Tantric Secrets for a Healthy Relationship

by Kerry and Diane Riley, directors of ASOT.
Copyright Spectra 2000 P/L 2005

Tantra article: on love, sex and relationships, workshop facilitators KERRY & DIANE Riley expose old myths in regard to relationships, and share ways in which to create harmony through a unique Bonding Process they have developed, it is an adjunct to Tantric relationship very useful for any couple endeavouring to become aware of unsupportive patterning and to return to love. 

Close Loving relationships provide the potential for the highest lovemaking. Tantra sexuality and tantric conscious relationship requires vigilance. It is worth working on your relationship if you want to open up to more possibilities in the area of your lovemaking, because as your relationship grows deeper and sex get better. There is nothing better than having a fabulous sexual experience with the person whom you love the most in life. Sex can be fabulous out-of-relationship, but it can be even more fabulous with a person who deeply loves and trusts you because then you have the intimacy as well as the sexual passion.

It is important to point out that relationships in their current form in our society are not working. Statistics show that in Western societies more than fifty percent of married couples get divorced. Once we fall in love, we get married and take a vow to honour and love each other forever, in sickness and in health. Even though we may truly hope for this at a time, the evidence is that fairytale marriages are rare. Yet deep down many people still expect this to happen for them, and when it doesn’t, they get deeply hurt.

If, on the other hand, we had been conditioned to accept and honour “serial monogamy” as the norm, then we wouldn’t put such pressure on ourselves or our partner to be happily married and in love for a lifetime.

In Challenge of the Heart, by John Welwood, it is pointed out that “ no earlier society has ever tried, much less succeeded at, joining together romantic love, sex , and marriage in a single institution”. In traditional societies it was normal for marriages to be arranged by the families. Happiness was not the goal of marriage, which was more to do with family lineage and property. Feelings of love were never considered a season a reason for marriage. Marriage for love was not attempted until the 19th century. However, it was regarded as degrading for women in Victorian times to have sexual feelings, so men often had sex with prostitutes.

It’s important to understand the impact of this, to understand that you are a pioneer, one of the first of mankind throughout history to even attempt to combine love, sex and marriage. No wonder you have difficulties. It’s not simply to do with you and your partner’s inadequacies. It’s a hug challenge and there is very little education on how to combine all this for a lifetime together.

The emphasis on individualism in our society, on “doing your own thing”’ can work against marriage. Many couples who have gone off on their own personal growth paths separately from each other often find it difficult to integrate that individual growth in a supportive way in their marriage. I’m not suggesting that personal growth work should not be done. It is most important, but if you have done a lot of that, it’s time to create a balance between your individual needs and the needs of your relationships as a whole. Go to groups that support your loving relationship.

I believe people are genuinely wanting to end the battle of the sexes and enter into a joint journey of personal growth and sexual, emotional and spiritual fulfilment. We are entering what you could call the “We Generation”, as opposed to the preceding “Me Generation”, and this is happening on a global level. We need all the education we can get to make our relationship work, so I hope you will try some of the secrets I share with you.

Give your relationship high priority

Diane my wife and I have decided to maintain sexual passion and a loving bond throughout our lives together, se we put a lot of time, energy and care into our relationship. We treat it as a very special entity. It is more important than each of our lives. It takes something we work on as team-mates, continually creating more and more love in our lives. It takes something more powerful than hoping, wishing or desiring, it takes a lifetime commitment.

In the initial stages of most relationships when men and women meet and fall in love, there is lots of love and energy and intimacy, lots of lovemaking and lots of passion. Then, after a period of time, many couples lose it. The Hite Report states that85 per cent of women say that after two years of being in a relationship or marriage they love their husbands but are no longer “ In love” with them. Some couples will say to Diane and me: “we still have sex, our passion comes occasionally, but it seems to have lost its sizzle, it’s lost its juice. The intimacy and the opening that we used to feel in our hearts when we first met isn’t really there anymore…”

There is a school of though that believes: “Well that’s natural, that’s what happens”. Diane and I believe it is natural and it is what happens – unless couples consciously choose to continue to create love and passion in their relationships. This is possible, but it requires a decision that this is something that you dearly want in your lives, something that you treasure, something that you believe will give you more from life than anything else.

