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The Other Side of The Story...

With the support of my friends and my beloved Teacher, I have taken a deep breath and begun to look at what I am feeling through this process, beyond my frustrations with my love.

When my Teacher offered this 'project' to us, it struck a chord with me because of a couple of things. Throughout the workshop that we were at, I noticed that there were several times when my love wanted to make love with me and I was not feeling open. In these situations, every single time I took him inside of me anyway.

I took him inside of me because I love him, I took him inside of me because I knew I would enjoy myself once I went beyond my resistance, and I took him inside of me because I want more than anything for him to be happy.

One of the times when I had taken him inside of me against the messages of my body, as he was making love to me, he called me on the fact that I was shut down. He got very frustrated with me, pulled out and said that he did not want to make love with me in this way, he wanted all of me to be there when we made love.

The night before my teacher offered this assignment to us, she gave us all a meditation for the evening. The meditation was for the women to spend some time lying on top of their man, covering him with her entire body and just resting and breathing together. She recommended that after this practice we do not make love.

Much to my surprise, I felt in my body a sigh of relief, I would have an opportunity to receive my love, and give to him, and love him, and absorb his loving in a new way. I would have a chance to 'catch up with myself' where usually (I was beginning to realize) the lovemaking would often be two steps ahead of what I was truly ready to receive.

Several months before this workshop, I was noticing that more often than not, when I would make love with my beloved, I would shut down the moment before I would take him inside of me. This would manifest by my vagina getting dry (even if I was turned on moments before)...usually I would choose to take him inside of me anyway and the moment he would be in my body, I would open up, my vagina would get wet, and I could receive him fully.

Being the Tantrika that I am, I made a mental note that I wanted to begin to look at why my body was reacting in this way and how I could get more present to myself and my beloved. What was happening for me in these moments and how could I move through this and bring even more opening and receptivity to our relationship and to our lovemaking?

I love my man. I want more than anything to get to a place where I can receive him...I want to bring him ALL of my loving in every moment of our relating.

By ignoring the messages my body has been giving me and moving ahead with the lovemaking when I am not ready, I have been denying myself and denying him. I am only able to bring part of myself to the lovemaking...

It is because of his love that I am waking up to the truth about who I am sexually...making me more of a lover when I am tuned in.

This process is coming from a place of wanting to meet him fully and receive him all the way. In many ways it is an answer to the man who said to me 'I don't want to be inside of you when you are shut down like this'.

He is demanding all of me, I am attempting to discover who I am so I can meet him there.

~Charu

** Many of you are getting excited about joining in the conversation about the year off from genital sex. If you have something to say to me please post it as a comment on the blog rather than emailing me or calling. This opens the conversation to the community. Thank you. **

Also...if you are reading this blog and you are in the Los Angeles area you can join in our Tuesday Tantra class! Embody Tantra regularly hosts events open to everyone who is curious about how Tantra can support them in their lives www.embodytantra.com for more information.

Recent Challenges...

The most challenging thing that I have experienced on my journey of taking a hiatus from genital sex with my beloved is that I often feel like I am relating to two different men.

One man, is dictated by his past. When something is triggered in him, he reverts back to behaviors that have served him well in protecting him when he was a child, but are no longer helpful.

When I first got together with my love I wrote him an email telling him that I would kill him. At the time I knew that it was true, but I was not entirely sure what it meant. Now I am learning that what I meant was that being in relationship with me would bring to the surface his past and his ideas about the future and I would slay them.

Once dead, these habits would make way for another man. This is the man I fell in love with. A man who moves from his heart, connected to his body, in service of truth. A man who is not held prisoner from the pleasure of the present moment by the pain of his past or his future desires.

I believe that every woman sees this in the man she falls in love with, the absolute essence that is at the heart of man. I also believe that when woman trusts herself and her love, she will naturally demand to see this part of her man and when she does not she will feel hurt, sad, frustrated and seriously pissed off.

That is what I have often felt throughout this process. Through my own confusion, I can see quite clearly that this process is bringing to the surface all of the sides of both of us that are limiting us and it is making way for true love to live through us. I know this because I see the past and the future spilling out of my love when he is triggered and feeling trapped by the situation.

