What she said came from a rehearsed circular thinking in her head. She did not allow herself time to feel. She told me she hated herself and especially her body. She grew up with a self-righteous alcoholic father and a Catholic mother who did NOT allow herself or her children to feel feelings, especially those of pleasure.

She complained that she had a dark secret: she was 49 years old and she had never had an orgasm! All her friends were telling her of their great lovemaking, ending in earthshaking orgasms. . . Whether they were telling her the truth or not, she believed them and guessed there was something wrong with her.

Talking to Jane did not seem the best approach, because her rigid belief that there was something wrong with her would just filter out my words. I had to try something more direct.

I could see that Jane was breathing high, shallow breaths, lifting her upper chest while her lower chest remained immobile ,and her belly pulled in tightly as though she had to save her back from the strain of lifting a heavy weight. She was in a state of high stress. Although her muscles were quite tight, giving the illusion of strength, she was pale, and lacking inner strength.

So I empathized and created a safe space for Jane to feel her feelings. I started her off with the Ocean Breath, a breathing technique I have developed over the past 40 years. The Ocen Breath is a gentle, powerful breath that takes people out of their minds and into their bodies in a very short space of time. Although the Ocean Breath is easy to learn, the resistance to it can be great. One of the skills of a relationship or intimacy coach is to create a safe space where one can feel supported in discovering emotional truths we are hiding from ourselves.

Jane’s first fear was that she might be swept away by her emotions, and then succumb to some terrible, life threatening attack from outside. We looked at it together with kindness without buying into it, and the fear started to diminish enough for her to achieve a relaxed state she had never felt before.

After I encouraged her to do the Ocean Breath for a while, her body started to soften. Her cheeks became rosy and the constant movement in her eyes slowed down. She was afraid of falling asleep when she reached a peaceful place. Wanting to fall asleep is another defense, so I invited her to continue the Ocean Breath. Then another fear emerged, the fear of liking pleasure so much she would stop working and then . . . starve! A series of fears came up, including that she would be punished or even raped if she allowed herself to be playful.

We calmly addressed those fears one at the time. After a while she finally surrendered to enjoying the feeling of pleasure in her body and a sense of acceptance that she never felt before. By the end of the session, she had transformed her urgency to have an orgasm into a calm confident acceptance that having orgasms is natural when we allow ourselves to just feel and be present to those feelings, riding on the waves of the breath.

She called me after a week of practicing the Ocean Breath for 20 minutes a day, and told me that she had experienced a great orgasm with her boyfriend.

By the way, the Ocean Breath works for men as well. By focusing you in your body, it helps you relax your mind and escape the relentless self-criticism we all struggle with. This helps you to overcome premature ejaculation, to relax enough to feel more pleasure and have greater orgasms (including full-body orgasms), and take the women to her greatest pleasure!

I understand the trauma that you experience when you lose your house. You have identified with being a homeowner, and when you lose your house, you feel like you lose part of yourself. You are suffering from a shocking loss that few seem to understand. There is little understanding from other people around you who are not in the same situation. Not only that, but perhaps after the first expression of compassion, people have a tendency to blame you for having taken up a mortgage you ‘should have known’ you could not afford. You ‘should’ have asked for wise advice, and not listened to the ruthless agents and brokers who are obviously only interested in pocketing their commission. Even when it is not spoken aloud, you can sense these judgments, and you may feel worse.

The truth is that real estate agents, mortgage brokers and banks have all contributed to this painful situation. Some of them lost money, too, but some of them have profited by collecting big commissions. Yes, you could analyze who is to blame, but it might be more useful to realize that life is not fair and learn the lesson.

Owning a house myself ,I know your house becomes an extension of our body, like a shell that is painful to detach from. After your health, and your loved ones, your home is the most primal relationship you have. It represents your sense of safety, your dreams and your roots. Losing a home is one of the most underestimated losses you can suffer. When you lose your home, the rug is literally pulled out from under you, and you feel unsafe and disoriented.
You feel devastated. And you start blaming yourself for not having made a better choice. There is shame and guilt complicating the painful financial loss. You might feel a sense of betrayal by bankers and mortgage brokers who made it so easy for you to extend yourself beyond your capability.

How can you as a loving couple help each other through this crisis instead of attacking each other? It is natural when we are hurt to want to lash out with statements like: ‘I told you I had a bad feeling about that agent. You did not listen to me. You are so stubborn…’ Do you recognize this and do you know where that might lead you? You know it will probably lead to added grief and separation. You might end up losing you home and your relationship.

