shame Archives - Relationship & Sexuality Counselling Specialists

Do Men Only Want Sex?

July 28, 2015 By Annette & Graeme Leave a Comment

Is it really true…. ?

When I hear the words “men are only interested in sex…” I feel angry, angry at how easily as a man I feel I have been judged. It is an instant flash of heat and fire when I feel labeled as an unfeeling block of wood that only wants to sex. Yes, I do love sex but most importantly, I love making love, not as an unfeeling block of wood, but as a deeply loving, emotionally connected man.

I am a man who has focused my last 15 years on learning and connecting with my emotionality. I am no longer the same person, I no longer live in the same part of the world, where I lived for 54 years, or work at anything remotely resembling what I was doing when I started this journey.

What I have begun to understand is that the more I find out, the more I realise I don’t know. This has not been an easy journey for me to learn and understand emotional heart connection and I still feel intensity when I hear this judgment towards men.

Do Men Only Want sex….?

Or is it they want more, just don’t know how to say it…

I agree, that men have earned this judgment and men including myself have been unfeeling fuckers and there are reasons but really no excuses. I feel sad for myself and all those men who have been conditioned from very early in their lives to believe that emotions are wrong and not to be shown, shared or expressed.

It was confronting for me to accept, understand or even acknowledge how emotionally closed I was, yet that was my normal in my world back then. In my previous life I was in a long term marriage that ended, a farmer and earth moving contractor, and in that world emotions received the same level of social acceptance as contracting a sexually transmitted disease.

Embarking on this journey is the most challenging direction I have taken in my life, breaking the shackles around my heart, breaking my conditioned self inflicted mold and living life from my heart in a more emotionally connected way, thankfully without the STD.

Do Women Want Men to be Different ?

And yes, I have hit fear and resistance from women, purely because it is not ‘normal’ for any man to be in his empowerment from this place.

The good news is modern trends are indicating gradual change for both men and women away from stereotypes of the past towards more middle ground. Increasingly, men are willingly choosing more active family roles such as being the stay at home primary care giver, performing more house work and sexually, men are becoming less driven by their urges and more by their desire for emotional connection.

Observing this change is simple, in any public place observe how many fathers are present with their children, it is much more common than two decades ago.

Men Want Heart Connected Sex

This is good for men who desire much more connection in sex, in their relationships and their lives. What is changing, is men are becoming aware of and validating their own emotional needs and desires- recognizing that they can and do actually feel, even if they don’t have the same language to express it as a woman might.

And yes, men do desire sex but more importantly, more men are desiring and seeking heart connected sex.

Men are coming in from the emotional cold and seeking heart connection, which, I believe is helping to drive the resurgence of interest in Tantra.

Traditionally, women have held the emotional high ground in relationships and with this change of emotional alignment, increasing numbers of men are meeting women more in this place of sensitive intimate connection.

Are Women Prepared For Emotionally Connected Men ?

Are women ready and prepared to embrace this change and be met by men in their traditional emotional high ground?

At Oztantra we are regularly witnessing this shift in our relationship and intimacy work with couples, men standing up in their emotional heart and calling his woman into deeper intimacy and vulnerability in their relationship and in intimate lovemaking. Quite often, all it takes to leap forward, is simply offering language translation and understanding allowing deepening connections to develop naturally.

Men are seeking and reclaiming their rightful place in heart connected sex with their partner and this is changing relationship dynamics. Through our work with relationships, we are aware that in intimate relationships, it is generally men who have capacity for and do bring heart depth into relationship.

Men have natural masculine capacity for real strength and depth of heart, simply because of their ability to focus clearly on one thing at a time and when choosing to deepen emotional connection, he does exactly that and from his inner masculine strength. This is what woman desires to feel in her relationship with man.

If you’re a woman who desires her man to meet her like this, then be careful for what you wish for and prepare to be deeply penetrated in your heart.

Experiencing a man in his emotionally connected sexual heart can be challenging for a woman because when he goes there, he really goes there.

Men Bring Heart into relationship, And Women Bring Sex..

Looking beneath and past the conditioned surface appearance of relationship, where it is so easy to accept the common logic of men bring sex and a woman heart, it becomes possible to see that with real depth, it is men who bring heart depth into relationship and women bring heart connected sex.

When men are emotionally disconnected from themselves, they bypass heart and proceed immediately into seeking just sex. If in doubt, ask yourself what is it that you most desire from your partner? A woman most often desires to feel the depth and strength of her man’s open heart, and a man desires to be met in open heart connected sexual freedom with his woman.

When each goes deeper and brings their individual gifts of heart and sex into relationship separate from traditional stereotypes, real magic happens.

This is why porn is directed towards men and the romance industry is aimed at women, and when either or both are playing this external superficial game and disconnected from the depth underneath, both soon feel empty.

And, unfortunately when seeking more of the same from outside of themselves only increases feelings of emptiness. These habits cease when the real thing is created together at home, with emptiness replaced by contentment, fulfillment, fun and pleasure.

Men do want sex, but awakening men desire heart connected sex and this is the difference. Connecting with this part of himself is a life changing experience which permeates through him, his relationship, family and community. It’s like tossing a pebble into a pond and watching the ripples spread out.

Men Connecting Emotionality with Heart and Sexuality

Energetically, the masculine heart is different to the feminine and this is a good thing. Feminine heart is more universal, inclusive and connected to her surroundings, spirit and universe. Masculine heart is deeply personal, grounded and connected in his soul, his sense of self.

This expands and strengthens with his emotional heart connection, which he brings into relationship. In this place, man desires sexual heart connection with his woman.

As men own more of their emotionality, they begin to feel more depth of heart connection with their sexuality. Deepening into heart and making love from this place is what man is capable of bringing into relationship.

