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Is fear keeping you from what you’re most longing for?

October 23, 2018 By Annette & Graeme Leave a Comment

In your relationship fear might be keeping you from:

Feeling a greater connection to, or more love from the person you’re with.

Or even more freedom in loving them.

Perhaps you long for more love or pleasure in the bedroom but you’re too scared to bring the subject up.

Most of the things we truly long for live on the other side of fear.

This place of fear was certainly true for a lovely couple who came to see us recently. But they were both able to reach inside themselves and find the place that courage lives. Now they’re reaping benefits that had been unimaginable just a few days ago.

So what if it was actually true?

That it was only your fear that was keeping you from what you most want.

If so, there IS something you can do about it.

Fear.

What does this word bring up in you?

Perhaps familiar butterflies in your stomach, a slight nausea, a crippling anxiety or possibly a deep-seated terror?

Or you might have no bodily response at all, just a mild interest in the idea.

Whatever your response is to fear you can be sure it lurks in at least a part of what’s keeping you from more of what you’re longing for.Relationship is being real with each other

Surprisingly, it’s probably not that your partner is insensitive, uncaring, selfish or uninterested.

It’s just as likely your fear is not allowing you to let them see you fully.

It seems easier, and safer, to stay behind your fears and not give them voice.

To see the situation as your partners fault.

To view your fear as your being weak, cowardly and something to be ashamed of.

Or as something too big for you to control.

What actually IS fear?

We see fear as emotional energy in your body.

Seeing feelings as energy in motionAn energy that we have a choice over how to deal with it.

Commonly we attach fear based thoughts to our fears and give them much greater power than they deserve.

Fear is part of being human and there is nothing wrong with you if you’re experiencing it.

 

In fact, fear in your body is the same thing as excitement.

You might remember the early times in your relationship, or even the ones way back in your teenage years where your fear almost felt like excitement, swinging wildly between the two in a way that was intoxicating…

The only difference is in how we manage this energy (and the stress hormones that arise along with it) in our bodies.

Tantra is freedom

In excitement we keep breathing and tell ourselves something good is going to happen.

man in mask

 

In fear we shallow our breath (or even stop breathing) and tell ourselves something bad is about to happen.

 

 

What can you do about your fear so that it no longer limits you?

  1. Understand that fear is energy in your body, one that you have control over.
  2. Come into the present moment and ask yourself if you’re in actual physical danger (which is quite rare for most of us, most of the time)? If yes, do what you need to find safety.
  3. Identify the signs of fear in your body- tension, butterflies, tingling, nausea, cold, sweating, feeling unsafe.
  4. Acknowledge them, and make them ok.
  5. Take some slow, deep breaths, imagining your body being strongly supported by the earth below you. If your body knows it has room to breathe, it knows that it is safe.
  6. If you’re in a high state of fear look closely at the palm of your hand and let it’s realness ground you.
  7. Notice the thoughts you’re choosing about your fear and whether they’re accelerating or decreasing it eg. An accelerating thought is “My partner isn’t looking at me or taking any interest in what I’m trying to do or say and this means they don’t love me”. A decelerating thought is “My partner isn’t looking at me, maybe they’re just tired and I’ll get curious and ask them”.
  8. Soothe yourself by choosing only thoughts that do the latter. This doesn’t mean living in a fairytale and imagining everything is wonderful but making some realistic choices. Feel your body responding to increased breathe and soothing thoughts.
  9. Once you have your fear under control do whatever it is you’ve been afraid to:
  • Tell your partner what’s in your heart
  • Get curious, rather than judgmental about their response, you might learn something
  • Do something for them even if it’s challenging for you, especially something they’ve been wanting from you
  • Have a conversation about sex, begin gently with some positive comments and own your concerns as yours and be open to what you might discover.

With any of these steps you’re not necessarily assured of a successful outcome.

But you definitely WILL benefit from the courage you find in yourself to make these steps happen and who knows what is possible on the other side of fear- it’s where most of the really good things in life live.

If you’re looking to take further steps to create more of what you’re longing for in your relationship why not join us for our upcoming weekend workshop Nov 9-11?

 

 

Letting Go Of The Fairy Tale…

July 5, 2018 By Annette & Graeme Leave a Comment

We’ll show you how letting go of the fantasy of happy ever after in your relationship

Can be the best thing that ever happened to it!

Despite how modern we’ve become, unless we’ve turned fashionably cynical, most of us still carry in our minds the old-fashioned idea of the perfect fairy tale relationship that’s happy-ever-after.wedding couple

It looks a unique way for each of us but it has the same flavour of effortlessness.

