0447 577 525

Special needs

Sep 292013
 

Last week’s blog hopefully got you thinking about your values, helping you to understand the bedrock of unique principles that guide you through life. This week, we’re going to look at another set of principles that drives our actions and behaviours, and which can lead to relationship clashes if they’re not aligned – our needs.
 
Of course, we all share the same basic human needs. They’re things like oxygen, food, water and sleep, the need to feel safe and secure, and to have love and belonging in our lives. Yet beyond this, there are all kinds of ‘sub-needs’ that are as individual as we are.
 
Our ‘sub-needs’ play a huge influence in how we connect with others, especially within intimate relationships. In figuring out what these are, we can enter into situations and relationships with greater awareness, and hopefully avoid some of the pitfalls and dramas that arise when those needs aren’t met.
 
So, here are some broad categories designed to get you thinking about where YOU fit in. Knowing your sub-needs will help you to more clearly decide whether they’re being met, and enable you to express them to others when you need to.
 
Read through each list and decide which of them apply most strongly to you, within either your love relationship, or your friendship or family dynamics (where applicable!). Try and be selective and choose the top three that feel like your most important needs. It can even be useful to adapt them and make them more personal to you, writing them down as you go.
 
Need 1: Safety
Common sub-needs here include:
– The need to feel secure
– The need to feel connected
– The need to feel comfortable
– The need to feel peaceful
– The need to have support during hard times
– The need to feel cared for
– The need to spend time together
 
Need 2: Acceptance
Common sub-needs here include:
– The need to feel valued and appreciated
– The need to receive physical affection
– The need to be heard
– The need to feel understood
– The need to feel desired
– The need to feel respected
– The need to be openly vulnerable
– The need to feel strong
 
Need 3: Belonging
Common sub-needs here include:
– The need to enjoy shared interests
– The need to share daily life
– The need to be totally present and in the moment with another
– The need for spiritual awareness
– The need for loyalty
– The need for trust
– The need for strong communication
– The need for playfulness, laughter and joy
 
Need 4: Space
Common sub-needs here include:
– The need to preserve my own identity
– The need to space outside the relationship
– The need for privacy
– The need for clear boundaries
– The need to nurture individual interests
– The need for my own friendships
 
Need 5: Influence
Common sub-needs here include:
– The need to feel useful
– The need to feel like I matter
– The need to feel like I make a difference
– The need to help other heal
– The need to care for others
– The need to motivate others
– The need to help others change and grow
– The need to help others through hard times
– The need to create safety for others
– The need to create comfort for others
 
Need 6: Love
Common sub-needs here include:
– The need for touch, hugs and affection
– The need for sex, play and pleasure
– The need to give or receive unconditional love
– The need to have or surrender control
– The need to feel passionate
– The need for kindness and caring
– The need for emotional intimacy
 
This exercise can be a valuable tool for relationship maintenance, as you discuss with a partner, friend or family member what drives you, and work out where there’s room for improvement, compromise or greater understanding of what makes each other tick.
 
It’s worth spending time on, because when we have greater awareness of the needs that often subconsciously drive us, we can more clearly express and be guided by them – leading to happier, healthier, more meaningful relationships all round.
 
In love and light,
 
Taranga
 
 
 

Hidden agendas

Sep 282013
 

Sitting around a table with friends after dinner the other night, and assisted by a couple of bottles of free-flowing Shiraz, the conversation inevitably turned to sex. Nothing new there, you might say… doesn’t it often?! Well, what most surprised me from this particular debate was the realisation that each of us is hardwired to enjoy sex for all kinds of different reasons.

Long gone are the days when sex was purely about procreation – and even in our more enlightened age, we might still believe we have sex for one basic reason; because it feels good. Yet beneath that truth lies a smorgasbord of erotic possibilities, driven by desires that are uniquely personal and individual, and always evolving.