Stereotyping man shames this part of him, shames his sensitive heart and sense of self with his normal reaction being, closing down emotionally and further closing his heart, turning him away from his true emotional heart connected self.

Our World Desperately Needs more Heart Connected Men…

Breaking this destructive cycle is as simple as supporting men in their journey of self discovery by validating their masculine heart, their emotionality and help create for the world more of what it most urgently needs.

Are you a Spiritual Vigilante?

January 5, 2015 By Annette & Graeme Leave a Comment

A Spiritual Vigilante is someone who creates unnecessary suffering…

by seeking to avoid healthy shame, seeing it all as toxic.

As you move into the New Year of 2015 you probably set intentions to be healthier and happier, eating and drinking more consciously, getting in some regular exercise and feeling good about yourself in the process. The same is true of our spiritual selves. We seek to become better at relating with others more consciously, doing our best to move beyond limiting thoughts and draining dramas whilst becoming a little more enlightened along the way.

Sometimes these good intentions can backfire into ‘spiritual vigilantism’ where, just like with food, drink and exercise we constantly stalk ourselves to the point of madness with every lack and imperfection becoming a cause for horror. With this singular type focus on our own behaviour we can end up making ourselves much more wrong than necessary. For unlike eating and exercise relating doesn’t happen in isolation from others and we can’t always see our behaviours clearly as they’re part of a multi levelled playing field.

Despite spiritual claims that everything in life is our mirror is this simplification 100% true or are we still influenced to a greater or lesser degree by our interaction with others? No matter which it takes much practice to bring clarity and ease to our relating. The messiness of sorting out whose stuff is whose (even if it’s all ours) is both the challenge and the joy of relationship. And the healthy shame that goes with recognizing where we stuff up is an important part of the process. Just like the shame that serves as a motivation after eating cheesecake or lazing in bed to get us back on the health wagon so the shame of saying or doing something that hurts another (or ourselves) inspires us to make a wiser choice next time.

Healthy shame plays an important role in our spiritual wellbeing. However being a spiritual vigilante and taking on too much unnecessary blame onto ourselves creates a toxic shame instead, a deep cesspool of heaviness that stops us from being all we can be. This kind of shame can become deeply addictive.

Paradoxically the opposite is also true. By seeing ourselves as always working hard to ‘get it right’, by over spiritualizing ourselves we play out a covert, but equally addictive cycle of appearing blameless- to ourselves and those around us. This is really an elaborate way of avoiding feeling the associated shame of being wrong. Of being human occasionally.

It is important to observe and reflect on our behaviour but too much of this can be like a reverse form of self punishment where in trying to be spiritual we forget that we are human. And we forget that being human is also divine. It is healthier to give up our attachment to our enlightened spiritual persona and accept that we are not perfect, feeling our healthy shame and practicing the Art of Grace. Grace is the practice of loving ourselves when we feel most unworthy and trusting in its awesome power to shift us back into awareness of our Higher Self where choices come with ease and openness.

The same technique works well for eating cheesecake and sleeping in!

Sex For Men Over 40

December 9, 2014 By Annette & Graeme Leave a Comment

Better Sex for Men (and Women)

Awareness of our capacity for sexual pleasure for both men and women in this age of information, technology and numerous other gadgets and toys, is declining.

Our capacity for pleasure hasn’t changed, yet our awareness of our unique ability to achieve pleasure has significantly declined. I believe this is because of our increasing use and thirst for knowledge has taken us away from our feeling body into our intellectual mind.

Sexual pleasure for men (and women) over 40 can be a totally different experience when both consciously choose to own their real sexual pleasure, especially from an intimate and emotionally heart connected place. There are a lot of different factors in conditioning men (and women) away from real full bodied pleasure .

It doesn’t matter how many sexual partners a person has had, or how much sex is experienced as this unfortunately is how we experience or measure pleasure from our own external experience. The pornography industry has created farcical illusions of what sex looks like, and part of the reason porn has such impact is because real, meaningful heart connected sexuality is diminishing.

From my own personal experience, and in working with couples and particularly men, I am also aware that very few men realise what their sexual capability really is, or in extreme cases, if their capacity for pleasure even exists. Through my work, I firmly believe that most men achieve less than 10% of their capacity to experience their own pleasure during sex.

Understanding is key

Something as simple as separating ejaculation from orgasm for men is real, yet most men don’t realize this is possible for them. Just because both usually happen at the same time (ejaculation being the release and orgasm the pleasurable peak ) men just aren’t aware that they’re separate functions. Most men believe that their pleasure experience of ejaculation is their actual orgasmic pleasure, yet there remains so much more pleasure to be experienced.

Surfing the edge

If a man’s focus on ejaculation is his goal then most likely he experiences only a small percentage of his orgasmic potential. Ejaculation pleasure still does feel pretty damn good but it is a separate experience from orgasm and when a man stops when he “cums” then that is his finish. The actual reality at that point of finishing is also the beginning of his awesome potential in feeling his separate orgasmic pleasure, which he mostly misses out on. Delaying ejaculation, or simply “surfing the edge” is a simple yet powerful beginning of achieving so much more pleasure.

Surfing the edge is a practise of playing near the edge with out ejaculation. In this place, orgasmic energy begins to emerge, and with practise will dramatically increase not only the length of love making but also the pleasure experienced.

This is an attention grabbing concept even for those who are aware of this potential experience of separation. And even for those who are aware, it can often be a struggle to achieve pleasure from separation as it may feel like giving up something familiar. Yet the potential beyond this point is limitless pleasure and a life changing experience that is well worth the effort of exploration.