We come to a relationship believing that if we find the right person, claim ownership of them, then set up house and have a family, we’ll somehow smoothly grow old together into our twilight years…all the way to a shared burial plot.

Holding onto this childish fantasy makes us lazy.

We take our relationship, our partners and even love itself for granted, making them our last priority instead of our first.

It’s like we believe that once we’re in a relationship, everything will magically be OK because we love each other.

water running down drainWe do the same with our sex lives, believing they should just happen spontaneously.

Yearning for this impossible mental picture drains our energy and attraction for what’s real, causing us to, consciously or unconsciously, demean what we have or look around for something better.

But real-life relationships don’t have to be less than perfect.

They can actually be better than we’ve ever imagined – literally beyond our wildest dreams!

Having an ideal fantasy makes the future seem safe and comforting, because we assume it’s certain.

Yet it’s as if we’re saying to life, “I know what’s coming, I know what to do and I don’t need any help.”

We close ourselves off to the vast potential of life that’s so much more than our minds could plan.

We keep trusting in the fantasy, rather than in ourselves and in love.happy couple

How about trusting in what’s real instead?

Falling in love with what’s here and now,

and with not needing to know

opens us up to the magic of what lies beyond us.

What do we mean by magic?

Magic is things that happen mysteriously and are impossible to explain or understand.

This magic could be newness, surprise, chance, serendipity or merely coincidence but it adds interest, and even enchantment into our relationships.

staircaseIt can also refer to the surprising changes that occur from putting in some hard work and commitment.

Trusting in love means we don’t need the safety of knowing the end result, we know that what we most desire lives on the other side of fear and certainty.

Trusting that each step we take in the here and now creates the next step, and the next. And that each step  creates our future.

What is it that you’re putting into your relationship right here and now?

Openness, energy, desire, honesty, curiosity, creativity, playfulness, vulnerability, courage, humility or love?

For ways to move from fairy tale to real and lasting love join us for one of our Couples Retreats.

Activity: Letting Go Of The Fairy Tale 

Recognize and be willing to grieve the loss of your idealized fantasy relationship. For relationship to last your childlike ideals must die in the face of reality so that what is genuine, authentic and magical way beyond anything your limited mind will come up with can grow. Take a breath, relax, nothing is wrong here.

  1. Together or separately write all your dreams of perfection down on a piece of paper. The more you come up with the better. This might bring some fear and quite deep sadness, depending on how attached you’ve been to your fantasy, know this is healthy. Just let yourself have a good cry if you need to.
  2. Light a candle in a safe place and burn your paper.
  3. Imagine leaving these limitations safely behind you with a fresh new page appearing for you to create on.

Active Receiving…it’s so much more than just lying there!

June 7, 2018 By Annette & Graeme Leave a Comment

It’s obvious when we’re actively giving in lovemaking, those moments when we completely lose ourselves in service of our partner, totally there for them and loving every moment of it.

And there are those delicious moments when it seems like you’re just flowing together, not knowing where one person ends and the other begins, and nobody appears to be giving, it’s just happening (called entrainment by the way).

It’s less obvious when we’re actively receiving, for Female Sexualitymen or women. It’s less talked about and a skill not often understood.

The experience of it can transform our lovemaking experience from ordinary to magnificent!

It’s a mindset firstly, an opening of your mind, a letting go of control and allowing whatever is happening to be utterly as it is.

Yet it’s not just passively laying there.

It’s having your mind fully engaged in the moment, actively breathing and feeling your sensations fully.

Letting go of any inner fear or resistance you might have.

Totally surrendering to yourself through your lovers touch.

Rising to meet your lover’s touch, with your lips, hands, breasts, legs or hips.

That’s the thing about surrender here- it’s surrender to yourself, not to your partner.Meditation

Although you automatically feel more connected to your lover as a result, and they to you.

Surrender to yourself can look like surrender to your lover but the internal reality is very different, for you remain connected to and safely in charge of yourself, trusting yourself that you will be ok in whatever happens.

It does not mean tolerating something that feels uncomfortable, but asking yourself the question of are you letting it in?

Can you move your body in a way that opens it further?

Can you breathe in the sensations you’re feeling, transforming them?

Can you open your eyes and let your lover see you?

Is there any resistance you can drop? Emotion you can acknowledge?

This can help us go underneath yourself into something unforeseen yet wonderful.