Here are just a few of the reasons we came up with for why we have sex:
– To connect with another person.
– To give another person pleasure.
– To feel pleasure myself.
– To connect with my inner self.
– To scratch an itch.
– To blow of steam and release tension.
– To feel desired and sexy.
– To feel needed and important.
– To get out of my head and into my body.
– To surrender control.
– To experience a kind of altered state.
– To feel 100% present and in the moment.
– To build intimacy.
– To create a spiritual or mystical connection with a partner.
– To generate and circulate more ‘life-force’ energy.
– As a ‘workout’, to boost endorphins and feel good.
– To celebrate a birthday.
– To say thank you for something
– To ‘escape’ and avoid pain during times of feeling overwhelmed.
– To open up emotionally when feeling blocked.
And last but not least – When trying to have a child!

That’s a surprisingly long list of motivating factors, for such a seemingly universal act. So it’s no surprise that we can often feel that our sexual needs aren’t always being met, especially if we neglect to talk with our partners about our individual values, wants and desires.

When your sex motivators are often very different from those of the person you’re having sex with, it can be challenging to ensure you’re both getting what you need. Our values and needs are shaped by factors like our upbringing, our families, a previous relationship or a life-changing incident – and if those core truths remain unrecognised or unrealised, we can feel frustrated, disappointed or angry. In severe cases, it can even spell the end of a relationship.

So what’s the solution? We must firstly figure out the true nature of our own unique needs and desires, and then share them with our partners, so we can be more aligned and aware in our sex lives.

Over the coming weeks, I’ll be offering some tips and guidance to help you discover your authentic sexual self, along with ways to share those truths with you partners. In the meantime, why not have a go at listing some of your own primary sex motivators to help raise your awareness, and shed some light on this often overlooked aspect of our sexual appetites.

In love and light,

Taranga
 
 

Love and Fear

Aug 052013
 

Living in appreciation and gratitude can be one of the best ways to recognise our shared humanity, and to understand that the most powerful energy we have is love. Yet sometimes it’s all too easy to slip into love’s polar opposite emotion: fear.

I recently read a beautiful piece that sums this idea up perfectly:

“Every single free choice you ever undertake arises out of one of the only two possible thoughts there are – a thought of love, or a thought of fear.

Fear is the energy which contracts, closes down, draws in, runs, hides, hoards and harms.

Love is the energy which expands, opens up, sends out, stays, reveals, shares and heals.

Fear wraps our bodies in clothing, love allows us to stand naked. Fear clings to and clutches all that we have, love gives all that we have away. Fear holds close, love holds dear. Fear grasps, love lets go. Fear rankles, love soothes. Fear attacks, love amends.

Every human thought, word or deed is based in one emotion or the other – and you have always have the choice about which of these to select.”

Our ability to love comes directly from the functioning of our heart chakra, the centre of compassion and emotion. When this chakra is balanced, we feel loving and connected to others, and are able to accept and forgive. But an out-of-balance heart chakra can heighten feelings of fear, manifesting as mistrust, loneliness, isolation or abandonment.

Physical symptoms of a imbalanced heart chakra include heart problems, often caused by a disconnection from the emotions, as well as lung cancers and pneumonia, which can be triggered by unresolved grief. Breast cancer can also be connected to an imbalance here, particularly among women who try to do too much for others, while denying or sacrificing their own needs.

In men, there can often be a disconnect between the lower chakras relating to sexuality, and the higher, emotion-based energy centres. Men can find it easier than women to dissociate sex from emotion – and this can sometimes lead to sexual behaviour that’s purely functional and physical, without any heart connection.

To help you re-balance, focus on connecting with your heart during masturbation. Solo sex can be an expression of self-love in its most physical form, so take as much time as you can to enjoy self-pleasuring, and focus on making love to your body while doing so. Self-love doesn’t need to be egotistical or narcissistic, and it’s actually the best basis for any solo or partner practice. And because sexual energy magnifies and intensifies existing emotions, think loving thoughts during these times and you’ll create more healthy and positive vibrations within your body.

Massage, hugs and affectionate touch can all be powerful ways to strengthen the heart and expand your capacity to love. You could also practice any of the breathing exercises outlined in previous columns, to help move energy up into and through this area.

