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.

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