Expressing gratitude to your lover for the gift you’re receiving  builds the connection and trust between you.Tantric Heart space

Sometimes surrendering invites activity, a rock of the hips, a surge of energy, heat, movement, coming from deep within.

At others it invites even deeper stillness, a sigh that opens into freedom, melts like wax in fire or expands into bliss with intuitive imagery of waterfalls, stars, mountains, earthly or spiritual beings. The potential is unlimited.

If what your lover is doing still doesn’t feel good, then ask for it to be changed.

Active receiving is one of the most precious gift you can give to both yourself and your lover as it opens not only the heart through the gratitude it brings, and the spirit through the acceptance it takes, but also the doorway to greater pleasure through the expansion it offers.

Give it a try sometime soon!

What if we made love the way we had dinner?

January 11, 2018 By admin Leave a Comment

This intriguing contribution comes from interested reader of Oztantra newsletters Nenad Stojadinovic… (if you’d like to send us your own thoughts on sex or relationship, please do and we’ll include the best of them here!)

“Ever wonder what makes sex so special? As in a minefield?Tantra is making the most of life

I mean, it’s not like sex is the only interaction between people; we do lots of really significant things together either as couples or in groups. We work together in teams,
we join clubs and play sports, we create companies, we share passions, join military forces, stitch quilts, build barns, etc etc. and they generally turn out OK.

Imagine if people did dinner like they did sex, wouldn’t that be funny? Imagine a table of couples having dinner one evening …

Mary sits and stares at her plate. She really wants an exotic entree but doesn’t know how to pronounce the name and doesn’t dare ask. She eats boiled noodles.

Dave decides that he would rather sit at another table and vanishes, glass of wine in hand

Cynthia reaches over to Rafik’s plate and takes it away

Harry and Daisy sit and glare at each other over empty plates

Jayden grabs his young girlfriend Skye’s dessert and passes it around to his mates

Samantha arrives with a huge Jamaican guy that nobody knows

Alan bolts his entire dinner and leaves before Leslie finishes her entree

Danica and Frank sit opposite each other, decide to share their main and then pass their desserts to each other for a taste. Frank is secretly delighted that Danica likes his somewhat exotic dessert and plans to make it for her one evening at  home

Paisley and Moonji take some of the plants from the centrepiece and set fire to them over their empty plates. They pronounce themselves nourished and sated

Meanwhile, a bunch of folks gather together outside, bang a drum and extol the virtues of not eating love! “Sexual Energy life choices

Here at Oztantra we believe the reasons for all of the above behaviours are due to our fears of intimacy, of feeling and our sexual shame- which is why we’re passionate about teaching the skills to behave in ways that connect us, rather than keep us isolated and alone.
Even just reading the story above may give you insight into some of your own behaviours and the courage to make different choices in bed by seeing yourself at dinner…

We hope your next meal is a buffet!

Best Ever Intimacy & Sex

August 22, 2017 By Annette & Graeme Leave a Comment

This means dealing with the great debilitator – shame…

You wouldn’t think that a relationship built on mutual love and pleasure would have anything to do with the most icky and Man in shameuncomfortable feeling we as humans are emotionally capable of would you, Yet it does! This feeling is shame. In intimate relating we find ample opportunities for both creating shame and for healing it, particularly in our sexual intimacy. Dealing positively with shame will take your intimacy and sexual pleasure to a whole new place.

What actually is shame? Shame is a feeling of going blank or numb, of wanting to hide, to disappear, even cease to exist. Shame carries thoughts of being wrong, or not good enough in some way, even in every way. The pain of shame is what causes us to disconnect from ourselves, our power and our light, to be less than who we are. Shame is one of the great unspokens in the world and it’s not actually intimacy we fear but the shame that lies within it.. Deny it though we might, shame is alive and well under our shiny, all together surfaces to one degree or another.

It is this belief in our innate wrongness or inadequacy that creates our deepest blocks to real intimacy (in-to-me-see).

     Intimacy and the potential for shame coexist. To create intimacy, we need to expose ourselves, leaving us open to feeling shame. Shame disconnects us from ourselves, and we can only create intimacy with another to the extent we’re connected with ourselves. All the love and best intentions in the world cannot prevent moments of shame simply because in intimacy you have two different people seeking to connect their differences in the one place in order to be seen, understood, respected and loved. Our fear of shame keeps us from seeking the intimate connection we crave. It also prevents our surrendering fully to pleasure.

The joke here is that all of us are wrong.