Above everything else, we all want love. We can go through life and gain a lot of things materially and socially, but if we miss out on love then we will have missed the most important thing in life. The woman with whom you have chosen to live your life – your beloved – is the one you have allowed to get closest to you, and through her you have the potential to feel even more love in this lifetime. A lot of couples make a common error. They put more energy into their career, their family, their sport and their interests than into their relationship. They expect their relationship will progress satisfactorily while they get on with their so-called much more important things. They do not realise that by supporting and nurturing their primary relationship, they will be able enhance and give more energy and creativity to all these other pursuits and relationships.

In other words, make an agreement to treat your relationship a high priority and put in the energy necessary to support that decision.

Creating harmony when you don’t see eye to eye

The truth is that no matter how much we want our relationship to run smoothly, disharmony still occurs. We get out of sync with our partner. We have disagreements, we argue and sometimes we get angry and hurt and say things to our partner that we wouldn’t say to our worst enemy.

What can we do about disharmony? First we need to have the right attitude. If we have the attitude that conflict should not occur, then we are always going to be under stress. Conflict is a part of growth and does occur in a healthy relationship. Very often the closer we get to our beloved, the more conflicts arise, se we need to develop the attitude, as we confront uncomfortable situations together, that although it can be painful, it is an opportunity to grow closer together.

Many people have the attitude that a good relationship must always be smooth and controlled, so they are unhappy and disappointed with their marriage when it doesn’t happen like that. They spend a lot of energy covering up the disharmony from others and they cover it up from each other until it gets out of control, and then the whole relationship explodes. So the first thing to have in your relationship is the understanding that disharmony is part of a healthy relationship, that it’s natural. Loving couples strive for the joy of becoming closer and closer together.

They want union, but along with union comes dependence which can make a man feel that he is allowing a woman to hold power over him. Men don’t want to have to depend on women; to some men this is dependence threatens their sense of masculinity and they resent it. Many women also resent feeling dependent on men and this creates an ongoing struggle for power and independence.

That is why lovers will always go on fighting. The fight is simply a way to show each other they are still independent.

It is important not to blame each other because this is something that happens between male and female energies. Don’t take it personally and don’t hurt the other for doing what is part of the man-woman relationship game.

If we are to move forward in our relationship, we must learn to let go and not carry bad energy around with us for hours or sometimes days. Some of us hang onto our disagreements for weeks. We must learn to let them go, but how do we do this?

Shutting off and walking out of the room is basically heading for a hug fight. You must discuss the issue. If at some point you do head out of the room, make sure you come back and be open to talk. However, discussing it while you are in a high state of resentment can be difficult and could perhaps lead to more disharmonies.

What should you do in these situations? The first step is to let go of having to be right and having to prove her wrong, and go into the bonding process.

The Bonding Process

Diane and I use a practice in our marriage called the Bonding Process. Many teachers of Tantra and tantric sex sexual loving teach similar exercises. It includes stopping the talking when you realise it’s not going anywhere and agreeing to physically connect your bodies.

It is important that you and your partner have agreed to do this in times of conflict. This process will help to keep sexual passion and loving bond alive in your relationship. You should make a prior agreement to partake in the process always. So when one asks the other, even though you may not want to, you will agree to say “yes”. It is not based on whether you want to, it is based on a decision you have made in your relationship which you have both agreed to honour no matter what – “to keep sexual passion and loving bond between you alive.”

Never refuse to honour this agreement because if you do you threaten the issue of trust in your relationship. Your partner has trusted you enough to drop the argument and ask for harmony. This I affirming that your relationship is more important than ego, more important than being right in this particular issue.

