Oztantra Blog – Love Sex & Passionate Relationships

Instant Beauty: Get it Here!

October 1, 2016 By admin 2 Comments

How Can You Look and Feel More Beautiful?

By Recognizing More of What Lies within You!

After one of our Power of Yoni Workshops a group of participants headed out to a local restaurant to celebrate 4 days of empowering self love, nurturing and discovering pleasure. It so happened the local race meeting was on the same day and the bistro was full of very glammed up ladies who could easily have won “Lady of the Day”. Surprisingly, it was obvious that however glamorous their exteriors were they couldn’t compare with our gorgeous Goddesses who were spilling over with a glow and a vitality from deep within, making them beautiful both inside AND out!

This difference raises the point, what are we actually doing when we simply focus on (or obsess about) our external appearance? Focussing on our outsides rather than accessing and accepting our beauty that comes from within? A beauty that can only enhance the best outfit and beauty routine whilst giving us confidence to burn? I believe what we’re doing is actually abandoning ourselves, or at least abandoning the little girl inside of us that longs for love and acceptance…no matter what age we are…

Read on for ways to connect with our inner beauty and bring our little girl in out of the cold…

Challenges to Looking Good

When it comes to looking good (and loving and approving of ourselves in the process) I‘ve noticed that we as women come up against 4 main challenges:

Every time we look in the mirror we’re holding our own image up against the ones we carry in our minds, of the impossibly perfect (and unreal) body images displayed in almost every advert we see, magazine we pick up, dress shop we look into and movie we watch.

We face a vast array of publications with articles screaming about how we can “improve” ourselves. Treatments including everything from weight loss programs, breast enhancements to genital reductions. Not to mention enough products to cover ourselves from the hair on our head to the toenails on our feet. All aimed at telling us we’re less than perfect so we will buy, buy,buy!

A lifetime of conditioning telling us how we “should” be, what rules we need to follow and what good girls do and bad girls don’t do in order to be approved of, accepted and loved that doesn’t leave us now matter how old we are, unless we let it go.

And finally there is the shadow in our sisterhood, which receives unending satisfaction from us putting ourselves, or our potential female competition down, and giving us the sympathy vote in return for our “insult-athons” on our bodies.

We Hate Ourselves Too Often

As a result, several surveys report that over 91% of women have regular days of “hating their bodies”. It seems as if when things aren’t going right in our world, if we’re unsatisfied in our relationships or our jobs, if we’re having uncomfortable emotions such as stress, loneliness and boredom we’re more likely to criticize our bodies than deal with what is actually behind our dissatisfaction or negative feelings. So how we perceive we look is based more on how we “feel”, rather than the physical reality of how we “look”. When we perceive ourselves negatively we abandon the little girl inside of us that longs to be loved for who she is…

Have you ever looked into the mirror and judged yourself as looking that supposed worst of all body sins, “really fat”? Only to have something good happen in your life and then catch yourself looking in that very same mirror shortly after thinking you look “pretty fabulous”? Where nothing has changed except your perception?

Even more interestingly, have you noticed how much pleasure you feel when you’re body shaming yourself vs when you’re feeling beautiful and appreciated?

Neuroscience has shown that whatever you focus on shapes your brain. So if you focus on how defective your body looks it actually translates into a numbing down of how it feels. And the opposite is true, if you focus on how wonderful your body is, so it will become!

How to find Instant Beauty:

Make a radical choice to think and do things differently.

