Are you fluent in the language of touch? A recent article by Rick Chillot for Psychology Today explores the phenomena of a “touch chasm” – the idea that we can communicate and receive messages solely through touch but often refrain from doing so due to cultural restrictions. Ours is a somewhat touch-phobic society, constantly reminding us of the risks of misinterpretation. This means that many people are unaware of how helpful – even vital – learning how to communicate through touch can be.

Step 1: Learning to Communicate

What messages do you send out into the world through your tactile contact? Consider how you would comfort someone who is grieving, or welcome a friend you haven’t seen in awhile. Communicating effectively through touch begins with getting comfortable with your particular twist on expressions, as well as their impact on others. Ask yourself how you would react if another person were to mirror your tactile responses and communications – if you would find them comforting or off-putting, chances are others will too.

Step 2: Learning to Receive

Much like verbal communication, listening is an important part of connection. Opening your physical “ears” to listen for cues signals that you are ready to receive messages through touch. If a loved one hugs you a few beats longer than usual, this may reflect their need for a longer embrace to steady a broken heart or troubled mind. If a new acquaintance seems to shrink away from your handshake, you may be making them uncomfortable – be sure to back away and give them plenty of room and exit points, even if you continue the conversation. If you’d like a clear period of touch-listening opportunity, massage therapists are an excellent way to build tactile listening skills – they are present to make you feel better and relax you, offering the perfect opportunity for quiet interpersonal study.

Step 3: Be Willing to Adjust

Even the most skilled of touch communicators won’t get it right every time. There will likely come a time when a pat on the shoulder or an impromptu reassuring hug is taken the wrong way, but handling the situation with grace is always important. When in doubt, never be afraid to ask if it’s alright if you hug or touch someone, and be sure to be prepared for a “no.” One of the most challenging aspects of communicating in a touch-phobic society is building a common language, and that is currently – and will continue to be – responsible for muddying the proverbial waters. With compassion and a willingness to learn, however, touch can become one of our most eloquent methods of communication.

Learn how to hug with conviction, to comfort with the whole heart, and to set boundaries with your gut. The result will be a fingertip lexicon that’s ready to share with the world and emphasize your verbal communication.

According to the yogis, our deepest desire is the desire for connection. We yearn to feel oneness – with each other, with ourselves, and with all that is.

Yet, everywhere I go, I witness how we’re forgetting, or ignoring what’s really important in our lives. During my trip to Bali last year, I observed a young couple by the pool, surrounded by lush plants, an aquamarine pool of crystal clear water, and breathtaking views out across the rice paddies – but instead of admiring their beautiful surrounding, or even being present with each other, they spent literally hours playing on their mobile phones, barely talking and not once lifting their heads to look around them.

I’m sometimes as guilty of this feeling of disconnectedness as the next person. Have you ever been travelling, visiting some far-off corner of the world, and gone on a trip to visit a popular tourist spot – a temple, or an ancient ruin or a cave – only to come away with a slight feeling of emptiness after the experience? Perhaps you stood and took your photos alongside the other tourists, maybe you stopped off at the gift shop afterwards to buy a postcard. But I’m sure I’m not alone in confessing that after such a visit, I’ve sometimes felt like there was something missing in the whole experience. It’s as if our tv-watching, smart-phone-obsessed generation has forgotten how to listen, observe and really see what’s right in front of our eyes.

There’s an online video doing the rounds currently, which is a great reminder of how obsessed we’ve become with our mobile phones.
View it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OINa46HeWg8.
Technology may be there to serve us – but we’ve become slaves to the very thing that was meant to liberate us and make our lives richer. And when we spend so much of our time involved in what’s going on on our phone screens, rather than what’s happening in real time, in the here and now, with the people we love, we miss out on the gift of the present.

So, here’s your challenge, should you choose to accept it! Put your phone down, and don’t pick it up again for the rest of the day. Even better, switch it off completely and take some time to reconnect with yourself, your surroundings and the people you love.

Ask yourself when you last spent a moment observing a tree, a flower, or a cloud in the sky. When did you last step out into a shower of warm raindrops, throw yourself headfirst in to a wild frothing ocean, or bask in the warmth of the sun’s rays? When did you last sit in pure silence, listening, sharing, and offering your love?