Humans are about as imperfect a species as you can get! Yet it is in our imperfections that our perfections lie, it’s where we find as much of a meeting place as in the love and perfection we strive for. Shame is about wanting to hide, so it makes sense that healing shame is through its opposite- through openly sharing ourselves with another, inviting love into our shame.

Shame can be healthy of course, it is important to acknowledge the shame we feel when we’ve done something wrong so we’re motivated to correct it. What we refer to here is toxic shame that serves no real purpose apart from separating us from who we are.

For some, shame is a blip on the radar, for others it is a daily nightmare. Our shame gives us our core beliefs, even if we would rather die than admit to them.

Core beliefs such as:

  • I am wrong/bad
  • I’m not good enough/not enoughWomen are losing interest in bed and saying no
  • I’m not important
  • I’m not loved/wanted
  • I don’t matter
  • I’m a failure
  • I’m invisible
  • I’m unworthy/worthless
  • I’m powerless/unsafe
  • I’m alone/don’t belong
  • I’m different/crazy
  • I’m too much
  • I’m bad for wanting to be sexual

In our desire to avoid the icky, uncomfortable feeling of shame we understandably develop an armoury of strategies to keep us safe from it.

Shame Avoidance Strategies:

  • Intellectualizing, staying in our mind keeps us safe
  • Tensing up and contracting in our bodies
  • Disconnecting from ourselves to avoid feeling
  • Not breathing, or breathing shallowlyBoy in shame
  • Focussing on things outside of ourselves such as work, kids, social media
  • Avoiding our sexuality or having sex in a tense and defensive way
  • Dumping our shame on others through criticizing, judging or shaming them
  • Going into anger, fear or sadness to mask our shame
  • Numbing ourselves with any number of addictions to avoid intimacy
  • Seeking to be perfect as in perfection there is no shame (even though perfection is unattainable)
  • Being unwilling to trust each other, for if we don’t reach out there is no risk of shame
  • Keeping ourselves small, not taking risks, keeping our mask of persona firmly intact and not allowing our real selves to be seen
  • Not having boundaries- not having to say no, allowing our partners to steam roll us
  • Being in our Super Hero- when we’re larger than life shame can’t find us

Shame Busting Activities:

 It’s vital to know that avoiding shame is avoiding relationship, it’s avoiding intimacy and sexual pleasure beyond our wildest dreams. So what can we do to minimize the impact shame has on our intimate relationships? As you’ve seen, avoiding shame doesn’t work. Instead, try playing with some of these shame busters that will help you reconnect with yourself…

  1. Play with becoming empowered in shame. The next time you feel embarrassed or shamed rather than making it wrong, turn it around and make it ok. Connect with the feeling, move towards it and say to yourself ‘It’s ok to feel shame’, as making shame ok helps to disempower it. Take a few deep breaths and let the embarrassment flow out of you. If you can stay present with it, even if just for a few moments, and know that it is connecting you with your humanity and your core self, your shame will shift into love.
  2. Take risks with shame- where you want to close be willing to open, where you want to hide be willing to show up and deal with your shame as in no.1.
  3. Share some, or all of your shame story with your partner (or a non judgemental friend). Own it as your experience. Sharing with another helps you get reconnected to your humanity. Remember staying open to the feeling as you share allows shame to shift.Intimate sexuality
  4. If your partner shames you, take control by agreeing with them! Say ‘yes, sometimes I can be an idiot’ or whatever they’re attempting to lay on you and have a laugh at it, find the freedom in your humanity! The power lies with the one who can laugh at and accept themselves as the truly are.
  5. Because our sexuality is layered in cultural and personal shame being willing to own your sexuality as a positive thing is a HUGE shame buster. Own your sexuality by believing it is beautiful, even sacred, giving yourself permission to have pleasure, create it for yourself and sharing it. Rather than blocking shame out and locking it into your body, feel any that comes up during sex and move beyond it, allowing your sexual energy to flow more freely.
  6. Shame busting will also make it easier to reduce your own shaming behaviours (and yes, we ALL have them) because in not running away from your own shame you’ll know directly how bad it feels. Reducing shaming behaviours in your relationship will make it a happier, more respectful and loving place to be.
  7. When you want to act out an addiction feel the shame that lies beneath it, release it then make a choice about your behaviour from a clearer place.

So are you ready to bust shame in your relationship (and in your life)? The gifts are never ending…

 

 

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!

Tanric coaching can make all the differenceAfter 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 Young girl in sexual shamecan 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

No oral sex orgasmAs 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…Good Girl

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!happy oral sex lover
  • 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!

 

 

 

Time to STOP bullsh…ing yourself?