It is natural for you to feel anguish, anger, and the whole gamut of feelings that kind of take turn controlling your psyche. But you are not alone – you have your wife or husband to share with you. You understand the anguish that your partner feels. A couple who loves each other can take this as an opportunity to re-kindle the passion and connection with each other. Both of you can be there for each other to fill the void that losing your home has left you with.

According to Elisabeth Kuebler Ross, Author of ‘On Grief and Grieving’, when there is a loss you go through stages of recovery. It is useful to keep in mind that we humans also go through these stages when we lose part of our identity, not just when we lose a loved one. Supporting each other while you are going through the stages of grief now will definitely deepen your relationship.

The first stage is usually disbelief: ‘this cannot happen to me…it can’t be possible… Then you go through different phases of anger: blaming yourself and/or someone else for what happened. After having lost a lot of energy with either repressing or acting out anger, you usually go into a depression: ‘I don’t care any more…everything I do turns out bad…’ And finally, if you have allowed yourself to feel all your feelings and you get the support from the people around you, you reach acceptance of what is.

In a couple, a loving woman and man support the other to feel feelings thoroughly, and without judgement. Whoever is stronger in the moment keeps his or her heart open to listen, while the other partner feels whatever is present to them. The listener listens both with the ears and with the heart, mirroring back complete understanding for the partner’s feelings, whatever they are. Interfering with statements (which can be hidden judgements), such as, ‘it’s not so bad, honey…’ can infuriate the other. When someone is in pain, you want to be a safe space for them to move through what they have to feel until they reach the other side.

You will go through times when one of you feels stronger, then the other, and you might take turns doing the supporting. If you are depressed together, hug each other and feel your connection, perhaps synchronizing your breathing, belly to belly. Some couples who do that tell me that after 10 minutes of this connection, they feel energized and their mind starts finding new ways of looking at the painful situation in a more hopeful way.

Touching is probably the most supportive of all the approaches because it starts the flow of hormones that create bonding happiness in your body. You start feeling that being alive is great in spite of all the challenges. You can see that the present conditions represent just a change in your life that may ultimately contribute more depth in your relationship and more creativity for both of you.

You may be losing your house, but you are not losing each other – you are actually deepening your relationship, and where you will end up living then becomes secondary.

Take a moment to reflect on your parents and your upbringing as a child. Make a list of what your mother and father believed about sex and love.

Now, consider the following list and answer for yourself, did you parents believe and tell you at an appropriate age that:

* sex is a gift from God and it is your right to enjoy it fully;
* sexual energy creates great pleasure and expands love;
* it is important to make love to yourself to find out what you like so you can tell your lover;
* moving sexual energy is healthy for your body, mind and spirit;
* it is your responsibly to achieve orgasms;
* you have the right to ask how you want to be touched and kissed, and where;
* you take turns in giving and receiving pleasure;
* before making love, clear out resentments that might create a bigger disturbance if not addressed;
* making love out of duty creates a rift in your soul;
* looking into each other’s eyes in a soft way increases your openness to give and receive love.

If you answered no to several of these points, or if this list is quite different from your first list of your parents’ beliefs about love and sex, you might consider doing the work of changing those beliefs into your own empowering beliefs.

Perhaps your parents themselves were never exposed to these ideas, and they might have felt shame or guilt about their own sexuality.

In that case, even if they told you all or some of the above, you might have received instead their unconscious message that sex was shameful.

That happens because as a child you live on an emotional level, so you absorb what your parents believe in their guts more than what they tell you with words, even when they believe their words at an intellectual, thinking level.

Now that you are a grown up, it is your right to check in with yourself and see where you are still unconsciously faithful to your parents’ beliefs. This may be challenging emotionally – you took in what they believed because you loved them, and changing those beliefs might feel to you like a betrayal of your love.

You can both love your parents for who they are, without judgement, and also find and own your own beliefs that will empower you to a richer and more pleasurable life.

To bring those beliefs up into the conscious mind –where beliefs can be changed –takes intention, introspection, commitment, and a special breathing which I call “Ocean Breath.”

As you know, unless the foundation of a building is firm, the building may collapse. Make sure that the foundation of your love-building is strong, so you can build it as high as you want in strength and safety.

Blessings,

Carla Tara

However, I want you to know that sometimes orgasms can be quiet and very deep.  At  other times, you know you are not able to have an orgasm at all.  Women sometimes feel that they have to fake an orgasm with high sounds  and fast breathing in order not to disappoint their lovers.  Men who might know about explosive orgasms might measure their own ability as lovers, by a woman’s ability to have explosive orgasms.