Multi orgasmic Man

As a man, take a moment and imagine your point of no return, your point of ejaculation as a 10 on your scale of orgasmic pleasure. Then, with 1 being the start and 10 being the finish, imagine how it would be if you could keep going after 10 (without cuming) and feeling your orgasmic self for as long as you chose. Maybe even hundreds of times, without needing to actually ejaculate or desiring to finish? Are you, as a man even aware that this is what you are capable of, of being truly multi orgasmic ? This is what is available for a man when he can choose to not ejaculate and cultivate his orgasmic energy beyond his “10”.

As a man, your real sexual orgasmic pleasure begins at your current “10”.

Converting your ejaculation intensity into orgasmic energy will keep your real orgasmic pleasure happening. This will create for you, a whole new world of pleasure each time you achieve your “10” and each time in this place it deepens, past 10 to 11, 12 or more. Your experience of pleasure increases, becomes easier to achieve and stays with you longer. Each time you go into sexual space, your “10” has moved, your pleasure is deeper yet closer to the surface and becomes more accessible as your normal feeling experience. This experience gets better with age and this pleasure is already happening within you. Simply by allowing yourself to experience your sexual potential with out limiting your pleasure sounds easy, BUT there is a condition attached. And it is not negotiable and we’ll get to that, but before we do, a bit more about men’s conditioning away from pleasure.

Male conditioning

Men are conditioned away from experiencing deeper pleasure right from the beginning of their sexual journey. From when they first become sexually active, boys are conditioned into ejaculation. In the early days of self pleasuring (masturbation) the pressure is on to get it up and over and done with before they get found out- stage (1). The next stage (2) is to get it up and over and done with before their girlfriend changes her mind, then (3) before the kids wake up and finally, (4) before they lose their erection.

Sadly, at no stage, or very rarely, are boys exposed to the real meaning of the sacredness of their sexuality and heart connection and what this means to be a healthy sexual male.

Generally, as a result of this conditioning and lack of awareness of what is possible, men struggle in accepting that there is so much more to their sexual experience.

Men become “addicted” to ejaculation as their pinnacle experience.

Some men only experience ejaculation and very limited orgasmic pleasure, even though there is so much more pleasure to experience and it is already available inside them.

This disconnection conditioning also encourages a man to focus on pleasing his partner in order to be a “good lover”. This is another potential that may take him further away from this place inside of himself and into a place of “performance”. The pornography industry is more manipulation that specifically targets these areas of masculine desire of performing and visually “coming” which even further separates a man from his heart. When watching porn the screen is where a man’s awareness is focused. When watching porn, the focus is on the screen and in this place pleasure is significantly limited . As a man grows older and his habits become deeper and more entrenched as testosterone fades, his normal type of sex has less feeling and becomes more difficult. This is also a part of male menopause, which is another issue for men (and women).

BUT, for a man to experience what is beyond his so called “normal” is simply realizing there is so much more, and that he can choose to experience and discover this for himself. If you’re a guy, ask yourself what it would be like if you could have your orgasm but not the “down” of ejaculation? Ask yourself what it would be like to get to your point of “no return” and instead of ejaculating choose to have your deeply pleasurable orgasm as many times as you desired?

Man’s ultimate challenge

For a man to move away from performance and go into his deeper full bodied pleasure within himself, is about him opening to and connecting with his own loving heart.

For a man to achieve these wonderful things in himself, requires his sexual energy and intensity be totally heart connected and driven. This place of heart connected sexuality in a man creates life force sexual energy that is pure heart, and is an unlimited source.

A man feeling and connecting with his deeply penetrating loving heart is also creating his fuel for sexual intensity and pleasure in lovemaking with his partner. And, if you’re a woman reading this, how does that sound and feel for you? (pretty f…g amazing would be my guess…)

For you as a man in achieving your sexual heart connection, a deeply loving and connected relationship container is ideal. This will enable you to create your fuel for your open heart, which creates more feeling of depth of pleasure. Masculine ejaculation energy is pure heart energy and this is what a woman desires most of all from her man, and this is what men are capable of bringing into relationship. Surfing the edge for longer will keep your ejaculation energy and dramatically increase your heart energy that you bring into your sexual connection. This is about a man being able to experience his heart opening in a way that will enable him in experiencing more loving sexual power centred within himself .

Sexual shame

Most men carry a deep pool of sexual shame, from male conditioning around their identity and their sexuality that interferes with their capability in connecting with and experiencing more pleasure. This shame is also a large part of the reason why most men find it challenging to accept unlimited pleasure can exist beyond separation of ejaculation and orgasm.

Men are conditioned from the beginning of their sexuality, to get it over and done with by ejaculating, resulting in conditioning men into being trigger sensitive, numb or lose interest in sex. This shame will also significantly impact on a man’s emotional availability, as most men will withdraw from relationship as a result of feeling this shame . Ejaculation mostly prevents a man from achieving the best bits in his pleasure, and will also enable him to retreat into his shame pool. There is also some primal conditioning in this as well, about survival and getting your seed planted before something eats you. The point being, men have a lot of conditioning to undo, and it is why most men are addicted to ejaculation and at the same time, unknowingly diminishing their capacity for pleasure. Men have a choice and can choose pleasure, but most simply lack awareness about their true capabilities and sadly remain disconnected from their own pleasure selves. It is a matter of choice, but most importantly, simply being aware that they do have a choice, and that there is more, much more.

As a man, you have a choice and how would it be for you in choosing to finish, because you felt totally complete without ejaculation? Imagine what it would be like for you, if each time you went into this place, that your orgasmic energy became deeper and more full bodied, and that it remained with you for days afterwards, and you remained in that place of heart connection with your partner ?