We spend our lives learning how to love, both ourselves and others – and nourishing our heart chakras can be one of the most powerful ways available to step out of fear’s shadow and into love’s light.

Taranga

The Latest Squeeze

Jul 242013
 

In last week’s blog, I covered some invaluable exercises for women, to help strengthen the pelvic floor muscles. This week, it’s the guys’ turn, as I offer a few simple methods for bringing greater balance to this vital area.

So what are the pelvic floor or ‘PC’ muscles, and why is it so important for men to do regular pelvic floor exercises? Well, these muscles form a ‘hammock’ at the base of the pelvis, supporting the prostate gland, the bladder and the bowel. They also help to control the workings of these organs – but during strenuous activities like lifting or jumping, or even during coughing or sneezing, the pressure on the pelvic floor can lead to a brief but embarrassing loss of control of the bowel or bladder.

As guys grow older, many can develop urinary problems associated with a weakened prostate gland and a lack of control in the pelvic floor. Obviously, this possibility is great motivation to work this area, to prevent any embarrassing episodes! But that’s not the only reason for spending a little time each day on some simple exercises. With orgasm beginning from the prostate and perineum, working your PC muscle can also strengthen erections, intensify orgasms and even help you to separate orgasm from ejaculation.

Here’s a way to test the strength of your PC muscle. When you’re about to urinate, stand on the toes and balls of your feet, then take a deep breath in and begin to pee as you slowly exhale. Then mid-stream, inhale and squeeze your pelvic floor muscles to stop the flow. Exhale and continue peeing. Try and repeat a few times until you’ve finished. If you find this difficult, you probably have a weakened pelvic floor.

Don’t worry too much if that’s the case. There’s a quick and easy daily exercise you can do anywhere to retrain your pelvic floor, and once you’ve incorporated it into your routine, you’ll soon start to notice a difference. You can do this anytime, and anywhere, without anyone even knowing what you’re up to.

First of all, familiarise yourself with your PC muscles. There are actually two distinct areas to focus on:

Step 1: Tighten the muscles around the entrance to the anus, as if you’re trying to stop yourself going to the toilet. After you’ve tightened this area, let go and relax completely.

Step 2: Now get a sense of the muscles further forward, around the ‘front passage’ closer to the bladder and urethra. Pull up hard as though you’re preventing the flow of urine, then let go completely.

Step 3: Next tighten the muscles of both these areas at once, holding on for a few seconds, then letting go and relaxing for around 30 seconds.

Step 4: Do 3 quick, hard squeezes in a row of both sets of muscles, resting for 5 seconds between each flex.

Step 5: Alternate steps 3 and 4 a few times in a row, resting for 30 seconds between each sequence, and remembering to breathe normally throughout.

Just a few minutes of this each day can be enough to make a dramatic improvement to your control of this area, a more balanced sacral chakra, stronger erections, delayed ejaculation and more intense orgasms – and all things considered, that’s a great incentive for any guy who’s interested in enjoying a healthier body, and better sex!

In love and light

Taranga

Flex Appeal

Jul 152013
 

Having lunch with a friend the other day, a brief but embarrassing incident reminded me of the importance of paying attention to an often-overlooked part of our bodies. I’m sure my friend won’t mind me recounting that a particularly violent fit of belly laughs caused her to literally pee herself at the table. This all-too common problem (especially for women over 40) is often caused by weak pelvic floor muscles – but if this sometimes happens to you, there are some simple exercises you can try before rushing out to buy that packet of disposable pants!
 
The muscles of the pelvic floor are some of the most important to keep strong, for both men and women. In this week’s blog, I’ll be focusing on pelvic floor exercises for women, before turning my attention to the guys next week.
 
So firstly, what exactly is the pelvic floor, and what does it do? Well, our pelvic floor (or PC) muscles form a ‘sling’ across the floor of the pelvis. They support the bladder, uterus and rectum, providing stability to these organs, and muscular tone within the vaginal walls. They also help to close the bladder and back passage and protect them from sudden increases in abdominal pressures due to sneezing, coughing, and yep, you guessed it, laughing too hard.
 
