Admin - Intimate Relationships

I Want You to Kiss me

The power of owning our desires…

I said to Graeme the other day “I want you to kiss me” and the lack of response I was anticipating (I got the kiss just not any joy, or passion for that matter…) made me wonder if I should look further into what was happening.

The easy response was to get pissed off and go into all sorts of story about why Graeme’s response didn’t meet my expectations. This is what I did and I got into the following mind games as a result:

Mind games:

Making myself wrong: I’m not sexy/attractive enough, he doesn’t desire/love me anymore (victim)
Making him wrong: He’s just a ….for not giving me what I want, he’s just closed down (perpetrator)
Understanding his potential perspective: Maybe he’s just having a bad day (rescuer)
Letting go of personal judgement: the timing wasn’t right (higher self)

Looking a little further I replayed the experience not just in my mind but I also felt it in my body.

What I first noticed was:

I looked for something to make the hurt better.

Because I didn’t want to feel the rejection in his lack of response I went into my head and made some judgments (negative of course!) instead to distract me, and provide some self righteousness to prop up my ego.

This all took only moments and happened so fast I didn’t realise it until I went back later.

Then more became clear:

– I’d had the initial thought “I want Graeme to kiss me” but I now noticed it was not strongly linked to any physical desire ie. I couldn’t feel it.
– I noticed that in asking for the kiss my attention was focussed outside of myself on Graeme and whether I would get it or not. This meant that his lack of response felt more painful to me because I was disconnected from myself.
– I noticed the underlying expectations I’d had of his response, leaving me open to disappointment if I got anything less.
– Expecting something specific from Graeme in the fantasy in my head potentially left him feeling manipulated by my trying to drag something specific out of him.

Looking for a more enjoyable experience next time I tried a different approach:

– I first identified the desire for the kiss and took a moment to feel it fully in my body.
– Staying connected with the feeling and so connected with my body and myself I approached Graeme with words of ownership rather than request. (self creator)
– I said to him, whilst enjoying the feeling, that I would like to kiss him. For that is where my felt desire was leading me: from wanting to get something to wanting to express it from within me. (self creator)
– I felt wonderfully alive and powerful in doing so and Graeme’s response was very different.
– He looked me right in the eyes, felt my desire, smiled coyly in a way that seemed like it was through his whole body
– And he kissed me with real enthusiasm. (co creator)
It was a great kiss!
– And Graeme didn’t mind being told he was desired either 🙂

And the interesting thing was:

I was enjoying feeling my desire so much that whether I was kissed or not became a bonus rather than a requirement!

Of course on another day I may have made the same request for a kiss and have it met readily and with enthusiasm (especially if I was fully connected with my desire for it) yet I am glad I had the opportunity to learn and share with you how powerfully fully feeling and owning our desires puts us in a power position.

Make an exploration of your own request versus desire and see what you discover for yourself.

Maintaining Your Sense of Self

Uncategorized

A vital relationship key

Me and You (and a dog named Boo)…

How much togetherness is just the right amount?

Managing our conflicting needs and desires for both connection and independence is without doubt a challenging area of relationship.

Yet with the right understanding and skills, the ‘me and you’ in relationship can also offer us some of its greatest joys.

Connection & Self in relationship don’t need to be mutually exclusive.

Instead they can be a dance of deepening connection between the two.

It seems obvious, but it’s easy to lose sight of.

When we first get together our focus is on the romantic ideal of increasing closeness, there’s no such thing a too much, all the way to the happy ever after of never needing to be alone again.

Our desire to merge with another is an innately powerful and primal drive for physical, emotional and even spiritual wellbeing.

Initially we can be happy to give up everything for the sake of our relationship.

We drop friends, and other commitments and interests because it seems like the relationship offers us everything we need.

Over time this singular focus on closeness begins to feel like boredom or claustrophobia.

We start to resent what we’re giving up, or the intimacy we experience no longer feels like it is ‘enough’.

Our unsatisfying ‘aloneness’ becomes unsatisfying, and even painful.

