Dear gettingHealthy:

“Physical pleasure actually reduces my physical symptoms by reducing inflammation in the intestines and throughout the body“- it may be that it is not that physical pleasure reduces your inflammation, but that pleasurable physical sensations distract you from the uncomfortable physical sensations of inflammation by removing your focus from physical discomfort=> physical pleasure. If you learn to distract yourself in non-sexual ways (through a mindfulness practice), you may experience more breaks from discomfort through the day.

“I have never been a life coach but find it easy to help people psychologically and emotionally online… Buddhist laypeople and communities time and again have reduced my suffering more than any therapist or psychiatrist managed to do. I simply question my ability to renounce sexuality and psychoactive substances. If it were not for these to hindrances, which are effectively equal for me, I would have only mild difficulty acting as a monk“- maybe you can become an online life coach who helps others, and yourself, using some (not all) of the Buddhist principles.

anita