Imagine if this was your natural orgasmic state of aliveness, presence and potently heart connected? How would you feel? How would your partner feel as you shared this deep heart connection with them? How would this impact on those around you, if this place in you became your normal? This is the state that all men are born with, yet are conditioned out of for a variety of reasons, but mainly through cultural shaming of their sexuality and deep wounds carried from growing up as a boy.

Learning to separate and become full bodied multi orgasmic is not easy, but it is real and does involve having a good time that is all about more pleasure and true sexual fulfillment. And if you’re learning this with your partner, then it is a relationship game changer.

Numbness and Prostrate

Men who experience numbness or have issues achieving or maintaining an erection will also benefit from these techniques, but just require different practises. Men who have had prostate surgery will especially benefit from these tantric techniques. In those cases, it is important to realise that a man can still feel orgasmic with out an erection.

How to get started

A simple process to try during lovemaking, or self pleasuring, is when you start to get close to your point of no return, is to simply stop and take 3 – 4 deep breaths. As you’re breathing deeply, focus on what you’re feeling inside of you, in your genitals. You will notice that your intensity of pleasure has relaxed and moved away from your genitals. This will spread pleasure through your body. Then simply start again and keep repeating, the more you surf the edge, the more full bodied your pleasure. The first step is being aware of what you’re feeling inside of you. This will make a difference simply because you’re feeling in yourself and you’re choosing to feel more pleasure. As you increase your awareness of how your sexual energy moves so will your awareness in the difference between ejaculation and orgasm. Focusing on the difference and choosing to bring the ejaculation intensity forward then stopping and breathing will expand that intensity further into orgasmic pleasure. And, practice practice practice… This is the main difference between the expansion techniques of Tantra and the control techniques of Taoist .

A holistic journey

Also, a preparedness for emotional work, to really connect with and release shame, heal deep seated wounds, be intensely vulnerable and really opening your heart are beginning places. Connecting heart and sexuality is a beginning step, and this one particularly challenges most men to their core, yet is what a woman desires most to feel from her man. From this beginning place, becoming multi orgasmic is a complimentary and continuing journey. Let her know what you are doing and invite her to breathe too!

From my personal experience, (and yes, this place exists) and in my opinion, once a man starts down this pathway not only is there no turning back, but it becomes a limitless, timeless and never ending journey. This place in man, when actively introduced into himself and his relationship will create a depth of heart opening sexual loving that will keep growing and deepening. And it definitely gets better with age as it is an internal journey rather than purely physical technical journey.

A man can journey as far and as deep as he has the courage to go into himself connecting his heart and sexuality, his power and this grows stronger and deeper with age………This is the place in a man that woman craves for, to feel safe, protected, nurtured and met.
Better Sex for Men, definitely, a game changer

Both will never be the same again.

Call us TOLL FREE 1800 TANTRA (826 872), email link

Good Girl vs The Slut

November 3, 2014 By admin Leave a Comment

The Tale of The Good Girl & The Slut

Every little girl grows up wanting to be good.

Good girls are seen as the ones who get the rewards of approval and attention. But somewhere deep inside of her there is also a desire to be bad, sometimes just a little bit bad, and sometimes this desire descends to the core of her being. I believe this desire for either goodness or its opposite (which is growing ever more common ie. see Bratz Dolls) comes from the fact that a girls authority, especially as she is growing up, comes totally from outside of her, setting her up to seek her own authority from within for most of her life. There are so many unwritten societal rules for a girl to follow that it is hard for her to understand that she has the choice to make her own way in life. These largely unwritten rules are things like being nice, going along, agreeing, smiling, make way, look nice, be pretty, know your place come at a girl daily. These rules about her code of conduct are largely based around keeping her inner power leashed, for if you look at the countries where women have the most rules to follow these are the ones where they are the least empowered. At a personal level a woman’s relationship to herself, her heart and her power are highly influenced by the relationship she has with her father, who, like it or not is still her first representation of power in life. She is impacted by whether he was physically and emotionally present, controlling, shaming or affirming. And whether he inspired, respected or overran her boundaries as boundaries are crucial to the development of the self.

For a woman having a sense of herself means listening to her unique inner voice, finding her own rules and creating a life for herself. This is especially difficult given how much of her life will be spent in service to others- vitally for her babies and young children, often her ageing parents. It still happens to a greater or lesser degree with her life partners and employers. This putting others first seems to run in a woman’s genes and is the field of consciousness in which she lives. Especially in relation to her sexual self which plays right into a girl/woman’s relationship with her good girl and her slut. For who is seen to be the baddest girl of them all? It is surely the whore or the slut. What this tells us is that the deepest seat of a woman’s power is in her sexual self- is she suppressing, controlling or subjugating, or giving herself permission to express it in all of its myriad forms? If she’s enjoying it she risks the direst label a young girl can attract- that of the slut, even in today’s apparently liberal culture. Men contribute their own part to this dynamic when they perpetuate the Madonna/Whore complex- either having a woman on a pedestal and beyond sex, or needing to see her as a whore to be able to have sex with her at all.

How does this dynamic play out in a woman’s life? There are two major opposing archetypes women fall into, either unconsciously or by choice, with light/dark versions of each. All women embody degrees of each archetype, along with further variations of those mentioned; and these can change over her lifetime. Being able to see where you are can support you in moving to where you would like to be so see if you can see yourself in any parts of the following:

The Good Girl (Light version): The one who has been supported in developing her sense of self, and is able to validate herself from within. She knows her own mind and is genuinely happy to love and nurture others without a loss of herself, without allowing those around her to drain her energy or disconnect her from her own needs and desires. She is the delightful princess who melts everybody’s hearts. She is respectful of but not fully expressed in her sexuality. The is part of the Mother Archetype.