Suppose it is you who lets go first. You could say. “This is not getting us anywhere. I want to be in harmony with you. I want to do the Bonding Process. We can discuss this later when we are not so upset. Let’s put our bodies together.” The steps in the Bonding Process are as follows:

Step 1:

Take up the nurturing position. You (the requesting partner in this case) lie on your back while your partner lies besides you and rests her head on your chest. Place your right arm around her in a nurturing manner. She places her right hand on your heart chakra and you put your left hand on top of hers. Bend your right knee and place it between her legs, touching her sexual centre. Her right leg is bent over yours so her knee touches your genital area.

This connects your heart centre. Where you can open to give and receive love again, with your sexual centre, which, for a man, tends to open you more to wanting intimacy again. For her, being held in the nurturing position tends to open her heart centre again and by touching her sexual centre with your leg, reverses her normal reactive behaviour to close down sex to you in time of conflict.

Step 2:

Use the breath to let go of any tension. If you are very upset you will find that you will be tensing your body and holding your breath or you will feel your partner doing this. Breathe in with a long, deep breath through the nose and then sigh as you breathe out through the mouth –ahh! Repeat this at least 10 times, co-ordinating your breaths if you can; otherwise make sure you are both doing the deep breathing. Never allow just one of you to be doing it; both must participate.

As you breathe out let go of any anger, resentments or the need to be right. Release all tension in the body, especially in the jaw, neck and shoulders. As you continue with the breathing, allow your mind to quieten, allow the inner chatter about the argument to be dismissed. Take your awareness instead to the contact points between your physical bodies, especially your heart being open – feeling love, compassion, caring and forgiveness. Feel the warmth of your partner’s hand on your heart centre. Now focus on nurturing your partner like a child who has been hurt. Focus on that part of her that you really love beyond the part that has upset you.

Partner B ( your lover in this case), focus on being nurtured and cared for and then shifts her attention to her hand on your heart, healing it and opening you more to love again. If it feels appropriate she can gently move her hand from your heart centre to your sexual centre, gently cupping this area for a few minutes, while you keep your hand on your heart centre. This allows harmony between the emotions and physical sexuality to develop once more. You now exchange roles with your partner, gently repositioning before beginning. You need to spend al least five minutes in each role for it to be effective.

Step 3:

Both turn and face each other and hold each other naturally without your ands holding the heart or sexual chakras. Continue to breathe and let go, but do not say anything. Gaze gently into each other’s eyes with love and compassion while tuning into your own “higher self”, where having to be right or having to win the argument is not important. What is important is to keep eye contact and be soft, vulnerable and see the part of your beloved that wants to be loved and wants to love. Act as healers for each other, showing compassion, care and concern for your relationship.

Keep breathing gently and after a minute or so and when appropriate, one says “I’m sorry (we were fighting). I love you”. The other listens, breaths in and internally accepts this. Then she says “I’m sorry too and I love you.” Finish with a hug or a kiss.

It is most important not to say anything like” I forgive you, but next time..” This would blow the whole process. You may as well not have done it in the first place. Do not talk about the issue, just hug and kiss and suggest a cup of tea or a walk. Maybe several hours later or the next day you can return and deal with the issue. Dealing with it immediately after the Bonding Process is dangerous because you are very open and sensitive when you have trusted enough to say “sorry”.

After you have completed this process, you may not even need to discuss the issue again because you will find that the re-established harmony and balance may well provide a new viewpoint or attitude. If you do discuss it, you may come up with other solutions to the problem which you may not have reached while in a reactive mode.

In reality, neither of you are perfect. You both contributed to the disharmony in some way. By looking within and forgiving and by balancing the energies between you, very often circumstances begin to change.

The Power of Surrender

What you are doing in these three steps is surrendering your ego and honouring your true feelings to keep the sexual passion and loving bond between you alive. Surrender is not compromise. Surrender is letting go totally and giving over to a truth higher than yourself. In this case, the bonding of your relationship becomes the highest truth, not you winning the argument or allowing your beloved wants and needs to be more important than your own. It is important to honour your truth, your needs and wants. Surrendering is a powerful thing to do. Once the energy is balanced it is more likely that a solution will be found to whatever caused the disharmony in the first place.