Resentment and Frustration can be a healthy sign.

If any of this is happening for you, it’s not that anything is necessarily wrong with your relationship.

It’s simply that your individual sense of Self is seeking to re assert itself and this is a healthy sign.

Maintaining our authentic sense of Self, often the first thing we give up in the romantic stage of relationship, is a vital key to keeping ourselves flourishing and the sexual flame burning for the long run.

The games people play

When you understand and take ownership of this intimacy dance, relationship becomes easier and richer, you can dive deeply into intimacy yet you’re less hooked into your partner. In the dance of intimacy we subtly change our behaviours in order to get our partner’s attention, approval, or our own needs met.

We do this by doing too much, being nice instead of real, making promises we can’t keep in order to get laid or ‘keeping busy’ to avoid uncomfortable intimacy.

It’s normal and we all do it in one way or another, it’s just not sustainable over the long run.

What are some of the ways that you are behaving currently that might be at the expense of your authentic self?

Layer 1: Our own needs and desires

Initially we can get away with these behaviours as they help us get our immediate needs for love and approval met.

But over time our forgotten Self begins to push back.

This is a challenging time in relationship due to the level of vulnerability it creates.

The real danger at this point doesn’t come from the situation itself.

It comes from not understanding what’s happening and blaming our partners or the relationship for our suffering ie. getting angry when ‘Mummy or Daddy’ isn’t there for us in the way that we want, or they have conflicting desires of their own.

The other thing we do is to look outside of our relationship for our answers ie. focussing on the children for intimacy, having an affair or going online for sex.

The answer is looking within

If we can openly acknowledge what is lacking for us without blame and look inside of ourselves for what we can do from within the relationship, the relationship will flourish.

Asking ourselves – How can I meet my own need or desire here?

How can I be the adult rather than the child? Can I, for example, learn adult to adult intimacy or better sexual relating skills rather than simply looking elsewhere to get my needs met?

Layer 2: Our partners needs and desires

Another aspect of the dance of intimacy is when our partner’s needs and desires challenge or bring fear or resistance in us. Rather than squashing our partner to protect ourselves it is more helpful to see that this challenge actually lies within us, as a marker to something that is incomplete in ourselves asking to be explored. This is where our partner’s needs and desires can be a gift for us.

Layer 3: The deepest layer

There is a part of us that our partner, no matter how loved and loving, can never fill in us and looking for it in them only creates pain for ourselves.

This is the part of us that is calling us to be in our own centre, in our Essence.

This is being the love that lives within us, the place where we can feel like we’re ‘home’, no matter what and where being with our partner feels like a precious desire rather than a need.

Once we get this the dance of intimacy comes with greater ease, the more intimately connected we are with ourselves the more ease we have with each other and ourselves.

Independence and authenticity create desire

Being connected to ourselves is also how we remain sexually desirable to our partners as sexual attraction relies strongly on a sense of otherness and separateness in building the desire to reconnect.

Cultivating our uniqueness (that probably is what attracted them in the first place) we can share with our partner helps keep the juice of relationship flowing.

A pathway of growth

Intimate relationship is the best personal development course we can ever do as it challenges us to look where we otherwise might not as we:

Learn to be ourselves whilst being with another
Learn to answer our own needs and desires rather than totally relying on our partner
See we’re still ok where our partners are different from us
See our differences as growth points
Learn to show up fully in ourselves when challenged without blaming or disappearing
Enjoy moments of being ‘at one’ with each other
Be able to be totally separate yet still feel connected.

The most important thing about this dance is to recognize it is happening and not to make it wrong, seeking to understand it instead.

To see where we create our reality by what we choose.

Oh, and what is the right amount of togetherness? When it is a desire rather than a need.

Relationships are either growing or dying, taking charge in your intimate dance will grow new life.

Building Trust in Your Relationship

Uncategorized

For most of us trust is an important, if not the no.1 issue in our relationships.

Here we discuss different ways to invest in and nurture trust including having fun together!

We have a huge emotional investment in our intimate relationships that makes our potential for vulnerability great and trust is something that cannot be taken for granted.