Right now is all we ever have – so let’s observe and be more present with ourselves, our surroundings, and each other. That way we won’t miss out on the precious gifts offered in each and every moment.

In love and light,

Taranga

Can a relationship survive without sex? In the wake of a friend’s recent breakup for that very reason, this week’s blog looks at whether sex is the be all and end all, and what we can do when it disappears from an otherwise loving partnership.

Not everyone wants sex all the time, granted. But one of the single biggest relationship deal-breakers is when the white heat of passionate sex at the beginning of a relationship becomes a pale shadow of its former self as time goes by. For many of us, sex is the ‘glue’ that binds a relationship, and when it falters, or fails completely, we can feel like there’s nothing left to hold it together. Once that initial ‘buzz’ of a new sexual partner wears off, it’s harder to feel excited. We want to feel seduced, we want to keep experiencing the lust that fuelled us at the beginning, and when it disappears, we instead feel frustration, and like something is missing.

For guys in particular, part of their identity as a male is in pleasing another, and when that’s taken away through sexual dysfunction, or through a clash in differing levels of libido, it can cause an identity crisis, and place further strain on relationship dynamics.

Other common problems occur when we become too comfortable in our relationship, and we perhaps stop exercising, put on weight or lose that feeling of being attractive. We feel we need to look a certain way in order to feel a certain way, and when we don’t feel comfortable in ourselves, we enjoy sex less and less.

It’s hard not to feel rejected when a loved one goes straight to sleep after getting into bed, or says they’re too tired, or wraps the sheets around themselves to keep the other out. But what’s important to remember is that it’s absolutely ok if we go through a phase of not wanting sex – and it’s often not personal, or about the ‘rejected’ other.

Intimacy can be created in many ways, and sex is just one. Unfortunately, we’re not taught how to cultivate open communication, how to connect through loving touch and affection, and how to navigate through these types of complex issues (though watch this space for our upcoming 12-week video Masterclass series, launching in the new year to teach you some of these techniques).

Within sexual dynamics (as with every other aspect of life) the only constant is change. Cooling desire, and sexual ‘phases’ aren’t necessarily the beginning of the end. Dry spells are inevitable parts of relationships. Of course, the familiar can often become mundane – but it’s important not to hold all sex up to some impossibly high standard of transcendence.

As long as there’s willingness from both sides to talk openly, to spend the time together needed to support a healthy relationship, to express any fears, needs and desires, and support each other through the peaks and troughs of sexual expression, sexual lulls can be accepted and transcended.

There’s also an opportunity in every challenge, if we’re willing to recognise it. Believe it or not, if we embrace and accept them, sexual ups-and-downs can actually be healthy, triggering new growth, and taking our relationships to never-before-experienced levels of vulnerability, intimacy and understanding.

In love and light,

Taranga

I’m the first to admit it. Sometimes I can be so fidgety and restless, it can drive my friends berserk. Anyone’s who’s ever been to a cafe with me will know how I often like to hop around different tables until I find the one that’s just right. Whoever’s with me will invariably humour me with great patience, dutifully collecting their things together and juggling their latte as they move with me to that quieter, more cosy-looking table in other corner, hopefully for the final time!

Restlessness – that feeling that the grass is always greener – is something we’re all guilty of at one time or another. I have friends who find it hard to sit still for too long, and I’m sure you do too. They’re the ones who can’t bear to be doing the same thing, day in, day out, and would much rather be filling life with new and varied experiences and flying by the seat of their pants than quietly dying a slow death in a mind-numbing office job.

Nothing wrong with that, of course. It’s part of what makes us human to seek out new experiences. But when we’re continually prodded by that unspoken fear that we’re missing out on something better around the corner, we can start to create problems for ourselves. One person I know has spent her entire life moving from city to town to country looking for the ideal partner. In every place, her dinner dates never evolved into relationships – not because of the lack of available men in all those places, but because she hadn’t figured out that the real problem lay in her inability to open up, be vulnerable and show who she really was.

It’s easy to imagine that the big decisions – like moving to a new city or country, beginning or ending a relationship or starting a new job – will make the biggest difference in our lives. Invariably, big moves end up distracting us from what’s really causing us distress – but inevitably, the same old stuff eventually just rears its head in a different form. And when we make big changes, we often find that we quickly recreate the same mess we were running away from.