March 18, 2016 By Annette & Graeme Leave a Comment

Stop for a moment, and take a look around you…

And as you stop for a moment, imagine you’re lifting your head up and out of the rat race and take notice to see if you can actually recognize just  how fast life is moving around you.

Merely 100 years ago, the Eiffel Tower was the tallest man made structure…

To put things into perspective, recognize that just one hundred years ago, the Eiffel tower was the tallest man made structure in existence, women were just gaining the right to vote and the average life expectancy (at least in the US) was about 50yrs of age.

Just 50 years ago, the mini skirt emerged (or shrunk…)

And man had just walked on the moon! It’s just 35yrs since the internet was discovered, and look at how much life has changed since then?

Slow movies with John WayneIf you want even more proof take the time over the coming Easter break to check out some movies made in the 50’s, 60’s or 70’s compared to ones made today.

Apart from the lack of technical quality abundant in today’s films the pace of the older ones feel so much slower. (Note this has nothing to do with the overall value of the movie just their pace).

Was life better or easier or more stable…?

Life wasn’t necessarily better in those days, just more solid, more clearly defined.

We mostly knew who was who and what was what, even if we didn’t like it.

More recently we’re learning to live with worldwide crises in global warming, terrorism and refugee migration along with the collapse in global financial markets.

These powerful shifts are being reflected at personal levels too.

Greater stress levels, relationship challenges, career changes, financial meltdowns, international travel opportunities and the sheer mass of information available.

Information that is beyond comprehension even 25 years ago, at the click of an electronic mouse or tap of the screen on a mobile phone, all presenting choices that are available.

Now, more than ever before in human history has our potential for connection and achievement been greater.

And, these technological and intellectual advances are increasing at an an accelerating rate, but is our ability to manage and integrate all this keeping up?.

How do we cope with this degree of challenge and change and stay sane??

In amongst all this how do we not only sustain but grow our relationships, to keep personal vulnerability and intimacy deepening and nourished?

More than ever before, we’re required to stand up personally or sink beneath the waves.

As individuals, it is becoming crucial to see and believe in more of our wholeness and strengths than our inadequacies and burdens.

So whilst life is changing on the outside it is vital that we shift on the inside as well.man meditating

Getting into comfortable relationship with our inner reality is where our resilience, our energy, self belief, sense of connection amongst the disconnection, our inner tranquility and pleasure will come from.

From here we’ll be able to transition into not only a more stress free but a more inspired and meaningful way of being.

From farming to Tantra…

Like the farmer and the nurse who became Tantra teachers (wink wink).

Or the business couple who traded long hours for a more sustainable business model and gained a life.

Or the couple who moved house from a place that no longer felt like it served them to somewhere that breathed new life into them and their relationship.

Or the woman who moved beyond her abusive past and stepped into a place of love and security inside herself…

And the truth is, it helps to go a little bit crazy along the way.

By ‘going crazy’ we mean being willing to be at a place of inner discord, even feeling like we’re falling apart.

Seeing what we used to believe in as maybe not making so much sense any more.

And doing so with our highest possible level of self awareness, so we see it clearly.

And surrendering to the process.

We call it going crazy because most people will tell us we’re crazy to go there, that it’s better to avoid it.

Being in The Void…

Glasses of dirt filled waterThis is the place Eastern mystics call The Void – where there is a high level of awareness with little external action.

It’s a bit like seeing ourselves as a jar of water with a layer of soil at the bottom that’s been shaken up- all seems chaos, with nothing making sense.

Yet if we stay present enough with ourselves, long enough to see and feel what is really happening, we will also see our life affirming choices appearing through the chaos more clearly.

The soil will settle back into a creative new pattern and the water will become clearer than before.

Being in the Void can be extremely uncomfortable. It can last for a few moments, a few hours, days, even weeks to months but it is crucial to allow ourselves to touch into it.

For this is where we go beyond what we already know into new and unforseen possibilities.

Nowadays we can tolerate a much higher level of inner discord, or stress, than we used to.

Our days can have complications never dreamed of by our grandparents or even our parents and our resources for distracting ourselves from it have grown exponentially.

We also have more ways to ‘appear to’ avoid our stress than ever before.

We can suffer more with less motivation for change.

But the reality is the stress impacts us whether we realize it or not.

Stress can be defined as ‘an overload of mental or emotional strain greater than we can be with or process at the time’.