What actually is trust? Trust is the freedom to be ourselves in the relationship without having to constantly guard ourselves against judgement, manipulation, betrayal, deceit, disloyalty or unfaithfulness.

Where we can relax in the knowledge that our partner’s have our backs and we have theirs, allowing us to let down our walls and open our hearts.

Where we can be vulnerable and be met in that.

A lack of trust in relationship means a high level of insecurity in ourselves and suspicion of the other person creating an acrimonious and destructive atmosphere in the relationship that is doomed to failure if not addressed.

Trust doesn’t just happen, it needs to be nurtured and invested in.

Strategies for building trust in your relationship

Be willing to commit

If one or both people have one foot out the door of a relationship it drains energy from it and prevents you from accessing the power full commitment brings.

‘The moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too.

All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred.’ Sir Edmund Hilary.

Create a strong relationship container

Talk about what is important to each of you in your relationship, your beliefs, values, needs and desires.

Bring them out into the open and let yourselves see each other more clearly. Agree on your core goals.

Be in integrity with yourself and your partner

Say what you mean and mean what you say. Ensure your actions match your words.

Be honest and do so with compassion.

Don’t have secrets, as this prevents you from fully knowing each other and puts covertness into your relationship space. This doesn’t mean you have your tell partner everything about you, just if it comes up don’t withhold.

At this level of investment the risks are high and not following through just doesn’t cut it.

Holding on to yourself

It’s easy for us to get triggered in relationship, in fact it’s normal.

The smart thing to do in it is to practice holding on to yourself. By this we mean taking some deep breaths into your body and not flying off into an unconscious reaction.

See that what your partner has said is about them rather than you (even if they’re using your name!).

Take a moment to connect with your heart and respond from this place of rather than from one of disconnection and you will be surprised at the results.

It’s OK not to be perfect, it’s not OK not to own it

We’re all human and there are going to be times when we can’t or don’t do what we say, or we say things we don’t mean.

The vital thing is to follow up and clean up, owning our behaviour and letting our partner know we’ve seen what is happening so they can relax back into connection with us. This is a powerful way of building trust as it connects us with our humanity.

Be willing to trust

We need to trust first in order to be trusted so be willing to go first, to trust unless you learn reasons not to.

If you do find something you don’t understand that is creating suspicion get it sorted as soon as possible, don’t let it fester and grow horns.

Check out our own blocks to trust

When we carry a lack of trust inside ourselves it can supersede our ability to love.

We can create insecurity and resentment in our partner if we are always questioning their motives or trying to control their behaviour to keep us safe.

Especially if we are addicted to getting our power from pointing out where they’ve f..ked up.

All this does is push our partner away from us and deny ourselves the love we seek.

It’s important to be able to knock our own walls down and be available to trust.

Are you able to trust yourself?

Ultimately trust is about trusting ourselves for the more belief we have in our ability to deal with whatever happens the less control and more openness we’ll have in any given situation. So challenge yourself to build your self reliance skills.

Connect with your heart and body, breathe into yourself and feel what is real for you.
Be willing to self validate rather than look for it from your partner.
Take a risk and show up first, rather than waiting for the other person you can then judge.
Try new things, learn a new hobby, take on a course, change your routine, anything to get yourself out of your comfort zone a little so you can see what you’re capable of.

A word about vulnerability

We usually see vulnerability as a weakness but it isn’t.

All vulnerability means is we have the potential to be hurt, it doesn’t mean the vulnerability is actually hurting us.

It’s actually our fear of and resistance to the vulnerability that creates the hurt. In fact as strange as it may sound if we can willingly embrace the feeling of vulnerability it is very empowering.

Because it takes a high level of connection with ourselves to be able to be consciously vulnerable and open, it actually becomes a place of great strength.

Like any skill it takes practice so find little ways to begin being with this feeling where you know you won’t be compromised (like with a trusted friend) and slowly reduce your fear of it as you build your ability. It can change your life!