I also know this because when he surrenders to the moment, and shows up with his heart to meet me, we are experiencing rare depths and our relationship is deepening in ways I could not have imagined.

After experiencing such depths, it feels insulting to me when he speaks of how this process of abstaining from genital sex is some kind of 'shut-down' or elaborate trap. Because I have seen the side of him that knows this is not true.

I have read enough self-help books to know that what I see in him is merely a reflection of what I am going through. I acknowledge and embrace that. In this blog I am attempting to share, uncensored, what my perspective has been.

One of the reasons that I have chosen to write about his struggle and our struggle together as we navigate this assignment, is because I read him the blog I wanted to post and he thought it was too 'airy fairy' and avoiding the truth of the absolute war that we are experiencing within.

He was right.

This process is not easy.

This process is Tantra.

It may be the first time that Tantra has truly shaken us to the core and is literally requiring that we face our patterns and move beyond them.

I am not interested in denying my love anything, what I am interested in is discovering what might happen if for even just one moment we stopped trading needs and actually related from love.

I have surrendered my life to this inner knowing that there is more. It is tempting to stop asking difficult questions now that I am in the relationship of my dreams, but life is supporting me as I keep going. This is me putting my money where my mouth is. This is Tantra.

....and I have no idea what will happen next.

~Charu

For more information about me and my perspective on Tantra check out www.embodytantra.com and join our mailing list to receive a FREE weekly newsletter with Tantric Tips and updates on upcoming live events with me!

The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth....

How often do you lie?

Not only to the people in your life, but to yourself?

What do you think would happen if you didn't?

In our society it has become customary to lie on a daily basis...worse than that, we also run around telling our children not to...which just makes for a very confusing world of untruths and half-truths that we cling onto to survive within our reality.

The major side effect of not telling the truth is that we never have to be intimate with anyone. Yup.

For example, last night I made dinner for my love. I worked hard to make sure everything was perfect...he sat down to eat and then got up to grab a fork from the drawer...I got totally upset and closed down (I know this sounds a little crazy). To me, him getting up to get the fork was equal to him saying, 'you didn't set the table' it translated to me that I had fucked up and done something wrong. Of course, to him he was being helpful. (I just love how the simplest moments can offer us so much wisdom about our behavior).

So, the opportunity for intimacy comes when I say to him, 'by you getting up and grabbing the fork for yourself I feel like you are saying that I did something wrong'. I have exposed myself. I showed him who I really was in that moment; silly, insecure, overly-sensitive and HUMAN. He then had the opportunity to have a voice in the situation, take a step closer to me and say, 'That was not my intention at all, I was trying to be helpful'. Now, we are in relationship. I was honest with myself, with him and we met in an intimate space.

The scenario could have easily gone a different way. I could have kept my feelings to myself. Or not even admitted to myself that I had silly feelings like that over something so small. I probably would not even feel like I was lying, this falls under the category of a very sneaky kind of lie, an omission. I would have been less available to him for the entire dinner and in some small way, we have grown apart. I have denied him the opportunity to know me in this moment and he does not have a chance of really getting close to me.

Tantric Tip: Sure signs that you are guilty of an omission: your body tightens, you feel extra saliva in your mouth, you can't figure out what to say, you feel a tightness in your belly, etc.
**The body is amazing because it is actually trying to support you in being honest, especially with the person it is hardest to do it with...YOU. The body does it's best to get your attention and let you know something is out of balance.**

This is just one example of a simple way it can play out in relationship. Lies and omissions seep into every part of our life. The next time you find yourself complaining to a friend about someone in your life...I dare you to go directly to the source and share exactly what you are feeling with the person you are feeling it about. Whether it is that you want to kiss them or kill them and why. Do your best to take responsibility for your experience...it is highly likely that even if something very much looks like it is their fault, it isn't.

It might sound scary or even impossible to say what you mean when you feel it in every moment of your life. You may even think that you are holding back because you want to spare the feelings of those around you, but that is just bullshit. You are holding back because you are deathly afraid of being intimate. Intimate with yourself and intimate with those around you. Because after all, what in the world would you do if you had nothing left to complain about? You might just have to allow yourself to be happy...and we have not been programmed for that.