Life defeating choices that help you numb yourself out to reality:

  • Blaming the world and everyone in it for your troubles and doing nothing about it.
  • Pushing down or avoiding your stress through any number of addictions
  • Having that extra biscuit for morning teaTea with biscuits
  • A bottle of wine at dinner rather than a glass
  • Staying too long at work
  • Spending time on your phone, ipad, social media, or book
  • Zoning out in front of a tv screen
  • Indulging in self flagellation ie. negative judgements
  • Dragging on a cigarette in the belief that it will help
  • Reaching for Panadol or some other legal or illegal drug to help you ‘cope’ or relax
  • Frequent masturbating, especially with porntaking medication
  • Daydreaming, sleeping in
  • Gossiping about others rather than examining ourselves
  • Picking fights, arguing, sulking
  • Gambling, getting hooked on the buzz of the win
  • Engaging in extreme sports

Most of these activities are not inherently ‘wrong’, it’s where we’re doing them from in ourselves that counts.

Whether we’re doing them to avoid feeling, to avoid that little voice in our heads that’s telling us we’re avoiding life, avoiding looking down into our glass jar…

If we’re really asleep, maybe we’ve even drowned out that little voice and replaced it with something like ‘I deserve this’ or ‘I’ve tried so hard’ or ‘It is the only way I can relax’…

Rather than living from avoidance (or the fear that lives underneath it) how can we make more life affirming choices?

By finding ways that nurture us whilst building our self awareness (ie. Stop bullsh…ing yourself!) such as:

  • Practicing feeling in a positive way by moving into it rather than away from it
  • check out this great talk on addictions by Jeff Foster
  • Shifting your energy by doing some kind of physical activity- walking, jogging, bootcamp, cycling, dancing, yoga, swimming, Osho’s active meditations are great,  (download them free from osho.com)
  • Getting out in nature- the local park, nearby bush, on the back lawn in your barefeet
  • Walking with mindfulness to your local cafe for a coffee
  • Doing some housework or gardeningdancing woman
  • Having a mindful shower or bath
  • Sitting in front of the TV or movie with the intention of chilling out
  • Listening to relaxing or uplifting music
  • Journalling- writing what you feel without judgement
  • Using affirmations
  • Putting on some aromatherapy
  • Dancing freestyle to your favourite music
  • Meditation
  • Preparing and eating a nutritious mealjournalling
  • Getting out and talking to someone new
  • Self pleasuring or making love
  • Exercising whilst consciously releasing anger on your breath or your voice
  • Getting professional help from a counsellor or coach
  • Having a massage or exchanging one with a friend
  • Snuggling up under a blanket, in the dark, maybe next to a candle and just being with yourself
  • Sleeping alone
  • Spending real time with a good friend
  • Expressing yourself through art, craftman on motorbike
  • Do an act of service for someone, giving freely to another is a great heart opener
  • Singing, playing music, chanting, sounds
  • Creating a ritual for whatever is troubling you. Eg. light a candle, write a letter on your pain and release it by burning it or your own unique version of letting go
  • Share your challenge with a friend or support group, just ask to be heard rather than seek advice. Talk about yourself, using ‘I’ language, focussing on hearing and feeling yourself fully
  • Fully experience something beautiful- like a sunset, a starry night sky, a church, flower, painting, a young child, even the amazing complexity of your own hand. Beauty is very transformative
  • Spending time connecting with your ‘higher power’, whether that be God, Goddess, Spirit or your own deity.

Each of these activities will bring you into greater connection with and understanding of yourself, often intuitively ie. surprisingly.

From this place explore your desires for life, set intentions for what you want and most importantly follow up on them.

This is a great place to reconnect into your relationship from.

Stop bullsh…ing yourself, get into the driver’s seat of your life as the wheels spin faster and make the most of it…

Making it easier to see each other

November 5, 2015 By Annette & Graeme Leave a Comment

Men and Women ARE different…

Can you relate to the feeling of being totally unseen by your partner? Of having to nag them over and over to do something for you, and even though they say they care, they still don’t do it?

Or having answered them in a way that you think is perfectly clear, only to have your partner go on and on as if you hadn’t even spoken? As if they totally are from Venus whilst you are from Mars?136475-370x400-jsw_antique_balance_scales

Men and women ARE different in many ways. Even though modern thinkers are trying to homogenise us and treat us all as equal.  But being equal is very different to being the same.

This is especially true when it comes to our difficulties in communicating with each other.

What lies behind these communication difficulties is not so much what we’re saying, but the misleading perceptions we have of each other that drive the way we hear each other.

