Oztantra Blog – Love Sex & Passionate Relationships

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!

Relationship Isn’t Just In Your Head!

August 3, 2016 By Annette & Graeme Leave a Comment

You can’t do relationships just in your head!

Like it or not intimate relationships involve a lot of feeling and how we manage them is a vital factor in the health of your relationship. In the beginning we’re willing to embrace these feelings as they’re mostly a cocktail of all things wonderful. Even fear seems like nervous anticipation, anger close to passion and needs feel like desire. Over time as we get a bit more real in the relationship (hopefully) we let our warts show and a greater range of feelings come to the surface.

(Annette says she has been told it is a positive sign of intimacy if your beloved allows themselves to fart in your presence) (Not that women fart at all of course!).

Emotional Intelligence

If we lack the emotional intelligence to deal with these feelings as they become more uncomfortable, we judge them as wrong. In order to manage them we focus on our intellect instead of the discomfort, making elaborate mental rationalizations about our feelings, the situation, our partner and/or ourselves because while we are thinking we’re not feeling.

We then choose one of three responses:

We vent our rationalizations and uncomfortable feelings all over our (formerly blameless) significant other. Or we dump them on ourselves making us feel bad, or we simply squash the feelings down inside of us. None of these are a good look.

Obviously if we turn our feelings into a drama and vent our anger, fear, shame etc onto our partners they are likely to get hurt and retreat, or get pissed off back, resulting in the ugly downward spiral of ‘he said/she said/you never and I always’.

Dumping blame might feel good but…

Dumping blame onto ourselves obliterates our self esteem and done often enough, our sense of self worth as well.

The other choice- to not feel at all, may seem nobler but it’s not. The thing about a feeling is that once you’ve created it, it still exists. Squashing down a feeling doesn’t get rid of it, it simply remains in your body, unconsciously fuelling your future thoughts and behaviours.

You might remember a time being surprised at how clearly long forgotten feelings can surface at inappropriate moments, such as when your partner was particularly late home and you were assailed by the hurt of his car accident 10 years before. As you can see not feeling now simply creates more opportunities for it down the track. Science is proving more than ever before that the stress of repressed emotion underlies the development of much physical disease and poor health.

The proactive relationship (and life) step is to practice feeling your feelings, for once you feel and witness a feeling fully it’s gone.

Because we either feel or we don’t.

If we want to feel the ‘good’ things we need to feel everything.

The skill is in learning to do it without escalation into drama, dumping or suppression, unlike this little example:

The way not to do feelings!

Annette can recall some years ago getting into an argument with her (formerly blameless) significant other whilst driving home from the supermarket one night. The venting reached such proportions that he stopped the car and with words something like “I’m not taking any more of this shit!” stormed off home. Annette jumped out of the car and ran around to the driver’s side whilst continuing to vent even more loudly the rightness of her stated position, pointing her finger at his departing back to further make her case. All of a sudden she had the realization that here she was behaving like “those very unconscious people” she had seen and judged in the past for arguing in public. Thanking goodness there was no one else around she continued her spiel a few moments longer but with more perspective and less invective before driving herself home.

This very ugly scene was the result of a deeply triggered emotional pattern and could have been avoided if one or both of us had chosen to practice going within and feeling instead of dumping!

But sometimes no matter how good our skills are we can still fall into being human and just need to forgive ourselves for that and learn from the experience…

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