Tantra: Edited Post

*I have since broken from the appropriation and irresponsible, willfully uninformed and outright abusive world of Neo-Tantra, specifically Eugene Hedlund and his school Tribal Tantra. The healing I received at the time still remains true. So does the indoctrinated looking away of power dynamics, gaslighting and and wanting to believe we were all receiving healing when many in the space were also receiving a double-down on their trauma. My complicity in this is not okay. For those who have had "Tantra" sessions with me, know that if you experienced healing, this was the beauty of your body's wisdom and our co-Devotion to the Divine at the same time. I had the skills of presence, listening, and unconditional acceptance (with a dose of tough love) before my training in Neo-Tantra. I was a teacher of breathwork and focus of attention before my training in Neo-Tantra. And these skills were enhanced by my most recent trauma-informed Sexological Bodywork certification with The Sea School of Embodiment. I hope that you do not take any spiritual opening and body acceptance you received with me and apply it to finding a teacher, training or festival in the Neo-Tantra world. There is ancient Tantra to study, and there are also more current, culturally appropriate and inclusive sacred sexual and somatic modalities to choose from. All have their blind spots and areas they need to get better on. I have not encountered any thus far who are so arrogantly unapologetic as the teachers and schools in the western Neo-Tantra world. If you have questions, concerns, or plans of action you would like to scheme on, please reach out under my Going Deeper tab.

There is a storehouse of creative juicy energy within you. That you don’t actually have to DO anything about. It is in the opening, the allowing, the surrender of receiving.

For years I got caught up in the mindset of productivity and efficiency. Even when it came to the spiritual path that I chose five years ago. I used meditation and yoga to get better, to chase greater feeling and release. I was still operating from the assumption that I was not enough and required fixing.

It is the great self-help racket where we say we are working on self-love but we are coming from a place of self-hatred. So we pour money and resources and time into gurus and healers but the healing does not come. The shame blocks deep in our root keep us from enjoying the pleasures that come from targeting transcendence. Because we have not been taught to access this healing within ourselves. And even when we are taught, we cannot believe it until we truly experience it in our own body temples.

The Tantric Arts can get a bad name in these holy circles and definitely in the larger society. They are seen as woowoo or animalistic. People who are obsessed with their genitals and only know how to express sexual energy through growling orgies and weird candlelit ceremonies. I have heard from many folks that they are not ready for such a dive, that they need to feel more secure in themselves and keep practicing connected partner intimacy before delving into the unknown.

I am not going to counter that, if it feels intuitively authentic to you. But what I have found for me, is that Tantra is what has made connected partner intimacy possible in the first place. Because it has directly connected me to me. My desire, my pain, my pleasure, my ever-shifting experience.

What was insanely terrifying before I tried it, turned out to be immensely freeing. I found my voice. I released shame and guilt around my body and my desire. I developed a new relationship with my parents and the practices they chose to raise me with. From this, I developed a new relationship with my body and my inherent right to claim pleasure. To name it. To not expect anyone else to fulfill it. To own the power of want and meeting my own needs.

I had one Tantric counseling session and had such an explosion of healing that I downloaded instantly this is what I want to bring to the world. The confidence and embodied power I feel now allows me to be open to purpose AND gives me the strength and knowing that I can make it happen. I want every being to feel this. To open to their sacred divine purpose by opening to their sacred sexuality. I believe we can heal the divine masculine and divine feminine by healing it within ourselves. I believe we can do this NOW. I believe it does not have to be hard or worrisome. All we have to do is set down our barriers to healing temporarily, take that first step of faith and say YES to the possibility that our healing can be simple, self-directed, supported and easeful.