Because we’re not taught to activate these muscles nearly enough, they often suffer from weakness – especially during and after pregnancy, after menopause, gynaecological surgery, heavy lifting, weight gain, or even something like a chronic cough. Most often, sudden unexpected urine leakage is a sign of pelvic floor weakness, especially during moments of pressure on the abdomen. If you also need to pee more, but with less volume, or even have heightened period pain or lower back ache, these symptoms can also be indicators that you need to work on strengthening this area.
 
So how to do it? Begin in a lying position to relieve the weight of your internal organs and gravity, then close off and draw up the muscles around the vagina (as if you’re stopping yourself from urinating). You may also feel the muscles in your rectum closing off. Draw up the entire area strongly and hold for 5-10 seconds. You may instinctively feel like holding your breath, but keep breathing while you do this. After a few seconds, fully relax the entire area. Repeat 5-10 times in a row. Next, do 5-10 short, fast and strong contractions, breathing all the while, and remembering to relax again afterwards. Following this, focus on the rear pelvic floor muscles around the anus, tightening and drawing them up as if you’re holding onto wind. Hold for 5-10 seconds and then relax again. You may tire quickly at first, but don’t give up! From lying down, you can progress to standing exercises, training your PC muscles in their slightly more difficult ‘fully loaded’ position.
 
Aim to do these ‘flexing’ exercises at least daily, and more than once a day if you can manage it. The beauty of this practice is that it can be done anywhere, without anyone even realising. It might be helpful at first to use coloured stickers next to the kitchen sink or bathroom mirror to trigger a reminder. Over time, you’ll find that your PC muscles become stronger, enabling you to laugh, cough or sneeze without any embarrassing side-effects.
 
Even more excitingly, activating this area can tone and strengthen the vaginal wall, stimulate the sacral chakra, open up the energetic pathways in our bodies and lead to more intense orgasms – and that, dear readers, is great news for both our physical health, and for our sex lives!
 
In love and light,
 
Taranga

Are You Lonesome Tonight?

Jul 092013
 

So here we are in the depths of winter, and as the nights draw in, the streets, shops, restaurants and bars become quieter, and we retreat into our homes, hermit-like in our hibernation, it’s important to remember not to become too reclusive at this time. Reading a recent review of research into loneliness, I was struck, not only by how common it is to feel chronically lonely and isolated, but also by the dramatic effects of loneliness on both our mental and physical health.
 
By loneliness, I don’t necessarily mean that fleeting feeling where a head cold forces you to spend Friday night at home while your friends are all out on the town, or that forlorn tinge when you put that microwaveable meal for one in your shopping basket at the supermarket. Real, long-term loneliness is a sustained lack of closeness with others, a lack of emotional intimacy and a continued feeling of sorrow, worthlessness and despair – and it’s affecting more and more of us.
 
There’s a difference between loneliness and aloneness, too. It’s possible to be alone and yet not lonely. Loneliness is about an absence of love, not just of people – so even people in relationships can feel lonely. At its core, loneliness is a feeling of being unlovable, and science is discovering that a continued sense of isolation and a lack of closeness can play havoc on our hormones and exacerbate diseases as far-ranging as Alzheimer’s, obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease and even some forms of cancers.
 
There’s much proof to back this up, including a study done on the tens of thousands of Romanian orphans born during the reign of Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, who banned birth control. The many children who suffered as a result often grew up in Dickensian-like orphanages, and upon scanning their brains, it was found that these children developed substantially less ‘gray matter’ (the neurons that hard-wire the brain), and also less ‘white matter’, which helps send signals from one part of the brain to another. This meant that the areas of the brain responsible for memory, emotions, decision-making and social interaction just weren’t connecting, leading to all kinds of developmental, educational, emotional and physical disorders in later life.
 
