What Can Tantra Offer you?
To begin, what is tantra?
Tantra is an ancient art that originated in India over 5000 years ago and after disappearing, resurfaced in Thailand and branched into many different forms. Tantra is a spiritual path. It is a way of life, based on consciousness and expansion. It focuses on presence and breath, the awareness of connection between all things, living with an open heart and using breath for greater consciousness and connection with ourselves and others and to move energy up and through the body temple.
One tantra teacher, Daniel Odier, writes that we are desired by all things, that the leaves of the trees desire us. We are always in the state of making love as the breeze caresses the surface of water and makes dance the blades of grass.
WHAT CAN TANTRA DO FOR YOU?
As we are all people, there is significant overlap between genders. I will focus on non-binary and trans people in a future post. The following focuses on what I have encountered through clients I have worked with.
Women:
Tantric practice can offer the feeling of feeling fully sensual and sexual and alive in your body. You can be embodied and live in your heart, having an internal compass so you can know in every moment what serves your highest good, have good discernment and know how to respond with full sensual yes or a compassionate no that will be heard. It is a path that with your intention, encourages self-love, self respect and sovereignty. It can help you to release old patterns and create new ways of being and responding, come from action instead of reaction. Codependency can dissolve through guided support, recognizing attachment patterns and radical self care. Tantra helps people truly embrace their body's desire is an opportunity to sex and heart integration, exploring your edge, inquiring into what turns you on from a woman centered place. A woman's rhythm and erotic response is uniquely different than that of a man's, it's worth exploring our turn-ons. If there is sexual numbness, you can come back to sensation. At the base of this there is self-love, knowing what you want and don't, communication and realization.
The tools needed to create change are brought into action as when new things are practiced, they became true knowledge instead of an idea. How do we know what we want and how do we ask for it? How do we change a relationship dynamic when there is resistance from the partner? How do we nurture our delicious, sensual self and give ourselves that space to nurture our womb, our beasts, our vulvas? There are practices that are easy and fun, and help us to activate our sexual energy, feel supported, refreshed and rejuvenated.
Men:
There is an exciting new masculine that is coming about in the new generations. Men are coming together to heal from the messages taught and the ways they were raised to be men. Old ways are being released, such as the creation of shame and inability to express feelings, emotions and vulnerability, the use of aggression and power-over instead of personal power. Tantric practices open the heart space and make it safe to feel the power of desire. The practices guide how to be with women; how to hold presence and be authentic as you feel attraction and want to ignite a mutual flame. You’ll know how to work with polarity and help women to feel safe.
Tantra holds the ancient secrets to help men harness, manage and enjoy their sexual energy in a conscious way. Many have learned about sexuality through porn and negative role models, and often feel pressure to perform. Tantric breath and practices teach you how to circulate your energy, use it to create more magnetism and generate more attraction (I have seen this with my clients that practice regularly; they are blown away). Through regular practice, the staying power (ability to hold a hard cock) lasts longer and he can control it (unless there is a history of erectile dysfunction). Some men take the practices of tantric masters such as Man Tac Chia to the full degree and learn how to separate ejaculation from orgasm, allowing them to have multi-orgasm and full bodied orgasms (I have witnessed up to 8 orgasms in following succession in multiple occasions) and don't get tired. The men that accomplish this have NO desire to go back.
Often the power of tantric sessions is not through the tantric practice but through having a safe space in the presence of a nurturing and caring feminine with the power to see beyond the surface. In this space, clarity is reached and implemented, wounds are identified and melt, and relationships where money or sex is exchanged for love, or rejection is a common pattern, can change. I’ve seen it and it’s been humbling and inspiring.
Couples:
Tantric exercises are very powerful when partners do them together. The exercises can offer you the ability to meet beyond the body and into the heart and soul. You can learn to balance your polarity to create more passion, vision each other as the sacred masculine and divine feminine. You can show devotion through being seen and acknowledged and raise each other's consciousness. Through awareness of where and how you have held back or shielded your hearts, you can open into the embrace of the lover and be seen and held.
You become teachers for each other. After the honeymoon phase, the shadow aspects and projections and triggers come up. This is the juicy stuff from where to grow together. You can learn to identify and communicate your triggers so the other can recognize what is happening and not react with their own. The lover is like a mirror, showing you all the places where there's room to grow. This may sound like psychology, but trust me when I say that growing together and moving through stuff is very, very sexy. It is what creates the bond between you and makes passion soar.