For example:

man wearing braOften as women, we believe that a man should be “more feminine”, more sensitive and wordy in communicating, so that we can feel understood. We judge him as wrong or inadequate when he isn’t.

Woman taking garbage outMen too can harbour the belief that a woman would be better off being “more masculine”, more straightforward and direct, making them easier to communicate with. They judge women as wrong, or too emotional when they’re indirect as it makes men uncomfortable.

We see each other through our own filters rather than seeing and appreciating our differences.

Simply not understanding these differences in perception can leave us feeling unheard, uncared about, disrespected and unloved. It creates polarisation, causing unhelpful behaviours that result in men and women growing  apart  when they communicate, rather than brining them the closeness they BOTH long for.

There is more to be gained in understanding and celebrating our differences as men and women. Rather than trying to minimize or neglect our uniqueness, particularly if we do so from a place of defensiveness, fuelled by misunderstanding and ignorance.

Domestic violence is not a gender issue

domestic violenceThe current debate around domestic violence is an example of this polarisation. This hugely important debate is unfortunately degenerating into a gender issue. One which is mostly driven by knee jerking, but well meaning politicians and women’s leaders in their drive for much needed funding. When an issue that impacts both men and women is made out to appear gender specific, it only polarises both genders. This makes clear communication unnecessarily more challenging, and creates communication difficulties that could have otherwise been avoided.

Yes, men and women are obviously different. Some differences are easy to spot, and some are more subtle in how we act, feel, communicate and react to each other. These differences are part of why we’re attracted to each other.

Not understanding creates powerlessness

In any relationship over time, repeated experiences of feeling unheard or unmet through this not seeing each other leaves both partners feeling disconnected, frustrated and powerless. Even hopeless if it goes on long enough.Couple arguing

From our place of hurt we try to get our power back by taking the offensive (actively attacking or withdrawing). This gives us a few moments of powerfulness over the other. However, it leaves the attacked person in protection mode, where it is extremely difficult for them to defend themselves, and to support us (what we are looking for) at the same time. Meaning each protagonist ends up alone and isolated from each other.

Seeking to understand and appreciate our differences gives power to both people, especially when we both step out of playing games of protection or manipulation, and step into empowering each other.

The thing is that either we’re BOTH empowered or NEITHER of us truly are. Any games of one upmanship only cause unending frustration and separation.

So how ARE we different?

Here is a little look at how men and women are different in their inherent natures, how these differences impact and what we can do to benefit from them. This list is extensive, yet by no means exhaustive.

Of course, underneath our gender we are all just human.

MAN:

  • A man is internally motivated and more likely to follow his own path, to be driven by his inner sense of self.
  • He is largely self reliant and single focussed, accountable for his words and actions.
  • His singular focus, his cutting through the messy or the unnecessary in order to achieve clarity takes energy.
  • He sees his needs as having paramount importance because ‘He gets, so He can give’.
  • He expresses himself through his opinions, actions and achievements, that to him, are vulnerable expressions of his individual self that is seeking to seen and loved. When he talks, he is not simply telling details, he is empowering himself with the energy of his storytelling. That’s why he loves to tell stories, the more outlandish the better.
  • Man Man needs woman, for he is fascinated, nurtured, energised and inspired by her beauty, mystery and appreciation of him.
  • He seeks to do things for her, to me
  • He loves becoming part of her team in achieving her desired outcomes and feels enlivened by her contentment.
  • He highly values woman’s independence and though he loves to help, he doesn’t wish to get involved in her ‘issues’, for he sees these as draining of his precious life energy and having no obvious solution.
  • He may not see woman’s nurturing of him, as he forgets himself in his warrior like pursuit of his goals.
  • When his own offerings are unheard or rejected by his woman, he will feel unworthy and a failure. Asking a man to provide you with what you know he cannot is particularly cruel for him.

WOMAN:

  • A woman is externally motivated and responds more automatically to others needs and preferences than to her own.
  • She will seek her sense of self through connection with others, supporting and enhancing herself through helping them, though she does not seek ultimate responsibility for herself.
  • Her magic is in her vulnerability, her receptiveness and her ability to give of herself.
  • Nurturing, companionship,Woman being self aware listening, sharing, playfulness, spontaneity, trust and appreciation are some of her many gifts.
  • She is also fullness, beauty, radiance, beingness and love.
  • She fills herself by receiving from nature, creativity and pleasure.
  • She is happy in the moment and in the messiness of life.
  • Her focus is more on the details and the process, rather than the outcome. She will not understand that this is the opposite to a man and will drain both herself, and him, by nagging him into attending to them.
  • She seeks agreement and commonality and without it feels disconnected, anxious and distant.
  • Without connection with another she can feel a loss of connection with herself.
  • Woman needs man to love, protect, provide for, cherish and ravish her. Even though she is much more able to do these things for herself these days, she is still enlivened by his appreciation, his providing for and love of her.
  • She believes that if a man doesn’t see all her efforts to please and care for him and respond in kind as a woman would, he is a selfish bastard, leaving her exhausted and filled with resentment and bitterness.