There’s also a real stigma attached to feelings of loneliness. Being lonely can be perceived as a decidedly unattractive trait. It’s as if there’s something about loneliness to be ashamed of, and solitary souls can feel ‘less’ than those with seemingly more successful social lives. And when there’s so much pressure on finding ‘the one’, and enjoying a relationship that can fulfill of our emotional needs, those without one can even be seen as needy or desperate in their desire to have that special someone.
 
So what’s the solution? Well, first of all, it’s important to realise that we thrive best with different kinds of love. We don’t have to put all our eggs in one basket and expect one person to provide everything for our happiness. We need to nurture ALL our relationships, investing in our communication and opening up to our friends, neighbours and work colleagues, so we can take greater care of each other during tough times.
 
It doesn’t only ‘take a village to raise a child’ – it also takes a village to provide the emotional advancement we need as adults. That means checking in with each other and letting others know we’re there for them, offering a little extra emotional investment and reaching out to both friends and strangers to tell them we care.
 
As the poet W.H Auden summed it up “We must love one another or die.” In recognising that we all have the capacity to feel lonely at certain times in our lives, we can realise that we’re not on our own – and we can develop greater empathy and awareness when we see its effect on others.
 
Together, we’re stronger – so when we reach out ourselves, and when we support those who need more love and intimacy in their lives, we can all start to experience loneliness a little bit less, and love, care and belonging a little bit more.
 
In love and light,
 
Taranga

You - Who!

Jun 232013
 

I love my city – but sometimes it can be a challenging experience to live in the middle of a busy, bustling place like Sydney. Walking around, absorbing the sights, sounds, and the energy of the place can be overwhelming, and it’s no surprise that we have to shut down and deaden our senses to cope.

This ‘shrinking’ of our natural selves to fit in with our sometimes claustrophobic surroundings can take its toll, and it’s no surprise that we can begin to lose that connectedness with our inner world, with our natural state, and with the solace that space, quiet and calm can provide. Instead we look to external forces to reassure us and tell us who we are, and we start to measure ourselves and our worth through our jobs, our income and our possessions.

It’s easy to get caught up in the trappings of materialism, to define ourselves through what we have, rather than who we are at our ‘core’. Yet the things that create a sense of purpose and identity in us are really just illusions – even our personality and ideas, our beliefs and desires. So who are we really, without all these distractions?

Many of us never fully find out. Even the more spiritually-minded amongst us rarely spend much time questioning who they are behind their identities – and often it’s because it can be a scary place to visit. After all, without work and entertainment, the internet and tv, mobile phones and tablets, our books and music, the sex and the drugs, underneath all that, many of us are pretty fucked up and lost and desperate. So to stop, and sit, and face the core of ourselves without all that can be a rather challenging thing.

Yet you don’t need to go on a pilgrimage to the Himalayas for five years, devote yourself to a higher ‘god’ or guru, or live in a cave far away from civilisation. You only need take a few minutes on a regular basis to fall back into your self. Some people call this meditation, but even that can have off-putting religious connotations for some – so let’s just call it ‘being’.

You don’t need fancy expensive courses to teach you how to ‘be’. It’s innate and natural for all of us – yet the less we practise it, the harder it becomes and the more alien it feels. So take just a few minutes each day to sit quietly, to feel your feelings without judgement and to become more aware of your body, and you’ll begin to shift your focus off the external, and redirect it to ground yourself in who you really are, and in the here and now.

If you find your head is full of chatter, focus on a point one inch below your naval. This is a useful spot for resting your attention, giving you centeredness and grounding, and more body (rather than mind) identification. Don’t force it. Simply allow your focus to be on this point, and when thoughts start to seep in, gently redirect your attention from those thoughts back to this point. Become aware of your sacrum and tailbone, adjust your posture and breathe into it.

Take the time to discover your essential self, and over time, you’ll enjoy more of the innate peace, strength and balance we all crave.