The Good Girl (Shadow Version): The one who willingly follows the rules at a high cost to herself, in attempting to find her sense of self through giving away her all to, or seeking the attention and approval of everyone around her. She is either the wallflower in the corner scared to be seen or the one overtly gaining attention, demanding her needs be met first, and/or best. She is a prick-teaser that is disconnected from, or scared of her sexual self. This is either the Martyred Mother or the narcissistic, insecure Princess who gives the term its common interpretation.

The Bad Girl (Shadow Version): She finds her sense of self through rebelling against the rules and appears empowered but this is

often a reaction to her surroundings rather than an authentic way of being, especially where boys and sex are concerned. This leads her to act out her sexuality outside of herself, without clear emotional or sexual boundaries and giving sex as a means of getting love and attention. She sees sex as a power to control and manipulate others, either to get her needs met or keep her insecure self emotionally protected. Her sexuality can even become her identity. This is the most common interpretation of the Bad girl.

The Bad Girl (Light Version): A much rarer version of the bad girl is the woman who has no need to either adhere to or rebel against conventional society’s rules. Connected to, rather than ruled by her sexuality she is freer of self deception than most, with a high degree of self empowerment and self acceptance. She values her own emotionality and sexuality in a healthy way with clear, flexible boundaries and can fully express her sluttish self with an open heart, a heart that is as open to herself as to those she is loving or having fun with. She can play in dominant roles when she desires, and is comfortable being vulnerable. A woman playing in her Cougar Archetype is sexual from a power rather than a heart open position. The rare conscious, empowered, openhearted slut, contrary to popular opinion, is a true Goddess, especially if she empowers others along with herself.

Oztantra specializes in supporting women to become conscious and empowered in however and whoever they choose to be so contact us if you would like assistance in exploring any of these archetypes. Call 1800 TANTRA

Women are Wrong and seeing how is Freedom

July 10, 2014 By admin Leave a Comment

Women are wrong? How can this be?

There is something in woman that lives deep inside her, unseen and unacknowledged.

Unidentified will control and limit her.

Awareness of this wrongness begins as a spark and grows to a torrent. This is when she can choose freedom from it…

I am taking a deep breath and sharing my experience here as it has been for me and trusting that it has value for others…

I am a woman strongly in her feminine aspect.

I believe this is why I have experienced what follows so deeply.

What I speak of here I relate to the feminine collective, it’s part of each individual woman’s personal history but it is also somehow part of all women.

I have been ‘working’ as they say, on myself for a long time- over 30 yrs, experiencing, learning and enjoying much. Sometimes along the way I have made mistakes and felt appropriately wrong as a result, I’ve been able to deal with it and have learned from the consequences.

Yet it seemed I had another place of wrongness inside of me. One that was something else altogether- a painful, bottomless pit of icky, yucky, discomfort I labelled toxic SHAME.

Toxic shame is “I AM wrong” rather than I have just done something wrong.

This shame was like an automatic default setting I continually fell into, regardless of the circumstances. Recently I decided to take a good look at this monster, to stare it into submission and learn what it had to teach me. What opened up was a new world of ease, openness and self love.

A journey of discovery

From sitting with this shame, sometimes for hours at a time (no easy task let me assure you!)

it became clear there were two things operating here – a mental belief in my wrongness, and the physical feeling of shame attached to it… Once I was fully inside this very familiar and very uncomfortable feeling I saw my belief often WASN’T TRUE.

And once I saw this I saw that the big, juicy pool of shame that was attached to it now didn’t feel like MINE either.

I started looking at where this belief (wrongness) + feeling (shame) was showing up in my life and I found them everywhere, in both minor, and major parts of my life.

I saw them in basic things like needing the “right” clothes, hair, shoes, accessories, makeup, nails, skin, look, size, shape to feel acceptable.

And also in important things like my relationship – realising that so often when my man opened his mouth I would believe he was making me wrong. My automatic response was to feel wrong and get defensive. It became obvious to him that something was not right because he wasn’t trying to make me wrong, he could see I was doing it to myself. No matter what he said I would twist his meaning into making me wrong so I could feel my familiar sense of shame. He reported great frustration in trying to relate to me when I was in this shame pool, figuring he might as well do anything else rather than try and talk to me. Then I would feel abandoned along with more shame.

Unconscious belief in my wrongness would:

Put me constantly on the defensive, in my relationship and in my life, ready to collapse into shame, or to argue vociferously that I was NOT wrong (even if this was completely irrelevant to what was being discussed).
This self justification led me to feel powerlessness.
Feeling powerless made me want to lash out at those I perceived had power.
I felt ashamed, scared and angry.
I refused to believe it was just me being an illogical, menopausal female.

After reflecting on my work with women over the last 15yrs it seemed that some degree of this innate sense of wrongness was a common, if not universal experience in women.

I came across a study that reported men at work will blame their equipment, their boss or the system when things went wrong. Women would always blame themselves.

This wrongness appeared to infiltrate all levels of the feminine: body, mind, feeling, psyche and spirit…

Where does this sense of wrongness come from?

I believe it comes from the feminine being lost and her inner truths dishonoured from:

A patriarchal society that devalues the feminine qualities of feeling, emotion, intuition, wisdom, creativity, playfulness, pleasure, beingness, receptivity, surrender, vulnerability, embodied sexuality and spirituality; seeing these qualities as weak or irrelevant rather than powerful, mysterious and magnetic.
The desecration of ancient Goddess cultures where Spirit was earthy and embodied, rather than an external perfection to be ascended to. And through the burning at the stake of tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of women as so called witches during the dark ages, removing this font of wisdom from our culture.
The physical, emotional and sexual abuse perpetrated by unconscious patriarchal men and the lack of healing available to women wounded at a soul level.
The social, sexual, cultural and political repression of women that remains around the world today.
The overt honouring of the Good Mother and Madonna roles vs the shaming of the Bad Mother, the Whore and the Invisible Older Woman.
The loss of understanding the true nature of female sexuality, limiting it to mechanical stimulation and arousal rather than relaxation and awakening. So depriving woman of true connection to herself and her spiritual power.