You’re as beautiful as you tell yourself you are, so tell yourself you’re beautiful often!
If someone else tells you that you’re beautiful, let it in and say thankyou!
Find one thing to appreciate about what your body can DO each day, taking the focus off just how it looks. Put your full attention on this body part and stroke it for a moment with love, baby!
Notice something you find beautiful about the women around you and tell them. Drop the need to compete and see yourselves simply as a reflection of each other. (You may want to omit the stroking part unless you know each other very well!)
Use beauty products with the mindset of enhancing the beauty that is already there, rather than fixing any problems.
Avoid participating in body shaming conversations, even choose to express something you like about your body instead.
See the abundance of treatments and products as a money making device for those making money from them, not necessarily something that you need.
Dress with the primary aim of expressing and feeling good about yourself rather than trying to fit in with the latest fashion.
Avoid trying to “fix” yourself. Instead, do things for their enjoyment value. Find an exercise that you love and it will be a joy rather than a chore.
See your body as your temple and choose to nurture it by attending to its needs as a good servant would do for its master.
Follow this link and listen to our Self Loving Meditation.
Do 3 pc squeeze and releases (pelvic floor contractions) then take a deep breath, enjoy the feeling. Do this often.
Learn to feel more pleasure and you won’t care how you look because you’ll feel so great! And consequently you’ll look more beautiful as a result of your inner glow…

So if you’re looking for even more ways to get your inner glow on and love yourself from the inside all the way out click here for details of Annette’s upcoming workshop just for women the Power Of Yoni Nov 10-14 2016. Contact her for a chat to see how this workshop might work for you!

Relationship Healing Experience

October 1, 2016 By Annette & Graeme Leave a Comment

This is the story of Mark & Jenny’s relationship healing

Mark & Jenny were a couple who sort of believed they still loved each other.
But their daily reality wasn’t bearing that out.

Read how they moved form disconnection, anger and uncertainty into something new and rewarding.

Their story is one unique version of the many couples who come to us from across Australia and overseas for one of our individually focussed Ultimate Couples Getaways. It’s a story of relationship healing…

This is Mark

Mark was working long hours, successful in his business but paying for it through the stress he carried, stress that lead him to slump down in front of the TV at night, with a ‘leave me alone’ wall emanating from him. Which was better than the nights he had to take his anger out on Jenny by picking a fight with her. He wondered if he might be a bit depressed, but this thought was too hard to deal with so he avoided it. He did worry about his almost non existent libido, but didn’t know what to do about it. Mark felt very much in charge at work but when it came to the bedroom he didn’t have the answers and was scared to look. He dealt with his fear by being angry and keeping Jenny at a distance.

This is Jenny

Jenny was a very loving, passionate woman. She longed for more lovemaking in her relationship but she was scared of Mark’s anger and found it impossible to breach his unavailability. Feeling powerless, she carried a lot of frustration about the lack of passion in her relationship, as well as the lack of intimacy that stemmed from it. So much so that she had a luscious affair a few months ago, that ended when her lover ran away from her emotional intensity. This left Jenny even more angry and now feeling guilty as well. She’d was having therapy that helped her feel more normal and less guilty but left her still burdened with a deeper level of ongoing frustration.

Persistence Pays

Jenny urged Mark to consider coming to counselling with her. He was very resistant to the idea of exposing his vulnerabilities to a complete stranger and kept saying no. Jenny kept looking for an answer. She wanted to feel connected with Mark again and have a real relationship, not just go through the motions and look for real intimacy outside of it. Especially after their youngest son, Trent, left home at the end of the year leaving Mark and Jenny alone in the house.

Eventually Jenny found Oztantra’s Ultimate Couples Getaways and spoke to Annette and Graeme about their approach to relationship counselling. Amazed at even being able to speak to them upfront at no cost, Jenny sensed that here were two people who might have the solution she was desperate for. Otherwise it felt like the end of the road for her in her relationship with Mark. Annette and Graeme got right to the point of where she was at and what she wanted, whilst being relaxed and approachable. Jenny felt hopeful.

Something New

Mark agreed to speak to these guys because he could do it from home with minimal commitment from himself. Somehow, speaking to Annette and Graeme felt more like a conversation than any kind of therapy. Yes, a couple of the ideas they brought up were a bit confronting, but in his gut he knew that there was something in it he could trust.

His gut instinct also told him he could trust these two, especially as they could help him laugh about some of his biggest fears without him even having to mention them.

A Good Start

So Mark and Jenny booked a flight to Byron Bay and spent five days having both a holiday in relaxed and sunny Lennox Head, just 15 minutes south of Byron. They didn’t need a car, everything they wished for was in walking distance from their accommodation, including an abundance of great cafes, succulent fresh fish, daily walks and swims, even a local yoga class.