The Celibate Tantrika?

Tantra never ceases to amaze me. I am just returning from a retreat called Beyond Bliss with my beloved teacher Dawn Cartwright.

The workshop was amazing and much to my surprise, in the final moments of sharing, my teacher shared a strong intuition...due to my beloved and I being so in love, so committed to a lifetime together, and so identified with who we are sexually, she suggested that the next step for us to go deeper... was to take a year away from genital sex.

The craziest thing is that as she said it, although I did feel the world crumbling beneath my feet, I also had a sense that she was right. Somehow she had simply spoken what my body was trying to tell me. I would never have drawn the conclusion myself because my identification with being a sexual being is simply too strong for me to consider such a thing.

The journey since June 1st, my 29th birthday, when she offered this exercise, through to now has been a whirlwind.

In these few days I have seen all sides of myself and my beloved. I have exposed the sides of myself that are terrified that taking time away from sex will inevitably push my love away. The sides that secretly think he only loves me for my pussy. The sides that swore never to be the kind of woman who 'withholds sex'. The sides that just want to please my beautiful man above all else. The sides of myself that have considered settling for where we are because it is sooooo amazing and honestly, it is the deepest connection I have ever seen in relationship.

It has also reminded me of the side of myself that committed to truth and love above all things. The side that trusts in Tantra, trusts in myself, trusts in him ...that knows we have unknowingly chosen this together.

It has been too emotional to decide if we are ready to commit to the year, so for the time being we have committed to abstain and have a conversation in 10 days once we have moved through the initial layers of shock and emotion and decide what feels true for us ultimately.

Four days in and I am already so much closer to myself, so much closer to him, and so much deeper in partnership it is amazing. That is the thing about Tantra, it is different for everyone...some will come to me for guidance and I will suggest that they make love all the time, even when they are not 'in the mood'... that is what will lead them deeper, for me it just may be a loving partnership with loads of chemistry, but no sex (for now) that shows me more of what is available between two human beings.

I can see and feel him loving me in new ways, I feel his love and desire for me when he walks in the door and I let it seep into my body. I lay naked on top of him and absorb our connection, I trust that it has pathways I have not yet discovered and I do not try to manipulate it. I feel lost sometimes, without my 'bag of tricks' to satisfy my man... instead of throwing my vagina at him I trust that my loving is touching him in all that we share.

I still have so many questions and fears. I am reaching for support from my community and I feel their love and caring. I am scared that he will leave me, or search out sex somewhere else. Scared we will grow apart or forget how to relate to one another. Scared that our sexual energy will die down or become dormant from lack of use...

...but a part of me knows that none of that is true. When I am deeply honest with myself, a part of me has been calling for something more. Often after our lovemaking in the last several months...I have said to my love, 'I know there is more...more of me, more love to share....and I am going to find out how to share it with you'. I am scared to admit that I know inside of myself, that this strange suggestion is the very thing that will open the door to true love. A love beyond the beyond, a love and connection that so few people ever get close to... I am on the edge of this discovery, the only thing left to do is jump.

For more information about Embody Tantra click to our site www.embodytantra.com

Sleeping with Monsters

Facing the uncomfortable feelings...

How much energy do we spend running away from our pain? Most of us tamp it down into dark corners of our bodies and lock many inner-doors to avoid feeling it, this creates tension and makes it less and less likely for us to experience pleasure. When we begin to open up to the love that is available to us in life it starts to shine through and it awakens the body and blasts open these doors that we have locked shut.

My favorite example of this is once in the beginning of my relationship, my love said he would take me to the movies....by the time he got home from work and changed his clothes and came to pick me up it was too late for a movie...we would have to go out to dinner instead. I was DEVASTATED! (This is one way that you can know a present life situation is awakening a past pain...the response is enormous in comparison to the event. This is a good thing). Rather than tamping it down again or throwing it back onto those around you to move away from the discomfort in your own body, you have an opportunity to bring awareness to it, allow it to 'live itself out' and make more space for aliveness, love and flow in your body once and for all. As far as I am concerned this is the only true way to transform...allowing these monsters to live fully until they tire themselves out and make way for more love.