For more on vulnerability read Brene Brown’s book Daring Greatly- how the courage to be vulnerable transforms the way we love, love parent and lead.

Have fun together

Couples who play together stay together!

Play isn’t just about having fun it’s also a great trust builder as when you’re playing you’re relaxing and opening doors to part of you that might otherwise stay closed.

Expecially when you give yourselves permission to play as a child might, using your creative imaginations.

We forget how to do this as adults yet it can bring fresh, new energy to your couples connection.

So when you think of play don’t just think of going for dinner, a movie, doing a workout together or trying a new adventure (all good things), instead use your imagination and try eg. having a picnic with your favourite childhood foods, playing hide and seek, body painting, covering each other with oil and having a body slide on a sheet of plastic.

Whatever you do, do it from a place of exploration and let yourselves go!

This is a great heart opener and trust builder- as having childhood fun as an adult can be a bit vulnerable, but so worth it!

If you like the above suggestions you might like to explore them and more in our upcoming Couples Retreat see here

Women And Sex

Uncategorized

Women are not losing interest in bed…

They’re losing interest in the sex they’re having…

There is much said about lack of feminine libido in the world these days. Yet when we we get a bit closer to women and hear what they really have to say it is not sex they’re losing interest in. It’s more that they are losing interest in in the sex they’re having- disconnected, performance based sex. Sex that is not a shared experience. Sex that is not pleasurable, that is even painful. Sex that leaves them feeling like a semen receptacle. Women are as caught in this conditioned way of having sex as men are but are more fed up and wanting something different. Women generally are interested in mutually connecting, equally pleasurable and deeply satisfying, even magical lovemaking. This is the sex they will find the time and motivation for. And why wouldn’t they?

Women are looking for connection

There can be many reasons behind why a woman’s libido has gone out to lunch but here we’re going to focus on the aspect of connection. Women are not losing interest in connection, and will only do so when hell freezes over…

Men want connection too.

Yet don’t we connect through the very act of sex, through two bodies becoming joined into one? Well, yes. But this is only the most basic layer of connection.

There is more…

It’s where we are inside of us that takes connection to a whole different place. It’s starts with how connected are we to ourselves. If we’re stressed, worn out, living in our heads, not feeling our emotions, living in unused bodies then the sex we’ll have will have a minimum of connection. So how do we get more connected? Say YES to this part of yourself. Your body listens to what your mind says and the more you say YES to it the more it will say YES to you! (The opposite is also true and you don’t want that!). Recognise that you are a sexual being and take ownership of it.

Make the time to put some physical exercise into your life, awaken your body through brisk walking, taking the stairs, playing sport, bike riding, yoga, gardening anything to get your blood pumping, your muscles working and your energy moving. And remember to stretch afterwards to keep your body supple and give the energy room to move. Practice breathing. Yes, we know you’ll be doing it anyway, but why not optimise it by regularly taking deep, full breaths into your belly, expand up into your chest and then just let go (preferably exhaling out through your mouth)! Ah, it feels SO good. Breathing optimises your body’s energy levels so make the most of it anywhere, anytime! You’ll be so glad you did. Put your attention inside your body and experience what you’re feeling inside you. You know what the biggest resistance people have to feeling their feelings? They don’t like what they find! If you can let go of any negative judgements about what you’re feeling and just feel, breathing into your feelings (whatever they are) turns them into energy for living and loving. Do something sensual with your body. Put on your favourite sensual songs and move to them, feel their chords moving through and uplifting you. Or stroke your body all over in a way that feels good to you (yes, even guys benefit from this), including your breasts and your butt (guys too). Moisturise your body with oil or lotion. Anoint yourself with your

favourite essence. Slowly eat something raw and bursting with vitality like a juicy peach or a fresh salad. Appreciate something visually beautiful, whatever grabs your attention. Find something to be grateful for and feel it opening your heart. Do something sexy. Wear something that has a sensual feel, looks good or moves with you. Show a bit of cleavage, bare shoulders or legs. Go without knickers. Flirt with your partner, have some fun with yourself. Don’t focus on your partner’s reaction, focus on having a good time in yourself, this way you can’t lose! Watch a sexy movie. Take it up a notch and self pleasure, taking time to breathe your energy through your body, nurturing and energising you. Lighten up about life…Enjoy all of this for yourself! The more you own your own body and the pleasure it is capable of the more you will experience it. Fill yourself up with how good it feels.