In a relaxed manner Annette & Graeme met them for a coffee even before the sessions started, just to get further acquainted and comfortable with the process. Mark and Jenny were able to choose the time of their sessions to fit in with their desires, with available follow up at a moment’s notice for no extra cost. It still didn’t feel like therapy.

New Pathways

The next day they had their first session – a total of 3 hrs, that went by very fast. Annette & Graeme were able to present a framework of ideas that showed them they weren’t broken and they weren’t alone. What’s more, they saw that what they’d thought were problems were actually pathways to what they both wanted.

Jenny had her beliefs about her sexuality validated. It wasn’t that she was needy or demanding, more that she was following her body’s intuition about the importance of sex for her as part of her vitality and life force, her very survival. In fact, she had felt like she was dying (or crazy) having to shut it down when sex was unavailable. She learned new ways to nurture her sexuality outside of sex that gave her a new lust for life itself.

Mark learned that whilst his libido might not be what it once was there was a whole new place in sex waiting for him that was as good as, if not better that what had gone before. And a big part of it was about him taking the time to look after himself, to relax and not see sex merely as another job he had to ‘perform’ at when he was exhausted. He found a new way to view sex as revitalizing.

Opening the Floodgates

This helped them begin to feel excited once more about their relationship. They also learned some powerful ways to communicate and feel heard about the things that were most important to them. They found so much to talk about, other than the kids and work, which had been the mainstay of their conversations for many years. Mark and Jenny started to really see each other as unique individuals, rather than a source of pain and suffering which helped them trust one another again. This opened the floodgates of desire.

Going deeper they not only recognized where some of their patterns of behaviour came from, they also learned how to get underneath the stories that kept them trapped and hurting to the love underneath. Building on the newfound love Mark and Jenny learned some simple but amazing lovemaking techniques that increased both their intimacy and pleasure. Jenny felt met by Mark in lovemaking as never before. Mark felt freer and more inspired in sex than he had for a long time. They practiced these in the privacy of their accommodation.

Not only this, but it seemed like both their relationship and themselves had healed at a very deep level that was beyond words. They felt seen, held and met by Annette & Graeme in a subtle and powerful way, connecting them to strengths they’d never dreamed they had. And surprisingly there were many healing laughs along the way.

An Excited Beginning

Mark and Jenny felt like they had found a new beginning and couldn’t wait to get started. To help integrate the new changes at home because it takes more than just a few days to change life long patterns, Annette and Graeme offered a follow up Skype session at home, included in the cost.

Even though the couple worked very hard and faced some very challenging things it felt more like an adventure than therapy, with Annette and Graeme riding side saddle beside them.

If you’re looking for your own relationship adventure contact Graeme and Annette today about an Ultimate Couples Getaway on 1800 TANTRA

Trust between men and women

September 6, 2016 By Annette & Graeme Leave a Comment

Trust is something that goes hand in hand with love.

In love and the shared pleasure that is part of it we give our trust and believe we will receive it in return…

Over time in relationship, because we’re human, we experience moments of this trust not being lived up to that make it harder to keep offering and believing in it. Feeling and expressing the feelings found within this and freeing ourselves through forgiveness allows us to reopen and trust once more.

Yet trust between men and women has some unique challenges.

We have found there is one area of trust between male and female partners that shows up again and again. This is the challenge for women to trust men in sex and for men to trust women with their feelings. We see them as two sides of the same coin, a fear of being vulnerable in each, made worse by a lack of understanding, skill and empathy.

Women can easily relate to the feeling the feeling of ‘ickyness’ that arises in her when a man she doesn’t want comes on to her sexually. Less understood is that men have a similar response to a woman who demands that he opens up to her emotionally. It is in sex and emotion that men and women most miss each other. We look at why here…

Let’s begin with women trusting men in sex

Women have a place of deep vulnerability in sex because they generally take longer to get to a point of full arousal than do men and it is easy for her to go into a place of being wrong in it. It is a common point of frustration for men who generally step into arousal more quickly and easily.