So what’s the answer? Well, I’ve found that it’s actually the small decisions, the minor choices that make the biggest difference in my life. Every decision we make, in every single day changes us somehow. For me, life flows best when I make choices that are in line with my core values, instead of being ruled by my ever-changing feelings. So whether you’re deciding between that morning rollie or a run on the beach, or whether to watch TV or pick up a book, it’s about asking yourself ‘what would the person I’d like to become do in this situation?’ When we can tune in to our intuition, listen closely to our hearts, then we can act in ways that bring us real fulfillment. Sure, we may not always get it right – and sometimes we can be wilfully determined to act against our best interests! But even when we do, if we can be mindful that we’ve made a choice that’s not consistent with our values, it can free us to begin to change, and move in a more positive direction over time. Just noticing our own wilfulness can give us the awareness we need to change.

There’s no doubt about it. In every moment of every day, and with every breath you take, there’s an opportunity to choose a life of ease and contentment – and for all of us, it’s the smallest choices that often trigger the biggest shifts.

In love and light,

Taranga

We’ve been diving deep lately, with recent Bliss blogs focusing on two of the key forces that drive your actions and behaviours – your values and your needs. This week, we’re going to travel further still, into one of the most powerful motivators, especially in the area of sex and relationships – our desires.
 
Desires are what make the world go round. From sexual desires to the lust for wealth and power, every one of us is driven by desire of some type, and it’s happening all the time. It’s no coincidence that advertising, one of the world’s most powerful industries has been built around this insight. TV ads, billboards, and any one of the estimated 250 advertising messages we’re exposed to every day, nearly always tap into those basic human desires built into all of us.
 
We construct our lives around our desires – and new desires are forever being born in us. Yet while some of us embrace them, many of us remain in the dark, or fearful of them. And with most religions condemning desire in all its forms, that’s no surprise. Desires are nearly always highly powerful, dangerous, even. They carry an ‘urge’. Unchecked, they can lead to obsession, and to unhealthy pursuits like greed, laziness, envy, and even violence.
 
Yet our desires, when acted upon consciously and with awareness, can allow us autonomy, individuality and creativity (which are also things organised religions might be fearful of, and wish to discourage us from). Desire motivates us to action. We actually can’t live fully without them.
 
Desires are elusive, they can easily hide. And because they often show up in our dreams, or our imaginations, we may not be fully hear or understand them. When we fail to realise our desires, or to even ask ourselves what we really want, life can just ‘happen to us’ – but we all have the potential to ‘co-create our lives, using our desires to motivate us into action.
 
So ask yourself, ‘what do I most desire’ – and if the answers don’t come easily, do this simple exercise to bring them into the light. This exercise can be applied to a particular area of your life (such as your sex life, a potential partner, or your work), or you can think of it as more of a broad gauge of some of the things that float your boat in general. All you need do is take a few minutes out with a pen and paper, and write whatever first comes into your mind when you ask yourself ‘What are my top turn-ons?’. Try not to over think it. It might be as simple as ‘enjoying a beautiful sensual massage’, or ‘digging in the garden and getting my hands dirty’, or ‘devouring a slice of chocolate cake from my favourite bakery’. Whatever it is that you really love to do, whatever makes your mouth water, your knees tremble or your heart quicken, write it down. Wait a week or two, then do it again. Compare your answers, and see if there are any patterns, any clues to the types of desires you experience over time.
 
Most importantly during this exercise, be aware of which desires feel ‘light’ or empowering, and which feel unhealthy or obsessional. Which do you embrace, and which are you afraid of? Which do you act on, and which do you try to ignore? Don’t judge yourself. This is about creating awareness and bringing desires in all their forms into the light, allowing you to see them, to feel them and to accept them. Realising that, we can be less enslaved by them, and we’re free to express our desires in ways that are healthy and supportive of our journey through life.
 
Once you combine new awareness of your desires with better understanding of your wants and needs, you’re on the way to all kinds of transformations. A bold claim, you might say – but when our wants, needs and desires reveal themselves to us, we can begin to shape our lives more in alignment with them.
 
Quite simply, new awareness of our wants, needs and desires creates powerful shifts in attitudes and behaviour, propelling us to new heights of success, contentment and joy in all areas of life.
 
In love and light,
 
Taranga