In love and light,

Taranga

Great Expectations

Jun 172013
 

It’s official. I’m in love… with the latest new TV drama series, The Americans. If you haven’t heard of it yet, it’s another of those clever stories in the same vein as Breaking Bad and Homeland, that plays with your allegiance, tests your ethics and makes you question exactly who are the ‘good guys’ and who are the ‘bad guys’ in a story that’s far from black and white. Centering on a couple of undercover KGB operatives and their oblivious US-born kids, living as an all-American family in the midst of Cold War America, it raises all kinds of potent questions as the two secretly fight for their motherland, while the FBI draw ever-closer to uncovering them. Equally fascinating is the fractured relationship of the two parents themselves, brought together to pretend to be a happily married couple as part of their disguise.

In the latest episode I watched, Elizabeth (the wife) brings up the idea that people often fall in love, or make friends, form political allegiances or are drawn into business deals because they often see something in the other person that isn’t necessarily actually there. It started me thinking about how often we project our desires, fears, wants and needs onto another person, especially within an intimate relationship, imagining them to have certain qualities because we want them to have them.

When we look at someone and decide to begin a relationship with them, we often see a reflection of ourselves in that person. It’s sometimes experienced as a feeling of ‘falling in love’ – but many times, this unconscious, narcissistic impulse is a distortion of reality, and it’s the gateway to us getting involved in some rather unsuitable, self-destructive and soul-destroying relationships.

It’s very easy to fall into the trap of wanting to be ‘mirrored’ instead of actually relating to the people in our lives for who they are. Some will even go on to marry, only becoming disillusioned when they realise their partner isn’t the person they thought they were.

The trick with all this is to grow into your relationship, to become more conscious as the projection wears off and to work on embracing your own missing ‘half’ rather than seeking it from your relationship. Often this can be a painful process as we acknowledge and embrace our incomplete or ‘shadow’ side – but in accepting our own missing parts, we can begin to see our partners for who they are, not who we wanted them to be. That allows us experience real love, and a willingness to support our partners to be their own, unique, authentic selves.

What’s most important to remember is that two people can’t properly know each other until enough time has gone by to enable them to see who the other really is. It takes much honesty and self-disclosure to get to this point – but the reward comes with the freedom we can give our partners to be authentically themselves, without the weight of our expectation, and the enjoyment of a balanced union of two separate, whole, but connected beings.

In love and light,

Taranga

The Naked Truth

Jun 092013
 

I recently read with some amazement a couple of articles that reflect our society’s near-puritanical attitudes to nudity. The first was story of a 70-year-old man questioned on Balmoral beach after letting his six-year-old granddaughter swim naked. Following an anonymous phone call reporting an ‘elderly man sitting with a naked child’, the bewildered man and his granddaughter were then confronted by police. The second story centred on police objections to a proposed mass nude swim in Tasmania, citing potential breaches of public indecency laws. In light of this, and many other stories of this type in the news lately, it seems to me that we’re in danger of reverting back to a Victorian mindset, where concern over the naked body reaches near-ridiculous levels of overreaction.

I was lucky enough to be born in a time where the naked form didn’t always represent sex or ‘sin’. Instead, nudity stood for freedom, rebellion and unselfconsciousness. In years gone by, I remember regularly seeing topless women and speedo-clad men on beaches – but in today’s beach culture, they’ve commonly been replaced by bikinis and board shorts. Similarly, gone are the days when mothers could confidently whip out a breast in public to feed their child without risking disapproving glances or ‘tut-tutting’ forms of moral indignation. It’s clear that a lot of people now find it impossible to separate the sexual from the natural, the breast as a sexual object as opposed to the breast as a part of the body designed to feed our offspring.

There’s no doubt that we’ve become more and more prudish about the naked body. Yet, we’re clearly not opposed to nudity absolutely everywhere. If the naked form is used to sell products (as in so much of our advertising), it seems for the most part to be widely accepted. Yet while no one really blinks an eyelid at a boob peeking from the pages of a magazine, just ask Janet Jackson (in that infamous ‘wardrobe malfunction’ during the halftime show at the US Superbowl) about the perils of wilfully exposing a nipple in public (hey folks, it was painted and decorated to be shown off, making it far from ‘accidental’). So, nudity as a form of pleasure for the beholder is fine – but nudity that is wilful, self-possessed and designed for oneself is something we’re altogether more uncomfortable with.