Because a woman’s sexuality requires her to open both her body and herself up for her pleasure she needs to feel safe in order to do so. Women respond more readily to a sensual full body approach than a man requires for himself. Arousal in women happens mostly in her body, a man’s begins more so in his mind.

In his desire to do a good job man will treat his woman as he would himself, overriding, or not seeing this need for time in her. In not seeing her need for time, in not having the skill to help her, in resentment of ‘waiting’ or fear of not getting it right he will regularly cross this sexual boundary in his woman. He invalidates her deepest need and touches her genitally before she is fully receptive, expecting and agitating her to open and willingly respond.

In doing so he unknowingly avoids his own vulnerability, the vulnerability it takes to be an amazing lover, as this involves getting more present, more fully into his body, feeling more and opening his heart.

In this place women become very good at tolerating getting less than what they need. They get good at giving up asking for it and even better at performing as if they have it, aka the fake orgasm. This causes huge resentment and resistance in her, whether spoken or not. Over time, it’s enough for her to lose interest in sex altogether, or to live on performing in hope that one day he will get it. She is left frustrated in wanting to find her place of wild abandon and/or deep loving in sex. This resentment leads not only to a lack of desire, but to a lack of love and trust in other areas of the relationship.

What can be done to remedy this loss of trust?

Women can learn to trust and surrender into their own bodies, finding pleasure in themselves.
Women can be clear about owning and asking for their needs of time to be met.
Men can understand that taking time and an all over body approach is not a woman being ‘high maintenance’, it’s her being who she is. Respecting and meeting this part of her will ensure she is interested in, and available for lovemaking for many years to come.
Men can learn to touch their lovers without agenda, from a place of relaxation and connection rather than wanting them to perform. Allowing rather than forcing things to happen.
Men can learn to approach their lover from her outside moving to her centre, in her body, her breasts and her genitals.
Men can learn to get more connected with their own sexual selves, taking the time to go deeper into their bodies, hearts and pleasure.

Secondly, we look at men trusting women with their hearts.

A man’s place of deep vulnerability is his heart and his feelings, because it is generally more difficult and takes longer for him to reveal his feelings than it does for a woman. This leaves woman frustrated at man’s lack of emotional openness and her need for intimacy going unmet.

Because of his conditioning away from his feelings, as well as the rapidity and depth of feeling he’s capable of when he really does go there, man requires a place of safety to open up emotionally. Because woman believes she has the emotional high ground in feeling matters, and finds the language of feeling easy she cannot understand his resistance to feeling and judges him negatively for it. This leads to her cross his emotional boundary by demanding that he emotionally ‘open up’ to her when she wants it, rather than when he is ready. Or it can lead her to miss him in his vulnerability as it is so unexpected. This makes man even more hesitant to reveal himself.

Woman has been taught that vulnerability is about exposing or opening herself up to another person, or to something outside of herself. It is emotionally risky because We call this vulnerability without. It is emotionally risky because she is making herself vulnerable to betrayal if she is not seen and attack if she is invalidated or overridden. She is usually saying something like “I’m totally open here, I want you to see me, where are you?”

We see that here, even though woman believes she is totally vulnerable in reality she is merely exposed in her pain and suffering of vulnerability without, but her inner walls are still firmly in place. To protect herself in this dangerous place she unknowingly operates behind the wall of her emotional superiority.

From here she either:

Closes down as soon as possible
Becomes desperate for her man to validate or comfort her
She goes into a story to justify her fear and woundedness, whether it is true or not
She is hyper alert to any potential threat in what her partner says or does, seeing it as a threat, whether it is true or not
She goes on the offensive, attacking him to stay safe in herself.

In this place woman avoids her true vulnerability, the vulnerability it takes to be safely intimate at the depth she longs for (we explain this further down), whilst blaming her man for not going there himself. A man will see her woundedness, will feel her walls, and sensing the threat inside them feel unsafe to open up. He’ll withdraw safely into his cave, head out the door or shift into the offensive by attacking her back.

What can be done to remedy this loss of trust?

