruction  and empty lots I found overwhelming ... this is my hometown and I would feel a deep upwelling of grief and I would hurt, like a deep ache inside me. I wondered if it would ever end and if I would ever feel pleasure again. Visiting our house that we lost in the EQ I would feel such a deep sense of loss and pain ...

In the last 2 weeks I have felt pleasure ... so much of it. Walking around lake Runnemede in the evening and seeing beavers, turtles, people fishing ... reading a book ... not having to jump out of bed to start my day ... lars and Roxcy ... these are all moments ... some of them not very long, but I feel absolute pleasure. I am seeing things that I have not seen in a long time. I am seeing them through the eyes of pleasure ... and I am grateful.

Lars & Roxcy after our Train Ride.