Creating Magic

07 Oct Creating Magic

You know it’s you (right?) who is responsible for creating the magic in your relationship – not your partner, Tinkerbelle, or the goddess of love. The good news is that there are so many ways to up the magic quotient and increase the likelihood of living happily ever after. Here are some tantric suggestions:

• First of all, choose a partner you can trust. Whether you’ve been together for years or have recently met, you’ll need to share deep trust with your partner in order to create magic. If there are conversations you need to have to reestablish trust, schedule them now. If this seems daunting, hire a competent marriage and family therapist to help.

• Clear your relationship. Anything still nagging you from the past with your partner, whether it was this morning or months ago, will keep the magic from happening. It will also show up in the bedroom. These are conversations that need to be had, and keep being had so that your relationship stays clear from unspoken resentment and unhappiness. (This is covered in detail in my book Tantric Relating.)

• Cultivate an attitude of gratitude and devotion to your partner. Become thankful that this partner chooses to be with you, and express it frequently. Choose to focus on your partner’s divinity rather than, like most people, their flaws.

• Make plenty of time. A relationship takes time: time to hang out, time to plan, time to make love. Many people today need to prioritize their relationship and schedule time together and make dates.

• Make a sacred space. The bedroom is a good place to start as this is where you make love. Do you have beautiful linens that feel good to your skin? Plump comfy pillows? Art on the walls that reflects an environment of beauty and sensuality? Create a magic bedroom devoid of anything other than that which promotes sleep or lovemaking.

• When you touch, focus awareness inside your own body, or where your partner is touching. Notice, as you would while meditating, when your attention is in the past or the future, and gently bring it back to the present moment with your partner. That mindfulness brings gentle magic to being together and to touch.

• Create playlists of music that is intoxicating to make love to. It is usually recommended to use music without words, or words in a foreign language so that we are not distracted. For tantric sex we prefer calming, meditative music so that we are encouraged to stay slow and relaxed. Most conventional “sexy music” encourages tension and release. Experiment and find out what is best for you.

• Be in your body, not your head. Magic is when we drop down into our bodies and leave thinking behind. Mental chatter can easily destroy connecting.

• Drop the idea of “foreplay.” In tantra we give up the idea that how we pleasure ourselves before intercourse is somehow less important. We find all actions of lovemaking equally pleasurable and sacred, and we may not even do these things“be-fore.” We don’t feel the need to follow the conventional formula for sex.

• Enjoy protracted pleasuring. Increase your ability to enjoy giving and receiving touch for its own sake, and not as an avenue for getting somewhere else (orgasm). This ability is a muscle that can be gotten into shape, and the practice is more fun than the gym.

• Go with whatever arises. Learn to relax and be with what is, rather than what conventional sex has told you you ought to be doing.

• Tell you partner when they look hot, or do a kind thing, or turn you on. Tell them frequently. Look for excuses to praise them. I’ve never heard of anyone saying, “Please! Stop telling me good things about myself!”

• “My only intention is to be fully present.” Rather than being goal-oriented to sometime in the future, or trying to make something happen, tantra suggests we only intend to be fully present in the now.

• Eye Gazing. When you look deeply into another person’s eyes, it is impossible not to fall in love with them. Perhaps this is why we are afraid to do it. When I was in India at the tantra ashram, we did exercises where we looked into each other’s eyes for twenty minutes, and we all couldn’t stop crying – we fell in love with everyone in the room no matter what we looked like or who we were. This is perhaps a clue for how to create more magic and love in our partnerships and in the world.

© 2022 Catherine Auman

This is an excerpt from Catherine Auman’s book, Tantric Mating: Using Tantric Secrets to Create a Relationship Full of Sex, Love and Romance. Tantric Mating is a companion to her previous book Tantric Dating: Bringing Love and Awareness to the Dating Process named by BookAuthority as one of the Best Dating Books of All Time.

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