Invite your lover to share you. Let them feel your wanting. There is nothing more desirable than feeling desired (when the desire is clear and not manipulative). Get together and drop into the here and now moment. Just look at each other and take a few breaths, feeling your own bodies. As we always say, sex is better when you relax at the beginning rather than just at the end. Don’t react from those tired old sexual habits you’ve been using, instead just wait to see what inspires you right now and go from there. The more you live in each moment the more the next step will arise. And the more authentic and juicy it will be! When you feel sexual desire, breathe it up through your body to your heart, either along your spine or straight up through your centre. Or take it right up to your Third Eye. Where your mind goes your energy will follow.

Feel it energising, nurturing, opening and expanding you. Be open to magic happening. Not all sexual pleasure is about orgasm. We can also experience other felt senses such as feeling at one with our lover or the universe; feeling the sky, the sea or all of nature inside our bodies; sensing that you’re somehow standing at the beginning of time itself; seeing the earth appear inside your lover’s eyes. If you open to your potential by being fully in your body you’ll activate your intuitive mind where all sorts of things can happen. Does this feel like sex you would both be interested in? If you would like support putting these suggestions in place or removing blocks to doing so email us or call 1800 TANTRA.

Men and Anxiety

Anxiety, Healthy Masculine, Healthy Sexual Masculinity, Men

Sitting in front of us is a man who is hurting and he doesn’t know why.

All he knows is that he’s hurting.

He is feeling stressed, maybe depressed, or bewildered, controlled or burdened by life. What he longs for is freedom from his pain.

He seeks this freedom in sex but finds it is leaving him less and less satisfied.

He also longs for some kind of connection with another human being to help him feel human again, loved and desired instead of isolated and alone. He believes that sex should give him this but these desires too, are going largely unsatisfied.

It’s getting harder for him to propose sex as his fear of rejection, of his pathway to the things he longs for, is annihilating.

His erections frighteningly are becoming less reliable.

He covers his pain with store of bitter throw away lines, off colour jokes, bravado and silence.

What is happening here is a man victimized by his conditioning, unable to find a way out.

We let him know that his way out is becoming more sexual, not less.

He looks at us with bewilderment on his face.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is canstockphoto258333.jpg

“Isn’t my focus on too much sex the thing that is getting me in trouble in the first place?”

We say again that the way out for him is a gaining greater love for himself and his sexuality.

Not to just go through the motions of what he’s been taught sex is.

But to find true freedom in it, all the way through, rather than just at the end.

And that doing so will bring him more of the pleasure and feelings of connection that he longs for. Feelings that will not disappear with the end of his erection.

He says that the sex he’s having now is pretty good, he could just learn to perform a bit better.

We ask him if his sex is truly satisfying, if it leaves him him sated for hours, if not days, and feeling energized rather than spent?

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is canstockphoto10487483.jpg

“Is that really possible?” he says.

We reply “Not only is this possible but it’s not reliant on your ability to perform, give your partner an orgasm or even have an erection”.

We ask him too, if the sex he’s having now touches his heart?

Or does it rely on some form of control or shame- an edginess or dirtiness for it to work for him?

Or is he free to flow from the edges of intense passion to exquisite tenderness and back again?

Deeply fulfilling sex is mandatory for a man to live a truly satisfying, happy and healthy life.

Despite what he might have been told, this doesn’t have to look a particular way, it’s more about where the man is being inside of it. His sex can be hot, passionate, naughty, edgy and more, the difference is his heart is open and his sex is not controlled by power games or shame.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is canstockphoto18647834.jpg

This world is suffering from the majority of men being shamed about and disconnected from their true sexual nature. Their conditioning leads them to seek tension and release, needing to perform and finding freedom in their ejaculation rather than in the act of sex itself. Not to mention causing them to miss out on the infinite pleasure and love they are capable of. This leads to sex with a partner soon becoming a thing of the past.