What would you do then?  You might ask yourself, “should I fake it or not?”   

Hopefully, you will trust your partner enough to tell him: “Honey, you know what a great lover you are and I think you are realty hot, but tonight I think I’m not able to let go.” or something similar that is true for you.  This will save his “sexual self-esteem” and open up to him in your vulnerability, which is very attractive to men.  Most men in that case would love to cuddle and kiss you until you relax, perhaps into a real orgasm.

When you fake it, you feel a lack of integrity and you may sabotage the relationship. You might have noticed that after you have an orgasm you feel elated and energetic.  But after you fake one you feel depressed and tired.  Sometimes, instead you may want to force an orgasm to end a sexual encounter.  Instead a better choice may be to tell your partner the truth about your feeling of having enough (for now) and offer to give him a great an orgasm using your other talents.

Faking and forcing orgasms is not what you want to do to nurture your relationship. You might even unconsously avoid the next sexual encounter, which can really damage your relationship.

Regrettably, there are also women who actually are too wounded to have orgasm. But that is a topic for another post.

Blessings,
Carla

This is important to remember especially during these financially challenging times that we are currently experiencing. People hold on to their money because they are afraid things will get worse, and things do get worse because everyone is holding on to their money. It is a vicious circle.  Are you asking yourself how you can break this circle?      

Tantra sees that in order for us to receive nourishment from the Earth,we need to open up our root center at the base of our spine: the root chakra. When this chakra is relaxed/open you feel safe. When you are in fear, it contracts and creates a block that disconnects you from the energy that the earth is always ready to share with you. To open yourself back up to the grounding energy, all you need to do is tune in and feel this ever present subtle energy in other energy centers, such as the heart center and feel it expand.

Here’s an easy step: Think of someone you love and open your heart. Notice the emotional space that puts you in. Notice what happens physically, with how you hold your body, tenseness/looseness in your muscles, your breath.

Have you ever tried to breathe more deeply when you are afraid? Do you notice that when you are afraid, you breathe very shallowly and tend to hold your breath more? Have you noticed that when you do that, your fear increases instead of diminishing?

The ever present energy of love can always help you get into the space of experimenting with other energy fields. Consciously breathing more deeply helps you tune into the place where you trust the Earth to support you and provide you with life serving energy. When you stay conscious of this energy, it is powerfully at your disposal for anything you deeply desire. When you are afraid of not being able to survive, the energy does not move and thus creates stagnation.

The kind of breath that will help you break through the fear is easy per se, but usually difficult to implement because of habits of shallow, high breathing which fills up the top of the lungs only. Furthermore, the shallow exhale does not get rid of all the poisons which are kept in the stale air.

When you experiment with breathing to connect with the nourishing energy that is abundantly available you become optimistic and audacious. The flow of creativity changes your experience from victim of what is happening to powerful co-creator. Have you observed that when you are full and happy you have the greatest ideas?

As a Tantra facilitator, I discover that lately people need support with problems with lack of desire, erectile dysfunction and premature ejaculation. Some men who fear loss of erection make themselves ejaculate quickly, before they lose it.

Women complain more often than usual that their husbands do not feel like making love as often as before; or if their men do approach them sexually they do it to release their tensions and end the lovemaking fast without waiting for their woman to fully open and become excited, ready to explode in joy with them.

The good news is that both economic recession and sexual recession are created by the mind that projects problems. This is actually good news because we are faced with the fact that if we create the problem we can also solve it with a different approach.

Tantra teaches a meditative approach to sex and to life that helps you keep steady during stormy times, strengthening faith in your human ability to create a different reality that helps you feel free and fulfilled. There are Tantric breathing techniques and other practices that you can do to relax fully into a peaceful place no matter the circumstances. Have you ever wished you could do it?

If you stay relaxed you can see opportunities no matter what the economic situation is. There are people who became rich during recessions. Those were the people who could see outside the box because they opened up to the infinite possibility of creation that are always available. Tantra teaches methods of relaxing and open up to the immense possibility of pleasure and connection that are always available to us no matter how much money we have. However, you don’t need to study tantra to become conscious of this nourishing inner energy field.