How does this overwhelming history impact us as women?

To a greater or lesser degree it makes us:

Feel wrong somehow for no longer being the “good” girl we were supposed to be.

Apologise for our existence, making it much harder to stand up for ourselves and ask for our needs to be met.

Vulnerable to the marketing that serves to fix our “wrongness” worth billions of dollars of cosmetics, clothes, hairdos, diet, beauty treatments and plastic surgery etc.

Women as BDSM bad girls

If we’re lucky we might get to play in our wrongness sexually, in all kinds of edginess and bdsm play.

Yet there is much more than that – we are like the abuse victim who internalises the shame of the act long after the abuse itself is over.

It leaves us disconnected from our feminine selves, striving to live up to the masculine perception of power. We do this whilst feeling increasingly exhausted and unfulfilled within.

We miss out on the feminine qualities mentioned above. Our lack of these qualities leaves us bitter and complaining. We focus only on feminine nurturing and giving to others in the hope this will make us worthy of receiving in return. We then feel frustrated and even more wrong when our “goodness” is not seen.

Disconnected from our embodied truth and sense of self, we say yes, when we mean no. We say nothing when we mean yes.

We toughen up and tolerate bad treatment by others (and by ourselves), and often inappropriately blame ourselves for what is wrong.

Our ability to suffer in silence makes us hard and unavailable to others, and to our own hearts.

We develop a false strength, an ego based power that doesn’t allow us to take responsibility when we ARE in the wrong. This is because in feeling so wrong already there is unconscious resistance to feeling even more wrong.

Our inner rage at this wrongness leads us to project our shame onto, and emasculate men in a thousand different ways, fatally damaging our relationships with them.

All the while we will desperately fight to get or keep men to avoid feeling wrong for being alone.

In this place we see our sisters as competition, often criticising and shaming them, denying ourselves this inherent support system.

We neglect our need for pleasure as a necessary part of our wellbeing, cutting ourselves from this powerful source of inner radiance. We use our pleasure to service others rather than ourselves. We suffer under rough or inadequate touch, rather than asking clearly for what we desire, leaving both the giver and receiver lost.

And finally it leaves us as THE VICTIM rather than the POWER PACK– unhappy, frustrated, scared, uncertain, complaining, not knowing and not loving ourselves, living small.

How can we create something new?

Like an abuse victim we cannot change what has happened.

Bringing to account those responsible for our abuse can help, receiving acknowledgment and apology is part of the healing. But much of this pain is beyond the individual, in both victim and persecutor. Limiting ourselves by focusing our attention only on the perpetrators does not fully resolve the attached shame and unhelpful belief patterns WE now carry within US as a result.

People with disabilities stepping out of shame Yet we CAN help to set ourselves free of this shame and disempowerment.

Very much like the movement out of cultural shame by people with disabilities. Disabled athletes are now very much a part of the everyday world rather than hidden in the corner. They have done this not with blame, as often there isn’t anyone TO blame, but through empowerment in the individual, focussing on their abilities and strengths rather than their limitations.

We can choose to trust in the power of the feminine, that still exists despite ALL the efforts to sublimate it.

We can move beyond this wrongness, this shame by meeting it head on, actively seeking it out, understanding that it is not ours, it never was. Acknowledging our victimhood with compassion, moving beyond its disempowering control. Knowing that as we do so we are empowering both ourselves and our sisters from within.

We can join with the growing numbers of women across the globe who are reaping the benefits of integrating the feminine more fully into their lives.

Reclaiming your POWER PACK

If you can relate to what has been spoken here join me in:

Setting an intention to see this pattern more clearly
Taking moments to FEEL this yucky shame, breathing into it (rather than unconsciously reacting from inside it)
Allowing it to nail us like an insect on a pin
Like a stake into the wall of our closed and suffering hearts

If we can give birth to babies, we can do this!
Consciously breathe into the discomfort and feel it fully just for a moment or two
Just long enough to see what it is- a feeling
If it is yours own it
See where it is NOT you

Then let it go
This is freedom. This is power from within
This is self love
This is Love birthed in compassion
For yourself, your sisters and those around you
Giving the world the gift of a truly empowered and feminine YOU.

To experience more of where Annette is coming from join her

Power of Yoni Workshop

Painful Sex – Is this you?

March 12, 2014 By Annette & Graeme Leave a Comment

Sex is Meant to be Pleasurable

Sex is meant to be pleasurable and satisfying, making love blissful, nurturing, and more. What if it is none of these things but a source of frustration or even misery, for the both woman and her lover? This has been my own story and is an increasingly common scenario, with Drs who specialize in women’s gynaecological health reporting it is on the increase, particularly in young women. If you fear making love more than look forward to it,

Painful sex can feel like a red hot poker

if your lover is at his wits end because he it hurts him to know he is causing you suffering you are not alone. Some studies say the rate of painful sex for women is as high as 30%. One US study has put the figure of women between the ages of 18-64 who have suffered from chronic painful sex, a condition known as vulvodynia, as high as 16%. The cause of vulvodynia is said to be unknown but has an important psychological link. This does NOT mean that it is all in your head though, the physical symptoms of stinging, itching and burning from mild to intense are very real.

There are Many reasons for Painful Sex

There are many reasons sex can be painful, most commonly it is due to emotional tension, vaginal dryness, infection, low libido, hormonal imbalances due to the pill or menopausal changes to the vaginal tissues. Prolonged and over enthusiastic forceful “porn” type thrusting. Even some medications affect lubrication, particularly anti depressants.