The deeper, more expansive his sex the more life, love, true power, freedom and happiness he will feel in himself and bring to his world.

When his heart connected sex closes down man clings to what he knows and fears change.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is shutterstock_38917588.jpg

When he is closed off, emotionally unavailable and shamed he cannot express his fears, share his true desires or respect his partners boundaries. The messages he receives about how he ‘should be’ in sex come from other men equally in the dark, from women who want him to be something that he is not or from today’s overwhelmingly negative sex culture. Messages about how wrong he is shame and disrespect his sense of self and leave him less able to respect his own, and his partner’s desires and boundaries.

Patriarchy, civilized and politically correct society shame him for wanting the rawness of sex and lock him into performing, denying him the freedom of really feeling, enjoying and opening into it. Easy access to the powerful medium of porn, whether it’s online or in the ads he sees on his way home from work manipulate him into believing porn sex is the only form of sex there is. Porn hijacks man’s wild side and steeps it in shame, leaving him desiring sex that is disconnected from who he really is, despite appearing to serve it.

Crying man being told I don't love you anymore

Even today man has been raised to have a tough exterior shell against the world, to be sexual from this shell and go for what he ‘thinks’ he wants. To take, or to give at the expense of himself, rather than to express who he truly is. His conditioning leaves him unconscious in his power over woman in sex, not seeing her willingness to override herself and fake sex in her need to please him. Or it leaves him unable to fully meet her genuine sexual desire because of his own place of shame in the #MeToo age.

He will not tell the truth of his experience because it is unsafe for him to do so.

Even if a man has a clue that there is something more to be had in sex the pervading anti sex, porn sex and the derision of toxic masculine culture will shame his voice before it gets a chance to be expressed.

Man needs permission to unleash his full masculine energy and access his wild warrior heart to allow his spirit to soar and his soul to be free.

As well as allowing him to receive love and holding giving him to access his tender heart as a man, rather than grasping at it as an unformed boy.

Only at this level can he truly trust and love himself enough to be fully seen.

This is a man worth being with for a lifetime.

We have seen this over and over again in the men we have worked with over the years. This is how to make a beginning…

As a Man it is time to change your sexual goals to give you more of what you want

Rather than following your instinctive nature to pursue, catch and bask in the achievement of woman instead pursue your understanding of your own sexual nature. Pursue its ultimate pleasure, power, freedom and yes, even love. Not love of the romantic kind but mysterious love that lies beyond words, that is about you as much as your partner, that is about the very essence of life itself.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is DSC_8261-4-e1537410085193.jpg

Learn to enjoy sex in full bodied relaxation and unlimited pleasure. Know that your whole body can become as pleasurable as your cock if you breathe and relax. Be free to play in the moment, opening yourself to the potential of meaningful, real time connection. Connect your cock to your heart and find your masculine divinity through your sexuality rather than learning to make love like a woman. Discover your open your masculine heart, for the softer you become in your masculine heart the harder you become where it counts.

Supporting Man to move beyond his conditioning

Rather than criticize his performance and drive him further into shame, insensitivity and numbness ask him what he is truly longing for in sex (this is going to lie outside of his shame and his conditioned responses and will take time for him to access it).

Let him know you desire to meet him there.

Keep asking till he believes you really want to do so.

Support and validate his vulnerability in this place.

Keep asking till he unravels a lifetime of conditioning- of beliefs, habits, body tension and genital numbness.

Touch his genitals and spread your touch out the rest of him, so he can learn to relax and let go, rather than leave this bit of him till last. Encourage him to breathe deeply and go slow.

Explore with him to find what IS possible, that which lives beyond your wildest dreams, because this is where you will BOTH get what you most want.

For support contact us by email here

Our book & Ebook are easily obtainable if you desire to learn more about this part of yourself

Book