The Healing Power of Pleasure

This personal journey of discovery provides a helpful Handbook towards a new birthing in our hearts which will encourage us to savour the delights to be found within a lifetime in the material world which has the benefits of a physical body and a range of experiential senses .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.

I became more alive because of your book … i felt everything you wrote and it changed me completely to become more aware!!
I believed every word, found my reflection in such great book gathering every single idea about this universe ♥️
Thank you, I love you so much ♥️

It was a Brill read. I could not stop myself. Thank you.

This new book by London-based therapist Julia has amazing endorsements already from David Hamilton, July Piatkus and Jamie Catto. It's a journey into the sensuality which always lies just under the surface of our mind-dominated lives. She explores seven different and easily accessible "medicines" which are slowing down, embodying, deepening, relating, pleasure, power and potency. She gives exercises and ideas to help us explore these medicines - we know these things but sometimes we need to be told directly! Julia is a fun and engaging teacher. Ya'acov Darling Khan writes that a wise person told him that learning through pleasure is the highest form of learning and I think he's right. Our capacity for joy is always there waiting, and this is a great book for exploring it.

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.

Hello Julia, I wanted to express my deep gratitude for your book and what you choose to share
I am reading it and it resonate with my soul strongly 🌸🌼✨ thank you

"Impressively well written, exceptionally 'user friendly' in organization and presentation for the non-specialist general reader, "The Healing Power of Pleasure: Seven Medicines for Rediscovering the Innate Joy of Being" is highly recommended."

“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 which is both personal and universal, and deserves to be richly savoured and absorbed."

Very personal, individual and readable in its fluency, Julia's book is filled with information and ideas gathered from readings, observations, thoughts, experiences and imagination, richly and wisely put together.

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.

Too many of us have been brought up with a belief in the value of suffering, struggle and sacrifice now to buy us some future pleasures and rewards. We can distrust pleasure and feel guilty about experiencing it. Julia is inviting us home to the natural joy and pleasure that exist right now at the heart of our being, waiting to be allowed out.

Julia Hollenbery has taken the journey and now she 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.

Julia has created a meaningful and moving exploration of joy and pleasure, at a time when the world needs the upliftment of this wisdom. A courageous and stimulating book.

The Healing Power of Pleasure connects us to Divine Life through the portal of interconnectedness, bringing us into relationship with our bodies and senses, and pointing the way to how we reclaim our darkness as well as our light. It honours life as profoundly relational and shows us how to access the innate sensuality of the place where body and soul meet. This is a glorious celebration of a book, and also an important book for our times - as living through this relational lens naturally gives us respect for Earth, for each other and for the oneness of all life - human and other than human, visible and invisible. It points towards a way of being, which is for both men and women, that includes a deep honouring of the feminine principle, which is the missing element in our culture and has the potential to lead us deeper into the new story we so urgently need.

Julia Hollenbery is a unique voice: her call to inhabit our bodies fully, to become aware of and attend to the delight inherent in every moment, speaks to our deepest sense of ourselves. She shows us a way of being in the world that is nothing short of revolutionary.

I spent many years rushing at a fast pace, fitting everything in, raising a family, working in a corporate environment. I felt I was in constant motion and yet unhappily struggling at the same time. Then I discovered spirituality in the early 90’s and a gorgeous doorway opened to my inner world. After stepping through a whole new Universe opened up and I never looked back. This book is such a doorway, allowing us to enter a new adventure whilst still very much being fully in the body and in the creative magical mystery of life.

This book is a much-needed remedy! I heartily recommend this powerful, lovely, fun, interesting, magical, comprehensive, practical guide to doing intimacy and life well. Enjoy the inspiring real spirituality, interesting grounded science and practical wellbeing exercises for your personal and our planetary happiness. We all need this embodied warm wisdom.

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. Her understanding and articulation of pleasure interconnected to a such a wide range of different themes is deeply impressive. Her suggested practices are life changing. To the very end I felt captivated, challenged and liberated. I will be drawing on this remarkable book in my own Luminary teachings. 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!

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.

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 guides us to connect more deeply with our natural selves and recognise the abundant joy that always resides there.