Focussing on emotional aspects underlying vaginal pain:

1. You’re saying yes to sex when you really mean no. This can be for a wide variety of reasons- you’re just not in the mood but feel compelled to go there because you think you should eg. for your lover’s satisfaction, because you believe it is more important than yours or because your believe there is something wrong with you if you don’t want to have sex. Or perhaps saying no is a difficulty for you in general, especially if you see it hurting another.

2. You’re angry with, or in fear of your partner and have closed your heart to him, the heart is a very powerful factor in a woman being able to open sexually and if you are carrying unresolved hurt vaginal pain can result.

3. You’re not connected with yourself sexually, you don’t yet know how, or don’t take the time to become fully aroused before penetration and override your body’s innate needs.

4. You have sex that you don’t enjoy, or continue to have sex long after it has ceased to be pleasurable.

5. You may have guilt about being sexual at all, or for having sex, self pleasuring or masturbation.

6. You have repeated experiences of failing to reach orgasm, or been “left hanging in midair’ whilst your partner was already “over the edge”.

7. Sex has become goal orientated, with your mind forcing your body to perform rather than following its natural desires.

8. You and your lover have ‘porn focussed performance sex’, with long periods of forceful thrusting and little intimacy.

9. You make love as a way of avoiding intimacy, or confrontation with your partner or covering up your anger.

10. You may be carrying some unhealed sexual abuse.

11. Even the experience of a caesarean section or difficult birth, a hysterectomy or an abortion can leave an impact on your sexual body.

12. Your pelvic floor muscles, the ones that hold your vagina, and the structures around it, such as your uterus, bladder and bowel in place have become weakened, allowing them to prolapse into your vagina, creating pain when they’re pressed against. This weakening can be caused by lack of use, childbirth, poor overall health and hormonal changes; generalized stress that causes you to chronically tense your pelvic floor which over time weakens it. Loss of pelvic floor tone affect 50% of women at some stage in their lives! It can be fixed by learning proper pelvic floor health, or more serious cases require surgery.

13. You may mistakenly believe you are not worthy of receiving pleasure. This is so not true, it is your birthright!

14. The cycle of pain can develop a feedback loop in your belief and nervous systems, taking on a life of its own. This doesn’t mean you’re crazy, you just haven’t learned how this pain cycle works and what to do about it.

15. Either you, or your partner fear your sexuality and its power.

Or perhaps your pain has turned into numbness. A woman’s vagina has an extraordinary capacity to tolerate pain by numbing it away. It does this to make giving birth more tolerable. The only challenge with this is that it numbs pleasure as well.

Tension in the Genitals

All of the above create tension in the genitals. This tension manifests itself most commonly through tightness/stiffness in the yoni (genitals) that never fully relaxes, even during intercourse. The feelings and emotions that are unacknowledged or expressed in this collect in the genitals as blocked energy and over time this is reflected as either numbness or as we are talking about here- physical pain.

There are many ways to support you with managing your pain, the first is believing that it is real, and not something that you need to ‘put up with’ in any shape or form. The next is believing that you are a sexual being that is capable of extra ordinary pleasure and that you want what you’re made for.

In you:

Learn to relax your pelvic floor. Imagine your muscle between your legs as a triangle of chocolate melting in the warm sun. Literally feel the area letting go. Do this regularly so that you can do it during sex as well.
Once your muscles have learned to relax start to tone them and make them healthier. In this case try identifying your pelvic floor muscles by standing with both feet facing inwards and squeezing the muscles between your legs as if trying not to pee. Once you’ve identified them squeeze and release them gently. Make sure you relax them fully by imagining the area melting like chocolate in the warm sun. Once this feels ok do the same but pull the muscles up higher inside you by imagining you’re sipping them up like a thickshake up a straw (sipping your breath in at the same time helps) and hold in for 1 second then release. Do 10 times, releasing fully in between each one. Over a few weeks build up to a 10sec hold.

In the bedroom:

Take your time, breathe deeply into your heart, and into your genitals, allowing you to relax and open as much as possible.
Have your partner use full body strokes before massaging the outside of your Yoni (genitals) well, making sure you have a ‘Yes’ for penetration.
Try a variety of touches to help expand your body’s awareness rather than continually going over and over the same ground, as this helps to break the pain cycle in your brain.
Use personal lubricant- there is no such thing as too much lube and it’s not a sign of failure to use it.
Encourage your partner to go slow, look each other in the eyes, breathe together and build trust.
Stop when you need to.

Outside the bedroom:

Investigate any underlying medical causes with your Dr.
Get medical or naturopathic support for your hormone levels.
Find out if you can change your medication to one with less side effects.
See a physiotherapist who specializes in pelvic floor management can help you relax and strengthen your pelvic floor muscles and also release muscle tension inside your vagina.
Having some counselling to investigate what might be going on for you emotionally with your sense of self and in your relationship can help.
Explore the idea of some sexual healing.

Communication is Critical

And of course talking to your partner about this, if you haven’t already ,so he can understand what is happening for you and more appropriately support you, as well as

having a chance to express his own fears and pain in a situation where to make love with you hurts you. Especially when it becomes chronic sexual pain is a situation where the solution will involve both of you. Learning how to have more energetic lovemaking with less thrusting and more flowing will help.

Express your Emotions

Allowing yourself to express the emotions that come up will help release the energy that is blocking in your vagina., which is also the area of your first, second and third chakras live- where your safety, sexuality, creativity and power centres reign. For me personally, as well as looking at all the areas above I have found that my pain was asking me to go deeper inside myself and connect to the power that lies underneath my sexual pleasure, my sense of my personal power and who I think and I am, to be the one in the drivers seat of my sexuality (and my life). When I am thrusting forward in my hips I am surrendering to power within, releasing all fear, resistance and pain.