In fact, the more love you are experiencing in your life...the more monsters you will potentially unleash. It is the love that shines and flows through the body...busting open those locked-down places that are holding experiences that we did not know how to cope with when they first showed up in our lives. Now, with love and awareness, we can allow them to live, look them in the face, not run from them and be freed forever. Here is the thing though, in my experience, this process is never-ending. Meaning that once you begin to face your monsters, and open up those locked down doors as you make way for more and more love to flow through your body, your life becomes an ongoing adventure of unraveling the 'stuckness' inside of yourself and facing monster after monster that has been getting in the way of you living your life in freedom and love.

As my own journey has evolved, contrary to what I had pictured, rather than look the monster in the eyes and become enlightened forever, I actually have found myself living a life side-by-side with my monsters. Watching them change form, become angels and devils and everything in between and generally experiencing gratitude when they show their strange and ugly faces... whoopie! Another opportunity to live fully! Another opportunity to experience more and more pleasure in my body! Another layer of what has been holding me back uncovered!

See, and here is the thing...people always want to know how to have more or better orgasms...and this is how it happens. It does not happen by fiddling or pressing or licking. It happens when we are brave enough to get in bed with our monsters, courageous enough to look them in the eyes and through this process we make way for more and more pleasure and love to flow through our bodies. I am orgasmic the moment I feel my Beloved's penis inside of me. I did not learn how to do this from a book, or an overnight fix, or a magical pill or vibrator. I experience pleasure because of the continuing relationship I have with the sensations in my body and my warrior-like quest to face my fears and all that holds me back.

Tantric Orgasms

What is an orgasm exactly?

Most of us have come to believe that an orgasm is that moment after a build up of energy in our genitals when we experience a feeling of 'explosion' or 'release' and usually a drop-off in energy after. Often when we have this kind of orgasm, we create tension in the body and hold our breath in order to 'achieve' it. We are usually referring to a sensation from the past that we would like to experience, and we are dreaming of the future when we will again be filled with that rush of pleasure.....all fine, but what about being here and now?

Any meditator knows that the thought behind any and all forms of meditation, inculding Tantra, is to be totally present to what is happening NOW. The idea is that beyond our thoughts from the past or the future, lies the true bliss that this moment has to offer.

In Tantra, we say that we are actually orgasmic beings. Which means that when we are totally present to this moment, in our body, and we are free from tension and blocks, we are actually in an orgasmic state. WHOOPIE!

Suddenly, this makes meditating sound a lot more interesting...

So, if I am an orgasmic being....then why would I spend my energy trying to 'have an orgasm'? I don't need to. What would happen if when I experienced that feeling of arousal in my genitals instead of tensing my body and thinking of how I want to have an orgasm, what if I relaxed my body and allowed the arousal to show me a new sensation? One that is not based on the past or the future, one that is unfolding right here and now in my body.

The truth is that there is MUCH more pleasure available for us than we have allowed in. The Tantric meditations have been one of the tools that have allowed me to discover the pleasure in my body, but the most powerful discoveries have come from within. The moments when I have dared to relax my body and allow it to take me to the places that I may have been avoiding while I was heading for my precious 'orgasm'.

What my body has shown me is a sensation of aliveness running all through me, arousal encompassing my entire body, a feeling that I can best describe as sitting in the center of the 2-3 second orgasms I had become accustomed to. This pleasure can stretch out forever because it is simply my natural state, rediscovered. I can experience this state throughout my lovemaking, and beyond that I can experience it in everything that I do. Sipping a cup of tea, working at my computer, chatting with a friend. The only thing that is required is that I keep breathing, relax my body, and allow life to surprise me.

For more information about how you can discover this orgasmic state check out one of Embody Tantra's April classes or read more about it in my very favorite book Tantric Orgasm for Women. Even though the book is geared for women, I find it amazingly supportive for men as well. Enjoy!