By: Laurie Handlers

What is Tantra and how can it help you overcome feelings of shame so you can have mind-blowing sex and intimacy?

I began my study and practice of Tantra thinking it would enhance sex making it hotter and at the same time I was scared that if it made sex hotter I might not be able to handle it.

Eight years later is sex hotter? YES. Is that all? NO.

Tantra translated means expansion through awareness, transformation through pleasure. What that literally means is that your whole being is expanded, increased through awareness of your senses, feelings, energy. This includes awareness of your blockages, places in yourself that stop you from authentically enjoying pleasure. One of these blockages can be said to be shame.

Shame is defined as a painful mental feeling aroused by a sense of having done something wrong or dishonorable or improper.

Tantra, as practiced, encompasses having it all – meaning being able to embrace and have everything available in the world, expanding the boundaries in our personal container big enough to have it all and being able to experience pleasure – really feel it.

So then, having it all would naturally include shameless intimacy, yes?

Well, in Tantric practice, we learn to embrace everything about ourselves, the parts of us we like (which is easy) and the parts we do not like (which is not so easy, often they are hidden even to ourselves). One of the parts we don’t like could include shame about liking sex. It’s sometimes experienced as a double-edged sword.

If we like sex, we feel ashamed based on our upbringing, religious training, ethnic origin, family values. Conversely, if we don’t like sex, too, we feel ashamed based on the media, the hype, advertising, Viagra, the current standards dished up to us by the fashion industry, music videos and HBO.

Reconciling conflicting values within ourselves may seem like a monumental challenge. The solution: learn the practice of Tantra.

In Tantra we use the breath. While consciously breathing, we practice something called witnessing. In this practice, we watch what goes on in our mind with no judgment. We watch our thoughts, assessments, evaluation and attachments (especially to being right!). We notice if painful mental feelings arise, feelings related to having done something wrong or dishonorable or improper. We embrace them all and let them go as we exhale.

Once we can embrace them (which takes constant practice) rather than resist, deny or suppress them, an amazing thing happens. They no longer have their hold on us. They no longer occur as blockage. It’s as if a miracle occurs.

We begin to feel free!

And when we feel free, guess what opens up? Our ability to express our passion, our pleasure. We can actually like sex as a feeling in our body. We can hear and embrace voices in the head and yet we’re free to listen to the wisdom of our molecules liking what we feel. This usually leads to experiencing greater intimacy within ourselves and with our partner.