15 Jun Relating through the Body
Tantra is all about being in the body. Conventional culture is all about living our lives in our heads: thinking, analyzing, judging. Most of us don’t even like our bodies very much. We’ve been taught (relentlessly) by social media and advertising that our bodies are not shaped right, and that we need to aspire to be different. Our bodies may carry memories of past trauma that we’d like to forget. We’ve become more comfortable watching life with our eyes and brains, instead of participating in in the often-messiness of life.
Most of us have no idea that we’re not IN our bodies. It wasn’t until I lived at the tantra ashram that I learned there was another way. I had always assumed I was in my body because I was a dancer, did yoga, and ate healthy, but at the ashram I learned that these were things I was doing TO my body. Not that there’s anything wrong with trying to be healthy and fit, but I had never asked my body if these were methods it wanted or enjoyed. I’d been forcing disciplines on it, some of which in the long run turned out to be unhealthy.
When we relate tantrically, we acknowledge that we live in bodies. Not the perfect, airbrushed online bodies, but living, breathing, conscious bodies. Bodies that don’t always smell good or do what we want them to. When your bodies is enlivened through embodiment exercises and awareness practices, you may become aware that bodies are never not communicating. They are sharing their aliveness, or enthusiasm, or lack of sleep. They communicate their delicious desire, or their fear or blockages. You become willing to learn from their wisdom.
Tantric relating is through the fingertips, the breath, the sounds, the soul as well as the vocal chords. Psychologists say that only 7 percent of communication is verbal. If you live in your heads you miss most of what is being related. What is your body saying? What does a hand on your shoulder mean, or a kiss on the forehead? Arms folded protecting the heart? What do you communicate about respect when you ask for permission before you give you a hug?
Our bodies long for touch. You might even feel touch starved – no shame there, many people, if not most, do. Often reaching out and sharing touch speaks way more than words. When you’re embodied and relate through the physical, are not ashamed of your body, comfortable with expressing physical affection, your vibe will be one of love.
Clear open tantric relating will be enhanced when we clear our shame about our bodies, past abuse, fears about being touched, loved, of intimacy. Fears that we love too much, that the other person will leave us or laugh at us, that our love will not be reciprocated. Then you can touch without shame, fear, embarrassment, worried about sexual skill level, or performance,
If you are in deep relating to your own body, you will be open and excited to communicate with your lover’s body. Bodies by themselves, when cleared of mental chatter and resentments want to make love, and they don’t want to stop. When one person with a healed body meets another person with a healed body, this is one of the elements of why tantric sex is as good as you’ve heard it is.
© 2022 Catherine Auman
This is an excerpt from Catherine Auman’s book, Tantric Relating: Relationship Advice to Find and Keep Sex, Love and Romance. This book is the third title in the Tantric Mastery Series. Check it out!
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