26 Jan Tantric Relating: Introduction
Talk, talk … no talking … talk … talk … what happened? With all the conversations going on, it seems like we must be relating – aren’t we? Our results — with more than half of all relationships calling it quits, with nations and tribes at war, and with simple civility toward our fellow humans taking a nosedive — perhaps the way we are relating to each other is contributing to a crisis in communication rather than making things better.
In my personal life, relating had always been one of my major challenges. I often felt that I was talking too much or too little, feeling that I needed to hide who I was or what my hopes and dreams were, being too bold or too shy. This confusion showed up in my romantic life as secrets, crying, broken trust, and in the end, the death of the coupledom. I kept reading self-help books and online articles, but rapport with my would-be partners kept spiraling downward.
I tried being a positive, upbeat person, not sharing things that my partner might not like. I experimented with mind-reading and subterfuge. I attempted to keep my opinions and my unhappiness to myself, or sharing it only with my therapist and girlfriends. The fights and blowups continued.
As a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist working with individuals and couples, I noticed that conventional suggestions for improving communication didn’t help much. Active listening, still prescribed by therapists and coaches, has been scientifically proven not to work (cited in Gottman, see Notes). Scheduling special times to talk, practicing positivity, writing down criticisms — when we remember to do these actions they might help, but when we forget things get worse, and they’re hard to remember in the heat of things. These conventional techniques, while well-intended, do not stop the bleeding.
It was the tantric perspective that changed everything for me, as it was in dating and mating. In tantra, everything is perfect in this moment, so what is true in the present is welcome, even if it’s hard. As tantra had taught me to change myself and raise my frequency, that would now be required in my relating. The soulmate relationship I longed for would be worth every bit of effort expended.
I didn’t understand the extent to which conventional ideas about relating were having a negative effect on relationships until I met and started becoming serious about my Perfect Beloved, now husband, Greg Lawrence. Greg had experienced the devastation of conventional relating in his previous relationships, and he was craving something different this time. Together, we pieced out what we wanted for our partnership, and it has been working so well that we can honestly say that we carry no resentments, and that our relationship is light years better than we ever imagined for ourselves.
I don’t think it’s on anyone’s relationship goals list to sit and stew in silence, or to experience those excruciating conversational log jams. We all want someone with whom we can talk freely and have our ideas and enthusiasms warmly received. We want to live in an atmosphere of total trust and safety, and to luxuriate in a frequency with no logjams. And what about the world of nonverbal communication? In tantra we are all about the body, so that must be addressed as well.
This book, Tantric Relating is about how you can communicate both verbally and non- to keep the love fires burning, to find and keep the sex, love and romance of your dreams. In Tantric Dating, the secrets of why you haven’t found love and how to find it were explained. Tantric Mating illuminates how to be in partnership and create your perfect soulmate relationship. In this book, you’ll learn how to make agreements about truth sharing, how to know when an issue is resolved, how and why to clear all resentments, how to praise, thank and flirt, and why “When in doubt, touch.”
The teachings in this book can change all your relationships, not just the one with your Beloved. Yes, you can use these principles to create the love affair of your dreams. After that, please join us in applying them widely to help the world itself blossom into a more loving place.
© 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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