Man can get grounded in himself and stay centred in the face of woman’s woundedness.
Man can invite woman deeper into her feeling body, not getting caught up in her story.
Woman can own her own lack of true vulnerability and stop making man wrong in his.
Woman can hold onto herself in her emotionality, opening in to herself, into the feelings in her body rather than outwards to him. Feeling the feelings in her body rather the story in her head.
Woman finding this inner vulnerability within herself will see it is a place of strength, going beyond her weakness to where she is fully open, no longer feeling the need to hide or protect herself and totally empowered.
Woman will be less dependent on how her partner chooses to respond to her, allowing him space to show up with an authentic response.

There is a special place a woman will experience if a man does choose to go deep into his vulnerability. She may be triggered into the deep terror that happens for a woman when she perceives a man in his so called ‘weakness’ of vulnerability where he is, unable to be ‘the rock’ she unconsciously still needs him to be. It is another place woman benefits from connecting to her own inner strength to be able to stay grounded.

A word about vulnerability:

In both of the models above each of us is trying to avoid vulnerability and blaming the other for it.

We have been sold a big, fat lie about vulnerability. We’ve been told that it is a scary, dangerous place. However, it is not the actual vulnerability that is scary and dangerous but our lack of understanding in and inability to be with it.

When we make vulnerability ok, choosing to feel it, to feel it in our bodies rather than make up a story about it in our heads, when we allow it, and even welcome it in it becomes a very powerful place. When we understand to go within ourselves and feel, rather than to open out to another and look for something from them.

This is holding on to ourselves, opening in to ourselves, in both sex and in intimacy.

It’s where we surrender to our higher selves, our minds sinking into our heart.

Love and pleasure beyond description is one of the benefits of true vulnerability.

This is a very deep subject, very real but hard to put into words, with some challenging aspects. We encourage you to contact us for further clarification and discussion if you desire. Call 1800 TANTRA or email here

Can Housework Be Foreplay?

August 17, 2016 By Annette & Graeme Leave a Comment

Well, housework certainly is foreplay if you have a young family!

Ask any tired parent.

Who makes the bed can be indicative of how much action happens in it!

Did you know that one of the most frequent things that couples fight about is still the division of household chores? Even in this age of greater equality, often with both partners working, this little old gem can cause some angst.

It’s important to realise that even if you think of domestic chores as somehow ‘less important’ than the bigger ticket items between you, things like who makes breakfast for the kids or mows the lawns can either be a gigantic energy drain, or a vital and supportive energy source in your relationship.

Housework as a form of communication?

Household chores cannot be avoided, at least not for too long. In fact, they’re part of the way we communicate with each other. We communicate through our approach: by completing our set tasks on time according to a mutually agreed schedule, by offering to take our daughter to gym class whilst our spouse finishes the vacuuming or by resentfully buying extra groceries on the the way home from work after a last minute call from a stressed chef. Are we communicating through willingness, cooperation, resistance or resentment?

A closer examination of how partners collaborate on their household duties, or how they fail to, shows how where we’re at in our underlying issues of gender role expectations, power, respect and intimacy influence in this area. It’s about more than just houework…

Take a look at the bigger picture

Stepping back to take a look at how you’re being in this part of your relationship can help you make different choices rather than live out your unconscious programming with more painful and less effective outcomes.

Have a think about where you’re at in the following areas and get together with your significant other to see where you might make some changes.

You can begin with understanding what constitutes the household chores at your place. Classically we think of cooking, cleaning, emptying the dishwasher, mowing the lawn and putting out the rubbish as household chores but there are many more than these. Things like, transporting children to various activities, shopping for food and clothes, garden maintenance, caring for those in ill health, house maintenance, equipment maintenance, paying bills, managing the household finances, organizing holidays, and buying presents for extended family are just to name a few. We also include monitoring the family’s emotional wellbeing, conflict resolution and organizing for everyone’s personal needs to be met, for example, the making and remembering of appointments and the picking up of pharmacy prescriptions and the dry cleaning.