When a man is unseen by woman:

He is left powerless in the face of her protection and it brings out the opposite of his true nature. He will seek distance instead of intimacy (what she least wants). He may choose to compete with her rather than cherish her. He may anticipate with suspicion rather than trust. Instead of natural respect he might treat her with disdain.

His response to a woman’s weapons is one of shock, dismay, disbelief and a loss of his power, resulting in fury and rage. As he begins to relate from a place of fear rather than of love he will seek to objectify her rather than feel her, as to feel in this would be too dangerous. His rage has little place to go, as even in his pain, his desire to protect rather than retaliate is strong. He will often (though not always) choose to shut down instead. From his own place of disempowerment he can resort to same weapons as the woman uses. Any acts of physical violence are purely his last resort.

When a woman is unseen by man:

When she has given her all and is left unseen, a woman will understandably seek to protect herself from further hurt. This is the opposite of her true receptive nature. She will do protect herself consciously, or unconsciously, by covertly attempting to take away her man’s power, the only obvious step for the disempowered.

Her weapons are withholding her appreciation, her admiration, her trust and of course, her sex. She can also criticise, interrupt, complain about or ignore him. She might compare him unfavourably with others, show disinterest in or demean his ideas, his earning ability or smothering him with ‘Mother Knows Best’. She can also withhold her joy, radiance and beauty (a vital source of energy for him). Her emotionally abusive weapons are more socially acceptable than physical violence (though occasionally she Tantric Couple In Heart Shirtcan resort to this as well), but they’re nonetheless devastating to her man.

Turning the tables and seeing each other more clearly:

Instead of playing these games of hurt and protection, men and women can choose to be proactive and minimise the hurt by the following:

Man can:

  • Remember that woman’s beauty and radiance is enhanced by his appreciation and compliments, giving them regularly.
  • Choose to drop his need to self protect and call his woman on her defences from a place of clarity and love, rather than anger. His anger will dissipate and he will feel reconnected with himself and his innate loving power.
  • Recognise that he is enough in himself and let go of his ego need to be “right”
  • Understand that sometimes his desire to “fix” things doesn’t work for a woman, unless it involves a leaky tap or unblocking the vacuum cleaner
  • Understand that simply listening with presence and allowing her intensity to run, then subside naturally, is a deeply loving space for him to hold for her
  • Know that even though his role in relationship may no longer be that of protector and provider in the traditional way, his heart and his passion are still what she seeks.
  • See the sheer beauty and humour in their differences with laughter, for laughter is a great intensity shifter.

Woman can:

  • Choose to drop her weapons and instead truly revel in her own inner power, beauty and radiance so man can again love, appreciate and care for her.
  • Nurture herself through her own gifts, coming to him empowered rather than trying to get something from him.
  • Rather than over giving of herself, clearly asking him for help from a place of self worth.
  • Remembering he is goal, rather than task driven by letting him know what outcome his help will create for her, and asking what he needs to help her achieve it. Giving her appreciation afterwards.
  • Be open to receiving, an opinion, a compliment, a gift, or man’s love. In her receptivity he feels inspired to give.
  • Be able to listen to him without needing to interrupt, judge or justify herself and he will feel accepted by her and his heart will open in return. (This doesn’t mean he can’t appreciate an occasional good argument and feel her in her intensity).
  • When she ask for things, disagrees with him, or talks with him, to do so from her place of love where he will more likely hear her.

Underneath we are all just looking for love, and to give love.

As you can see, this is a large and complex topic, but having some simple understandings can allow huge shifts to happen in your relationship with the ‘opposite’ sex.Annette & Graeme, Relationship counsellors,Sexuality counsellors,Tantra facilitators, Marriage counselors, Marriage advice,

Remembering that underneath our defences we are all just looking for love and acceptance in one way or another, and in that we are definitely both equal AND the same.

For those of you seeking more on this intriguing subject see the wonderful work by Alison Armstrong on which some of this article is based.

And for those who would like to explore this in more detail in their own relationships contact Oztantra for a Skype session here

 

 

 

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