You might have noticed that when fear grips you you hinder the flow of breath to almost non-existent. When you consciously breathe with the intention of opening up the painful block you can actually feel the block opening and energy streaming in. It would serve you to become conscious of your inner energy field and practice tuning in when you are feeling good. You will notice that when you feel good you are in the flow, in the moment, in the NOW.
What scares us is our projection to a bleaker future. Do this tuning in often during the day so you build the experience of re-connected with this energy. Our thinking mind often takes us away from it. Practice can help us shift when we need it.

After having become adept at changing your focus to the now, you have a better chance to do it even when you feel blocked. You can begin to tap into this field at will and become your own healer and a great lover. I’m sure you can see the importance of learning this simple yet power technique. Feeling sexually abundant and financially abundant is key to our fulfillment.

In other words, life together is safe, sexy, powerful, loving, expressive and expanding beyond our bodies.

However, not all relationships have to fulfill all the areas above mentioned. People can form a relationship such as marriage for all sorts of reasons. Some people marry for security, some because of sexual gratification, some because they feel more powerful together than separate, some because they can communicate well together, some for spiritual reasons. Enlightened relationships seem to have the entire gamut of reasons to be together.

During the many years I’ve worked as psychotherapist and Tantric healer, I’ve noticed that any relationship – no matter how it started – can work as long as the couple grows in the same or a compatible direction or are very tolerant of the other being in a completely different space as they are. They love the essence of their partner.

Most of the couples that come to Tantric therapy complain that the partner they chose is no longer fulfilling their needs. Either the sexual expression on which the choice of the marriage was made has become stale or the safety provided by of the marriage contract has become boring and at least one of them is longing for “more” sex and more creativity.

Please don’t take any of this personally. You are not the only one who sometimes feels like men and women are from different planets. Yes, we have fundamentally the same basic needs; however the nature of men and the nature of women have different expressions. I am inviting to use this information to understand each other and grow together.

Women are turned on through romance; they love hearing how much they are wanted and loved. They want to hear men talk about it in detail. They love to read romance novels and devour the romantic parts. If they read romantic books at all, men usually just skip to the “juicy parts.”

Librarians say they have never seen a man pick up a Victorian novel! Men are turned on by visual appearance, color of hair, how an outfit looks, the way a woman moves her head, the way her shoulders are held, the texture of her breast, the smell the woman wears.

Lori and Don came to private coaching sessions with me. Lori complained that Don was only interested in sex. He would come home and grab her breast or her butt and carry her to the bedroom. Don complained that she constantly slaps his hand away and he feels rejected. “She used to like sex when we were going out,” he said exasperated.

Don was stunned and confused. I helped him understand what was happening. I asked him to remember how it was at the beginning of their relationship when she was hot for him. I asked him how many times he used to call her during the week to re-affirm his love to her and to make plans to go out. After some pondering he could see how his calling her and often planning something new kept her heart open. He admitted that her heart seemed to expand into a bigger love that translated into a greater turn on. The component of feeling loved emotionally kept her sexual urge high.

When there is a conflict a woman wants to talk about it until she feels heard. Then she’s willing to hear him out until they reach a mutually satisfying agreement. She can seldom be sexually open until there is a resolution. Then her heart can open and therefore the sexual energy can flow through her body allowing for enthusiastic love making. In contrast, after a fight, a man wants to make up by making love. For him, the connection is reestablished by making love, especially by having great intercourse.

Another difference is that when a man ejaculates he emits a hormone that puts him to sleep. When women have orgasms they emit a hormone that wakes them up and increases their energy for more connection.
However, Tantric men who has learned to control his ejaculation several times before ejaculating can stay awake and enjoy a long afterglow hug a pillow talk with his woman before falling asleep. This is because of the extra charge of energy coming from transmuting the sexual charge into love energy. That charge remains in the body even after releasing the semen.

Still another difference: When women are sad, they can still be in the mood for sex, but when they are angry or tired, they are cut off from their sexual flow. Men, on the other hand, can have intercourse when they are angry and they are often surprised to notice where the tiredness goes when an erection emerges.
And finally, men have their highest level of testosterone in the morning while women have their highest level in the evening. Men are often ready to make love in the morning while women would rather turn over and continue to sleep.

Some men I’ve worked with solved this challenge by taking a catnap in the early evening in order to still feel enough energy to make love before going to bed. However, especially if she had to deal with small children during the day she might be exhausted by the evening, too.

It takes willingness for a couple to work on co-creating a way to take these differences into consideration and still enjoy a glorious and sexually satisfying relationship. If you are ready to take that step, private coaching can teach you how to negotiate between you in a way that strengthens your relationship together, while supporting each of you as individuals in love.