Letting go of stereotypes

As you’re reading through this list you might be noticing some traditional gender stereotyping for the above roles ie. Women attend to the emotions, men manage the finances, but as we become more diverse in our gender expectations these old assumptions automatically apply no longer.

However, there are some stereotypes that do still occur, with women, even those working, remaining the highest contributors to household tasks, even though men have significantly increased their contributions over the last few years. Women largely continue to feel burdened and overwhelmed at home, often putting their own needs last and ending up micro managing or nagging their spouses for the support they need, rather than taking a more proactive approach. Men continue to have a degree of domestic blindness, resisting the emotional undertones in the nagging and missing out on the benefits of living with a well supported spouse as they head for the computer or the gym in order to decrease the stress of their spouses’ resentment.

What are the benefits of our household chores?

Consider what outcome each chore creates and what life might be like without these out comes and you might have a whole new level of respect for even the most basic of chores. Eg. Task: putting your dirty washing in the basket in the laundry
Outcome: The person doing the washing can put it straight into the washing machine without having to go through the house to find it, saving them significant time and leaving them feeling respected with energy available for other things.
Or you may decide some chores don’t need to be done at all, if they aren’t providing real benefit.

It’s also about our personal styles

It helps to recognize each other’s personal task management styles. Are you an intense micro manager, relaxed and laid back, Mr or Ms efficiency, an intuitive or lateral thinker, someone who instinctively has authority or one who seeks direction? Do you like to plan ahead or prefer to be spontaneous? Are you independent or do you prefer to be part of a team?

Can you find the gifts in your own, and in your partner’s personal style even if it’s the opposite to yours? Can you learn something from each other?

And what kind of management style do you best respond to- being supported, validated, directed, trusted or encouraged?

Is there a communication style that works best for you in regards to household tasks? Directly being asked, being hinted at or being told? Something impersonal eg. a list on the fridge?

Consider how you ask your spouse for what needs to be done? What tone of voice do you use and what is your body language saying? Do you include negative judgements? Are you open to suggestion or are you making a demand?

There are at least 4 different approaches

Think about what kind of approach would work best for you and when? Coordinating together, where you organize and do things together; Collaborating apart, where each person carries out their share at different times and locations, together but separate; Silent Collaboration where both partners work together in the same space without discussion or One partner as ‘Expert’ in which one person was considered an authority in a particular task, either humorously or with respect?

It also helps to recognize what is happening in your working lives. Is work outside the house a stress or a relief from the tasks at home? How much ‘me time’ do you currently require to bring more energy and motivation to the things that must be done at home? Are you at a point in your life where you have more or less to offer?

How to make your household chores a relationship energy builder:

– With a positive mindset (and your sense of humour intact) get together and make a list of what you both consider your necessary household chores.
– Include not just what has to be done but also when and how.
– Don’t argue with your spouse if they include something you consider irrelevant, you’ll get further by validating their reality at this point.
– Make a note of which ones anyone has an ‘expert’ rating in and allocate these tasks to them.
– With the remainder take into consideration the amount of time each person has to offer (including allowing time for personal space which helps each person feel nurtured) and allocate the tasks remaining.
– Take into account your personal task styles when allocating tasks.
– If there are more tasks for one than the other see where you or they could more evenly take on things that you could learn to do, if they’re not something already familiar to you.
– Consider which tasks could be done as a group lot to make them more effective, be done in a different way or done by someone outside the house, or be eliminated altogether.
– If you have children consider which tasks may be appropriate for them to participate in, as many hands make light work, teaches team building and self-efficacy whilst helping build a sense of belonging and self -esteem.
– If lists work for you make a list of who does what chores and when.
– When you notice someone attending to a chore that’s been allotted to them make sure you express your appreciation as appreciation is the best motivator.
– If one of you is taking on a new chore that the other usually does, to inspire more enthusiasm offer only support and encouragement rather than criticism or you’ll soon be back to doing it yourself!
– If you’ve covered the outline above and you still have angst about chore distribution, ask yourself if you have underlying feelings that are not being acknowledged here?

With greater understanding you and your partner will be able to undertake your chores with a lighter heart, leaving more energy for each other and for love!

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