Tantra

And this is kind of where I have encountered it.

For those of you who don't know, I trained as a Tantra coach, an authentic Tantra coach with Davey Ward at the Institute for Authentic Tantra, which is now the Institute for Holistic Sexology.

And a lot of Tantra techniques, I would argue, are, you know, centuries old, thousands of year old de-armoring tools, right? And so we want to acknowledge that this history that I just talked about is like the Western history and the Western foundation in this and that there are a lot of non-Western foundations that go way, way back that support these ideas and this way of working.

So what actually is de-armoring? The way that I like to think of it is, and I've talked about this a little bit before on the podcast, is that anytime your body encounters a stressor or a trauma, which just means too much, too fast, too soon for your body to you can think of it as activating the stress cycle, right? So the example people always use is you see a bear in the woods.

That is too much, too fast, too soon for your nervous system.

This is ultimately about your nervous system.

This is ultimately about creating a deep, deep level of safety for your body and both of your bodies during what looks like a sexual encounter to release this stuff that's happening.

And when we talk about sexual dearmoring specifically and how it works, we can do dearmoring non-sexually, but we can also do dearmoring sexually, which is how I learned to do it through Tantra.

Yeah.

Uh, I always, I always loved decks, Oracle decks, but I always be like goddess decks and Barry decks and animal decks and Tantra decks and all the other decks, but never like the traditional arcane.

um and like we're bonding over like that's actually something that's kind of novel that's actually creating a lot of connection i pulled a card today and it just led to a deep connected conversation about like my my inner world and and what i think about and the pattern interrupt that this card was kind of representing for me at the time and matt was just so engaged and it just felt like um Yeah, it felt like not only did I have my lover there, but I had my best friend there.

And because I think I think this is so important because you just get into routines.

And if that sounds familiar, stay with me.

Debra Katt is walking us through Tantra practices you can try at home, on your own, or with a willing partner to gently rebuild trust and connection with the person right in front of you.

I'm your host, Karen Bigman, certified sex educator and midlife intimacy coach, and I'm on a mission to help demystify sex, intimacy, and relationships as everything shifts in midlife.

On this podcast, we get into what a man needs to know, what's changing in her, what's changing in you, how to keep intimacy alive, how to date and connect differently after 50, and the stuff nobody ever taught you.

So yeah, tantra is a big word and it's much like yoga in terms of there are many different lineages, many different rituals, many different teachers who take different approaches.

So I have been practicing for over 20 years.

And what I like to say about Tantra is it is the spiritual practice that I know of that uses the body to connect with spirit, to connect with something bigger.

And first of all, we're connecting with ourselves.

You know, people can get a course that is very esoteric and unique.

For example, in Tantra, there's a lady, Tina Heals, and her courses are $11 per session, which I mean, this is crazy.

I mean, the traditional is to go to a university and they have a set program and that program is probably, you know, outdated by the time you are studying it because to implement any new changes in advancement of knowledge in science takes around 10 years, 10 to 25 years to implement.

So from the time to find, do the research, you have to put it through so many boards and approvals and then implementation.

Although I'm bringing some of the terminologies and words from systems that are practiced from the Vedic and Tantric traditions, right? So Vedic is opposite to Tantric.

They're not really fighting, but different different schools of thought.

How we can compare Tantra to Vedanta? We can compare Tantra to Vedanta like Judaism and Islam, right? Maybe it's a bit extreme, but Tantra is something very ancient and old and practiced and passed down, you know, through verbal traditions.

And Vedanta is something Arguably, arguably, right? Because some people say it's 1900, some say 4500, and some say it's timeless, right? But they are opposing, very opposing schools of thought in certain aspects.

We also are looking at Aida, Pingala, and Shishumna as nadis are these central channels that are being mapped out.

So know that as in Tantra, they're working with chakras and nadis, that they were used for ritual visualizations, for this energetic map of ascension from Shakti to Shiva, but they're not really psychological models in the way that we look at them today.

So chakras and nadis emerge in tantra as an energetic transformation map this flows into hatha yoga from 11th to 17th century or so important texts from this period are the hatha yoga pradipika shiva samita and there are even more developments here so we start to work with the values more through bandhas there are different purification practices for the nadis and different chakra activation techniques so hatha yoga was integrating a lot of what came previously like Sankhya, Tantra, and Prana from the Upanishads.

And they became these embodied energetic techniques.

So the body is fully involved in the process now.

They can just be used strategically and based on what you resonate most with as a teacher.

So there's no hierarchy, but there is this foundation of these practices through the Upanishadic period and through Sankhya philosophy.

And there's so much richness and layers and embodiment added onto them through Tantra and through Hatha yoga as well.

So if someone's out there, they're a life coach, it's because they needed that for themselves.

If they're a Tantra teacher, it's because they struggled with this and they needed to learn it for themselves.

And one of the advantages or one of the byproducts of learning these things for ourselves is we get to share that with others.

You know, when I learn or when you learn in your path and your perspective changes, you get to share that with the audience, with your family, with your loved ones.

And if you're really in that conductor mode, this is the time where you have more space in your life to go to that.

Would you use three months in a yoga? Go do that.

Go work with Tantra teachers.

Go work with your mentors in business.

So it was...

Yeah, and so for me... like i'm a tantra teacher at my core like that's my my deepest relationship with the divine is through like our own erotic embodiment and so when i work with people i'm like let's get into the breath let's get into the uh the life force energy that's coursing through us you know how do we express that And so for me, whether I'm coaching in relationship, teaching Tantra or teaching Tarot, it's all coming from like, how do we empower our full divine expression? And the book that I wrote was like, after years of being asked, everyone wants to hear these stories about these various initiations or awakenings that I've had on my path.

And I started to... compile those stories and it aligned each story with a card.

So it's a nice way for people to learn the cards, hear my stories, and establish their own relationship with the card so that they can then bring it into their life.

And this is like the unabridged, here's what I was afraid to say or wouldn't fit or the thing that... like really changed me.

And specifically because when I was on the show, I had a contract to not pray or preach or talk about God.

And they put that in the contract because they know like I'm a priestess and a Tantra teacher.

And they're like, that's not what the show is.

But that's Dzogchen.

Now, if you're practicing Tantra, Tantra is the art of transformation using symbols.

It is K-rim path of accumulation, not Zogrim path of completion.

It is very effective.