Sexual Healing

A further option is to seek some training in sexual healing for both yourself and your partner with a practitioner you trust, which addresses both the psychological, emotional and energetic release of what you are holding in your body. This is something Annette is intimately familiar with herself and knows the power that sexual healing offers- read her story of healing sexual shame. Check out her Power of Yoni Workshop and Sexual Healing page.

If you would like to find out more about tantric sexual healing email her at info@oztantra.com or call 1800 623 262 to make an appt.

For more on Vulvodynia, physiotherapy for the pelvic floor and/or Naturopathic treatments check out Equilibria where I highly recommend Alyssa Tait

Sexual Healing – Annette’s Journey of healing sexual shame

March 12, 2014 By Annette & Graeme Leave a Comment

Annette’s journey of sexual healing

My journey of sexual healing shame has been a powerful, at times painful, yet always rewarding one, for which I have much gratitude. As I’ve healed my shame I’ve identified the associated limiting beliefs about myself that were holding me back in being open and loving towards myself and others. It’s also given me greater self knowledge to create more of what I want in my life, rather than what I don’t. It’s allowed me to access greater sexual pleasure and heights of ecstasy that I hadn’t even dreamed of, which I really enjoy sharing with my loving partner Graeme. Working with sexual energy has also given me access to a personal pathway to spirituality which I use in meditation, making love and for simple but profound moments of connecting to spirit in every day life.

My early self beliefs

When I was growing up, like a large proportion of the community, I was sexually abused. I was an older child at the time, and the abuse was imposed by two people I knew. They were minor encounters but the effect of them was life changing, the energy of sexual shame is so powerful. I created three beliefs in response to these two events. One that I was “bad” in a way that I couldn’t understand but felt to my core. Secondly, that I was powerless to speak up and no one could help me, which caused me to become even more reluctant to express myself than the shy child I already was. Thirdly, that “I should have known better,” so beginning a life of readily taking on guilt, and over responsibility for everything in my life.

Beginnings of change

In my forties I developed an interest in personal growth, wanting to make some changes in the many areas of my life that weren’t working for me. Surprisingly to me at the time, part of this growth turned out to be sharing my experiences of abuse with a supportive group of people and healing, through conscious witnessing, the feelings attached to them. This process helped me to identify the beliefs I had formed as a result of these experiences and how to recognise where they were still operating, unhelpfully, in my life. This was the beginning of reclaiming what I had lost in myself. I had no idea it would lead me to sexual healing!

Learning about sexuality

The next step was deciding to consciously embrace myself as a sexual being and explore what that meant for me. This included things as simple as allowing myself to feel any sexual feelings that came along and enjoy them for what they were, rather than shutting them down, or taking on shame messages about myself for having them. And wearing some flowing skirts, feeling soft, feminine and sensual (and somehow vulnerable at first). I even occasionally went without knickers to enhance the effect and let go of the “stories” that came into my mind about how bad I was! Another thing I did was to dance for myself, making sensual, then sexual movements with my pelvis, freeing up this area of my body that had become locked up into stiffness and pain, feeling and releasing the shame as I went.

Relationship challenge

Then I took a more complex step of choosing to get into relationship with a new man in my life, when after the ending of a 20yr marriage 18 months prior, I felt more like withdrawing, staying single and safe. Graeme was, and is, someone who really enjoys the sexual side of life and this was a real challenge for me. As my journey entwined with his I was given the opportunity to act out my sexual feelings in the heady excitement a new relationship brings. I was being encouraged to not only have sex, but give myself permission to enjoy it to the max as never before. I’m happy to say I did!

Oh no!

Some months down the track I began to develop a reoccurrence of pain in my yoni (vagina) during sex, which I had experienced during the later stages of my marriage. This was not what I wanted at this time, let me tell you! But try as I/we might, there it was. It turned sex from bliss to a highly emotionally charged and painful event, very difficult for both of us. Avoiding it didn’t help. Nor did any medical investigations, psychology sessions, creams, medications to numb the pain, relaxation techniques, lubricants or other treatments ad infinitum. One Dr even suggested cutting the lining of my yoni and stretching it to cover up the painful bits- I retreated in horror. There had to be another way.

Tantra and sexual healing

Discovering tantra and sexual healing taught me that the way forward in this situation was to have the courage to go through it, not avoid it. That my pain was there to challenge me to fully embrace my sexual (and ultimately spiritual) self. So with the loving support of my beloved Graeme (who has his own journey in this as you can imagine) I have discovered a way through. By continuing to open to my sexual energy, through tantric lovemaking and sexual healing practices, telling myself it is ok to feel sexual pleasure, consciously witnessing the feelings as they come up to be healed, and by discovering and removing any layers of resistance my pain has slowly resolved. As those of you who have been on a conscious healing path will know, many opportunities will come up when you are seeking to heal, and I learned to trust myself to take up any which seemed like they would provide a pathway to remove any pockets of shame or pain- even if the “how” didn’t always become clear until I was actually into it. Through loving, respectful, honouring and sacred practices I have learned to allow myself to feel as much pleasure as it is possible for me to feel, as I have a right to feel. I am slowly learning to love and trust myself and others, as a sexual being, then as a human being, and finally as a spiritual being, able to truly open myself to love.

This is the abridged version of my journey here and the journey continues.

For any of you who may be considering sexual healing any for your sexual shame, which I believe we all carry at some level, then take heart and dive in. Your journey will be different to mine, but I assure you, if you persist you will find that it is worth it.