Similarly, it bothers me when we become so overprotective of our children that we overreact to the slightest thing, calling the police at the faintest suspicion, as in the story of the elderly man and his granddaughter on the beach. Our hysteria around child nudity reached new heights recently, with the censorship of figures of naked children in various photographic exhibitions. Look, I totally get it that nudity in the past was much more transitory, and in today’s age of camera phones and the internet, a naked moment can quickly become both public and permanent. But in breeding this puritanical culture of fear of the naked body in our children, we run the risk of making them feel ashamed and afraid instead of confident and free.

It worries me that we seem to be locked in a spiral of censorship and repression. As nudity becomes less commonplace in its pure celebration of the naked form, and more and more strange or taboo, it prompts people to cover up more and more, making nudity even stranger still. In my view, we need to start celebrating the beauty and power of the naked form as a representation of freedom and joy and liberation. And we also need to protect our children from ALL forms of sexual harm – including the harm done when we send messages telling them it’s wrong to be themselves, in their natural state, as nature intended.

In love and light,

Taranga

Bottoms Up!

Jun 022013
 

Last week’s column introduced some exercises to activate and engage our backsides – and this week we’re going to delve deeper still, by exploring anal massage. Working here can be an illuminating journey of discovery, and the physical, energetic and emotional benefits can be incredible. So find a special friend, prepare by washing or douching first, pop on a latex or soft rubber glove, and lets get down to business!

If you’ve assumed the role of intrepid explorer, start off by warming your partner up, by getting them relaxed and bringing their focus to this often forgotten area. You could start by kneading and squeezing the butt cheeks and crack (preferably with a little massage oil or lubricant). With the heel of your hand, the blade of your arm and the knuckles and the tips of your fingers, gently vibrate, massage and stroke the whole area – and don’t forget to say hello to those genitals around the other side! It feels great to work a little deeper around the sit bones. You could also gently vibrate the perineum with the heel of your hand. Trace slow, gentle circles around the anus. Tickle with your fingernails and try a little light spanking (though check in first to see if your partner will appreciate that!). The key thing to remember is to get creative and explore slowly and sensitively, using alternate light and firm strokes to help build arousal levels.

By this stage, your partner should be ready to let you gently glide a lubricated finger past the sphincter and up inside. Go slow, and allow the finger to be drawn up inside rather than pushing. Then try vibrating the finger up and down, and from side to side, or use a slow and sensual in-out pumping action to build their excitement levels.

For guys, pressure on the prostate can be very pleasurable. With a beckoning upward motion (if face up) or a downward movement (if face down) feel for a walnut sized slightly rough mass a couple of inches inside. Down the centre of the prostate you might be able to feel a groove where the urethra runs through it, which is the most sensitive part. Start at the edge and work inwards, and remember to keep checking in and asking what feels good.

If you’re on the receiving end, regularly clench and pulse the muscles around the sphincter and perineum as your partner explores. Squeeze and contract as though you’re pulling the area up inside your body. This action pumps energy up through the body along the spine.

Most importantly, remember to breathe! Take deep, controlled breaths, in and out through the mouth, alternating fast, panting breaths with slow, deep rhythmic breaths into the belly. Breathing noisily and freely like this helps to build and circulate an energetic charge. Try relaxing the whole body, then tensing the whole body, or make sounds and move around a little while your partner works.

This body play is an exercise in exploration, in giving and receiving pleasure for the sake of it. Take the time to discover the subtle effects, without necessarily rushing to the ‘sex-part’ and orgasm. In taking away this expectation and staying with extended levels of arousal, you’ll be able to experience new sensations, altered awareness and trance-like states that can take your sexual and emotional life to a whole new level.

In love and light,

Taranga

 Older Entries  Newer Entries